The Devil's Eye ab-4

by Jack McDevitt

  We picked a hotel, but it was full. "Try the Hamel," they said. The Hamel was okay, but it wasn't the luxurious kind of place Alex liked. They didn't have suites available, so we checked into separate rooms. During the process, Alex asked the AI whether she knew who Vicki Greene was. "Oh, yes, sir," she said. "She's very popular at the Point." "Can you tell me whether she showed up here during the past year?" "That's private information, sir," she said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not permitted to speak of such matters. I can check to see whether she's staying at this hotel now, if you like." We tried calling the Point Man , which was the local journal. She had been here, had in fact stayed at the Hamel, had "starred at a special event for delighted visitors," during which she'd spoken about why people want to believe in the supernatural. She'd signed books, including some bound collector's

  editions, and had "joined a number of her readers at a raucous party." She'd also submitted to an interview, which the Point Man made available. As before, she looked fine.

  Q: Ms. Greene, why have you come to the Point?

  A: It's a special place, Henry. I've always wanted to come here.

  Q: Are you working on your next book?

  A: I'm always working on my next book. (Laughs.)

  Q: Would you want to tell us what it's about?

  A: It's still in its early stages.

  Q: Can you give us the title?

  A: The working title is The Devil's Eye .

  Q: You're visiting the Point?

  A: Yes. That seems to be true.

  Q: Can I guess that means you're writing about Forrest Barryman?

  A: You can certainly guess.

  Q: Would I be right? A: (Smiles.) Honestly, Henry, it's in the air. I'm still making up my mind.

  "She seems upbeat," I said. This Vicki bore little resemblance to the woman who'd sent that original transmission to us. "Whatever the problem is," Alex said, "it hasn't happened yet." We watched the rest of the interview. When asked what she planned to do while she was in town, Vicki said she just intended to look around. "This is a nice place. I'd like to just take it easy." "Will you be visiting the Tomb?" "Oh, I don't think so, Henry. It's a bit scary out there."

  There was a Barryman Museum. And Graveyard Books. And the Occult Transit Company, which provided virtual trips into the hereafter. You could get shirts with a picture of the monster on them. A sim that dramatized the event. A hologram of the monster itself stood in front of the gift shop. A family were getting their pictures taken beside it when we arrived. Everybody seemed to be doing a thriving business. We went looking for people who might have seen Vicki Greene. Everybody at the Point seemed to be a fan of horror fiction. Most of the locals we talked to said yes, they'd heard she'd been in town. Most said they'd seen her, and several even claimed to have talked with her. But nobody was particularly helpful. Several told us she'd been writing about the Barryman Monster. "Why else would she have come here?" one demanded. The word that she'd been lost hadn't gotten around, and her fans were reluctant to believe the news. On the whole, we had trouble finding reliable sources. The details didn't match. Vicki was described as wearing different clothes. Her hair was a different color. Sometimes she spoke with an accent, sometimes she didn't. We asked whether they believed that the Barryman story had any basis in fact. I thought we'd find some skepticism there, especially among the kids. But no. Of course it had happened. Ask anybody. Or go out to the cemetery when Callistra's in the sky.

  ***

  They ran tours out to Barryman's grave during the daylight hours, using a light-grav bus marked ANDROID LOCAL. When I asked the hotel host whether there was a night tour, he looked startled. "Absolutely not, young lady. Nobody goes out there at night. It's not allowed." He couldn't quite resist a smile. They picked us up at the hotel, made one more stop, and headed north to the cemetery. About fifteen of us were on board, half of whom were kids. It was a holiday crowd, full of laughter, and I could hear a little girl saying, "Is it really true, Mommy?"

  "No, darling," Mommy said. "There are no such things as ghosts." Alex looked for his chance to show the tour guide a picture of Vicki. "Do you recall whether she ever rode with you?" "Mister," he said, "do you have any idea how many people go out there?" We passed through the town and drove about three kilometers on a flat straight road. Turned right onto a cutoff. And approached a pair of iron gates. They swung open for us. (As a security measure, they were of doubtful use because the fence was broken in any number of places.) The cemetery was old. Markers dated back more than six hundred years, to the beginning of the Bandahriate. The tour guide, a middle-aged guy who was trying his best to look nervous, told us the town advisory committee was talking about putting the cemetery off-limits to visitors, because everybody knew it was just a matter of time before Forrest Barryman broke loose from his grave and nobody knew what he might do then. He looked around at the children, some of whom giggled while others nestled closer to their mothers. "Of course, most of us at the Point think they're worried over nothing," he said with a straight face. "But you know how people are. One restless grave's enough to give the entire town a bad name." Alex leaned my way. "You look a little nervous, Chase." Anything to put me on the defensive. I smiled at him and let it go. The cemetery was a dusty, dry place, not at all like the green, almost lush graveyard near the Country House back on Rimway. Signs reading DO NOT APPROACH AFTER DARK were posted throughout the area. "I don't think I'd want to bury anybody here that I cared about," I said. Alex looked past me, and I could have predicted his response: "At the end, I can't imagine it matters much." A burst of wind rocked the bus. "Forrest is quiet in the daytime," said our tour guide. "Nothing to worry about." The bus made its way among the headstones. Eventually we topped a low hill, and the block came into view. It was higher than I could have reached and half as long as the bus. We swung into a parking area, and the doors opened. The tour guide was first off the bus. He helped the ladies navigate down, lent a hand to the kids, all the while explaining that we were perfectly safe, that there was nothing to worry about in the daytime. "It's only active when Callistra is in the sky." He drew the word Callistra out, rolling the consonants and savoring the vowels. The guy really enjoyed his work. "They're putting on a nice show," whispered Alex. The LIE STILL inscription was, of course, the first thing that caught my eye. There was another inscription, on the far side, consisting of three rows of unfamiliar symbols. "They're Arrakesh," the tour guide explained. "They're from the Enkomia , which is an ancient text that some people think is sacred. The first line translates to his name, Forrest Barryman. The second is the date of his first burial. And the bottom says Gone to Glory ." He touched the rock cautiously. "We certainly hope so," he added. "Why the strange language?" I asked. "It's supposed to help keep him in the ground," he said. "Most of the people who lived here at the time were Travelers. They were the faithful. Their name came out of their emphasis on the notion of life as a journey from a wicked world to salvation. If you look around, you'll notice quite a few of the graves have a star emblem. Those are the Travelers." "Callistra," said a woman behind me. "That's correct," said the guide. "Travelers believed Callistra was God's star, placed in the heavens as a sign of His presence." The star, of course, was central to a number of that world's religions although I didn't know that at the time. The site seemed peaceful enough. The block would have required a good-sized antigrav engine to move it. "He's not really at rest," said the guide, who was obviously not one to let go of a good thing. "If you come out here on a windy night, which is strictly prohibited, by the way, but come out here anyway, when Callistra is directly overhead, you can hear him down there, trying to get free." There was a big bald-headed guy who asked him to stop. "You're scaring the kids," he said.

  When we'd finished at the cemetery, the tour bus took us out to look at the android laboratory. It was a cluster of small buildings with specimen tables and tubs and exotic-looking equipment. It was, the driver explained, not the real lab, which had gone away centuries ago. But it was an "acc
urate replica." "Furthermore," he said, "this is the ground on which it stood." He continued as if everything were still standing. Here and over there were the quarters of the scientists, directly to your right the dining room. The main laboratory itself was the one-story white building on your right. He stopped in front of it. "Some of the damage was done by the government when it came to recover whatever might connect it with the monster. We think it was the creature itself, though, that really leveled the place." "They must think we're all idiots," I told Alex. "No, no. It's all showbiz. They know no one buys it, but what they want is a momentary suspension of disbelief. Like in a sim. Kick back and enjoy yourself, Chase." "Okay." "Of course, who really knows?" "About things like this? Would you please stop? You've been reading Greene's books again, haven't you?" He smiled, and we both had a good laugh. "Seriously, though, I wonder whether the story has any basis in fact? Whether they might have tried to build androids out here?" He shrugged. "Sure. They might have tried to put together a better cop. In a dictatorship, you'd pretty much expect it. It's what makes technology so scary, Chase. Sometimes, the wrong people get to make use of it." "You think Vicki took this tour?" "You think there's any chance in the world she came all the way out here and didn't take the tour?" For a long minute I kept my peace. Then: "How about we come back out tonight?" "Where? Here? " "Yes. Here. " "Why?" "Because that's what Vicki would have done. She would have wanted to feel the emotional impact of the android story. And the grave at night was part of that impact. I doubt she could have resisted it." "You're probably right, Chase. But I don't see any point in pushing this any further. What we need to do is find out where she went from here." "That seems like cheating. I think we should repeat the experience." "You really want to do this, don't you?" "Yes," I said. "I'd like to be here when the star gets overhead. That's the way she'd have done it." "Chase-" "We came to repeat the experience. To do what she did. It seems to me, this might be at the center of things." "Okay." His voice was resigned. "If you insist." I shook my head. "No." "No what?" "I'll go alone." "Why?" "Because she did." "Chase, you're not fooling anybody." "What do you mean, Alex?" "You're still a little kid."

  He didn't like the idea. It's dangerous, he said. No place for a woman. Who knows who's hanging around out there at that time of night? There might even be predators in the area. I told him not to worry, that I'd call him if anything out of the ordinary happened. Anyhow, I was armed. I'd bought a 21k scrambler, which I would have with me. "But," I told him, "you might want to keep a plasma gun handy

  in case there really is a monster running loose." He said something along the lines of how I needed to work on my sense of humor. When Callistra had risen prominently into the center of the sky, I fought my way through another series of cautionary admonitions from Alex, went up to the roof, and took the skimmer back to the cemetery. It's an even drearier place at night. There was no light, save the soft blue evanescence cast over the headstones and monuments by the lone star. I landed in the parking area, about thirty meters from the grave site. A strong wind was blowing out of the west and carrying a lot of dust with it. I climbed out, turned on my lamp, and walked over to the grave. Something moved off to my right, on the edge of vision. A couple of teens, trying to walk and make out at the same time. They disappeared behind a mausoleum. I shut off the lamp and stood in the silence, broken only by the drone of insects. The block gleamed in the starlight. I'd expected to be able to see the town lights, but there was only a soft glow in the trees to the south. A warm breeze kicked up. I pictured Vicki standing at that identical spot, listening to the darkness. And she had to be thinking how she might re-create that place, how she could use it. In her Point Man interview, she'd mentioned The Devil's Eye as a working title. I looked up at the blue star. It was the wrong color. But that night, in the presence of the oversized marker, color didn't matter. I wondered whether she'd been at all nervous. Or whether she delighted in an experience like that. Was that maybe why she'd come? Maybe it had nothing to do with planning a novel. Maybe she just liked the inner creep, the chill, that came with standing near a grave that people insisted was unquiet. A set of lights appeared in the northwest, passed overhead, and descended toward the glow that marked the town. I turned my lamp back on and looked at the symbols on the marker. Forrest Barryman. Gone to Glory.

  The rock and the Arrakesh characters had to be pure showbiz. Who knew what they really said? Whether they said anything at all? The whole town was an enterprise based on a fantasy. Like West Kobal on-where was it?-Black Adrian, where a sea monster with enormous tentacles was periodically reported. Or Bizmuth in the Spinners, where visitors from another galaxy were supposed to have crashed. (They and the wreckage had been spirited off by the government, which denied everything.) There's even a place that claims to have a doorway into another dimension. They'll show you the doorway, it's in the side of a mountain, cut into solid rock, but conditions have to be exactly right to get through it, which, of course, they never are. Just as well: The locals claim no one has ever come back. But townspeople swear you can get a magnificent view of this other-dimensional place. It was easy to imagine Vicki Greene standing there, thinking the same thoughts, wondering the same things. Possibly concluding that the answers didn't matter. That it was the uncertainty that counted. I began, that night, to feel close to her. Until then, she'd struck me as a kind of opportunist, making money by writing about things that could never be. That I personally didn't care about. But it struck me that the vampires and Forrest Barryman and all the rest of it weren't imaginative creatures dreamed up to separate idiots from their money. That they reflected light into the darkest corners of what makes us human. There was, after all, a time when we did not comprehend the natural world, did not see the order. There was only a vast darkness, a world for which no one really knew the rules. Filled with phantoms snatching unwary travelers, perhaps. With angels moving stars, and gods riding the sun across the sky. The ground moved. It wasn't a tremor, exactly. More like a flutter, a barely noticeable palpitation. My imagination, probably. It came again. I could see nothing, but I eased the scrambler out of my pocket and took a long look around. I was alone. The teenagers seemed to have gone. The block moved. Began to rise. I shook my head. Stared as one end, the forward end, the end closer to me, lifted.

  I'd like to say I stood my ground. I understood immediately it was an elaborate illusion for tourists brave enough to go out there at night. To feed the legend. But it didn't matter. My hair rose, and my heart started to pound. The bottom of the rock cleared the ground, and I could see something holding it, lifting it from beneath. An oversized blue-tinted hand appeared, pushing down on the ground while the slab kept going up. I turned and ran. All the way back to the skimmer. I ordered the AI to open the hatch while I was still running. "Start the engine," I told it. My heart was coming out of my chest. The skimmer was already off the ground when I jumped on board.

  NINE

  Reality is what hits you in the head when you don't watch where you're walking.

  - Wish You Were Here

  All right. I wouldn't have you think I'm a complete coward. I went back a few minutes later, stayed in the skimmer, and looked down at the place from a safe altitude. The grave was quiet, and the block was flat on the ground again. I set back down in the parking area, opened up, and got out. I checked the time and stood where I'd stood before. And waited. Until it started again. I retreated to the lander and watched the routine play itself out. The hand, blue in the starlight, raising the slab, was as far as it went. Then it shut down. I returned again to my chosen spot. And stood there. After about two minutes, it happened a third time.

  I was on my way back to the Point when Alex called. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Ummm. Yes. I'm fine."

  "See any monsters?"

  "Just the usual ones."

  "Good. When will you be back?"

  "Why?"

  "So I know when to start worrying."

  "I'll be there in a few minutes."

  "Okay. Let me
know when you get in."

  "Alex?"

  "Yes?"

  "The people in this town can't be trusted."

  "I'm shocked to hear it."

  In the morning, I couldn't resist going down to the city hall. Alex tried to talk me out of it, but I was annoyed that they were playing tricks on their visitors. It was a run-down building, situated next to the courthouse and across the street from the police station. They had a human receptionist who looked as if she had more important things to do than talk to strangers. "Who did you want to see, ma'am?" "The supervisor, please." "Do you have an appointment?"

  "No." "I'm sorry. He's not available at the moment. How can we help you?" "You know," I said, "somebody's going to have a heart attack out there." "Out where?" It went on like that for a while, but I finally managed to get past her to a staff assistant. He was no help either, and relayed me to an overfed guy in a large office that needed sweeping and dusting. He looked as if he'd been there forever. He had a bristling white mustache and an enormous bald skull. He smiled in a grandfatherly way, told me he was glad I'd come by, and pulled over a chair for me. His nameplate identified him as a Mr. Collander. "Ms. Kolpath," he said, "I'll put your comments on the record, and we'll look into it." We sat there a moment, watching each other. He was giving me a chance to say thank you very much, shake his hand, and leave. "Mr. Collander," I said, "this doesn't bother you at all, does it?" The smile stayed in place, but it acquired a regretful aspect. "I wish I could say I'm disturbed." He pressed his fingertips against his forehead. "But I won't lie to you. No, we've known about it for a while." "In fact you put it there." I looked up at a framed picture of him, two young girls, and a puppy. He was presenting them with an award. His eyes followed mine. "It's our annual Pet Appreciation Day," he said. "Look, Ms. Kolpath-May I call you Chase ?" " Ms. Kolpath will do fine." "Ms. Kolpath, may I ask what you intend to do when you leave here?" "I haven't decided yet." "I can understand you were frightened." "I wasn't frightened." Terrified would be closer to the truth. "So what happens now? That thing turns on every time someone goes out there?" I'd gotten up, and he asked me to sit again. "I won't take much of your time," he said. "I'm sorry for your inconvenience. I truly am." He nodded toward the window. "Look around you. Boldinai Point is a small town. It has no major industry. We're isolated, and the only reason we exist at all is our tourist trade. If that were to go away, this town would dry up." The guy was good. In retrospect, thinking about it, I wonder that I could have been put off so easily. But at the time, it was hard to argue with. "There's no harm done," he said. "We have monitors. If someone in ill health were to go out there, we'd intervene. But for most people who come here, Ms. Kolpath, it's just part of the show. It's what they expect. Look, I'm sorry you took any of it seriously. But nobody really believes there's an android up there being held in its grave by a rock. We pretend it's so, for our tourists." He took a deep breath. "Let me ask you a question: What would you have thought if you'd gone up there and nothing had happened?" I was starting to feel like an idiot. He smiled and told me I should come back and see him if I had any other problems. Then he was escorting me toward the door. "I hope you'll try to see our side of things, Ms. Kolpath. And while you're here at the Point, just relax and enjoy the ride." He offered me a gift certificate for the souvenir shops. And as I was going out, he smiled. "We've been in operation for sixty years. Never lost a tourist."