Coming Home

by Jack McDevitt

  “Where’s the Caribbean?” I asked.

  “It’s a group of islands in the Atlantic. Close to Aquatica. They’re really nice. You’d like the music. Moonlit beaches. You’d love Jamaica.”

  That constituted the wildest moment of the entire evening because I found myself almost considering it. “Is this what you always do?” I asked. “Gallop into a town and sweep some unsuspecting young woman off her feet?”

  He leaned forward and pressed my arm. “Can I read that as a yes?”

  “Khaled, what would I do at Eisa Friendly Charters?”

  Another grin. “You’d be the best-looking sailor on the East Coast.”

  “Oh, yes. Sailors mostly swab decks, don’t they?”

  “Seriously, that would be an easy issue to manage.” His tone had changed. His eyes were still locked on mine. “Chase, I know this is all very sudden. And I don’t expect you to answer now. But what I’m asking is that you think about it. Give me a chance. I love being with you.”

  “This is only the second time we’ve been out together, Khaled. We’re practically strangers.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do. And anyhow, it’s the third time.”

  “Not by my count.”

  “We were on the Patriot together.” He laughed. “That’s always been my experience with beautiful women. They tend to forget me.”

  “Well, I guess we could count the boat ride as a time out together. Since you saved my life.”

  “Oh, Chase,” he said. “You were never really in danger.”

  “I see. So what you’re saying is that the nutcase who attacked us was really a plant, so you could make an impression?” I expected a laugh.

  “Of course not,” he said. “You think I’d let somebody sink one of our boats to—?” He shook it off. “No, what I meant was that I was there, and there was no way I was going to let anything happen to you.”

  * * *

  I’d informed Alex that Khaled was in town, and he was wearing that occasionally smug smile when I showed up at the country house next morning. “Well,” he said, “how’d it go?”

  “It was fun. I have to admit, he is a pleasure to be around. And I needed an evening like that.”

  “Where is he now? Do you know?”

  “He was talking about going down to tour the Hall of the People.”

  “Well, things are pretty slow here. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Go over there and join him?”

  “Thanks, Alex. But I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, whatever you want. Just let me know if you leave, okay?”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There is no ultimate truth. There is only the moment and what we choose to do with it.

  —Marik Kloestner, Diaries, 1388

  I left the country house in the early afternoon and picked up Khaled at his hotel. I took him to Kornikov’s German Restaurant for some sauerbraten. Afterward, we went downtown and toured the government buildings and the cultural center. We attended a concert, had dinner, and headed for the Hall of the People, a magnificent, sprawling, marble structure, four stories high, roughly a half kilometer long. As always at night, it was bathed in a soft blue luminescence.

  We strolled through the surrounding grounds. Flags and banners of the Confederate worlds snapped along its front in the winds off the ocean. Tourists filled the area, taking pictures, explaining its significance to kids. The Council meets there, of course. The executive offices are located on the lower floors, and the World Court convenes in the eastern wing. The White Pool, with its myriad fountains, runs the length of the building, and the Silver Tower of the Confederacy stands at its north end. The tower was barred to visitors, as is normal after dark. In the daytime, people can take the elevator to the top, where a balcony circles the building.

  We went inside the Hall to visit the Archive, which houses the Constitution, the Compact, and the other founding documents. “You know,” Khaled said, “I’ve taken the virtual tour, but it’s nothing like actually being here.”

  “I guess,” I said, “that living a few kilometers away kind of dulls the effect. I think most locals take everything for granted. I came out here for the first time with my seventh-grade class. We walked through the building, went back to the school, and, if my memory is right, we wrote essays about our reactions. Which probably meant making stuff up.”

  “So you said how you were overwhelmed?”

  “I suppose. And I probably talked about how good the pretzels were.”

  He laughed and commented that it reminded him of some of his own best work. We came out and sat by the pool for a while. We talked about my experiences with Alex, and Khaled described how fortunate he was to be able to make a living taking people for boat rides. And how much he was enjoying being on Rimway. And, finally, he brought the conversation around to us.

  “Do we have a future?” he asked.

  It wasn’t an easy question to answer. “Probably not,” I said finally. “I love my job here, Khaled. There’s just no way I would leave it.”

  He stared down at our reflections in the water. “Well,” he said, “there is another possibility.”

  I became aware of a cool breeze blowing out of the west. And a sprinkle of rain, there for a moment, then gone. Like a fly-by-night romance. “Khaled, we don’t know each other very well yet. We don’t know enough to make major decisions.”

  “What you’re saying, Chase, is no.” He was still looking down at the water. “You’re closing the door to every possibility. Am I reading that right?”

  “Look: Why don’t we do this a day at a time? Let it play out a little? I know we live kind of far apart, but that doesn’t mean we have to make major decisions tonight.”

  He nodded and finally lifted his eyes. “How many days do we have left?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll be leaving after that.”

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Then you will see me tomorrow? You’ve been kind of reluctant to—”

  “Yes, we can get together tomorrow. If you want to. I’d been concerned because I have to go up to Skydeck and make sure our yacht gets its maintenance service.” Actually, that can all be taken care of without my being personally on the scene. But I was trying to send a message. Though I didn’t want our last possible day together to get away from me. So if you ask what the message was, I wasn’t sure.

  “What’s a good time?” he asked.

  It seemed like the moment to take advantage of Alex’s offer. “I have the day off.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what I’d like to do?”

  “What’s that, Khaled?”

  “I’d like to go for a ride out on the Melony.” I looked out at it, placid and quiet in the starlight.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “It’s the way we met. Maybe it should be the way we say good-bye.”

  “Khaled, that’s not what I’ve been saying.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  * * *

  I was dressing when a call came in from a guy I didn’t know. He identified himself as Kyle Everett. “Chase,” he said, “I’m one of John Kraus’s administrative assistants. We’re trying to get this thing organized. We’re dividing the Lifeboat mission into divisions and squadrons. Would you be interested in being a division commander?”

  “That sounds a little above my grade level, Kyle.”

  “John made the call. He says you’d be fine. You wouldn’t actually have to do anything except relay information. We’re going to run everything from the Dauntless. We’ll have approximately ten ships to a squadron, and ten squadrons to a division. There’ll be nine divisions. When we decide to do something, we’ll let you know, and all you have to do is pass it on to the squadron co
mmanders. They’ll relay it to their ships. When everyone complies, they’ll acknowledge, it’ll come back to you, and you will send it on to us. Clear?”

  “Sounds simple enough.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. We’re going to have almost a thousand vehicles out there. We don’t want pilots making individual decisions, so we’re going to maintain a tight control from the Dauntless. Any questions?”

  * * *

  Sunlight poured through my windows in the morning. A beautiful, unseasonably warm, bright day. Perfect for a ride on the river. I showered, got dressed, and was sitting down to breakfast when a call came in. It was Khaled. As soon as I saw him, I knew something was wrong. “Chase.” He tried to smile. “I’m going to back off today. I’m sorry. But I don’t want to go through a last day with you.”

  “Okay, Khaled. I’m sorry, too. But I understand.”

  “I’ve got a ride out of Skydeck this afternoon.”

  “All right. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. You’ve been honest with me. I guess that’s enough.” That brought on a long silence while both of us struggled to find something to say.

  “You have a reservation on the shuttle, Khaled?”

  “Yes. I’m all set. I just wanted you to know that I enjoyed the time we had together. Here and back home.”

  “I did, too.”

  “Good.” He was standing off to one side of the kitchen table. “Have a good life, Chase. I’ll miss you.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information, by throwing in the reader’s way piles of lumber, in which he must painfully grope for the scraps of useful matter, peradventure interspersed.

  —Edgar Allen Poe, Marginalia, 1844 C.E.

  Finally it was time to go. John conducted a briefing for the pilots from a conference room at the Department of Transportation. Approximately thirty people were there. The rest of us watched by HV. “Since we don’t know precisely when it will appear,” he said, “we’ll arrive four days early and maintain the search around the clock. That means you should be on station at 1600 hours on the twelfth. Check in with your squadron commander as soon as you arrive. The formation will be spherical and centered on the Dauntless, which will be placed as close to the anticipated arrival site as we can manage. Unless you’re on the outer boundary of the formation, the six ships closest to you will be at a range of fifteen thousand kilometers. Those will be operating above and below you, fore and aft, and on either side.

  “One other thing: Unless you’re carrying lifeboats, we want only the pilot in each ship. If you need an additional person for any reason, check with your squadron or division commander. We need to conserve our life-support capabilities.

  “Your position in the formation will be assigned this evening. We don’t expect the Capella to appear before 1600 hours on the sixteenth. But we could be wrong about that. We could also be wrong in our estimate that it will arrive inside the search area. So we need everyone to maintain vigilance in all directions. If anyone locates it, or notices anything out of the ordinary, notify your commander immediately but take no action until you receive instructions.”

  A hand went up. “If it doesn’t show up, John, how long will we wait?”

  “We’re hoping everyone will be willing to give it three or four days, if necessary. The Dauntless, and the StarCorps ships, will wait as long as it takes. StarCorps, by the way, already has units in place in case it arrives early. In that event, we will probably be unable to load lifeboats, but we will do what we can.

  “We anticipate that when it does arrive, it will be accessible for approximately seven or eight hours. If you become part of the contact group, you will likely be closer to the action than the Dauntless. But be careful. It will get busy very quickly. If you do not have lifeboats on board, your mission will be to take off as many people as you can as quickly as you can. Once you have them on board, get clear so someone else can move in.

  “Be aware that our principal objective is to get the lifeboats loaded onto the Capella. If we can rescue some people at the same time, that’s good. But do not under any circumstances get in the way of the teams that are trying to transfer the boats. Vehicles with boats will have radio ID’s and blue-and-white blinkers. They will be given right of way.”

  Another hand went up. “Do the people on the Capella know they’re in trouble?”

  “We haven’t had contact with them, Maureen. So we have no way of knowing. But probably they do. From their perspective, they will have surfaced off schedule and gone down again without initiating the action. So I’d be surprised if Captain Schultz is not aware she’s in trouble.

  “I’m sure most of you know that Robert Dyke is among the passengers. We’ll have several teams of physicists and engineers spread around in the rescue force. What we want to do is talk to him. Give him what we have and find out if he might be able to help. Do not, however, initiate contact with the Capella. If they contact you, pass it on to your squadron commander immediately. Since we do not know the situation aboard ship, do not allow yourself to get into a conversation with them. News of radio contact should be passed to the Dauntless, and we will take it from there. Is that clear to everyone?”

  * * *

  I took the shuttle to Skydeck a few hours later. The normal routine for anyone who maintained a ship at the station was that you notified them in advance when you would be using it, and it was waiting for you in one of the eight docks. But under the pressure of the rescue fleet being assembled, traffic was so heavy that they directed me to report to one of the operations offices, from which I was conducted to the maintenance area. There I boarded the Belle-Marie. There were probably twenty other ships, all crowded into a relatively small space. Two freighters and a fleet cruiser were floating outside the station.

  I sat down on the bridge, said hello to Belle, and started running the checklist. Outside, a few lights broke through the darkness. “Do you know how to get us out of here?” I asked Belle.

  “Yes,” she said. “No problem.”

  I finished the preflight and checked in with ops.

  “Belle-Marie,” said a male voice, “it’ll be a few minutes. We’ll get back to you.”

  “Copy that.”

  Sitting on the bridge in a sparsely lit enclosure is different from being under a dark sky. It can become oppressive. I was glad when my link buzzed. It was Alex. “How’s it going?”

  “I’m waiting to launch.”

  “You have a minute?”

  “As far as I know. What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been doing some research. Thought you might be interested in what I found.”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “I’ve been reading Harvey Foxworth’s Walking Through the Rubble. It’s a history of archeological efforts to reconstruct the major events of the Dark Age. It was written a thousand years ago, but it’s the classic work on the era. Foxworth has some details regarding Dmitri Zorbas that I haven’t seen before. He kept a diary, Zorbas did, but never allowed it to be published. After his death, Jerome Zorbas, his brother, apparently under instructions, destroyed it.”

  “You think they destroyed it because it revealed the location of the artifacts?”

  “There’s no way to know.”

  “So what good does it do us if it’s been destroyed?”

  “It provides credence to the probability that Zorbas had the artifacts and hid them.”

  “Maybe. On the other hand, maybe they destroyed it because he had too many women in his life.”

  “I didn’t say it was a confirmation, Chase. But Foxworth thinks he salvaged the contents of the Prairie House. Zorbas came from a wealth
y family, so he had resources. We’ve known that. The family maintained a home, according to the book, ‘in a safe place’ well away from their quarters in Union City. Unfortunately, there’s still no hint where that might have been. Foxworth comments that, at the height of the period, there were no safe places. There are a couple of pictures of Rodia, standing with her husband. These were the first pictures I’d seen of Zorbas himself. He always seems to be wearing a backpack. He’s on a horse in a couple of them. And there’s one with him standing with a group of guys beside what appears to be a lander. It’s hard to be sure because the technology was so primitive. But they’re laughing, and everybody’s got a bottle.

  “Something else,” said Alex. “About the internet failure.” Terrorist attacks had gradually disrupted it and eventually took it down worldwide. It was one of the causes of the Dark Age. Some historians think it was the prime cause.

  “They lost almost everything,” he continued. “I’m talking about books now. A lot of the minor stuff, administrative records and avatars and medical data and whatnot, stuff that was maintained on local data nets, survived. But they lost pretty much every book that didn’t exist as a print copy somewhere. And print copies don’t have a good survival record over time. Anyhow, Zorbas set up a team to rescue whatever books they could. Foxworth has put together a long list of titles that he credits Zorbas with saving.”

  The list appeared on my auxiliary screen. It included Cicero and several Greek and Roman plays, Chaucer, Rabelais, two Dickens novels, and three of the six surviving Shakespearean plays. And a book that one of my high-school teachers had used, she’d said, with the hope that it would create a passion for reading: Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. I remember how disappointed I’d been later when I learned the Martian canals had been pure fantasy.

  There were probably two hundred titles in all. They weren’t all classics, but the mere fact that they’d survived gave them considerable value.