With Marc, it was the other way around. Like Jerri, he wasn’t impressed by the trappings of exclusivity and didn’t respond with the reverence and envy that were customary. He knew himself and was content to be who and what he was. He lived for what he might achieve and to one day give to the world, not to take from it. His fascination for the strange branch of physics that he had described, and the passion to learn more — even if it entailed moving to another star system if that was the most promising opportunity that presented itself — were driven by the innate sense of curiosity and wonder that Jerri thought came naturally to any human being who hadn’t been blinded by artificial distractions. She was glad to have found a kindred soul as companion on her journey into such a vast unknown. As to her own motive for leaving?... Regardless of the things she had told Ivor, she realized that she wasn’t sure. Maybe at the bottom of it there lay nothing more than the simple reasoning that if things at home couldn’t get worse, then elsewhere they had at least an even chance of being better.
“So what’s your take on the NIDA so far?” Marc asked, looking back at her.
“Impressed,” she replied. “What else can anyone say? I’m curious to see how it copes with minds that are totally alien.”
“Have you tried playing with the tuning yet? I’ve got mine to sound Southern.” The auditory effect could be tweaked to alter the tone and quality of the voice translation that was experienced.
“I was more interested in trying to get Olsen out if it,” Jerri said. “He makes me feel as if I’m at Boot Camp somewhere.... I guess I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the military mystique. They were supposed to defend people. But it all got subverted, like everything else. Now they’re the instrument for keeping people in line. We’re brainwashed about terrorists, but the only terrorists I’m scared of are the ones I have to pay for. It’s insane.” Marc looked at her questioningly but said nothing, as if he knew there was more to it. Jerri realized she had touched on this before. She sighed. “Oh, there was a guy once that I was pretty close to — in Sacramento, after I moved south from Oregon.” She was originally from a small mountain community not far from Cave Junction. “He was a media and web commentator with not-exactly-approved views, and pretty outspoken about them. Well, he said some wrong things about some wrong people, had a three a.m. house call and got sent to a camp. He was never the same after they let him out. They messed his head up inside — with drugs or something....” She shook her head, deciding that she didn’t want to talk any more about it.
Marc gave it a few seconds and read her correctly, as he always did. “Was that when you moved up out of the Valley to the foothills?”
She nodded. “It was an illusion of getting away, anyhow. And by that time I was traveling a lot.... That was when I discovered the stars, too. In the Sierra. I suppose they must have been there in Oregon too, but I’d never noticed. Not to the same degree, anyway. There were suddenly so many, and so bright....” The stars they would see from Cyrene when they emerged out of H-space would be different. She wondered how long it would be before she’d see the familiar constellations of Earth again. “They weren’t always the same, you know,” she said distantly.
“What? The stars?” Marc looked puzzled.
“The entire skies. Don’t believe what the textbooks tell you.”
“Seriously?” Marc was looking surprised but intrigued. It was so refreshing to talk to someone who didn’t start spouting objections reflexively. “How long ago are we talking about?”
“Within human history. It all changed several times.”
“What makes you think that?”
“They left records of what they saw. It’s written into their religions and arts and legends from all over the world. That’s how I got interested in mythology.”
“Give me an example,” Marc invited.
Jerri thought for a moment. “You know how to find the pole star, right?”
“Follow the two pointers from the Big Dipper.”
“Right. Otherwise known as Ursa Major, the Big Bear. Or you can point from the handle of the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor, which is close to the pole. That’s what’s called the celestial pole — the point the sky seems to revolve around, that the Earth’s axis would extend to.”
“Okay.”
Jerri loosened her NIDA cap to let more air through her hair. “Well, you can find what are called ‘Bear’s Son’ stories from every culture, that talk about an offspring of parents representing Earth and Sky, who displaces the father — which meant taking over his position at the center. The European Beowulf saga is one of them. The Odyssey is another. What they were trying to record is that the Big Dipper used to be at the pole.”
“So when would this have been?” Marc asked.
“What Hesiod called the Age of Heroes — around seven hundred b. c.”
“Then the axis must have tilted.”
“Exactly.”
“What would have caused that?”
“Good question. People who have looked into it come up with different theories. But the point is, the solar system wasn’t always as stable as it’s been for the last few centuries. But orthodox astronomy isn’t going to come up with any answers if it won’t even consider the possibility.”
Marc still seemed wary, but genuinely curious. “So what about before then?” he asked. “Are there other stories that talk about something else before the Big Bear?”
Jerri nodded. “Yes. Hercules was there for a short time as a result of an axis shift that’s represented by the death of his grandfather, Perseus, who was there before he was. The Hercules myth says that he briefly took over the job supporting the sky from Atlas and moved it. Hence the notion of superhuman strength. The labor of obtaining the golden girdle of the Amazon queen, Hippolyte, refers to the new celestial equator that the shift resulted in. It’s been thought for a long time that the Labors of Hercules represent a journey around the heavens, but nobody has ever really been able to make them agree with the zodiac that exists today. But if you plot the equator as it would have been with Hercules at the pole, suddenly it all fits.”
Jerri would have left it there, feeling she had said enough, but Marc waved a hand for her to carry on. “Fits, how?” he asked.
“The labors in the story don’t seem to relate to any of the constellations that lie on the celestial equator today, but they do fit ones that would have then,” she replied. “For instance there’s Corvus, the crow, which could have been the Stymphalian birds that Hercules had to drive out of the marsh. Then there’s Hydra, the snake, which could have been the Lernean Hydra. Another would be Crater, the cup — the golden goblet shaped like a water lily that Helius lent him to sail to Eritheia in.... And the dog, Canis Minor. That would be Cerberus, the Hound of Hell, that Hercules had to bring back from the underworld. You see — an equator that contains those signs matches the story. The one that exists now doesn’t.”
“And you’re saying you find the same thing all over the world?”
“Well, of course the forms of the myths aren’t identical. But they can all be interpreted similarly: Middle Eastern, early American, European, east Asian....”
Marc stared at her for several seconds. “Interesting,” he pronounced finally.
“I think so,” Jerri agreed. “Better than having to keep up with whoever the latest art fad is that you’ve got to have on your walls.” Ivor had told her that an Austrian painter who had recently made it to the rariefied heights produced plain canvases of a single color applied with a roller, and got two thousand dollars apiece for them.
“Can you point me to more stuff I can read up on?” Marc asked.
“Sure. How long have you got?”
“You know, every time I listen to you, you get more intriguing,” he said. “How come you managed to hide yourself so well all these years?”
He was telling her something very personal. It produced a warm, gratifying feeling. “I guess you were just looking in the wrong places,” she answered.
Amid the babbling that was going on around, their eyes met in a way that was just for the two of them.
Olsen’s voice boomed from the back of the room suddenly as he appeared in the doorway and strode toward the front. “Okay, people, time out. Everybody straighten up. Let’s see how we did....”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Conrad Metterlin’s spectacular ascent from onetime pilot to multibillionaire was a result of two principal factors. One was certainly his own astuteness in recognizing the potential of the new technologies, and his good judgment in backing celestial colonization as one of the major spinoffs. The other was adequate bankrolling at the right time, which he had obtained from the Corbel family, noted for their sizeable estates in Delaware and Maryland. Whereas the Metterlin clan were going through the exuberant phase of celebrating and displaying their newfound wealth, the Corbels had accommodated to the poise and self-assurance of fourth-generation rich, after rising on the tide of energy market manipulations that went back to the mid-twentieth century. When shifting global politics and abatement of nuclear phobia brought an end to American dominance of the scene, it was time to relocate to sunnier climes both figuratively and literally. The Corbels liquidated their Eastern holdings just in time to avoid the crash that came with downsizing to the Federated American States, and moved the operation to where new horizons were opening up, and in which they already had a significant stake.
Acquiring the state college at Bellingham and turning it into Corbel University had been one of the first moves in establishing visibility and status. But the competition to achieve eminence among the new rising social class was fierce, and the present paterfamilias, Joseph Corbel, decided that something more original and attention-getting was called for. The obvious person to entrust with such a charge was his favorite niece, Gloria, who had already earned herself a reputation as a tearaway romantic among the ranks of the staid and stately by whitewater rafting in the rapids of Paraguay, running the Cresta, and being heli-lifted to join a trans-Antarctic survey expedition for two weeks, in the course of which she learned to handle a dog team. And Gloria, after verifying that whatever was going on there didn’t involve any physical violence, persuaded Joseph that the ideal way to promote the family name and recast it in an image commensurate with the new, exciting things out in space that they were, after all, helping to make a reality, would be for one of its members to go with the third mission departing for Cyrene — by which she meant herself, of course. Although she hesitated to admit it, she did so need a break away from Henry, her marriage to whom had been arranged primarily to broaden the family’s economic base into communications electronics, but who really did get so terribly dull when endured for too long at a stretch. Whereas she, on the other hand, while mindful of her duty toward the family and its interests, was so young and untamed, capricious and wild...
... and spoiled, avaricious, brattish, and vain, Myles Callen thought to himself as he finished shaving in the upper E Deck suite’s pseudo-baroque bathroom, with its gilded fittings and ornate arches over the whirlpool tub and shower, and rinsed off his face. Her voice came through the open doorway from the bedroom while he inspected himself in the mirror.
“You can’t imagine how boring.... I mean, he talks to me about profit-and-loss statements, for chrissakes! I’m sure he thinks it makes him seem predatory and exciting. Can you believe that, Myles? The guy who parks my car is more exciting.”
His tan was still good, and he had kept his muscle tone solid and firm — a habit acquired from his more active field days. There were bite marks on his chest but no blemishes that would show. His need to dominate asserted itself through rough play during sex, which evidently excited and stimulated a reciprocal side of Gloria. He smoothed on some lotion and picked up a brush to take care of his hair.
“But you’re more... There’s kind of a meanness there, even ruthlessness. I don’t care what people say, women are wired to respond to that. It’s all about protection, survival, know what I mean? Genetic. So kids will make it okay, and they’ll be survivors too — which is how lines get to last. But with a guy like Henry, sometimes I really find myself wondering....”
Callen slipped on the robe provided as part of the cabin service, knotted the belt, and came out from the bathroom. Gloria was lying propped against the pillows in a silk bed jacket, nursing the empty glass from the bourbon that he had poured her before going into shower. The screen facing the bed was showing a recorded news documentary from Earth with the sound turned down. Mush music at subdued volume was playing from speakers somewhere.
“Darwin before breakfast?” he grunted. Gloria held out her glass. He took it and crossed over to the cocktail cabinet and bar. There was still ice in the bucket. He refilled Gloria’s glass and mixed a Manhattan for himself.
“There was a thing on a few minutes ago about some kind of epidemic or something breaking out at another colony world, Amanthea?... Amanth?...”
“Amaranth?” Callen brought her glass over, then moved to stand staring at the vista of jungle waterfall and mountains in the simview window while he tasted his own.
“That’s it. The river’s turned red, and it’s wiping out a whole area. There were pictures of aliens falling down in the streets and stacks of bodies, all blotchy and bloated. There won’t be any chance of something like that happening at Cyrene, will there?”
“No one can ever rule out anything a hundred percent,” Callen said. “But you don’t have to worry. The medical scans and profiles for Cyrene are pretty complete. You’ll be properly protected.”
“No, I know we wouldn’t catch it. But who’d want to walk around with that kind of thing all around? And the smell would be ghastly.”
“Cyrene seems to have a healthier climate than Amaranth all-round,” Callen said. “Some of the biologists think it has something to do with the cycling between extremes. But they haven’t figured out quite how yet.”
“Oh, Myles, you’re not going to start getting technical on me, are you? I don’t have a head for it. That’s the kind of thing you hire people to know.”
And they hired people like him to protect them, Callen thought to himself. And without people like him, what would their importance and influence be? Nothing. Without guns and people with the mettle to use them, they wouldn’t hang on to their wealth and their properties for a week. The utter dependency behind their arrogance and airs of superiority made him contemptuous. And that made screwing their wives and roughing them around all the more gratifying. Just how easy it could be never ceased to amaze him. Spoiled children looking for entertainment. He sensed that she was watching him.
“What are you standing there, looking so serious about?” her voice asked. He turned from the simview and looked at her. She shook her head, causing long blond tresses to fall loose over the orange silk, and stared at him pointedly over her glass as she drank.
“Just things I have to do today,” he said.
“Why now? There’s still weeks before we get to Cyrene.”
Callen moved back to stand beside the bed and looked down at her. His eyes were mocking. “So show me what you do have a head for,” he said.
Her mouth pouted, then curled into a wicked smile. “You really can be a bastard.” She drained her glass and set it down, then reached for the belt of his robe. “But I like bastards.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Tacoma transferred back into normal space inside the planetary system of Ra Alpha a little under two million miles from the point computed by dead reckoning, which was considered not bad by the standards currently being attained. The remainder of voyage to Cyrene, under conventional nuclear propulsion, took two days.
During that time, the occupants who had crossed interstellar space for the first time gradually became accustomed to the wonder of viewing a sky unlike any that had ever been seen from Earth, and watched with fascination and a steadily increasing restless anticipation as Cyrene grew larger and resolved more unfolding detail on the ship’s screens. The
images themselves were not unfamiliar, of course, having been reproduced in countless shots sent back from the original probes and the two manned missions that had followed since. But this time the images were not retrievals from an archive of data sent back from afar. They were live, of a world that was really out there beyond the walls of the ship. For many of those aboard, it brought home for the first time the immensity of the distance that now separated them from Earth.
Interstellar mission ships like the Tacoma were expensive and in high demand, with highly specialized crews, so the previous two had long since departed. The only evidence of Terran presence above the surface were a robot freighter that had arrived a couple of weeks earlier to deliver supplies, currently being loaded with marketable cargo for Earth and biological, botanical, mineral, and other samples of scientific interest, and a network of satellites put up for communications and surface navigation. Under normal circumstances, bases and settlements on newly discovered worlds were left to their own devices between ship calls, maintaining contact with Earth via H-links. But no time had been announced for the length of the Tacoma’s intended stay at Cyrene, which fitted with the notion of the rumor that Karen had started, of disappearances among the earlier arrivals. Not that Shearer and his companions saw the situation as necessarily something to be apprehensive about. After all, they reasoned, if something was attracting previous arrivals away, it couldn’t be all that bad. The question that concerned him more was what those in command of the Terran presence on Cyrene proposed doing about it.
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