by Dave Smeds
o0o
Neil spent a further two hours interrogating witnesses, especially Christine Radner, who confirmed the infidelity. He learned nothing really new, nor did he feel the need to do so. For minute details, the Thwaa could turn to Dimitri’s official investigator’s file. After all, Bilyang was the first human to die outside the realm of Sol’s gravity. If only for posterity’s sake, the inspector was compiling an exhaustive record, a process that would resume once past the interruption of Neil’s visit.
“That was ugly,” Dimitri told Neil as they walked among the ruins, stretching their legs before the flight back to the capital. “When I arrived yesterday I expected to uncover at worst a crime of passion — a spur-of-the-moment collapse of judgment. But that man has no remorse, and he’s a racist as well.”
Neil wished he could disagree. “I’m told the jail in Landfall isn’t complete. Where will you keep him until the trial?”
“I’ll have a shuttle pick him up tomorrow. We’ll shove the bastard in the brig aboard the ark. Until then, I’m leaving him in that pit in the lakebed.”
“You’ll trust Vereshchagin’s people to stay away from him?”
“They’ve behaved themselves so far. Besides, there are no Indonesians left on site, nor any Australians besides Radner. We can’t say that about the capital.”
Neil grimaced. “No. We can’t.”
The conversation lapsed as they ambled more deeply into the ruins. Here and there they passed diggers. Twenty-Second-Century classical music drifted their way from a player near one of the trenches, but Neil felt strikingly out of place. He was treading a street never marked by human feet until a few weeks earlier.
The word “streets” didn’t quite apply. The space between the buildings may have been used for traffic, vehicular or otherwise, but it bore no resemblance to the gridlike arrangement of most Terran metropolitan cores. In spots the gaps were barely wide enough for a single pedestrian, in other places several trucks could have passed side by side. When Neil had seen the city plan from the air, it had resembled the pebble-and-concrete patio of his childhood home. Foundations were laid in circular, oval, or kidney configuration, with the structures — so he gathered from the surviving examples — rising from one to ten stories and coming to rounded tops. Some edifices were huge, others small, in random sequence. The doorways were all low and wide, just the opposite of what a human would require. In fact, the only thing reminiscent of Earth architecture was the abundance of windows.
“Remarkable,” Neil said, contemplating the nearest upright tower. In the fifteen thousand years since the Eridanin had abandoned their colony, the roof had fallen in and weather, wind, and wildlife had erased most surface features, but obviously the structure had been erected by a culture that meant to stay. And had, until the Thwaa said otherwise.
“This was a rich world, Neil,” Dimitri said.
“Still is. Will be.”
“Will it?” Dimitri asked. “Is that faith I’m hearing, or do you have some sort of insider knowledge?”
Neil knew what Dimitri was asking. “The Thwaa don’t let me in on their councils, my friend. I just know what I see. They wouldn’t have given us any sort of chance if they didn’t see some positive qualities in us, not after they went to all the trouble of kicking the Eridanin out and leaving the planet fallow ever since.”
Dimitri laughed, but it was bitter. “I’ve heard that logic before. We both know the Thwaa can’t be predicted that way. I tell you, sometimes I feel as though when it comes to guessing how the Thwaa want us to behave, every human of this colony is dancing between raindrops in a storm, trying not to get wet.”
“Some of us are passable dancers,” Neil argued, remembering a certain night back in Athens, at the wedding of Dimitri’s cousin, when his classmate demonstrated the depth of his skill luring his countrywomen onto the floor.
“Better than the Eridanin, I suppose,” Dimitri said.
“Yes. Perhaps they had too many legs to trip over.”
Suddenly, as if Neil’s comment had reminded him of something, Dimitri checked his watch. “Ah. Good. We have time. There is a special relic Vereshchagin mentioned. I would be honored if you and I were to see it together.”
Dimitri’s invitation was flavored with the tone of inclusiveness that harkened back to long-held fellowship. Neil realized how much he had missed hearing that quality in his friend’s voice. “Okay. I’m in no hurry. Lead on.”
The inspector excused himself to consult with the nearest digger. When he returned, he led Neil a few blocks to the west. The ruins ended abruptly at the former shoreline. They continued along what had once been a boardwalk of sorts. Neil rejected the terms “wharf” or “docks” or “quay,” tempted as he was to apply those labels. The Eridanin might have sailed vast oceans of space, but as Vereshchagin had so recently mentioned, they didn’t travel on the waters of their worlds if they could avoid it. That characteristic helped confirm which planets they inhabited. The images of their worlds in the Hershel scans showed urban areas clustered along rivers and lakeshores — the Eridanin needed water to drink as much as humans did — but none of any great extent along sea coasts, breaking the pattern shown by so many other sentient races. In that regard Bjornssen, with its abundant oceans and coastlines, must have served them poorly.
Neil was surprised, then, when — after obtaining flashlights from the shed — they headed out across the lakebed toward what had, in Eridanin times, been an island. Their destination was a crag near the extant pool of brine. The stratified marks of erosion proved the upper portion had been above the waterline even when the lake was at its greatest extent. Above the highest scars left by the ancient waves, but below the point where the incline became too sharp for climbing, a dimple of shadow indicated the opening of a cave or tunnel.
Out in the flat they were buffeted by a dry but temperate wind. Neil found it necessary to step around several prairie wrigglers, native herbivores that resembled fist-sized balls of earthworms. Somewhere in each bundle of serpentine digits hid a mouth; he knew this because the creatures tumbled and rolled between the clumps of desert vegetation, gnawing at the fleshy parts like rodents and spitting out spines and burrs. For their sake, he hoped they would not be too voracious. If they ate the plants entirely they would have little shelter from predators.
He had probably seen images of this salt flat, taken by the Hershel. In twenty-seven years, some Earthbound astronomer might download the latest update and see the shed where he had interrogated Radner. He and Dimitri wouldn’t show up. Too small, and in any case their presence would be invisible. The Hershel gathered its information by taking snapshots once every planetary rotation and combining multiple exposures; anything mobile would not be recorded. And yet, out in the open, he felt exposed. The sky was aqua, not cerulean. Alien. It provided no buffer between him and the Thwaa escort vessel he knew to be up there in orbit. Perhaps over that very spot, at that very minute.
Something was watching them. A creature was hopping about the rocky summit ahead. Neil studied its elongated black shape, yellow beak, and membranous, batlike wings. When it settled down and folded those wings, it strongly resembled a crow, rather than one of Bjornssen’s native avians.
Why wasn’t it hunting on this fine, clear day? Already had its fill of prairie wrigglers?
It opened its mouth and screeched, dashing further comparisons to its Earth counterpart. A real crow’s voice would have been dulcet compared to that nails-on-chalkboard cacophony.
“What the hell is that?” Neil asked.
“That, my friend, is the most intelligent lifeform indigenous to the planet. It’s called a hugin. You’ve met Gudrun Olafsdottir? She named the species after one of Odin’s ravens.” Dimitri coughed. “Now I would have preferred a name from Greek mythology, but I’m not the head of the xenobiology task force.”
“Many of them around?”
“Fairly rare, actually.”
“He gives me the creeps,” Neil said.<
br />
“Yes. They like to observe. Natural curiosity. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could tell us what they’ve seen? They watched the Eridanin come and go. I’ve half a mind to bring one in for questioning.”
They arrived at the knees of the little mountain. A hundred meters of hard clambering brought them to the cave mouth. It appeared to be a natural opening, but Neil knew better. Its walls seemed to be made of the same rock as the rest of the formation, but the floor was unusually level, the passageways smooth.
His suspicions were confirmed when Dimitri urged him past the first bend. Their flashlights revealed a whorllike chamber with a ceiling barely as high as their heads — tall enough that the Eridanin would have considered the space roomy. Along the walls images rested in an array much like an art gallery.
Neil had once toured caves in France and witnessed firsthand the scenes left there by Paleolithic hunters. This presentation stirred those memories, but the detail here was too fine to have been applied by the strokes of brushes or by the spitting of pigment down hollow reeds. The spectrum of colors was wider than could be assembled from mixtures of charcoal, plant dyes, and saliva. They weren’t paintings at all. His fingertips could not tell a difference between the texture of the image areas and the rest of the walls. The pictures were part of the walls, made up of minerals, ores, and tiny gemstones that had evidently been manipulated into place at a microscopic level.
“We’ve found five of these shrines so far,” Dimitri said. “All the sites contain identical artwork, though the chambers themselves vary in size and shape. They date from early in the Eridanin occupation.”
Neil counted. “Ten scenes.”
“Yes.” The sacred number of the Eridanin, if Terran theories were correct. “This must have been quite a holy place to them.”
Neil gave all ten a thorough look. Every view contained dozens or hundreds of Eridanin. They truly were crablike, an impression only lightly conveyed in the paltry data the Thwaa had supplied. They had ten limbs. Their central bodies were low and squat. Their locomotion appeared to consist of scuttling, though only the rear three pairs of limbs were jointed in the manner of arthropods. Their extraterrestrial nature was emphasized chiefly by their centaurlike upper bodies, their huge eyes, and their long, coiled tongues.
The first scene was the most distinctive. It was an overview of a river valley. In the background two species of grazing animals — one vaguely mammalian, the other evoking comparison to duckbill dinosaurs — nibbled at meadow grass. Clouds wandered across a sky untouched by industrial haze. In the foreground, a spaceship rested in the meadow loam. Gangplank down, a party of Eridanin were emerging into the sunlight. The tongues of the aliens were extruded and swaying in the breeze. Most individuals had their four arms upraised. Neil could almost hear the cheers and see the grins.
The other nine views portrayed a freshly settled planet. Parks, bridges, bright new cities — including a mountain-ringed metropolis beside a lake that could have belonged to the ruins outside. The gallery was not unlike the sort of tribute humans would erect to their own civilization, save for the sheer density of urban life. Eridanin seemed to crawl right over each other to get to where they were going. In one scene, an immense brood of young slept three and four deep inside a vast hall, apparently in comfort, while adults played with the handful still awake.
“Quite a memorial,” Neil said.
“The other one I’ve personally seen was more eroded, but none of the sites suffered vandalism, not even at the end of the occupation. Ten thousand years they maintained the shrines. Doesn’t sound like a culture that failed to appreciate what they had, does it?”
Neil shook his head. “If I were the judge, I would say they cherished their tenancy.”
“Indeed. I presume the Thwaa knew that.”
“It’s likely. Your guess is as good as mine.”
Dimitri muttered, clearly unhappy with the opaque answer. He checked his watch again. “We’d better go. By the time you get back to Landfall, the governor should be ready for your meeting.”
Ah, yes. The governor, Neil thought sadly. Another person who won’t like having to see me.
o0o
“Are you feeling well?” inquired Dimitri as the transport started its approach toward the capital. The high desert around the caldera was long behind them, having given way to a landscape of rolling hills, woodlands, streams, and brushy rubble-fields where Eridanin towns had not quite fully decayed. Dusk was falling, hastened by their eastward flight.
Neil rubbed his temples, trying to massage out the headache that had sprouted halfway through the flight. He had rarely suffered headaches before the Thwaa had altered him. “Not really,” he admitted, “but it’s nothing you should be concerned about.”
Dimitri scratched the five o’clock shadow on his chin, saying nothing. In the old days, either in Athens or while they were both aides to Governor Brendt, prior to ark launch, Dimitri would have never have let Neil off so easily. He loved to diagnose, be the remedy a doctor’s visit, a night of drinking, or one of his wife’s home-cooked meals.
What I have can’t be cured by talking, Neil thought.
He peered out the window at the oncoming twilight. A lavender veil was climbing up from the eastern horizon. Below, the only lights were those of Landfall — a few fireflies in a shadowed wilderness. “We’re bypassing the capital.”
“Yes. I’m to drop you off at the residence. The pilot and I will take the body on to the morgue. I’ll have my own meeting with Brendt in the morning.”
“Oh, yes, the new house. He’s moved in, then?”
“Three days ago,” Dimitri said. “I believe you’ll be the first guest other than family.”
A few minutes later, Neil was left at a clearing in the woods — if the term “woods” could be applied to Bjornssen’s barkless, oddly colored analogs of trees — several kilometers from the capital.
Neil paused on the landing pad, gathering himself. In years past, the governor had been his boss, perhaps even his mentor. Now Neil was the one person on Bjornssen who reported to a higher level of authority. The role change placed him in apparel that hung as if cut four sizes too large.
A lone individual emerged from the shadows. Not the expected household servant.
“Neil. Welcome to my home,” Governor Brendt called, louder than necessary.
“Hello, sir,” Neil said.
“Let me show you my new sanctuary,” Brendt offered, only the weakness of his smile betraying his discomfiture. In other respects, he fulfilled the role of proud new homeowner completely. As they set off up a trail he paused to display a favorite feature: Repellers hidden in the foliage generated fields that warded off various species of small insectoids, common pests in this humid region of the continent.
The footpath was the only route to the site. The villa was constructed along the same lines as the nearby city, which is to say it blended into the native terrain as much as possible, with a minimum of pavement. The buildings were low and sprawling, hugging the contour of a small hill, roofs tucked below the level of the forest canopy so as not to mar the line of the horizon, the patio and courtyard shaded by century-old vegetation. Turn off the molecular stabilizers and the structures would return to the soil within a few generations.
They stopped on the patio deck. Inside two women sat on a matching pair of sofas, chatting, awash in the warm glow of the living room, apparently unaware of the two men standing outside in the twilight. Neil recognized the governor’s wife, Nadya, a sable-haired, long-necked beauty, and Brendt’s sister, Olivia, not so lovely but a better conversationalist. The scene was charmingly domestic. Inviting.
Brendt had seldom favored Neil so thoroughly when he was a mere employee. As Thwaa consul, he seldom did less.
Brendt opened the patio door and ushered Neil within. Nadya sprang up and greeted him with a hug and a kiss.
“Neil! How good to see you!”
“An excellent estate you’ve designed,” Neil t
old her.
“Thank you.” She glowed. “Sit down. Have some wine. You remember Olivia?”
“Of course.”
The evening was as soothing as the governor’s intimate gatherings often were. First, Neil was given a tour of the rooms. Next, the four shared a first-rate meal served by the governor’s unobtrusive domestic staff. Finally, they relaxed for hours sampling vintages from Brendt’s cellar. Neil’s new favorite proved to be a Napa Valley late harvest Riesling. He was sorry to hear they were consuming the last bottle in the Gamma Leporis A system. No matter how perfectly the longterm stasis/storage equipment aboard the ark had functioned, there had been only so much capacity aboard for amenities. In another few years the only wines anyone would be drinking would be those made on-planet.
The pleasantries may not have been entirely targeted at Neil himself, but he indulged in them nonetheless. God knew he spent enough evenings living the life of a pariah these days.
All too soon, Nadya and Olivia excused themselves to let governor and consul see to their business of the evening. The residual flavor of the Riesling soured in Neil’s mouth.
“I’ve reviewed a summary of the situation at the archaeological dig,” Brendt said when the euphony of the women’s voices had faded into the depths of the villa. “What in particular do you need to ask me about?”
Neil looked down, but felt Brendt regarding him steadily. He knew what the governor was really asking: Why the Thwaa had taken an interest? The murder was one incident out of thousands. They rarely scrutinized occurrences so closely as to send Neil on-site, to filter the news to them via their own peculiar information-gathering methods.
The presence inside his mind gained coherence. Without words, as always, he received the directive, and knew what he was expected to say. It would not answer the governor’s unspoken question, but it would address the one he had actually asked.
