Jack Mcdevitt - Engines of god
Page 4
enemies remembered. "Not tonight," said Richard. "It's brisk out there." Ed grinned. "When will you be coming to D.C.? Mary
would like to see you." "Thanks. Tell Mary I said hello." Richard raised his glass toward his old friend. "Nowhere I'd rather be. But probably not for a while. Listen, I just got a transmission from Henry."
"He sent it here, too. I haven't seen it. Something about a Grim Reaper?"
"Something about the Monument-Makers," Richard explained. Ed began to look uncomfortable.
"We've got a problem," he said. "You know we're getting ready to pull the plug on Quraqua."
Richard knew. Quraqua was first in line to be terraformed. It was to be the New Earth. (No other world offered hope of supporting a settlement, save Inakademeri. Nok. But that garden world was already home to a civilization.) Now, a wide group of powerful interests saw Quraqua as a laboratory, a place to establish a Utopia, a place to start over. "When?"
"Six weeks. A little less. Henry was supposed to be out of there by now. But you know how he is. Hell, Richard, once they start, we're finished. Forever."
Well, for a half-century anyhow. Might as well be forever. "You can't let it happen, Ed. The situation's changed."
"I can't see how. Nobody gives a damn about the Monument-Makers. Not really. You and me, maybe. Not the taxpayers. And certainly not the politicians. But a lot of people are excited about terraforming. There won't be any more delays."
"Have you spoken to Caseway?"
"No. And I don't intend to. That son of a bitch wouldn't give us the time of day. No." Homer's eyes flashed. Richard read his old friend's frustration. "Look, you know I would if I thought there was a chance. Why don't you try talking to him?"
"Me?"
"Yeah. He thinks you're the big hotshot with this outfit. He's read your books. Always speaks highly of you. Asked me why the rest of us couldn't be more like you. Wald wouldn't put his own interests first, he says. Thinks you have a sense of decency. Unlike me, apparently."
Richard grinned. "Can't argue with him there." The wind howled over the house. "Ed, can you get me transportation to Quraqua?"
"Why?"
"Because we're running out of time. I'd like to see the Temple. And Oz. Can you do it?"
"We have a flight going out to pick up Henry and his people."
"When?"
"When can you be ready?"
"Soon as the storm blows over. Thanks, Ed."
The comers of Homer's mouth rose. "I want you to do something for me."
"Name it."
"Two things, actually. I would like you to consider talking to Caseway. And, when you get to Quraqua, make sure Henry gets off with time to spare. Okay?"
NEWS DESK
NO END IN SIGHT FOR MIDWEST DROUGHT
Small Farm Bankruptcies Up Ninth Straight Year
NAV, Quebec Promise Help
INFLATION SOARS TO 26%
October Figures Fueled by Food, Medical Costs
Housing, Energy Down Slightly
GREENHOUSE GROUP PESSIMISTIC Natural Processes Have Taken Over, Says Tyler
"We Waited Too Long" President-Elect Announces Wide-Ranging Agenda
How You Going to Keep Them Off the Farm?
EUROPEAN URBAN POPULATION HITS NEW LOW 71% Now Live in Rural or Suburban Areas
Similar Trend in NAU (See related story following)
FOXWORTH REASSURES MAYORS
ON FOOD TRANSPORT Insists Breakdown Cannot Happen Again Will Implement Ad Campaign To Halt Flight from Cities
BRITAIN, FRANCE REVEAL PLANS FOR NEW INNER
COUNCIL "We Can Avoid the Old Mistakes," says Kingsley
Cites "Executive Group with Teeth" Haversham Warns of World Government
572 DIE IN MIDAIR COLLISION OVER MED Massive Search on for Black Box
HORNCAF ARRESTED WITH PROSTITUTE
Holovangelist Claims Interest Only in Her Soul
Sex Scandal Latest in Series
WET YEAR PREDICTED FOR MEXICO Rainfall Expected to Double Summer Planting in Danger
THIRD WORLD GROUP CALLS FOR SHUTDOWN OF MOONBASE
"Insult to World's Starving Populations"
Demonstrations Scheduled in NAU, UK, Russia,
Germany, Japan
MARK HATCHER BURIED IN LONDON Dead With Six-pack, A Poetic Tour Through the Great Famine
Won PulUzer in 2172 Had Been in Seclusion 30 Years
MILLIONS DEAD IN INDOCHINA
Drought Worsens Throughout Subcontinent Council to Consider Options
REBELS SEIZE KATMANDU Hundreds Die in Street-Fighting
NAU POPULATION REACHES 200 MILLION
Foxworth Promises Action Propose More Benefits for Childless Couples
POPE ON THIRD DAY OF FRENCH TOUR
Soys Moss at Notre Dame Nouveau Exhorts Faithful on Advantages of Celibacy
GROUND WATER DESTROYING EGYPTIAN
MONUMENTS
Ancient Heritage at Risk
Restoration Groups Mobilize
GUNMAN KILLS SEVEN IN LIBRARY
Shoots Self as Police Close In Former Girlfriend Hides in Stacks
POLL REVEALS AMERICANS TURNING OFF POLITICS Voters Cynical in Wake of Sex, Money Scandals
ISRAELI LEADER DENOUNCES QURAQUA RELOCATION PLAN "We Will Wait for a World of Our Own"
NAU WILL CUT BACK STAR FLIGHTS
Move Forced by Budgetary Constraints
(See two related stories following)
LIVABLE WORLDS EXTREMELY SCARCE
Odds Astronomical Commission Recommends Resources Go Elsewhere
Quraqua To Be Ready in Fifty Years "One New World Is Enough," Says Hofstadtler
PROTEST PLANNED BY NEW-EARTH SOCIETY "Don't Abandon the Hunt," Warns Narimata
3.
Arlington. Saturday, May 8; 0915 hours.
The chime brought her out of a warm, silky dream. She fumbled at the lamp stand and touched the commlink. "Yes?"
"Hutch?" Richard's voice. "They tell me you're the pilot for the Temple flight."
"Yes," she said sleepily.
"Good. I'll be going with you."
She came awake. That was a pleasant surprise. She had not been looking forward to a month alone rattling around in Wink. "I'm delighted to hear it," she said. But she wondered why he'd bother. This was strictly an evacuation run.
"I'd have asked for you in any case," he was explaining.
"And I'd have appreciated the business." Hutch was a contractor, not an employee of the Academy. "Why are you going?"
"I want to see Oz," he said.
Richard signed off. Below, a tour boat with a canvas awning circled Republic Island, leaning to port while its passengers crowded the rail. They carried umbrellas against a light rain that had been falling all morning. They munched sandwiches, and dragged windbreakers for which they had no need. A fat man in a misshapen gray sweater sat in back, feeding gulls.
A brisk wind disturbed the surface of the river. Richard watched from his air taxi. Brightly colored pennants fluttered along both beams. A young couple on the starboard side paid far more attention to each other than to the monument. On the island, a group of kids, shepherded by a harried woman with a cane, trailed blue and red balloons. The fleet of sailboats that usually filled the river had not appeared. The fat man
crumpled a white bag and opened another. He looked at peace with the world.
Richard envied him. Feed the gulls, and enjoy the monuments.
The taxi banked west. Constitution Island lay to his right, with its cluster of public buildings. The old Capitol had all but vanished into the rising mist. The Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Brockman monuments stood serenely on their embankments. And the White House: nothing in D.C. quite stirred the emotions like the sight of the former executive mansion, defiant behind its dikes. Old Glory still flew, rippling above the green and white banner of the North American Union. This was the only site in the country where the national colors gave precedence to another flag. Lights bur
ned in the towers along the Arlington shore. The air taxi swung in a wide arc toward the Virginia side Richard reluctantly turned his thoughts to the coming ordeal. He disliked confrontations. He was accustomed to deference, to people who listened politely and, if they disagreed, knew how to respond without being disagreeable. Norman Caseway, CEO of Kosmik, Inc., was the prime mover behind the Second Earth initiative. And he could be expected to show no such fastidiousness. Caseway was no respecter of per-sons. He was an alley fighter, a brawler who enjoyed leaving hoofmarks on opponents. He particularly relished assaulting academic types, as several of Richard's colleagues had discovered to their dismay.
Richard had never met Caseway. He'd seen his antics on NET. A few weeks ago, he'd watched him demolish poor old Kinsey Atworth, an economist whose tongue was not as quick as his brain. Caseway's strategy was to attack the motives of anyone who opposed him, to mock, to sneer, to enrage. And then to back off coolly while his opponent sputtered and self-destructed. The man enjoyed humiliating people. Always speaks highly of you, Ed had said. He's read your books.
He passed over Potomac Island and the Pentagon, and descended toward Goley Inlet. The taxi rolled in a wide, lazy spiral and landed atop the Crystal Twins. Richard's restraints snapped open, and the hatch slid back, He inserted his card into the reader. The taxi thanked him, wished him good day. He stepped out into warm, sluggish air, and the taxi lurched skyward, far more quickly than it would have with a passenger aboard. It turned south toward Alexandria and soared quickly over the hotels.
Norman Caseway lived with his wife and daughter in what the Towers was pleased to call its Observatory Suite, a lush penthouse that occupied parts of two floors. He was greeted at the door by an attractive middle-aged woman. "Dr. Wald? We're happy you could come." The smile was perfunctory. "I'm Ann Caseway."
"Pleased to meet you." She did not offer her hand, and Richard detected a stiffness which seemed alien to her appearance. Ann Caseway was, he judged, a woman both congenial and casual. Under normal circumstances.
"My husband's waiting for you in his office."
"Thank you." He followed her into a reception room, tastefully decorated with embroidered wall-hangings and Caribbean basket-chairs, and a curved springwood table.
Long windows overlooked the Potomac, and the ceiling was vaulted glass. The overall display of wealth and success was calculated to intimidate visitors. Richard smiled at the transparency of the tactic. Still, reluctantly, he recognized that it did affect him.
"This must be difficult for you," she said smoothly. "Norman hoped it might be possible to talk things out with someone at your level." There was the barest hint of regret, not unmixed with satisfaction, in her voice. Regret perhaps that Richard would be an unseemly victim to throw to her husband, satisfaction stemming from the end of the long argument with the Academy over Quraqua, with its threats of court battles and sequestration of funds. Nice to see the enemy at the door, hat in hand.
Damn the woman.
She led him through a conference room filled with Kosmik trophies and memorabilia, photos of Caseway with famous people, Caseway signing documents, Caseway cutting ribbons. Awards, certificates of appreciation from charities and public organizations, plaques from government agencies, were present in such profusion that they overflowed the walls and lay in piles. An antique dark-stained roll top desk dominated the room. It was shut, but a framed news bulletin, with a photo, stood prominently on its top. The bulletin, dated thirty years before, read: BRAINTREE MAN RESCUES BOY WHO FELL THROUGH ICE. The hero in the photo was a young Caseway.
"This way, please." She opened an inner door and sunlight blinded him. This wasn't the feeble mid-May sunlight of Virginia. Nor even of a summer day in New Mexico. This was off-Earth sunlight. Naked white sunlight. She handed him a pair of dark glasses.
"Welcome, Dr. Wald." The voice, rich, precise, confident, came from within the glare.
A sand dune half-blocked the doorway. A hologram, of course. Richard strolled directly through the dune (which was not playing the game), and stepped into a desert. The room was air-conditioned. Flat sand stretched to the horizon.
A few feet away, Norman Caseway sat in one of two wing chairs behind a coffee table. A bottle of Burgundy and two goblets were on the table. One was half-full.
He was well turned-out—red jacket, tie, neatly pressed dark blue trousers. Dark lenses hid his eyes. Behind him, rising out of the desert, was Holtzmyer's Rock.
Caseway filled Richard's glass. "I hope you don't mind that I started without you."
They were on Pinnacle. Holtzmyer's Rock looked like a gigantic washed-out red onion rooted in the sand. It stood more than thirty meters high, eight stories. The original was composed of individual pieces of stone, so cunningly fitted that the seams were not visible without close inspection. The object had been dated at almost a million years. Arnie Holtzmyer, who'd stumbled on it almost twenty-two years ago, had been the least competent professional Richard had known. Had the sand been a little higher, Arnie would never have seen it.
The intent of its builders was unknown. It was solid rock, with four inner chambers but no means of reaching them. The chambers were empty, and did not seem to have any geometric order.
"What did you feel when you came to this place?" Caseway's voice, breaking into his reverie, startled him.
"Its age," Richard said, after a moment's reflection. "It felt old."
"You didn't mention that. In your book."
"I didn't think it was important."
"You were writing for the general public. About a structure
that seems to be unique on Pinnacle. Nobody knows what its purpose was. Or anything about it. What else was there to talk about except your feelings?"
The book was Midnight on Pinnacle. Richard had dwelt on brick texture, on the discoloration near the top that suggested a long delay during construction. He had made observations relating to the geometry of the object, and drew inferences from the fact that it stood alone. He had traced the geological history of the land on which it rested, pointing out that it had probably been a prairie at the time of construction. He had provided graphs showing how long it had been buried. And described recent wind action which had uncovered the object for Amie.
"I'd like to go out there myself some day." Caseway rose and offered a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Dr. Wald. Glad you could find time to come by."
Richard was thinking of the inadequacies of holograms. You can't sip wine out near Holtzmyer's Rock. On the other hand, when he had stood in a high wind years ago and pressed his fingertips against the blistered stone, he had been shielded from the heat by his Flickinger field. The sand had rattled against the energy envelope, and the wind had tried to blow him over. Like Caseway, he had never really been there.
"Yes. Well, I needed to talk to you." Richard was naturally gregarious. Despite the years that make cynics of most people, he believed everyone could be reasoned with. He took the proffered hand and squeezed it warmly.
Caseway was a small, heavy man in late middle age. He reminded Richard of a master chess player he had once known, a man of infinite deliberation. He observed all the courtesies, and his manner suggested that he had taken the moral high ground, and that they both knew it. His voice filled with passion, and Richard understood that he was dealing with no empty opportunist. Norman Caseway perceived himself as a benefactor of the species.
"Please, sit down." His host turned his chair to face him. "I assume you'd like to talk about Project Hope."
Right to the point. Richard tasted his Burgundy. "Apparently, Mr. Caseway, there's been some bitterness."
"My friends call me Norman. And that's something of an understatement, Richard."
Richard folded his hands across his waist. "I would have preferred it otherwise."
"Doubtless. So would I. You should know Horner went behind my back. Tried to pull political strings."
"Ed means well. Maybe it didn't occur to him to just ask."
"Sometimes."
"Tell him that if it had been possible to oblige him, I would have done so. If he had been willing to approach me directly. And talk to me."
"What you're saying is that it would have made no difference."
Caseway's lips tightened. "None," he said. "Under the circumstances, I really have no choice but to proceed."
"I see."
"If it's any consolation, I take no pleasure in this. I understand the archeological value of Quraqua. And I have a reasonable idea what we stand to lose. But you have had twenty-eight years on that world—"
"That's a long time in a man's life. Mr. Caseway. But it is very short when we are trying to reconstruct the history of an entire world."
"Of course." He smiled at Richard's persistence in using the formal address. But he refused to take offense. "Nevertheless, there are pressing considerations. We are not entirely free to choose our time frames." He sipped his drink. "What a marvelous place Pinnacle must be. I wonder what they were like."
"We'll know eventually. We are already able to make reasonable assumptions. We know they believed in survival beyond the grave. We know they valued mountaintops and seacoasts. We know they succeeded in eliminating war. We even know something about their music. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about a private corporation seizing the world."
"I understand." Caseway looked genuinely regretful. "I envy you. I don't know anyone who has a more interesting line of work. And I would oblige you in a moment, if I could."
"It would be to everyone's benefit." He wished they were somewhere else, away from the glare. He would have preferred being able to see Caseway's eyes. He took his own glasses off to emphasize the gravity of the moment. "The last of the natives on Quraqua died off probably about the middle of the seventeenth century. They were all that was left, scattered in dying cities around their world, of a prosperous and vital web of civilizations that spanned their globe only three thousand years ago. We don't know what happened to them. They collapsed, over a short period of time. Nobody knows why. They were technologically backward, by our standards. Which should have helped them survive, because they were still close to their roots, and not vulnerable to the kinds of problems we've experienced."