Echoes of an Alien Sky

by James P. Hogan

  The phone rang on a side table. Borakov stopped his playing and reached to take the call. He would not have been disturbed without some good reason. His secretary spoke from the office downstairs in the house. "Greganin is asking to talk to you. He says it is urgent." Josef Greganin was a presidential aide in Moscow.

  "Put him through," Borakov said.

  "Leon?"

  "Yes. Hello, Josef."

  "Have you heard the news?"

  "What?" There was a hollowness in Borakov's voice. A premonition told him it was something he had been expecting but refused to acknowledge consciously.

  "The Chinese are landing on Taiwan." The situation had been escalating two weeks. They had threatened to dismantle the new missile installation there themselves if their demands for removal were not met.

  "The talks?" Borakov said. Negotiations had been going on behind the scenes that the public in saw.

  "It sounds as if they've given up," Greganin told him. "The word is that the Chinese were rebuffed. The Americans were never not serious. They went through the motions for the historical record. But China won't let itself be seen as being cowed in the eyes of the world."

  Borakov was horrified. "But this is exactly what the Americans want, Josef! We both know that those missiles were only put there as a provocation."

  "But the West doesn't know. Their media are already shouting about naked aggression. President Rafton was on fifteen minutes ago, spouting the usual claptrap about defending freedom and values. The naval battle group that they've got in the area is moving in. There are unconfirmed reports of aircraft engagements already."

  Borakov felt his mouth going dry. "This is it, then?"

  "It looks like it. I would advise you to get out, my friend. The first place it will spread is across into central Asia from the Gulf. You'll be in a prime war zone there. It could be in a matter of days."

  Borakov and his family evacuated their home when American bombers begin attacking local targets. The town below was pummeled in the fighting that followed when the southern battle lines drew nearer, and the house was reduced to rubble by artillery fire. Later, when a counter-attack came, the pocket that the ruin stood in was inundated by an emptying lake when a cruise missile carrying a tactical nuclear warhead destroyed the dam in the valley above.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was as well that Kyal had thought to find a general store and equip himself with some warm clothing and sturdy boots before leaving Rhombus. His twinge of agoraphobia had passed, and the feeling of openness and freedom when he emerged from a twin-rotor chopper at Foothills Camp was exhilarating after the enclosed, artificial worlds of the Melther Jorg and Explorer 6, and the concentrated bustle of Rhombus. The only human habitation to be seen was the scattering of shacks and tents fringing the archeological excavations beginning a short distance away on one side of the airstrip. On the other, rolling wooded hills rose toward the distant peaks of the Caucasus, white with snow against a clear sky. Kyal had never seen snow before. The freshness of the breeze coming from the east was intoxicating. After consulting with the site office at the airstrip and obtaining a photocopy of a crude map of the area, he decided to postpone looking at the diggings until later and get some exercise for legs that hadn't been used enough for a while by hiking a few miles up into the hills. The sun-baked soil and rocks, and tall, slender Terran trees with their strange needle-like leaves were unlike any scenery on Venus. As he gained height and the vista below expanded, he began to think that perhaps he would stay on here until tomorrow. It was already becoming obvious that a week would be hopelessly inadequate for the kind of plans that he had envisaged.

  After an hour or maybe more, he stopped to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree. Sitting there, he could make out the general form of the town that had stood in the valley below from the lines of the archeological cuttings and trenches. According to the notes that he had pulled from the net and read during the flight up, it had been attacked first by one side and then by the other in the Central Asian War, and the ruins that were left were submerged when a dam higher up in the valley that Kyal had followed was destroyed. The ensuing geological conditions proved unusually conducive to preservation, which was what had attracted the archeologists. Although the particular town that had stood here was abandoned because of the flooding, other towns destroyed in the Central Asian War had been rebuilt, only to be razed again in the even greater war that came later. Seemingly a continuation after a period of recovery, with some shifting of alliances, it had gone to even greater extremes, involving weaponry and combat in space. There were even some indications of its spreading to the Moon.

  Kyal was beginning to feel cooler now that he had stopped climbing. He pulled the hooded parka closer around him over his sweater and stared down over the bare valley where a town had been, trying to picture in his mind the things that had happened here long ago. Large white birds with black markings were wheeling lazily over a stream winding a rocky course between deep banks of green. It was all so quiet and peaceful and tranquil now. Yet how many lives had ended horribly in this very place, screaming in terror and agony amid carnage, flames, noise, and violence that he was probably incapable of imagining? The folly and the waste of it all still sickened him.

  The Terran Western civilization had emerged out of a confused pattern of rivalries and wars that the exo-historians were still far from being able to agree over. After being weakened by endless strife among themselves, the original core nations of Europe were invaded from the east by Russia, which had come to dominate a large part of Asia, and by America from across the ocean to the west. An enigma here was that America's principal partners in this were the same British whom the Americans had rebelled against and evicted not long before; but the British seemed to have had a history of fighting either against or alongside just about everybody at some time or another, so their far-flung empire probably expired from exhaustion.

  Another conundrum was the Japanese, who while overrunning the Europeans' possessions in Asia were fighting the Americans, while the Americans were at the same time invading Europe in the west. Whatever the explanation of that was, the overall situation appeared to make the Americans and the Russians allies. However, they turned out at the end of it all to be ferociously opposed to one another, and world's main fear for some time became that of a major nuclear conflict between them, with the Europeans now aligned with America.

  And the confusion didn't end there. After a series of escalating local conflicts, the big clash when it came was with a late but rapidly developing China—which had previously sided with the Americans and the Europeans against Japan.

  By now, Kyal was not only chilly but getting hungry. In the last-minute rush to make the morning flight, he hadn't eaten anything yet that day. He stood up, waved his arms and stamped to get some circulation moving, took a last look around at the serenity where he had rested, and began the easier trek down. He was intrigued to see his breath condensing into a white stream of vapor. That never happened on Venus either.

  Back down at the site of the town, he spent some time as he had intended, touring the archeological excavations and talking with some of the workers. One sector consisted of practically a whole street of unearthed shops that had yielded collections of items ranging from electronics devices and kitchen appliances to clothing, shoes, and children's toys. One of the walls had a door still attached, with several panes of glass intact.

  From there, he followed a track to a repository back near the airstrip where items were sorted and catalogued, and saw some examples of Terran jewelry and decorative art. The Terrans seemed to have been able to devote more of their lives to such things than was possible on Venus, where the harsher conditions made eking the essentials to staying alive a constant struggle. By comparison, the Terrans had been endowed with a garden capable of providing everything they needed in abundance. So did people compete and fight when they could have plenty for all, but work together and share in the face of scarcity? It seemed p
aradoxical.

  Alongside the repository was a cabin next door was devoted to classifying and copying written material, and treating precious originals for preservation. Although it was a trove of books and other documents, translation was not performed here, and Kyal had to content himself with browsing through some of the images of pictures that skillful electronic manipulation had extracted from the fragile ancient sheets.

  He found some views of the town as it had been, with high square buildings and streets busy with people and amazingly many cars. It was bright and colorful compared to typical towns on Venus, and had evidently been laid out with more consideration given to space and aesthetics. Another consequence of having unlimited habitable land and the luxury of more time to spare for leisure, Kyal supposed. There were other images of the Terrans themselves: groups posing; children laughing; heads and shoulders; faces smiling, frowning, looking solemn; what appeared to be prominent figures making speeches, shaking hands in the Terran custom. Kyal found that by being here, seeing the land they had lived in, contemplating things they had made and used, and now gazing at their likenesses, he was developing a growing fascination for this strange, lost race. On the one hand so impulsive, cruel, violent, irrational. On the other, so ordinary. Would it be possible, ever, to really understand them? Why did he care?

  He realized suddenly that he was no alone. A woman was standing at one of the other tables across the room, like him, poring over some of the sets of pictures. He wasn't sure if she had been there all along or had come in after he. He hadn't noticed anyone when he entered—but she could have been there and moved around from one of the other sections. If so, she moved quietly. She seemed to notice him at the same time as he did her. It was hardly a situation in which they could comfortably ignore each other. Kyal bowed his head by the correct amount. She inclined hers a fraction less—the female's privilege. They held each other's eye questioningly for a moment. "Kyal Reen," he said. "A pleasure, I'm sure."

  "Lorili Hilivar. Full of 'i's." Her manner was immediately easy and direct. The hint of a smile played on the corners of her mouth as her eyes interrogated him silently. "You don't waste very much time, Mr. Reen. Just down from orbit, and traveling the surface already. I'm suitably impressed."

  Kyal reciprocated by permitting a grin. "We used the tanning booths on the ship. How can you tell?"

  "Oh, the sweater and parka are new. The shirt is the floppy ship's fatigue kind that they issue on the trips out. The collar has a little MJ motif on it, and the Melther Jorg docked at Explorer 6 yesterday."

  "That's amazing." Kyal answered in a distant voice. After the solitude of the morning, his mind hadn't fully adjusted to the sudden company, and he was still taking her in. She had rich black hair reaching to her shoulders with just enough of a curve not to look stark, and a pleasantly tapering oval face with a narrow chin, full mouth, and a slight turn-up to the nose. Her complexion was pale, whether naturally or from some cosmetic he couldn't tell, adding a contrast that set off her features and her hair.

  "Where will you be heading eventually? she asked.

  "Luna, after a short break to cut my teeth down here. Checking out some unusual Terran constructions on Farside. They look as if they might be connected with space electromagnetics. That's what I do."

  "That's interesting. I didn't know the Terrans were into things like that," she said.

  "Neither did anyone else. That's why they're unusual."

  Cordiality being satisfied, it would have been acceptable at this point for Lorili to return her attention to whatever she had been studying. She didn't, however, but continued looking at him with a with an easy directness that invited continuation. It was flattering but at the same time mildly disorienting. "I suppose it's my turn," he said, searching hopefully for a lead to reciprocate her power of divination. She was wearing an open gray coat over a lightweight tan sweater and work slacks; but it left him with nothing to go on other than her slight accent. "Gallendian?" he guessed.

  "Close. Korbisan." The island nation was off Gallenda was traditionally a friend of Ulange, where Kyal was from. "How about you?" she said. "Ulangean?"

  He grinned a capitulation. "Right again. Have you been on Earth long?"

  "A little over four months now. I came out on the MJ too."

  "So what do you do here?"

  "I'm a microbiologist—from the Korbisanian State Institute. Of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, that is. I do nucleic acid sequences and genes, and wet sticky things like that. Not like electromagnetics at all. Based at Rhombus."

  "There was a microbiologist with us on the trip out who was going to Rhombus," Kyal said. "Gofel Sartzow."

  Lorili nodded. "Yes, I know the name. We're expecting him. He'll be joining a group in the same section. But I don't think he's down from orbit yet. You must be a VIP. They usually get moved through first. Who will you be working under, Sherven?"

  Well, Naseena seemed to have done all right, Kyal reflected; but it wasn't worth quibbling over. "Borgan Casselo," he replied. "He runs the physics part of theoperation."

  "Yes. I've heard he's very good."

  It was rare for Kyal to feel so comfortable and at ease with a stranger so quickly. After just a few minutes they had fallen into using the familiar voice, and it seemed as natural as talking with an old friend like Yorim. "So what brings you out here among the relics and ruins?" he inquired. "Did you decide it was time to take a break too?"

  "Yes, exactly that. A small group of us are doing the rounds. We've seen the mountains and the deserts, so we thought it was time to balance things out with some of the serious stuff."

  "So where are they—the others?"

  Lorili made a tossing motion with her head to indicate the door and the world outside in general. "Oh, they set off early to hike up and see the remains of a power plant and dam in a valley up above the town. Machines and pipes. As I said, I'm more molecules and Petri dishes. Anyway, you get to see enough of the same people, shut up in labs and around the base all the time."

  "Tell me about it," Kyal agreed with feeling. He toward the image prints that she had been looking at. "What have you got here? Mind if I look?"

  "Sure."

  Kyal moved across to the other table. The pictures were from Terran wars: military aircraft in action; missiles being launched; defense works with dug-in artillery; some tanks very like the one he had seen the previous day. From the backgrounds and landscapes, they could have been from this area. He pursed his lips while he thought for the right words, but then saw from Lorili's expression that it didn't matter; she was waiting for it. "Unusual interests for a lady," he commented.

  She paused for a moment before answering, as if she were weighing up the tack it might be best to take. "It isn't so much military things in themselves. More the spirit that they represent. Underneath all their madness, there was something fine about the Terran spirit, something . . . indomitable." She seemed to wait for a reaction. Kyal hoped he wasn't about to get another Progressive pitch. Lorili indicated the images with a wave. "Do you know about the war that destroyed the town that was here?"

  "The Central Asian one. A little."

  Lorili looked down at the images again and sighed. "The very tribulations that they inflicted on themselves forged qualities of courage, resilience . . . the ability to endure against hopeless odds in ways that few of us could match. That war began when the West moved to defend a tiny island over in the east that was being invaded by a giant power. All for honor and to protect the rights of the people who lived there. Don't you think that's wonderful?"

  "I know some people think so," Kyal answered. He sought for a way to sound neutral without being too concessionary. "But then, I'm not sure how far you can trust their own accounts. It wasn't unusual for their governments and news media to lie to the people. They worked for powerful elites, not for the general good. Even in systems that claimed to be run by majority decisions, and where the majority clearly didn't believe them." He felt it needed spelling out,
because such a state of affairs would have been unthinkable on Venus. Government positions were seen as privileged opportunities to serve the people on behalf of the heads of state. Few worse crimes were imaginable than abusing such offices for personal gain.

  She eyed him for a moment longer and then dismissed the subject with a nod. "Maybe so, I suppose. But it's something to think about, isn't it?" If she had been sounding him out, she had better radar than Jenyn. Kyal decided that he was getting to like this person more and more already.

  "Is there anywhere near here where you can get something to eat?" he asked. "It was an early start this morning. I haven't had breakfast yet."

  "The airstrip chow shack is practically next door," she replied. "They've always got something going."