Eternity Road

by Jack McDevitt

  “No.” She didn’t even understand the question. “I have no idea.”

  Winston placed his hat in his lap. “Yes. We seem to be quite abandoned,” he said. Somehow, the fact of desolation acquired significance from his having noted it. “I regret to say I’ve never heard of Illyria. Where is it, may I ask?”

  “Two months southwest. In the valley of the Mississippi.”

  “I see.” His tone suggested very clearly that he did not see. “Well, I know where the Mississippi is.” He laughed as if he thought that remark quite funny.

  “But you really do not know Illyria?”

  He peered into her eyes. “I fear there’s a great deal I do not know.” His mood seemed to be darkening. “Are you and your friends going home?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “We are looking for Haven.”

  “Haven?” He blinked. “Where on earth is that?”

  “We don’t know, Winston.”

  “Well, then, I suspect you’re going to have a bloody awful time finding it. Meantime, you’re welcome to stay here. But I don’t think it’s very comfortable.”

  “Thank you, no. You haven’t heard of Haven, either?”

  Winston nodded and his forehead crinkled. There was a brooding fire in his eyes. “Is it near Toronto?”

  Chaka looked over at Quait and wondered whether she should wake him. “I don’t know,” she said. “Where’s Toronto?”

  That brought a wide smile. “Well,” he said, “it certainly appears one of us is lost. I wonder which it is.”

  She saw the glint in his eye and returned the smile. They were both lost.

  “Where’s Toronto?” she asked again.

  “Three hundred kilometers to the northeast. Directly out Highway 401.”

  “Highway 401? There’s no highway out there anywhere. At least none that I’ve seen.”

  The cigar tip brightened and dimmed. “Oh, my. It must be a long time.”

  She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Winston, I really don’t understand much of this conversation.”

  “Nor do I.” His eyes looked deep into hers. “What is this Haven?”

  She was not shocked at his ignorance. After all, Mike hadn’t known either. “Haven was the home of Abraham Polk,” she said hopefully.

  Winston shook his head. “Try again,” he said.

  “Polk lived at the end of the age of the Roadmakers. He knew the world was collapsing, that the cities were dying. He saved what he could. The treasures. The knowledge. The history. Everything. And he stored it in a fortress with an undersea entrance.”

  “An undersea entrance,” said Winston. “It must be a fair distance from here. How do you propose to get in?”

  “I don’t think we shall,” said Chaka. “We are going to give it up and go home.”

  Winston nodded. “The fire’s getting low,” he said.

  She poked at it and added a log. “No one even knows whether Polk really lived. He may only be a legend.”

  Light filled the grotto entrance. Seconds later, thunder rumbled. “Haven sounds quite a lot like Camelot,” he said.

  Camelot? He must also have read Connecticut Yankee.

  “You’ve implied,” he continued, after taking a moment to enjoy his weed, “that the world outside has been destroyed.”

  “Oh, no. Only the cities have been destroyed. The world is doing fine.”

  “But there are ruins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Extensive?”

  “They fill the forests, clog the rivers, lie in the shallow waters of the harbors. Yes, you could say they’re extensive. Some are even active, in strange ways. Like this one.”

  “And what do you know of the British?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know the British, sir.”

  “Well, that will probably make the Americans happy. You say everything is locked away in this Haven?”

  “Yes.”

  “On which you are about to turn your back.”

  “We’re exhausted, Winston.” She had by now concluded that Winston was related to Mike and the entity or entities in the bank. He was real, but not a man. He looked like a man, but he talked like someone misplaced in time. She was beginning to recognize the trait.

  “Your driving curiosity, Chaka, leaves me breathless.”

  Damn. “Look, it’s easy enough for you to point a finger. You have no idea what we’ve been through. None. We have three people dead.”

  Winston looked steadily at her. “Three dead? I’m sorry to hear that. But the prize sounds as if it might be of great consequence.”

  “It is. But there are only three of us left,” she said.

  “Chaka, history is never made by crowds. Nor by the cautious. Always, it is the lone captain who sets the course.”

  “It’s over. We’ll be lucky to get home alive.”

  “That may be true. And certainly it is true that going on to your goal entails great risk. But you must decide whether the prize is not worth the risk.”

  “We will decide. My partners and I.” Her temper was rising. “We’ve done enough. It would be unreasonable to go on.”

  “The value of reason is often exaggerated, Chaka. It would have been reasonable to accept Hitler’s offer of terms in 1940.”

  “What?”

  He waved the question away. “It’s no matter now. But reason, under pressure, usually produces prudence when boldness is called for.”

  “I’m not a coward, Winston.”

  “I’m sure you aren’t. Or you would not be here.” He bit down hard on his weed. A blue cloud drifted toward her. It hurt her eyes and she backed away.

  “Are you a ghost?” she asked. The question did not seem at all foolish.

  “I suspect I am. I’m something left behind by the retreating tide.” The fire glowed in his eyes. “I wonder whether, when an event is no longer remembered by any living person, it loses all significance? Whether it is as if it never happened?”

  Flojian stirred in his sleep, but did not wake.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” said Chaka.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke.

  Winston got to his feet. “I’m not comfortable here,” he said.

  She thought he was expressing displeasure with her.

  “The floor is hard on an old man. And of course you are right: You and your comrades will decide whether to go on. Camelot was a never-never land. Its chief value lay in the fact that people believed in certain qualities associated with it. Perhaps the same thing is true of Haven. Maybe you’re right to turn back.”

  “No,” she said. “It exists.”

  “And is anyone else looking for this place?”

  “No one. We will be the second mission to fail. I don’t think there will be another.”

  “Then let it be buried, Chaka of Illyria. Let it be buried with your lost companions.”

  She backed away from him. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Why do you care?”

  “Why did you come so far?”

  “My brother was with the first expedition. I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

  “And the others?”

  “Quait? He’s a scholar. Like Silas.” She took a deep breath. “We lost Silas. And Flojian came because his father’s reputation was ruined by the first expedition.”

  His eyes grew thoughtful. “If those are your reasons for coming, child, then I advise you to go back. Write the venture off and invest your money in real estate.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “But I would put it to you that those are not the reasons you dared so much. And that you wish to turn away because you have forgot your true purpose.”

  “That’s not so,” she said.

  “Of course it’s so. Shall I tell you why you undertook to travel through an unknown world, on the hope that you might, might, find a place that’s half mythical?” Momentarily he seemed to fade, to lose definition. “Haven has nothing to do with brothers or w
ith scholarship or with reputation. If you got there, if you were able to read its secrets, you would have all that, provided you could get home with it. But you would have acquired something infinitely more valuable, and I believe you know what it is: You would have discovered who you really are. You would learn that you are a daughter of the people who designed the Acropolis, who wrote Hamlet, who visited the moons of Neptune. Do you know about Neptune?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then we’ve lost everything, Chaka. But you can get it back. If you’re willing to take it. And if not you, then someone else. But by God, it is worth the taking.” His voice quivered and he seemed close to tears.

  Momentarily, he became one with the dark.

  “Winston,” she said, “I can’t see you. Are you still there?”

  “I am here. The system’s old, and will not keep a charge.”

  She was looking through him. “You really are a ghost,” she said.

  “It’s possible you will not succeed. Nothing is certain, save hardship and trial. But have courage. Never surrender.”

  She stared at him.

  “Never despair,” he said.

  A sudden chill whispered through her, a sense that she had been here before, had known this man in another life. “You seem vaguely familiar. Have I seen your picture somewhere?”

  “I’m sure I do not know.”

  “Perhaps it is the words. They have an echo.”

  He looked directly at her. “Possibly. They are ancient sentiments.” She could see the cave entrance and a few stars through his silhouette. “Keep in mind, whatever happens, if you go on, you will become one of a select company. A proud band of brothers. And sisters. You will never be alone.”

  As she watched, he faded until only the glow of the cigar remained. “It is your own true self you seek.”

  “You presume a great deal.”

  “I know you, Chaka.” Everything was gone now. Except the voice. “I know who you are. And you are about to learn.”

  “Was it his first or last name?” asked Quait, as they saddled the horses.

  “Now that you mention it, I really have no idea.” She frowned. “I’m not sure whether he was real or not. He left no prints. No marks.”

  Flojian looked toward the rising sun. The sky was clear. “That’s the way of it in these places. Some of it’s illusion; some of it’s something else. But I wish you’d woken us.”

  She climbed up and patted Piper’s shoulder. “Anybody ever hear of Neptune?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Maybe,” she said, “we can try that next.”

  22

  After the encounter in the grotto, Chaka became more prone to investigate sites that aroused her interest. It may have been that she began to view the quest differently. The value of the expedition, in her mind, would no longer hinge exclusively on whether she learned what had happened to Arin, and to the other members of the first mission. Nor even to whether they found the semi-mythical fortress at the end of the road. In a sense this was also an expedition into time, a foray into an elusive past. They had already seen marvels that exceeded what she would have considered the bounds of the possible. What else lay waiting in the quiet countryside?

  “I think it’s a flying machine,” said Flojian.

  The object vaguely resembled a giant iron bird. It had a sleek main body flanked by a pair of cylinders, and crosspieces that looked like wings, and spread tails. It was in the middle of a forest, one of nineteen lined up four abreast, five deep, except for one column in which the foremost was missing. There was no single one among the group that had not been crushed and folded by the trees. One had even been lifted completely off the ground. Nevertheless, the objects were identical in design. It was easy to see what they had originally looked like.

  The crosspiece extended about fifteen feet to either side. It was triangular, wide where it was attached to the central body (just above the flanking cylinders), and narrow at the extremities. A hard, pseudo-glass canopy was fitted atop the main body, near the front. It enclosed a seat and an array of technical devices so complex they looked beyond human comprehension. The forward section flowed into a narrow, needle-shaped rod.

  Below the bubble, black letters spelled out the legend: CANADIAN FORCES. The main body expanded, flaring toward the rear, encompassing the twin cylinders, which terminated in a pair of blackened nozzles. Four tapered panels, two vertical and two horizontal, formed the tail.

  Flojian discovered a concrete pit by stumbling into it, and examination suggested that the entire area, with its legion of artifacts, might once have been enclosed.

  Quait climbed onto the frame and looked down into the canopy. “A month ago I’d have said flying machines were impossible,” he said.

  But they had been in one. Although these were a different order of conveyance from the maglev.

  Quait lifted a panel, pulled on something, and the canopy opened. He exchanged grins with the others and lowered himself into the seat. It was hard and uncomfortable. The various devices seemed ready to hand. He was tempted to push a few buttons. But experience had made him cautious.

  It was not only the conversation with Winston that had changed the tone of the mission. The discovery that they possessed, in the wedge, a weapon of considerable power had also done much for their state of mind.

  The day after they’d left the grotto, a black bear had attacked Flojian. Flojian had gone instinctively for his gun, but had dropped and then kicked the weapon. The creature got close enough to deliver a blast of hot and torpid breath. Flojian had then produced the only defense he had available: the wedge. Despite the demonstration on the Peacemaker, he hadn’t yet learned to rely on the small, harmless-looking black shell. But it put out the creature’s lights as it might have extinguished a candle. That night they’d feasted.

  A group of six armed Tuks also tried their luck, stopping them on the trail and announcing their intention to take the horses, the baggage, and (apparently as an afterthought) Chaka. With the weapon in her palm, she’d felt little other than contempt for the ragged raiders. She listened politely to threats and demands and had then casually put the gunmen to sleep.

  A second confrontation had followed a similar script. A dozen horsemen had blocked them front and rear, demanding whatever of value the travelers were carrying. But the numbers didn’t seem to matter. On this occasion, the companions responded by holding out their arms in a gesture of despair, with their hands curled over the wedges. They left it to Chaka to synchronize the attack by simply telling the bandits that they looked tired and probably needed some rest. The effect was both exhilarating and awe-inspiring. The horsemen and their animals collapsed simultaneously.

  It gave the travelers a sense of near-invulnerability, which Quait warned could get them killed.

  But no one slept well that night. And when Chaka woke out of a troubled dream she saw Flojian hunched over the fire.

  She got up and joined him. He continued to stare at the flames.

  “Avila,” she said.

  He nodded. “It needn’t have happened.”

  If they’d taken the wedges seriously. If they’d all carried them, as Avila had.

  “It’s done,” she said.

  His jaw worked and he wiped his eyes.

  Word might have gone ahead. During the next ten days they encountered more groups of Tuks, but the meetings were amicable, and there were even invitations to visit Tuk settlements.

  They accepted on several occasions and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Spring seemed finally to have arrived, and festivals were in full swing. The food was good, but they were careful not to drink too much. In the spirit of the season, the entertainment was generally erotic. Chaka enjoyed watching Quait pretend to rise above it all, and she was pleased to see that Flojian actually seemed to enjoy himself at the spectacles, although he refused the use of Tuk women when they were offered. Remembering advice he’d got from Shannon, he was care
ful to plead illness on these occasions rather than risk offending his hosts.

  Quait, who divulged his relationship with Chaka, received no offer.

  The Tuks pretended not to notice the security precaution behind the insistence of the three that they sleep under the same roof. They nodded knowingly at Chaka, suggesting they enjoyed the presence of a woman who liked her men two at a time. “We are men of the world here,” one Ganji reminded her seriously. “We understand these things.”

  The Tuks knew the Ki of Hauberg. He was a despot, they said, who ruled one of several naval powers along the shores of the Inland Sea. They also knew the Peacemaker, and were glad to hear of its demise. “Slave ship and raider,” they said. “The cities are all vile places. They steal from one another, make war on one another, and band together only to pillage us. You were lucky to escape.”

  For several days it rained constantly. Sometimes they plodded on through the downpour. If a shelter was available, they used it.

  They watched thunderstorms from the interiors of a courthouse and a theater, speculating about the ancient dramas played out at the two sites. “Murder and treason at both,” suggested Quait, reflecting an Illyrian tendency to think of the Roadmakers in grandiloquent and sometimes apocalyptic terms.

  “More likely murder and treason on stage,” said Flojian, “and wife-beating and petty theft before the bench. Their criminals were probably just like ours, cheap pickpockets and bullies.” The general view of the Roadmakers was that they spent their days executing monumental building projects, and their evenings discussing architecture, mathematics, and geometry. It was known that they had also created a considerable body of literature and music, but because so little of the former and none of the latter had survived, most people now thought of them as bereft of those arts.

  “You’ve described this,” Flojian told Chaka as they camped on the stage, “as a voyage in time. I truly wish it was. I would very much like to take a seat up front and watch some of the shows.”

  “Maybe,” said Chaka, “if we find what we’re looking for, that’ll become possible.”