Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road (v1) [rtf]

by Emily

  "I'd be grateful," said Flojian. "You were very close to him at one time. Besides," he hesitated, "there is no one else. I mean, you know how it's been."

  Silas nodded. "Of course," he said. "I'll be honored."

  Silas and Karik and their intimates had spent countless

  pleasant evenings at the villa, by the fireplace, or on the benches out under the elms, watching the light fade from the sky, speculating about artifacts and lost races and what really lay beneath the soil. It had been an exciting time to be alive: The League was forming, inter-city wars were ending, there was talk of actively excavating the colossal Roadmaker ruins at the mouth of the Mississippi. There were even proposals for more money for the Imperium, and a higher emphasis on scholarship and research. It had seemed possible then that they might finally begin to make some progress toward uncovering the secrets of the Roadmakers. At least, perhaps, they might find out how the various engines worked, what fueled their civilization. Of all the artifacts, nothing was more enigmatic than the hojjies. Named for Algo Hoj, who spent a lifetime try­ing to understand how they worked, the hojjies were vehicles. They were scattered everywhere on the highways. Their interi­ors were scorched, but their pseudo-metal bodies could still be made to shine if one wanted to work at it. (It was Hoj who concluded that the charred interiors had resulted from long summers of brutal heat before the very tough windows had finally blown out.) But what had powered them?

  So there had been ground for optimism twenty years ago. The League had formed, and peace had come. But wreckage in the Mississippi had discouraged operations in the delta; funds lor the Imperium had never materialized; and the hojjies remained as enigmatic as ever.

  They stood at the front door while Silas took in the river and the ruins. "He loved this view," said Silas. *It was his win­dow into the past." The hillside sloped gently down to the water's edge, about a hundred feet away. A pebble walkway circled the house, looped past a series of stone benches, and descended to the narrow strip of beach fronting the river. A tablet lay on one of the benches.

  Flojian shook his hand. "Thanks for your help, Silas."

  Silas looked at the tablet. A cold wind moved in the trees.

  Flojian followed his gaze. 'That's odd," he said. He strolled to the bench, almost too casually, regarded the tablet as if it were an animal that might bite, and picked it up. It was

  drenched from the rain, but the leather cover had protected it. "My father was working on a commentary to The Travels."

  Silas opened the tablet and looked at Karik's neat, precise handwriting. It was dated that day.

  Unfortunately, only a fragment of The Travels was then known to exist. There is, in the prologue, a celebrated conver­sation between Abraham Polk and Simba Markus, the woman who would eventually betray him, over the value of securing the history of a vanished world. "It's only the dead past," Simba says. "Let it go."

  "The past," Polk replies, "is never dead. It is who we are."

  "But the risk is too great. We might bring the Plague back with us. Have you thought of that?"

  "I've thought of it. But for this kind of prize, any risk is justified."

  Apparently in reference to this exchange, Karik had writ­ten: "No, it is not."

  "Odd to leave it outside like that," said Silas. "Maybe he wasn't feeling well." He looked from the bench to the top of the ridge, where Karik customarily walked, to the strip of beach. "He set it on the bench and did what? Walked up onto the ridge?"

  "I assume that's what happened."

  "And he was wearing boots, wasn't he? The first thing the boys saw was a boot."

  "Yes."

  "There are bootmarks here." They were faint, barely dis­cernible after the rain. But they were there. Immediately adja­cent to the bench, the marks crossed several feet of beach, and disappeared into the water.

  Kon had provided Silas with another gift: an unquenchable desire to know about the Roadmakers, whose highways ran to infinity. Now they were frequently covered with earth, mere passages through the forests, on which trees did not grow. An observer standing on the low hills that rimmed the Mississippi could see the path of the great east-west road, two strips really, twin tracks rising and falling, sometimes in unison, sometimes

  not, coming like arrows out of the sunrise, dividing when they reached Illyria, circling the city and rejoining at Holly's Bridge to cross the river.

  Kon had suggested an intriguing possibility to Silas: The great structures were more than simply roads, they were simultaneously religious artifacts. Several studies had found geometrical implications that tied them to the cosmic har­monies. Silas never understood any of it and exercised the principle of skepticism that Kon himself had encouraged.

  If the ruins were simply part of the landscape to Rinny and Colin, no more exceptional than honey locusts and red oaks, they meant a great deal more to Silas. They were a touchstone to another world. It was painful to be in the presence of so great a civilization and to know so little about it.

  Silas Glote had found his life's work investigating the Road-makers. And if it didn't pay well, it supplied endless satisfac­tion. There was nothing quite like introducing students to the mysteries of the ruins, whose peculiarities they had seen but rarely noticed: the shafts, for example, that existed to no apparent purpose in most of the taller buildings; the ubiquitous metallic boxes and pseudo-glass screens; the massive gray disk mounted near a sign that read Memphis Light, Gas, and Water, pointed at the sky; the occasional music that could be heard at night from within a mound on the west side of the old city. Silas's sense of guilt over staying away from Karik's expedition might have arisen not only from his failure to support his old friend, but also from his mixed feelings regarding the out-come of the mission. In a dark part of his soul, he had taken satisfaction in Karik's failure. He didn't like to admit that fact to himself, but it was nonetheless true.

  Karik had not shown him any evidence that he could find Haven, or that Haven even existed. Instead, he had asked him

  to trust his judgment. / know where it is, he'd said. I have a map.

  you'll want to be there when we find it.

  Polk's fortress was said to be tended still by scholars, descendants of the original garrison, men and women who had

  cared for the contents, who restored what they could, who meticulously recopied the texts as paper crumbled.

  Haven.

  If it did not exist, it should. And therein, to Silas's mind, lay the root of his doubts. If Abraham Polk had not existed, some­one would certainly have invented him.

  For Chaka Milana, the news of Karik Endine's death conjured up images of her fourteenth birthday. Her brother Arin had taken her to her favorite spot, a quiet glade fronting on one of the Roadmaker buildings, and had painted her portrait.

  She had wanted him to do that as far back as she could remember. But she had been too shy to ask, too afraid he would laugh. On that cool, late winter day, however, he'd posed her on a slab of granite in front of a broken wall and an arch whose spandrel was engraved: MEMPHIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE—2009.

  The spot was special because Memphis had burned. Much of its ruins were ashes. But here, the little arched building with its fluted columns was whole. And lovely.

  "Chaka, please keep still." Arin peered at her, tilted his head while he measured the quality of the light, nodded, and returned his atten­tion to his canvas.

  "Are you almost finished?"

  "Almost."

  They had speculated as to what a chamber of commerce was, and what its functions might be. She liked the stylized characters, with their flares and tails. When she looked at them, a wind from another era blew through her.

  When she arrived at the service, Karik's body had been placed on a pyre at the water's edge and covered with a funeral cloth. The corpse was surrounded by wood cases containing his personal belongings, his anuma. These were the items which would accompany him on his final journey. The ceremonial torch had been unsealed, and the emb
lem of the Tasselay, the Cup of Life, fluttered on an emerald banner.

  Guests filled the house and grounds. Singly and in pairs.

  they mounted the low platform that had been erected in front of the pyre, paid their respects to Flojian, and gazed thought­fully at the body.

  "I think that'll do." Ann flourished his brush, dabbed his signa-ture in the lower right corner, and stood aside. Chaka jumped off the rock and hurried to look.

  "Do you like it?"

  He had captured it all: the granite, a couple of the Roadmaker letters, the failing late afternoon light. And Chaka herself. He'd added a degree of poise and an inner illumination that she persuaded herself were really there. "Oh, yes, Ann. It's lovely." He smiled, pleased, his amiable features streaked with paint. It was a family joke that Ann inevitably used himself as the prime can-

  "Happy birthday, little sister."

  She was thinking how it would look on the wall of her bedroom

  when she saw that a shadow had darkened his green eyes.

  A casual visitor could not have been blamed for concluding,

  from the size and demeanor of the crowd attending the service,

  that Karik Endine had been blessed with a loving family and a

  large body of devoted friends. Neither was true. There were no

  kin other than his son and a couple of neglected cousins. And it

  would have been difficult to find anyone in Illyria, or for that

  matter in any of the five League cities and their various suburbs and outposts, who would have thought himself part of

  Karik's inner circle.

  Among those who had known him in better times, he had become an object of curiosity and pity, whose death was seen as a release. But they came out of loyalty, as people will, to the old days. Some felt an obligation to attend because they were connected in some way with Flojian. Others were curious, interested in hearing what might be said about a celebrated man whose achievements had, at the very least, been mixed. These were the people who arrived to celebrate his life, to wish him farewell on his final journey, to exchange anecdotes with one another, and to drink somber

  toasts to the man they realized, at last, they had never really known. As was the tradition on such occasions, no one gave voice to personal reservations about the character of the deceased. (This happy custom arose not only from courtesy to relatives, but from the Illyrian belief that the dead man lingered among them until the priest officially consigned him to eternity.)

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," he said.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." Ann wiped his hands and pretended to study the painting. "Nothing's wrong. But I do have something to tell you." He'd been standing a long time, more than an hour. Now he sat down on the grassy slope and patted the grass, inviting her to join him. "Do you remember Karik Endine?"

  "Yes, of course I remember him." He had been an intense little man who seemed always out of breath, who visited the house and locked himself away with her father and her brother. When she was a little girl, he had patted her on the head, but even then she could see he was distracted and anxious to be away.

  "He thinks he knows where Haven is. He wants me to go with him

  to find it."

  She knew about Haven, knew that it was a story and not a place.

  "You're kidding."

  "I never kid, Chaka."

  "I thought it was made-up."

  "Maybe it is. Karik doesn't think so."

  "So where is it?"

  "In the north somewhere. He doesn't really want to say where. But he says he knows how to get there."

  He was so handsome that morning. "How long will you be gone?"

  "About six months."

  "It seems like a lot of trouble to me. What's the point?

  "It's a piece of history, Chaka. Think what might be there."

  "The treasures."

  "Yes. Maybe there really was an October Patrol, and maybe they really did save part of the Roadmaker world." He bent toward her.

  "Abraham Polk probably is made-up, and maybe the whole story's a fabrication. But there might be some truth to it. We won't know unless we go look."

  She asked whether she could go, too. He'd smiled that gorgeous smile and ruffled her hair.

  "He never really lived in our time." The speaker was round-faced, bearded, ponderous. "One might almost say he really lived with the Roadmakers. In this house, he was only a transient."

  Even Chaka knew that Karik had in fact taken to the house and remained unseen in it for nine years. The remark struck her as unfortunate, and she had to work to restrain a smile.

  Others expressed similar sentiments, and it became dear to Chaka after a time that no one seemed to have had a recent personal experience to relate. Karik Endine had been a man at a distance, someone glimpsed at the periphery of vision. It seemed that nobody had ever gone to lunch with him. Or shared an intimate

  hour. Nobody said, he was my friend. Nobody said, I loved him. Something else was missing in the tributes. There was no mention of the mission to Haven. It was as if it had never happened.

  Flojian tried to look mournful but after a while he gave it up

  and simply walked around wearing a blank expression that probably masked his relief that the old man was gone. He'd shunned an academic life like Karik's for one that seemed more useful, and certainly was more lucrative: He operated a pair of ferries and a

  service that used horses to drag flatboats back upstream. The villa

  had been in the family for four generations, but it had fallen into

  neglect and disrepair during Karik's tenure. It had been Flojian's

  money that had restored it, and subsequently furnished and maintained it. His father had been a dreamer. Flojian saw nothing

  wrong with that, but it required men of purpose and action like himself to create a world in which dreamers could live. Chaka had gone to see Karik shortly alter her father's death. She'd never understood precisely what had happened to Arin. So she went to his cottage and knocked on the door, determined to ask him. He'd let her wait a long time, and it had become a war of nerves until Karik gave in and opened up.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I was sleeping."

  His tone suggested he was lying. She was still very young but her blood was up by then. "My father told me Arin drowned. Master Endine. But I wonder whether you could explain just what happened?"

  He stood in the doorway, ferocious in moonlight. "Come in, Chaka."

  "I'm sorry to bother you."

  "It's no bother."

  "I know my father talked to you." But he had come home and stared into the fire and said simply that Arin had drowned, had got swept away by the current and drowned. And that was all.

  Karik offered her a seat. "We were trying to ford a river. We thought we were getting close to the end of the journey, and maybe we got careless. Arin was leading the way, with our guide. London Shay. One of the packhorses lost its balance. It panicked and Arin went after it and tried to pull it back." His gaze focused on a distant point. "In the end they both got dragged away. When he saw it was hopeless to try to save the animal, Arin let go and swam for shore. We thought he'd make it, but every time he got close, the current pushed him out again. Finally he got sucked into white water, into rocks." He leaned close. "I think he hit his head. The last we saw of him, he looked unconscious. Then the river took him around a bend. It all happened so fast. We just couldn 't reach him, Chaka."

  "But you never found his body?"

  He reached out for her. "We searched for him downstream. But no. We never found him. I'm sorry. I wish I could have done something."

  He had begun to cry. Only a short storm, but fierce all the same because he did not look like a man capable of tears. And when he'd recovered, he'd gone upstairs and come down with an armload of sketches, her brother's work. "These are from the mission," he said, offering them to her and then asking if he might keep one.

&n
bsp; "Does anyone else wish to speak?" Flojian looked over the assembly. It was a lovely day, bright and cool and clear. The river was ablaze in the sun. The priest, an elderly woman with white hair and severe features, inserted a couple of sticks into the cookfire and glanced at the torch.

  Chaka had wondered about the description of Arin's death.

  He hadn't been much of a swimmer, and she had a difficult time imagining him daring deep water to bring back a panicked animal. It could have happened. But it was out of character. She had concluded that Karik might have added the heroic details to comfort her. It was more likely that Arin had simply been carried away himself and sank like a stone.

  She surprised herself by standing up. "I would like to say something." The assembly parted and she walked forward and ascended the platform. She had red, shoulder-length hair, fea­tures that had been boyish during adolescence and which retained a rugged, devil-may-care aspect, softened by luminous blue eyes and a warm smile.

  "I hardly knew Karik Endine,* she said. "My brother made the trip north with him nine years ago. After Master Endine came home, I asked him about my brother." Her listeners stirred uneasily. *I came away with the sense that he was in as much pain as I. I always loved him for that. He was, I think, the most unfortunate man I've known. But he did what he could to ease the suffering of a child he barely knew." The wind was loud in the elms. She stepped down.

  Flojian thanked her and asked whether there was anyone else. There was not. "When the ceremony is concluded," he said, "Karik welcomes you to stay." The priest came forward, drew down the Tasselay banner, folded it reverently, handed it to an aide, and took the torch. She held it over the cookfire until it caught, and gave it to Flojian with a whispered admoni­tion to be careful. Flojian now delivered the ritual appreciation to his father, thanking him for the sun and the river and all the hours of his life. When he had finished, the priest intoned a prayer to Ekra the Traveler, who would convey the departing spirit to its next life. They bowed their heads. When the priest had finished, Flojian touched the torch to the pyre.

  Within seconds, it was engulfed in flames. Chaka looked away. Goodbye, Arin, she said, as if the final link to her brother were being cut.