Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  “Looks as if Digger may have stirred something up,” Jack said.

  Right. Digger did it.

  A cloud drifted into the field of view.

  “What do you think?” asked Kellie.

  “It looks ceremonial.”

  Winnie wondered whether anybody recognized any of the Goompahs.

  Digger smothered a laugh. “They all look alike. Can you tell them apart?”

  “I haven’t seen them up close. Not the way you have. I thought you might recognize one of the guys you talked to yesterday.” She put a slight emphasis on the verb, and she was obviously talking about the one who had been traveling alone and whom Digger now saw was indeed there, carrying a javelin.

  “I have no idea,” Digger said.

  “He’s saying something,” said Kellie, meaning the one in the robe.

  “I think he’s singing,” said Jack. “We should have left a pickup in the area.”

  The marchers spread out on either side of the black robe, forming an arc centering on him.

  “It’s a chant,” said Winnie. “Look at them.” They had all begun doing a kind of coordinated swaying.

  “They’re looking for me,” said Digger.

  Jack leaned forward, intrigued. Digger, whose training should have produced the same curiosity, felt only a chill. “It’s a religious ceremony,” Jack said.

  “Maybe we need to go back down,” said Winnie. “Explain to them it’s okay.”

  Kellie’s eyes shone. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “They think they saw a god.”

  “I doubt it,” said Jack.

  The one in the robe shook down long sleeves and pulled a hood over his head. The javelin was held out for him to take. He made signs over it, lifted it, and waved it in a threatening gesture at the top of the hill. The chant ended.

  Everyone stood quietly for another minute or so. Then he climbed the hill while the others watched with—Digger thought—no small degree of anxiety, and came finally to the spot where the avatar had stood. The one who’d been on the road, who’d carried the weapon, called out to him and he moved a couple of steps to his right. They seemed to agree that was the correct location. And without further delay, he brandished the javelin with practiced ease and plunged it into the ground.

  He made more signs, drew his hands together, and looked at the sky. They all bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Their lips moved in unison. One of them crept up the hill and recovered the javelin. And they withdrew.

  Down the hill and back along the road until they reached the waiting wagons. Into the wagons and headed north.

  “I think,” said Digger, “we’ve just seen a declaration of war.”

  Jack was still looking ecstatic. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I believe we’ve just watched an exorcism.”

  THEY SPENT MUCH of the next few days watching and listening to Goompah conversations. Winnie hung a sign on the bulkhead that said It’s Greek to me. Each of the five channels allotted to the pickups had been routed in, but one had gone inactive. They’d seen a Goompah hand close over it, and then for a while all they could see was the grass. And finally the unit shut down. Somebody had probably hit it with a stick.

  But they still had four links.

  They listened and marked down phonetic impressions and bounced phrases off each other while Bill recorded everything, collapsed the signals into compressed transmissions, and fired them off every six hours by way of Broadside to the al-Jahani.

  The language seemed straightforward enough. Some of the sounds were odd, lots of grunts and gargles, a load of aspirates and diphthongs. And nobody rolled their l’s like these guys. There was an overall harshness to the diction, but Digger didn’t hear much that a human tongue couldn’t reproduce. And they’d even deciphered a couple of words.

  Challa, collanda appeared to be the universal greeting. Two Goompahs met, morning or evening, male or female, it didn’t seem to matter: “Challa, collanda,” they would say.

  Hello, friend. Kellie took to greeting her passengers with it, and soon they were all using it. Challa, Jack.

  Digger discovered the sheer pleasure in reproducing some of the sounds he was hearing. He could roll his l’s and grunt with the best of them. He also began to discover something he hadn’t known about himself: He had a facility for language. Next time he ran into some Goompahs he’d be ready. He wondered if things might have gone a bit differently had he been able to raise his hand and, in his jolliest demeanor, send the proper greeting: “Challa, collanda.”

  But there wouldn’t be a next time. Lightbenders were on the way, so when they went back down to set up more listening posts they’d be invisible.

  Well, there was nothing to be done about it now. But he knew he’d be tempted to walk up to one of the Goompahs, no more than a voice in the wind, and say hello. Just whisper it and watch him jump.

  He’d never worn a lightbender. They were prohibited to private ownership. A few had gotten out and become invaluable tools for criminals. But there was a National Lightbender Association claiming that people had a constitutional right to the devices. It struck Digger that once they became generally available everyone would have to wear infrared glasses to protect himself. Even imagining himself invisible bestowed a sense of both power and recklessness.

  About a week after they’d gone down to the surface, Jack announced that a message had arrived from the Academy. “We’ve got something else to look for,” he said.

  Hutch’s image appeared on-screen.

  “Jack,” she said, “This is a hedgehog.” The screen divided and produced a picture of an object with triangular spikes sticking out all over it. An accompanying scale indicated it was six and a half kilometers in diameter.

  “To date, we have three reports of these objects. We have no idea what they are or what their purpose is. We do know that one of them exploded while it was being inspected by the Quagmor. If you can take a look around without compromising your main objectives, please do so. We’d like very much to know if your cloud has one. It’ll be directly out front, running on the same course, at the same speed. The ranges between the objects and the clouds have varied out to sixty thousand klicks.

  “So far, the things are identical. They have 240 sides. Lots of right angles. If you see one, keep a respectful distance. Don’t go near it. We don’t want an inspection; we just want to know whether it’s there.” She allowed herself a smile but Digger could see she was dead serious. “Thanks,” she said. “Be careful. We don’t want to lose anybody else.”

  The hedgehog remained a few seconds after Hutch’s image blanked, and then it, too, was gone, replaced by the Academy logo.

  All those spines. Like stalagmites. But with flat tips. “What is it?” asked Winnie. “Do they have any idea?”

  “You heard as much as I did,” said Jack.

  Kellie looked thoughtful. “I’ll tell you what it might be,” she said. “It looks designed to attract the clouds. Maybe somebody’s been using them to get rid of the damn things. A cloud shows up and you give it a whatzis to chase.”

  They all looked at her. “It’s possible,” said Digger. “That might be it.”

  Kellie’s eyes shone. It was a pleasure to be first to solve a puzzle.

  “Well,” said Jack, “let’s go see if we’ve got one.”

  THE CLOUD’S SHAPE had changed during the few weeks since they’d first seen it. It had become distorted, and was throwing jets forward and to one side, blown off by gee forces as it continued to decelerate and to turn. At the rate the thing was braking, Digger had trouble understanding how it managed to hold together at all. He was not a physicist, but he knew enough to conclude that the stability of the gas and dust, in the face of those kinds of stresses, demonstrated that this was no natural phenomenon. There were widespread claims by mystics, and even some physicists, who should know better, that the omegas were an evolutionary step, a means by which the galaxy protected itself from the rise of the supercivilization, the one e
ntity that could raise havoc, that could eventually take control and force it away from its natural development.

  It was a notion very much in play these days, fitting perfectly with the idea that the present universe was simply a spark in a vast hypersky, one of countless universes, afloat in a cosmos that was perhaps itself an infinitesimal part of an ever-greater construct. Grains of sand on a beach that was a grain on a much bigger beach.

  Where did it all end?

  Well, however that might be, the omega clouds were too sophisticated to have developed naturally.

  “How do you know?” asked Kellie, sitting quietly looking out at the monster, while Digger went on about stars and universes.

  He explained. How it held together. How it had long-range sensors far better than anything the Jenkins had. How it had spotted Athens from a range of 135 billion kilometers when they couldn’t find it from orbit.

  She listened, nodding occasionally, apparently agreeing. But when he’d finished, she commented that there were people around who’d argue that Digger couldn’t have happened simply as a result of natural evolution. “I think,” she said, “you’re doing the argument from design.”

  “I suppose. But this is different.”

  “How?”

  “It’s on a bigger scale.”

  “Dig, that’s only a difference in degree. Size doesn’t count.”

  He couldn’t find an adequate response. “You think these things are natural objects?”

  “I don’t know.” The cloud was misshapen, plumes thrown forward and to one side. It was a dark squid soaring through the night. “I’m keeping my mind open.” Neither spoke for a minute. Then she said, “I’m not sure which scares me more.”

  “Which what?”

  “Which explanation. Either they’re natural, which leads to the conclusion that the universe, or God, however you want to put it, doesn’t approve of intelligence. Or they’re built and set loose. That means somebody who’s very bright has gone to a lot of trouble to kill every stranger he can find.”

  AT THEIR CURRENT range, Lookout’s sun was only a bright star.

  The Jenkins had begun a sweep when it had approached within 12 million klicks of the cloud. They moved steadily closer over the next three days but saw nothing.

  On the fourth day of the hunt Kellie suggested they terminate.

  “You’re sure there’s nothing there?” said Jack.

  “Absolutely. There are a few rocks but that’s it. Nothing remotely resembling the dingus.” She waited for instructions.

  “Okay.” Jack’s attitude suggested the hell with it. “Let’s go back to Lookout.”

  Kellie directed them to belt down and began angling the Jenkins onto its new course. It was going to be a long turn and they’d be living with gee forces for the better part of a day. Consequently, she wasn’t particularly happy. “If I’d used my head,” she told Digger, “I’d have arranged things differently. We could have been on a more efficient course at the end of the pattern. But I assumed we were going to find something.”

  “So did I,” he said. “If you’re right, though, that the hedgehogs are lures, they won’t be everywhere. Only close to clouds that are threatening something their makers are interested in.”

  Jack sent off a message to Hutch, information copies to the al Jahani: “No hedgehog at Lookout. Returning to orbit.”

  While they made the long swing, they decided to watch a sim together, and Kellie, at their request, brought up a haunted house thriller. Digger didn’t have much taste for horror, but he went along. “Scares me though,” he told them, making a joke of it, as if the idea were ridiculous, but in fact it did. He took no pleasure watching a vampire operate, and there’d been times even here, in the belly of a starship, maybe especially here, when he’d gone back through a dimly lit corridor to his quarters after that kind of experience and heard footsteps padding behind him.

  The problem with the superluminal was that, even though it was an embodiment of modern technology, a statement that the universe is governed by reason, a virtual guarantee that demons and vampires do not exist, it was still quite small. Almost claustrophobic. A few passageways and a handful of rooms, with a tendency toward shadows and echoes. It was a place you couldn’t get away from. If something stalked you through the ship’s narrow corridors, there would be nowhere to run.

  His problem, he knew, was that he suffered from an overabundance of imagination. Always had. It was the quality that had drawn him into extraterrestrial assignments. Digger was no coward. He felt he’d proved it by going down on Lookout and sticking his head up. He’d worked on a site in the middle of the Angolan flare-up, had stayed there when everybody else ran. On another occasion he’d gotten a couple of missionaries away from rebels in Zampara, in northern Africa, by a mixture of audacity, good sense, and good luck. But he didn’t like haunted houses.

  The plot always seemed to be the same: A group of adolescents looking for an unusual place to hold a party decide to use the abandoned mansion in which there reportedly had been several ghastly murders during the past half century. (It wasn’t a place to which Digger would have gone.)

  There was always a storm, rain beating against the windows, and doors opening and closing of their own volition. And periodically, victims getting cornered by whatever happened to be loose in the attic.

  He tried to think about other things. But the creaking doors, the wild musical score, and the tree branches scraping against the side of the house kept breaking through. Jack laughed through much of the performance, and energetically warned the actors to look out, it’s in the closet.

  Midway through, strange noises come from upstairs. Shrieks. Groans. Unearthly cries. Two of the boys decide, incredibly, they will investigate. Only in the sims, Digger thinks. But he wants them to stay together. The boy in the lead is tall, good-looking, with a kind of wistful innocence. The kid next door. Despite the silliness of the proceedings, Digger’s heart is pounding as he and his companion climb the circular staircase, while the tempo builds to a climax. As they arrive at the top, another shriek rips through the night. It comes from behind the door at the end of the hallway.

  The door opens, apparently unaided, and Digger sees a shadowy figure seated in an armchair facing a window, illuminated only by the flickering lightning. The second boy, prudently, is dropping behind.

  Stay together. Digger shakes his head, telling himself it’s all nonsense. No sensible kids would do anything like this. And if they did, they’d certainly stick close to each other.

  And he found himself thinking about the hedgehog. They’d overlooked the obvious.

  “WHAT WOULD IT be doing way out there?” asked Jack.

  Digger has used a cursor to indicate where he thought the object could be found. “We assumed the cloud and the hedgehog were a unit. Where one goes, the other follows. But here, we’ve got a cloud that has thrown a right turn.

  “The cloud’s been turning and slowing down for a long time. Maybe over a year. But there’s no reason to assume the hedgehog wouldn’t keep going.”

  “Original course and velocity?” said Jack.

  “Probably.”

  “Why would it do that?” asked Winnie.

  “Why any of this? I don’t know. But I bet if we check it out, we’ll find it where the cloud would have been if it hadn’t decided to go for a walk.”

  Kellie’s dark eyes touched him. Go to it, big boy.

  “Why not take a look?” he asked. “It’s not as if we have to be anywhere tomorrow.”

  THEY FOUND IT precisely where Digger had predicted. It was moving along at a few notches under standard omega velocity. As if the great cloud still trailed behind.

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  The discovery of escort vehicles with the omegas reveals just how little research has been done over the past thirty years on this critical subject. What other surprises are coming? And how many more lives will be sacrificed to bureaucratic inertia?

  — The London Times


  March 23

  chapter 13

  On board the Heffernan, near Alpha Pictoris, 99 light-years from Earth.

  Friday, April 4.

  THE PICTORIS HEDGEHOG made it six for six. They all have one.

  It was twenty-eight thousand kilometers in front of the cloud. Its diameter was the standard six and a half kilometers. “Report’s away,” Emma said.

  Sky didn’t like going anywhere near the damned thing. But they’d asked for volunteers, told him they’d probably be okay, but to be careful, don’t take any unnecessary chances, and keep your head down. Emma had said not to hesitate on her account, and the Heffernan was the only ship in the neighborhood.

  Ordinarily Sky loved what he did for a living. He enjoyed cruising past ringed giants, lobbing probes into black holes, delivering people and supplies to the ultimate out-of-the-way places. But he didn’t like the clouds. And he didn’t like the hedgehogs. They were things that didn’t belong.

  They were far enough away from Pictoris that the only decent illumination on the object was coming from their probe.

  “Its magnetic field matches the signature of the other objects,” said Bill.

  “Ajax is ready to go,” said Emma.

  There was no known entry hatch anywhere, so Drafts would have chosen a spot at random. Which is what the Heffernan would do.

  Emma and Sky were looking forward to celebrating their sixteenth anniversary the next day, although they hadn’t been married precisely sixteen years. Participating in experiments with the new hypervelocity sublight thrust engines had alternately speeded them up and slowed them down, or maybe just one or the other. He’d never been able to figure out relativity. He just knew the numbers didn’t come together in any way he could understand. But it didn’t matter. He’d had a lot of time with Emma, and he was smart enough to appreciate it. She’d told him once, when they were still a few months from their wedding, and were eating dinner at the Grand Hotel in Arlington, that he should enjoy the moment because the day would come when they’d give anything to be able to return to that hour and relive that dinner.