Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  They wandered out onto a wooden pier, and Kellie’s hand lay gently on his hip. It was a floating pier, and some of the planks were loose or missing. They kept going until they reached the far end, where they stood listening to the ocean. A few gulls were in the air. The universal creature. Any world that produced oceans and living things eventually produced gulls. Swamps gave you crocodiles. Forests always had wolves. Living worlds were exceedingly rare, but their creatures were remarkably alike. Which after all made sense. How many different ways are there to make a fish? The variations were almost always limited to details.

  A lantern moved across the deck of the ship.

  He liked this place. It felt a bit like an island lost in time. “You know, Kellie,” he said, “I wish there were a way we could talk with her.”

  “With whom?”

  “With Macao.”

  “Forget it,” she said. “You’d scare the devil out of her.”

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  The oddest thing about the entire evening was the image on the map. Except that his skin color was a bit light, the guy on the winged rhino looked like my uncle Frank.

  — Jenkins Log

  Captain’s entry

  chapter 26

  Lookout.

  On the ground at Saniusar.

  Saturday, September 6.

  MORE SURVEILLANCE DEVICES had arrived, and Kellie and Jack had spread them throughout the isthmus this time, instead of confining them to Brackel. Saniusar, the northernmost Goompah outpost, was the last of the cities to receive its allotment.

  It occupied the shores of a bay and was surrounded by a ring of picturesque hills, which grew progressively higher until they ascended finally into towering mountains.

  Beyond the mountains lay dense jungle, and beyond the jungle lay a broad desert, extending for thousands of kilometers, well north of the equator. Digger was beginning to understand why the Goompah world ended on the north at Saniusar.

  “But they have ships,” protested Kellie. “I can understand why they haven’t crossed the seas. But running up and down the coast shouldn’t have been a problem.”

  “Don’t be so sure. How far did the Greeks go?”

  “But they were hemmed in. Couldn’t get beyond the Mediterranean.”

  They’d been wandering the streets of Goompah cities like the wind, unseen, irrelevant. He missed Jack, and he missed being able to sit down with friends, and he missed being able to party.

  He had been relatively isolated before. But it had always been in some desolate spot, remote from everything, with maybe a couple of technicians who spent all their time talking about the local grade of sandstone, or the level of humidity at a given latitude. But here, with Kellie, he was surrounded by a vibrant community whose energy crackled through the cities every day and lit up the night, and he was cut off from it all.

  He touched her luminous form, her arm, her shoulder. The mild vibration projected by the external surface of the e-suit was reassuring. She moved beneath his fingers and folded herself into him. Everything was accessible through the field except her lips, which were shielded behind the hard bubble that covered her face.

  They were standing outside a double-domed building on the edge of the city, looking north toward a tangle of river and valley and granite. A few of the natives were wandering about, some working, some playing with young ones, some just walking. To the west, over a few hilltops, the sea was bright and cool.

  “I love you, Kellie,” he said.

  Her body moved against him. She was laughing.

  “What’s funny?”

  “At the moment,” she said, “your choices are limited.”

  “I don’t know.” He switched his e-suit off. The smell of salt air swept in. Lovely stuff. “I saw some pretty good-looking females at the park yesterday.”

  The tingle blinked off with her suit. “I love you, too, Digby,” she said.

  “I wish I could see you.”

  “Maybe tonight, if you behave.”

  He found her lips, and they stood quietly for several moments, enjoying each other. “Kellie,” he said, “I’d like very much if you would be my wife.”

  She stiffened, simultaneously pulling him forward and pushing him away.

  He wondered if anyone else had ever proposed to an invisible woman.

  “Digger,” she said, “I’m honored.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “I’m not sure it would work.”

  He switched off his goggles, and the spectral form vanished. Only those dark eyes remained. “You wouldn’t have to quit,” he said. “It wouldn’t mean your career. We could work something out.”

  The wind off the sea was cold. “It’s not that.”

  “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  Her eyes narrowed. He’d long since become accustomed to disembodied eyes, and had discovered that they did actually reflect mood and emotion. He’d always assumed that only happened in the context of a complete facial expression. “Digger, I’d like very much to marry you—”

  “—But—?”

  “I’m not interested in any short-term arrangement. I don’t want to commit myself to you and discover that a few years from now everything’s changed and we head our own ways.”

  He pulled her back into his arms. All resistance was gone, and he was surprised to notice her cheeks were damp. “You want me to sign an agreement that I’d renew?”

  She thought it over. “No,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask that. Wouldn’t do any good anyhow. I just—” She trembled. It seemed out of character. “In my family, we don’t believe in doing things halfway. You commit, or you don’t. If you commit, don’t expect that if you change your mind in five years, I’m going to shake hands and say let’s be friends.”

  He was holding her tight by then. And he wanted very much to see her, but there were too many Goompahs drifting around. “It would never happen, Kellie. I love you. I want you to be my wife. Forever. No time off. No letting the lease run out.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ll feel the same way when we get home?”

  “Of course.” He pressed his lips against hers. “You’re a hard sell.”

  “Yes I am. And if you don’t mean any of this, the price’ll be high.”

  ASIDE FROM DISTRIBUTING pickups, they’d also roamed through the cities recording engraved symbols, statuary, architecture, whatever seemed of interest. They’d found a museum in Mandigol, filled with artifacts excavated from beneath existing cities. So there were Goompah archeologists.

  They’d found several academies, or colleges, the most extensive of which was located in Kulnar, the home of Macao. Mirakap, an island city that was actually part of T’Mingletep, hosted concerts almost nightly. They’d recorded several, some purely instrumental, others employing singers. The Goompahs, by the way, conceded nothing to humans in the range of their voices. On the al-Jahani, Collingdale and his people seemed to have a higher estimation of native music than did Digger and Kellie.

  They watched sailboat races at Hopgop, on the northeastern shore, and track events at Sakmarung. In all these places, the café was king. Everyone retired at the end of the day to the assorted bistros and taverns, and the evenings slipped away in laughter and conversation.

  Life was good on the isthmus. The land was fertile, the sea full of fish, and it didn’t look as if anyone had to work very hard.

  “They’ve been around as long as we have,” Digger commented on one of the reports to the al-Jahani. “But technologically, they’ve gone nowhere. Does anybody have any kind of explanation at all?”

  They didn’t. There were a couple of people with Collingdale, Elizabeth Madden and Jason Holder, who thought that Goompahs simply weren’t very smart. The fact that they could use tools and build cities, they argued, didn’t mean they could manage an industrial revolution.

  But if they hadn’t progressed technologically, they were doing well politically. All th
e cities had representative governments, although the machinery was different from place to place. Sakmarung had a single executive, chosen by a parliamentary body from among its number. He (or she) served for two local years and could not under any circumstances reassume the post. The parliamentary body was elected by a free vote of the citizenry. Collingdale thought everyone was granted the franchise, but that question was still open.

  Mandigol took the classical Spartan approach: It had two executives, with equal power, who apparently kept an eye on each other. Brackel elected a parliament and an executive council, not unlike the world government at home. There was no indication of political unrest, no inclination to make war, no poverty-stricken Goompahs in the streets.

  On the whole, thought Digger, they’ve done pretty well. Of course, it helps when you can pick your food off the trees on the way home.

  “Maybe it’s the Toynbee idea,” said Digger.

  “Who’s Toynbee?”

  “Twentieth-century historian. He thought that, for a civilization to develop, the environment has to be right. It has to offer a challenge, but not so much of a challenge that it overwhelms everybody. That’s why you get progress in China and Europe but not in Micronesia or Siberia.”

  But Goompahs were not humans. And who knew what rules applied? Yet the shows, the parks, the temples, the late nights on the town: The Goompahs seemed human in so many ways. They were, he thought, what we might have chosen to be, if we could.

  But what was the secret?

  They were capable of quarrels and scuffles. He’d seen a few. They had thieves. The locked doors at the libraries and other places that held objects of value demonstrated that. But their females thought nothing of walking the streets at night. And there were no armies.

  “Their society’s not perfect,” said Kellie. “But they’re getting a lot of it right.”

  “Could it be the DNA?” he asked.

  “You mean a peace gene?” She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “I mean an intelligence gene. Technology or not, I’m beginning to wonder if they’re smarter than we are.”

  Two statues stood atop the twin domes. They appeared to be representations of two of the deities they’d seen at the temple in Brackel: the elderly god, the one who’d had the scroll; and the young female with the musical instrument. “Mind and passion,” suggested Kellie.

  All the temples they’d seen—each city seemed to have one, and there’d been a few out in the countryside—were roofed, but were otherwise left open to the elements. It was always possible, at any time of day or night, to enter a temple.

  A few visitors wandered among the columns that supported the twin domes. The gods seemed to have been assigned separate quarters there. They were seated or standing or, in a couple of cases, reclining on benches. The effect created was less distant and majestic than they’d encountered elsewhere. These were the gods at home, informal, casual, come on in and have a drink.

  Along the walls, they were depicted helping children ford a river, calming a stormy sea, holding a torch high for travelers lost in a forest. That was Lykonda, her wings spread wide to keep the chill of the night from her charges. From the scrolls, they knew a little about her. She was described as the defender of the celestial realm, although they did not know why she held that exalted title. She was the guardian of knowledge, champion of the weak, protector of the traveler. Mistreat a stranger and answer to Lykonda. Elsewhere they found the laughing god, who was apparently in the middle of delivering a punch line to a group of convulsed Goompahs.

  “When a god tells a joke,” whispered Kellie, “who’s not going to laugh?”

  ANOTHER DEITY, WHOSE name they did not know, wielded a sword.

  “Look!” Kellie stopped in front of the frieze. He wore a war helmet, held a staff with a fluttering pennant in one hand, and raised his weapon in the other. He looked enraged, with demonic creatures swarming toward him. The attackers were armed with spears and cudgels. Brute weapons.

  Digger caught his breath.

  The demonic creatures—

  — Looked reasonably human. Like the figure on the winged rhino.

  “Their noses are a little long,” said Kellie, speaking into a sudden silence.

  As were their limbs. And they had claws rather than fingernails. Their hair was straggly, trailing down their backs. Their expressions breathed malevolence and treachery. They were male and female, and they very much resembled the demons one found in fifteenth-century art.

  “We been here before?” asked Digger.

  A group of birds scattered out of a tree, regrouped, and fluttered off to the west.

  “Well,” said Kellie, “I guess we know why they went screaming into the night when you showed up.”

  THE LAND BEYOND the temple rose through broken country toward the Skatbrones, the Goompah name, not for a single range, but for the vast mountainous north. A few homes dotted the lower slopes, and there were a couple of orchards. The lander had been left on a remote crag.

  Kellie summoned it, and they boarded it from the temple grounds, taking a chance. But she kept the starboard side toward the sea so that no one could see the airlock open.

  They climbed in and closed the hatch. Kellie took them up and headed back to the crag. Digger shut his systems down, and when they landed he happily grabbed a hot shower, changed clothes, and collapsed into his chair. After Kellie had her turn in the washroom, Bill served dinner. To her delight, Digger produced candles and a bottle of red wine from the Jenkins’s store. “Whatever made me think,” she said, “that you weren’t very romantic?”

  “I majored in romance,” he said. “It’s why women have chased me so persistently all these years.”

  “I understand completely. Pour the wine.”

  He’d have preferred champagne, but their small store was long since gone. And he’d have liked something a bit more elegant for the occasion than meat loaf, but the lander had its limits. He filled their glasses, lit the candles, proposed a toast to his lovely fiancée. They closed the viewports so that no light would leak out, and enjoyed an evening that Digger knew he would remember forever.

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, they flew over the city.

  Digger loved riding in an invisible aircraft. They kept the lights doused inside, and when he looked out, there were no stubby wings and no hull. It reminded him of his early boyhood, when he’d ridden the glide trains from Philadelphia to Wildwood, New Jersey. They’d crossed the Delaware River en route, on a bridge whose span and girders and trusses weren’t visible from inside the train. Sitting in his seat with his parents across from him, Digger (who had been Digby then, and no nonsense about it) had loved to look out at the sky and the river, and pretend the car wasn’t there, pretend he was an eagle. It had been a long time, and he hadn’t thought about those rides, those flights, for thirty years.

  The city lights were dim by human standards. Oil lamps here and there. Candles. A couple of open fires. Yet they were warm and inviting, illuminating a place of magic. A place he’d want to come back to one day, when the crisis was over.

  Romeo and Juliet was playing that night, would play for the next three evenings. The actual title was Baranka, and it was indeed a tale of lovers from feuding families. Baranka was the girl’s father, portrayed as an essentially decent but strong-willed character who cannot get past his own anger at his perceived enemies.

  Reading it in a language he hadn’t begun to master, Digger couldn’t make a judgment as to its quality, but he was struck by the degree to which it dealt with familiar issues. When he’d mentioned it to Kellie, she’d commented that they’d been talking about a sense of humor as a universal among intelligent creatures, and she suggested the most characteristic universal could turn out to be programmed stupidity.

  He wondered whether a translation might not play one day in New York and Berlin.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, breaking a long silence.

  “Good.” He thought she was referring to their
new status.

  “Really?” She seemed surprised.

  “What are we talking about, Kel?”

  She grinned. “How’s it feel to be the enemy of the gods?”

  “Oh.” He produced an image of the frieze. The resemblance to humans was uncanny. “Not so good, actually.” He raised his voice a notch. “If you’re listening out there, whatever I did, I didn’t mean it.”

  Kellie’s eyes glowed. “You think there are human-style critters around here somewhere?” she asked.

  He thought about it. “Don’t know.”

  “It occurs to me,” she said, “that if there are, the cloud could be a godsend for them.”

  “In what way?”

  “If it were to wipe out the Goompahs, it might clear the boards for the second wave.”

  “The monkeys.”

  “Yes. Maybe.”

  “From the look of things,” he said, “I don’t think it would be an improvement.”

  They landed and strolled among the crowds, and even went into a Goompah café, turned off the e-suits, and sang with the customers. It was great fun, and Digger yearned to shut down the lightbender as well and tell them he and Kellie were there and they liked a good time as much as anybody. Despite the isolation, they made it a special evening. At the end, with the omega back in the sky, and the lights going out, they returned to the lander and flew back to the crag. It overlooked the temple, a jagged piece of rock with sheer walls dropping away on all sides. And it was glorious in the light of the big moon. Farther north, the hills and ridges gave way to dark forest. The city was quiet, little more than a few smoldering lights in the night.

  They got out of the lander. There was a stiff wind out of the west, and Bill was predicting rain sometime during the early-morning hours. But when you’re tucked safely inside a Flickinger field it doesn’t matter much. They were still out there when the storm came. It was an exhilarating feeling, to be caught up in the wind and the rain, with the temple below and Kellie holding tight. But when the first lightning flickered across the sky they decided the situation called for prudence. They lingered momentarily in each other’s arms, and Digger turned off her field. Before she could react she was drenched.