Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  The next message went to the Jenkins. “Digger, we won’t be coming. Jump engines blown. I’m going to try to arrange transportation for myself on the Hawksbill. But you better assume everything’s up to you. You need to figure out a way to get the Goompahs to evacuate the cities prior to the hit.”

  Then he considered what he wanted to tell Julie. He started by calling Alexandra, who was back on the bridge. “If we ask them to come here, to us, do they lose enough time that we endanger their mission?”

  Alex looked tired. “Hard to say, Dave. If they get lucky and find us right away, it shouldn’t be a problem. But the jumps are imprecise. You know that as well as I do. And especially under these conditions.”

  “What conditions do you mean?”

  “They’re already in hyperspace. They’re going to have to jump out, figure out where they are, set a new course, and come get us.”

  Damn. He looked out his portal at the stars. He could see the Tyrolean Cloud that, according to Melinda Park, was a hundred light-years across, filled with burning gas and young stars. At their present speed, the al-Jahani would need five million years just to go from one end of the cloud to the other. “Thanks, Alex,” he said.

  He switched over to the AI. “Bill, message for the Hawksbill.”

  “Ready to record, David.”

  The Hawksbill was a cargo hauler with a total passenger capacity of two. They already had two. They’d need Marge, so Whitlock would have to come aboard the al-Jahani, trade places with Collingdale.

  How the hell could he say that? Julie, it looks as if the al-Jahani is out of action. I need you to pick me up. I know there’s a space problem, but we don’t really need the poet.

  No, best not insult Whitlock. Julie seemed to like him.

  He wrote his ideas down, made a few adjustments, activated the system, and read it to her, trying to look spontaneous. Then he told Bill to send it.

  Next he tracked down Judy. “Let’s get everybody together,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  The mood on the ship was bleak. The frustration was fed not only by the perceived importance of the mission, but by the depth of individual commitment. These were people who’d invested a year and a half of their lives. His group of linguists, his Goompahs, had spent seven months working to acquire the language, had done so, had actually believed they were going to go into the Intigo and rescue tens of thousands of the natives. The others, the senior personnel, the Upper Strata, were watching an unparalleled opportunity, a chance to observe a functioning alien civilization, go south.

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  Before he could answer, his link vibrated against his wrist. “Collingdale,” he said.

  “Dave.” Alexandra’s voice. “I’ve got a delegation of your people up here.”

  He looked at Judy. “You know about this?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  The bridge was off-limits except to a few specified persons, or by invitation. It was supposed to be the one place in the ship to which the captain could retreat from social obligations. When Collingdale and Judy got there, all eleven of their linguists were either crowded inside or standing around the open door.

  Harry Chin tried to take Judy aside.

  “After we clear the bridge,” she snapped.

  But Harry showed no inclination to be put off. “Listen, we’ve got too much invested in this to just sit here.”

  Collingdale had never been a good disciplinarian. In fact he had relatively little experience with difficult cases. The people he’d led on past missions had always been mature professionals. Tell them what you needed and they produced. They might question authority on occasion, but the tone was subtle. This felt like mutiny.

  But Judy never hesitated. “Listen,” she said, raising her voice so they could all hear. “The decision’s been made. Everyone go back to the workroom. We’ll talk there.”

  Mike Metzger had been standing beside Harry, lending support. He was tall and reedy, usually the epitome of courtesy. A muscle in his neck was twitching, and his expression was a mixture of anger, regret, nervousness. He turned and looked at David. “Can’t you do something?” he asked.

  It wasn’t clear whether he was talking about remaining stalled in the middle of nowhere, or returning to the workroom. But he was close to tears.

  Terry MacAndrew put an arm around his shoulders to calm him. “Judy,” Terry said, lapsing into the Scottish burr that David had only heard previously when Terry drank too much, “we’ve talked it over. We’re all willing to take the chance. And we know you are.”

  “You’ve all agreed to this.”

  “Right. We say we should move ahead. Take our chances.”

  “Really.”

  “The stakes are too high just to sit here.”

  “ ‘The stakes are too high’? You’ve been reading too many novels.”

  Terry glanced back at Alex, who was out of her seat, standing by one of the navigation panels, looking bored and annoyed. “We’re too close to quit now. Bill thinks we’d be okay if we tried it.” He turned toward Alex. “Isn’t that right, Captain?”

  She dismissed him and spoke to Collingdale. “As I told you earlier, David, if we go back in and the system breaks down, which it is threatening to do, we’ll stay in there.” She looked around at the others. “Permanently. That’s not going to happen to my ship. Or to my passengers. Bill has nothing to say about it.” Her eyes came back to Collingdale. “Please get your people off my bridge.”

  THE REPLY FROM the Hawksbill arrived shortly after midnight. Julie’s message was simple and direct: “On our way. We can make room for one more.”

  ARCHIVE

  Alex, sorry to hear about the problem. I’m sending the Vignon. They’ll do a temporary fix to get you running again. But everybody, including you, will be evacuated to the Vignon before attempting transit. Let Bill bring it in.

  Good luck. Frank.

  — Broadside transmission

  September 18

  PART FOUR

  chimneys

  chapter 29

  Lookout.

  On the ground at Kulnar.

  Friday, September 19.

  THEY WERE SITTING on the docks watching the Goompahs get ready to launch their round-the-world mission. Three ships stood in the harbor, flags flying, masts filled with bunting. A band was banging away. The sailors were saying good-bye, it seemed, to the entire population of the Intigo. Small boats waited alongside the piers to ferry them out to the ships. Bouquets were being tossed, and on at least two occasions celebrants fell off the piers and had to be rescued. Various dignitaries, including Macao, were making speeches. In the midst of all this a message came in from Dave Collingdale.

  “. You better assume everything’s up to you. You need to figure out a way to get the Goompahs to evacuate the cities prior to the hit.”

  Up to me? Digger listened to a more detailed report from Alex to Kellie, describing how the al-Jahani was stranded in the middle of nowhere, of how they were safe and not to worry, but that they wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

  “Well,” said Digger, “at least they’re okay.”

  “Dig,” she said, “what are we going to do?”

  Somehow or other, Digger had half expected something like this would happen. Hutch had warned him, and he remembered the old line that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It had been on his mind for weeks, a dark possibility that he kept trying to push away. But the sad reality was that his options were limited.

  “We can’t work miracles,” she said. “And when they have a few minutes to think about it, they’ll realize that.”

  Digger watched something splashing out in the harbor.

  “We should ask for specific instructions, Dig. Don’t let him lay this on your back.”

  “The Hawksbill is still coming,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe they can decoy it. If they can do that, there’s no problem.” He list
ened to the murmur of the sea. The band was starting up again, and more flowers were flung into the air.

  Kellie’s silhouette was seated a couple of meters higher up on a grassy slope. They were well out of the way of the crowds. “I’m sorry, Digger,” she said.

  The night before, they’d listened to Goompahs talking about T’Klot. The hole in the sky.

  “There’s a rational explanation,” some were saying. And others, that it was the work of zhokas. Devils.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t care as long as it stays in the sky.”

  “They were saying down at Korva’s that the priests think it’s coming here. That the gods are angry.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. Not too long ago I’d have thought a hole in the sky couldn’t happen.”

  “I wonder whether it’s not because of all the immorality.”

  “What immorality?”

  “Well, you know, children don’t have much respect for their elders anymore. And a lot of people say there are no gods.”

  “Are there gods?”

  “I’m beginning to think not.”

  The omega was located in a constellation the Goompahs called T’Gayla, the Reaver. It consisted of an arc of six stars that they thought looked like a scythe.

  SEVERAL OF THE departing sailors broke away from the crowd, wobbled out onto the pier, and climbed into the boats that would take them to the waiting ships. There was much waving of colored filigrees and throwing of seeds, not unlike the custom of tossing rice at newlyweds. The band picked it up a notch.

  Digger felt sorry for them. Like Columbus, they were attempting an impossible journey. Columbus had thought the planet considerably smaller than it actually was. Isabella’s retainers knew better, and that was the reason they’d resisted underwriting the voyage. Had North America not been there, the great mariner would probably have disappeared somewhere at sea and become a different kind of legend.

  The Goompahs had the dimensions down, even if many of their well-wishers refused to believe the world was round. But once again there was a major continent blocking the way. Two, in fact. There was an east—west passage through each, long chains of rivers and lakes, but finding their way would be an impossible task for the voyagers.

  He watched, suspecting none of the sailors would see home again. His old friend Telio was among them, with his smashed left ear and his lopsided smile. He was hefting a bag made of animal skins, ready to go on his great adventure.

  By midafternoon the sailors were all aboard. The ships were the Hasker, the Regunto, and the Benventa. The Charger, the Spirit, and the Courageous. They hoisted anchor, put up sail, and, accompanied by cheers and drums, started toward the mouth of the harbor. There was a ridge several hundred meters north of the piers, and another crowd had gathered there, where they could get a better view as the ships stood out to sea.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” said Digger.

  “Letting them go?” asked Kellie.

  He nodded. “They’re going to die out there.”

  She looked at him a long moment. “It’s what noninterference means.”

  “You know, we have authorization to intervene.”

  “Not for something like this. Listen, Dig, you want to jump in and figure out a way to turn them around, I’m with you. But I think they should be left to find their own way. Build their own legends. One day this’ll be part of their history. Something they can be proud of. They don’t need us involved in it.”

  He gazed sadly after them. “The day will come when the crews on the ships will be praying for someone to step in.”

  She had gotten closer to him, and her hand rubbed his shoulder. “This is why I love you, Dig. But it’s not our call. Even if it was, what would you do? Give them a map of their world? Maybe throw in the compass? Where do you stop?”

  Digger had no idea. He wondered what human history would have been like had someone arrived to shut down, say, the Persian Wars. Handed us a printing press and some lenses and spiked the gunpowder. Would we really be worse off? There was no definitive answer, but he knew that, in this time, at this moment, he wanted to reach out to the three ships, now rounding the spit of land at the north end of the harbor.

  They were silent for a time. The wind blew across them. The crowd began to break up. “Look at it this way,” she said. “As the situation is right now, the ships probably have a better chance of surviving than the people left behind. They’ll be well away when the cloud gets here.”

  “That’s a consolation.”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?”

  “I still think we should warn them,” said Digger.

  “God’s position.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You can intervene for a short-term benefit. But it might not be advantageous over the long haul.”

  “We’re not going to get metaphysical, are we?”

  She lay back on the soil and stared up at the sky.

  Digger got to his feet and looked toward the city, spread out across a range of hills behind them. And at the mountains beyond. “I think we have to make another attempt to talk to them.”

  He heard her sigh. “Instead of just waylaying somebody on the road,” she said, “how about we select a likely candidate this time?”

  “Macao,” he said.

  She nodded.

  THEY HAD LOST her in the crowd. How did you go about finding someone in a nontech city? You couldn’t look in the directory, and there was no way to ask without scaring the citizens half to death.

  They tried scouting the lecture circuit. But they found no advertising, no placards, nothing that suggested Macao was on the schedule.

  “We don’t even know for certain that she lives here,” grumbled Digger. “She might just have been here for the launch.”

  “No,” said Kellie. “In Brackel, she was listed as Macao of Kulnar. This is her home.”

  “Or maybe where she was born. But okay. Let’s assume you’re right. How do we find her?”

  “There has to be a way to communicate with people. To pass messages around.”

  Digger thought about it. How did you get a message to Cicero? You wrote it out on a piece of parchment and sent it by messenger, right? But where could they get a messenger?

  They called it a night and took the lander out to Utopia, where they were safely alone.

  In the morning, as they were getting ready to return to Kulnar, he asked Kellie whether he could have the silver chain she wore as a necklace.

  “May I ask why?”

  “I want to give it to another woman.”

  She canted her head and regarded him with a combination of amusement and suspicion. “The nearest other woman is a long walk, Digger.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “It’s important. And when we get home, I’ll replace it.”

  “It has sentimental value.”

  “Kellie, it would really help. And maybe we can figure out a way to get it back.”

  “I’m sure,” she said.

  On the way into the city, he retrieved one of the pickups and attached it to the chain. “How’s it look?”

  “Like a pickup on a chain.”

  Actually, he thought it looked pretty good. If you didn’t look too closely, the pickup might have been a polished, dark, disk-shaped jewel. It was the way a Goompah would see it.

  They found the local equivalent of a stationery store. It carried ink, quill-style pens, parchment of various thicknesses, and document cylinders. Because the weather had gotten cool, a fire had been built in a small metal grate in the middle of the floor. Its smoke drifted out through an opening in the roof. It wasn’t Segal’s, but it was adequate to their needs.

  “So where do we get a messenger?” asked Kellie.

  “Macao’s an entertainer,” he said. “They should know her at the public halls.” He disliked stealing merchandise, but he put the store in his mental file beside the Brackel
Library, for future recompense. He lifted two cylinders, a pen, a pot of ink, and some paper that could be rolled and placed inside. Then they went next door to a shop that sold carpets, and made off with some coins.

  The public buildings that hosted sloshen, shows, and other public events, were lightly occupied at that time of day. They picked one and looked in. Except for a couple of workers wiping down the walls, it seemed empty.

  They found a room with a table, closed the door, and sat down to write to Macao.

  The cylinders, which were made of bronze, were about a third of a meter long. They were painted black with white caps at either end. A tree branch with leaves for decoration on one, birds in flight on the other. What would one of these be worth at home?

  “What do we want to say?” asked Digger. “Keep in mind that I can’t write the language very well.”

  “I don’t see why we should write anything,” said Kellie. “All we want to do is find out where she lives.”

  Sounded reasonable to him. He twisted the caps and opened both cylinders, but stopped to wonder whether the messenger might look inside. “Better put something in there,” he said. He sat down at the table, pulled one of the sheets toward him, and opened his ink pot. Challa, Macao, he wrote. And, continuing in Goompah: We’ve enjoyed your work. He signed it Kellie and Digger.

  She smiled and shook her head. “First written interstellar communication turns out to be a piece of fan mail.”

  He inserted the message, twisted the cylinder shut, put the caps on, and reached for a second sheet. Please deliver to Macao Carista, he wrote.

  They found an inner office occupied by a Goompah who seemed to have some authority. He was installed behind a table, talking earnestly to an aide, describing how he wanted the auditorium set up for that evening’s performance. They were staging a show titled Wamba, which rang no bells for Digger.

  Shutters were closed against the cool air. A pile of rugs was pushed against one wall, and a fire burned cheerfully in a stove. A pipe took the smoke out of the building.