Ancient Shores

by Jack McDevitt

  Alma left convinced that Addison beleived none of it. But she got her story and scared the devil out of a substantial portion of the countryside.

  And she was, by the way, wrong about Bill. He believed every word.

  Andrea Hawk gave Max a hand with the travel kit and then stood aside.

  The video record of the rings icon had revealed a wall with a long window. The window was dark. The wall was plain. They knew nothing else about the last of the possible destinations tied into the Roundhouse.

  Somehow the place had looked chilly, so they were all warmly dressed. “You know,” said Arky, “it’s just a matter of time before we get stuck out there somewhere.”

  “That’s right,” said Andrea. “We should devise a test. A way to make sure we can get home.”

  “If you can think of a way to do it,” said April, “set something up.” Max knew she had no intention of waiting around. She wanted to look at the last of the places that could be reached from the Roundhouse; and he knew she would go on from there to Eden and begin exploring its connections. Eventually, he believed, they would lose her.

  Andrea stood by the icons while April, Max, and Arky took their places on the grid. “Ready to move out,” said April.

  She pressed the rings. “Usual routine,” said Max, waving a spade. “We’ll check the return capability before we do anything.” And to Andrea: “We’ll send the spade back. If it doesn’t work, we’ll post a message.”

  Andrea nodded.

  Max tried to relax. He closed his eyes against the coming light and took a deep breath. That was probably what saved his life.

  He’d discovered there was less vertigo if he closed his eyes. He watched the familiar glow against the inside of his lids, felt the unsettling lack of physical reality, as if he himself no longer quite existed. Then the light died, weight came back, his body came back.

  And he couldn’t breathe.

  A wall of cold hit him and he went down onto a grid. His ears roared and his heart pounded.

  Vacuum. They’d materialized in a vacuum.

  April’s fingers clawed at him. She staggered away, off the grid. He went after her.

  They were in a long, cylindrical chamber filled with machines. The black panel they’d seen in the video was a window, the night beyond it unbroken by any star.

  Several windows along the opposite wall admitted the only illumination: light from an enormous elliptical galaxy. Even in his terror, Max was awestruck by the majesty of the scene.

  Arky stumbled through the silver glow to the rear of the transportation device, which was supported by a post like the one in Eden. From his angle, Max could see two columns of icons.

  Arky looked at the icons and caught Max’s eye. Max saw reproach in the distorted features. And something else.

  Now.

  Max read the tortured stare.

  Go.

  The dark eyes flicked to the grid. Max seized April while Arky pressed the icon display. One of the symbols lit up, but his fingers stuck and would not come loose.

  The terrible cold pushed what air Max had left out of his lungs. The world was slipping away, fading, and he just wanted it to be over.

  But April’s hand held onto him. Drew him back. He staggered onto the grid, and she collapsed behind him.

  Arky was on his knees, watching them.

  The chamber began to fade, and Max would have screamed against the coming light if he could.

  The tape, played on NBC’s Counterpoint, had caught everything. A nationwide audience watched the eerie column of snow move with purpose across its screens. If any program in the history of television had been designed to terrify its audience, this was it.

  “And the child,” asked the moderator gently, “was found in the field when you drove this thing away?”

  “I don’t think that’s exactly what happened,” said Stuyvesant.

  “What exactly did happen, Jim?”

  “It was more like it was trying to show me where the child was.”

  The moderator nodded. “Can we run that last portion again, Phil?”

  They watched the whirling snow systematically retreat and pause and advance and retreat again. Unfortunately, the audience could not see the connection with the movements of the man holding the camera, but they saw enough.

  “Is it true,” asked the moderator, “that Jeri never before did anything like this?”

  “That’s what her folks say. If they say it, I’m sure it’s so.”

  “Why do you think she wandered off this time?”

  “Don’t know. I guess it just happened.”

  “Jim, is there any truth to the rumor that she was lured? That this thing was trying to get her away from the town?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stuyvesant said.

  The cameras moved in for a closeup of the moderator, who turned a quizzical expression to the audience.

  26

  O my son, farewell!

  You have gone beyond the great river—

  —Blackfoot poem

  If, during that period, a true injustice was committed against any of the persons living in and around Fort Moxie, the victim was Jeri Tully. Jeri also received a gift of inestimable value, and the gift and the injustice were one and the same.

  For reasons unknown to the corps of specialists who had examined her, Jeri had never grown properly, and her skull had never become large enough to house her brain. Consequently, the child had suffered not only a diminution in height but retardation as well. Her world was a confused jumble, a place that was arbitrary and unpredictable, in which the principle of causality seemed scarcely to operate at all.

  Jeri’s pleasures were limited largely to tactile experiences: her mother’s smile, an astronaut doll to which she had become particularly attached, her younger brothers, and (on Friday nights) pizza. She had little interest in television, nor was she able to participate in the games normal children might play. She was delighted when a visitor paid attention to her. And she enjoyed Star Wars films, although only in theaters.

  June Tully sensed a change in her child after Jim Stuyvesant brought her home on that cold April day. But she could not pin it down. The feeling was so ephemeral that she never mentioned it to her husband.

  Jeri, by the nature of her misfortune, would never really grasp her deficiencies, and therefore they could give her no pain. This simple view provided unlimited consolation to her family. But something unique had happened to her when she sank half frozen into the snow off Route 11. She was frightened, but not for her life, because she did not understand danger. She was frightened because she did not know where she was, where her home was. And she could not stop the cold.

  Suddenly something had invaded her world. Her mind opened, not unlike a blossom directed toward the sun. She had risen into the sky and ridden the wind, had known a flood of joy unlike anything she’d experienced before. She had reached far beyond her own pale limitations.

  During those few moments, Jeri understood the interplay between wind and heat and the tension between open sky and swollen clouds. She soared and dipped above the land, as if she were herself a storm, a thing made equally of sunlight and snow and high winds.

  For the rest of her life, her crippled brain would cling to the memory of the sky, of the time when the darkness and the chaos and the weakness had receded. When Jeri had known what it was to be godlike.

  Adam and Max went back in pressure suits to retrieve Arky’s body. They said good-bye to him two days later in a quiet Catholic ceremony at the reservation chapel. The priest, who was from Devil’s Lake, said the ancient words of farewell in the Sioux tongue.

  The mourners were equally divided between Native Americans and their friends. There were a substantial number of attractive young women, and nine members of a teenage basketball team for which Arky had been an assistant coach.

  Max was informed that, as one of the beneficiaries of Arky’s sacrifice, he would be expected to say a few words recounting the even
t. So he used a notebook to record his thoughts. But when the time actually came to speak, the notebook, which was in his pocket, seemed a long way off. It embarrassed him to have anyone think he could not, without help, describe his feeling for the man who had saved his life. “Arky did not know April or me very well,” he said, speaking from the front of the chapel. “A few months ago we were strangers.

  “Today she and I are here not only because of his courage but also because under extreme conditions he kept his head. He must have known he could not save himself. So he devoted himself to saving us.”

  Max took a deep breath. His audience leaned forward attentively. “When I first visited his office, I noticed that he kept a bow in a prominent place on the wall. It was his father’s, he explained. I could see his pride. The bow is a warrior’s weapon. My father was also a warrior. And he would have been proud to claim such a son.” Max’s voice shook. He saw again the little girl in the aircraft window.

  He had thought that memory had been laid to rest when he’d gone through the port after April. But he understood in the cold clarity of that moment that it would always be with him.

  It is the custom among the tribes of the Dakotas and the Northwest at such times to deemphasize their sense of loss. Rather than mourn, they celebrate the life and accomplishments of the spirit that had taken flesh and lived temporarily among them. Part of that celebration is a ritualized gift-giving by members of the family.

  At the end of the ceremony, Max was surprised to be called forward by a teenager who identified himself as Arky’s brother. “We have something for you,” the boy said.

  While an expectant stir ran through the party, he produced a long, narrow box wrapped in hand-woven fabric. Max thanked him and opened the package. It was the bow.

  “I can’t take this,” Max protested.

  James Walker stood and turned so the crowd could hear him. “In your own words,” he said, “the bow is a warrior’s weapon.”

  Everyone cheered.

  “I’m no warrior,” Max said. “I’m a businessman.”

  The tribal chairman smiled. “You have a warrior’s spirit, Collingwood. Arky gave his life for you, and it is the family’s decision you should have the bow.” When Max still hesitated, he added, “He would wish that it find its home with you.”

  One of the students showed the visitor in, looked inquisitively at April, and withdrew.

  She rose and extended her hand. “Mr. Asquith?”

  “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Cannon.” Asquith’s grip was uncertain. He seized her by her fingers. “I don’t know whether you’ve heard of me.”

  The tone carried just enough self-deprecation to imply that Asquith understood he was in fact a person of no small significance. He was, of course, Walter Asquith, two-time Pulitzer prize-winning critic, essayist, poet, and novelist, best known for a series of scathing social commentaries, the most recent of which, Late News from Babylon, had topped the New York Times best-seller list for six months. April remembered from her college years a guest instructor who was at the end of a long career as an editor and writer. They’d been assigned Asquith’s Marooned in Barbary, a collection of blistering attacks on various literary personages and efforts, in one of which the instructor surfaced briefly to take an arrow between the eyes from the great man. He had proudly pointed out the page and line to his students, and April understood that the assault had been the apex of his career. Rather like being Dante’s barber.

  “I know of your work, Mr. Asquith,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  He was big, round-shouldered, meaty. His hair was white and combed over a bald spot. He spoke in short, authoritative bursts and would, April thought, have made a good judge.

  “I want to spend some time in Eden,” he said.

  April wrote down the scheduler’s phone number and passed it over to him. “They’ll be happy to put you on the list.”

  “No, I don’t think you understand. I’ve already been there. I want to go back. To be honest, I’d like to pitch a tent and move in. For a while.”

  April glanced quite deliberately at her watch. She was no longer impressed by credentials. An outrageous request was outrageous, whatever its source. “I’m sorry, Mr. Asquith. I don’t think we can permit—”

  “Dr. Cannon, I’m aware of the scientific significance of the Roundhouse. I wonder whether you grasp the psychological and philosophical implications. The slow, generally upward course of the human race has forked. We have plunged into a broad forest. The world as we know it is waiting for something to happen. But it is uncertain what that something will be. That is why the world’s financial markets are in chaos; why demonstrators are in front of the White House; why the United Nations is locked in its most acrimonious debate in a decade. When you stepped across the gulf a couple of weeks ago into whatever place that was, you began a new era.

  “Someone needs to record all this. To tie the daily events to their historical and literary significance. We used to think that if the twentieth century would be remembered for any single moment, it would be the moon landing. But—” He looked steadily at her. “The moon landing is small potatoes, Dr. Cannon. The decisive moment, not of the century but of recorded history, is now. I know you have begun to bring in experts, mathematicians, geologists, astronomers, and whatnot. And that is all to the good. We need to do that. But we also need someone whose sole function will be to consider the meaning of what is happening here. To stand back while others measure and weigh and speculate, to apply these events against the progress of the human spirit.” He placed his hands together and laid his chin against them. “I think that I am uniquely qualified for such a role. I have, in fact, already compiled extensive notes. And I would be honored to be allowed to participate.”

  Asquith had a point, April thought. “What did you have in mind? A series of news reports?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. I would want to do a major work. My magnum opus.”

  “Let me think about it,” she said. “I’ll get back to you.”

  “The working title would be Ancient Shores.” He gave her a card. “We should start without delay.”

  He let himself out. April decided she would do it. That kind of publicity couldn’t hurt them. But she’d run it past Max first.

  She picked up her messages. Peg Moll, their scheduler and event coordinator, had received a call from a man identifying himself as the agent for Shaggy Dog. The rap group wanted to do a concert on Johnson’s Ridge. “They’re promising to sell two hundred thousand tickets,” Peg said.

  When the phone rang, Max and April were discussing plans to send a repair crew into the chamber that had taken Arky’s life. (Already it had outdistanced Eden as the place that researchers most wanted to visit.)

  April picked it up, listened for a minute, and said, “Thanks.” She replaced the receiver and turned to Max. “There are some investors,” she said, “forming a corporation to control travel to all the worlds connected to the Roundhouse. They’ve offered three-quarters of a billion dollars for exclusive rights.”

  “The price is going up,” said Max.

  “They call themselves Celestial Tours.” She smiled sadly.

  Detroit, Apr. 1 (Reuters)—

  The Detroit Free Press today reported that the Detroit Lions may move to Fargo, North Dakota. According to unnamed sources, the club has agreed to a deal with Manuel Corazon, CEO of Prairie Industries, and the sale will be announced tomorrow. Pending approval by the rest of the league, the team would move next year and become known as the Fargo Visitors.

  Prairie Industries is a conglomerate specializing primarily in the manufacture of agricultural equipment.

  Larry King special on TNT, April 1. Guest: Dmitri Polkaevich, winner of the Pulitzer prize for Iron Dreams, a definitive history of the USSR. Topic: the new Russian revolution. (Suggested by then-current fears that a right-wing Russian coup was imminent.)

  King: You don’t feel, then, that a resurgence of nati
onalism is likely?

  Polkaevich: The world is changing very rapidly, Larry. No, it is true there are those in Russia who would give us their own peculiar brand of fascism, if they could. Just as there are those who would return to Lenin. But the tide of history is running against them all.

  King: Well, I’m happy to hear it. If I may ask before we go to the phones, where is the tide of history taking us?

  Polkaevich: Predicting the future is a dangerous enterprise.

  King: Yes. But you just implied—

  Polkaevich: That some tendencies are evident. Larry, you have of course been following the events along the Canadian border?

  King: The Roundhouse? (Smiles) I wouldn’t know how to get away from them. In fact, we’ll be doing a show from there next week.

  Polkaevich: The bridge to the stars is a Rubicon.

  King: For Russian politicians?

  Polkaevich: Oh, yes. And for the Armenians. And the Chinese. Larry, I no longer think of myself as a Muscovite. Or even as a Russian. No. You and I are citizens of Earth. The era of national borders, of governments that divide us with their petty squabbles, is passing into history.

  King: Governments are becoming obsolete?

  Polkaevich: Individual governments, yes. I think we will soon see a world body. Unfortunately, the transition period will be a dangerous time. People tend to disparage their governments, but they will fight to the death to keep them. And there is good reason for their fears. If a world government becomes oppressive, where does one flee? Although now perhaps we have an answer to that problem. (Chuckles)

  King: Dmitri, your comment that you no longer think of yourself as a Russian intrigues me. I wonder if you can elaborate a little more on that.

  Polkaevich: Larry, we know now we are not alone. There are others out there somewhere, and they are quite near. This knowledge will cause us to draw together.