The Depths of Time

by Roger MacBride Allen

  “If that last was it, the man’s intuition was right. He used me, all right. He invited me to tour the suite of offices he was using in the Grand Library, and I went there first thing the next morning. After giving me the full tour of his operation—all the archives, all the info-storage nodes, the retrieval systems—he explained in detail what he wanted.

  The details of it don’t matter so much. What it boiled down to was that DeSilvo was trying to produce an absolutely complete record of the terraformation of Solace, and the Chronologic Patrol’s archives had information he wanted, about the initial discovery of the planet by telescopes from thirty light-years away, about the first probes sent to Solace, and about transport services provided by the CP during the project.

  “It was something to do, it was research, and it was, perhaps useful. I could imagine some Solacian child one day sitting down to learn about the founding of her world and reading about the information I had tracked down. I liked that idea. I set to work finding the references and getting the clearances. Because I was CP, it only took a few days for me to do the job. It would have taken a civilian months or years to track through all the red tape.

  “That’s how I got started. I found the history of the Solacian terraforming project fascinating—and, naturally enough, that pleased DeSilvo no end. I decided to write a history of the Solace project, something for the average reader, rather than for the scholar. It seemed the perfect project for me. It was a complex enough job to keep me busy for a good long while, and it would keep me quietly out of the way in the meantime. I’m sure it was just the sort of thing CP HQ had hoped I would decide to do.

  “As it happened, starting my book project meant I would be the first person to use the archive DeSilvo was preparing, before it was even complete, and that, needless to say, appealed to his vanity.

  “He wanted to assist me in as many ways as possible, but I did my best to keep him at arm’s length: The truth be told, I didn’t want him too close, because I wanted my book to be something a bit more objective than DeSilvo’s version.

  “I don’t want to give myself too much credit. I hadn’t yet started to notice the errors and inaccuracies in the official version, let alone the pattern behind those not-so-innocent mistakes. But there was something else I had spotted. Nothing that was terribly dramatic or underhanded. But, after all, the archive workers had all worked on the Solace terra-forming job, most of them directly under DeSilvo. They were, understandably enough, putting together an archive, a historical source, that reflected DeSilvo’s agenda.

  “I didn’t go looking for the gaps, the hidden files, the things swept under the rug. But I had served for years as a CP intelligence officer. It was second nature, an automatic reflex, for me to find the holes.

  “It was subtle stuff. I’ll just give you one example of the sort of thing they were doing, and leave it at that. The cross-reference links—the archive’s main index—had a lot more reference links to the successes of the project than links to the failures and mistakes. Any historian who relied on that index to locate information on a given subject, instead of searching the source material directly, would be getting very biased information without even realizing it. There were dozens of such subtle manipulations.

  “At the time, I didn’t think much of it. At the time I put it down to optimism and pride, an unconscious impulse to remember the good and forget the bad. The other researchers simply weren’t objective. But I soon came to doubt it was anything so undeliberate or benign. I think DeSilvo was quite deliberately reshaping the record and steering his assistants to do the same, to the full extent that he could, in order to make the Solace Archive a more fitting monument to himself.

  “As I got further along in my research for my book, I noticed more and more such holes and gaps and omissions. I found myself half-consciously tracking them back, for no better reason than that it was habit. It was automatic in me to want to know what a person was hiding. So I ran down the missing references, read the texts myself, and compared the indexes against them. When I found out how incomplete the indexes were, I set to work building my own cross-references. And don’t think that is a small job either, no matter how intelligent your automated assistants are. They invariably find too much or too little.

  “I found myself spending more time filling in the holes in the official history than I spent writing my own. And then I found it—found the key to it all, the hinge that everything else turned on. I found a cross-reference to a book by someone named Ulan Baskaw, a reference they had failed to expunge. The name meant nothing to me— and that in itself was remarkable, considering the amount of time I had spent reading through the archive files. By that time, I had become so distrustful of the archive project that I would have double-checked a reference to Earth’s sun rising in the east.

  “It should have taken no time at all to track down any and all references to Ulan Baskaw. The Grand Library’s search system should have popped up a full set of information and cross-references to that name, and to variants on it, in the time between two heartbeats. But it didn’t. It quite literally drew a blank. Nothing. Nothing at all. But I knew from the cross-reference number I had stumbled across that there had been at least one Grand Library reference to that name at some point in the past. The fact that it had turned up missing was, in and of itself, prima facie evidence, if not hard-edged proof, of a crime. Nothing is ever supposed to go out of the Grand Library. It is supposed to be the ultimate repository, the safe refuge for all knowledge. Once an item has a GL reference number, it is not supposed to go away.”

  Koffield frowned deeply. “But it did go away. DeSilvo erased it. That might not seem like much of a crime, but in the world of academia, in his world, altering or tampering with the Grand Library is—well, is sacrilege. Profaning the holy places. I couldn’t even imagine a motive strong enough to make a man like DeSilvo do such a thing. But he had a reason. A reason more than big enough to make library-tampering worthwhile.”

  A beeper went off on Norla’s control panel. The sound was not an alarm warning, not even an alert, but Koffield’s mood, and the tone of his story, had put her on edge, and she was halfway across the deck before she was even consciously aware of the sound. She dropped into the pilot’s chair and checked her board, then looked up to where she had expected Koffield to be, hovering over her shoulder, seeing the codes for himself. But he wasn’t there. She looked across the deck to see that he hadn’t made the slightest move. He was still in the wardroom.

  Damn the man. What was it he had in his veins besides ice? “They’ve spotted us,” she announced, raising her voice so it would carry across the cabin. “Solace Central Orbital Traffic Control is querying us for identity and flight plan. Looks like an automated transmission.”

  “Answer it,” Koffield said, his voice already more distant and distracted than it had been. “But don’t answer too thoroughly. If we go into any detail about who we are and how we got here, we’ll spend the rest of the flight giving our life story over and over again to every office and section and department head. Just give ship’s name and registry, and request a flight plan to Solace Central Orbital. See if that’s enough to get us clearance. If it isn’t, and they want more information, work on the same principle. Don’t give them more than they ask for.”

  “Yes, sir,”. Norla said. “Setting up my reply now.” Secretive sort of a fellow, that was for sure. What did it matter if they had to tell their story a dozen times as they worked up the chain of command? What else did they have to do?

  Koffield stood up, crossed back to the table, and collected the photo of two smiling men, of Anton Koffield and Oskar DeSilvo. He looked out the wardroom porthole. “I’ll be in my cabin for the remainder of the evening,” he said, and turned toward his cabin door.

  Norla finished feeding her reply to the comm system and looked up. “But, ah, sir—you haven’t finished telling me about—about the ...” Koffield stopped and looked toward her. The expression on his face made her give u
p before she had even fairly begun. His jaw was set, and his eyes, normally so warm and kind-looking, were suddenly cold and hard as blast-proof glass.

  “I don’t wish to speak about that matter anymore at present,” he said in a voice as hard as his expression. Then his tone of speech softened just a trifle. “Another time, Officer Chandray,” he said. “If they have found us, things might well start happening rather quickly. There is a lot for me to think about, to have worked out, before we meet the Solacians. It would be best for all concerned if I concentrated on what might happen next, rather than being distracted by things that happened quite some time ago.”

  “Understood, sir,” Norla said, though she understood very little indeed.

  “I promise, Officer Chandray, that you will know all you need to know before you need to know it.” And with that, Rear Admiral Anton Koffield nodded toward her, once, very slightly, and vanished into his cabin.

  All you need to know before you need to know it. How could he be sure he knew all that was needful? Even if he did, how could she possibly learn it all in time? Norla shook her head. Anton Koffield might be a man of his word, but the promise he had made would be tough for any man to keep.

  And even harder for a man who was already a hundred-plus years behind schedule.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Bursting the Bubble

  “SCO Traffic Control, this is Cruzeiro do Sul. We report engines off. Circular parking orbit in equatorial plane, as instructed, ninety-nine-point-nine-plus match with assigned orbit Easy-27-44. Over.”

  Norla killed the mike and glanced over at her companion. The man was making her nervous. She knew damned well she didn’t have Admiral Anton Koffield close to figured out. He had told not a word more of his story since the first hail had come in. What was he waiting for?

  She had no idea. But she had at least thought she had worked out his attitude toward the lighter Cruzeiro do Sul and her trip in toward Solace. She had thought he couldn’t care less. He had, after all, paid not the slightest attention to her operation of the ship during the first two and a half days of the journey. She had expected him to keep that up, and pay no attention whatsoever right on through to the close of their journey. But she wasn’t that lucky. He was right there, next to her, in the copilot’s station. And the only thing he was doing was watching.

  Which was just about all he had done since Solace Central had first hailed them. Watching. Observing. Checking his recording devices now and again to confirm they were getting everything. Sitting there in the copilot’s chair with his hands folded, watching every move she made, listening to every hail and reply back and forth between the Cruzeiro and Solace Orbital Traffic Control.

  She supposed it made sense, when she thought about it. He knew all about the Cruzeiro, and he knew that Norla was a competent pilot. Therefore, there had been no need to keep watch. But he knew next to nothing about current conditions on Solace, or in the Solacian system. At any moment, some vital bit of information could go past, something that might be the crucial piece to a puzzle, perhaps even to a puzzle they did not yet know existed. He had to take in everything that concerned the unknown.

  “Cruzeiro do Sul, this is SCO Traffic Control.” It was a young man’s voice, worried-sounding, but trying to put on a show of calm and professionalism. “Maintain current orbit. Do not maneuver until instructed to do so.”

  “SCO Traffic Control, this is Cruzeiro do Sul. Instructions received, and will comply. We are standing by for maneuver instructions.” Norla killed the mike. “That was the first voice I’ve heard from SCO Traffic that didn’t sound automated,” she said. “Do you think we got bumped up to actual human attention?”

  “Probably,” said Koffield. “If I were an Artlnt, this is about where I’d kick it upstairs to a human. It would seem they’re starting to wonder about us.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly like we’re on their current registry,” Norla replied. “I’m surprised we got this far.”

  “That’s the advantage of not volunteering information,” Koffield said with a chuckle. “It keeps people from getting curious about all the things you’re not telling them.”

  “So now what?” she asked.

  “Now we do what the man said,” Koffield replied. “We wait. And don’t ask me how long. Might be hours, or longer. Depends on what sort of bureaucracy they have these—”

  “Cruzeiro do Sul, this is SCO Traffic Control. Please reply.”

  Norla grinned. “A pretty efficient one, it looks like.” She flipped her mike back on. “This is Cruzeiro do Sul,” she said. “Go ahead, SCO Control.”

  “Cruzeiro, we’ve getting some strange data from your autotransponder. Are you aware it is running on a very out-of-date frequency? Over.”Norla raised an eyebrow and looked at Koffield. “It doesn’t surprise me. Over.”

  “Ah, yeah. Well, the frequency’s not the only thing out-of-date. Our Artlnts had to dig way back into the archives to find the registry data. We have you listed as a lighter off a larger core vessel. Can you confirm that?”

  Core vessel? She hadn’t heard that term before, but it was easy enough to figure out what it meant. “That is correct. Our core vessel is the Dom Pedro IV, Earth registry.” She was tempted to tell him more, but Koffield shook his head. “Over” was all she said.

  “Ah, right,” the young man’s voice replied. “That matches our archive info. Except the Dom Pedro IV was declared as lost with all hands, ah, one hundred twenty-two years ago. Ah, over.”

  That matched. They usually gave an overdue ship five years to show up. Norla shrugged. “Well,” she said, “I guess we were lost, but we’re found now, SCO. Over.”

  “Stand by, Cruzeiro.” The line should have gone dead at that point, but the controller apparently forgot to cut his mike. Koffield and Norla could hear two or three voices whispering urgently in the background. Finally the controller came back on. “Hell, my mike’s still open. Ah, Cruzeiro, please advise. Where is the Dom Pedro IV?”

  Norla looked toward Koffield again. He mouthed the words Just tell the truth. “Dom Pedro is in-system, SCO Control, in a distant orbit. Our captain figured it would be smart to send in a, ah, scout ship first to see what the situation was. Given the circumstances. Over.”

  “Right, Cruzeiro. I can understand that. I think. Stand by.”

  This time the controller did cut his mike. Koffield shook his head and smiled sadly. “Now it begins,” he said. “We’re public. I wonder if they’ll think we’re freaks, or quaint survivors, or historical treasures, or suspect us of being part of some vast secret plot.”

  One thing was for sure. The man certainly knew how to put a positive spin on things.

  After a brief delay, the controller came back on the line.

  “Cruzeiro, SCO Traffic Control. Just so we’re clear on this. You’re saying that your core ship, the Dom Pedro IV, has just arrived, one hundred twenty-seven years late?”

  “That’s correct, SCO. We don’t understand it either. Not yet. But that’s what happened.”

  “Very well, Cruzeiro. Stand by one more time.” Again the line went dead. But it didn’t matter. Now they were public. Now the outside universe knew they existed. The outside universe suddenly had the capacity to reach them, to affect them, to hurt them or help them.

  And now, at last, they had reached out to the outside universe. Before this moment, Norla could pretend that it was all a bad dream. There had been a bubble of unreality around them, because the outside universe did not know they existed. Now the bubble was burst.

  Then, at last, the call came. “ Cruzeiro do Sul, this is SCO Traffic Control. Please respond.” It was a woman’s voice this time, older, more confident and authoritative.

  “Looks like we’ve been bumped up one more level,” Norla muttered, and then flipped on her mike. “This is Cruzeiro do Sul. Go ahead, SCO Traffic Control.”

  “Cruzeiro, if the Artlnts and automatics are giving us straight data, it looks as if your autonav systems are about eight generation
s back. We’re supposed to be backward compatible, but no one here wants to bet on eight gens of bug-free programming. We’d like you to fly a manual approach, rendezvous, and dock. Do you concur? Over.”

  “That makes sense to me, over.”

  “Very well. Is anyone aboard qualified for manual flight ops and docking? If need be, we can fly a pilot out to you.”

  Norla was about to take offense, but then she realized it was a perfectly sensible question. They were, after all, a hundred and twenty-seven years late getting in. The Dom Pedro’s crew could easily have taken some casualties— as indeed they had. There was no way for Solace Central Orbital to know whether they were alert and healthy and trained, or just barely alive and limping in on luck and automatics. “No need for that, SCO Traffic Control. We have two pilots aboard, both fully trained and qualified on this craft. Though I guess our licenses have probably lapsed by now.”

  “Well, we’ll waive license requirements for the time being, Cruzeiro. We’re sending your flight plan up on sideband two now. Please examine it and respond. Your maneuver window is ten minutes, five seconds, and it opens in forty-six minutes, seven seconds, mark. Please advise in ample time whether or not you concur with flight plan. Over.”

  “Understood, SCO Traffic Control. Flight plan is on my display now. Stand by just a moment.” Norla looked over the flight plan and nodded to herself. No problem. A conservative transfer orbit and a very straightforward direct approach. Not the fastest way to get them there, but they had lost any right to be in a hurry about a century or so back. At a guess, SCO was making things easy on her just to be on the safe side. How sure could they be about what a ship from out of the last century could do? “SCO Traffic Control, this is Cruzeiro do Sul. The flight plan is fine. Will commence initial maneuver at start of window. Cruzeiro do Sul out.”

  Norla didn’t have any way of knowing how they did things these days, but back in her own time, it had been surpassingly rare for a pilot to get a chance at a manual-approach maneuver, to say nothing of final rendezvous, or doing the actual docking. The automatics did it all, and the pilots sat on their hands, mere backup systems for the machinery that never failed. Pilots were there for the unforeseen, the unforeseeable. But after thousands of years of space travel, there was not that much left that could be unforeseen. Everything had happened at least once, and been recorded in the memories of the infallible machines.