Thackery hung back as Eagan and Muir disembarked and Sebright made introductions. There were muted words of congratulations and bittersweet hugs. Then Eagan pressed past and came to where Thackery stood.
“You screwed up,” he said, his face hard and unfriendly.
“I know,” Thackery said.
But his admission of guilt did not end the chill. It lingered as they worked together to unload the two trunk-sized cases containing the deep-space transmitter and the two satchels of personal gear, and passed the equipment and their owners into the custody of Maija’s family. Muir did not speak to him at all.
All too quickly, there was nothing left to do but board the gig and leave, nothing more to postpone the accounting. Thackery had his hand on the ramp railing when one of the girls who had helped prepare the bodies—Thackery did not even know her name—ran from Taj’s side across the field to him.
“You still grieve,” she said, breathless from running.
“Yes.”
She pressed something into his hand. “So that you might replace those who are lost,” she said earnestly.
He opened his hand to find a black wood statuette, two-faced, Janus-like. One side was female, a woman with a distended belly and pendulous breasts, the other male, improbably gifted and triumphantly erect. The craftmanship was superb, the symbolism obvious. It was a fertility icon.
The gift was a gesture as poignant as it was pointless. His eyes moistening, Thackery closed his hand over the icon and looked up at the girl’s hopeful face.
“Thank you,” he said, and turned away to climb the ramp.
But his grief was not over Jael and Michael, for their trials were ended. It was for himself, and for the realization that in leaving Gnivi he was closing out his career, that he would never walk on a world other than Earth again. His ambition had cost the lives of two of his friends, and he could not imagine that either he or the Service would be willing to forget that.
PARADOX
(from Mennitt Thackery’s
JIADUR’S WAKE)
… The Service’s carefully laid out scheme of expansion very nearly came apart even as it was coalescing. Problems of logistics, erratic morale at the Advance Bases, and a shortage of ships to back up the advancing survey vessels were all factors. But at the heart of the problem was communication.
For, despite the fleetness of the AVLO-drive ships, communication between them, the Advance Bases, and Unity was limited by the electromagnetic medium and its 300,000 kilo-metres per second speed limit. Through the first half of Phase II, every advance in Service communications technology had to do with compressing data, extending the useful range of transmitters, or increasing the operating efficiency. Nothing could be done about speeding the message on its way.
That created a curious situation wherein the fastest way to deliver critical news was to send a messenger. There was no Einsteinian paradox involved, no more than if you should mail an invitation to a neighbor, then walk next door to cancel it before it was delivered.
But there were problems all the same. Every base, every ship, was on its own time zone, and the time zones were not hours but decades apart. A dialog between installations was impossible when your nearest “neighbor” lived far away in the past or in the future. Contemporaneity was fast becoming a lost concept except to Service historians, to whom it was a continuing nightmare. In short, the vast expanses which the Service had conquered threatened to divide and conquer the Service itself
Chapter 9
* * *
Not On My Watch
When the gig docked, Guerrieri did his best to make up with enthusiasm for what the reception lacked in numbers. Later, there were many calls of congratulations from upship: Tefft Voss, Jessie, Bayn Graeff, even Dunn. But the congratulations left Thackery cold, unaffected.
1 have no claim to the success of Gnivi, only to the disaster, he told himself, and there was no one to argue.
As Thackery had anticipated, Neale was already preparing Descartes for a quick return to A-Cyg with the Gnivi data. He had expected that they would at least wait out the thirty-six hour post-Contact isolation period, giving the liaison team a chance to settle in and report any problems. But within an hour of the gig’s return, the order was given which sent Descartes climbing out of orbit to begin its return trip. Baldwin caught one encouraging dispatch from the liaison team before crazing, but that was all.
With two lost and two left behind and the isolation hatch still sealed, contact country was suddenly a large and lonely place. Thackery rattled around aimlessly, unable to concentrate on the work that needed doing, withdrawn into himself. Even the sound of Guerrieri’s hammer dulcimer, which Thackery had always regarded as bright and joyful, seemed funereal and mocking instead.
But when he stopped by the astrophysicist’s cabin to ask him to stop or close his door, Thackery found himself hungry for companionship, and instead walked in and sat down.
“Hey, an audience,” Guerrieri said, the mallets light in his fingers, flashing precisely against the taut steel strings. “Thack—I was wondering—do you want to double up?”
“No,” Thackery said, shaking his head.
“Like the elbow room, eh?”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Post-Contact blues?”
“How many ships do you know have lost crew in landings?”
Guerrieri stopped playing and considered. “I know Hugin lost one, because that’s how McAullife’s Planet got its name. Nestor’s gig crashed, so they lost half their team. Those were both survey landings, though, not contact landings. Is this the first time anyone’s lost people during a Contact?”
“Unless someone has since we went out.”
“Well—I wouldn’t dwell on it. We did find a colony. The Flight Office is going to care a lot more about that than about Mike and Jael.”
“That’s nonsense. They can’t just shrug it off.”
“I suppose not. Still—it wasn’t your fault, eh?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No, of course not. If you want to be fair about it, it was the Gnivi.”
“But it wouldn’t have happened if we’d waited until we knew more about them.”
“Sebright made the decision, didn’t he? And Neale was right there.”
“But I made the recommendation,” Thackery said sullenly.
“They didn’t have to take it.” Guerrieri shrugged. “You don’t need to worry unless Sebright decides to pin it on you.”
“He’s never said so much as one word of reproof. I wish he would. Waiting for it is worse.”
“Sounds like you’re going to be okay, then.”
Thackery shook his head. “You don’t understand. I am responsible. I don’t intend to duck it or fight it. I accept it.”
Guerrieri reached for the mallets. “You’re too rough on yourself. Nothing’s going to happen. Don’t you think they expected to lose some of us? Probably more of us than they have. Back in the office this won’t be seen as a screw-up. Back there this is just kismet.” He resumed playing, the haunting sound engaging ambivalent emotions as it chased Thackery back to his cabin.
The inquiry hearing was held behind closed doors in the library.
“They’re here,” Shaffer reported to the waiting board, which consisted of Neale, Rogen, and Dunn. “Would you like them one at a time or together?”
“Thackery first,” Neale told the awk, raising an eyebrow in the direction of the others. “Unless there are objections?” The others demurred, and Neale nodded to Shaffer. “Show him in.”
There had been a change in Thackery, Neale saw immediately. As he walked in and took his seat there was nothing of the eager-to-please lesser who had walked into her Unity office for his first interview, nothing of the calculating new black he had been for most of the mission to date. There was something new in his bearing, something which suggested he would be less tractable. No great loss, she thought. I’m almost done with him.
“You understand that the purpose of this inquiry is to determine the circumstances which led to the loss of Technoanalyst Michael Tyszka and Interpolator Jael Collins during the Gnivi Contact,” Rogen was saying.
“Yes,” said Thackery.
“This is not a fitness review nor a personal evaluation. This is an inquiry into the performance of the entire team. It is not the role of this board to recommend to the Flight Office any action on behalf of or against any member of the team. This is purely an informational exercise.”
“I understand.”
“Very well. Commander?” Rogen said, deferring to Neale.
“Merry, would you describe the events leading up to the attack by the Gnivi guardsmen?”
It was the first time he had been called that by anyone except Diana, and he decided immediately he did not like it. He could not tell from Neale’s expression whether she used it knowingly, to goad him, or innocently, to relax him. Either way, he hoped she would not make a habit of it. “There’s not much I can add to what’s in the telecamera and transceiver recordings.”
“Go ahead anyway,” Neale said pleasantly.
The telling took several minutes, starting with the entry at the East Gate and ending with the appearance of Par.
“Thank you, that’s enough,” Neale said, cutting him off.
“In your estimation, would an immediate pickup have afforded the injured members of the team the medical attention necessary to save one or both of them?”
“I—don’t know. From what I saw of the wounds later, I doubt it.”
“The Gnivi weapons weren’t explosive, were they? You had no indication that a poison was used?”
“No.”
“Then they bled to death.”
“I have basic Service EMT training, that’s all. I can’t really say,” Thackery said. “I didn’t see much of Michael. Jael was closest to me.”
“But they lived for several minutes.”
“Those aren’t the easiest circumstances to keep track of time. I suppose they did. Didn’t the biotelemetry tell you what happened?”
Neale ignored the question. “In your estimation, wouldn’t a more prudent course have been to make a preliminary Contact with the pedestrians in the East Gate plaza?”
“It sure looks that way now,” Thackery said. “But in my opinion, the mistake was made earlier.”
“Oh? When?”
“We landed prematurely. We should have taken more time to evaluate the Gnivian society. As linguist, I should have insisted on planting peepers among the rurals as well, as a cross-check on dialect and as a source of an alternate perspective. If I had done that, Mike and Jael would still be alive. And we knew that Gnivan was a written language, but I didn’t think it was crucial to the Contact. I was wrong. If we had been able to read the warnings at the entrance to Broadway, Mike and Jael would still be alive.”
“So you blame yourself,” Rogen said.
“I do.”
“Do you have command responsibility, Mr. Thackery?” Neale asked lazily.
“No. But the Contact Leader is obliged to rely on what we tell him. If we tell him things that aren’t true, or are only partly true, he can’t be held accountable for the decisions that flow from them.”
“Thank you for your thoughts,” Neale said. “Do the rest of you have any other questions? Very well, Merry, you can go.” In the few moments between Thackery’s departure and Se bright’s arrival, Dunn turned to Neale. “Very forward about taking responsibility.”
“That’s Thackery’s style,” Neale said idly. “Very conscientious. We have to remember, though, that he’s also loyal to the Concom. Who wouldn’t be, in that situation? They were the only two to survive, and it was Sebright who got Thackery out of danger. You have to expect him to feel an obligation.”
The door opened then to admit Sebright. When he had settled himself before them, Neale rocked back in her chair. “All right, Mark. What went wrong down there?”
“I think it’s pretty obvious. We walked into the middle of a jacquerie.”
“How is it possible that we sent a team down there not knowing that?”
“The Gnivi have had two hundred years of armed standoff to prettify their fortifications so their populace isn’t constantly confronted with reminders of war and potential war. That concealment made it possible for us to misread the balance of economic and political power between the city-dwellers and the rurals.”
“And whose fault was that?”
“No one’s.”
Dunn leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “How can you say that?”
“We were forced to proceed on the basis of incomplete information.” Neale’s eyebrow shot up. “Again, whose fault was that?”
“You’re always going to have incomplete information from an aerial survey. Cultures don’t assay as neatly as rock formations, Commander. We made the best guess possible under the circumstances. We were wrong.”
“And who was responsible for making that guess?”
“There’s no hard line in a contact team separating one person’s responsibility from another’s. It’s a group effort.”
“Please,” Dunn said tiredly, “let’s not try to protect anyone, Concom Sebright. Who was responsible for the miss?”
“Since you insist,” Sebright said, meeting Neale’s gaze, “it was really Mike and Jael’s call. It was Mike’s job to assess the technological level of the culture. He underestimated the level of the rurals, which reinforced our natural bias toward the city as the seat of power. And it was Jael’s job to read between the lines and see the inconsistencies in the model.”
“Now isn’t that convenient, if the dead were responsible for their own deaths.”
“You’re the one who wanted names. I don’t look on it that way. Everything that happened, good and bad, belongs to all of us equally.”
“A very egalitarian outlook,” Neale said. “That will be all.”
“Not quite, Commander. I’d like a word with you outside.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed back her chair and followed him out.
“I know what you were trying to do in there,” he said, leaning close. “You wanted me to name Thack. That stinks, Ali. You know the position you put the kid in. How can you climb on him now for doing what you asked?”
“You don’t need to worry about Thackery,” she said reassuringly.
He squinted at her suspiciously. “I have your word on that?”
“You do.”
When they came out of the craze a fortnight later, it was impossible to see the base they had left and the jewellike city revealed on the monitors as the same structure. Cygnus had done more than grow—it had undergone a metamorphosis as dramatic as that experienced by any hymnopeteran.
For all Thackery could tell by looking, the original base had been either discarded or completely disassembled. Instead of a slender spire, Cygnus now had a cubic structure easily a hundred times the previous volume. Atop the base, extended from the “roof” like antennae, were two tall docking masts. Slung beneath the bulk of the station, also two in number, were the familiar upside-down U shapes of shipways. One of the ’ways was occupied by some sort of capital ship, though Thackery could not see enough of it to know even which series.
But Thackery could not spend too much time sight-seeing. Descartes had regained its senses a mere five hours out, truncating the final leg of the journey. Just an hour later, the word came down from the bridge:
“After discussions with base authorities, Commander Neale advises that all personnel will leave the ship at Cygnus. That’s the good news, folks—a change of scenery. The bad news is that you have to clean up after yourselves before you go.”
Thackery had already anticipated leaving the ship, so his own quarters were in order. But with that news, there were Michael’s things to look after, and Jael’s, and an empty cabin to police, and samples to be readied for transfer, and a contact lab to put in orde
r. By the time Thackery and Guerrieri were ready, most of the awks and techs had already departed.
Thackery’s last stop was his own cabin, to pick up his gear. On the way out, he paused at the door, the duffle bag slung over one shoulder, and looked back at the now-empty compartment. He thought about Danny McShane, his first cabin-mate, and about Michael, his last, and he felt the sadness welling up from his chest. It didn’t go well for any of us, did it?
A few metres down the corridor, Guerrieri emerged from his cabin and joined him. “Not getting sentimental, are you now? You’ll be back,” he said, clapping Thackery on the shoulder. “No,” Thackery said soberly as he pulled the door shut. “Not to this cabin, or this ship. That much I know.”
A-Cyg’s port facilities had improved to the point that there was no need for Descartes to attempt to maneuver its bulk in close to the fragile structure of the base. Instead, Descartes stood off a thousand metres while a six-place people-mover shuttled back and forth between the D-deck hatch and one of the docking masts. Except for the dour-countenanced pilot, Thackery and Guerrieri were the only passengers for the ten-minute run.
On reaching the docking mast, they squeezed into a tiny lift for the descent to the top level of the base. Then it was down a long, brightly lit, gently downward-sloping corridor which ended at a transfer lounge reminiscent of those at Unity: plush seating and carpeting, comfort stations, skylights through which the docking masts and the silhouette of Descartes could be seen. The expansive lounge was capable of handling fifty or more people at a time, but the only other person there was a green-clad awk sprawled in a chair and watching the basenet.
“Check-in to your right,” the awk called to them without looking up.
To the right, three contiguous Synglas-enclosed offices under a TRANSFER PROCESSING sign made a barrier to the concourse beyond, with broad red lines in the carpet showing where queues should form. Beyond the offices, Thackery could see a row of speedlift doors and what appeared to be a gift shop.
A young woman—hardly more than a girl—sat behind the sickle-shaped desk in one of the offices, watching the newcomers expectantly. They took the cue and headed for her.
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