by Chris Walley
They had driven barely a few meters from the house when Vero began to laugh aloud.
“He knew all along! Merral, he knew! I would say that that was the funniest thing I’ve heard for a week, but that would be faint praise. Oh dear. I was sent here because of my vices, not because of my virtues. . . .”
Then, with a great reluctance, he seemed to push his amusement away.
“But, Merral, my friend, do you think he’s right? About the Rebellion?”
Merral stared at the poplars before answering. “Perhaps. Nothing else fits. Although I find it hard to come to grips with it. To believe that we got it all wrong? That—somehow—Jannafy’s people escaped and have been hiding out somewhere for thousands of years?”
“I agree it’s hard to take in. One of the things that I have taken for granted ever since I first heard the story of the Rebellion was that it was distant history. It was over. Every human being everywhere was part of the Assembly. But now?” Vero shook his head. “Now, I’m not sure I take anything for granted. Perhaps, I am not skeptical enough.” He looked at Merral with his brown eyes wide. “I think that’s the lesson, isn’t it? Remember that what you think can’t happen, may happen. Assume nothing. Rule nothing out.”
Then Vero turned the vehicle out of the avenue of poplars onto the main road. “But, Merral, I rejoice that it is not my battle anymore. I will willingly hand it over to whatever council of wise men and women the Assembly comes up with. With very great gratitude. And I imagine you agree?”
“I do indeed, Vero. Let’s hand this over to others as soon as we can.”
That night Vero and Merral arrived at the isolation room before either of the women. Vero had brought with him the travel case that held his possessions. After all, he said, there was no certainty that he would be returning to Farholme. Merral, in contrast, simply had a small holdall that contained little more than the spare clothes he had been issued.
Shortly afterward, Anya and Perena arrived bearing parcels. After greetings and inquiries about Merral’s ankle, everyone sat down.
Vero gestured to Merral. “Take over. Now you know as much as I do.”
Merral glanced around. “Thanks. I think it’s best we go round in turns. Who wants to start?”
Anya raised a hand, reached down to the floor by her, and put two identical packages on the table. With her face creasing into disgust she pushed the packages over to Merral. “Take them away, Tree Man and Earther. Duplicates. I don’t want to see them again. Let someone else deal with them. They are horrid!”
Merral looked at her. “Samples of DNA and the datapaks?”
“And the Knella images.”
“What do you want to say about them? The samples?”
Anya leaned back in her chair, her sky blue eyes looking hard at Merral.
“I got three different types of DNA out of your dirty clothes. Of such things is science made. Only one is human.” She smiled. “Relax, Merral, you are one of us.” There was laughter, but Merral felt that it was forced and shallow.
Anya shook her head. “The other two, however, were not human. Now, I have only done a preliminary scan; after all, they will put a whole team on this on Ancient Earth.” She frowned and gestured with a finger at the packages. “There is no doubt that what you carry with you will cause an outrage. It confirms what I had first suggested. The ape-creature has three genetic components: gorilla, human, and what must be artificial code. The cockroach-beast parallels it; it has human and arthropod genes and, again, artificial code.”
“There’s no doubt they are a creation? Not a mutation or, well, a natural hybrid?” Merral asked, knowing the answer even as he spoke the words.
“No. Simply, no. First, the human DNA is similar in both cases: as if it was taken from the same stock. In fact, the human component is odd. Natural human DNA is rather florid, baroque; it has lots of extra bits on it. This is lean and neat: a sort of optimized human genetic code. Very odd.”
Merral caught the imprint of distaste on Vero’s face as Anya paused, looked around, and then continued. “Second, on the basis of your descriptions, I did a quick check for where the genes for reproductive organs would be in man and gorilla. They are absent. They cannot make themselves; they must be made.”
Vero stared at her. “Forgive me, my biology is basic. These are organisms?”
“In one sense, yes. Of course they are. But I think I see what you are getting at. Unless they clone themselves they are basically—I’m sorry, this is such a negative thought—little more than biological tools.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Merral saw Perena’s face twist into an expression of disgust.
“And the cockroach-beast?” Merral asked.
“That.” Anya made a grimace. “Let me correct something here. I had thought that it was some sort of giant invertebrate with an exoskeleton. In fact, it seems, at first glance, rather similar to the ape-creature. I would guess that it has, basically, a human skeleton, but a thickened cuticle instead of skin as an outer covering, a sort of organic armor. Of course, then you have to make all sorts of changes to allow for movement and sweating, but I could see how it might be done. But . . .” She shrugged. “This is beyond me. Professionally, I would be interested to know what they come up with in a more detailed analysis, but personally I would be happy never to see or think of this again. I feel I need a shower.”
There was silence and Merral looked around the room. Things now are very different from last night; then we were reeling with shock and frightened; now we are more in control and our fear has turned to revulsion and anger.
Merral looked at Vero. “Do you want to say what we learned today?”
“No,” he said. “Not yet. I want to hear what Perena has to say.”
Merral looked at Perena. “Captain Lewitz, anything to report?”
Perena gestured to two oblong packages that she had leaned against the wall. “Your tile samples. Hand carry them, please; there are addresses on them. I checked for radiation and there is none.” She gave a shrug of her slight shoulders. “We need to know what did it. Urgently. And what is the range of such weapons? Can I suggest that once you have gone through the Gate, I get a ruling issued giving a minimum altitude for flights over the Carson’s Sill and Lannar Crater area? Perhaps three thousand meters?”
Merral looked at Vero, who nodded agreement. “Good idea. Anything on the imagery?”
Perena put her diary on the table and tapped the screen. “Here. I haven’t had a chance to look at it in detail.”
A landscape appeared on the wallscreen. Thermal imagery, Merral decided, as he looked at the browns and yellows of land cut by the cold dark blue of the lakes, ponds, and rivers. Any large creatures or a ship should show up. Used to interpreting such maps for forestry purposes, Merral saw the anomaly quickly.
“There!” he snapped, pointing a finger at a cluster of small red dots and an orange oval outline to the north of the lake.
“Well spotted,” Perena said with a nod. “Four kilometers from where I picked you up. I got an enhanced blowup.”
A second image, but with a more grainy texture, filled the screen. There was a large, clearly marked orange oblong with four bright yellow points at the rounded corners. To the left of the oblong were five dull red dots, two of which were smaller than the others.
“The intruder ship?” Vero said, excitement in his voice.
“An intruder ship,” Perena said. “It is only thirty meters long. A bit shorter than my Nesta Lamaine.”
“Too small, right?” interjected Merral. “There were at least twenty creatures.”
“Exactly,” Perena said, in her quiet, unruffled way. “It’s far too small to be an in-system machine, let alone one capable of inter-system travel. To me, this looks to be much more like the size of an Assembly ferry craft. That would be my guess. Carried inside a ship and used for local flights within the atmosphere.”
Merral scrutinized the image carefully and caught Perena’s eye. “Ca
n you make anything of it technically?”
“A bit. It needs enhancement and an assessment by an aerospace engineering team. One other bit of data is on another image taken ten hours later. The ship has gone, but there are four scorch marks at the corner of the outline. But if I use imagination and assume that it uses a similar technology to what we have, I think here it’s just landed.” She nodded at the image. “Let me tell you why: The hot spots suggest four engines at the corners that are still warm. Confirmed by the corner scorch marks seen on later images. They suggest a vertical capability, probably with chemical engines. There is no hint of gravity-modification technology or anything even more exotic. There is little aerodynamic shaping; the front is only just slightly more pointed than the rear. So I read that as a low-speed craft, say Mach 2 or 3 maximum. I also find it interesting that there is no evidence of heating on what we presume are the front edges of the machine. So, no evidence of atmospheric entry. My guess is something small, subspace, and subsonic.”
“And that it hasn’t traveled far?”
Perena gave a pained smile, “Vero, you are asking me to pile supposition on guesswork. But normally a ferry craft wouldn’t be used for a journey of more than about fifteen hundred kilometers.”
Vero, leaning back in his chair, gestured at the image. “Perena, you make it sound just like one of our ferry craft.”
Perena gestured at the packages by the wall. “I could be wrong. I have put copies of these for you to take; I want a team of engineers to look at them. But I was surprised at how familiar it seemed. It does not seem alien—whatever an alien ship would look like. But remember, it almost certainly cannot be the parent ship. You can see that by the comparison with the figures.”
“I was going to ask about those,” Merral said. “Are they human-sized? Bigger, smaller?”
“I did a rough check. The two smaller figures are within the range for human beings. The three others are something else.”
“Ape-creatures?”
“So one presumes.”
Vero looked up at Perena. “You think they are evacuating what is left of their forces?”
She nodded. “Feasible.”
“And we have no idea where they have gone? where the mother ship is?”
“None. It’s a big place up there, Sentinel. What? A million square kilometers?”
“Could you find it the same way?”
Perena shrugged. “It depends on how big the ship is and whether it is hidden. Remember playing hide-and-seek as children? If they don’t want to be found, then it could be hard.”
“This showed up fairly easily,” Vero said, nodding at the image.
“This was probably an emergency mission.” Perena’s tone was terse. “And the area we were searching was vastly smaller.”
Merral looked at Vero. “Well, that is a task for the Defense Force. But your turn, Sentinel. You’d better tell everybody what we learned from Brenito.”
Vero started to summarize the conversation they had had with Brenito. When he came to Brenito’s references to Below-Space exploration, he stopped and looked at Perena. “Can you help here? He thought you could.”
Perena stared at her fingertips for moment before answering. “It is a part of space-flight history that I know little about, and I have never heard of Jannafy’s name in connection with Below-Space exploration. But then, I wouldn’t read too much into that. What do I know?” She hesitated before answering, apparently choosing her words. “The story is something like this: As soon as Gate technology was devised in 2068 there were efforts to use a single Gate as a portal to Below-Space. It was attractive. Building Gates gave us access through Below-Space, but to be able to fly within it would open the universe to us. Spatial physics theory suggested that enormous distances could be traveled very easily, giving speeds that were effectively ten or twenty times that of light. And the deeper you went into Below-Space, the faster you went.”
Perena paused again, and as she did, Merral felt struck by the quiet, cool, and unflustered way she dealt with things. She continued. “At first, remote probes were sent, but very few returned. They confirmed the theory that the vast distances and vast speeds were possible, but there were problems. Navigation was hard. Anyway, in the last quarter of the twenty-first century there were—I think—twenty human missions, with two- to five-person ships. They were all failures. Most never returned. Two came back with dead crews, and finally, one ship returned with a living crew. But they were in a poor state and died shortly afterward. The ship was called the Argo. I know that because there is a tradition—which still exists—that no ship is ever to be called by that name again.” Her face had acquired a troubled look. “Which is odd, really, because we have lost other ships. Anyway, after that, there was a decision to abandon the research. Then there was the Rebellion, and ever since we have been content to travel through Gates. After all, once they are set up they work very well.”
She looked at Vero. “I was quite unaware that Jannafy wanted such research continued. I had assumed the Rebellion was over generalities, not specifics.” She frowned. “But it fits with the man: rebellious, bold, and—as events showed—someone who could be reckless with human life. I would be interested to research that data. Mind you, much of the material may have been lost in the Rebellion. The Experimental and Projects Unit on Mars was devastated.”
“I will make inquiries too,” Vero added. “And it may only be of passing relevance. But the thing that Brenito told us that I feel is of real relevance was about Jannafy and ‘The Alternative Proposal.’ ”
As Vero repeated what Brenito had said, Merral watched Anya and saw that as the details were recounted, her eyes widened with evident shock. The way she kept looking at the packages she had placed on the table earlier suggested that she had made the same connections as he and Vero had.
When Vero had finished, he looked at her. “So, Doctor Lewitz, comments? Please.”
Anya stared blankly back at him. “I’m appalled . . . stunned. I find it hard to imagine how someone actually proposed making the very things that I—no—we have been so horrified about. But. . . . No, the time gap is too great. Even if we allow that Jannafy didn’t just propose but did make these things—perhaps in the Centauri Lab—all those thousands of years ago . . . could . . . ?” She frowned. “No, the Rebellion was brought to an end.”
Vero spoke in a low but audible voice. “Yes, history says that nothing survived. Jannafy and his followers were killed. Their labs were vaporized in the biggest artificial explosion ever created.”
Anya nodded agreement. “No, for these things to have survived and got out here is too much. It must be coincidence. Mustn’t it?”
But her questioning glance received no confirming response, and finally Merral, after looking at the clock, broke the silence. “Our time has gone. We’d better get over to the terminal to check in. Thankfully we can soon pass the burden of all this to Earth. But it has been helpful to discuss these things here. Vero, would you summarize what you think is happening?”
Vero stared ahead. “For me the strands of evidence suggest that something survived from the rebels. Whether some of Jannafy’s followers, his teachings, or even—just possibly—something of what he created. But where, when, and how will, I think, be much debated over the next few weeks.” He sighed. “As will be the still harder question of what is to be done.”
Merral rose. “And that, I suspect, ends the Farholme deliberations on these matters.”
“Indeed,” Vero said with a nod as he rose. “Well, Forester, it’s time for us to travel.”
18
While the sisters went inside the terminal to try and ensure that formal embarkation procedures could be avoided, Merral and Vero found seats some distance from the building. Merral stared into the night. Away to his left was the main part of Isterrane City, where only a few lights remained in this first hour of the Lord’s Day. Ahead, within the space terminal itself, there were lights and movement as families gathered for
the imminent departure for the Gate. And to the right, spotlights picked out the curving fuselage and wings of the shuttle lined up on the runway.
“Two in the morning is an awkward time for a flight,” Merral commented, as a wisp of vapor from the ramjets drifted upward and caught the light.
“I know, but to minimize the time people spend floating around at a Gate Station waiting for connections, someone has to start at a bad hour. And being the end of the line, it’s Farholme. Anyway, today it suits us perfectly. We will be out of the system by midday.”
Vero stopped, sniffing the night air. “I wonder,” he said, “whether I will come back. I suppose they may just say, ‘Thanks, Sentinel Enand, but we’ll handle it from here.’ ”
“Do you want to come back?” Merral asked, looking at the lights of Isterrane and thinking with a sudden pang of emotion of his own town and his family.
“I’ve grown to be quite fond of Farholme; Worlds’ End isn’t that bad a place. And I have grown fond of the people; particularly you, Anya, and Perena.” Vero paused, and Merral read much into his momentary silence. “But I need to go back. Above all, my task is not quite finished; I have to be sure that all this is sorted out. Then I will think of my future. I need to see my father.”
Suddenly, Merral found his longing for his family more than he could bear. “Vero,” he blurted out, “I need to leave a message with my parents. And Isabella. May I?”
Vero hesitated. “It will be just after one in Ynysmant. So they will all be asleep. Oh, I guess so. Just leave a message: say you are going on a private trip, that you are going to be out of touch. Whatever words you can find. But remember that your call may be monitored.”
That alone, Merral thought wearily, is cause for concern. Is privacy the first victim of these events? Until this is resolved, will anyone ever again have the confidence that his or her conversations are their personal and private affair? He suspected from her earlier outrage that Anya would have agreed.