Jack Mcdevitt - Engines of god

by David Geary

  The glide train appeared in the distance, a string of bright lights against the general gloom. A few people hurrying across the lot broke into a run. It approached on a long slow curve, braked, and whispered into the station.

  Cal was a financial analyst with the brokerage firm of Forman & Dyer. He enjoyed his work, loved to play with numbers, had been fascinated by her profession. My star pilot. He loved to listen to her descriptions of distant worlds, had extracted a promise that one day, somehow, she would take him along. At least, he'd smiled, to the Moon. He had gray eyes and brown hair and good laugh lines. And he loved her.

  The lights in his office went out.

  He lived eight blocks away. Cal was a fitness nut, and even in weather like this he would walk home.

  The glide train pulled out, accelerated, and slipped into the storm.

  The steady flow of people thinned to a handful. She watched the last of them, several waving down their rides, two breaking

  into a run toward the station.

  And then he came through the door. Even at this distance,

  and in the blurred light, there could be no mistaking him.

  She took a deep breath.

  Cal pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his soft brown jacket and strode into the lot, away from her, with

  a quick step. She watched him cross the plastene, skirting puddles, plowing steadily ahead through the storm.

  She hesitated, very deliberately shifted to low feed, and switched on the engine. The car moved silently across the

  pavement, and drew up beside him. Until the last moment, she was uncertain whether or not she would swerve away.

  Then he saw her. Her window was down, rain pouring in. He looked startled, pleased, ecstatic, uncomfortable. The whole range of emotions played across his face. "Hutch." He

  stared at her. "What are you doing here?" She smiled, and was glad she'd come. "Want a ride?" The passenger's door lifted, but he stood watching her. "I didn’t't know you were home."

  "I'm home. Listen, you're getting drenched."

  "Yeah. Thanks." He came around the front of the car and got in. The after-shave was the same. "How are you doing?"

  "Okay. How about you?"

  "Fine." His voice was flat. "You look good."

  "Thanks."

  "But then you've always looked good."

  She smiled again, warmer this time, leaned over, and care­fully kissed his cheek. Cal had seemed fairly dull when she'd first met him. And his profession had done nothing to enhance that image. But he'd touched her in some primal way so that she knew, whatever happened tonight, she'd never be the same. His appearance, which had been so ordinary in the beginning, was now leading-man, drop-dead caliber. How and when had that happened? She had no idea.

  "I wanted to say hello." Swallow. "See you again." Who were the couple who slept with a sword between them to ensure forbearance? She felt the presence of the sword, hard and dead.

  He was silent, searching. "Hello."

  Rain rattled on the roof. "I missed you."

  He frowned. Looked uncomfortable. "Hutch, I have some­thing to tell you."

  Up front, she thought. That was his style. "You're getting married."

  His eyes widened again. He grinned. It was the sheepish, friendly, disingenuous grin that had first attracted her two years before. Tonight, it reflected relief. The worst of this was already over. "How did you know?"

  She shrugged. "People were telling me about it ten minutes after I landed."

  "I'm sorry. I would have told you myself, but I didn't know you were back."

  "It's not a problem. Who is she?" She negotiated a deep puddle at the exit, and turned onto Harrington Avenue.

  "Her name's Teresa Pepperdil. She's like you: uses her last name. Everybody calls her 'Pep.' She's a teacher."

  "She's attractive, of course."

  "Again, like you. I always restrict myself to beautiful wom­en." He meant it as a compliment, but it was clumsy, and it hurt.

  Hutch said nothing.

  He looked past her, avoiding eye contact. "What can I tell you? She lives in South Jersey, and, as far as I know, she plans to stay here." He sounded defensive.

  "Well, congratulations."

  "Thanks."

  She turned left onto 11th. Cal's apartment was just ahead, in a condo designed to look like a castle. The pennants hung limply. "Listen," she said, "why don't we stop and have a drink somewhere?" She almost added, for old time's sake.

  "Can't," he said. "She'll be over in a little while. I need to get cleaned up."

  She pulled in at the curb, short of the driveway. Cut the engine. She wanted to back off, let it go, not embarrass herself. "Cal," she said, "there's still time for us." She spoke so softly she wasn't sure he'd heard.

  "No." His eyes turned away. She had expected anger, per­haps bitterness, sadness. But there was none of that. His voice sounded hollow. "There never was time for us. Not really."

  She said nothing. A man approached with a dog. He glanced at them curiously, recognized Cal, mumbled a greeting, and passed on. "We could still make it work," she said. "If we really wanted to." She held her breath, and realized with numbing suddenness that she was afraid he would say yes.

  "Hutch." He took her hand. "You're never here. I'm what you do between flights. A port of call."

  "That's not what I intended."

  "It's what happens. How many times have we had this conversation? I look at the sky at night, and I know you're out there somewhere. How the hell could you ever settle in to hang around Princeton the rest of your life? And rear kids? Go to PTA meetings?"

  "I could do it." Another lie? She seemed to be flying on automatic now.

  He shook his head. "Even when you're here, you're not here." His eyes met hers, finally. They were hard, holding her out. "When's your next flight?"

  She squeezed his hand, got no response, and released it. "Next week. I'm going out to evacuate the Academy team on Quraqua."

  "Nothing ever changes, does it?"

  "I guess not."

  "No—" He shook his head. "I've seen your eyes when you start talking about those places, Hutch. I know what you're like when you're ready to leave. Did you know you usually can't wait to get away? You could never settle for me." His voice trembled. "Hutch, I love you. Always have. Always will, though I won't mention it again. I would have given anything for you. But you're beyond reach. You would come to hate me."

  "That would never happen."

  "Sure it would. We both know that if I said, fine, let's go back and start again, you call up what's-his-name and tell him you're not going to Quraqua, wherever the hell that is, and you'd immediately start having second thoughts. Immediately. And I'll tell you something else: when I get out of the car, and you wave goodbye and drive away, you're going to be relieved." He looked at her, and smiled. "Hutch, Pep's a good woman. You'd like her. Be happy for me."

  She nodded. Slowly.

  "Gotta go. Give me a kiss for the old days."

  She managed a smile. Saw its reflection in his face. "Make it count," she said, and drank deep.

  Moments later, as she turned onto the Conover Expressway headed north, she decided he was wrong. For the moment, at least, she felt only regret.

  Amity Island, Maine. Friday, May 7; 2000 hours.

  Hurricanes had been Emily's kind of weather. She'd loved riding them out, sitting in front of the fireplace with a glass of Chianti, listening to the wind howl around the central dome, watching the trees bend. She'd loved them even though they were getting bigger every year, hungrier, wearing down the beach, gradually drowning the island.

  Maybe that was why she loved them: they were part of the intricate mechanism of steadily rising seas and retreating forests and advancing deserts that had finally forced reluctant politicians, after three centuries of neglect, to act. Probably too late, she had believed. But she heard in the deep-throated roar of the big storms the voice of the planet.

  Richard Wald
was struck by her in their first encounter. That had come in the days when archeology was still earth-bound, and they'd been seated across a table in a Hittite statuary seminar. He'd lost track of the statuary, but pursued Emily across three continents and through some of the dingiest restaurants in the Middle East.

  After her death, he had not married again. Not that he'd failed to recover emotionally from his loss, nor that he'd been unable to find anyone else. But the sense of what he'd had with her had never been duplicated, nor even approached. His passion for Emily had dwarfed even his love for ancient knowledge. He did not expect to find such a woman again.

  It had been her idea to settle in Maine, well away from D.C. or New York. He'd written Babylonian Summer here, the book that made his reputation. They'd been here on Thanksgiving Day, watching a storm like this one, when the announcement came that FTL had been achieved. (At the time neither Richard nor Emily had understood what was so special about FTL, much less how it would change their profession.) That had been just two weeks before she'd died, enroute to visit her family before the holidays.

  Rain blew hard against the windows. The big spruce trees in his front yard, and across the street at Jackson's, were heaving. There was no longer a hurricane season. They came at all times of the year. Counting from January 1, this was the seventh. They'd named it Gwen.

  Richard had been reviewing his notes on the Great Monu­ments while preparing to write an article for the Archeological Review. It was a discussion of the current disappointment that we were no closer to finding the Monument-Makers after twenty years of effort. He argued that there was something to be said for not finding them: Without direct contact, they (the Monument-Makers) have become a considerable mythic force. We know now that it is possible to create an advanced culture, dedicated to those aspects of existence that make life worthwhile, and even noble. How else explain the motivation that erected memorials of such compelling beauty?

  It might be best, he thought, if we never know them, other than through their art. The artist is always inferior to the creation. What after all are Paeonius, Cezanne, and Marimoto when contrasted with the "Nike," "Val d'Arc," and the "Red Moon"? Firsthand knowledge could hardly lead to anything other than disappointment. And yet—And yet, what would he not give to sit here on this night, with the storm hammering at the door, and Beethoven's Fifth in the air, talking with one of those creatures? What were you thinking atop that

  ridge? Hutch thinks she understands, but what was really going through your mind? Why did you come here? Did you know about us? Do you simply wander through the galaxy, seeking its wonders?

  Were you alone?

  The leading edge of Hurricane Gwen packed two hundred-kilometer winds. Black rain whipped across his lawn and shook the house. Thick gray clouds torn by livid welts fled past the rooftops. The metal sign atop Stafford's Pharmacy flapped and banged with steady rhythm. It would probably come loose again, but it was downwind of the town, and there was nothing the other side of it except sand pits and water.

  Richard refilled his glass. He enjoyed sitting with a warm Burgundy near the shuttered bay window, while the wind drove his thoughts. One was more alone in heavy weather than on the surface of lapetus, and he loved isolation. In a way he did not understand, it was connected with the same passions that flowed when he walked the halls of long-dead civilizations. Or listened to the murmur of the ocean on the shores of time. ...

  There was no purification ritual anywhere in the world to match that of a Force 4 hurricane: Penobscot Avenue gleamed, the streetlights glowed mistily in the twilight, dead branches sailed through town with deadly grace.

  Keep down.

  It was, however, a guilty pleasure. The big storms were gradually washing away Amity Island. Indeed, it was pos­sible, when the ocean was clear, to ride out a quarter mile and look down into the water at old Route One.

  He'd been invited to eat at the Plunketts that evening. They'd wanted him to stay over, because of the storm. He'd passed. The Plunketts were interesting people, and they'd have played some bridge (which was another of Richard's passions). But he wanted the storm, wanted to be alone with it. Working on a major project, he told them. Thanks, any­how.

  The major project would consist of curling up for the evening with Dickens. Richard was halfway through Bleak House. He loved the warm humanity of Dickens' books, and found in them (to the immense amusement of his colleagues) some parallels to the Monuments. Both espoused, it seemed to him, a sense of compassion and intelligence adrift in a hostile

  universe. Both were ultimately optimistic. Both were products of a lost world. And both used reflected light to achieve their sharpest effects.

  How on earth can you say that, Wald?

  Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Sam Weller in Pickwick. In Dickens, the point always comes from an unexpected angle.

  Richard Wald was somewhat thinner than he had been when he'd walked the ridge with Hutch five years before. He watched his weight more carefully now, jogged occasionally, and drank less. The only thing left for him seemed to be womanizing. And the Monuments.

  The meaning of the Monuments had been debated endlessly by legions of theorists. Experts tended to complicate matters beyond recall. To Richard it all seemed painfully clear: they were memorials, letters sent across the ages in the only true universal script. Hail and farewell, fellow Traveler. In the words of the Arab poet, Menakhat, The great dark is too great, and the night too deep. We will never meet, you and I. Let me pause therefore, and raise a glass.

  His face was long and thin, his chin square, and his nose tapered in the best aristocratic sense. He resembled the sort of character actor who specializes in playing well-to-do uncles, Presidents, and corporate thieves.

  The storm shook the house.

  Next door, Wally Jackson stood at his window, framed by his living-room lights. His hands were shoved into his belt, and he looked bored. There was a push on now to shore up me beach. Harry was behind that. They were losing ground because of the frequency of the storms. People were simply giving up. Real estate values on Amity had dropped twenty percent in the last three years. No one had any confidence in the island's future.

  Directly across Penobscot, the McCutcheons and the Broad-streets were playing pinochle. The hurricane game had become something of a tradition now. When the big storms came, the McCutcheons and the Broadstreets played cards. When Frances hit the year before, a Force 5, they'd stayed on while everyone else cleared out. Water got a little high, McCutcheon had remarked, not entirely able to disguise his contempt for his fainthearted neighbors. But no real problem. Tradition, you know, and all that.

  Eventually, the McCutcheons and the Broadstreets and their

  game would get blown into the Atlantic.

  Darwin at work.

  The commlink chimed.

  He strolled across the room in his socks, paused to refill his glass. Something thumped on the roof.

  Three-page message waiting in the tray. The cover sheet caught his interest: the transmission had originated on Quraqua.

  From Henry.

  Odd.

  He snapped on a lamp and sat down at his desk.

  Richard,

  We found the attached in the Temple of the Winds. Est age 11,000 years. This is Plate seven of twelve. The Tull myth. Frank thinks it's connected with Oz. Date is right, but I can't believe it. Any thoughts?

  Oz?

  The next page contained a graphic from a bas-relief. An idealized Quraquat and a robed figure. Page 3 was a blow-up of the features of the latter.

  Richard put down his glass and stared. It was the Ice-Creature!

  No. No, it wasn't.

  He cleared off his desk and rummaged for a magnifying glass. This was from where? Temple of the Winds. On Quraqua. Oz—The structure on Quraqua's moon was an anomaly, had nothing in common with the Great Monuments, other than that there was no explanation for it. Not even a conjecture.

  And yet—He found the lens and held it over the i
mage. Too close to be coincidence. This creature was more muscu­lar. It had wider shoulders. Thicker proportions. Masculine, no doubt. Still, there was no mistaking the features within the folds of the hood.

  But this thing is a Death-manifestation.

  He slipped into an armchair.

  Coincidence, first. Somebody had once shown him an image on the outside of an Indian temple that looked quite like the long-departed inhabitants of Pinnacle.

  But something had visited Quraqua. We know that because

  Oz exists. And the evidence is that the natives never approached the technology needed to leave their home world. Why the Death personification? That question chilled him.

  He punched up an image of Quraqua's moon. It was barren, airless, half the size of Luna. One hundred sixty-four light-years away. A little less than a month's travel time. It was a nondescript worldlet of craters, plains, and rock dust. Not much to distinguish it from any other lunar surface. Except that there was an artificial structure. He homed in on the northern hemisphere, on the side that permanently faced the planet. And found Oz.

  It looked like a vast square city. Heavy and gray and point-less,it was as unlike the works of the Monument-Makers as one could imagine.

  Yet many argued no one else could have put it there, Richard had always dismissed the proposition as absurd. No one knew who else might be out there. But the Tull discovery

  was suggestive.

  He called the Academy and got through to the commission-er. Ed Horner was a lifelong friend. He, Richard, and Henry were all that was left of the old guard, who remembered the-Pinnacle earthbound archeology. They'd gone through the great transition, had been mutually intrigued by million-year-old ruins. Horner and Wald had been among the first to get down on Pinnacle. Today, they still made it a point to get

  together for an occasional dinner. "I don't guess you'll be jogging tonight, Richard." That was reference to the storm. Ed was slightly the younger of the two. He was big, jovial, good-humored. He had thick black hair and brown eyes set too far apart, and heavy brows that bounced and rode when he got excited. Horner looked senticent and inoffensive, someone who could easily be cast aside. But that pleasant smile was the last thing some of his