Summertide hu-1

by Charles Sheffield

  “It did. But only because I was reluctant to send word of a more serious charge over the Bose Network.” Julius Graves was surely not joking now. “A more accurate word is genocide. I will moderate that, if you prefer, to suspected genocide.”

  He stared quietly around him, while new rain lashed the walls and roof. The other two men had frozen, Max Perry motionless in front of the window, Hans Rebka on the edge of his seat.

  “Genocide. Suspected genocide. Is there a significant difference?” Rebka asked at last.

  “Not from some points of view.” The full lips twitched and trembled. “There is no statute of limitations, in time or space, for the investigation of either. But we have only circumstantial evidence, without proof and without confession. It is my task to seek those. I intend to find them here on Opal.”

  Graves reached into the blue-trimmed pocket of his jacket and produced two image cubes. “Improbable as it seems, these are the accused criminals, Elena and Geni Carmel, twenty-one standard years old, born and raised on Shasta. And, as you can see, identical twin sisters.”

  He held the cubes out to the other two men. Rebka saw only two young women, deeply tanned, big-eyed, and pleasant looking, dressed in matching outfits of russet green and soft brown. But Max Perry apparently saw something else in those pictures. He gave a gasp of recognition, leaned forward, and grabbed the data cubes. He stared into them. It was twenty more seconds before the tension drained from him and he looked up.

  Julius Graves was watching both men. Rebka was suddenly convinced that those misty blue eyes missed nothing. The impression of quaintness and eccentricity might be genuine, or it might be a pose — but underneath it lay a strange and powerful intelligence. And fools did not become Council members.

  “You seem to know these girls, Commander Perry,” Graves said. “Do you? If you have ever met them, it is vital that I know when and where.”

  Perry shook his head. His face was even paler than usual. “No. It’s just that for a few moments, when I first saw the cubes, I thought they were… someone else. Someone I knew a long time ago.”

  “Someone?” Graves waited, and then, when it was clear that Perry would say nothing more, he went on. “I propose to keep nothing from you, and I strongly urge you to keep nothing from me. With your permission, I will allow Steven to tell the rest of this. He has the most complete information, and I find it difficult to speak without emotion clouding my statements.”

  The twitching ceased. Graves’s face steadied and took on the look of a younger and happier man. “Okay, here goes,” he said. “The sad story of Elena and Geni Carmel. Shasta’s a rich world, and it lets its youth do pretty much what they like. When the Carmel twins hit twenty-one they were given a little space tourer, the Summer Dreamboat, as a present. But instead of just hopping around their local system, the way most kids do, they talked their family into sticking a Bose Drive in the ship. Then they set off on a real travel binge: nine worlds of the Fourth Alliance, three of the Zardalu Communion. On their final planet, they decided to see life ‘in the rough’ — that’s how their ’grams home put it. It meant they wanted to live in comfort but observe a backward world.

  “They landed on Pavonis Four and set up a luxury tent. Pav Four’s a poor, marshy planet of the Communion. Poor now, I should say — rich enough before human developers had a go at it. Along the way, a native amphibian species know as the Bercia were a nuisance. They were almost wiped out, but by that time the planet was picked clean and the developers left. The surviving members of the Bercia — what few there were — were given the probationary status of a potential intelligence. They were protected. At last.”

  Graves paused. His face became a changing mask of expressions. It was no longer obvious whether it was Julius or Steven who was speaking.

  “Were the Bercia intelligent?” he said softly. “The universe will never know. What we do know is that the Bercia are now extinct. Their last two lodges were wiped out two months ago… by Elena and Geni Carmel.”

  “But not by design, surely?” Perry was still clutching the data cubes and staring down at them. “It must have been an accident.”

  “It may well have been.” From the serious manner, Julius Graves was again in charge. “We do not know, because when it happened the Carmel twins did not stay to explain. Inexplicably, they fled. They continued to flee, until one week ago we closed the Bose Network to them. And now they can flee no farther.”

  The storm had arrived in full force. From outside the building a mournful wail sounded, the cry of a siren audible over the scream of wind and the thresh of rain on the roof. Rebka could still listen to Graves, but some other conditioning in Perry took over. At the first note of the siren he headed for the door.

  “A landing! That siren means someone’s in trouble. They’re crazy, if they don’t have the right experience, in a Level Five storm…”

  He was gone. Julius Graves began to rise slowly to his feet. He was restrained by Hans Rebka’s grip on his arm.

  “They fled,” Rebka prompted. Through the rain-streaked window he could see the lights of a descending aircar, dipping and veering drunkenly in treacherous crosswinds. It was only a few meters from the ground, and he had to get out there himself. But first he had to confirm one thing. “They fled. And they came — to Opal?”

  Graves shook his scarred and massive head. “That is what I thought, and that is why I requested a landing here. Steven had calculated that the trajectory had its end-point in the Dobelle system. But when I arrived I spoke at once with the Starside Spaceport monitors. They assured me that no one could have landed a ship with a Bose Drive on this world, without them being aware of it.”

  There was a new wail of alarm equipment from outside and the lurid glare of orange-red warning flares. Voices were screaming at each other. Watching at the window, Rebka saw the car touch down, bounce back high into the air, and then flip over to hit upside down. He started for the door, but he was held back by Graves’s sudden and strong grip on his arm.

  “When Commander Perry returns, I will inform him of a new request,” Graves said quietly. “We do not want to search Opal. The twins are not here. But they are in the Dobelle system. And that can only mean one thing: they are on Quake.”

  He cocked his head, as though hearing the scream of sirens and the sounds of tearing metal for the first time. “We must search Quake, and soon. But for the moment, there seem to be more immediate problems.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Summertide minus twenty-six

  The moment of death. A whole life flashing before your eyes.

  Darya Lang heard the side-wind hit just as the wheels of the aircar touched down for the second time. She saw the right wing strike — felt the machine leave the runway — knew that the car was flipping onto its back. There was a scream of overstressed roof panels.

  Suddenly dark earth was whizzing past, a foot above her head. Soggy mud sprayed and choked her. The light vanished, leaving her in total darkness.

  As the harness cut savagely into her chest, her mind cleared with the pain. She felt cheated.

  That was her whole life, supposedly rushing past her? If so, it has been a miserably poor one. All that she could think of was the Sentinel. How she would never understand it, never penetrate its ancient mystery, never learn what had happened to the Builders. All those light years of travel, to be squashed like a bug in the dirt of a lousy minor planet!

  Like a bug. The thought of bugs made her feel vaguely guilty.

  Why?

  She remembered then, hanging upside down in her harness. Thinking was hard, but she had to do it. She was alive. That liquid dripping down her nose and into her eyes stung terribly, but it was too cold to be blood. But what about the other two, Atvar H’sial and J’merlia, in the passenger seats? Not bugs, she thought; in fact, less like insects than she was. Rational beings. Shame on you, Darya Lang!

  Had she killed them, though, with her lousy piloting?

  Darya craned her head a
round and tried to look behind her. There was something wrong with her neck. A shock of pure heat burned its way into her throat and her left shoulder even before she turned. She could see nothing.

  “J’merlia?” No good calling for Atvar H’sial. Even if the Cecropian could hear, she could not reply. “J’merlia?”

  No answer. But those were human voices outside the ship. Calling to her? No, to each other — hard to hear above the whistling wind.

  “Can’t do it that way.” A man’s voice. “The top’s cracked open. If that strut goes, the weight will smash their skulls in.”

  “They’re goners anyway.” A woman. “Look at the way they hit. They’re crushed flat. Want to wait for hoists?”

  “No. I heard someone. Hold the light. I’m going inside.”

  The light! Darya felt a new panic. The darkness before her was total, blacker than any midnight, black as the pyramid in the heart of the Sentinel. At that time of year Opal had continuous daylight, from Mandel or its companion, Amaranth. Why could she not see?

  She tried and failed to blink her eyes: reached up her right hand to rub at them. Her left hand had vanished — there was no sensation from it, no response but shoulder pain when she tried to move it.

  Rubbing just made her eyes sting worse. Still she could see nothing.

  “God, what a mess.” The man again. There was the faintest glimmer in front of her, like torchlight seen through closed eyes. “Allie, there’s three of ’em in here — I think. Two of ’em are aliens, all wrapped round each other. There’s bugjuice everywhere. I don’t know what’s what, and I daren’t touch ’em. Send a distress call; see if you can find anybody near the port who knows some alien anatomy.”

  There was a faint and unintelligible reply.

  “Hell, I don’t know.” The voice was closer. “Nothing’s moving — they could all be dead. I can’t wait. They’re covered in black oil, all over. One good flame in here, they’ll be crisps.”

  Distant chatter, diffuse: more than one person.

  “Doesn’t matter.” The voice was right next to her. “Have to pull ’em out. Somebody get in here to help.”

  The hands that took hold of Darya did not mean to be rough. But when they grabbed her shoulder and neck multiple galaxies of pain pinwheeled across the blackness in her eye sockets. She gave a scream, a full-throated howl that came out like a kitten’s miaow.

  “Great!” The grip on her shifted and strengthened. “This one’s alive. Coming through. Catch hold.”

  Darya was dragged on her face across a muddy tangle of roots and broken stalks of fern. A clod of slimy and evil-tasting moss crammed into her open mouth. She gagged painfully. As a protruding root dug deep into her broken collarbone it suddenly occurred to her: She did not need to stay awake for such indignity!

  Darkness enveloped her. It was time to stop fighting; time to rest; time to escape into that soothing blackness.

  It had taken Darya a day to learn, but at last she was sure: dialog between human and Cecropian was impossible without the aid of J’merlia or another Lo’tfian intermediary; but communication was feasible. And it could carry a good deal of meaning.

  A Cecropian’s rigid exoskeleton made facial expression impossible in any human sense. However, body language was employed by both species. They merely had to discover each other’s movement codes.

  For instance, when Atvar H’sial was confident that she knew the answer that Darya would give to a question, she would lean away a little. Often she also lifted one or both front legs. When she did not know the answer and was anxious to hear it, the delicate proboscis pleated and shortened — just a bit. And when she was truly excited — or worried; it was difficult to know the difference — by a comment or a question, the hairs and bristles on her long fanlike antennas would stand up straighter and a fraction bushier.

  As they had done, strikingly, when Julius Graves had come on the scene.

  Darya knew about the Council — everyone did — but she had been too preoccupied with her own interests to take much notice of it. And she was still vague about its functions, though she knew it involved ethical questions.

  “But everyone is supposed to be vague, Professor Lang,” Graves had said. He gave her a smile which his enlarged, skeletal head turned into something positively menacing. It was not clear how long ago he had landed at Starside Port, but he had certainly chosen to pay her a visit at an inconvenient time. She and Atvar H’sial had held their preliminary discussions and were all set to get down to the nitty-gritty: who would do what, and why, and when?

  “Everyone is vague, that is,” Graves went on, “except those whose actions make the Council necessary.”

  Darya’s face was betraying her again, she was sure of it. What she was about to do with the Cecropian ought to be no business of the Council; there was nothing unethical about short-circuiting a bureaucracy in a good scientific cause, even if that cause had not been fully revealed to anyone on Opal. What else did Council members do?

  But Graves was staring at her with those mad and misty blue eyes, and she was sure he must be reading guilt in hers.

  If he were not, he surely could detect it in Atvar H’sial! The antennas stood out like long brushes, and even J’merlia was almost gibbering in his eagerness to get out the words.

  “Later, esteemed Councilor, we will be most delighted to meet with you later. But at the moment, we have an urgent prior appointment.” Atvar H’sial went so far as to take Darya Lang’s hand in one jointed paw. As the Cecropian pulled her toward the door — to the outside, where it was pelting with rain! — Darya noticed for the first time that the paw’s lower pad was covered with black hairs, like tiny hooks. Darya could not have pulled away, even if she had been willing to make a scene in front of Julius Graves.

  It was another vestigial remnant of a distant flying ancestor of Atvar H’sial, one who had perhaps needed to cling to trees and rocks.

  Well, none of us sprang straight from the head of the gods, did we? she reflected. We all have bits and pieces left over by evolution. Darya glanced automatically at her own fingernails. They were filthy. It seemed she was already slipping into the disgusting ways of Opal and Quake.

  “Where to?” She spoke in a whisper. Julius Graves would need phenomenal hearing to pick up anything she said over the hissing rain, but she was sure he was staring after them. Wondering, no doubt, where they were going and why, when the weather loomed so foul. She felt a lot better out of his presence.

  “We will talk of it in a moment.” J’merlia, receiving the direct benefit of Atvar H’sial’s nervous pheromones, was hopping up and down as though the sodden apron of the aircar facility were blistering hot. The Lo’tfian’s voice quivered with urgency. “Inside the car, Darya Lang. Inside!”

  They were both actually reaching out to lift her in!

  She pushed the paws away. “Do you want Graves to think something illegal is going on?” she hissed at Atvar H’sial. “Calm down!”

  Her reaction even made her feel a little superior. The Cecropians had such a reputation for clear, rational thought. Many — including every Cecropian — said that they were far superior to humans in intellectual powers and performance. And yet here was Atvar H’sial, as jittery as if they were planning a major crime.

  The two aliens crowded into the car after her, pushing her forward.

  “You do not understand, Darya Lang.” While Atvar H’sial closed the door, J’merlia was urging her toward the pilot’s seat. “This is your first encounter with a member of a major clade council. They cannot be trusted. They are supposed to confine themselves to ethical matters, but they do not! They have no shame. They feel it their right to dabble in everything, no matter how little it concerns them. We could not have discussions with Julius Graves present! He would surely have sensed and sniffed out and interfered with and ruined everything we have planned. We have to get away from him. Quickly.”

  Even as J’merlia spoke, Atvar H’sial was waving frantically for Darya to
take off — into storm clouds that had piled up ominously over half the sky. Darya pointed, then realized that the Cecropian’s echolocation would “see” nothing at such a distance. Even with those incredible ears, Atval H’sial’s world must be confined to a sphere no more than a hundred meters across.

  “There’s bad weather — that way, to the east.”

  “Then fly west,” J’merlia said. “Or north, or south. But fly.” The Lo’tfian was crouched on the floor of the aircar, while Atvar H’sial leaned with her head against the side window, her blind face staring off at nothing.

  Darya took the car up in a steep climbing turn, fleeing for the lighter clouds far to their left. If once she could get above them, the car could cruise for many hours.

  How many? She was not keen to find out. It would be better to keep on ascending, clear the storm completely, and seek a quiet place where she could set them down near the edge of the Sling.

  Two hours later she had to abandon that idea. The rough air went on endlessly, and there was no drop in the force of the winds. They had flown to the edge of the Sling and circled far beyond it, seeking another landing spot, and found nothing. Worse than that, the dark mass of major thunderstorms was pursuing them. A solid wall of gray stretched across three quarters of the horizon. Car radio weather reported a “Level Five” storm but did not bother to define it. Mandel had set, and they flew only by the angry light of Amaranth.

  She turned to Atvar H’sial. “We can’t stay up here forever, and I don’t want to leave things to the last minute. I’m going to take us higher, right over the top of the storm. Then we’ll stay above it and head back the way we came. The best place to land is the one we started from.”

  Atvar H’sial nodded complacently as the message was relayed to her by J’merlia. The storm held no fears for the Cecropian — perhaps because she could not see the black and racing clouds that showed its strength. Her worries were still with Julius Graves.

  As they flew Atvar H’sial laid out through J’merlia her complete plan. They would learn the official word on the proposed trips to Quake as soon as Captain Rebka came back. If permission were denied, they would then proceed at once to Quakeside, in an aircar whose rental was already paid. It sat waiting for them, on the small takeoff field of another Sling not far from Starside Port. To reach it, they would rent a local car, one whose travel range was so limited that Rebka and Perry would never dream that they intended to go so far.