“Two days, Dr. Ralston. Be ready. The pilot told us he is anxious to return to Novo Terra as quickly as possible. And the University administration will want to discuss your student’s death in some detail, I’m sure.”
“Thank you.” Ralston disconsolately flipped off the com unit. The absence of Rasmussen’s voice and the static surrounding it made Ralston feel as if he’d stepped into a vacuum.
“There it is!” Asan cried with genuine animation. He pointed into Muckup’s unusually clear sky at the bright silver spot. The starship had come for them.
“Is everything packed and ready?” Ralston asked needlessly. Since receiving Rasmussen’s message two days ago, the entire camp had been ready for instant departure. Ralston had only haphazardly supervised, letting each student attend to his own belongings. The shelters and most of the equipment would be left. All Ralston personally packed were a few hardcopy photos and the analyzer block circuits that had recorded what had happened within the alien dioramas.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Leonore comforted.
Ralston laughed harshly. “It is. For Muckup. He looked around at the muddy plains and scraggly, off-green trees that reminded him of Earthly bonsai with their stunted height and contorted limbs. The biome had been devastated by the incessant rains, changing the face of the planet into not-quite-sea, not-quite-prairie. Whatever had caused the avian society’s demise ten thousand years ago had also altered the weather patterns. His time spent in those few dioramas convinced him of that. Not a single scene showed the towering black thunder-heads, the intense lightning storms, the incessant rain that had threatened to drive them all crazy.”
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Leonore said softly.
“About what?”
“Everything, I guess. Most of all about the dioramas.”
They had attempted dismantling one to ship back to Novo Terra. While the figures moved easily enough, Ralston had been unable to preserve the telepathic messages after repositioning. Search as he might, he’d found no transmitter or other instrument projecting the thought lessons. Though he would bring back one figure, he could not transport the essence of the dioramas.
“We’ve got the photos and all the data from the analyzer. I can testify to the dioramas’ effect. We recorded everything I said after leaving.”
Leonore said nothing. They both knew that this meant little. Without analyzer readings to substantiate the claim of telepathic transfer, Ralston might have been inventing everything learned within the dioramas.
“It’s not the end of my career,” Ralston said. “But there’s no future for me at the University of Ilium. After the hearings on de la Cruz’s death, I’ll be marked as a real pariah there. Every request for tenure will be disregarded.” He shook his head. “That’s nothing new, though. But even dead-end digs like Alpha 3 will be denied me. I’ll end up like poor Pieter Nordon, doing nothing but classroom work, trapped in pointless lectures. Academe is the only place I know where they retire you to the primary business of the University.”
Leonore said nothing. Research counted the most in the archaeology department—in any research-oriented department. Without the field trips, without choice selections for digs, a professor’s career came to a slow halt. The department put those they wished to punish into the classroom to take the teaching burden off those on their way up in the hierarchy.
Fame and prominence came not from being a good professor but from being a good field researcher.
Michael Ralston’s career was over, and they both knew it.
“A flare,” called out Lantalman. “The pod’s jets!”
Ralston squinted into the sun and saw the long orange flame from the transfer pod’s engine. With an uncanny knack, the pilot landed almost precisely on the spot best suited for it. A solid rock foundation supported the landing gear; a dozen meters in any direction would have placed the pod on muddier, less stable ground.
Ralston ought to have counted this as a good sign. All he could think of was abandoning the find.
They trudged stolidly toward the grounded shuttle pod. Already the pilot and two crewmen swung out a loading crane. Contrary to Ralston’s wishes, the first platform up contained the students’ belongings. The second carried the eager students. Only then did Ralston convince the pilot to retrieve the dewar holding Yago de la Cruz’s cryogenically frozen body.
“So you got him iced down, huh, Doc?” asked the pilot. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the sight. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. How’d you come to think of it?”
“During the Nex-P’torra war the Nex preserved their wounded this way. They’d quick-freeze by dipping into liquid nitrogen, then thaw them out when they returned to a hospital.”
The pilot fell silent. Ralston knew the starman had heard rumors of the crazy professor fighting for the Nex. Mention of the aliens’ medical procedures had brought back the faint memories in the pilot and put them foremost in his mind. For Ralston’s part, he was content not to bandy words with the pilot.
All he wanted was an end to this. To be off planet. To be away from Muckup. To be back on Novo Terra and hunting for a new position. He felt as if his life had come to an ignominious end.
And all because of Yago de la Cruz’s greed in wanting to steal the find.
Ralston grunted when the pilot kicked in the jets and sent them skyward. Four hours later they docked with the starship. Seven hours after that, they starred for Novo Terra.
* * *
Michael Ralston walked under clear blue skies caught in the middle of a seasonably warm summer. While a heavier gravity than the one he had grown used to on Alpha 3 tugged at him, he didn’t mind. Any gravity, great or small, was preferable to the weightlessness of star travel. He looked around the University campus and smiled. Students walked rapidly to and from classes, usually in small groups passionately arguing or quietly gossiping. A few lay beneath the trees or under the warm sun, catching up on needed sleep.
But the energy of the school transmitted itself to him. Ralston came more alive, renewed and eager. These students wanted to learn what he had to teach. They… they weren’t his students, he corrected mentally. Not a single one was. The University Committee on Academics had relieved him of all duties—and pay—pending their investigation into de la Cruz’s death.
Ralston stopped and stared at the green-domed building holding the committee offices. Few people entered and left this structure. Even fewer had business with the U.C.A. The classrooms were crowded, the student building overflowed onto the grounds, but the committee offices stayed virtually empty. Here decisions affecting a professor’s academic life were made.
No one treaded those hallways lightly. Not when the slightest misstep produced a blighted future.
One or two of the passing students recognized him, but they quickly averted their eyes and walked faster. Ralston tried to blame them but couldn’t. Who knowingly associates with a damned sinner summoned by the Inquisition?
His steps came slower now as he neared the building. He stared up at the green dome glistening in the sunlight. It ought to have been a beacon of hope. This was, after all, part of the University, an institution devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. All Ralston could picture was that dome falling to trap him. Beneath it he’d slowly suffocate, trapped like a bug in a bell jar, lost forever.
He looked for ways to avoid entering. To one side stood a news kiosk. He wandered over and saw that it had been tuned to the University station. The newsers were all students learning their trade.
Ralston shook his head. They didn’t report news, not like their forerunners on Earth. He had studied how propaganda is written and recognized nothing but loaded phrases, subtle body movements, and clever distortions in the students’ vidnewscast. A written text of their broadcast would reveal nothing but objective reporting.
As he watched, one slowly shook his head to indicate disapproval. So much for objectivity. But Ralston knew they trained for a hard market that had little to do with unbiased reporting.
The newsers had become vid stars, actors editorializing.
“Bonita stuff, don’t you agree?” came a voice so slick it must have been oiled.
It took Ralston a few seconds to recognize the woman as one of the newsers.
“Murra Tranton,” she said, supplying the name that eluded Ralston.
“I’ve seen you on the vid kiosk,” he said in as neutral a tone as possible. He knew what he faced inside this building—and what Murra Tranton wanted.
“Any comments, Dr. Ralston?” The woman’s expression had been carefully rehearsed, he thought. She looked intelligent and concerned, interested and ready to aid him however she could.
He also thought she looked like a predatory beast, and no amount of acting could disguise that avarice.
He started to speak, then saw the vid pickup on her lapel. Anything he said would be transmitted back to the campus studio. Once there, he had no idea what they’d do with his words. Edit? Definitely. Change the question to any answer he might give? Possibly. Make him look like a bloody-handed butcher? If it served Murra Tranton’s purpose. A story like this might get her recognized by the larger vidnews organizations.
Making a noncommittal gesture and saying nothing, he pushed past the newser. How had he gotten himself into such straits? It hardly seemed fair.
Ralston shook off the self-pity and went inside. The long marble halls were lined with wood-paneled doors. At precisely the hour when the cathedral clock chimed four, he entered the second door on the right without knocking. The inquisitors had gathered. Ralston looked around, expecting to see a black-hooded man standing beside a medieval Earth torture rack.
“Sit down, Dr. Ralston.” The chairman of the U.C. A. pointed to a solitary seat in the center of the room. They isolated him as if he carried a virulent plague.
He sat.
“We have studied your report. Frankly, Doctor, we find it incomplete in all respects.”
“Dr. Salazar, there wasn’t adequate time to finish a report.”
“You had a little over six weeks while starring back,” another of the committee said. “Isn’t that time enough?”
“The matter is complex,” said Ralston, knowing they wouldn’t listen to anything he said. They needed a scapegoat for de la Cruz’s death. Since he’d been on the scene, he’d been elected already. “The alien museum with its dioramas is unique. Nothing like it has been—”
“Doctor,” cut in Salazar, distaste altering his face into a mask of evil. Ralston tried to shake off that satanic image and found he couldn’t. “We aren’t here to discuss archaeology. Citizen de la Cruz’s death is the only topic to be considered.”
“But they tie together. I am sure that de la Cruz, by entering the dioramas without authorization or adequate precaution, triggered a telepathic projector and—”
“You’re saying that Citizen de la Cruz caused his own demise? There’s no evidence to support that, Dr. Ralston. You have produced not one shred of evidence for the existence of this so-called telepathic projector. No mechanism, no recording, nothing.”
“As stated in the report, sir, the analyzer failed to detect it because I believe it is strictly a communication between biological entities.”
“The last native of Alpha 3 died ten thousand years ago. No evidence has been given to show they still survive.”
“The dioramas are unique,” Ralston repeated. “And unknown. Their functioning is a mystery. I didn’t have enough time to—”
“We’re getting off the subject of Citizen de la Cruz’s untimely death,” interrupted Salazar. “Two of our late student’s family have consented to appear today. Arturo and Constance de la Cruz, brother and sister of the deceased.”
Ralston sat upright. He had been prohibited from speaking with any of de la Cruz’s family. Now the committee brought two of them forward? For what purpose?
“He is the one?” came a voice from behind Ralston. He turned to see a man younger than Yago de la Cruz behind the chair. The family resemblance was obvious. Arturo de la Cruz shared his brother’s insufferable arrogance.
“Citizens de la Cruz, thank you for coming,” said Dr. Salazar.
“He even looks like a murderer,” said Constance de la Cruz.
“Dr. Salazar, I protest!” Ralston shot to his feet. “This was supposed to be a closed hearing. Detailed minutes are being taken. I demand that Citizen de la Cruz’s slanderous comment be deleted. I did not kill her brother nor did I allow him to die through any fault on my part.”
“Liar,” hissed the woman.
“Dr. Ralston, your protest is noted, but it is out of order. We are not assembled today to pass judgment. Rather, we gather information to decide whether to convene full hearings on this matter. Since we only investigate, the usual rules for conduct are suspended.” Salazar made a brushing motion in Ralston’s direction. “Do sit down and hold your tongue until you’re addressed, Doctor.”
“We will sue the University,” promised Arturo de la Cruz. “My family will not rest until justice is served.”
Ralston ignored Salazar’s order and faced Yago de la Cruz’s brother and sister. “I feel very deeply saddened by your brother’s death. It is a fact, however, that field work is dangerous. Yago died advancing our knowledge of a newly discovered race with unknown powers. I did all I could to save him when the seizure struck. The automedic records will bear this out.”
“You stole his discovery. The block circuits bear that out,” shot back Arturo de la Cruz. “You killed him to take the discovery for yourself. That is apparent!”
“Citizens, please,” called out Salazar. “We have gone over the records submitted by Dr. Ralston, we have conferred with medical authorities who are still conducting their autopsy of Citizen de la Cruz’s body, and we have discussed the matter with University attorneys. In one week, formal hearings will be convened to decide on what actions, if any, should be taken in this matter. Until then, please accept the University of Ilium’s condolences on the death of your brother.”
The two de la Cruzes left without another word, both visibly furious and doing nothing to conceal it. Ralston simply sat in the chair and stared. Salazar hadn’t addressed the decision to him—it had been for the de la Cruzes’ benefit. The formal hearing would be a farce—any evidence he might present would be disallowed or ignored.
He had already been judged and found guilty.
Ralston didn’t know which was worse, being placed in disgrace by his peers and possibly accused of murder, or losing the Alpha 3 dioramas for all time.
Without a word, Dr. Michael Ralston rose and marched from the room. The summer day outside the building no longer seemed so warm and cheerful.
TEN
“I’m not going to let them do this to me!” Michael Ralston raged. He paced back and forth in his tiny cubicle office and felt like bouncing from the walls. Caged. They had caged him like an animal, and he didn’t like it.
“Really, Michael, it might not be that bad,” Leonore Disa said without any conviction.
“Why hadn’t you told me you’d turned down a chance to go with Velasquez to Proteus?” he asked, stopping to stare at her. She pushed a strand of brunette hair back to reveal the flashing plates on her forehead. They winked in soft pastel, Leonore’s favorite, Ralston decided.
“It had no bearing on going to Alpha 3,” she said simply.
“You wanted to be with Nels Bernssen.”
“I’d be lying if I denied that. I love him.”
“Does he love you?”
“That’s none of your business.” She sighed and folded her hands chastely in her lap. “In his way he does. He’s so wrapped up in his project right now. No one’s ever been this close to a pre-nova star. It’ll make his career.”
“The sort of discovery that wins awards,” muttered Ralston, remembering his own find on Muckup. Muckup? Mucked up came closer to the truth. He cursed what seemed to be a cosmic balance. Bernssen had found his accolades in Alpha Prime’s instability. That very sa
me instability ruined Ralston’s chances for a find equally as important.
“He’s very good, Nels is.”
“Who else at the University knows about his project? Someone I could talk to about novas. I always avoided the heavier science courses during my student years. All I cared about were archaeology and a bit of anthropology.”
“Michael, please. The committee has suspended you until the hearing.”
“They’re going to flay me alive at the hearing,” he said with some bitterness. “This is their chance to get rid of the professor who didn’t kiss enough ass, who valued knowledge over politics. And they can do it ever so neatly. The de la Cruzes will ask for my head, and the University will give it to them. Simple.”
“There’s no way you could have prevented Yago’s death.”
“What’s truth got to do with it?” Self-pity flooded him again, then burned away with a flame of determination. “Muckup’s my discovery. I’m not going to let it go up in a flash of superheated plasma.” He ignored his graduate student totally now, as if Leonore didn’t even exist. “I can get back to Alpha 3. It won’t be easy but I can do it. With a bit of additional, sophisticated equipment—most of what I’ll need was left there—I can get enough for a paper. Automation. A supervisor-controller would be useful.”
“But that’s for controlling major robotic equipment,” Leonore said, her head tipped to one side as she studied him.
“I can’t ask anyone to risk their lives for this. I’ll have to automate as much as I can.”
“I can get a supervisor,” Leonore said.
“How much?” he snapped, gray eyes sharp and hard.
“For free. My father owns Interstellar Computronics.”
Ralston sank to the edge of his desk and simply stared. IC was one of the largest suppliers of automated equipment on Novo Terra. Leonore came from a family so wealthy that Ralston couldn’t even guess within an order of magnitude what their worth must be.
“You’d do that for me?”
[Weapons of Chaos 01] - Echoes of Chaos Page 11