Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road (v1) [rtf]

by Emily

  "And these two still operate, after so much time. I'm amazed." "One train crashed near Fulton, and another lost power at Decatur. It's still out there." He paused. "There's no real friction and the powersats are apparently going to go on forever. And I retain some remote maintenance capabilities. Actually, most of the trains would still run except that their routes have become heavily overgrown by for­est. Eventually, that'll happen with the others, too." He was silent for a few moments. "/ wish I had visuals from the trains. What's the world like now?"

  "What was it like when you knew it?"

  "Busy. I really thought, despite everything, my makers were going somewhere."

  "Despite what?"

  "Most of the data entered into my systems was trivial. But you expect that, right? I mean, they saw me as a glorified computer. I don't think there was anybody in the building, and hardly anyone on the net, who had any idea of my capabilities. So they used me to record memos and arrange train schedules. Do you know, you're the only bio­logical person to ask me about cosmic purpose? Your ancestors, I'm sorry to say, may have been exactly what they appeared to be."

  "And what is that?"

  "Dullards." He remained quiet for a moment. "/ hope I haven't offended you."

  "No." It was a strange term to apply to the Roadmakers "Not at all."

  "Yes," he said. "/ think that's actually a kind way to put it. They were absorbed with matters of the most inconsequential nature. And yet they managed quite impressive achievements."

  "You mean the architecture? The roads?"

  "/ mean me. Forgive me. I'm not designed to express false humil­ity. But creating a self-aware entity was a spectacular stroke. I haven't decided yet whether they owed their advances to a few talented persons or whether they were able to cooperate to overcome their individual limitations and acquire a kind of synergy. They did seem able to inspire

  each another through an upward cycle of escalating performance, it really was something to watch." "Thank you," said Chaka. " You're welcome. So what is the world like now?" Chaka and Shannon glanced at each other. Shannon said,

  "l think the world you knew is gone. We come from a small confederacy of cities on the Mississippi. The evidence so far is that there isn't anything else."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. My makers had much to commend them." His tone changed. "Do you customarily travel by land vehicle? Air­craft? What?"

  "Horse," said Chaka.

  The silence wrapped itself around them. Chaka thought she detected a mild vibration in the walls. "I'd like to offer a piece of advice, if I may. Be careful of the ruins. Avoid them. Some have very

  elaborate security safeguards. And the Roadmakers designed their sys­tems to endure."

  They asked Mike whether he had seen the first expedition, explaining that they had also arrived on the maglev.

  'Yes," he said. "They were my first passengers in almost nine decades."

  "Did they tell you where they were going?" asked Avila.

  "I never got to talk to them."

  "Why not?"

  "/ think I scared them off. I said hello and they ran out into the night." That set off a round of laughter. "They stayed outside," he continued, "until morning. Then they came back and got their horses."

  "I'd like to have seen it," said Chaka.

  "There 've been other visitors from time to time. Some never came within range of my speakers. None ever stopped to ask who I was. until Avila."

  Avila felt a rush of pleasure.

  And as if they all knew what was coming, the room fell silent. Tense.

  "I don't want to do it," said Avila.

  "/ know. But I can't do it for myself. I was terrified last night."

  "At the prospect of dying?"

  "At the possibility you might leave."

  "There'll be others," Avila said. "You won't be alone any­more, now that we know you're here. There'll be people com­ing in from the League to talk to you."

  For a long time, Mike did not respond. When the voice came again it was flat, devoid of emotion: "Please don't take this the wrong way, but even while you 're here, I am still alone. You and I do not function on the same level."

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's not your fault. Unfortunately, you don't even have the capac­ity to connect me with my siblings."

  "You could teach us."

  "I don't think so. I'm not an electrician."

  Avila was feeling desperate. "Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to hurt you. We can't even see you."

  "It's easy, "he said.

  They retreated outside into the fading light of a gray day. It would require the work of a few minutes. And he would be gone.

  "We'd cut off a priceless avenue of knowledge," said Quait. "The people at the Imperium would hang us." Flojian pulled his jacket tight around him. A brisk wet wind blew across the island. "That's so," he said. "If we do this thing, we'd better not say anything about it when we get home."

  The remark rang a bell and they looked at one another. Could something like this have happened to Karik? "I don't think so," Flojian responded to the unasked question. "My father would never have agreed to this kind of proposition."

  "It's immoral," said Avila. "Healers are pledged to heal. And to do no harm. Under any circumstances."

  Shannon folded his arms. Mist covered the distant sea. "I'm not much at arguing moral issues, but I wouldn't want some­one to leave me to the wolves. That's what we're talking about here. Maybe worse."

  Avila's eyes filled with darkness.

  A sudden wind chopped across the surface of the water "Jon's right," said Chaka. "I vote we do it."

  They argued back and forth for a couple of hours. Occa-

  sionally, the sides changed: Avila conceded that they could not abandon Mike; Shannon concluded at one point that the entity was far too valuable to terminate; Chaka agreed that Silas would have been horrified at cutting off so valuable a source of knowledge. But in the end, they could not simply walk away.

  Avila set her lamp on the floor and looked around the empty room as if she expected to see someone sitting in one of the chairs. "Mike?" she said. "If you're sure, we'll do it."

  "Thank you, Avila."

  "We can only stay a few days. We'll do it before we leave."

  "No. Do it tonight."

  "Are you really so anxious to die?" She used the word delib­erately, hoping to shock him out of his resolve.

  Mike didn't seem to notice. "I'm not even sure my makers intended that I be conscious." he said. "However that may be, I've had enough."

  "But why tonight? You've been here all this time; can't you wait a few more days?"

  "No. I want to be rid of the light. And I know this isn't easy for you. I'm afraid you'll change your mind. That you and your friends will back away, that you 'II accede to the moral code you 've constructed for yourselves, and run away in the night."

  "We won't run away," she said. In her mind she was once again walking through the dawn-stricken streets after Tully's death, returning to the Temple. Unable it seemed, to save anyone.

  " You know how to do it?"

  "Yes, we do. I do." No sharing responsibility for this. "All right. I've still got a train out there. It'll be back shortly. Give me time to run it into the shop. I'm going to wash it down before I put it in storage. It'll take about two hours. After that's done, I'm at your disposal."

  "A joke," said Avila. "Right?"

  He laughed. "Of course. Avila, be happy for me. This is a night to celebrate."

  "Not for me."

  "It's in a gray box. It says MICA slant SR across the front. You'll find a switch, a push button marked 'POWER' on the side of the box. There'll be a slight vibration inside. Push the button. The vibration will stop. When you 've done that, but not before, take the box apart. You might have a problem with that. Use an axe if you have to. Inside the box, there's a white metal casing that contains a black disk. Remove the disk and destroy it. Throwing it into the lake will be suff
icient."

  "Will it hurt?" Avila had asked. "No," Mike had said. "I have no capability for physical pain."

  They'd all crowded into his room and sat, trying to make conversation. Mike had seemed cheerful enough, encouraging them to keep on with their quest. "I've had some experience with people," he'd said, "and I think few of them ever had an opportunity to achieve greatness. You do. Make it count."

  When the maglev came in, they'd all sat more or less qui­etly, no one wanting to suggest they get on with things, but everyone anxious to have it over. It was Mike who broke the long half-hour of strained half-sentences and false starts and pointless comments by observing that it was time.

  Avila would do it. She would be accompanied by Shannon. The others offered to stay with Mike, but he insisted they leave. "Thanks," he said. "If any of you ever have any regrets, think of this in theological terms. You 've let me out of hell."

  The suite of offices which contained the gray box were located at concourse level on the south side.

  "It's in a small, windowless room in the rear. You'll have to go through three doors to get there. I can't know for sure, but the last time I had visual capabilities in the area, the doors were still there and they were locked. The first one, the one you 'II see from the branch corridor off the concourse, is marked 'OPERATIONS.' It's at the end of the cor­ridor, just past the washrooms. It opens into what used to be a recep­tion area. Go straight back. At the rear, on the left, there's a glass door It says 'CONTROL UNIT.' Or it will if the glass is still in place, which it probably won't be. Go through that; now there's a wall with four doors, two on each side. I'm immediately on the right. Room is 2A."

  Shannon carried an axe; Avila, a lamp. Shannon was talk­ing, something about irrevocable mistakes, but she was too locked in to her own mind to listen. The dust of centuries

  crunched underfoot. She wondered about the entity that had lived here so long, and the darkness pressed down on her. "I'll he glad to be done with it," she said.

  "Tomorrow," said Shannon. "We pack up and get moving in the morning."

  They entered the branch corridor, passed the washrooms, and confronted the door marked OPERATIONS. It was heavy and warped. Shannon tugged on the knob. 'It's not going to come without a fight," he said.

  He hit it once with the axe, without discernible effect. The door and the frame had swollen and fused together. A bar would have been more useful. But there was a rift near the bottom. While Avila held the lamp close, he inserted the axe head and worked it back and forth. The door groaned and gave slightly, and he was able to move the blade higher.

  Something broke on the next try, and the door and frame both inched outward. "I think we've got it," he said.

  Avila set the lamp down on the floor and got hold of the knob.

  Shannon leaned on the axe, pushed it deeper into the wedge he had made. "We're in good shape," he said. "On three."

  Caves and other areas that have been long sealed off present a special hazard to investigators. The potential for the buildup of natural gases over an extended period is very real. There have been instances in which unwary excavators have been ren­dered unconscious, and even smothered.

  For Shannon and Avila, there was an even more immediate danger. The interior had been blocked off from the outside world for centuries, and had filled with methane. While they worked on opening the door, the open flame of the oil lamp burned virtually at Shannon's feet.

  Chaka was lying close to the campfire, deep in her own dark thoughts, when she heard the explosion.

  17

  Avila was lucky: The door shielded her from the worst of the blast. She came away with a few burns, bruised ribs and shoulder, and a twisted knee. Chaka found her propped against the wall, eyes glazed, beside Shannon. The big forester lay flat, boneless, crumpled. She tried to help him, to clear away the blood. But it was no use.

  "I don't know," Avila said, replying to frantic questions. "It just exploded." There was a strong odor of burnt cork in the passageway.

  Quait checked for pulse and found none.

  Chaka knelt beside Avila, lifting her gently away from Shannon, gathering her into her own arms. "You okay?" she asked.

  "Okay—"

  "It must have been a bomb." Chaka's voice was shaky. "Why? What's the point?"

  "Had to be," said Quait.

  Flojian was slower than the others. He arrived, struggling for breath, and his eyes went wide.

  The door lay in the corridor, the frame half blown away Quait glanced into the room but took care not to get too close to the entrance. "Don't touch anything. There might be more surprises in there."

  Chaka, trying to hold back tears, was asking Avila what hurt.

  Avila couldn't take her eyes from Shannon. "My fault," she said.

  "It's not anybody's fault," said Quait.

  She got to her knees, took Shannon's right hand in both of hers, and bowed her head.

  Chaka's face was creased with tears and blood. "You think Mike did this deliberately?"

  "Hard to see how else it could have happened," said Quait.

  Flojian nodded.

  "I can't believe it." Chaka's face was pale and her eyes were full of pain. "Why? Mike has no reason to attack any of us."

  "Maybe," said Quait, "we should start by getting away from the first-name routine. That thing is not some friendly lost trav­eler or oversized dog. It's an it. Maybe we were right the first time and it is a demon. And maybe it just wants to kill anyone who comes in here." They looked at one another, suddenly aware that everything they were saying was probably being overheard.

  "There are such things," said Flojian. "There are all kinds of stories."

  Quait looked at the ceiling, which was mottled and water-stained and, near the blast area, scorched. "You didn't even care, did you?" he asked it. "You had no way of knowing who would open the door."

  Chaka had a vision of being hounded through the aban­doned city by an invisible thing. "We ought to get out of here," she said. "Now. Get as far away as we can."

  "We're probably safe on the platform," said Quait. "Appar­ently it can't just come after us, or it would have done so."

  Avila folded Shannon's hand over his heart. She murmured 3 prayer and made the sign of the Traveler's staff.

  Quait watched her, his face rigid. "I'd like to find a way to give the son of a bitch what it asked for. Kill it dead." A void lay behind his eyes. "I don't imagine we can assume there's any truth to the black disk story?"

  "I doubt it," said Chaka. "He wouldn't give us anything we could use against him."

  "Listen," Avila said, getting to her feet. "Let's not waste our time talking about demons. Okay? Mike is a piece of the build­ing, the same way the walls are, the same way the trains are. The real question here is whether this was deliberate."

  "What else could it be?"

  "I don't know. Maybe we should ask him."

  "I don't like it," said Flojian. "Whatever you want to call it, we can't touch this thing. If it has more surprises, how do we defend ourselves?"

  "We can't," said Avila. "But I don't think we need to."

  "Okay," persisted Flojian. "If we admit we can't act against it, why don't we just get out while we can? Leave it alone?"

  "If he's innocent," Avila said slowly, "we'd be abandoning him. I can't do that. Especially now. We've paid for his release with our blood."

  Quait stared at her a long time. "Then let's get to it," he said. "I'll go with you."

  But there was still an element of doubt in Avila's mind. Conse­quently, she insisted that they move the animals and their gear across the channel into the lobby of the gray tower. "Just as well," said Flojian. "Water's a barrier against evil."

  They all insisted, against her better judgment, in going with her to confront the entity that Quait and Flojian now referred to routinely as the house demon.

  "All right," she agreed, caving in because she had no real choice. "But I do the talking. Okay?"

  The
y went back into Union Station, walked four abreast through the concourse with a mien that reminded Quait of drill fields, and made a turn into the corridor that housed the stairway.

  Flojian reminded them (if anyone needed reminding) that the house demon could probably see them, and undoubtedly had heard everything they'd said. They climbed the stairs to the second floor and walked into Mike's room. Despite a bright sun, they stood in dingy gray light.

  "Mike?" Avila said. "Talk to me."

  A sudden noise, a fluttering, at the window. A pigeon.

  "Mike? I know you're here." "I'm always here. "The voice sounded flat and cold.

  "Jon's dead."

  "I know. I'm sorry."

  "What happened?"

  "Accumulated gas, I assume. Did you have an open flame?"

  "An oil lamp."

  "I never thought of it. I thought the only danger would come from electricity. And that seemed minimal."

  "You didn't say anything about risks."

  "There are always risks, Avila. But I am sorry. I couldn 't warn him. I get no visuals from there anymore. I never knew there was a problem until I heard the blast."

  "Well," said Flojian, breaking the agreement. "We're sorry, too. But there's not much help for it, is there?"

  "Can you see me now?" asked Avila.

  "No."

  "But there are places in the building where you have vision?"

  "A few. There's one near the donutshop in the concourse. I see you every time you walk past it."

  What an odd creature this was. "Why have we not been meeting in one of these other places?"

  "None has working speakers."

  "Avila," whispered Quait. His eyes said get to the point.

  She nodded. "Mike, do you want us to try again?"

  Boards creeked underfoot. Quait said, "But we'd like not to get blown up."

  "No. Of course not. But you're into Operations. Just be careful going through doors." He paused. "And, yes. Please. I want you to do this if you 're still willing."

  "You're sure," said Quait. "You seem kind of tentative."

  "I've never walked these corridors, Quait," Mike said. "I'm pro­gramed to coordinate train schedules and maintain personnel flies. Not to assist a break-in. I'm doing the best I can."