Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  “So what’s it tell us?” asked Sky.

  “Explosion,” said Em. “Big one.”

  “Big enough to obliterate the ship? And the rock?”

  “If we can pick up traces of it out here. Oh, yes, I’d say so.”

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  . Few of us now alive can remember when we looked at the stars and wondered whether we were alone. We have had faster-than-light transport for almost a half century, and if we have not yet encountered anyone with whom we can have a conversation, we know nevertheless they are out there, or have been there in the past.

  More than a hundred people have given their lives to this effort. And we are now informed that, during the last fiscal year, roughly 2 percent of the world’s financial resources have gone into this exploration of the outer habitat in which we live.

  Two percent.

  It does not sound like much. But it could feed 90 million people for a year. Or provide housing for 120 million. It could pay all the medical costs in the NAU for sixteen months. It could provide a year’s schooling for every child on the planet.

  So what do we have for our investment?

  Sadly, we have nothing to put into the account books. It’s true we have improved our plumbing methods and created lighter, stronger materials. We can now pack more nourishment into a convenience meal than we ever could before. Our electronics are better. We have lightbenders, which have proved of some use in crime prevention, and also of some use to criminals. We have better clothing. Our engines are more fuel-efficient. We have learned to husband energy. But surely all of this could have been had, at far less cost, by direct investment.

  Why then do we continue this quest?

  It is too easy to think that we go because of the primal urge, as Tennyson said, to sail beyond the sunset.

  We pretend that we are interested in taking the temperatures of distant suns, of measuring the velocity of the winds of Altair, of presiding over the birth of stars. Indeed, we have done these things.

  But in the end, we are driven by a need to find someone with whom we can have a conversation. To demonstrate that we are not alone. We have already learned that there have been others before us. But they seem to have gone somewhere else. Or passed into oblivion. So the long hunt continues. And in the end, if we are successful, if we actually find somebody out there, I suspect it will be our own face that looks back at us. And they will probably be as startled as we.

  — Conan Magruder

  Time and Tide, 2228

  chapter 6

  University of Chicago.

  Thursday, March 6.

  IT HAD BEEN almost four years, but David Collingdale had neither forgotten nor forgiven the outrage at Moonlight. The sheer mindlessness of it all still ate at him, came on him sometimes in the depths of the night.

  Had it been a war, or a rebellion, or anything at all with the most remote kind of purpose, he might have been able to make peace with it. There were times when he stood before his classes and someone would ask about the experience and he’d try to explain, how it had looked, how he had felt. But he still filled up, and sometimes his voice broke and he fell into a desperate silence. He was not among those who thought the omegas a force of nature. They had been designed and launched by somebody. Had he been able to gain access to that somebody, he would have gladly killed and never looked back.

  A blanket of snow covered the University of Chicago campus. The walkways and the landing pads had been scooped out; otherwise, everything was buried. He sat at his desk, his class notes open before him, Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons drifting incongruously through the office. He’d spent the night there not because he knew the storm was coming, although he did, but simply because he sometimes enjoyed the spartan ambience of his office. Because it restored reason and purpose to the world.

  The classes were into their first period. Collingdale had an appointment with a graduate student at nine thirty, leaving him just enough time to get himself in order—shower and fresh clothes—and get down to the faculty dining room for a quick breakfast.

  Life should have been good there. He conducted occasional seminars, served as advisor for two doctoral candidates, wrote articles for a range of journals, worked on his memoirs, and generally enjoyed playing the campus VIP. He was beginning to get a reputation as something of an eccentric, though. He’d discovered recently that some of his colleagues thought he was a bit over the side. Believed that the experience at Moonlight had twisted him. Maybe it was true, although he would have thought intensified to be the more accurate verb. His sensitivity to the subject seemed to be growing deeper with time. He could, in fact, have wept on cue, had he wished to do so, merely by thinking about it.

  He’d become sufficiently oppressed by conditions that he worried he might be having an unfortunate effect on his students. Consequently, he’d tried to resign in midsemester the year before, but the chancellor, who saw the advantage of having someone with Collingdale’s stature on the faculty, had taken him to a local watering hole for an all-night session, and he’d stayed on.

  The chancellor, who was also a longtime friend, suggested a psychiatrist, but Collingdale wasn’t prepared to admit he had a problem. In fact, he had acquired an affection for his obsession. He wouldn’t have wanted to be without it.

  Things got better for him this past Christmas when Mary Clank had walked into his life. Tall, angular, irrepressible, she had heard all the jokes about her name and laughed all of them off. Trade Clank for Collingdale? she’d asked the night he proposed. You must think I have a tin ear.

  He loved her with as much passion as he hated the clouds.

  She refused to be caught up in his moods. When he wanted to watch a sim, she insisted on a stroll through the park; when he suggested a fulfilling evening at a concert, she wanted to bounce around at the Lone Wolf.

  Gradually, she became the engine driving his life. And he found the occasional day when he did not see her to be an empty time, something to be gotten through as best he could.

  He’d always assumed that the romantic passions were practiced exclusively by adolescents, women, and the slow-witted. Sex he could understand. But together forever? That’s our song? It was for children. Nevertheless he’d conceived a passion for Mary Clank the first time he’d seen her—at a faculty event—and had never been able to let go. To his delight, she returned his feelings, and Collingdale became happier and more content than he had ever been.

  But his natural pessimism lurked in the background and warned him she would not stay. That the day would come when he would walk into the Lone Wolf alone, or with another woman on his arm.

  Enjoy her while you can, Dave. All good things are transient.

  Well, maybe. But she had said yes. They hadn’t set a date, although she’d suggested that late spring would be nice. June bride and all that.

  He squeezed into his shower. He had private accommodations, a bit cramped, but sufficient. Collingdale liked to think he was entitled to much more, that he was demonstrating to the university that he was really a self-effacing sort by settling for, in fact by insisting on, much less than someone in his position would customarily expect. A lot of people thought modesty a true indicator of greatness. That made it, at least, a prudent tactic.

  When he’d finished he laid out fresh clothes on the bed. The sound system was running something from Haydn, but the HV was also on, the sound turned down, two people talking earnestly, and he was pulling on a shirt when he became aware that one of them was Sigmund Halvorsen, who usually got called out when a major scientific issue was in the news. He turned the volume up.

  “—is unquestionably,” Halvorsen was saying in his standard lecture mode, “a group of cities directly in its path.” He was an oversize windbag from the physics department at Loyola. Mostly beard, stomach, and overbearing attitude.

  The interviewer nodded and looked distressed. “Dr. Halvorsen,” he said, “this is a living civilization. Is it at risk?”

 
; “Oh, yes. Of course. The thing is already tracking them. We don’t have much experience with the omegas, but if our analyses of these objects are correct, these creatures, whatever they are, do not have much time left.”

  “When will the cloud get there?”

  “I believe they’re talking about December. A couple of weeks before Christmas.” His tone suggested irony.

  Collingdale hadn’t been near a newscast since the previous evening. But he knew right away what was happening.

  A picture of the cloud replaced the two men. It floated in the middle of his bedroom, ugly, ominous, brainless. Malevolent. Silent. Halvorsen’s voice droned on about “a force of nature,” which showed what he knew.

  “Is there anything we can do to help them?” asked the interviewer.

  “At this time, I doubt it. We’re lucky it isn’t us.”

  From his angle near the washroom door, the omega seemed to be closing in on his sofa-bed. “Marlene,” he said, calling up the AI.

  “Dr. Collingdale?”

  “Connect me with the Academy. Science and Technology. Their headquarters in Arlington. Audio only. I want to talk with Priscilla Hutchins.”

  Her whiskey voice informed him that the connection had been made and a young woman’s voice responded. “Can I help you, Dr. Collingdale?”

  “Director of operations, please.”

  “She’s not available at the moment. Is there someone else you wish to speak with?”

  “Please let her know I called.” He sat down on the bed and stared at the cloud. It blinked off, and was replaced by a scattering of lights. The cities by night.

  “—any idea what we’re looking at?” the interviewer asked.

  “Not yet. These are, I believe, the first pictures.”

  “And this is where?”

  “The third planet—just like us—of a star that has only a catalog number.”

  “How far is it?”

  “A bit more than three thousand light-years.”

  “That sounds pretty far.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s about as far out as we’ve gone. I’d venture to say the only reason we’re there now is because somebody spotted the cloud moving.”

  Collingdale’s line blinked. He took it in his sitting room. “Dave.” Hutch materialized standing on the throw rug. She was framed by a closet door and a plaque awarded him by the Hamburg Institute. “It’s good to hear from you. How’ve you been?”

  “Good,” he said. “The job pays well, and I like the work.” Her black hair was shorter than it had been the last time he’d seen her. Her eyes were dark and intelligent, and she obviously enjoyed being an authority figure. “I see things are happening.”

  She nodded. “A living civilization, Dave. For the time being. We released it this morning.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “We got the news two days ago, but we’ve suspected it for a while now.”

  “Well,” he said, unsure how to get where he wanted to go, “congratulations. I assume there’s a major celebration going on down there.”

  “Not exactly.”

  No, of course not. Not with a cloud closing in on somebody. “What kind is it?” he asked, referring to the type of civilization.

  “Green deuce.”

  Nontechnological. Agricultural. But organized into cities. Think eastern Mediterranean, maybe four thousand years ago. “Well,” he said, “I’m delighted to hear it. I know there’ll be some complications, but it’s a magnificent discovery. Who’s getting the credit?”

  “Looks like a technician at Broadside. And Jack Markover on the Jenkins.”

  That was a surprise. In the old days, it would have been someone higher up the chain. “The cloud led you to it?”

  “Yes.” She looked discouraged.

  “They’re saying December on the HV.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to try to do anything for them? For the inhabitants?”

  “We’re putting together a mission.”

  “Good. I thought you would. Do you have anything going, anything that can take out the cloud?”

  “No.”

  Yeah. That’s what makes it all such a bitch. “What are you going to try to do? What’s the point of the mission?”

  “We’ll decoy it. If we can.”

  “How?”

  “Projections. If that doesn’t work, a kite.” She allowed herself a smile.

  “A kite?” He couldn’t suppress a grin himself.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

  “Ask me in nine months.” She tilted her head and her expression changed. Became more personal. “Dave, what can I do for you?”

  He was trembling. The smartest thing he could do, the only thing he could do, was to stay out of it. The mission, round trip, would take close to two years. And it was likely to fail. When it did, he would be happily married to Mary. “When are they leaving?”

  “A few days. They’ll be on their way as soon as we can get everybody on board.”

  “They won’t have much time after they get there.”

  “We figure about ten days.”

  “Who’s running it?”

  “We’re still looking at the applications.”

  He ran over a few names in his memory, thought he knew who’d be trying to get on board. Couldn’t think of anyone with better qualifications than he. “What happens if the decoy doesn’t work?”

  “We have some other ideas.”

  Decision time. “Hutch—” he said.

  She waited.

  Two years away. Mary Clank, farewell.

  “Yes, Dave?” she prompted.

  “I’d like to go.”

  She smiled at him, the way people do when they think you’re kidding. “I understood you were pretty well settled.”

  “I’d like to do this, Hutch. If you can see your way clear.”

  “I’ll add your name to the candidates’ lists.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’d consider it a personal favor.”

  She turned away momentarily and nodded to someone out of the picture. “Dave, I can’t promise.”

  “I know. What kind of creatures are they?”

  She vanished and a different image appeared, an awkward, roundish humanoid that looked like something out of a Thanksgiving parade. Complete with vacuous eyes and a silly grin. Baggy pants, floppy shoes, bilious shirt. Round, polished skull. No hair save for eyebrows. Long thin ears. Almost elfin. They were the saving grace in an otherwise comic physiognomy.

  “You’re kidding,” he said.

  “No. This is what they look like.”

  He laughed. “How many of them are there?”

  “Not many. They all seem to be concentrated in a group of cities along a seacoast.” Again, something off to the side distracted her. “Dave,” she said, “I have to go. It was good to talk with you. I’ll get back within twenty-four hours. Let you know, up or down.”

  HE HAD LUNCH with Mary, and she knew something had happened. They were in the UC faculty lounge, he with only twenty minutes before he was due to conduct a seminar, she with an hour to spare. His intention had been to say nothing until he had the decision from the Academy. But she sat there behind a grilled cheese and looked into him and waited for him to explain what was going on.

  So he did, although he made it sound, without actually lying, as if Hutch had called him and asked whether he was available.

  “They might pick somebody else,” he concluded. “There’s a lot at stake. It would be hard to say no.”

  She looked back at him with those soft blue eyes, and he wondered whether he had lost his mind. “I understand,” she said.

  “I don’t really have a choice in something like this, Mary. There’s too much riding on it.”

  “It’s okay. You have to do what you think is right.” Steel in the ribs.

  “I’m sorry. The timing isn’t very good, is it?”

  “Yo
u’ll be gone two years, you say?”

  “If I get picked, it would be closer to a year and a half.” He tried a smile but it didn’t work. “If it happens, I can probably arrange space for you. If you’d want to come.”

  She nibbled at the sandwich. Considered it. He saw her wrestle with it. Saw those eyes harden. “Dave, I’d like to, but I can’t just take two years off.”

  “It wouldn’t be two years.”

  “Close enough. It would wreck my career.” She was an instructor in the law school. There was a tear. But she cleared her throat. “No. I just can’t do it.” And there was a message there somewhere, in her voice, in her expression. I’m yours if you want me. But don’t expect me to hang around.

  In that moment, filled with the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and cinnamon, he hoped that Hutch would pass over him, pick someone else. But he also understood he’d driven a spike into his relationship with Mary, that whatever happened now, things would never again be right.

  HUTCH CALLED THAT night. “You still want to go?”

  “When do we leave?”

  “A week from tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “I’m attaching a folder. It has all the information on the mission. Who’ll be there. What we plan to do. If you have any ideas, get back to me.”

  “I will.”

  “Welcome aboard, David.”

  “Thank you. And, Hutch—”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for the assignment.”

  He signed off and looked out across the lake. He lived on the North Shore. Nice place, really. Hated to leave it. But he’d already arranged to sublet.

  ARCHIVE

  Jack, for planning purposes, we will assume that we’ll be unable to stop the cloud. The cloud will target the cities. See if you can come up with a way to move the population out into the country, preferably to higher ground, since they’re all vulnerable to the ocean. We are going to try to master their language. To that end, we need recordings. Raw data should be forwarded to the Khalifa al-Jahani as soon as it becomes available.

  Anything you can do without compromising the Protocol will help. I’m informed you don’t have lightbenders. We’re sending a shipment from Broadside, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t wait for their arrival to get started. Find a way to make things happen. Everyone here understands the difficulty that implies. Therefore, be advised that your primary objective is to get the job done. If it becomes necessary to set the Protocol aside, this constitutes your authority to do so.