The Unearthing
Page 16
“Have you noticed?” Kodo asked as they boarded the lift, “The Shipsong; we only hear it outside.”
“There are no doubt countless thousands of noises inside this monster,” Scott replied, “I suspect the lift, the lift tube and this chamber are all remarkably well soundproofed. I’d bet that besides air circulation, we won’t hear much inside the Ship.” The lift sealed and began rising. Everyone’s attention was given over to witnessing the spectacular display of the airframe between the inner and outer hulls of the Ship: The airframe itself, the conduits running between inner and outer hulls, the apparent stations and towers; there were thousands of details to absorb. None of them were identifiable except by anthropomorphic assumption that similar forms would have similar functions from one civilization and species to another.
“We’ll be studying this thing for centuries,” Echohawk said, “Thirteen generations from now we still won’t understand half of what we’re looking at.”
“Thirteen generations after that we’ll probably not be that much closer to full understanding either,” Aiziz added her voice reverent, hushed. No one else, it seemed, dared to breach the silence. They all felt the same reaction: that they were in the presence of something far greater than themselves, something that had been built by hands and minds so far removed from their own experiences that they could never hope to empathize. They were humbled by the greatness of the Ship, its majesty, its outright supremacy. The society that had created it must have been exponentially more advanced than Humanity was now, long before Humanity had even existed.
♦♦♦
They were all too excited to sleep. Even after an exhaustive day spent briefing the press and the World Ship Summit on what they’d found, and making more sorties down the tunnel to the First Chamber in the Ship to gather what seemed to be an endless stream of images and readings. Aiziz and Andrews had spent the day first cataloguing the symbols found on the codex and then trying to make sense of the representations therein. James and Peter had busied themselves compiling data collected for the benefit of those not directly involved with the expedition. Scott and Echohawk with the engineering aspects of the Ship: how could it be so large and yet so stable? Was it built in orbit or on the surface of some low-gravity world? How were the biological components integrated? Kodo had collected small samples from the lift gate and the tube that had carried them into the Ship and was enthusiastically pursuing them in his lab.
If the linx from Santino hadn’t come when it did, if he had waited until the following day to contact Echohawk and the SSE, things might have ended differently.
“Hello Professor,” Santino said, “How are things over at Earth Base One?”
“Earth Base One?”
“You haven’t heard?” Santino chuckled, “That’s what everyone’s started to call your camp at the bottom of the Pyramid.”
“I haven’t been near a console unless it’s to give an interview,” Echohawk said.
Santino nodded. “I can understand why,” He said, “I’ve been at my console working for most of the day too; putting some affairs in order.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve been asked to join the North American Aboriginal delegation going to Rome for the Vatican IV talks on the Ship. And I’ve decided to go. It seems my brief stint as a medicine man earned me some notoriety. It might also have to do with some of the material I’ve published over the years on Native beliefs. Mainly, I just think it’s because I was more or less witness to what happened.”
“Congratulations Chief.”
“Thank you,” Santino said.
“We should all get together before you leave, to celebrate.”
“My people had the same idea. I’m being dragged out tonight as a matter of fact.”
“Why don’t I round up the SSE and we’ll all meet?” Echohawk suggested, “Christ knows that after the day we’ve put in we could all use a break.”
♦♦♦
They’d stayed out celebrating much later than anticipated. The members of the SSE and Santino’s Band Council closed the restaurant they’d settled into and then the bar adjacent. The horizon was already coloured with the first lights of dawn when they finally staggered outside. Of course by then the partygoers’ herd had been culled. Everyone from Santino’s council excluding Police Chief Sharon Raven had left early, begging off because of work the next day. As had Kodo and Doctor Cole. Aiziz and Andrews had paired off and parted earlier that evening and wouldn’t be seen again until the following day. That left Echohawk, Scott, James, Peter, Santino and Raven to greet the day in the parking lot of the Laguna Tavern.
“James,” Echohawk said, “You want to linx for some cabs?” James, who had been in the tavern’s smoking section with Peter and Kodo getting high for most of the night didn’t hear him.
“James?” Echohawk asked, chuckling.
“What?” James asked, dumbly. This struck Peter as eminently funny and his cackling laughter soon had Raven and Santino joining in.
“James!” Echohawk said, trying to suppress his own laughter and sound authoritative, “Call us a fucking taxi!”
“You’re a fucking taxi!” James said, clueing in on the joke. Peter and Santino were leaning against one of the cars in the parking lot, their intoxicated laughter making it impossible to stay standing.
“Stop…” Raven begged, her face flushed. “Stop…I’ll piss myself…” She raised her hands and fumbled for her headset buried somewhere in her purse. She searched for it, thinking about when she was a teen and the headsets had first come out. Bulky contraptions by today’s standards, everyone who owned a headset back then wore them constantly in a vulgar display of status. Now you could never find one of the fucking things when you were looking—At first she thought one car had slammed into another. Then Raven thought what she’d heard had been a set of two small explosions, possibly firecrackers or fireworks. She looked up. Everyone looked stunned, staring at Echohawk. But that wasn’t precisely right, she realized. They were looking at him, at Doctor Scott who was lying on the pavement and at the man who was standing in front of them holding a handgun. A wisp of blue smoke danced from the gun’s barrel, painfully visible under the sodium arc lamps in the bar’s parking lot.
Years of training overrode inebriety as Raven reached for the throwdown gun she always kept in a holster in the small of her back, fumbling drunkenly with her jacket. Echohawk was clutching his chest, the front of his shirt damp with blood that was running rapidly down his belly and groin. The man with the gun fired again, freezing everyone before they could react. Echohawk staggered and fell. The man smiled and began screaming a song as he turned the gun on himself:
“Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching off to WAAAAAAR!” he wailed, putting the gun to his temple.
Police Chief Raven heard him scream: “Memento Mori!” before pulling the trigger and blowing off the other side of his head. The gunman’s death seemed to finally galvanize everyone. James moved to Echohawk, ripping open his shirt to apply first aid. Raven dumped her purse out on the hood of the nearest car and slipped on her headset to call emergency services. Peter rushed back to the bar to do the same and Santino was working Doctor Scott. But in both cases it was too late: There was a neat hole just off-center in Scott’s forehead, a gaping exit wound at the back of his scalp. He was dead. And as James worked to control Echohawk’s bleeding, the archaeologist gave a shuddering, convulsive cough which sprayed James with blood and then was still. Sirens sounded in the distance, fast approaching. Sharon Raven identified them by their wails: an ambulance and two police vehicles. But it was too late. The shooting victims were dead and the shooter had gone on to face celestial justice far beyond the reach of any mortal law.
INTERLUDE
RAIN OF TEARS
She’d woken up at five ready to start the day. Bloom was primed and ready for the first test flight of the Bug; she’d barely slept the night before and was aching for this day. Launch was scheduled for seven. She was showered
, dressed and leaving for her pre-breakfast run when none other than General Harrod appeared at her door.
“General. To what do I owe--?”
“I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you this, Lieutenant-Colonel,” He said, “I know how you feel about me and you know how I feel about you. I wish I wasn’t the one who had to bring you the news. Christ knows you deserve to hear it from someone more sympathetic,” Harrod sighed and gave his head a curt shake. “There’s no easy way to say this. There was a shooting in Laguna early this morning. I don’t have all the details…but…I’m afraid your ex-husband is dead.”
“No,” she said, not really believing the denial as it passed her lips, “My God…I have to call Laura.”
“I’ve arranged for a private channel to be made available to you,” Harrod said, showing what Bloom would have normally seen as uncharacteristic sympathy. “And the test flight will be postponed so you can attend the funeral.” He stepped past her and switched on the console on the small desk in her quarters.
“I’ll leave you be,” He said. “Your paperwork’ll be waiting at the Company Clerk’s office. Lieutenant-Colonel, for what it’s worth, you have my condolences.” He let her be after that. She sat down at the terminal, inputting Laura’s linx address manually. Seconds later, Laura Echohawk’s tearful image appeared onscreen.
“Mom….” Bloom looked at her daughter’s tear-streaked face, noticing not for the first time the blend of features she’d inherited from Mark and from her. Laura’d missed out (at least as far as Bloom was concerned) on her mother’s blonde hair, instead favouring her father there with jet-black tresses; she had her father’s eyes, his sharp cheekbones and his ruddy complexion as well; and she had that same intense, all-seeing gaze that Bloom had first fallen in love with in Mark Echohawk. Laura had her nose, though and her mouth and chin. Bloom found herself confused and alarmed that she was sitting here, staring at her Laura’s image, looking to find the traces of her ex-husband in their daughter’s features, searching her and trying to find him…as if to confirm that he’d lived, that he’d touched their lives, that part of him was still alive.
“Oh, baby…” Bloom sobbed.
“How did it happen? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Bloom said, “I don’t know what happened. I only just found out.”
“My roommate told me,” Laura said, with no small trace of bitterness, “She saw it on INN. Why the fuck did they know, before we did?”
“I don’t know honey,” Bloom said, “I wish I knew. I really do.”
“When will you be here?”
“Before noon your time,” Bloom said, “I promise.”
“I need you, Mommy,” Laura said, breaking down, the grief too much for her to bear any longer. Bloom was breaking down, too; she and Mark had parted amicably and stayed close friends…and ended up in bed together after the divorce far too often not to have laid claim to an ongoing relationship. Mark’s death shocked her…wounded her. And she was wounded all the more seeing her daughter in such anguish, to be so far away…too far to make this better, to at the very least wrap her arms around her little girl and give her what comfort she could.
“I’ll be there soon,” Bloom choked out. “I promise…I promise.” She put her hand against the screen and they sat there, as together as possible given the distance between Bloom’s secret Nevada location and Laura’s Los Angeles apartment, and cried awhile. It was ten to five and the day had barely begun.
♦♦♦
They gathered together in the main shelter in Base Camp. The eyewitnesses to the slayings had given their statements and now they and rest of the SSE sat together inside the small cafeteria, sharing coffee and the cold comfort of one another’s company. The military presence had been increased to the point that a small occupation force was guarding the Ship and the surviving members of the Ship Survey Expedition. James realized that they were survivors, now. He looked from face to face. The surviving members of the SSE shared similar expressions of shock, pain, of loss. Only Doctor Cole wasn’t there; she was working as closely with the investigation into the assassinations as the World Ship Summit would allow. She had promised to join them as soon as she could. James had studied with Echohawk and Peter the better part of four years; they’d both lost a mentor, a friend. Of the members of the SSE theirs was probably the most personal loss. Sonia Aiziz and Michael Andrews hung back slightly from the rest of the group; still at the same table, but nonetheless shrouded in the conspiracy of two of a new couple. Aiziz was talking Andrews listening, nodding sympathetically.
“I was his assistant at the time,” she was saying, “We’d been searching for what had been described as an Incan treasury. It was a treasury, all right…but not what we expected. There were tens of thousands of Quipus sealed inside the chamber. Quipus were an Incan form of visual communication that used strings knotted in different positions in different sequences to relay meanings. We spent weeks trying to decode them, to learn the language. For years everyone had assumed that the Quipus were merely a form of accounting, but we learned otherwise. Scholars are still discovering epics that put Homer, Shakespeare, Tolkien and Jordan to shame, and music to humble composers from Bach and Beethoven, to Van Dyk. And if Mark hadn’t picked me for the expedition I wouldn’t have been there when the discovery was made. I wouldn’t have the career I do today…I wouldn’t be part of the SSE today, if it weren’t for him.” She stifled a sob and drew closer to Andrews.
“I only knew the Professor by reputation,” He said, “And even then only fleetingly. But from what I knew of him he was the best choice to lead this expedition and he was a good man.” He looked uncomfortable. He was at a loss for words and knew he was damning the man with faint praise.
“It seems so strange,” Aiziz said, “Here we are, talking about Mark…and we’ve so little to say about Doctor Scott.”
“I know,” Andrews agreed, “But what can one say about someone they didn’t know? I barely knew Professor Echohawk; we met at a symposium on mathematics. He was delivering a lecture on the significance of higher mathematics to the Olmecs. We’ve corresponded since; I didn’t know Everett Scott, at all. Any violent death is a senseless tragedy. And I’m sorry he’s gone…but I didn’t know him...I can’t mourn someone I didn’t know.” The hoary old line suddenly occurred to him and Andrews could hear himself saying in a loud Scottish Brogue: “Everett Scott, we hardly knew ye!”
“None of us did,” Mark Kodo said, sipping from his mug and snapping Andrews back to the present, “None of us really took much time to get to know him, either. Not that we had that much time…we’ve been together for only a few days.”
“We should have done more to know him,” Andrews said, “Perhaps then we’d at least be able to feel his loss as well. In my case I should have done more to know them both better.”
Doctor Cole entered the cafeteria and made her way to their table.
“Hello everyone,” She said, “I’m not going to be able to stay long I’m afraid. I just came by to let you know that I’ll be scheduling sessions with each of you over the coming days. We have to discuss what’s happened, in context of the Expedition and how each of you has been affected by it.”
“Wait a minute,” Kodo said, “Most of us are heading to LA for the Prof’s funeral.”
“I know,” Cole said, “And there’s no reason the sessions can’t start as soon as everyone gets back.”
“Assuming we come back,” James said, bitterly, “I don’t know if the Expedition’s worth what happened.”
“And better that Professor Echohawk and Doctor Scott died for nothing?” Aiziz asked with the slightest edge to her voice, “We owe it to them to continue this work. We owe it to Mark’s memory, especially.”
“Here, here,” Peter added, dryly. James looked down into his coffee for a long moment before nodding his head.
“You’re right,” He said, his words a sad affirmation, “The bastards who did this want us to leave. You’re right.”
“If any of you need to speak with me in the meantime, I will be available for most of this afternoon,” Cole replied, a smile touching her lips.
“Thank you, Doctor Cole,” Andrews said, “Are you sure we can’t convince you to stay for a coffee? One of the things we’ve come to realize is how poorly we knew Doctor Scott and we’d hate to repeat that mistake again, with any member of the Expedition.” Cole smiled again; a weak, sad smile.
“I think perhaps I will,”
♦♦♦
Bloom embraced Laura when they met at the airport terminal. They held each other tightly, both their faces damp with tears.
“Mom,” Laura said, “It’s so good to see you.”
“I’m here for a while,” Bloom said, “Don’t worry.” Bloom drew back to look at her daughter and smiled, her face a mix of mourning and joy and being with her daughter again.