The eternity artifact, p.39
The Eternity Artifact, page 39
“Yes?”
“It’s Chendor, Liam.”
Rising posthaste from the console, I opened the door. “Please come in.”
The artist carried two plastrene boxes, each a third of a meter long, half that in width, and a good twenty centimeters in depth. Once inside he raised them slightly, conveying an invitation. “These are for you… the tea from Elysen.”
“For me? Chendor… there must be some misapprehension. While I respected her and held her in esteem—” far more esteem than many of the other scientific team experts whom I had come to know, and with whose acquaintance my respect had diminished on close to a logarithmic scale in proportion to the time spent with them, every fleeting contact with Dr. Taube had reinforced my respect—”I scarcely knew her.” Chendor had mentioned the tea, but I had not appreciated the quantity involved, but should have. Chendor did not offer idle remarks.
“She felt that you would appreciate the tea, Liam.” He pressed the containers on me.
As I took them and set them beside the console, I noted that he also carried an imager. Such a device would have been vital on Danann, but on board ship?
“She said the bergamot tea would more than meet your high standards.” Chendor went on.
High standards? When had I ever said a word about tea since embarking upon the Magellan? Regrettably, I had discoursed upon wine, and upon the fact that formulated wine was close to unimbibable, but never had a word about tea escaped my lips. “She must have been most observant, in addition to her other qualities.”
“She was very observant. I wish I’d met her earlier.” He shrugged. “Without Project Deep Find, I wouldn’t have known her at all.”
His observation was more than slightly true, and the same applied to me and Jiendra as well.
“What had she discovered, Chendor? It is indubitably linked to your artifact, is it not?”
He smiled. “Before we get into that, I have a request.”
“A request?”
“I’d like to capture a few images of you, if you would. Part of my charge is to document the entire expedition.”
“I’m certain that you can do better than my image,” I demurred. “But… as you wish.”
“If you would just walk around for a few minutes, and let me take images as you move and talk.”
“What had Dr. Taube discovered, Chendor?”
He took several images before replying. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone until it was announced.”
“If I tell you what it is, and promise not to convey the information to others, will you confirm that?”
“I couldn’t say, Liam.”
“From what I can ascertain, Chronos and Danann have been separating for in excess of ten billion years, perhaps as little as six, depending on whose report I read. The two gray spheres of your artifact represent them, while the black is the tie that binds them or the track along which they were propelled by the builders of Danann. Those builders only created or modified Danann as part of their greater project, and the artifact suggests that they used the two as some sort of graviton/atrousan fulcrum by which they moved their entire cluster somewhere else, most probably into another universe…”
“Who have you been talking to?” Behind the imager, Chendor’s face bore traces of both amusement and apprehension.
“No one, except Lieutenant Chang. She provided some details about the radiation intensification.”
“I would ask you, Liam… I’ll even beg you not to mention this. Elysen was so concerned that nothing be said until Cleon Lazar completed the mathematical proofs. She was afraid, I think, that people would dismiss the theory if everything didn’t get presented properly.”
Had it not been Chendor, I would have laughed. Virtually all the scientists at the University of Gregory had displayed traits in that vein. They ridiculed, in fashions both kind and unkind, historical or sociopolitical theses, while being perfectly willing to speculate about all too many matters of which they were effectively ignorant, but became incensed if someone speculated about their own theses prematurely, even while the aspects of what they investigated were, if not obvious, certainly not exactly unknown.
“I will not say anything, except to Jiendra, for the moment. She is not exactly effusive. I take it that you are confirming, at least in a general sense, what the artifact represents?”
“As I understand it.” Chendor paused. “Please…”
I wanted to tell Chendor that it would make little difference what I said. I was not a hard physical scientist, and anything I suggested would be disregarded as beneath consideration by those who were, but he would regard any such statement as an excuse for me to speak. “Please don’t worry about it. I’m not about to try to take credit for what they have found, and I certainly would not wish my words to cause you distress. I will say that Cleon Lazar had best finish his work fairly quickly, though, or someone else may well be able to calculate the supporting evidence and take credit it for the discovery first. Just because he and Dr. Taube were the experts in the field here on the Magellan doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t try for the credit. If you’re concerned about that, you could tell Lazar that you’ve heard that someone has already mentioned the possibility.”
“He wouldn’t think you were that credible,” Chendor pointed out, proving that I’d underestimated his judgment. “Not in a scientific sense.” He clipped the imager to his belt.
“You don’t say that it’s me. You tell Lazar that I mentioned hearing someone talking about it, and that I couldn’t say who it was.” I laughed. “I can certainly hear myself talk, and I can’t tell anyone, you know, because I promised you I wouldn’t.”
“I could do that.”
“I might try to talk to Lazar myself, but I won’t mention your name. It’s known that he worked with Dr. Taube.”
“Do you think he’ll say anything?”
“I won’t know until I try. If I try.”
Chendor frowned, momentarily. “You won’t say—”
“I wouldn’t even consider that a remote possibility, but if I intimate that I deduced his and Dr. Taube’s theory, as a nonscientist…”
“It might work.” After a moment, he spoke. “I did want to make sure you got the tea. And get a few more images.”
“A few more?”
“I captured several off the ship’s systems. When you disabled the assassins.”
My wince was involuntary. I should have realized that such would have existed. All sections—or all public spaces—of Comity and D.S.S. ships were monitored.
“Don’t worry.” He started to turn.
“I’ll thank you for the tea, since I can’t thank Dr. Taube. I will enjoy it. That I can promise you.”
He smiled before he closed the door.
What was he painting that needed me? I refrained from shaking my head, a useless gesture in private, particularly as I contemplated a strategy to gain access to Cleon Lazar and to obtain more details about his and Dr. Taube’s theory.
80 FITZHUGH
Several hours of cogitation and calculation followed Chendor’s visit, and in the middle of three-day afternoon, I attempted to reach Cleon Lazar through the comm system. He did not deign even to respond, nor to return my message requesting a few moments of his time. From what I had seen and heard of him, that lack of courtesy toward a non-physical scientist was what I had anticipated.
Determining Cleon Lazar’s location required a certain amount of drudgery, including exerting percussive announcements on a few wrong doors, but by midmorning on fourday, I stood looking at him, through little more than a slip between the edge of his plastrene door and its equally gray plastrene casement.
“Dr. Fitzhugh… this is the physical science area, not the social studies section.”
“That is a fact of which we are both fully cognizant, Cleon, and in this particular instance, irrelevant. I presume you did receive my message.”
“I thought it was more like a threat.”
“I don’t make threats, Cleon, but I do chase down information, and if I can determine what you have in the artifact on the few clues I have, so will any competent physical scientist.” I managed a facsimile of a pleasant smile. “I think it would be best if you offered me some hospitality.”
“I’d rather not.” He started to close the door.
His efforts were ineffectual, and after several moments, he reeled back, and I closed the door behind me.
He moved toward the console. “If you do not depart immediately, I will summon ship’s security.”
“You do, and Commander Morgan will require you to divulge far more than I want, and he will not be precisely pleased to be required to deal with such a matter at a critical time. Because of my particular skills, I can ensure that he will have to focus on this issue, and when he discovers why, and what you have withheld, he will be exceedingly less than pleased.”
He paused. Some of his fine black hair had fallen across his low forehead, almost touching his dark brows. His gray eyes were bright, and his skin far too white, if not quite that of an albino.
“Dr. Lazar… you appear not to be terribly understanding of the situation your discovery has precipitated, a situation which will most certainly deteriorate. Either that, or you prefer a time of galacticwide warfare.” Lazar might well laugh at my presumptuousness, for if my own sociopolitical calculations were correct, that period of warfare had already been proclaimed with the arrival of the CW and Covenanter ships off Danann.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your discovery shatters some very basic social truths, and it is upon those truths that a plurality, if not the majority, of human polities have been constructed and operated.” I managed a smile, one far less amicable than the first I had offered.
“Are you always so… direct?”
“No. Usually those I deal with tend to be less isolated from the social and political aspects of the universe that surrounds them, and thus more inclined to at least listen before reacting.”
“I believe in only what is observable, provable, and verifiable, and, ideally, what is scientifically replicable.”
“Then we agree in principle. I’d like to tell you what I think you’ve found, and I’d like you to correct any basic misconceptions I may have.”
“For what purpose?”
“For my own research and publications. If you choose to announce what you and Dr. Taube discovered within the near future, I will be more than pleased to refrain from publication until your announcement.”
“And if I do not, then you will publish… anyway?”
“You may have overlooked the fact that everyone on the team was given great incentive to publish their results once we returned. Not when every fact and mathematical proof was laser-edge perfect.”
Cleon actually sighed. “Do you beat up your students this way?”
“If necessary.”
“It will come out. You’re correct about that. I had hoped for a bit more time to refine the mathematics and the proofs while the rest of the expedition was exploring Danann.” He paced toward the blank wall screen, then turned back, halting. “As you have deduced, and as I told Barna, the artifact is a physical representation of what the culture that created Danann did in creating an entire new universe…”
I listened, attempting to correlate everything he said to what I had attempted to set forth logically.
After he finished, including providing responses, doubtless oversimplified, to my inquiries, his eyes narrowed as he asked, “What does this have to do with history and its trends?”
“Everything,” I replied. “Just about everything.” I inclined my head, in courtesy, and added, “Thank you. I look forward to seeing your initial announcement.”
Then I left. I had more work to do than I’d thought, especially based on Lazar’s initial response to my concerns and his apparent inability to grasp the magnitude of the artifact’s impacts—technological, scientific, and particularly, cultural.
81 CHANG
At fourteen-seventeen on fourday, I sat at the ops junior duty officer’s console. Tiny space in the corner of main operations. Gray plastrene bulkheads, decks, and overheads, no wonder Morgan looked gray all the time.
Just a junior command pilot under instruction… that was all, but I had passive access to all the screens and systems. Could access anything, but couldn’t do anything unless the command pilot—that was the captain at the moment—shifted the conn to me. Wasn’t about to happen. Still, getting to know a ship as big as the Magellan felt good. Could also put it on my cert record.
Time to translation, one stan. The link announcement was restricted to those in control.
Morgan appeared, almost at my shoulder. “You’re off duty now.”
I frowned. My watch didn’t end for two-plus stans. “I do something wrong?”
“No. I’m shifting you back to the needleboats. I’m having all needle pilots on standby for immediate launch once we clear the Hamilton Gate inbound.”
I could see that. Didn’t like it, but could see it. “Trouble waiting for us?”
“That’s likely.”
He was lying. He knew, probably from the Owens— courier had rejoined the Magellan less than ten stans earlier.
“You’re not surprised?”
“With three attacks already, and a bunch of attempts at sabotage? I’d be surprised if trouble weren’t waiting. How bad?”
“We don’t know. D.S.S. intelligence had indications of possible recon and hidden Gate translations in a number of Comity systems.”
“We could wait, couldn’t we?” Doubted that either Morgan or the captain would have bought that, but wanted a reaction.
“For how long? And how safely, without escorts? Two fleets found us at Danann. Also, if Hamilton system comes under attack, the Magellan might be critical.”
“You think someone will attack Hamilton?” Managed not to raise my voice. That was definitely an act of war, the kind of war everyone had been trying to avoid for centuries.
“The Covenanters and the Alliance believe we have the Morning Star or the Spear of Iblis, or whatever the true believers call the mythical weapons of Lucifer.”
“We don’t have anything like that… do we?” While Liam had told me about the artifact and what Dr. Taube believed, Morgan wasn’t going to get that from me.
“No.”
Didn’t like the touch of equivocation behind his denial. “But the artifact… it’s the key?”
“The scientists can’t prove what it is. They don’t know how the Danannians built it, or how they even created the materials it’s made from, and it’s anyone’s guess when we will, or if we will.”
“So… tell the Covenanters that,” I suggested.
He laughed. “Let’s see. What do we say? ‘We have a device that we can’t analyze because it’s so advanced, and we don’t know what it’s good for or how to use it. But it’s not the advanced weapon you think it is.’ Even if we offered to share the data, which I doubt that anyone in the Comity would approve, the Covenanters don’t want that information loose. They think it tore their Heaven in two and loosed evil on mankind.” He paused. “Enough. You need to get to the ready room and suit up. All you pilots will be in your needles when we translate.”
That told me we had more trouble than he was admitting. “Who do I turn the watch over to?”
“You don’t. There’s no one left.”
Junior ops watches were for instruction, not necessary, strictly. I got up. “The watch is yours, sir.” Wanted that on the record. Even logged it.
He didn’t say anything, just moved back to the ops boss’s console without a word.
I’d thought Morgan had a softer inside. Beginning to think I’d been mistaken. Or it was buried so deep no one would ever find it. Not even him.
Was that my problem, too? Didn’t want to think about that. Not yet.
Took my time getting to the ready room. Even made a stop at the mess and got something to eat from the cooks. Had to keep moving, because getting into armor took some time. It was still almost thirty minutes to translation when I entered the launch bay. Lindskold, Shaimen, and the two pilots from the Alwyn were already in their needles.
Ysario looked at me as I stopped short of Needle Four and studied it, then said, “All the internal systems have been replaced, sir.”
Managed a grin. “Hope so. It’s pretty dark out there without screens and shields.”
“Yes, sir.” She didn’t smile, but her eyes crinkled at the corners. She was worried, too.
After the walk-around, and the physical inspection, I settled into the cockpit of the needle. Ran the checklist all the way to launch, then backed off to standby.
Five minutes until translation. All personnel should be secured. All personnel should be secured. All unnecessary gear should be on standby. Once in armor, we got the announcements by link alone.
Checked once more—all the needle systems were on standby, with the fusactor cold.
Could only sit in the darkness and wait for the captain to guide the Magellan into the Gate and translation.
Stand by for Gate translation. Stand by for Gate translation.
Translation was like always—flashed white and black simultaneously, and we went null grav. Then black turned white, and white black. Colors inverted. The white and black strobing stretched out endlessly, then stopped with no real time having passed, as black returned to black. We were back in normspace—hopefully on the edge of Hamilton system.
Full grav returned, but only for a moment.
Stand by for null grav in the launch bay. Null grav in the launch bay. All needles, prepare to launch. Report when ready. Report when ready.
My stomach lurched up within me. The double cycle from full grav to null to full to null hadn’t helped. After a quick swallow, I began running through the checklist to get the needle ready to launch.
