Alex Benedict 9 - Village in the Sky, page 8
Alex and Gabe were both out of the building.
* * *
So they had a satellite. Jennifer mentioned that at least now we could be certain that they weren’t simply a group of lonely primitives. “Next,” Wilkinson said, “we’ll go drop in at the village.”
They kept the camera focused on the view from the wraparound so the audience shared the sense of riding along. We saw a few animals wandering across wide fields. And an occasional flock of birds. A wide lake slipped into view directly ahead. An animal with four legs and a huge set of antlers was standing with two offspring, watching over them while they drank. “See anything you recognize?” asked Wilkinson.
“Not yet. We’re still well south of it.”
“How does it feel, Vince, being back here again? I suspect you never thought this would happen.” Wilkinson was struggling to make conversation. Unlike the others on board, he never forgot when they were in broadcast mode.
The sun set well before they reached the equator. The moon was out of the sky, but there were plenty of stars. The ocean lay just off to starboard. The village would be easy to find. Even if there were no lights.
Vince was leaning forward to study the ground ahead. “I think we missed it,” he said. “That’s the lake.”
“You sure?” asked Henry.
“Yes. No question.”
“So let’s turn around.”
They had, of course, dropped out of orbit and decelerated. Nevertheless, turning around took some time. When they got back to the south side of the lake, there didn’t seem to be anything on the ground other than trees, fields, and a few low hills.
“Hold on.” Vince brought up an image on the monitor. It was the picture of the village that the Columbia had sent home. “Look.” He pointed at the edge of the forest. They were trying to get the camera on it, but all we could see was his finger tapping on the screen. Where the edge of the forest was. “Damn. I knew that was the same lake.”
Wilkinson was shaking his head. “What are you talking about, Vince?”
“You see this tree? The one that’s down?” Yes, one of them was on the ground.
“It does look like the same one,” said Henry. “But if it is, where’s the village?”
Vince continued to decelerate. He took the ship to starboard and went into a long turn, crossing the lake and angling back in.
“This isn’t it.” Autumn Ulbrich’s voice came from behind them. Probably she was standing in the doorway to the passenger cabin. “We must have missed it.”
“This can’t be right,” said Henry. “There’s no town down there anywhere.”
Vince was shaking his head. “This is where it was. The coordinates are correct and we all noted the landmarks. It’s the same lake. No question.”
“I don’t believe this.” Autumn sounded frustrated.
Vince growled. “Damn it. Look at that.” There was a broken ridge on top of one of the group of hills along the edge of the lake. It looked the same as one in the picture. The picture and the view from the Harbinger were identical. Except for the village.
Vince glared down at the controls. “What the hell happened to it? This makes no sense.”
The area where the village had been was now only open grassland.
“Maybe the town was a hologram,” said someone in the passenger cabin.
They were getting a lot of noise back there. The camera switched to Henry, who had gotten out of his seat but was still looking through the wraparound. Then he shrugged and sat back down. “Everybody needs to relax,” he said, which was advice he should have taken.
“I don’t understand this,” said Vince. “This is ridiculous.”
“Look, this can’t possibly be the same location. Towns don’t just go away.”
“This is it,” said Vince. “It has to be.”
Henry was shaking his head. “Not possible.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
“Vince, something’s wrong.” Henry needed a minute to catch his breath. Then: “Let’s do a search of the area. Maybe there’s another section somewhere that looks like this.”
Vince insisted it would be a waste of time. The village was gone. But Henry wasn’t willing to give up. Nor was anyone else. Vince was obviously confused. He sat back in his chair and asked Henry where he wanted to go.
“North,” Henry said. “Go north up the coastline.”
* * *
The network broke in a few minutes later and announced that they would continue to follow the effort and if anything happened, the broadcast would go live again. There was no way to inform Wilkinson, of course, but he was probably aware they would stay with him, even if they didn’t keep the broadcast live. Big Town would run at its regular time on Hochman Alt. Then two consultants and an anchor came on to discuss what had happened—or, as the reality was, what had not happened. Their conclusion was that they had no explanation. The Harbinger was supposed to have the precise location of the village, but villages don’t move. Best they could come up with: “Planets are big, and the only explanation is that there are two similar areas near the ocean.”
I went to dinner with Gabe. He thought that whatever was going on out there, the satellite would be a central connection. We finished and said goodbye to each other. He was going back to the country house, while I headed home. I stayed tuned in. I’m pretty sure he did as well.
I was descending into the parking area at my cabin when the network took us back to the Harbinger. Henry was asking whether it was possible they’d chosen the wrong continent. Vince and Autumn both maintained that was not possible. “We are where we’re supposed to be,” said Autumn. “They’ve moved the village. Somehow.” Finally they started talking about taking the lander down.
Henry had apparently conceded that they’d have to do that. Vince, he said, would remain on the Harbinger. Sam would stay with him. Chuck, Autumn, Jennifer, and Hal would accompany Henry in the lander. And of course Wilkinson.
While all that was going on, I touched down, climbed out of the skimmer, went into the cabin, turned on the HV, and settled onto my sofa. Finally, while Henry and his team pulled their pressure suits out of cabinets, Gabe called to ask if I was still watching.
“Who’s Hal?” he asked. “I don’t recall anybody with that name on the research team.”
“I’ve no idea, Gabe.” It was the first time I’d heard the name.
Yara, the AI, informed the team that they didn’t need pressure suits. They picked up some weapons and pushed them into their belts. When everybody was ready, they got into the lander. I saw Henry and Wilkinson, Jennifer, Chuck, and Autumn. Nobody else. Then our perspective changed. We were looking at the hull of the Harbinger, where we were able to watch the cargo door open. The lander was lifted outside on a cradle. They started the motor, and the vehicle was released.
Then we were back inside the lander, where Henry was in the pilot’s seat. “I think I know who Hal is,” Gabe said.
“Okay?”
He laughed. “Wilkinson’s cameraman.”
How could I have been so dumb? We watched them descend toward the lake. Nobody in the lander was saying much. They were trying to hide their disappointment over the lost village. I suspect Wilkinson had reminded them that they were probably broadcasting all over the Confederacy, so they needed to maintain a decent level of enthusiasm.
Except for Autumn, they suspected they’d simply arrived at the wrong place, despite the similarity of the pictures. As Chuck put it, “Sure, they could have taken off and gotten out of here for some reason. But how could they have moved the houses? And some of those buildings, the school and the courthouse and the church, or whatever they were, would have been something of a challenge.” As they got closer to the ground, the reality of the emptiness seemed to become even more compelling. Nobody was there.
They hid the fact that Yara, the AI, was piloting the lander. They never actually said that Henry had the controls, but it looked as if he did. In any case, they came down and landed on open ground in the middle of where Vince maintained the village had been. They had plenty of starlight.
They climbed out, and everybody took a breath and looked around. “Smells like the woods back home,” said Autumn.
I almost picked up the scent of roses, but I guess that was my imagination. Or maybe my open windows. They looked at the lake and at the ground. It was covered with grass.
They walked in circles for a while. Jennifer commented that they should have brought a couple of shovels. They used their boots to break into the ground but found nothing. “I think,” Jennifer continued, “that there used to be a road through here.” Maybe. It was hard to make out. Wilkinson thought he saw a connecting road, but it was just an area where the grass was thin or completely missing. “So where does this leave us?” asked Sam, from the Harbinger.
“There was something here,” said Jennifer.
Henry was frowning. “What the hell happened?”
Autumn and Chuck were over near the edge of the trees. They were walking casually when they both yelled. “Look! Over there!”
They picked up a carryall bag with straps. A backpack. “Somebody’s been here,” said Chuck.
Henry and Autumn got into a debate about what the backpack meant. It looked like a good fit for a human. Maybe somebody from the Columbia had landed.
“No,” said Vince, speaking from the ship. “That never happened.”
There was nothing in the bag other than a crumpled piece of stationery. They held it up to the camera. There was something written in symbols unlike anything I’d seen before. “Show it to Yara,” Henry said.
The AI replied that she could make nothing of it. The broadcast continued for another half hour while Korella’s sun moved toward the western horizon. Henry and his team wandered around on the ground, looking for whatever else might be there. Nobody found anything. Eventually, as the sky grew dark, they returned to the lander and started back for the Harbinger. The network shut the broadcast down again.
I was in bed, halfway through the night, when Carmen woke me. “There’s something odd going on,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Let me replay it for you.”
They were all back in the Harbinger. Autumn was talking: “I know this sounds bizarre, but the place felt creepy.”
“What do you mean?” Wilkinson asked.
“The whole time we were down there, I felt like something was watching us.”
“That would have been Vince and Sam,” said Jennifer.
I could hear Chuck breathing. “Autumn’s got something,” he said. “I felt it too.”
Frustration wrinkled Henry’s features. “Neither of you said anything while we were there.”
“I thought it was my imagination. I was waiting for somebody else to react to it. Until Autumn did, I was ready to write it off,” said Chuck.
Henry pressed an index finger against his cheek but said nothing more. Wilkinson smiled for his audience. “I can understand it,” he said. “The place is a bit spooky.”
* * *
They spent almost a week adjusting orbits that allowed them to search for signs of inhabitants. They found nothing. And finally it was time to go home.
“Why,” asked Vince, “is there a satellite here?”
“Why don’t we take it back with us?” asked Jennifer.
“Yes,” said Henry. “Good idea. It doesn’t really seem to be doing anything. Can we fit it into the cargo bay?”
“It doesn’t look very big,” said Vince. “We should be able to do it. At least we wouldn’t be going back completely empty-handed.”
“We’re entitled,” said Sam, “after spending two months on this trip.”
“But why?” asked Autumn. “What’s the point of doing that?”
Henry delivered a tolerant smile. “We’ll know that when we’ve had a chance to look at it.”
“I don’t think we should do it,” said Autumn.
“She’s right.” Chuck looked as if he thought taking it on board was a terrible idea. “It was put there for a reason. Let’s leave it alone, guys.”
“The thing doesn’t seem to have a propulsion system,” said Sam, “so taking it on board probably wouldn’t constitute a hazard.”
“We sure it’ll fit?” asked Henry.
“We can take it into the cargo hold. It’ll be tight,” said Yara. “But yes, it will be okay.”
“Do it,” said Henry.
For the next half hour I watched while they maneuvered in close, removed the lander from its cradle, which wasn’t at all difficult when they shut down the artificial gravity system. Once they’d done that and cleared the area, they brought the satellite inside. It wasn’t very large. When Jennifer stood behind it, we could still see her head. The panels were bigger than the lander but not by much.
The broadcast stayed live while they took the satellite apart and looked at the pieces. Eventually Henry told the viewing audience it was a significant discovery but it would need some work back home. “We’ll turn it over to the engineers. Maybe they’ll see something we missed.”
They brought the lander back inside. “Well, Henry,” Wilkinson said, “let’s hope they find something.”
Autumn was examining the satellite’s solar panels. “I hope,” she said, “we haven’t created a problem for anybody.”
6
The odds against our parents even meeting on a world crowded with almost four billion occupants are remote beyond reason. But given that unlikely event, the necessity for all of the genetic connections to come perfectly together forces us to recognize that our being born at all was virtually impossible. So maybe we should stop complaining about trivia.
—Malkine Shulj, Faith: Why Belief Still Matters
Delivered by Ulakans, 1436
I owned a couple of the Ulakan books. I needed some time to decide which of the others I wanted. Chad thought I’d have bought all of them, but I already owned more books than I’d be able to get to in a lifetime. When I finally made up my mind and gave the titles to Chad, he told me no charge, and that he would deliver them the following day.
I argued with him about the free books. “I almost ordered them from the Allegheny store downtown because I knew this would happen. But you’d see them at my place eventually, and that would be hard to explain. Look, if I can’t pay you for them, I won’t open the door when you get here.”
“Then I think you should leave a couple of sandwiches outside.”
We argued about it and finally settled on a compromise. I’d accept the books, and he’d let me take him to lunch during the weekend.
I ordered Discovering Rimway, Why We Laugh, Living the Good Life, Empty Skies: Why We’re Alone, and All the Time in the World. I’d been surprised that there were no novels. Maybe they didn’t do novels. When the Ulakans saw the sales numbers on their books, I suspected they might change their minds about declining any payment and be back with their versions of The Decline and Fall, Marcus Aurelius, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and Alone in a Great Wide World.
Chad showed up the following evening at my cabin with the books. He put them on the couch and said he’d have liked to take me to Hogan’s Bar & Grill, but he had a round of deliveries to make. Including a couple for Gabe. Then he pivoted and started for the door, pretending he was ready to leave before I opened anything. Chad loves to play games.
I took a quick look through the books while he paused, awaiting a reaction. In Empty Skies I noticed a quotation: “The surest sign of a weak mind is its ability to cling to an opinion regardless of the evidence.”
“They’ve got that right,” Chad said.
Living the Good Life opened with “the three elements essential to living well.” They were “Think for yourself, respect your neighbor, and do no harm.”
In the same book: “The most important decisions we make in a lifetime are choosing a mate and selecting a career. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us make these calls when we’re too young to exercise good judgment.”
“They sound more and more like us,” I said.
He nodded. “I thought so too. It’s something of a shock, coming from aliens. Especially from aliens that look the way they do. I haven’t really had a chance to spend much time with them yet, Chase.” He was referring to the books. “But I suspect what we’re going to learn is that there are only so many ways to make a civilized society work. The species that can’t figure it out probably will never get past a primitive existence.”
“I wonder,” I said, “if there’s a species anywhere that needs three partners to produce an offspring.”
“It’ll never happen, love. Three to make one is too complicated. Look at the problems we have with just two.” He said it with a straight face.
All the Time in the World offered a motif where our books normally place a dedication: “Enjoy the moment. Be aware of the value of time we spend with friends and family. The day will come when we would give anything to go back and relive those golden hours.”
“It’s possible,” he said, “that there’s another reason for the similarity between their literature and ours.”
“And what’s that?”
“We know they’ve been listening for a while. Maybe they just want to mislead us. Make us think they’re gentle, decent creatures.”
“Instead of?”
“Monsters.”
“Chad, they have a quantum drive. They’re obviously intelligent. They live in the same empty universe we do; there are probably billions of worlds out there with water and oxygen just waiting for them. Why would they want to pick a fight with another tech species?”
“I guess,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the way they look.”
* * *
I lost myself in the Ulakan books during the next two weeks. They were gripping, hard to put down. Alex borrowed Discovering Rimway for several days. It was a detailed account of that historic mission. He was especially struck, he said, by the sheer determination of the ship’s crew—it was not Ollie, Neo, and the others who had actually made the connection—and their sheer relief in finding someone else.
