16
As the ramp to the compartment swung down, Merral and Vero got to their feet. There was the smell of fresh, clean air with the hint of the sea, and through the doorway, Merral could see the black of the fused basalt runway below glinting under the lights of the landing strip. Then there was the sound of feet running up the gangway, and a red-haired figure in sweater and trousers appeared. A freckled face, blue eyes blinking in the light, peered up at them.
“Hi, guys!” Anya called out, her voice soft and concerned, and Merral sensed a seriousness to her that he was unfamiliar with.
“So, you had an interesting trip,” she whispered, staring at him and Vero with her eyes open wide.
With a strange throb of emotion, Merral realized that he was very pleased to see her.
“An understatement,” Vero commented in pained tones, gently shaking off dust.
Anya looked them over again and shook her head. “Well, if you think I’m going to hug and kiss either of you—especially you, Merral D’Avanos, when you look like an accident in a blood bank—not a hope. As for you, Sentinel Enand, you look like you failed to get out of a quarry before blasting.”
Merral looked at Vero and then down at his bloodied clothes and decided he didn’t know whether to smile or shudder.
Perena’s slim figure slipped in through a doorway. As she embraced her sister, she gestured to Merral and Vero. “Have you ever seen anything more disgusting?”
Anya shook her head as Perena continued urgently. “My poor ship needs a trip to Bay One for full damage assessment and repair. I’ve arranged for these guys to clean up at the medical center. Take them over, let them shower off, fix them clean clothes. Issue them some standard Space Affairs suits. I’ve asked for Doc Larchent to see them. He’s under instructions not to ask questions.” She gave a grimace. “Excuse me, all, I’ve got some weird holes to look at. See you later.”
She turned to make her way down the ramp onto the runway.
Anya hooked a thumb downward. “Out, you guys, follow me. We’ve an ambulance here and we’ll go in by the back way. And Merral,” she said, giving him a crooked grin, “if that is your blood, you ought to be dead and I want you for science. And if it isn’t, well, then I want your clothes for science.”
Merral clapped Anya on the back. “Only the ankle blood is mine.”
She looked hard at his clothes, her eyes widening. “I’m glad of that. The rest is the blood of one of these insect-creatures?”
“There wasn’t just one creature, Anya. There were many of them. And two different kinds; there was an ape-creature as well.”
She stared wide-eyed at the garments for a moment before looking up at him with a colder, businesslike look. “You have both kinds of blood on you?”
“Oh, yes.” Merral smiled. “I went to some trouble to get good samples for you. The left ankle and trouser leg is from the cockroach thing; the jacket and shirt blood is from an ape-creature. My contribution is the right lower leg and the sock.”
“Excellent.” She shook her head in mock reproof. “But next time, Tree Man, you might remember that a drop is adequate.”
“Enough of the repartee, you guys,” Vero said. “We need to meet together as soon as we have cleaned up. There is a long, long chat we have to have, and some hard decisions to make.”
As Merral and Vero walked unsteadily and stiffly out from under the general survey craft to where the ambulance hovered gently on the strip, they could see a cluster of people looking up and shaking their heads at the underside of the stubby wings. Above them, beams from handheld lights were picking out a cluster of a dozen or so fist-sized holes with blackened edges.
Vero tapped Merral gently on the shoulder and bent his face toward him. “My friend,” he said, and Merral heard the anxiety in his voice, “I ask you to pray for me. I need to make decisions now. They are hard decisions, because a wrong move now could be disastrous. If, on the summit, the weight of the struggle fell on you, it now falls on me. We will meet and discuss after you have been fixed up, but already I have to decide.” He sighed. “It is not easy.”
As he spoke, Merral realized that this was something he had overlooked. Vero was right; action had to be taken, but choosing the right action would be far from easy.
The ambulance whispered through the back of the medical center. There Merral was divested of his clothes, allowed a hasty but wonderful shower, and then taken in a bathrobe to a room where he had a brief medical examination by a doctor and a nurse. His ankle was examined and the wound opened, cleansed thoroughly, and then microsutured. A bruised shoulder was treated, the small burn to the hand covered, and his eardrums examined.
As the doctor gave Merral a third different anti-infection agent, he stared at him with puzzled eyes. “I’ve been told not to ask questions, Forester D’Avanos, but that is an interesting wound on your foot. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Their eyes met.
“Yes, it is interesting.”
Realizing that he was not going to learn anything more, the doctor just shrugged. “It should give no more trouble. Call me if it shows any inflammation.”
Aware of the doctor and nurse watching him curiously, Merral headed to an adjoining room where he took a new set of clothing, including a shirt and overalls in the dark blue colors of Space Affairs. Then, feeling more human, he was shown to an empty refectory where he helped himself to fruit juice and sandwiches from a fridge. A few minutes later Vero joined him, and together, with the minimum of conversation, they ate and drank gratefully. As they were finishing, Anya came in, and this time there were embraces all round.
Then, with the gentle night air with its hint of impending summer drifting through the cab, Anya drove them across the runway in a small Space Affairs transport. Merral realized he had conflicting urges within him. His body simply wished to go to bed and sleep off recent events, while in his mind there burned the stronger longing to take action, to warn Farholme and the Assembly.
“Where are we going?” he asked Anya as they overtook the Nesta Lamaine being towed slowly across the runway.
“My sister asked me to take you to the Engineering and Maintenance Complex.”
Vero leaned over to Merral. “While you were being patched up, I went and sorted some things out with Perena. We have set some things in motion. We need to talk in a place where we can be sure of not being overheard or having equipment intercepted. She suggested one of the engineering rooms. They are all underground.”
They stopped at the end of one of the runways where a series of wide entrances and narrow doors was cut into a low hill. Perena was waiting for them and led them to a closed door.
“Captain Perena Lewitz and three colleagues,” she announced to a panel at the side, and the doorway slid open.
“You have security?” Vero asked her in surprise as Perena led them through.
“Security?” The door slid closed behind them. “It’s safety. That alone. There are vacuum chambers, laser cutters—any number of radiation-emitting processes. You can’t have just anybody walking around here. Otherwise we would have space-besotted children being fried accidentally every week.”
She gestured to a weighty array of warning notices on the walls and then stared at a screen. “But it’s almost empty. A few engineers checking some circuits for motors in Bay Three. Six technicians preparing Bay One for Nesta. That’s about it. Eleven o’clock in the evening is not the time for routine work.”
They walked down two flights of stairs and along a lengthy corridor. At a heavy glass window at the end she stopped and peered in at a large, well-lit chamber with a vacant center space and an array of machinery around the perimeter. “Bay One,” Perena observed. “Home for Nesta for the next few days at least. We’ll have to replace a dozen undersurface plates and make sure there are no leaks. Put her in vacuum for a day or two.” She stroked her chin gently. “Extraordinary,” she whispered in wonderment. “Battle damage.”
Then they moved on into another corridor. At the end of this was a heavy door marked Communications Isolation Room, and a notice warned that no diary communication was possible within the room. A datascreen by the side proclaimed that the room was unoccupied.
Perena opened the door and gestured them in as the lights automatically flickered on. “Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. I need to make sure we are left alone and that any com-links to this room are switched off.” She gave Vero a meaningful look. “And, check on some other matters. There’ll be water, coffee—everything—in the office next door.” Then she left.
The laboratory was small, with a low ceiling, and empty apart from banks of equipment and testing racks. They found a table in a corner, cleared it of testing units, and pulled up chairs. Anya and Vero made coffee while Merral put his ankle upon a box.
They had barely sat down with the cups when Perena came in and closed the door behind her. She nodded at Vero. “Maybe,” she said, “in an hour we will know. Just after midnight.”
Then she pulled a chair up and sat with them. Merral realized that she was looking expectantly at him. He glanced around and saw that everyone else was as well.
Vero nodded at him. “I think, Merral, that you’d best start things off. It seems to be the general feeling.”
“Very well. But I don’t know where to begin. I am certain, though, that we should seek the blessing of the Lord first. We have been spared so far in an extraordinary way. Yet we are up against something so enormous . . .” He paused, his thoughts almost overwhelming him. “So enormous, that what we decide here tonight may have unimaginable consequences.”
They bowed their heads and Merral prayed. He gave thanks for deliverance, made a fervent plea for future protection, and then petitioned for clarity and guidance in their discussion. After the resounding “Amens” he looked around and saw, as he had expected, that they were all still looking at him.
Merral turned to Vero. “You asked me to start, but if I am not mistaken, Vero, this is your hour. I know you do not understand everything, but I believe you’ve thought these things through more than I have. Also your background has better prepared you.”
Vero looked around with a troubled face and gestured his reluctant agreement with the least of nods. “Very well. Although I must say Merral has shown a remarkable practical ability. He seems to be a born soldier.”
Merral made a murmur of protest but Vero continued. “He is unhappy with that word, I know. Indeed, if he were happy with it I would worry. Anyway, let me begin, because I think there are things that I need to say. Then I will let Merral tell you what we have seen. But we must be urgent; we have decisions to make, and I think we must make them within the hour.”
He paused and seemed to stare ahead solemnly into the distance for a long, heavy moment. “We have a problem. I wish I could tell you all about what that problem is—where it comes from, what it means, and how it might be countered. Description, analysis, prescription. But I cannot. I am not even sure whether there is one problem or many. To some extent it is not our task to solve it. That can be done by others. But we do need to make urgent decisions, and make them now.”
There were nods of assent and Vero continued. “Let me state the problem. Something is in the north—something evil, something unknown, since at least the beginning of the Assembly. And maybe not even then.”
As he spoke the words, Merral’s memories of grappling in the darkness with the ape-creatures and the dreadful encounter with the cockroach-beast were stirred again. He grabbed the table’s edge.
Vero stopped, creased his forehead in thought, and then went on. “There are, I think, three distinct aspects: First, there are now on Farholme two sorts of new creatures, both unknown to the Assembly. Merral will describe them. Both are intelligent and very hostile.”
Merral saw the sisters share glances with each other.
“Second,” Vero continued, “these creatures are connected—in some way—with a technology that is beyond ours in the area of weapons and communications.” He leaned forward, his thin figure tense. “And third—and worst of all—there is an evil influence loose. A spiritual influence that corrupts. . . .”
As the words sank in, Merral stared around. In the whole history of the Assembly, he wondered whether there had ever been such a meeting as this.
Anya and Perena shared looks of silent astonishment. Then Anya turned to Vero and shook her head in such a firm gesture of denial that her long red hair flew over her shoulders. “All of this seems too much to believe. I know this world.”
Vero tapped the table thoughtfully with his fingers for a moment. “I sympathize, Anya, and your skepticism is valuable. But, partly to help you to believe and partly to explain why we meet here, can you call up the conversation you had, what—six hours ago? When you called to make contact with us? Remember, it was just voices.”
“Sure. I was impressed, Vero,” she replied with a look of amusement as she pulled off her diary and put it on the table. “I’ve never heard of anybody managing to wipe out the main functions of two separate diaries. I was very surprised when I heard it.”
A strange, ironic smile crept across Vero’s face. “Your surprise, Anya, was—I’m certain—exceeded by mine. But then it has been a day of surprises. And more. But play the conversation. Please.”
Evidently mystified, Anya searched for the file on her diary, and then the room was filled with the sound of her call to Merral and Vero while the sentinel stared at his fingernails. When the transmission ended, she turned to Vero. “So? Why that?”
There was a delay, then Vero lifted up his large brown eyes and stared at her. “Because, in fact, neither Merral nor I spoke.” The words were hushed.
Perplexed, Anya looked at her sister, then back at Vero. “Yes, you did. We all heard you.”
Catching a minute gesture from Vero, Merral turned to her. “Anya, that was not us. I testify to it. Our own diaries had been blocked for the best part of a day. Whatever it is . . . no, whoever they are, they duplicated our voices.”
Anya’s face paled. “But that was you. . . . I don’t believe it. I can’t believe . . .”
The troubled silence was broken by Perena’s gentle and thoughtful voice. “Sister, it might help to remember that something burned holes right through five centimeters-thick thermoceramic plates on my ship. At a guess, by generating a local temperature of at least twelve hundred degrees C. And something cut off these guys’ diary signals within seconds.”
Anya, a determined skepticism on her face, merely shook her head again in exasperation and said nothing. Merral caught a tremor in Vero’s fingers and knew that he was finding the meeting difficult. He prayed for him again.
Vero sighed, then looked up at Anya, his dark face strained. “I understand your reluctance to believe something so disturbing, so almost impossible. But, Anya, you must. We must all understand what we face. Now, if you could play us another diary clip. I want you to show us the interview with Maya Knella about the samples.”
Anya breathed out heavily, as if in exasperation, and then pointed her diary at the wallscreen. “Very well. . . . But, as I told you, it was a bad line.”
A few moments later they were looking at a grainy image of a middle-aged woman with a heavy-boned oval face, her jet-black hair tinged with gray and held in place by a silver hair clasp, and wearing a long red dress with a green leaf pattern. The background was a laboratory. The image jumped and flickered, the sound bounced up and down in volume, and there was a marked time delay between question and answer. What the woman said was more or less as Anya had reported: a denial of anything peculiar in her sample data and a suggestion that the equipment might be failing.
“F–freeze it, please,” Vero ordered. “Now window the previous conversation you had with her.”
“But . . . that was about a technical aspect of gene transmission in mammals. It was about nothing relevant.”
“Please,” Vero asked, casting a glance at his watch. “If I am right, it is an issue of greatest significance.” Moments later, Maya Knella appeared again below the first image.
“Ah!” There was a note of relief in Vero’s voice. “Freeze that, too!”
“I thought you wanted to hear it.”
“It is not necessary. When was this?”
“About ten days earlier.”
“Yes,” Vero said quietly, as if to himself. “And what do you see, Merral?”
“Same woman,” he answered, failing to see any cause for Vero’s excitement. “But in an office this time. She’s got a different dress.”
Vero got up from his seat, walked over, and peered at the images, one inset inside the other.
“No, she hasn’t,” he said, gesturing with an outstretched finger. “This is a gray dress with brown leaves. The pattern is identical. Only the color is changed.”
His finger jumped from one image to another and back. Merral heard a gasp from Anya.
Vero continued staring at the image. “See, too, that the hairstyle and combing is exactly the same. But the hair clip here is gold.”
“But—,” Anya protested, looking at everyone in turn as if trying to elicit support. “But the background is different.”
“Standard shots of a laboratory,” Vero added, his voice terse, as if he was anxious to move on. “Easy enough to provide. Careful analysis would probably show discrepancies in the angle of the shadows between her and the background.”
Anya, now half standing, was leaning forward over the table, staring intently at the sentinel with an expression that seemed to fluctuate between confusion and dread.
“So, Vero,” she said, her voice full of perplexity and fear, “you are saying that I never talked with her a second time. That it was made-up. That they just . . . Surely not?” She stared at the screen and Merral saw her swallow. “That they just took an old conversation we had . . . and modified it?”
Vero pursed his mouth and nodded. “S–sorry,” he said.
“No!” Anya snapped and, blank-faced, sat down suddenly in her chair. She put her face in her hands for a moment and then looked around, her expression one of shocked stupefaction. “I’m appalled . . . ,” she said slowly. “I mean, it smashes everything we stand for: ethics, Technology Protocols, decency—everything!”
Anya’s misery was so evident that Merral was struck by a strangely potent—and perturbing—desire to comfort her by hugging her.
Anya stared at Vero with resentment in her eyes. “But . . . how did they know to do it to me?”
Vero wrinkled his nose. “I’d guess they knew because you had told us you were going to call her when we were in Ynysmant.”
Anya gulped. “They listened in?”
“At a guess.”
Her face flushed. “No . . . ,” she continued, her face showing that she was fighting desperately not to believe what she was being told. “It can’t be! I mean, how did they get the old conversation with Maya?”
Merral, who had just worked out the answer, decided that she was not going to like what Vero was going to say. But, in fact, it was Perena who told her the answer, her blue-gray eyes filled with a cold anger. “I’m afraid that they went through your files, little sister. I’d imagine when you were asleep they just contacted your diary and pulled off what they wanted and prepared the duplicate.”
Anya’s face and posture showed that the disbelief had vanished, to be replaced by an anger just short of fury. “That’s just . . . well, I’ve never heard anything so . . . wrong!” She stood up and struck her fist on the table. “I’m absolutely furious. Why, I’ve never been so angry! To invade my privacy. To fake that call. And I was beginning to think that Maya Knella’s reputation was undeserved!” She sat down again, a look of simmering anger on her face. Suddenly a look of guilt appeared. “Why, I ought to apologize to Maya.”
A hint of a wry smile played across Vero’s mouth, “Amid this tale of enormous evil, I’m touched by your concern about your thoughts. Anyway, the hour is late and we have much to go through. But now you believe it, eh?”
Anya was silent for a moment and then moved her head slowly up and down in unenthusiastic affirmation.
“Now we can move on. Only, when it came to faking our forester and me,” Vero said in a measured tone, “they did not have the time or data to do the job properly. So, they just faked the sound.”
Perena, who had been leaning forward over the table, suddenly looked up, her eyes carefully moving round the table. “I am as horrified at all this as my sister,” she said in her quiet but forceful voice, “but this means that they must have some entry into the Gate circuits. Either at the Gate itself, or—surely more probable—at one of the Gate signal relay stations.” Merral saw that she was doodling with a finger on the tabletop. Then she stared at Vero. “But you see,” she continued gently, “as our student of ancient history here will confirm, the Gates are the central nervous system of the Assembly. Those who control Farholme Gate control Farholme.”
“Well said,” responded Vero, “and that was one lesson learned in the last military action the Assembly took. In the Rebellion, because Jannafy had seized the Centauri Gate, the Assembly Force had to travel at sublight speed to get there. It took Ringell and his men six years. Once they had the Gate, they were home in an afternoon. Sorry, but it is an episode that has been on my mind much lately.”
Anya grimaced. “I really don’t like that phrase, ‘the last military action.’ ”
Vero shrugged. “Nor do I, Anya, but you saw the blood on Merral. He and—to a very much lesser extent—I fought today. Fought . . .” He hesitated, apparently suddenly hit by the significance of the word. “I, we, fought. Not as in sport, or as in a metaphor, but in reality, a bloody reality.” He stroked his chin, as if realizing that he needed a shave, and then continued. “But, if I may say so, I have a greater—if more subtle—concern, which I feel I must express.”
Merral stared at him, thinking that he needed a week to absorb all this and what it signified. But Vero was right, decisions had to be made and made tonight.
“My concern is this: They must know that they can’t sustain such a scheme forever. Sooner or later Maya and Anya will correspond by paper—or even meet—and the trick will be apparent.”
There was silence as the implications sank in, then Vero continued, his face now bearing an expression of foreboding. “I think it is one of two things. Either it is a desperate measure or it is a short-term strategy . . . until—”
“Until what, Vero?” queried Perena in a keen and worried tone, her head slightly on one side.
“Frankly, I don’t know.”
Everyone was looking at each other. We are all out of our depth, Merral realized. None of us is stupid and yet here we haven’t got a clue.
Vero sipped at his coffee and stretched back in his chair. “That’s me finished, Merral. But I want us all to realize at the start of our discussion that there is no question that we face a powerful foe. And also, that we cannot now trust any diary conversation. It has occasionally been a theoretical sentinel concern that our communications in the Assembly are totally open. But we have never been able to justify the use of any encrypting practices.”
“Encrypting?” Anya queried.
“As in code. And not genetic. You scramble a message and disguise it so that only a recipient with the correct digital key can read it. You might do it with a personal diary.”
A look of anger erupted across her face. “Yes. That makes me so—” She shook herself in a barely restrained emotion. “No, continue.”
“Merral, over to you. Tell them exactly what happened.”
“Very well,” Merral said. “Although I’m at a loss to know where to start.”
Vero shrugged. “Just begin where you first noticed anything odd.”
Merral thought hard. “I would say just before Nativity.”
Vero started. “Before Nativity?” he queried sharply.
“Yes. At Herrandown. I had a nightmare of something evil coming out of the sea. And I think—in hindsight—my uncle did, too. But he denied it.”
Perena lifted her head and stared piercingly at Merral. “When ‘just before Nativity’?”
“Three nights before. The twenty-second.”
“The night of the meteor?”
“Yes.”
“What meteor?” Vero threw a sharp glance at Merral. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
For a fraction of a second, Merral was tempted to be angry. “Sorry, Vero . . . I hadn’t assumed it was significant. This is Worlds’ End. Nothing happens here. Or did.”
Perena looked at Merral. “If I may interrupt. I believe that it is significant. I have been doing some checking up. For about a week before the night Merral is speaking of, one of the Guardian Satellites had been tracking a sunward meteoroid of around two thousand tons apparent mass. As soon as it was noticed, its trajectory was calculated—of course—and it was determined that it would miss Farholme by at least fifty thousand kilometers and eventually hit the sun. There was nothing alarming about either its size, speed, or path, and obviously, no action was necessary, so they just kept a regular watch on it. Just in case it broke up or did anything odd.” She looked at Vero. “I should say that, at any one time, there are a dozen of this size of thing within a few million kilometers of Farholme, but they just let them through when they are certain that they are going to miss. It’s a minimum intervention policy. So, the existence of this particular moving block of rock wasn’t even flagged to the human supervision office in Isterrane.”
Vero nodded and gestured for her to continue. “So, it was routinely tracked every fifty minutes. The last reported sighting was at 4:20 p.m. Central Menaya Time. It was still coming sunward and nearly at the point of closest approach to Farholme—estimated to be at one hundred thousand kilometers out—but was still behaving itself. When the Guardian checked again at 5:10 p.m., it expected to find it sunward of us, but it was absent from the predicted path.”
“Ah!” muttered Vero. “How interesting. But I interrupt.”
Perena looked at the wall clock. “Yes, we must watch the time. Machine logic being what it is, they looked around for it and, having failed to find either it or fragments, they did the electronic equivalent of shrugging their shoulders and got on with life as usual. Remember, only the presence of a meteoroid is a problem, not an absence. They did, however, tag the case to the supervisors just in case it was the first hint of a malfunction. They assumed it was and rescheduled the next overhaul sooner.”
“So,” Merral said, “the meteoroid changed course and came to Farholme where I saw it coming in.”
“Oh, I wish you’d told me, Merral,” Vero interjected. “I might have been more suspicious.”
Merral, feeling tired, sighed. “It was just a meteor, Vero. An incoming pile of rock and metal. It’s not rare here. It’s different from the solar system: for a start we have two debris belts, one on either side of Fenniran. It was just larger than usual.”
Vero looked at Perena. “And let me guess: it wasn’t a meteoroid, it was a ship.”
She gave him a strange, subdued smile. “Not so fast, my friend. In theory, yes, it could have been a ship, mimicking a meteoroid. But there is a timing point. It had gone by at 5:10 p.m. Central Menaya Time and Merral saw his object come in ten minutes earlier at around 6:00 p.m. Eastern Menaya Time. Incidentally, confirmed by a record of a small and poorly defined shallow-focus earthquake around two hundred and fifty kilometers north of Herrandown at 6:02 p.m. But there is a major problem.”
“What?” asked Vero, looking crestfallen.
Merral spoke slowly. “I see it. It had to change course, travel over a hundred thousand kilometers, and decelerate into a landing mode in under fifty minutes.”
Perena looked appreciatively at him. “Good. Let me translate. If we are right in linking the meteoroid in space with Merral’s meteor, then it did what our fastest unmanned ships would take at least a half a day to do in around twenty minutes. It pushes engineering beyond anything we can envisage.”
Vero closed his eyes. Merral decided that he was imagining what it must be like to be in a ship doing that sort of a maneuver.
“So there may be a ship there,” he said slowly. “I was beginning to wonder about that. But can we find it?”
Perena looked at him, her face expressionless. “That is the next task. I have already ordered satellite imagery over the Carson’s Sill area from the next overflight.”
“Which is when?” Vero asked.
“In an hour or so. Not the best resolution, but it may show something. There’s a better one midmorning.”
A silence fell and Merral realized that, once more, everybody was staring at him. “Then,” he began again, “other strange but apparently unrelated things happened. . . .”
For the next few minutes he described, as best he could, these other things. At Vero’s prompting—and then only reluctantly—he outlined how his uncle had altered a re-created voice and how, in a subtle way, things had begun to go wrong at Herrandown. He then went on to explain, largely for Perena’s benefit, how Elana had been scared by seeing a creature, and how he and Isabella had gone to investigate and found evidence that there had indeed been some sort of strange being there.
At this point Vero interrupted. “Merral, excuse me, I think this is the time for us to find out what Anya saw when she looked at that strand of hair.”
Anya wrinkled her nose as if smelling something distasteful. “Well, the most obvious interpretation was that it was a mixture of two natural genetic codes: human and ape—probably gorilla. Along with some unknown, but probably artificial, segments. It was not a result I was happy with. I would have preferred almost any other interpretation.”
Merral looked at Vero, who nodded gently and pursed his lips. “That would fit our ape-creatures.”
A frown darkened Anya’s face. “I can’t believe that these things exist. But you really saw them?”
“I’m afraid so,” Vero answered. “And more. . . .”
She shuddered and then looked at Merral. “Go on then. I need to hear what happened when you went north.”
Reluctantly, Merral told of what had transpired over the last few days. He began with the meeting with Jorgio and his vision of the testing of the Assembly, with the command to watch, stand firm, and hope. Then Merral went on to tell of the trip north. At times he paused and had to be encouraged by Vero. In places, notably where it came to bloodier dealings, Vero had to draw out the events from him sentence by sentence. And as he recounted the tale, Merral was aware of a growing intensity to the atmosphere in the room. It is as if the shadow has spread over us. Where appropriate they ran the images from Merral’s diary, and both Perena and Anya took copies of the images of the ape-creatures and cockroach-beasts and stared at them. When it came to the description of the imitation bird, there was horror and disgust and, despite Merral’s invitation, Vero declined to talk about it. “Later,” he demurred, “later. . . . In daylight perhaps.”
Then, with the aid of more substantial encouragement from Vero, Merral reluctantly told of the last half an hour on the summit. With the account of the rescue by Perena’s ship, he fell silent.
It was Anya, looking round the table with broad and worried eyes, who broke the ensuing silence. “A tale that is darker than I can understand. I wish it was a vision or even the result of hallucinations. . . .” She paused, her fingers locking and unlocking. “But, as with the Maya Knella incident, I must believe it. We have the images, the testimony, the genetic data from the hair, and will shortly have the blood results. And there is Merral’s wound. . . .” She shook her head.
Perena spoke, her voice full of a restrained bewilderment as if she were thinking through a dream. “Like my sister, I would like to try and dismiss it all. But then I think of the holes in my ship.” She gestured over her shoulder in the direction of Bay One.
Vero, who had been staring at his hands again, looked up. “Good, but unfortunately it is more than what we believe that is the problem. It is how we are to act. Thank you, Merral, for your account. It is, I think, obvious to you, Perena and Anya, how extraordinarily able my friend here was when it became necessary to fight these things. It is, I believe, a most significant and encouraging matter that our first contact with these things should have involved Merral.”
Merral, wondering whether to protest, was aware of Anya looking at him with admiration, and the unsettling thought came to him that he found her attention pleasing.
Vero raised a finger. “Merral, time is moving on and delay may not be good for us. But I feel there may be more questions. And I want us to have all the data we can have before we decide what to do. Anya, comments on the biology?”
Anya bit her lip and shook her head. “Yes. I suppose. We have two sorts of—let’s call them ‘intruders.’ You say, Merral, you saw no evidence of male or female with either?”
“That’s right,” Merral agreed. “It was less clear with the cockroach-beasts, I suppose. And we saw fewer of them.”
Anya nodded. “Size variation of any type?”
“No. Each species—if that’s what they were—seemed the same size.”
“Like identical twins?”
“Yes.”
“So they were probably cloned. Bred somehow in vitro.”
Vero threw her a puzzled glance. “That’s a very old phrase. I suppose it predates even basic genetics. In glass. Outside the womb?”
“Yes, laboratory generated. Very intriguing.” She looked around. “Well, that does me. I’m still absorbing it all.”
Vero nodded and looked around. “Thanks. Any other points about what we face?”
Perena stirred. “Just one, Vero. A question. The creatures you describe are so low technology they do not seem to use tools. But whatever weapon was fired indicates advanced technology, as does the interception of the Gate call. And maybe the ship—if it was indeed a ship—that landed. I don’t see how it fits together.”
Before Vero could answer, Merral spoke. “There is one more piece of the puzzle that may help. I should have said it earlier. Just before the weapon was fired the first time, I saw something in the shadows, standing back. It was a different creature.”
Vero opened his mouth wide. “You mean a third type?”
“No. Sorry, Vero, I meant to tell you but, well, I was too busy afterward. I think it was a man.”
“A man!” Anya’s voice echoed round the room, but it was plain that the others were equally surprised.
“Well, I can’t be sure,” Merral answered, feeling challenged. “It just, well, looked like one.”
“A man?” Vero’s tone expressed surprise. “That would confirm an outlandish speculation of mine. . . . But to answer Perena, a just-conceivable scenario might be something like this: These creatures are created, I’m afraid, merely as servants. The technology and the weapons belong to the creators, not the creatures. The classic pre-Intervention slave economy.”
Perena looked thoughtful. Then she glanced up at the wall clock and Merral followed her gaze to see that it was nearly midnight.
“Vero,” she said, “I indicated that I would call again at twelve.”
“Ah yes. But we have nearly finished. Let me tell you what I think. And then I will make a proposal.”
He frowned and then looked around, his smooth face tired. Merral suddenly felt that he had a glimpse of what an older Vero would look like. “A common theme emerges. Does anybody else see it? Or is it just me?”
There were puzzled looks. “Only that horrid things seem to have been done all around,” Anya offered.
Vero nodded and rose to his feet, walked to the end of the room and stood there against a battery of equipment. He stretched his limbs and frowned. “It is that boundaries have been broken. The boundaries between humanity and animals, between living things and machines.” He stopped and his face showed an expression of disgust. “But there may yet be a darker twist. The bird thing. You all expressed revulsion. And rightly so. It masqueraded as a living creature. It was a machine imitating life, in contravention of all that we have ever maintained about such facsimiles. In doing so, it crossed a boundary. But there was worse. It was built on a dead bird.”
Perena shuddered. “That . . . I do not—or cannot—understand.”
Merral caught a look of extraordinary repulsion on Anya’s face.
“Yes,” Vero said, “and we can but hope they can shed light on it on Ancient Earth. But this is yet another boundary broken. And this, this monstrosity is perhaps the greatest of the breaches. The boundary between life and death. To raise the dead is the prerogative of the Messiah alone. And this—most assuredly—was none of his handiwork. On the contrary.”
In the silence that followed, Vero tightened his lips and looked around the room. “But you see, this is part of a pattern too. From Merral’s dream onward, through the problems at Herrandown, there is a second theme. A theme of spiritual corruption unparalleled in the long years since the Rebellion, and maybe since the start of the Great Intervention. If I had to choose between the visible genetic abominations we have seen and the less visible spiritual problems, I would choose the latter as the most worrying. But the linkage of the two is most terrible.”
Merral looked at him. “So, what do we do?”
Vero smiled. “Ah, ever the man of action. In fact, I have made a decision for myself.” He looked at Perena. “Can you check for me now?”
She rose gracefully. “There’s a diary link point outside. Excuse me.” She left the room.
Vero walked forward and leaned on his chair back. “I need to talk with Brenito as soon as I can. Then we need to meet with the representatives here, but that would take a few days to organize. And, in the meantime, Earth must know. This matter is quite beyond us here and it raises issues that affect the entire Assembly. This matter must go straight to an emergency session of the Council of High Stewards. They will doubtless summon the whole Congregation of all the Stewards, the Farholme Delegate, and the Science Panel. I have no doubt, too, that the Custodians of the Faith would be consulted about the spiritual aspects.”
“And the sentinels?” Merral asked, awed at the realization that this matter would have to go so high and so quickly.
“If asked.” Vero looked thoughtful. “But, oddly enough, we have served our purpose in this matter. Or very nearly. We only ever existed to watch and alert. This we have done. It could be, perhaps, that in this case we might have done better, but that is for discussion at another time.”
Merral could faintly hear Perena outside talking on her diary.
“Do you think you can safely call Earth?” Anya asked.
Vero shook his head. “How? We cannot trust Gate communications. Your attempt to contact Maya Knella has taught us that. The files must be hand carried to Ancient Earth as secretly and fast as we can manage.”
Anya nodded. “Yes, I can see that. But the council and everybody—what do you think they will do?”
“I think I can safely say they will rapidly muster the entire Defense Force and bring them in. There are only two ships, and even by Assembly standards they are elderly, but they—and their men—will be enough to search the north. Beyond that, I do not know.”
The door opened and Perena came in and smiled at Vero. “Done. Two.”
Vero seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “So, I propose to leave for Earth on the next ship. The Heinrich Schütz. It departs the Gate Station at 10 a.m. Central Menaya Time the day after tomorrow—no, tomorrow now. In just thirty-four hours time. We will take tonight’s in-system shuttle.”
“We?” Merral asked, a bizarre speculation suddenly forming in his mind.
Vero walked round from his chair and grasped Merral gently on the shoulder.
“Yes, soldier,” he said, “we. I want to take you too.”
“Are you serious?” Merral gasped, his mind reeling. To Ancient Earth! He had hoped to go someday, but today? In barely hours?
Vero’s smile seemed weary. “Yes, for one thing, they—whoever they are—probably expect us to stay here and meet up with the representatives. But the four other representatives need to fly in, so we can hardly summon a meeting today and, as tomorrow is the Lord’s Day, they ought to know that we will not have any real meetings for two days. They may also be in disarray after their losses.”
“But why me? To Earth?” Merral asked. “All that way?”
He was suddenly aware that he must sound stupid, and he realized that Anya was staring at him, her face a mixture of amusement and envy.
“Merral,” Vero commented, “I need you. I cannot answer all the questions that will be asked. And the testimony of two is stronger than one. You have also seen and grappled with these things. If I went alone there might be a concern that it was my allegedly fertile imagination. Besides, this way, we take duplicate data. But don’t you want to go?”
“Yes. . . . No.” He gulped. “I mean, I haven’t really thought it through yet. And my family and Isabella. And Henri at work. I need to talk to them.”
Vero looked at him, his brown eyes showing concern. “I understand exactly. But just think what has happened to us today. And think what is at stake. It is beyond computation.”
Merral thought for a moment and swallowed. The words Ancient Earth seemed to thud in his mind. “No, you are right. We need to go.”
Vero raised a finger in warning. “Oh, and Anya and Perena can give farewells and apologies once you are gone. But, in the meantime, no diary calls.”
“Okay,” Merral answered. “But I need things. I mean, I’m not prepared. Anyway, there’s a waiting list for places.”
Vero looked at him. “You need little. Perena has sorted the places out. I wasn’t sure she could do it for both of us so I delayed telling you. It would hardly have been fair to disappoint you.”
Merral turned to Perena. “So that is what you were up to! But how have you done it? It must have taken one of the representatives to get you on with an urgent priority status. There’s always a waiting list for spare seats.”
Perena grinned. “There’s one power equivalent to the representatives in such matters and that’s Space Affairs. For whom I work. And you are traveling on an urgent mission.”
“But you didn’t tell them? Surely not?”
Vero was smiling now. “No,” he said, “but while you were getting your wound dressed, Perena and I talked about this. She suggested that, in view of the curious and alarming problem occurring to General Survey Craft Nesta Lamaine today, it was appropriate—even a necessity—to send the plate samples to Earth. On urgent-priority status. You and I will hand carry them for her.”
Perena interrupted with a gesture. “But you will be taking plate samples and I would like an assessment—fast. Please.”
“I see,” Merral replied, his brain still spiraling furiously around the concept, “but won’t they know if they control the information networks?”
Vero looked at Perena.
“There were,” she said, “two Space Affairs engineers going—Sabourin and Diekens. They have been asked to stand down and go on the next flight.” She looked at the floor, as if embarrassed. “Unusually, their names have not been removed from the manifest. Even more unusually, they are keeping quiet about the fact that they are not going. You, er—just replace them. You are even dressed for the part.”
Vero gave her a look of amused respect. “Captain Lewitz turns out to have an aptitude for duplicity—I think that is the word—that worries me. It must be that chess.” He wagged his head. “Be careful, Perena, that it does not get you into trouble.”
“We are all in trouble now.” Perena’s face had acquired a wry expression. “If it is a gift, then I trust I may be careful how I use it. But the hour seems to require it. Oh, and Vero, I ought to warn you, it won’t be comfortable. Space Affairs are ruthless in making their own people take the roughest seats. And in an inter-system liner, the crew seats are down just above the engines.”
Vero winced. “Vibration as well. But at least only for forty-eight hours.” Then he sighed, and Merral was suddenly aware of how tired his friend was and how much he was forcing himself into the giving of these orders. Vero turned to the sisters. “Oh, Perena and Anya, you ought to try and get in touch with the representatives and ask for a meeting in two days’ time.”
Anya nodded. “Anwar Corradon is the current chair of the Farholme representatives; I vaguely know him. My perception is that he is an unusually intelligent and thoughtful man.”
Vero looked around. “That, then, is the proposed plan of action. Are all in agreement with it?”
Everyone looked at each other and nodded.
Vero looked around. “Fine. Then let me suggest the following. I think we all need at least some sleep.” He looked at Perena. “If you, Captain Lewitz, can get some of those damaged tiles cut off and packaged up. And check any satellite imagery when it comes in. Oh, and any chance of a new diary for me?”
“I can get you one,” Perena said.
“Thanks. Anya, if you could look at those DNA samples. Perhaps a preliminary analysis? And prepare some duplicates for Merral to take to Earth. And can I get copies of that Maya Knella data too?”
Anya nodded.
“And finally, I need to talk to Brenito. I have many questions and some he may be able to answer.”
“What about me?” Merral asked.
“And you?” Vero smiled. “You rest that ankle. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Brenito might want to see you.”
“When do we meet again?” Perena asked.
“Here? Ten-thirty tonight? To give us all the maximum time to do what we have to do.”
As they left the room and began to walk up the corridor to the exit, Merral overheard Perena outline the journey to Vero, and suddenly he felt that he was in a dream. “You will be at Bannermene tomorrow noon. From there, you are booked on from Bannermene Inward Gate to Namidahl a couple of hours later. Namidahl is, of course, on the outer ring and you go one Gate clockwise to the Finent Node. From Finent there’s a lot of traffic and depending exactly when you arrive, you should be at one of the Terran Gates with no more than two Gate jumps. Stress the urgent-priority status. So, all being well, in just over forty-eight hours traveling, you will be on Ancient Earth.”
Merral felt his mind reel at the prospect. This was not a game of Cross the Assembly; this was the real thing. They were talking about his journey.
“Where are we sleeping?” he asked. Suddenly feeling overwhelmed with tiredness, he had a desperate need to lie down.
Perena patted his shoulder. “There is a spare room in the pilots’ quarters for you and Vero. I’ll get you another set of spare clothes each too.”
Perena drove Merral and Vero to the quarters at the edge of the complex of landing strips and showed them to the spare room at the far end of the building. It was small and its basic furnishings gave it the air of a room that was only used as a place for people to sleep; yet it was, they agreed, quite adequate.
After Perena left, Vero sat on his bed and put his head in his hands.
“Are you all right?” Merral asked, conscious that his ankle was still hurting.
“That meeting . . . I wasn’t sure I could manage to lead it. I knew I had to, but it was not easy. Thanks for your support.” He rubbed his face. “I am out of my depth, Merral. Making decisions; giving orders. All that sort of thing. I am an ideas person.”
“You did well.”
“If I did, it was by the grace of God. But we will see what happens. You nearly threw me twice, you know.”
“How? I didn’t mean to.”
“You sprung two new surprises. That you had seen a man and that there was evidence of a ship.”
“I apologize.”
“No, no, it wasn’t your fault. In fact, I am sure that they will help to resolve things. But I need to think about them.” And with that he fell silent.