Enigma (26 page)

NO! DON’T GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO REHEARSE.

Koi’s comments were becoming an annoyance, especially when her urgings were echoes of Thackery’s own thoughts.

“Z’lin Ton Drull, we have already compared your units with the fundamental physical properties of matter and with the natural rhythms of Sennifi. There is no correlation. Either you have lied to us, or this is not your home world.”

“Our home world is beneath us,” said the implacable Sennifi leader. “I have not lied. You are mistaken, Merritt Thackery.”

THE HELL IF WE ARE. I CHECKED SIDEREAL DAY, APPARENT EQUATORIAL DAY, MEAN SOLAR DAY, EPHEMERIS DAY.

Thackery reached out and shut off the slate and the room’s video monitors, cutting Koi off from events in the room.

“I’ve been mistaken from time to time, including about you,” said Thackery. “But I’m not mistaken about this—in all the time we’ve been meeting, from the first moment
Tycho
discovered you, you haven’t cared to find out anything about us. Yet you claim to be scholars, dedicated to knowledge. How do you explain this contradiction?” Thackery’s voice had lost its thin patina of politeness.

And the Drull hesitated. Did a flicker of emotion, fear perhaps, or dismay, slip past the mask of his face? No matter—he
hesitated
. “What little we wish to know of you, we know,” he said finally.

Z’lin Ton Drull rose, and J’ten rose with him. “What little we wish to know of you, we know,” the Drull repeated. “We see you as you are. We learn of you as true scholars do, not with our mouths but our eyes. Your future and past have no more reality than our own. Your world is beyond our reach. What then should we ask you?” Without waiting for an answer, the Drull turned and walked toward the climbway.

“Z’lin!” Thackery called as the Sennifi began their descent. “One last question!
Why do you want us to leave?
” Z’lin Ton Drull neither looked back nor answered.

“Freezin’ Jesus, Thackery, what did you say to them?”

“Leave me alone,” Thackery said brusquely. “I’ve got to think this through.”

“You made them so damn mad they fucking walked out.”

“No. I scared them. And the worst thing is that I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it again. There was just a crack, but I couldn’t break him. He won’t let it happen again, either. Damn! Go away,” Thackery said as he slipped inside his cabin. “I’ve got to think this through.”

“Do you realize what Neale’s going to say when this reaches her?”

“Neale is not the problem,” Thackery said, and slammed the door shut.

“There is a disturbance in that one which will not be quelled by empty words,” said Z’lin Ton Drull. “This was not planned.”

“I acknowledge the failure,” J’ten Ron Tize said, his head lowered contritely.

“I do not charge the failure to your scholarship. This one is different. He is not in balance.”

“Do you propose that he has the knowledge of the Mark?”

“No, J’ten,” said the Drull. “Can you not see it? This one bears the Mark itself.”

The lifepod was cramped and smelled of plastic and oil, but then, it wasn’t designed for comfort. It was designed to hurl up to four crewmen a safe distance from an ailing survey ship, if possible in the direction of another ship or to the surface of a planet. Thackery had not been in one since Unity, but he remembered enough, and the lifepods were smart—smart enough to let Thackery choose a destination and tell him if it could be reached.

He hesitated but a moment, to try to decide when he had decided. The decision was one of synthetic inspiration, not lockstep reason. Reason said, climb out and walk away. But he had nothing to show for the breach he had created, nothing save proving that even the Sennifi could be badgered to the point of annoyance. Nothing to show—and so something more to do.

With a short, decisive motion of his hand, Thackery slammed down the mushroom-capped firing switch.

A moment later, he and the lifepod were falling toward Sennifi, leaving behind only a circular wound on the hull of
Munin
to mark where they had been.

Though there was no telecamera to confirm it, Thackery knew that the lifepod was arcing around the curve of the planet toward Maostri, a city of fifty thousand. He also knew that alarms were sounding on
Munin
’s bridge, and of that he soon got confirmation.

“Thackery, this is Neale. Acknowledge.”

Inside the tiny obloid, Thackery steeled himself against the urge to return to the approval of those who would judge him. There was no point in answering. The lifepod was committed to the gravity well of Sennifi; in a few minutes he would be on the ground. If they wanted him back, they would have to come and get him—and they would, with little delay.

The cabin’s air was growing warmer, and Thackery could envision the skin of the capsule glowing a cherry-red. As the air became more heated, so did Neale’s insistent calls. Blissfully, the ionization halo soon shut her out.

The blind fall was discomfiting. Though Thackery could imagine the lifepod beginning its intended spiraling descent, he could with equal ease envision it falling unchecked toward the ground.
So this is what McShane and Koi feel
. As anxious seconds ground by, Thackery found himself finally grateful for the company of Neale’s livid expostulations.
How long
, Thackery wondered—

And reached Sennifi. The roar of the precontact retros deafened him, and the impact of landing snapped his head sideways. Pain shot through his neck, and he bit down on the soft inside of his cheek. The lifepod was well padded and the harness holding him well designed, but Thackery nevertheless felt bruised from the inside, as though his bones had turned against the soft tissues they adjoined.

Maladroit in his eagerness, Thackery fumbled at the hatch release, and crawled out into the dust of a Maestri street. He looked up to a scene delineated by strong sunlight and sharp shadows.

It was a scene of stillness.

He was in the midst of the city, its buildings rising all around him. Their soft yellow color and rounded lines harmonized with the hills beyond the city, though the material from which they were made was neither earth nor rock. No curious faces peered at him. The street around the lifepod was empty.

Thackery struggled to his feet and called a greeting. It echoed back at him from the flat walls of far structures, but was not in any wise answered. On unsteady legs, he tottered off to find those who had fled at his carriage’s reckless approach.

He did not find them.

The longer he searched, the more he denied the obvious; the more the hurt grew. At last, he sank to his knees in a multi-tiered plaza, shaken by the truth. The city was deserted. He could not deny the fact. He could not fathom its meaning.
How did they know what he was going to do—Where he would go—They couldn’t have known—

The drone of the ship’s gig as it settled on a high platform at one end of the plaza failed to penetrate to his consciousness. It was a quiet sound that brought him back—the sound of cloth, folds rubbing against each other and sweeping along the ground. Thackery turned and looked up, into the face of Z’lin Ton Drull.

“They were never here,” Thackery said.

“No.”

“And Rijala?”

“Only caretakers. We have a compulsion for order—it is part of our pretense that nothing has happened.” He extended a hand and helped Thackery to his feet. “Do you understand what you see?”

“I think what—but not why. You made us—and
Tycho—
think that your cities were full. Your population has collapsed, and you kept us from seeing it. But you said you weren’t afraid—”

“We are not afraid
of
you. We are afraid for you. You know the why as well. You asked why we wanted nothing of you. It is true that we did not wish to place ourselves in your debt, for you would have stayed till you thought it repaid. But my answer then was truthful.”

“You already had the answers to anything you might ask,” Thackery said with sudden insight.

Z’lin nodded. “We were curious, once. Our curiosity was satisfied.”

“How?”

“By whom,” Z’lin corrected, and began walking, out of the plaza and down a silent street. Momentarily stunned, Thackery hurried after him.

“I will answer your question now,” Z’lin continued. “The
z’von
is based upon the ultimate diameter of the Universe. The
z’su
is based upon its ultimate age. They are logical units, you will agree.”

The answer seemed to liquefy the bones in Thackery’s body. “What science can give you—”

“No science. The D’shanna are beyond science.” Z’lin stopped and closed his eyes. “The D’shanna are the sword that cut us, that opened the wound that never healed. In form, they are as amorphous as the lights one sees with the eyes tightly closed—and as undeniably real.” The Drull opened his eyes and began walking again. “They came five times, the last a hundred years ago. They destroyed everything we were, and made us everything we are.”

“But how?” Thackery’s dry throat turned his question into a rasping whisper.

“They answered our questions.”

Thackery grabbed Z’lin’s arm and spun him around so they faced each other. “What are you saying?”

“I am near the point at which I will answer no more questions, not even for such as you,” Z’lin said calmly. “But this much we owe you—that you understand us. The D’shanna are creatures of light and knowledge, acting in real time yet existing timelessly. In your language, these are contradictions and impossibilities. In the reality of the Universe, they are not.”

And then Z’lin smiled, sadly, self-critically. “We were bursting with pride when they came, Merritt Thackery, flush with the certainty of our greatness. We had only just completed the Tubes—had our lives in balance—were preparing to step beyond this planet. We were what you are—and they shamed us. Shamed us like the man who proudly calls on his neighbor to tell of the hut he has built, only to find his neighbor completing a mansion.

“They answered every question we asked of them. Like you, we made the mistake of asking too many.”

The picture was suddenly complete in Thackery’s mind: avoiding a future known in too much detail to be of interest, tending their slowly emptying cities, playing intellectual games and copying the art of a more vital past. Contact with the D’shanna had marked the Sennifi as clearly as a woodsman’s blade marks the side of a tree.

“Why did they do it?” Thackery asked. “Surely they knew—”..

Z’lin nodded, too proud to acknowledge his tear-filled eyes. “That was one question we did not know to ask until too late. But I believe I know the answer now.” He stared oddly at Thackery, wistful and angry in a single expression. “This is the end, Merritt Thackery. As I have already explained to your commander, we will accept no ambassadors, no membership in your community. You are welcome to try to explain to her why, but she will not believe you.” He turned and started to walk away.

“Wait!” Thackery said, leaping to block his path. “Why did you tell me?”

“Do you truly not know, or is it only that you do not know the words to name it?” Z’lin asked. “You bear their Mark, as deeply as we. We share the curse of having known them. Search your memory and you will know the time.”

The search was not a long one.
Jupiter
…

“What I have told you cannot harm you. Regrettably, it also cannot satisfy you. Perhaps if you search with sufficient vigor, you will find them.” Z’lin looked away. “For my part, I pray that you do not.”

With that, Z’lin Ton Drull turned and walked off down the sloping street, away from the plaza and into the heart of the dead city of Maostri. Thackery watched him for a long time: a man more alone than he seemed, and seeming terribly alone.

But for all his empathy, Thackery could not quell his growing excitement for long. For he knew what Z’lin Ton Drull had known, knew the reason for the moment of hate in the Sennifi leader’s eyes. The D’shanna had left their mark on the Sennifi deliberately, a living trail sign that Thackery could read more clearly than any, an invitation that only Thackery could grasp the import of. He turned away from the specter of Z’lin’s dying world and began to walk, first slowly, then briskly, back to the plaza, to the gig.

At long last, his search was over, and there was purpose. For somewhere, the D’shanna were waiting. And he would not disappoint them. y

The setting was different, but the sight was distressingly familiar. Once again, Thackery returned from the surface of a planet to find himself facing the questions and skepticism of an inquiry board. But there was one change Thackery found ominous: joining Neale and Rogen on the other side of the table was not Dunn, but Cormican.

In the brief time Thackery had known him, Cormican had shown himself to be solid but unimaginative, a conservative ship’s captain who liked rules and order. Cormican would have little tolerance for the sort of free-lancing Thackery’s trip to the surface of Sennifi represented. Worse, the substitution meant that the only officer who seemed to understand all of Neale’s dimensions—and therefore the nearest thing to an ally Thackery might hope for on the board—was gone.

This time it’s you she wants
, was Thackery’s grim thought as he took his seat.

Neale’s preamble showed that she, too, had taken note of the parallel. “Well, Merry,” she said. “You must like these little sessions, eh? You’re two for two now.”

“I’ve been privileged to be involved in two of the most unusual Contacts on the books,” Thackery said agreeably. Neale propped her chin on her folded hands. “You’ve certainly done your part to make them so, in any case.” There was no winning response to that, so Thackery made none.

“The board has read your report on your—excursion—to Sennifi,” Neale continued. “Some of what you said cries out for explanation. Some of what you left out demands explication.”

Neale had been rehearsing for the encounter, Thackery observed silendy; that sort of thing did not fall naturally off her tongue. “I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have, and to amend the report to make it more inclusive.”