Firebird (18 page)

“What was that, Professor?”

“He said that, with luck, they'd find it in the churches.”

“Find
what?”

“I don't know.”
He sank back exhausted in his chair.
“When I asked him to explain, he just laughed and said there'd be plenty of time for that later. Sure there was.”
His teeth clamped together, and he sucked in air.
“I told him not to go. I kept telling him what might happen. But he was determined to do it.”

“Churches.” Alex tasted the word. Frowned. “He said
churches.
Not
church.”

“That's correct.”
He shook his head.
“God knows what he was talking about.”
Lisle never cracked a smile.

Villanueva was reportedly a beautiful world, stable climate, gravity index almost exactly that of the home world, fertile land, a biosystem that was quick to adapt to human needs. According to legend, it was where the first off-world lemon tree sprouted. It had served as a home to human pets. Cats and dogs and parrots all did well there. The planet had a moon even lovelier than Earth's because it had an atmosphere and consequently emitted a softer, more luxuriant glow than Luna. Its broad oceans and deep forests and snowcapped mountains reportedly won the hearts of visitors. It was an ideal outpost. But its prospects as a colony world were dim.

When the first survey ships arrived, during the third millennium, they were probably already aware of the dust cloud. Tradition denies it, though, picturing a scenario in which the explorers landed in a peaceful green valley, bathed in its crystal springs, listened to the wind in the trees, and partied under its luminous moon, only to discover, later, that the world was moving toward destruction at a rate of about twenty million kilometers per day. It would be a long time before it arrived in the danger zone. Centuries. But eventually the bright skies would darken, and the flowers and shrubs would freeze into stumps. Meanwhile, though, the world was an Eden. And it must have seemed to a few early adventurers that there was more than time enough. Time to live out their lives, time for their children, and their grandchildren. They needed only avoid creating a permanent presence.

They named the place Villanueva because it was Earth as everybody had always dreamed it should be. A magnificent garden world, where the day was always cool, and the birds always sang. So they did what anyone would have done: Despite the cloud, they built homes. Villanueva became the place where you stopped if you were headed out along the Orion Arm, where people climbed out of the crowded spartan ships of that primitive era for a few days in the tropical breezes of the world that everybody loved.

They set a space station in place and named it Felicity. It became a haven for casinos and sex clubs. The support facilities on the ground expanded. And expanded again. People moved in. The cloud was too far down the road to worry about.

Towns took root. The towns became cities. Population soared. Young families saw it as an opportunity to get in on a ground floor, or as an adventure, or as an ideal place to raise kids. A thousand years, eight hundred years, whatever, it was a long time. Somebody else's problem.

Estimates range widely as to what the global population was when it finally happened. Most historians put it at about a billion. By then, Villanueva had become fully independent, and prosperous beyond anyone's dreams. Even when the outer planets began to drift into the cloud, the population, which everyone had expected would shrink dramatically at that point, continued to increase. The skies grew dark, and the days became cooler, but there was still no concerted effort to leave. The reports indicated that people thought they could ride it out. Stay with their homes and just wait for the passage to end. Trust in the Lord. This, even though Villanueva's time in the cloud would be in excess of three hundred years.

Today, the word itself,
Villanueva,
is shorthand for
catastrophe.

Felicity, encountering too much resistance from the dust, lost her orbital velocity and went into a death spiral. It plunged into one of the oceans. People at that time still depended on farming, but the farms didn't survive. Eventually, they tried to escape, but it was much too late. Emergency supplies and equipment were shipped in. When, three centuries later, the world came out of the cloud—a small one, by cosmic standards—no one was left.

And something odd had happened: Civilization on the world had been high-tech, of course, by the standards of the time. It had been powered by the most advanced kinds of automated systems then known. From today's point of view, of course, they were primitive. But that may have played in their favor. They were simpler, and therefore more resistant to the pressures imposed by deteriorating climatic conditions. So that it's not entirely correct to say that no one was alive when the world emerged from the far side of the cloud.

The technology was still in place and still functioning. The maintenance systems had, according to contemporary accounts, upgraded themselves. The problem, as Marcy Lee observes in
Last Days,
was that nobody thought to turn off the lights.

I know that doesn't sound like a problem. But a salvage team, sent in after the event, encountered resistance of an unexpected kind. The technology, apparently, didn't want to be shut down. Several people were electrocuted, and a technician died when a power train broke loose and fell on him. The “accident” was reportedly accompanied by a spoken warning, over the comm links belonging to the team, that they were trespassing and should leave immediately.

Later efforts met with similar results. Stories surfaced of would-be scavengers landing on Villanueva and either becoming the victims of seeming accidents or disappearing altogether. A team sent in to destroy the data-control system was locked in an underground chamber. When they attempted to blow a hole in the door, the place collapsed on them. It was all straight out of one of Vicki Greene's horror novels. Eventually, the authorities decided the rational course was to cordon the place off, and they did just that. Villanueva was declared out of bounds, and satellites were established warning travelers that any who went groundside did so at their own risk.

Even Alex, though he had no doubt that the right Villanuevan artifacts would bring good money, had never considered a salvage attempt.

When David Lisle signed off, Alex remained motionless in his chair, his arms folded, his eyes half-closed, lost in thought.

“Alex,” I said, “we have no idea what we'd be looking for.”

“The churches, Chase.”

“Which means what? We're talking about a civilization which, from its very beginning, knew the end times were coming. Knew
when
they were coming. When the place finally collapsed, they had a billion people. I wonder how many churches there were?”

He got up and walked over to the window. Lovely day. “Chase, I don't expect you to get involved with this one. In fact, I won't allow you to. I'm going to hire somebody for this. I'll find somebody who's got a little combat experience.”

I laughed. There might have been a touch of bitterness there. If so, I'm not sure where it came from. That he was including me out, or that we were going to go off and do something crazy. “And who would that be?” I said. “Marko Banner?” The big devil-may-care leading man who specialized in whacking his way out of impossible situations.

“It's out of the question, Chase. Sorry.”

“Alex, it's an exercise in futility.”

“I know it seems that way. But I can't just give up on it. Something very big is going on here.”

I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. “My God, Alex, you have no idea what you're even looking for.”

SIXTEEN

People always find something to worry about. The Nile's going to rise. An asteroid's coming close next year. We're going to make a mess of the atmosphere. It's always something. But sometimes they have a point.

—Marcy Lee,
Last Days
, ca. 6314
C.E.

Music is so intrinsically a part of the human experience, that it is hard to imagine our lives without it. How much are we indebted to the first person who beat on a drum, who carved out a pipe, who noticed that strings make pleasing sounds?

—Alois of Toxicon, addressing the Continental Music Institute, 8847
C.E.

I probably didn't help my cause by mentioning that if we were ever going to head out on an idiot's ride, Villanueva would be the place to go. There was no way Alex could back down after that. He was already going through a list of candidates to sit beside him on the mission. He'd need a pilot, of course. Not me, because I'd cause too much trouble. He didn't offer an explanation but just tried to laugh it off. “The bottom line, Chase,” he said, “is that if things go wrong, I wouldn't want to be responsible for something happening to you.”

And, to tell the truth, I'd have been happy to stay out of it. But I was afraid he'd get himself killed. “Look, Alex,” I said. “I think this is crazy. I won't hide that. Because we don't have enough to go on. We don't have a clue what we're looking for. But that doesn't mean I'll step aside while someone else goes in my place.”

He glanced at his calendar with the sort of expression that he uses to suggest I've forgotten who's boss. “Chase,” he said, “you don't have a say in the matter.”

“Sure I do. Leave me behind, and I won't be here when you get back.”

He barely blinked. “Then you'll have to leave, Chase.”

“This time, I won't come back.”

He took his time about answering. We were in the conference room. “Look,” he said, “this thing is just too dangerous.”

“Then call it off. At least until we know what we're doing.”

“How about if we put it off for a couple of days? Have you ever seen
The Firebird?”

“Not really. They lost it forty years ago.”

“No. I'm talking about Igor Stravinsky.”

I'd heard the name. “The sculptor,” I said.

“He was a composer.”

“Sure. But no, I haven't. It's a ballet, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“I don't much care for ballets.”

“Doesn't it strike you as odd that Robin would give his yacht the same name?”

“As what?”

“The ballet.”

“Oh.” I guess I shrugged. “Not really.”

His gaze went to the ceiling. He was operating in the company of children again. “Chase—”

“It's a coincidence.”

“Father Everett told you he
loved
the classical composers. Naming his yacht
Firebird
was a tribute to Stravinsky.”

“Okay. So what?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe something more.”

“How do you mean?” I looked at him. “You're not suggesting there's actually a point in going to watch this thing, are you?”

“They're performing at Central this weekend.”

“Alex, I'm not anxious—”

“You'll love it,” he said. “I'm taking Audree. There are two tickets on your link. If you'd like to come along.”

Sometimes things just come together. I don't know whether we'd ever have gotten a handle on Robin and Villanueva had we not started with the dancers. The Central Theater, despite its name, is located on the oceanfront. I invited Hal Kaisson, an amateur musician and maybe the only guy I knew who would probably enjoy a nine-thousand-year-old ballet.

All right, I know what you're thinking. It just happens that I've no taste for ballet. But I told myself that the show must have had something going for it to stick around so long.

Alex asked me if I knew the story. I didn't really care that much and told him I'd figure it out as we went. “Ivan,” he said, “is a Russian prince.”

“What kind of prince?”

“Russia was an area, a country in northern Europe.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, there's an immortal who lives in a forest. Kashchei. He doesn't like anybody else going there, and he gets upset when Ivan wanders in.”

“Sounds pretty exciting so far.”

I got that disapproving stare again. “All right. Let it go. I think you'll enjoy the music in any case.”

It's not exactly
Hamlet.
But once it gets started, the music
is
pretty good, and the choreography blew me away. The forest is one of these enchanted places that is not only home to an immortal. Other supernatural creatures sway and flutter and cavort through the forest. One of these is the Firebird, which is apparently a demigod of some sort. It was portrayed that night by a dancer wearing red and gold when she wore anything at all. And when she moved across the stage, she seemed to do so in defiance of the laws of gravity. Ivan captures her but wisely relents and turns her loose. The Firebird responds by promising to help him if he needs help. Which, of course, he will.

The music, predominantly strings, was sometimes passionate, sometimes melancholy, always captivating. There were moments when it set my heart racing. All of it was familiar. It was just that I hadn't known this or that piece was from
The Firebird.

Alex leaned over at one point and asked whether I was still feeling any reluctance about the show.

“It's okay,” I said.

He laughed.

As he travels through the forest, Ivan discovers thirteen princesses held captive by Kashchei. He falls in love with one and asks Kashchei to free her. (Apparently he's prepared to allow the others to remain where they are.)

Kashchei resists, and the inevitable conflict begins. The other magical creatures are called in to support their lord, and it's clear from the outset that Ivan has no chance. But the Firebird comes to the rescue and, honoring her word, drives the music so powerfully that Kashchei and his creatures are forced to dance until they are exhausted and fall asleep.

The Firebird now reveals the secret of Kashchei's immortality, an enormous but fragile egg that contains his spirit. Kashchei awakens, and he engages Ivan in a spectacular, largely airborne, duel. The music rises to a crescendo, and, finally, the prince breaks through the desperate thrusts of his opponent and drives his sword into the egg.