Nebula Awards Showcase 2008 (35 page)

 

J
ack McDevitt is a Philadelphia native. He has been, among other things, a naval officer, an English teacher, a customs officer, and a Philadelphia taxi driver.

He started writing novels after Terry Carr invited him to contribute to the Ace Specials series in 1985. His most recent books are
Cauldron
, his fourteenth novel, and
Outbound
, a collection. In 2004, his novel
Omega
received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He won the first UPC Science Fiction Award, an international competition. And he is also the recipient of the Phoenix and SESFA Awards for his body of work.

He is married to the former Maureen McAdams of Philadelphia. McDevitt and his wife live in Brunswick, Georgia.

About
Seeker,
Jack McDevitt writes:

 

 

W
hen I was about eight, an aunt gave me a copy of Richard Halliburton’s
Book of Marvels.
I immediately fell in love with it. It introduced me to the ancient world, and especially to its Seven Wonders: gardens and temples and statues and even a lighthouse.

But each new wonder, shortly after it was introduced, turned out to be, at best, badly weathered. Usually it was missing altogether.

And then there was Atlantis. I tried to imagine how it would have felt to be on the beach at Wildwood when the place started to sink and the waves began rolling in. I was so intrigued by the idea that I enlisted a librarian and we went to the source, Plato.

Nobody else in the ancient world ever mentioned a seaborne civilization that had sunk beneath the sea. The librarian and I tracked the Atlantis comments down. He describes it in “Timaeus” and “Critias” as conducting wars against European enemies. If a reader is looking for advanced technologies, or a civilization ahead of its time, he will look in vain. I was probably the only little kid on the planet who got mad at Plato.

But the Seven Wonders and Atlantis and, for that matter, Mu and Lemuria combined to impress on me a sense of things lost. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that Priscilla Hutchins, the heroine of my Academy novels, spends a sizable chunk of her time trying to reconstruct long-dead alien civilizations; and that Alex Benedict, my other series character, is an antiquarian in the far future who specializes in solving mysteries produced by artifacts from human history.

Atlantis lives again, in a different form, in
Seeker.
The Margolians abandoned a theocratic North America in the twenty-sixth century, headed for a destination, as one of them said, “so far that even God won’t be able to find us.” Nobody ever heard of them again. And eventually they became so remote in time that their very existence was transformed into the stuff of legend.

It was, I guess, inevitable that Alex and Chase would eventually pick up the trail.

 

I
was tempted to send a message to Alex, suggesting if he was determined to proceed with the hunt for the Falcon and its logs, he’d be the obvious person to do it since he had experience dealing with the Ashiyyur. The problem was that I knew how he’d respond: You’re already there, Chase. Pull up your socks and go talk to them. See what you can find out.

So I bit the bullet. I sent a message telling him what I knew, and that if I could find out who had the Falcon I would proceed to Xiala. I also told him I was underpaid.

Then I linked through to the Mute embassy and was surprised when a young man answered the call. I figured they’d want a human face up front, but I’d expected an avatar. The guy on the circuit felt real, and when I f lat-out asked him if it were so he said yes. “I think,” he added with a laugh, “that we want to impress everyone that there’s really nothing to fear.” He grinned. “Now, Ms. Kolpath, what can I do for you?”

He had the unlikely name Ralf, and when I told him I needed some information, he invited me to go ahead. He was graceful, amiable, well-spoken. Auburn hair, brown eyes, good smile. Maybe thirty. A good choice for the up-front guy.

When I finished explaining he shook his head. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. Wait, though. Let me check.” He looked through a series of data tables, nodded at a couple of them, and tapped the screen. “How about that?” he said. “Here it is. The
Falcon
, right?”

“That’s correct.”

He read off the date and time of transfer. And the recipient. Which was another foundation.

“Good,” I said. “Is there a way I can get access to the ship?” I went into my research-project routine.

“I really have no idea,” he said. “I can tell you where it is. Or at least where it was shipped. After that you’ll have to deal with them.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where is it?”

“It was delivered to the Provno Museum of Alien Life Forms. On Borkarat.”

“Borkarat?”

“Yes. Do you have a travel document?”

He was talking about authorization from the Confederacy to enter Mute space. “No,” I said.

“Get one. There’s an office on the station. Then check in with our travel people. We have an office too. You’ll have to file an application with us as well. It may take a few days.”

I hung around the orbiter for two weeks thinking all kinds of angry thoughts about Alex, before the documentation was completed and my transport vessel arrived. Curious thing: There’d been an assumption when we’d first encountered the Mutes that a species that used telepathy in lieu of speech would be unable to lie, would never have known the nature of deceit. But of course they turned out to be no more truthful than we are. Not when they discovered humans couldn’t penetrate them.

I’d kept Alex informed. I pointed out it would be expensive to take the connecting flight to Xiala. I would be on board the
Diponga
, or, as the station people called it, the
Dipsy-Doodle
. I also let him know I wasn’t happy with the fact this was becoming a crusade. I suggested if he wanted to call a halt, I wouldn’t resist. And I’d wait for his answer before going any farther.

His response was pretty much what I expected. He sat at my desk, looking serene, with the snow-covered forest visible through the windows, and told me how well I was doing, and how fortunate he was to have an employee with such persistence. “Most people would have simply given up, Chase,” he said.

Most people were brighter than I was.

I thought about signing up for the Hennessey Foundation’s seminar on How to Control Psychological Responses When Communicating with Ashiyyureans. But it was hard to see that it would be helpful if they didn’t have an actual Mute come into the conference room. Anyhow, it seemed cowardly.

So when everything was in order, I boarded the
Dipsy-Doodle,
along with eight other human passengers. They settled us in the ship’s common room, and an older man in a gray uniform inscribed with arcane symbols over his left-hand pocket—Mute Transport, I guessed—welcomed us on board, and told us his name was Frank and he’d be traveling with us and anything he could do to make things more comfortable we should just ask. We would be leaving in about an hour. He explained that the flight to Xiala would take approximately four standard days. And were there any questions?

My fellow passengers looked like business types. None was especially young, and none seemed very concerned. I was surprised, though, that all were human. Were there no Mutes returning home?

Afterward, Frank showed us to our compartments, and asked if, after settling in, we would all return to the common room. At 1900 hours. And thank you very much.

I stowed my gear. Four days to Xiala. Then it would be another four days to Borkarat, which was halfway across Mute space. I began to wonder if I wanted to look at something else in the way of career employment.

When we rejoined Frank, he talked about procedures for a few minutes, how the meal schedule would run, use of washroom facilities, and so on. Then he explained that the captain wanted to introduce himself.

On cue, the door to the bridge opened and the first Mute I had ever seen in person walked into the room. It had gray mottled skin, recessed eyes under heavy ridges, arms too long for the body, and the overall appearance of something that needed more sunlight. It wore a uniform similar to Frank’s.

I had expected, judging from everything I’d heard, to feel a rush of horror. Accompanied by the knowledge that my thoughts lay exposed. But none of that happened. I would not have wanted to meet the captain on Bridge Street at night. But not because it, he, had a fearsome appearance. (He did appear to be a male, but he didn’t look as if he were ready to try me with his hors d’oeuvres.) Rather, there was something about him that was revolting, like a spider, or insects in general. Yet the captain certainly bore no resemblance to a bug. I think it was connected with the fact that his skin glistened.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, speaking through a voice box. “I’m Captain Japuhr. Frank and I are pleased to have you on board the
Diponga
. Or, as Frank and the people at the station insist on calling it, the
Dipsy-Doodle
.” The pronunciation wasn’t quite right. It sounded more like
Dawdle
. “We hope you enjoy your flight, and we want you to know if there’s anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to tell us.” He nodded at Frank, and Frank smiled.

Every hair I owned stood at attention. And I thought, He knows exactly what I’m feeling. He picks up the revulsion. And, as if to confirm my worst fears, the captain looked my way and nodded. It wasn’t a human nod, it was rather a lowering of the whole head and neck, probably because he didn’t have the structural flexibility to do it the way you or I would. But I understood the gesture. He was saying hello. He understood my reaction, but he was not going to take offense.

That was a good thing. But what would happen when I was away from the captain and dealing with ordinary run-of-the-mill street-level Mutes?

What had I gotten myself into?

While I was worrying myself sick, Captain Japuhr came closer. Our eyes connected, his red and serene and a bit too large, and mine—. Well, I felt caught in somebody’s sights. At that moment, while I swam against the tide, thinking no, you have no idea, you can’t read me, his lips parted in an attempt to smile. “It’s all right, Ms. Kolpath,” he said to me. “Everyone goes through this in the beginning.”

It was the only time I saw his fangs.

During the flight, the captain, for the most part, confined himself to the bridge and to his quarters, which were located immediately aft the bridge, and separated from the area accessible to the passengers. My fellow travelers explained that the Ashiyyur—nobody used the term Mute on shipboard—were conscious of our visceral reaction to them, and in fact they had their own visceral reaction to deal with. They were repulsed by us too. So they sensibly tried to defuse the situation as much as they were able.

Frank explained there were no Ashiyyurean passengers for much the same reason. Flights were always reserved for one species or the other. I asked whether that also applied to him. Had he made flights with alien passengers?

“No,” he said. “It’s against the rules.”

We were about twelve hours out when we made our jump. One of the passengers got briefly ill. But the reaction passed, and she had her color back a few minutes after transition was complete. Frank informed us that we were going to arrive at Xiala sixteen hours ahead of schedule. That would mean a nineteen-hour layover at the station before I could catch my connecting flight. “I was looking at the passenger list,” Frank said. “You’ll be traveling on the
Komar
, and you’ll be the only human passenger.”

“Okay,” I said. I’d suspected that might happen.

“Have you traveled before in the Assemblage?” That was the closest approximation in Standard of the Mutes’ term for their section of the Orion Arm. I should add here that they have a looser political organization than the human worlds do. There is a central council, but it is strictly a deliberative body. It has no executive authority. Worlds, and groups of worlds, operate independently. On the other hand, we’ve learned the hard way how quickly and effectively they can unite in a common cause.

“No,” I said. “This is my first time.”

He let me see that he disapproved. “You should have someone with you.”

I shrugged. “Nobody was available, Frank. Why? Will I be in physical danger?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. But you’ll be a long time without seeing anybody else.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve been alone.”

“I didn’t mean you’d be alone. You’ll have company.” He jiggled his hands, indicating there was no help for it now. “And I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I think you’ll find your fellow travelers willing to help if you need it.” More hesitation. “May I ask where you’re headed? Are you going anywhere from Borkarat?”

“No,” I said.

“When will you be coming back?”

“As soon as my business is completed.”

“Good. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

The first night I stayed up until midmorning. Everybody did. We partied and had a good time. And when we’d all had a bit too much to drink, the captain came out, and the atmosphere did not change.

When finally I retired to my cabin, I was in a rare good humor. I hadn’t thought much about Captain Japuhr during the previous few hours, but when I killed the lights and pulled the sheets up, I began to wonder about the range of Mute abilities. (Think Ashiyyur, I told myself.) My quarters were removed from the bridge and his connecting cabin by at least thirty meters. Moreover, he was almost certainly asleep. But if he was not, I wondered, was he capable of picking up my thoughts at that moment? Was I exposed?

In the morning I asked Frank. Depends on the individual, he said. “Some can read you several rooms away. Although they all find humans tougher than their own kind.”

And was the capability passive? Or was there an active component? Did they simply read minds? Or could they inject thought as well?

There were about five of us in the common room, eating breakfast, and Frank passed the question around to Joe Klaymoor. Joe was in his seventies, gray, small, and I would have thought introverted, but I could never make myself believe an introvert would head for Mute country. Make it maybe reticent. And a good guy. He kept his sense of humor through the whole experience. Laughed it off. “I have nothing to hide,” he said. “To my everlasting regret.

“It was a big philosophical issue for them at one time,” he continued. “Same as the question we once had, whether our eyes emitted beams of some sort which allowed us to see. Or whether the outside world put out the beams. Like our eyes, the Ashiyyur are receivers only. They collect what gets sent their way. And not just thoughts. They get images, emotions, whatever’s floating around at your conscious level.” He looked momentarily uncomfortable. “‘Floating around’ is probably an inadequate expression.”

“What would be adequate?” asked one of the other passengers, Mary DiPalma, who was a stage magician from London.

“Something along the lines of an undisciplined torrent. They’ll tell you that the human psyche is chaotic.”

Great. If that’s really so, no wonder they think we’re all idiots. “The conscious level,” I said. “But not subconscious?”

“They say not,” said Joe. He laid his head on the back of the chair. “They didn’t settle the transmission/reception issue, by the way, until they encountered us.”

“Really. How’d that happen?”

“They understood a lot of what we were thinking, although a fair amount of it was garbled because of the language problem. When they tried to send something, I gather we just stared back.”

Somebody else, I don’t recall who, asked about animals. Can they read animals too?

Joe nodded. “The higher creatures, to a degree.”

“And pain?” asked Mary DiPalma.

“Oh, yes. Absolutely.”

“That must be a problem for them.”

Frank took a long breath. “What’s the survival advantage in that?” he asked. “I’d expect that a creature that feels pain around it would not last long.”

Joe thought it over. “Evolution happens along two tracks,” he said. “One track is individually based, and the other assists survival of the species. Or at least, that’s the way it was explained to me. It’s not my field.”

“Then they’re not predators,” I suggested.

One of the women laughed. “Not predators? You get a look at those bicuspids? And the eyes? They’re hunters, no doubt about that.”

“That’s true,” said Joe. “From what I understand, they don’t make the connection with their natural prey. It also seems to be the case that they developed the telepathic capability relatively late. They’re a much older species than we are, by the way.”