Paradigms Lost (54 page)

“Just for a split second . . . it was a feeling of concentration, of something pent up and released in the same moment.” He gazed off into the distance. “Nothing else, really. I’ve taught myself the best I can, but I just don’t have much of the Talent. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel blinded here; I’m
almost
blind to begin with.”

Derek Fairchild waved from the other side. “Hey, James,
Hugin
’s ready. What’s the plan?”

“Send her up and criss-cross that little standing garden in the middle of the crater,” Achernar said, giving a shrug and heading back in that direction. “How close can you get?”

Fairchild and Grant both studied the pedestallike column through binoculars for a few minutes as we made our way over. “No lower than about ten feet,” Derek said finally. “That one bush must be close on seven feet high, and I don’t want to cut it close; one snag and
Hugin
will go straight down to the crater floor, and that’s all she wrote.”

“Okay. Try to make it as slow as possible.”

Donovan Grant nodded. “Just at stall speed when we go over.”

I had to admit it was neat to watch. Remote-piloted aircraft weren’t new, but a semi-autonomous and instrumented drone like these UAVs was a refinement I hadn’t seen. Assembled,
Hugin
had an eight-foot wingspan and a four-foot body; I could see a camera projecting downward below the nose with some other mounts that looked like sensors out on the wings. Derek checked the unit, activated it, and simply threw it out into the crater like a giant paper airplane.

Hugin
’s engine purred to life and the little drone came up and steadied. Donovan was guiding it, and after a few moments it climbed back up and glided low over the mysterious green spot.

Images flowed by on the screen, but when we froze the image stream they were slightly blurred—something that obscured crucial details. After several overflights, Achernar cursed mildly. “Bring
Hugin
in. We’re not getting anything this way. It’s just too small a target and we can’t move slow enough.”

Bambi had been staring at the column all this time. “I think I could get on top of it and take a look.”

Achernar looked at her narrowly. “There is no way in hell even
you
are getting up that thing without falling or, more likely, hitting it somewhere so it
does
come down on top of you.”

“I’m not talking about getting there from
below
.”

I suddenly understood what she was getting at. “You landed your courier jet on VTOL mode, like a Harrier,” I said. “So if you flew it that way—”

“With you hanging underneath, in the
jetwash
? To keep from messing up any evidence, I’d have to be at least a hundred feet up, probably twice that. That’s
hellish
maneuvering to get someone safely on a three-foot-wide target!”

“And if
anyone
can do it, James Achernar, it’s you.”

I could see that Achernar was torn. He
really
wanted to get a good look at that little piece of untouched land, and probably wanted to do it well before anyone else got here. But he also didn’t want to risk her life. Finally, he turned to Syl. “What do you think?”

I was surprised for a moment, and so was she; but both of us realized why he was asking her, after a moment. “Well,” Syl said slowly, “I . . . don’t get a
bad
feeling about you trying it. But—no offense—you’re not very close to me and usually that sense of mine triggers when it’s something to do with me or very close friends.”

“I suppose so,” Achernar sighed. “All right, Bambi. But you be
careful
.”

“That’s
your
job, James,” she said with a smile. “
I
just have to get a good look at it.”

“Is it really
worth
the risk?” I asked, nervous about interrupting. “What do you think could possibly be
up
there that makes it worth the chance of screwing up?”

The four members of Project Pantheon looked at each other. “Maybe nothing,” Achernar said. “But maybe something, and we need anything we can find. Look at this again.” He gestured, taking in the immense smoking crater. “
Something
blasted this area with more concentrated power than the biggest nuke ever detonated, and yet—somehow—that little column was protected from it. Maybe this is a freak magical accident. Maybe it’s some kind of . . . natural but mystical phenomenon. Or maybe it’s something
deliberate
—a test of a technique. I can’t afford to
not
get that information. Understand?”

I nodded. “I felt it had to be asked, though.”

“It did, I think,” he agreed. “Thanks.”

About twenty-five minutes later, I heard the rumbling howl of
Hermes
’ engines, and it wasn’t five more minutes before the craft drifted slowly into view. Below the sleek black jet with its now down-turned engines, dangled a figure in black. “Jesus,” I muttered. Bambi Inochi looked like a tiny spider at the end of a thread, but if she fell off she wouldn’t just land and scuttle away; it was over a two-hundred-foot fall to the bottom.

Hermes
floated towards the column, slowing ever more until it finally came to a halt over the strange column. Bambi twisted her body slowly, damping out swinging motions and compensating for the unavoidable slight rocking of
Hermes
as Achernar kept her poised, immobile over that impossible dot of green.

Gradually, Bambi lowered herself until it seemed she was just about touching the bush on one edge. I couldn’t be sure, but I
thought
she was taking pictures.

Then Syl jumped,
Hermes
twitched, and there was a flash from below, right at the base of the column.

The column shuddered, then began to tilt with a low groaning, cracking sound.
Hermes
’ engines instantly roared louder, lifting upwards, as the two-hundred-foot anomaly sank and shattered in a new cloud of dust and debris.

Hermes
swung around, slowed over our location and let Bambi drop off before going to land. “Well,
that
was exciting,” Bambi said.

“Get anything before it fell?”

“Pictures only,” she said. “And I have
no
idea if there’s anything to see here, but at least shutter speed should’ve prevented the blur.”

I sighed. “So we won’t know until the film’s developed.”

She grinned brightly. “
This
is a digital camera.”

“Really?” I’d seen the recent releases of digital cameras, but they were too expensive and the resolution wasn’t nearly on par with real film. “I don’t recognize the brand.”

“You wouldn’t,” Achernar said. “Custom design. You’ll probably see something like this on the market in . . . oh, seven years. Maybe.”

Bambi had gotten a cable out and was connecting it to the same portable computer that had been running the UAV. After a few minutes, she brought up a graphics program, showing a top-down view of green and brown—some bare earth in the center, short leafy plants hiding a few sticks, a tall bush and a shorter one. I was startled by the sharpness of the images; yes, real film would have gotten better detail, but the
immediacy
of this was amazing.
Once this technology gets out there,
I mused,
I suspect film cameras are going to die a fast and final death.

“Darn,” she said after a bit. “Nothing.”

“No, there’s
something
,” I said. “Flick through the last three again.” The images clicked by, changing perspective slightly to parallel the change in Bambi’s position as she had swung above the enigmatic patch of land. “There.” I pointed to a faint blackish line.

Achernar and Bambi squinted, zooming in on the area—to end up with a more-pixelated image. “Well, okay, you’re the expert in interpreting data,” Achernar said after a moment. “There’s
something
there, but damned if I know what it is, and it’s gone now.”

“Probably. But maybe not. If we look for it
right now
.”

Bambi raised an eyebrow; Derek and Donovan had similarly skeptical expressions. I noted, with some satisfaction, that there wasn’t a trace of skepticism on Syl’s face. “I can’t
look
for something, Mr. Wood,” Bambi said slowly, “if I don’t know what it
is
.”

“It’s a thread. About seven inches long. Not quite sure about the material, but I’d lay a
lot
of money on it being a thread; it’s dead black in color, too.”

“You can get
that
out of this blur? Without analysis?” Derek looked unwillingly impressed.

I grinned. “The human brain’s darn good at analysis. And this is, as Mr. Achernar said, one of my specialties. Down there,” I pointed, “is roughly where the top part of that thing came down. If we go look right now, we
might
find it before the wind comes along and blows it away.”

James Achernar shrugged after a moment and gave a small Clint Eastwood-like grin. “What the hell. Not like it’ll hurt to try.”

The six of us fanned out across the region of the crater—being
very
careful not to slip on that impossibly glassy surface until we got to the safer, dirt-strewn area—and began searching.

It was about twenty-five minutes later—I was getting pretty tired of studying one dusty clod of dirt after another, and developing a healthy respect for the four agents’ patience—when Syl suddenly turned, took two steps to her right and bent down, tweezers in hand. “Ha!” she said with satisfaction.

Achernar and his team seemed to materialize around us, staring at Syl’s find.

It was a long black thread, frayed, with signs of having been torn from something else.

Achernar extended a sample bag and Syl dropped it in. “Very good, Sylvie. And Jason—I’m impressed. It may not be much . . . but you just helped recover evidence we probably would have missed. Oh, the Jammer would have figured out what was in the pictures, but that would have been too late to actually get the thread.”

“Thanks. Glad to be of assistance. Though . . . is that really going to be of much use?”

Donovan Grant’s grin was predatory. “Mr. Wood, believe me; you’d be amazed what we can get out of a thread.”

Achernar suddenly cocked his head; a moment later, I could hear why he did: faint, distant fluttering, humming sounds. “Okay. Looks like we’ve done what we can for now. Company’s coming. Bambi, you guys hold things down here. I’ve got to get our consultants out of sight and home.”

“Thought you were planning to use my presence as evidence of your proactive nature,” I said as we followed him towards
Hermes
.

The smile was a quick flash of light. “The
official
interviews will be sometime tomorrow or the day after. But I don’t want them knowing you were on site
now
, or seeing
Hermes
up close, for that matter. Too many things I don’t want anyone knowing.”

“And I’m guessing that when we get home, they’re things we don’t know, either,” I continued, starting up the ramp.

“Hell,” Achernar said, following us up, “when I’m off-duty, they’ll be things
I
don’t know.”

CHAPTER 75

Client Referral

I opened up the fridge and poked around. “I think I’m out of AB, but this bottle of A is new.”

The vampire to whom I addressed the comment leaned back comfortably in one of my new office chairs. “That’s just fine, Jason. Verne’s the connoisseur; I try actually
not
to cultivate a discriminating taste.”

“Given that you’re theoretically still cursed, I suppose it’s probably a good idea. Here you go.” I placed the bottle in front of Father Jonathan, probably the most atypical vampire alive, given that he was a fully ordained Catholic priest and had chosen to visit me during a lovely sunny late spring afternoon.

The priest studied me as I sat down, maybe a little heavier than I wanted to. “You look absolutely exhausted, Jason. I hope married life isn’t a problem . . . ?”

I responded with a small chuckle. “Oh, Syl and I are doing just fine. I’d be a lot more tired if I didn’t have her around; she generally screens my public calls and filters out like ninety-five percent of them as total crackpots, and most of the rest I can dump off on other people who can do the looking as well as I can. But even the remaining one percent seems to be getting bigger all the time. Then when something really big and flashy happens, guess who gets called? I just got back from Africa last night.”
For the second time
, I noted to myself. No one was going to know about the first.

Father Jonathan gave a startled laugh. “Oh, how silly of me. Of course you would have been called in on that.”

“Yeah.” I acknowledged. “Since the Morgantown Incident that just about everyone’s heard of, plus a few other things that Certain People know about, I’m called in for everything weird these days. Thank God the Cold War’s over; a multimegaton blast back in, oh, 1960-something would probably have caused missile launches without anyone asking questions first.”

“I fear you’re correct.” He sipped at the blood, straight from the bottle. “And did you find anything of interest?”

I shook my head, frowning. “More a ‘dog in the night-time’ case, actually. What we
didn’t
find was pretty revealing. No sign of radiation. No sign of chemical explosives—not that a hundred million tons of high explosives could be smuggled into the middle of a jungle without causing talk—heck, I don’t think there’s that many conventional explosives OUT there. Not a trace of meteoric dust or iron, either.

“Of course, certain sources that we know,” I glanced at him and he nodded, knowing I meant Syl, Verne, and a few others, “all felt ‘something’ when it went off, but that’s not the kind of evidence I could bring to the table down there. Though it created the kind of crater you’d expect, it hadn’t burned everything for miles around. No one still alive nearby had seen or heard anything unusual before or just after the blast.” That wasn’t
quite
true, but what they
had
seen just raised more questions than answers, and I was too tired to go into the details, and not sure how much I could tell Father Jonathan, even if he was in the more unusual category himself. “Anyway, what brings you to the office?”