A Deepness in the Sky

To Poul Anderson,

In learning to write science fiction, I have had many great models, but Poul Anderson's work has meant more to me than any other. Beyond that, Poul has provided me and the world with an enormous treasure of wonderful, entertaining stories—and he continues to do so.

On a personal note, I will always be grateful to Poul and Karen Anderson for the hospitality that they showed a certain young science-fiction writer back in the 1960s.

—V.V.

I am grateful for the advice and help of: Robert Cademy, John Carroll, Howard L. Davidson, Bob Fleming, Leonard Foner, Michael Gannis, Jay R. Hill, Eric Hughes, Sharon Jarvis, Yoji Kondo, Cherie Kushner, Tim May, Keith Mayers, Mary Q. Smith, and Joan D. Vinge.

I am very grateful to James Frenkel for the wonderful job of editing he has done with this book and for his timely insight on problems with the earlier drafts.

This novel takes place thousands of years from now. The connection with our languages and writing systems is tenuous. But, for what it's worth, the initial sound in "Qeng Ho" is the same as the initial sound in the English word "checker." (Trixia Bonsol would understand the problem!)

The manhunt extended across more than one hundred light-years and eight centuries. It had always been a secret search, unacknowledged even among some of the participants. In the early years, it had simply been encrypted queries hidden in radio broadcasts. Decades and centuries passed. There were clues, interviews with The Man's fellow-travelers, pointers in a half-dozen contradictory directions: The Man was alone now and heading still farther away; The Man had died before the search ever began; The Man had a war fleet and was coming back upon them.

With time, there was some consistency to the most credible stories. The evidence was solid enough that certain ships changed schedules and burned decades of time to look for more clues. Fortunes were lost because of the detours and delays, but the losses were to a few of the largest trading Families, and went unacknowledged. They were rich enough, and this search was important enough, that it scarcely mattered. For the search had narrowed: The Man was traveling alone, a vague blur of multiple identities, a chain of one-shot jobs on minor trading vessels, but always moving back and back into this end of Human Space. The hunt narrowed from a hundred light-years, to fifty, to twenty—and a half-dozen star systems.

And finally, the manhunt came down to a single world at the coreward end of Human Space. Now Sammy could justify a fleet specially for the end of the hunt. The crew and even most of the owners would not know the mission's true purpose, but he had a good chance of finally ending the search.

Sammy himself went groundside on Triland. For once, it made sense for a Fleet Captain to do the detail work: Sammy was the only one in the fleet who had actually met The Man in person. And given the present popularity of his fleet here, he could cut through whatever bureaucratic nonsense might come up. Those were good reasons...but Sammy would be down here in any case.I have waited so long, and in a little while we'llhave him.

"Why should I help you find anyone! I'm not your mother!" The little man had backed into his inner office space. Behind him, a door was cracked five centimeters wide. Sammy caught a glimpse of a child peeking out fearfully at them. The little man shut the door firmly. He glared at the Forestry constables who had preceded Sammy into the building. "I'll tell you one more time: My place of business is the net. If you didn't find what you want there, then it's not available from me."

" 'Scuse me." Sammy tapped the nearest constable on the shoulder. " 'Scuse me." He slipped through the ranks of his protectors.

The proprietor could see that someone tall was coming through. He reached toward his desk.Lordy. If he trashed the databases he had distributed across the net, they'd get nothing out of him.

But the fellow's gesture froze. He stared in shock at Sammy's face. "Admiral?"

"Um, ‘Fleet Captain,' if you please."

"Yes, yes! We've been watching you on the news every day now. Please! Sit down. You're the source of the inquiry?"

The change in manner was like a flower opening to the sunlight. Apparently the Qeng Ho was just as popular with the city folk as it was with the Forestry Department. In a matter of seconds, the proprietor—the "private investigator," as he called himself—had pulled up records and started search programs. "...Hmm. You don't have a name, or a good physical description, just a probable arrival date. Okay, now Forestry claims your fellow must have become someone named ‘Bidwel Ducanh.' " His gaze slid sideways to the silent constables, and he smiled. "They're very good at reaching nonsense conclusions from insufficient information. In this case..." He did something with his search programs. "Bidwel Ducanh. Yeah, now that I search for it, I remember hearing about that fellow. Sixty or a hundred years ago he made some kind of a name for himself." A figure that had come from nowhere, with a moderate amount of money and an uncanny flare for self-advertisement. In a period of thirty years, he had gathered the support of several major corporations and even the favor of the Forestry Department. "Ducanh claimed to be a city-person, but he was no freedom fighter. He wanted to spend money on some crazy, long-term scheme. What was it? He wanted to..." The private investigator looked up from his reading to stare a moment at Sammy. "He wanted to finance an expedition to the OnOff star!"

Sammy just nodded.

"Damn! If he had been successful, Triland would have an expedition partway there right now." The investigator was silent for a moment, seeming to contemplate the lost opportunity. He looked back at his records. "And you know, he almost succeeded. A world like ours would have to bankrupt itself to go interstellar. But sixty years ago, a single Qeng Ho starship visited Triland. Course, they didn't want to break their schedule, but some of Ducanh's supporters were hoping they'd help out. Ducanh wouldn't have anything to do with the idea, wouldn't even talk to the Qeng Ho. After that, Bidwel Ducanh pretty much lost his credibility....He faded from sight."

All this was in Triland's Forestry Department records. Sammy said, "Yes. We're interested in where this individual is now." There had been no interstellar vessel in Triland's solar system for sixty years.He is here!

"Ah, so you figure he may have some extra information, something that would be useful even after what's happened the last three years?"

Sammy resisted an impulse to violence. A little more patience now, what more could it cost after the centuries of waiting? "Yes," he said, benignly judicious, "it would be good to cover all the angles, don't you think?"

"Right. You've come to the right place. I know city things that the Forestry people never bother to track. I really want to help." He was watching some kind of scanning analysis, so this was not completely wasted time. "These alien radio messages are going to change our world, and I want my children to—"

The investigator frowned. "Huh! You just missed this Bidwel character, Fleet Captain. See, he's been dead for ten years."

Sammy didn't say anything, but his mild manner must have slipped; the little man flinched when he looked up at him. "I-I'm sorry, sir. Perhaps he left some effects, a will."

It can't be. Not when I'm so close.But it was a possibility that Sammy had always known. It was the commonplace in a universe of tiny lifetimes and interstellar distances. "I suppose we are interested in any data the man left behind." The words came out dully.At least we have closure —that would be the concluding line from some smarmy intelligence analyst.

The investigator tapped and muttered at his devices. The Forestry Department had reluctantly identified him as one of the best of the city class, so well distributed that they could not simply confiscate his equipment to take him over. He was genuinely trying to be helpful...."There may be a will, Fleet Captain, but it's not on the Grandville net."

"Some other city, then?" The fact that the Forestry Department had partitioned the urban networks was a very bad sign for Triland's future.

"...Not exactly. See, Ducanh died at one of Saint Xupere's Pauper Cemeteria, the one in Lowcinder. It looks like the monks have held on to his effects. I'm sure they would give them up in return for a decent-sized donation." His eyes returned to the constables and his expression hardened. Maybe he recognized the oldest one, the Commissioner of Urban Security. No doubt they could shake down the monks with no need for any contribution.

Sammy rose and thanked the private investigator; his words sounded wooden even to himself. As he walked back toward the door and his escort, the investigator came quickly around his desk and followed him. Sammy realized with abrupt embarrassment that the fellow hadn't been paid. He turned back, feeling a sudden liking for the guy. He admired someone who would demand his pay in the face of unfriendly cops. "Here," Sammy started to say, "this is what I can—"

But the fellow held up his hands. "No, not necessary. But there is a favor I would like from you. See, I have a big family, the brightest kids you've ever seen. This joint expedition isn't going to leave Triland for another five or ten years, right? Can you make sure that my kids, even one of them—?"

Sammy cocked his head. Favors connected with mission success came very dear. "I'm sorry, sir," he said as gently as he could. "Your children will have to compete with everyone else. Have them study hard in college. Have them target the specialties that are announced. That will give them the best chance."

"Yes, Fleet Captain! That is exactly the favor that I am asking. Would you see to it—" He swallowed and looked fiercely at Sammy, ignoring the others. "—would you see to it that they are allowed to undertake college studies?"

"Certainly." A little grease on academic entrance requirements didn't bother Sammy at all. Then he realized what the other was really saying. "Sir, I'll make sure of it."

"Thank you. Thank you!" He touched his business card into Sammy's hand. "There's my name and stats. I'll keep it up-to-date. Please remember."

"Yes, uh, Mr. Bonsol, I'll remember." It was a classic Qeng Ho deal.

The city dropped away beneath the Forestry Department flyer. Grandville had only about half a million inhabitants, but they were crammed into a snarled slum, the air above them shimmering with summer heat. The First Settlers' forest lands spread away for thousands of kilometers around it, virgin terraform wilderness.

They boosted high into clean indigo air, arcing southward. Sammy ignored the Triland "Urban Security" boss sitting right beside him; just now he had neither the need nor the desire to be diplomatic. He punched a connection to his Deputy Fleet Captain. Kira Lisolet's autoreport streamed across his vision. Sum Dotran had agreed to the schedule change: all the fleet would be going to the OnOff star.

"Sammy!" Kira's voice cut across the automatic report. "How did it go?" Kira Lisolet was the only other person in the fleet who knew the true purpose of this mission, the manhunt.

"I—"We lost him, Kira. But Sammy couldn't say the words. "See for yourself, Kira. The last two thousand seconds of my pov. I'm headed back to Lowcinder now...one last loose end to tie down."

There was a pause. Lisolet was fast with an indexed scan. After a moment he heard her curse to herself. "Okay...but do tie that last loose end, Sammy. There were times before when we were sure we'd lost him."

"Never like this, Kira."

"I said, you make absolutely sure." There was steel in the woman's voice. Her people owned a big hunk of the fleet. She owned one ship herself. In fact, she was the only operational owner on the mission. Most times, that was not a problem. Kira Pen Lisolet was a reasonable person on almost all issues. This was one of the exceptions.

"I'll make sure, Kira. You know that." Sammy was suddenly conscious of the Triland Security boss at his elbow—and he remembered what he had accidentally discovered a few moments earlier. "How are things top-side?"

Her response was light, a kind of apology. "Great. I got the shipyard waivers. The deals with the industrial moons and the asteroid mines look solid. We're continuing with detailed planning. I still think we can be equipped and specialist-crewed in three hundred Msec. You know how much the Trilanders want a cut of this mission." He heard the smile in her voice. Their link was encrypted, but she knew that his end was emphatically not secure. Triland was a customer and soon to be a mission partner, but they should know just where they stood.

"Very good. Add something to the list, if it's not already there: ‘Per our desire for the best specialist crew possible, werequire that the Forestry Department's university programs be open to all those who pass our tests, not just the heirs of First Settlers.' "

"Of course..." A second passed, just enough time for a double take. "Lord, how could we miss something like that?"We missed it because somefools are very hard to underestimate.

A thousand seconds later, Lowcinder was rising toward them. This was almost thirty degrees south latitude. The frozen desolation that spread around it looked like the pre-Arrival pictures of equatorial Triland, five hundred years ago, before the First Settlers began tweaking the greenhouse gases and building the exquisite structure that is a terraform ecology.

Lowcinder itself was near the center of an extravagant black stain, the product of centuries of "nucleonically clean" rocket fuels. This was Triland's largest groundside spaceport, yet the city's recent growth was as grim and slumlike as all the others on the planet.

Their flyer switched to fans and trundled across the city, slowly descending. The sun was very low, and the streets were mostly in twilight. But every kilometer the streets seemed narrower. Custom composites gave way to cubes that might have once been cargo containers. Sammy watched grimly. The First Settlers had worked for centuries to create a beautiful world; now it was exploding out from under them. It was a common problem in terraformed worlds. There were at least five reasonably painless methods of accommodating the terraform's final success. But if the First Settlers and their "Forestry Department" were not willing to adopt any of them...well, there might not be a civilization here to welcome his fleet's return. Sometime soon, he must have a heart-to-heart chat with members of the ruling class.

His thoughts were brought back to the present as the flyer dumped down between blocky tenements. Sammy and his Forestry goons walked through half-frozen slush. Piles of clothing—donations?—lay jumbled in boxes on the steps of the building they approached. The goons detoured around them. Then they were up the steps and indoors.

The cemeterium's manager called himself Brother Song, and he looked old unto death. "Bidwel Ducanh?" His gaze slid nervously away from Sammy. Brother Song did not recognize Sammy's face, but he knew the Forestry Department. "Bidwel Ducanh died ten years ago."

He was lying.He was lying.

Sammy took a deep breath and looked around the dingy room. Suddenly he felt as dangerous as some fleet scuttlebutt made him out to be.Godforgive me, but I will do anything to get the truth from this man. He looked back at Brother Song and attempted a friendly smile. It must not have come out quite right; the old man stepped back a pace. "A cemeterium is a place for people to die, is that right, Brother Song?"