Enigma (27 page)

“The answers will be welcome. The rest won’t be necessary. Those portions of your report that are relevant will be incorporated into the overall contact report.”

“I see.” And Thackery did see, very clearly.
She not only wants you, she thinks she has you
.

“Let’s begin with yesterday morning, in the conference room. You deviated from the Contact Interrogative Plan. Why?”

“The CIP hasn’t been producing any real results for weeks—”

“Oh? Had the Sennifi been uncooperative?”

“On the face of it, they were being very cooperative. That was the key to their strategy—”

“Z’lin Ton Drull disclosed their strategy to you?”

“Not in so many words. But it’s obvious in retrospect—”

“Let the board decide what’s obvious and what isn’t. You’re here to answer questions, not to make judgments.”

It’ll take more than interruptions to get me to blow up in front of the others
, Thackery thought determinedly. “Dr. Koi and I had identified anomalies which I believed were potentially more profitable than continuing lockstep with the CIP—”

“Measurement systems and the evacuation of Rijala.”

“The presumed evacuation of Rijala,” Thackery corrected.

“And on whose authority did you take up those issues during yesterday’s session?”

“On my own as Contact Specialist. After the Commander removed herself from the conduct of the negotiations, I believed I was within my authority. The Commander might recall that she was the first to raise the possibility of modifying the CIP.” Thackery looked steadily at Neale, but his words were meant for the rest of the board.

“But you made no effort to confirm these ‘beliefs.’ ”

“No.”

“Nor did you rethink the wisdom of your decision when it became obvious that your manner of questioning and the questions themselves were disturbing the Sennifi.”

“That reaction was what I was most interested in.”

“Ah—then you intended all along to force the Sennifi to break oft negotiations.” She did not give Thackery a chance to defend himself, moving briskly to another question. “Now, according to your report Z’lin said the Sennifi system of measurement was based on”—she paused theatrically and glanced down at her notes, and a hint of sarcasm crept into her voice—“the ultimate age and diameter of the Universe?”

“Yes.”

“And you found that significant?”

“Yes. It’s consistent with the linguistic forms. And it tends—to support the rest of Z’lin’s account.”

“Did you trouble yourself to discuss this with Guerrieri?”

“Why should I have?” She smiled faintly. “He would have reminded you that his fellow astrophysisicts long ago determined that the Universe is open, without any ‘ultimate age’ or ‘ultimate diameter’. Perhaps you’re aware that Earth civilizations once used a calendar based on the years since the birth of Christ and a measuring system based on the length of an Egyptian carpenter’s forearm. Do you think those facts prove the existence of a Garden of Eden, or that the Pharoahs were gods? Your credulity would be heartwarming if you were a child, but you’re not.”

Neale was just warming up. “That goes for the rest of Z’lin’s little allegory, as well. I don’t have any trouble accepting that Z’lin told you what you report. I have trouble with how readily you apparently accept it. The one positive outcome of your little expedition was that it showed us what arational mystics the Sennifi are. You seem to have uncovered one falsehood one moment and swallowed an even bigger one the next.”

“The Sennifi were lying to protect us from an experience that debilitated their entire society.”

“That being Contact with these D’shanna.”

“Yes.”

“You have no evidence that they’re any more real than the angels and devils of our own mythology. What’s more, you can have no evidence.”

“The evidence is the Sennifi themselves. And what the D’shanna did to Sennifi, they may have done to Earth. If you’re looking to explain why the FC civilization disappeared, that possibility has to be given some consideration.”

Neale sat back in her chair and nodded her head sagely. “Now 1 think we begin to see why you’re so eager to have us believe Z’lin’s story. That would make you the author of the new paradigm, wouldn’t it? The Thackery Theorem topples the Mannheim Hypothesis from the throne—”

It was Thackery’s turn to interrupt. “Not everyone thinks the way you do. I’ve got no personal attachment to this idea.”

“No? Should I remind you that you were talking about second-species intervention a year ago, when we were outbound on
Descartes?
Tell me this, Merry. If we did believe you, what would you have us do?”

“Look for the D’shanna.”

“I see,” Neale said slowly. “You’d have us commit the precious resources of the Service to searching for beings which you cannot even demonstrate exist, much less tell us anything useful about. And in your defense all you can point to is the unimpeachable testimony of the Sennifi.”

Thackery said nothing. There was no point.

“As it happens, there are simpler and more sensible explanations available,” Neale said. “It seems that 2 Aquilae is a slightly variable star, now in the active part of a roughly thousand-year cycle. I’m assured that the hard radiation flux at the surface is sufficient to contribute synergistically to a decrease in fertility. Of course, the Sennifi’s naturalistic medicine offers them no means of understanding that, much less coping with it. So it’s no surprise that they evolved a face-saving explanation for their loss of virility.”

“Is that the explanation you intend to forward to the FC Committee and the Flight Office?” Thackery asked, scowling.

“It is.”

“Permission to file a minority report on the Contact.”

“Denied.”

And with that, it was over. Rogen and Cormican had not said a word—it was as if they were merely props for Neale’s little stage show. All that remained was to wait until the reviews appeared. And Thackery was more certain than he wanted to be about just how his performance had been received.

Outside, Koi was waiting for him. “How bad was the flaying?” she asked as they started downship together.

Thackery pursed his lips. “I’d say she took off about the first five layers of skin.”

“Ouch,” Koi said, and fell silent until they reached the privacy of Thackery’s cabin. “So she didn’t believe you.”

“She believed me. She didn’t believe Z’lin.”

Koi sighed expressively. “I thought as much.”

“What’s all this about radiation, anyway? You never mentioned it.”

“She didn’t get it from me,” Koi said defensively. “She called in the science team one by one last night and asked them if they had found anything that could account for a population decline on Sennifi.”

“So does it?”

“If that’s all you look at, yes. Look, it’s a little hot down’ there.
Tycho
picked up on it during their landing, too. Now, you can graph those two readings as two points on an upward curve, or as two slightly different peaks of a shorter cycle. If it were the first, we’d see a whole pattern of effects, one of which could be a decline in fertility. But that’s not what we see.”

“Didn’t you explain that to Neale?”

“She has a flexible standard for evidence. When she doesn’t want to be convinced, the standard is very high. When she’s eager to believe, the standard is low. I’m afraid nothing I could tell her would help your case.”

Thackery shook his head. “I guess I knew that without asking,” he said glumly. “1 was hoping that she was doing this as a way of appropriating the credit for herself.”

“I think you’ve presented her with something she’s not conceptually equipped to deal with.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have to be generally sympathetic. I started you off on this. But she’s right. It’s just a story. Extraordinary claims—”

“—require extraordinary evidence. Yes, I know all that.” He paused and looked at the floor. “I also know that Z’lin’s story is at least essentially true.”

“Why?”

He hesitated before answering. “Because of something I didn’t put in the report. I think I had a brush with the D’shanna myself, ten years ago.”

“Tell me.”

“I’ve only ever told one other person, and afterward I wished I hadn’t.”

She reached out and touched his hand. “I won’t give you reason to feel that way.”

“I guess I know that, too, or I wouldn’t have brought it up.” Somehow the memory seemed clearer, sharper, as he retold it this time—if he looked away from her and off into the dark corners of the cabin, he could almost place himself back in the Panorama, and recapture the rush of feeling as the shield rolled back to reveal the face of Jupiter.

“I know my experience doesn’t exactly parallel what Z’lin said. I didn’t see any D’shanna. No one spoke to me. But I had an overwhelming sense of Contact with alienness. I saw everything differently, more intensely, more emotionally. What happened to me was all out of proportion with anything that came before or after.”

“And that’s why you joined the Service?”

“Yes. It’s shaped every important choice I’ve made for ten years. Jupiter changed me, Amy—it pushed me sideways, and I’ve been out of balance ever since, without ever understanding how or why. Even Z’lin could see it, and knew I would understand. I don’t think he would have told me what he did, except for that.”

“You sound as though you’re carrying a grudge.”

“Don’t I have reason to, as much as the Sennifi do?” he demanded, pulling his hand away and retreating across the compartment from her. “My life was in perfect order, and they made it a disaster,” he continued, his back to her. “I’ve been miserable since I first set foot on a survey ship. I’d have gotten out at A-Cyg if there were any point to it. But there’s nothing to go back to. The chance I had is already long gone.” He turned back to her, and his features were contorted by his anger. “Who has a better reason to find them?”

“I’m sorry—”

Thackery blew a long breath through pursed lips. “You’ve got no reason to be.”

“I was going to say I was sorry I couldn’t help.”

“You did help. I would never have gone to the surface if you hadn’t noticed what you did.”

“I’m not sure I did you a favor. D’shanna is a Sennifi word—”

“From the
haarit
language.”

“Have you had time to analyze it?”

“No,” he said.

“I have,” she said. “It means, first order,
life stealers—
second order,
implacable enemy
—third order,
totality of evil
. These are the things you want to go hunting?”

His face reflected his childlike helplessness to control his own compulsions. “I have to, Amy. I have to.”

“But Thack—if you’re right, then the Sennifi may know the answers to all the puzzles we’ve been trying to decipher. They may have the solution to the colony problem.”

Thackery nodded vacantly. “The very highest class of scholars knows. Z’lin Ton Drull knows, I’m sure of it.”

“Then
this
is where we should be. We need to stay here and persuade them to help us. Hell, we should move the whole’ Data Analysis Office out here.”

A tolerant smile played across Thackery’s lips. “We could fill their skies with ships, and I don’t think they would ever tell us,” Thackery said, shaking his head. “I don’t think we have any leverage with them whatsoever. I don’t think we could bribe them, or threaten them, or punish them enough to get them to share what they know. They are an extremely moral people, and they would view it as an extremely immoral act. They simply would not do it.”

“What if we went in and seized their records? Took over their scholar complex and their libraries? We could dig it out of there on our own.”

“And thereby demonstrate what
our
moral stature is? No, Amy, you’ve missed something. The whole function of the scholar’s languages in their society is to insulate the knowledge from all but a few. The concept of the D’shanna, of a star-spanning civilization, of the beginning and end of the Universe, can’t even be expressed in their common language. Without their willing help, a hundred interpolators working a thousand years wouldn’t have a prayer of sorting through—”

“Damn it, Merritt, if they know what happened to the FC civilization, we have to try!”

Thackery shook his head slowly and emphatically. “It’s better that Neale and the others don’t believe Z’lin’s story, or they’d probably do exactly what you say. No, Amy. If the Sennifi know, then the D’shanna also know. I intend to hear it from them.”

For three days, Thackery remained in purgatory, hearing nothing from Neale about the specifics of his ultimate fate. He spent most of that time with a slate, searching the contact records from the other colonies in the faint and ultimately fruitless hope of finding some evidence to corroborate his story.

The remaining time he whiled away as pleasantly as possible with that portion of the
Munin
’s crew who were willing to be seen with him. The division was, with one exception, along operations-scientific lines. The science team insisted on regarding him as some sort of hero; the command crew, as some sort of pariah. The exception to the rule was Kellerman, the planetary ecologist, who saw the elevated status which came with being Neale’s new favorite as a license to sneer down at the less fortunate.

Throughout Thackery’s term in purgatory, there was a steady flow of Kleine traffic back and forth with A-Cyg. Unfortunately, Thackery was neither a party to it nor privy to its contents. Doubtless, most of the dispatches concerned the Sennifi; a large fraction of the rest, the imminent arrival of
Descartes
. But just as certainly, some of it had to do with Thackery himself.

Sentence had still not been pronounced when
Descartes
dropped out of the craze a few light-hours away. The rendezvous and the expected crew transfer to follow quickly became the primary topic of conversation, even among those not expecting to be affected.

It was Guerrieri who came looking for Thackery with the news. He found him curled up in a chair in the edrec room, all alone watching a recording of a pre-Restoration absurdist drama about a family facing a New Ice Age.