Eternity's End (11 page)

It took a second for the words to register.
"Before—?"

"That's right.
Impris
's troubles started well before the time of her disappearance. Excuse me one moment." McGinnis returned to the control console near the bar. He worked for a moment, muttering under his breath. Rejoining his guests, he said, "The materials will arrive shortly."

When the library robot rolled into the room, bearing a large carton, McGinnis quickly cleared the table. "Some of this used to be on the public library systems, but it was purged long before the originals came into my possession. I was given these materials for safekeeping—"

"Why you?" asked Harriet.

"That," McGinnis said sharply, "is something I'm not at liberty to speak about. Let's just say they were safer with me." He lifted a set of folders from the carton. "I've reloaded all of it on my own system, but these are the originals. Or as close as one can get. These are certified copies of the original investigation by the Space Commission—they were the forerunners of the present Spacing Authority—into the disappearance of
Impris
. And along with it, the old RiggerGuild investigation. They don't entirely agree with each other—but neither one ascribes any blame to the Narseil." McGinnis opened the top folder and took out several sheaves of mylar paper. "In fact, they don't even mention the Narseil."

Legroeder picked up the RiggerGuild document and held it gingerly, as if it might burn his fingers. What could possibly be in these old documents that would explain what had been done to
him?
For no clear reason, he felt a tingling sense that he was teetering on the edge of answers. Rigger intuition?

"If you're wondering how the Narseil got implicated," McGinnis continued, "it happened in a special report to the planetary governor—written by a political committee with virtually no rigging or spacing expertise. That's in here, too."

"Would you mind," asked Harriet, "if we made copies of some of these documents?"

McGinnis hesitated, his brow furrowing again. "Copies," he murmured, straining. "There are reasons... why I have not..." His breath caught, and for several heartbeats, he seemed unable to continue speaking. Then he hissed suddenly, "Yes, I'll give you the whole damned collection on a cube before you leave. "But—" his gaze caught them sharply "—be aware, your possession of the information could make you a target."

"It would seem that we're already a target," Harriet said dryly. McGinnis inclined his head in acknowledgment.

Legroeder touched an unopened folder. "What's this?"

"That's the Fandrang report."

"Fandrang. That name's familiar."

"Gloris Fandrang. He was a shipping inspector, very highly regarded, before and during the War of a Thousand Suns. Later, he went into politics, but not here on Faber Eridani. He moved to the Aeregian worlds. Died in a flyer accident about ten years after he wrote this." McGinnis shrugged. "At least, they called it an accident."

Legroeder glanced at the paper. "And his report—?"

McGinnis opened the folder and laid out a number of holos, as well as a long text document. "This was never released to the public. It was the result of his investigation into the disappearance of
Impris
. But not just her disappearance. Fandrang had been looking into anomalous events reported by her riggers a dozen voyages before her disappearance."

Legroeder felt a chill of fear. Why should a century-old event frighten him? "I hadn't heard anything about that," he whispered.

"I know. And when you read this, you're going to wonder why you never had access to this information. Because there was something going on—probably is
still
something going on—that every rigger ought to know about."

"Meaning—?"

"Dangers out there that you know nothing of. And yet you face them every time you rig."

"If you're talking about the raiders—" Legroeder heard his own voice trembling "—I think I know more about them than you'll ever know."

"Maybe." McGinnis's gaze didn't waver. "But no, I'm not talking about the raiders."

"Then what—"

McGinnis gestured to the table. "Read the report."

Chapter 7

The Fandrang Report

Robert McGinnis watched with both dread and satisfaction as his two visitors settled in to study the materials. At last, it seemed, someone had come along to whom he could reveal the truth—and perhaps, entrust its safekeeping. There was no way to be certain, but his heart wanted to trust these two. And if they were being persecuted by the Spacing Authority and the Guild, then his heart probably knew best. Let them study the facts first, and delay as long as possible opening his own thoughts to them. Of course... there was no way they could possibly understand the danger they were stumbling into, and no way he could warn them without risking a total collapse of the charade he'd been carrying on all these years.

"You can read the text here if you want—" he touched a switch under the edge of the table, and two compads opened out of the tabletop for Legroeder and Harriet "—and then compare with the documents. Afterward, we can talk. Now, why don't I go fix us a light dinner? I always eat early." Legroeder and Mahoney nodded; they were already absorbed in the materials.

McGinnis retreated quietly, not so much to prepare dinner as to prepare himself for the next attack, which surely would come. All the signs were there: the anonymous message from the Elmira library just a few hours ago, advising him that two people had been looking for information on
Impris
; and a separate warning, direct through his augments, that if a Rigger Legroeder and his lawyer came snooping, he was to turn them away. It had been years since he'd allowed himself to think much of the
Impris
investigation, and he'd found the warnings jarring at first—and then terrifying, once he'd examined the implications. Was the
Impris
matter about to be thrown wide open? Maybe he had insulated himself too well here in his enclave. He had indeed recognized Legroeder's name from the news, but in his determined insularity had paid little heed to the actual reports.

Now he recognized his error. It seemed likely that the confrontation he'd long dreaded was—quite without warning—at hand. Absolute caution and attention to control were essential.

He walked to the kitchen, just down the hall from the living room. He focused on his breathing, keenly aware that his thoughts could slip at any moment. He'd managed to keep his deepest intentions isolated from his augment network, but several times in the last hour, he'd almost lost the struggle. If only he weren't so dependent on the network for his own memories and thoughts!

The other side no doubt had their suspicions, but they could not be sure. The forces testing him from within were growing stronger; the instructions from those who would be his masters came with greater and greater urgency. If he had been complacent these last years, so had they. But no longer.

He stood before the cookmate, trembling, fingertips pressed to the countertop, trying to focus on what he could cook. And then the power hit him from within, like an ocean wave—slamming and lifting him as though to hurl him head over heels. His breath went out in a terrible gasp...

Stop it, don't let it past... FIGHT IT!

The fingers of the augments were reaching downward, trying to discover his innermost thoughts...

// Let us see, let us see—!//

He fought back with a grim will, clamping his thoughts down until his mind was almost totally blank... leaving only the familiar, abstract struggle of mind against circuitry.
(Out! Get out, you bastards—out!)
He reeled, losing ground. The eyes and ears of the augment, and of those who controlled it, were like a tiger at his tent, clawing at the thin flap that protected him, roaring to be let in...

(You may not, they are my thoughts, you may not have them... )

Even as he hissed his protest, the barrier was shredding, the claws tearing the canvas; in a few more heartbeats he would lose the struggle. When that happened—and he could smell the tiger's breath now, almost upon him!—he would be torn open like a gutted fish. He would spill everything he knew, everything he was about to do. And then it would be over and they would have won... they would have defeated him.

OVER MY DEAD BODY!

Like a rubber band snapping, the fear gave way to utter determination. Almost as if he were a rigger, he put all of his focus into that inward battle. And suddenly the canvas of the tent transformed itself to crystalloy steel—and the tiger raged and howled, but could not get through. It clawed and hurled itself against the barrier, in vain; and finally in frustration it stalked away, leaving him gasping.

McGinnis struggled to focus his eyes on the kitchen counter. His heart was pounding with the terror... and with the jubilation of having won one more time.

Always one more time. But the augments were not without deeper resources; and he knew their masters would be infuriated by his victory, his discipline and determination, and yes, his superior mental strength. Once the battle was truly joined, he couldn't win forever. He was weary, so weary. Soon the tiger would gain entry, and then his part in this war would be over. He'd bought a little time. But how much—a day? An hour? He hoped it would be long enough to do what he had to do.

The supreme irony was, he actually shared many of the
stated
goals of the hated masters of his augments—he too longed for humanity to reach out again to the more distant stars. But this collaboration with pirates... never.
Never
.

And now... out in the other room were two people he prayed he could trust—two guests who had fallen like angels into his life, to carry on the fight. Perhaps once they had the information and understood it, he could pass the burden at last.
So weary
...

But he had to give them time to absorb the knowledge, to begin to comprehend it before he dared open his own thoughts to explanation. He had to buy his guests a little more time.

He let his breath out slowly and ran his finger down the menu list on the cookmate. His guests might be angels, but they still needed to eat.

Legroeder adjusted the screen of his compad, and started with the Fandrang report. It began with an investigation of certain piloting reports from
Impris
of difficulties in navigation. The outcome, according to the abstract, was uncertain.

Legroeder read the introduction:

...into circumstances surrounding the loss of the passenger starship
Impris
, owned and operated by Golden Star Lines of Faber Eridani. Once considered the "Princess of the Starlanes,"
Impris
disappeared en route from Faber Eridani to Vedris IV, in the thirteenth week of the year 217 Space. This was in time of war; however, no evidence has been found of hostile action.

Indeed, this report will examine certain troubling events noted prior to the final journey, events investigated by the author and his associate, Mr. Pen Lee. The investigators traveled aboard
Impris
three times prior to her disappearance, observing and interviewing her crew. By chance, the author left the ship immediately before her last fateful journey; however, Mr. Lee remained aboard and is presumed lost with her passengers and crew.

The nature of the earlier events is difficult to summarize, and about them no firm conclusions can be drawn. They certainly call for a fuller investigation; they may present clues to rigging hazards that all would do well to understand. A fuller study may clarify the nature of that hazard—representing as it does the latest of the uncertainties and perils that have accompanied peoples of all kinds for as long as men have "gone down to the sea in ships."

This much is known about the final voyage of
Impris:
she departed Faber Eridani on the last day of the twelfth week of 217 Space (local date: Sunday, Springtide the thirty-fourth), at 2635 local evening time, bound for Vedris IV. She carried a full complement of 74 crew, under Captain Noel Friedman, and 486 passengers, including Mr. Lee. Her itinerary called for a brief layover at Vedris IV, before continuing on into the Aeregian sector.

Impris
never reached Vedris IV. No communication was ever received from her. No evidence of her destruction has ever been found—though wreckage in interstellar space is notoriously difficult to locate. Though she traveled in time of war, she was far from areas of active conflict. Hostile action cannot be completely ruled out, but neither is there evidence to support...

Legroeder scratched his head. "There's no mention of piracy as a possible explanation for her disappearance."

Harriet glanced up from her viewer. "This was written just after the end of the war. If I'm not mistaken, there wasn't much piracy, even in Golen Space, for at least a decade after that."

"That's right," said McGinnis, who had come back into the room and was working at the bar. "The raider culture developed after the war—though you can trace much of its origin to the war and its fallout. I'm surprised you don't know that."

Legroeder felt a flash of irritation. "All right—so I flunked history. Give me a break, will you?" During the seven years of his captivity, he'd come to know a lot about the raider culture and its ways of operating, but very little about its past.

McGinnis inclined his head in apology, and Legroeder read on.

In the two years since her disappearance, several reports have been made to the RiggerGuild of purported sightings of
Impris
by riggers flying in the same region of the Flux, though not on identical routes. Upon investigation, these reports were dismissed by Guild authorities as imaginative constructs by riggers who, it must be said, are preselected for an ability to create vivid imagery. Nonetheless, these reports did bear certain similarities to the earlier reports by
Impris
's own riggers, which triggered the initial phase of this investigation.

The statements from the
Impris
riggers will be examined in detail in the main body of this report. In brief, however, they concerned two distinct, but possibly related, classes of phenomenon: 1) a series of unexplained sightings of ships in the Flux; and 2) a series of difficulties experienced by the crew in returning from the Flux into normal-space.

The sightings, three in number, came to be referred to by the
Impris
crew as "ghost ship" sightings. The ships, while bearing markings of known worlds, appeared only briefly and did not respond to efforts at communication, nor could all riggers in the net confirm the sightings. The riggers came to describe these events as sightings of the "Flying Dutchman"—a reference to ancient legends of a haunted seagoing ship, a vessel doomed to sail through eternity with neither port nor rest nor hope.*

Was this a whimsical designation, reflecting the imaginary nature of the sightings? Or was it a truthful and accurate observation of a ship or ships caught in some dreadful layer of the Flux, unable to reach port or even respond to communication?

 

*References to the Flying Dutchman are hardly new to star rigging. The legendary ship
Devonhol
has long been a part of rigger lore, despite the lack of historical evidence for the existence of such a ship.