Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (29 page)

Lyvia nodded.

Hillis stood, smiling. “I won't see you again before you lift off to return to the
WuDing.
I do wish you the best. Whether you believe us or not, you, as an individual, are welcome here.”

“Even if the Federation takes over?”

“One way or another, that is unlikely.”

“One way or another?”

“We didn't leave the Federation to have it chase us down and incorporate us again. The Federation didn't look for us for centuries without a very definite agenda.”

“You're suggesting…” Roget didn't want to voice the actual words.

“No. I've told you. We're opposed to war, but we will do what's necessary. We'd prefer an agreement in which both sides respect the other's systems and agree not to meddle.”

“Just how do you expect to make that work?”

“We'll see how the Federation acts first. Remember, we've done nothing aggressive.” She paused. “I don't know that it would help, but you might suggest they inquire into the events of 6556
F. E.
, and the disappearance of Federation Exploratory Force Three. Or possibly that your High Command review any stellar maps that might exist of this area in the year 4245
F. E.
It might reveal something, Major, if they're wise enough to understand what they see.”

Roget stiffened slightly. He'd never mentioned his rank, or rank-equivalent.

“Now … I think you really should see the museum.” Selyni Hillis inclined her head, then slipped from the conference room.

“Keir…” Lyvia's voice was calm but surprisingly gentle.

Roget accompanied her out of the conference room, down the ramps, and through the lobby.

Outside, the wind had picked up, and with the ever-present humidity, the day was definitely chill and raw.

“Is the museum the only thing on the day's schedule?” Roget finally asked as they walked southward toward the main square.

“That's it,” replied Lyvia. “After that, you can wander as you like. I'll meet you tomorrow at quarter to eight for breakfast. Bring your pack and anything you'd like to take with you back to the
WuDing.
”

“I haven't exactly gathered souvenirs,” Roget said. “By the way, exactly where is this museum?”

“Some six blocks straight south from the main square.”

“Natural history? I didn't think Dubiety had that much
natural
history.”

“Isn't whether you call history natural or unnatural merely a matter of viewpoint?” replied Lyvia. “Whatever your perspective, I think you'll find the museum of some interest.”

Roget thought about asking why, then dismissed the idea, knowing what her answer would be. “Is there anything else you think I should see? After the museum?”

“If you haven't done so, you ought to sit in public places and just watch the people.”

Roget almost laughed. He'd done a great deal of that already, even though he knew that the colonel couldn't have cared less about what Roget observed about the conduct of everyday life on Dubiety. Instead, he just smiled politely and kept walking.

Before long they were past the central square and then, after passing a line of clothing shops, Roget could see what could only be the museum. It was anything but imposing—merely a squarish two-story stone-walled structure that looked somewhat older than the buildings flanking it. The door toward which Lyvia and Roget walked was trapezoidal. Roget had the feeling that the trapezoidal doorways were more likely to be used on older buildings, but he decided against stating that observation. The milky-green door split, and both sides slid open as the two neared. Immediately inside the doors, which closed behind them, was a modest foyer, four meters by five, with a hallway to the right and another to the left.

“To the right,” said Lyvia. “That's where we'll begin. There are a series of short time-lapse visuals with explanations.”

Roget followed her to the first exhibit—a projection into a niche, which immediately displayed an image once they stopped. The image was of a planet with a thick swirling atmosphere. Roget watched and listened …

“… Dubiety … as initially discovered … Venerian in general composition, but with a solidifying core more terrestrial, if smaller … planoforming began almost four thousand years ago with upper atmospheric bioseeding…”

Purplish dots appeared on the swirling atmosphere.

“… less than a hundred years later, the process of bombarding Dubiety with ice comets commenced…”

Roget watched the initial time-lapse illustration, then followed Lyvia to the second niche.

“… concurrent with midlevel atmospheric biotransformations, core reenergization was commenced using a variant on the trans-temporal entropic reversal process. Several transfer ships and crews were lost initially because of unforeseen temporal schisms…”

Temporal schisms and entropic reversal? Was the museum just a setup for him?

Three exhibits later, when he walked around the next corner, he saw a line of young people walking out through a set of double doors within the building. He looked to Lyvia.

“That's the theater. The museum runs a consolidated program and seminar for students.”

“Do they have to know the physics for trans-temporal entropic reversal?”

“No. Just the basic application principles. The physics is beyond most scientists.”

“Why are you giving it to the Federation?”

“We're not giving the applications—just the theory. They'll have to develop the applications themselves. That's if they have the insight and the will. Let's move to the next presentation…”

Roget was more than a little discouraged when he left the museum almost two hours later. The various presentations and explanations had made it very clear that the Dubietans—or a far larger Thomist culture—most likely had developed something suspiciously close to time travel, or time and distance travel. From what he could tell, it was practical only for the transfer of large masses and entailed massive quantities of energy, which they generated from a process he understood not at all, but which required conditions of most considerable pressure and heat—such as a planetary core.

Exactly how was he going to explain that? Or prove it? Or even provide some examples by which the Federation could investigate the possibility? Was any of it true? Or had he been guided through a total deception?

The other thing that nagged at him was that perhaps the Dubietans had even more applications than he'd been shown.

What he'd observed was disturbing enough. He'd measured travel times and distances. He'd experienced full sensory perceptions. So … those facts tended to suggest that either the Dubietans had the ability to replicate totally all sensory and intellectual inputs or the technology that they claimed or exhibited was in fact real. Neither possibility cheered Roget in the slightest.

In the damp and misty air outside the museum, Lyvia looked to Roget. “You look rather down, Keir.”

“That's a fair assessment. In my position, you would be as well. Exactly how can I prove what I've seen and can't explain?”

“Believe me. We'll be able to help greatly with proof. Whether the Federation will accept the implications is another question.” Lyvia smiled brightly. “I'll see you in the morning.” With that, she turned and walked away.

Roget walked slowly back to the central square. While the wind had subsided to a slight breeze, the misty air was still raw and chill. Even so, he settled himself on one of the benches next to the walkway, just trying—again—to make sense out of the day.

From somewhere near in the square came the sound of a stringed instrument. He turned his head. Standing on the raised stone dais around the central monument was a woman with silver gray hair, playing an overlarge violin—no, a viola.

Roget began to listen more closely.

Finally, after almost an hour, the violist stopped and began to place her instrument in its case. Roget rose, somewhat stiffly, and walked toward the violist. She closed the case and lifted it, then paused as she saw him approach.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said. “That's all I can do.”

She inclined her head. “You are most welcome.”

“You play elsewhere?”

“I'm second chair in the Skeptos Orchestra.”

“And you like to play here?”

“Some of the members of the orchestra apply to play in the square.” A mischievous smile followed her words. “Some think it's beneath them. I like to play in both venues.”

“Why here?”

“You get to reach out to people as individuals. Half the people who attend concerts do it for other reasons. Here, anyone who stops to listen really wants to hear what you play.”

“I can see that.”

She frowned. “You're not from around here. Patagonn? Or the unsettled part of Thula?”

“Farther than that.” Roget smiled. “Why did you decide to become a musician?”

“Why does anyone decide anything? Because it was what I wanted to do. I kept at it because I had the talent. I might have kept at it, even without the talent, but then, I wouldn't be playing here, would I?” She smiled politely. “If you would excuse me…”

Roget stepped back. “Of course. But … thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She walked along the walk to the northeast.

Roget watched her for a moment, then turned slowly in the direction of the guesthouse.

 

26

6 DONGYU 6744
F. E.

Roget arrived at the maglev station in Cheyenne at seven fifteen Thursday night. Even using a priority transportation code, he hadn't been able to get a seat on the maglev until the Thursday night train leaving at eight ten. While Meira had assured him that there wouldn't be any problem in his stopping by their apartment once he arrived in Fort Greeley, Roget still worried about arriving so late.

His codes were good for a window seat against a rear bulkhead at the back of the coach, but it was under a vent, and the faint mixed odor of ozone and hot oil was annoying. So was the additional odor of synthcheese and overcooked chips, but what regional public transport in Noram didn't smell of stinky cheese and chips? The stiff old polycloth of the seat crackled every time Roget shifted his weight, and the older Sudam woman who had the aisle seat frowned at every crackle, as if somehow Roget were deliberately trying to keep her awake.

Two seats farther forward sat two young Sudams in the rear-facing seats. Roget could tell they were looking him over, and he intensified his hearing.

“… leave him alone…”

“… big, but he doesn't look so tough…”

“… Marshan caught the readouts … priority codes for that seat … traveling alone … means combat specialist or security agent…”

“… so what?”

“… guys like that … break you in pieces…”

The two Sudams turned their eyes toward a pair of hard-faced women, then looked away.

The hour on the maglev seemed far longer by the time Roget swung his small bag out of the overhead when the train stopped at Central Station in Fort Greeley. Given what he'd heard from the two seated across from him, he waited until most passengers were off the train before stepping out onto the platform and then making his way toward the tunnel leading to the electrotram station.

The vaulted waiting hall that served all the platforms was dimly lit, but Roget suspected it would have been dim in midday and even on that handful of days when the wind blew enough so that the sun shone unhampered by the miasma created by too many people at too high an altitude for too many centuries, even with relatively clean power sources.

“Personal soltaic cells, cheaper here than anywhere!” called out a thin, scraggly-bearded youth.

“Commcards … less than ten yuan a minute…”

“The best in personal servicing…”

Roget sidestepped a would-be lifter, then unbalanced him, leaving him to totter into a muscular man in the desert camouflage of a merc's uniform, who slammed the unfortunate to the composite tile. There was always a market for mercs in the chaos of Afrique where Federation control was limited to destroying large concentrations of anything, but primarily of soldiers or weapons.

Roget kept moving, his senses and internals alert to anything moving toward him, but he reached the eastbound tram platform without incident. According to the directions Meira had sent him, all he had to do was take the local tram east for three stops and then walk south along 100 Fourth for three blocks to the Willis-D'Almeida.

As large as Fort Greeley was—a good three million–plus people, close to 90 percent of those in the Federation District that encompassed all of old Colorado and half of old Wyoming—the trams ran frequently. Roget waited less than five minutes but kept an agent's scan going the whole time.

Even at close to nine thirty at night, once he was on the tram, he had to stand, but he did manage to slip into a corner where it would be difficult for lifters. Ten minutes later, he stepped out onto another platform, this one older and synthbrick-walled, a style that had graced midlevel condo areas a century before. Two older women, not gray-haired but excessively careful in their steps, left the tram by the same door as Roget, as did a couple with two children, a boy and a girl who looked to be twins, one of the few exceptions to taxation surcharges on families with more than one child.

Once he walked down the steps and onto the well-lighted walkway, flanking 100 Fourth on the west side, Roget was careful to stay in the center. A couple walked swiftly past him, each carrying a half-staff, one of the more popular self-defense weapons allowed by the Federation. Each capped end held an immobilizing jolt, and the staff was sturdy enough to inflict major structural damage to an immobilized or stunned assailant. Neither the man nor the woman gave Roget more than a passing glance.