Enigma (17 page)

For a moment, Sebright did not respond.

“Do you want seconds on that?” Eagan asked.

“No,” Sebright said. “A landing would be premature at this time.”

His tone invited Thackery to pursue it no further, but Neale’s presence was a more powerful motivator. “Sir, I think the team would appreciate it if you could identify your specific areas of concern.”

Sebright shook his head. “I have no specific areas of concern.”

“Then why are we waiting?” Collins demanded. “Because you don’t trust us?” Resting his chin on his folded hands, Sebright met her level gaze. “It’s not a question of trust.”

“What, then?” Tyszka asked. “Why the delay? We have a right to know.”

“I had hoped that some of you would see it yourselves. Or are you all completely insensible to the effect we’re going to have on the Gnivi?” Sebright asked. His eyes swept around the table, accusing each in turn. “The moment we go down there, we’ve changed them forever. Whatever uniqueness of thought, whatever social harmony they’ve evolved over the centuries will begin disappearing the moment they’re confronted by our existence. Is what we’re after so important that we can’t take the time to at least record what they were like?”

“Salvage ethnology,” Collins said, surprised.

“Exactly. Preserving what we know we’re about to destroy. The data we’re collecting now is all there’ll ever be. We have an obligation to do what we can to help them remember what they were. As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth whatever additional time it takes.”

“Except that doing so is not part of our charge,” Neale said quietly. “There’s no provision in the Protocols for this kind of undertaking.”

Sebright scowled at her. “So everything not required is forbidden?”

“It’ll take six months or more to do a proper salvage study,” Collins complained.

“We lose years by the fistful every time we craze. It can’t matter much to Unity if our Gnivi data comes in a few months later.”

“If Unity were the only consideration, I would have to agree,” Neale said. “But is such a project proper use of this ship and this crew’s time? We’re equipped and staffed to initiate Contact. Anything beyond that will have to wait for the follow-up mission.”

Sebright crossed his long arms over his chest. “That’ll be too late. We’ll already have contaminated their culture, just like we did the Muschynka and the Pai-Tem.”

Belatedly, Thackery understood Sebright’s objection.
So this is why you didn’t like talking about Muschynka. But why shoulder the guilt when the decision was made by someone else? Neale’s right. The Planning Office isn’t willing to commit a survey ship to each colony just to find a way to mitigate the shock of Contact—

“Cultural contamination is the whole reason this ship exists,” Neale was saying unsympathetically. “I think Thackery’s original question is still on the table. Is the team ready, or not?”

Thackery marveled at how neatly she had manuevered Se-bright into a position where he could not say no. With the salvage issue out in the open, any refusal to proceed with the landing would be suspect. He could not fight, because he had no allies: Neale, the Protocols, and the threat of dissonance on the team all stood against him.

But Sebright was a long time in answering, as though he were not convinced that the issue was lost. He sent Thackery a sideways glance which was an indictment, and locked gazes with Neale in a silent, furious battle of equipollent wills.

“The team will consist of myself, Thack, Jael, and Mike,” he said finally. “Derrel will fly the gig and drop us off on the East Gate road during local night. We’ll enter Gnivi the next morning. That gives us about thirteen hours before we want to be on the surface. I suggest you spend the first eight hours of it sleeping.”

Afterward, they came to congratulate Thackery, to clap him on the shoulder and praise him for saying what they had been eager but afraid to. All except Sebright, who quietly left, and Neale, who caught Thackery’s eye and nodded approvingly before following. To Thackery, the celebration seemed hollow. I’ll do the rest, she had said. And so she had, but never in a way that committed her, never in a way that risked anything. She had gotten him to take the risk for her.

You’d better remember
, he thought.
You’d better take care of me. Because if you don’t, then I’ve been used
.

The road was crushed rock cemented by rain and centuries of booted feet and iron-rimmed cart wheels. They walked toward the city until they could see its walls outlined against the night, then squatted down to wait for the dawn.

Collins and Tyszka quietly practiced their Gnivan together, while Thackery fussed with his nostril filters in a vain attempt to get them to draw freely. Sebright sat apart from the rest, craning his head, listening to the night sounds of Gnivi and staring into the darkness as though there were more than a deserted grassland to be seen.

When morning came, they waited until the first traffic emerged from the East Gate, then rose, dusted themselves off and started in. As they drew near they saw that the city was adorned with all the detail and glitter of an illuminated manuscript. Instead of the bare off-yellow stucco the orbital views had led them to expect, the outer wall was a continuous work of art which was coherent without being patterned.

“Not representational,” Collins said. “Pure decoration.”

“They must teach graffiti in school,” Tyszka said drily.

“It’s beautiful,” Thackery said.

They passed two groups of outbound rurals, each with a half-full cart, without incident.

“Early risers,” Tyszka said, taking note of the empty road between them and the city.

“Did you see those animals?” Collins said excitedly. “That’s a canine breed of some sort, just like on the other colonies.”

“From the size of them, I hope they breed them to be toothless,” Tyszka wisecracked.

“Everybody have their transceivers in and on?” Sebright asked. When they gave assent, he nodded and said, “Page. Contact-1 to
Descartes
. Jessie, do you have a good signal on everybody?” The message was relayed by his own transceiver, nestled in his right ear canal like a hearing aid.

“We’ve got you all,” came back Baldwin’s voice, as clear in Thackery’s ear as the voices of those with him.

“Thanks, Jess. Contact-1 EOT.”

As they neared the gate Sebright reminded them, “Remember, hands visible at all times, and answer their stares with smiles.” He said it in Gnivan, which was in itself another reminder.

They had made no effort to disguise themselves as either rurals or Gnivians, and so expected to draw some attention. Thackery, Tyszka, and Collins wore the royal blue allovers, Sebright the same in red. Walking four abreast, they entered the city.

Just inside the gate, the plaza which served as the intersection of the nine great boulevards was full of foot traffic. Yet they crossed it without difficulty, the stream of traffic parting effortlessly to permit their passage.

“They know we’re here,” Thackery said. “
Nipag todya
,” he added, ducking his head in greeting to a woman frozen staring by the sight of them.

“Good,” Sebright answered. “We’re not here to surprise them. I
want
the civil authorities to know we’re coming well before we get there.”

Thackery scanned the perimeter of the plaza. Each boulevard seemed to have its own color scheme, its own characteristic whorls and filigree. “Broadway straight ahead,” he said.

Swapping ends, Collins came up on Thackery’s right. “There’s too damn many of them talking,” she whispered. “I can’t understand a word.”

“I’m having a little trouble myself,” Thackery admitted.

“I think there’s your first writing, Thack,” Tyszka said, pointing at two vertical plaques cut into the corners of the entrance to Broadway and filled with bas-relief characters.

“Street signs.”

“ ‘This way to our leaders.’ ” Tyszka laughed. “God, I feel great.”

Broadway was a canyon through the heart of the city, its walls rising a story higher than those of any of the other thoroughfares. The plaza traffic and its noise fell behind them, and the sound of their own footsteps echoed loudly off the hard walls. They were as alone as they had been walking into the city, with only a few of the natives visible in the distance.

Suddenly fighting panic, Thackery pivoted his head quickly to either side and stared at the decorated walls. There were dozens of fist—and head-sized openings incorporated into the design, from waist-height to high overhead. He looked again and saw not decorations but disguised machicolations, positioned to provide a crossfire from which there would be no hiding.

“Mark!” he cried, stopping and grabbing the veterans’ arm. The others carried on a step or two further, then stopped and half-turned to look back.

Collins’ eyes widened dramatically, and she pointed past them back toward the plaza. “What are they doing?”

Thackery twisted to look over his shoulder and saw a solid wall of Gnivians, standing across the entrance to Broadway. They were watching, waiting, as though they knew something—

Pfwtt. Pfwtt-pfwtt. Pfwtt
.

The sound was of birds’ wings beating. But there were no birds on Gnivi. Yet things flew all the same, swooping down from the battlements of Broadway, things with backbones of hardwood and beaks of barbed iron. Thackery turned back and took one step toward Collins. As he did she fell toward him to her knees, the lost look on her face as devastating as the angry red flower blossoming on her chest. On the periphery of both sight and consciousness he knew that Michael, too, was down and screaming.

Pfwtt. Pfwtt
.

Thackery dove forward to the pavement, already running with Collins’ blood. He lay there beside her as she plucked helplessly at the shaft of a second deathbird projecting from between the swell of her breasts. He heard the wet rasp of her breathing and saw her frantic writhing weaken from instant to instant. He did not know why they did not fire again and let him share her pain.

Then someone was shouting at him in Gnivan, and a pair of strong hands was hauling him to his feet. He stood frozen for a moment, staring at the wall from which the attack had come. Then the insistent hands jerked him along, and he suddenly understood the shouted words, that he would die lying there beside her if he did not run.

And, understanding that if nothing else, he ran before the birds could fly again.

… There is no greater pain than the pain of avoidable failure…