The Forever Hero (13 page)
Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt
Gerswin recognized Captain Carfoos. The last time he had seen the rail-thin officer with the limp brown hair had been outside the Gates of Hades, when both the commandant and Carfoos had assumed that Gerswin was a sentry.
At the recollection, Gerswin repressed a snort.
“Major Hylton is waiting. Go on in, Lieutenant.”
Gerswin wondered at the tone of the captain's voice, if it mirrored indifference or resignation. Gerswin seldom saw Carfoos, and could not tell what the flat inflections meant.
“Yes, ser.”
The major was alone.
“Sit down, Lieutenant.”
Gerswin took the armchair across the console from the major.
“We have a problem, Lieutenant. Not a major one, but one of which the commandant and I felt you should be apprised, since you were in at the beginning.”
“Something to do with the black gates into the mountain?”
The major nodded. “The Gates to Hades, as they are popularly
called around the base.” He cleared his throat. “We had hoped to find some material, some artifacts, which might give us an insight into pre-Federation high technology, particularly into the composition of that nuclear bonding metal.
“We were successful, in a way. We did get an insight.”
Major Hylton motioned to the junior officer.
“Come over here, Lieutenant, where you can see the screen.”
The major moved his swivel to one side. Gerswin stood and moved around the console to the major's left.
“Watch. We found one operating console, but it was lockedâexcept to provide the following message. After we copied the messageâyou'll see and hear it in a minuteâwe tried to analyze both the console and the message, but when we opened the console, which took a stepped-up cutting laser, it triggered some sort of destruct circuitry that none of our scans had even revealed. The whole thing melted down.”
The major frowned and looked back at his screen. “So did everything else. The lighting, the screen wall projection are gone. So far, at least, the orbital controllers have had no luck in locating the feeder satellites.”
Gerswin kept from shaking his head and waited.
Major Hylton touched a stud on the console.
A text was displayed on the screen, slowly scrolling upward, with the top line fading as it moved off the top as another replaced it at the bottom of the screen. Gerswin could pick out some of the words, but many were totally unfamiliar, and the thrust of the message eluded him.
This time, he did shake his head.
“I thought that with your background you might have a better understanding than any of us did the first time through.”
“No, ser. Got some words, but that's it, and most of them are Imperial. Remember, there is really no written language left on Old Earth, especially for a devilkid.”
“Devilkid?”
“Types like me. Running around outside the shambletowns.”
“I see.”
The major cleared his throat again. “In addition, there was an audio tape.” He touched another stud.
Ding!
The single clear tone echoed through the office before the words began to roll from the console speakers.
This time Gerswin caught some of the phrases, recognizing that
the intonation was closer to shambletown than Imperial. The ancient voice tolled like bells from the oldest cathedrals of New Colora, and Gerswin shivered at some of the phrases.
“What do you think, Lieutenant?”
“Warning, with the sound of a dirge.”
“Did you understand what was said?”
“Not all of it, but enough to know that unless we understand a lot more than they did, we'd better not play with their tools.”
Hylton frowned. “You understood more than I did, more than I still do when I hear it.” He pointed vaguely toward the screen. “Here's the translation into modern Imperial, at least according to the scholar from New Avalon. Both text and verbal messages match, of course.”
The written version was not as long as it had sounded. Gerswin watched the words march up the screen, each one pounding against him like a laser against his personal screens.
To our future, should there be one:
This was once a military installation before we put aside weapons based on our planet. Would that we had put aside the other dangers.
The outside gates were designed to bar anyone with less than advanced technology; the interior precautions are designed to stop all but the most enlightened.
The satellite map was left to show the product of a somewhat advanced technology and to provide a record should a great time have passed.
You may be beyond us, and our secrets may be both insignificant or incomprehensibly simplistic. In those cases, this message is irrelevant.
If you are puzzled by the black metal bonding and cannot conceive of any way to breach it, do not try. Beyond the metal lies only those radioactive wastes from the most hellish weapons and systems ever conceived by the mind of man. The wastes are buried in solid granite far beneath the installation, and surrounding the granite, itself enhanced in density, is a shield of impermite, the black metal.
Why do we leave such a heritage? It is possible that a future society may need those resources. While we cannot conceive of such a need, we have secured them. Even we could not reclaim them, had we the time. Anyone who has the abil
ity to recover them should be aware of their legacy. A complete listing of the materials follows this message.
Today, our vaunted technology is beginning to take its revenge upon our planet.
The ocean levels are rising and the mean global temperature is increasing. The winds are steadily wreaking more destruction, and the earth can no longer sustain the billions who must eat.
We have reached the stars, but the stars cannot reach us. We have tried to rebuild our sister planets to sustain life, but cannot complete that effort, for those resources have been diverted to produce food now that our arable land is vanishing.
We had attained an uneasy global peace, based on sufficient food for all. But the food is no longer sufficient, and the riots have begun.
Nothing is certain, nor whether this message will survive. No monument upon the tortured face of the Earth is assured of survival, for already the winds throw boulders across the high plains. Nor will the warrens beneath the surface long survive, not when so many organic toxics permeate the very soils and rocks of the continents.
This is not the original message of this monument. The installation was converted once from its military purpose to a memorial for that peace which we felt would be permanent, and as a monument to the success of our technology. We have converted it once more.
Call it a mausoleum, and learn from what you see, and from what you do not.
Gerswin looked up.
The major said nothing, waiting for Gerswin's reaction.
“So that
was
what happened.”
“You speak as if it were nothing new.”
“Close enough to the shambletown legends.”
“Shambletown?”
“That's where the people live now. The descendants of most of the survivors. In the shambletowns.”
“Oh, that's what they're called.”
Gerswin just nodded, puzzled at the major's apparent indifference to the scope of what he had just reviewed, even if the senior officer had seen it a dozen times.
“Anyway, Lieutenant, I wanted you to hear the cube and see the translation, since you were there. I wanted to make sure that you understand the situation.”
Gerswin shifted his weight.
The major looked up at him, seemingly unaware that Gerswin had been standing the entire time, but said nothing.
“What comes next, ser?”
“We've referred it to High Command and resealed the tunnel for the time being. The scientists tell me that not even a tachead would dent that material. There's some low-level background radiation around the outside gates. It would seem that someone tried a hell-burner, unsuccessfully, against them. A long time ago. All it did was melt rock over and around them.”
This time Gerswin did not comment.
The major shrugged. “What else can I do? No equipment to do more is available. No one seems interested.”
Gerswin repressed a nod.
“Could be discouraging if the knowledge became widespread,” he volunteered.
“It could be,” affirmed the major, “but it wouldn't change anything. I doubt that the Emperor would broadcast that Old Earth had a pre-Collapse technology which we still cannot match.”
“I understand, ser.”
“I believe you do, Lieutenant. I believe you do, but not for the same reasons.” He sighed. “But that's not the issue.” The major stood. “Do you have any more questions?”
“No, ser. Appreciate your sharing this.”
“Just my duty, Lieutenant. Just my duty.” He gestured toward the portal. “Have a good tour.”
“Thank you, ser.”
Outside in the staff office, Captain Carfoos glanced up and fixed a glare on Gerswin. “You done, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Then we'll see you at mess some time.”
“Yes, ser.”
Gerswin turned and walked out, not for the Officers' Mess, but for his own quarters.
He wished Mahmood were still on Old Earth, but the senior ecologist had left nearly a standard year earlier on the
Casimir
, which had carried in the new ratings and officers and carried out those going on to new and generally better opportunities.
Not that Mahmood had continued in the Service. The former
ecological officer was doubtlessly now fully ensconced in his new position as the Chairman of Ecology at the University of Medina.
“But why?” Gerswin had asked. “Why?”
“My studies and recommendations here are complete, Greg. There isn't much more I can do. I'm a scholar, just a scholar. All I can do is to get people to think.”
The memory of that statement still churned Gerswin's stomach if he thought too much about it.
So much knowledgeâ¦unusedâ¦lostâ¦ignoredâ¦as if no one cared, as if no one remembered the tired planet that had destroyed itself to give men the stars.
He tightened his lips without breaking step.
The Lieutenant showed the sketch and specifications to the technician.
“Can it be done, Markin? With the balances like that?”
“Strange-looking knife, if you ask me, Lieutenant.”
“Need weight, penetrating power.”
“I don't see how it could be effective much beyond five, six meters.”
“Computer says it will do what I want up to six meters all the time. Beyond that⦔ The lieutenant shrugged.
“The weight specifications make it heavy. I'd sure rely on a stunner. Could you even throw this thing?” The technician lifted the sheet as if to somehow better picture the weapon.
“Can't throw it until I have one in hand. Like at least three, but probably need five or six, if we could manage it.”
“We?”
“I'd like to help. Want to understand how. They may have to last me a long time, and the next time you'll be in some other forsaken system.”
Markin chuckled.
“Lieutenant, any time you want to use your hands is fine with me. We'll use one of the out-of-the-way bays, where the commander doesn't see one of his officers, Istvenn forbid, dirtying his hands and learning metalwork.”
Gerswin checked the time. 1752. Too early to enter the mess.
He passed the mess portal and entered the next one, the one to the junior officers' lounge. Lieutenant Hermer sat in the recliner nearest the door, her tall figure buried in her own thoughts, hair as dark as the black finish of the chair in which she sat. The small room, less than six meters on a side, was otherwise empty.
Gerswin saw a faxtab, obviously a recent reproduction of one from the latest supply ship, which meant the news inside was three to four weeks old. He picked up the flimsy sheets and began to read as he circled the table, unwilling to sit down in either the other recliner next to Lieutenant Hermer or in the too-soft bench couch.
Usually he ignored the faxtabs for the technical publications which he took off the screen in his quarters at night. The Service kept its bases up-to-date on technical information through the torp network, but items such as soft news, the latest updates on the Emperor and his Court, came through personal torp messages or the straight news bulletins fed into the commnet.
Faxtabs were a mixture of everything. Gerswin noted that New-parra was still under quarantine, and the
Okelley
was listed as returning from there, mainly because the son of a prominent baron was on the commodore's staff. Gerswin knew the replacement ship was the
Sandhurst
, a fact ignored in the once-over of the faxtab.
Absently, he turned to the second flimsy page. A name caught his eye, and he stopped.
His mouth dropped open as he read the small item:
His Grace, Merrel, son of the Duke of Triandna, and Caroljoy Montgrave Kerwin, daughter of Honore Balza Dirien Kerwin, Admiral of the Fleet and Marshall of the Marines, were married under the Old Rite ceremonies at the Triandna Estates recently. The ceremony and reception were private, but the Emperor is reported to have attended, according to informed sources. No comment was available from either the Imperial Court or His Grace the Duke.
Gerswin put the faxtab down on the table.
Could he have expected anything else?
Five years, and he had sent nothing, said nothing, written nothing. Nor had she. Not that he had not thought about her. But what could he have sent to someone he was not even supposed to know?
He glanced over at Lieutenant Hermer, who was still buried in the old-fashioned text, then at the table. He checked the time. 1755. Still too early, and right now, he didn't want to stand at the edge of the table waiting for Captain Matsuko, who would arrive promptly at 1801.
Gerswin looked back down at the faxtab and its slightly scattered pages, then away, as if it burned his eyes.
“Forget it!” he muttered, louder than he intended.
“Forget what?” Lieutenant Hermer's head popped up from her text like a turtle's from its shell.
“Nothing, Faith. Nothing. Forgot anyone was here.”
He turned away, shaking his head.
Hard it was, sometimes, for him to remember that he was just a devilkid from Old Earth, and one lucky enough to have gotten an I.S.S. commission.
“Are you all right, Greg?”
Faith Hermer had not gone back to her book, but had marked her place and closed it. She was standing by her swivel.
“I'm fine. Surprised, that's all.”
He refrained from glancing back at the faxtab, not wanting to call her attention to it, but wishing he had not left it folded to the page on which Caroljoy's marriage announcement appeared.
Marriage, of course. No mention of anything else, but the union announced as if it were a matter of state or of commerce. Probably it had been a bit of both, if the Emperor himself had attended.
“Are you sure you're all right?”
He jumped and turned at the sudden touch on his shoulder.
“Hades!” He bit off the exclamation as soon as he had said it. After sighing and taking a deep breath, he looked up into the woman's pale green eyes. He had to. Faith Hermer was nearly two meters high and stood taller than any other officer on Old Earth.
“Faith. Sorry I jumped. Surprised and thinking about it. You caught me off-guard.”
She chuckled, deep-throated, and the sound relaxed him even before she spoke again. “You must have been surprised. No one has ever caught you off-guard. Not to my knowledge.”
He nodded and checked the time. 1800.
“Late if we don't blast.”
“All right. You don't want to talk about it now. I'll be around if you do.” She smiled and pointed to the exit portal. “Blast, Greg. That is, unless you want to sit at the foot of the table opposite Matsuko.”
He was already moving toward the mess before she finished the sentence.
Caroljoyâmarried, of course. So why did it surprise him?