The Shadow and Night (67 page)

“I will be in touch as soon as I hear anything. It may not be direct; I will have to find ways of communicating with you securely. But be careful.”

It came to Merral that, even without the approval of Corradon and the representatives, Vero was already making plans.

“You are assuming that you are going to get the go-ahead, aren't you?”

“Yes.” Vero nodded. “I understand the reluctance, but there is no option. I felt it before the meeting, but with the news of the
Miriama,
I feel it is a certainty. I see their reasons. I feel that both Corradon and Clemant are reluctant to authorize a defensive team. But they have no choice.”

“I wish we could have the time to discuss this with everybody.”

“I agree. But we do not have that luxury. Indeed, I fear we are already wasting time waiting for the approval. And so, I am making plans already. Gerry is the first. She will not, I think, be the last.”

Merral stared at him, sensing an immense determination breaking the surface. “I see. You seem very resolved on this.”

“I am.” Vero paused. “Merral, if there is one man on this planet who feels responsible for the loss of the Gate, it is me. I made a bad mistake in not bringing in a threat evaluation team earlier.” He clenched his fist. “I do not intend that such a mistake will happen again.”

“We'll be early, won't we?” Merral commented to the driver as he got into the vehicle with its neat emblem of Farholme Planetary Affairs on the side.

“I'm to swing by the office with you,” the driver said, pulling out into the street. “There's a message for you there.”

It was more than a message. As they arrived at a rear entrance, Merral was surprised to see the tall figure of Representative Corradon himself emerge and beckon him over to a porch.

“Forester,” he said, with a soft and apologetic tone, “I am sorry to do things this way, but these are odd days.” He frowned. “Very odd days. I needed to speak to you. I think I can promise you that you will be getting the approval on those images. But it will take some time to set up. Do nothing until you hear from me in writing.”

He paused, another frown sliding over his tanned face. “But, before you get them, I want you to do something for me. I have a task for you.”

“Whatever I can do to help,” Merral said, puzzled at both the setting and the tone of the meeting.

“Thank you. Instead of going direct to Ynysmant, I would like you to take the early afternoon plane to Larrenport. I want you to talk to this Captain Sterknem about what happened on the
Miriama.
”

“Certainly, sir . . .” Merral hesitated. “But I thought that the matter had been handled already by Dr. Clemant.”

The expression on the representative's face was one of total noncommitment. “Lucian did a good job. But I'm not sure now he got to the bottom of what caused it. How could he? We had no reason to believe that it was anything other than a rather odd sociological phenomenon. Not
then.
”

“I see,” answered Merral, realizing that the representative was revealing a gap between himself and his advisor.

“Yes, I want a second opinion and I value your judgment. I've written a letter requesting that the captain tell you everything.” He reached into a side pocket of his jacket and carefully pulled out an envelope with a handwritten address on it. “He's in Larrenport. I'd like a written report; send it by courier over to me.”

Merral took the letter slowly. “So what do you want me to ask?”

“I want you to find out exactly what happened—from your viewpoint. To see whether it matches with what you have experienced.”

“I see. Who am I to tell about this?”

“I'd keep it between us, I think.” He paused. “Yes, between the two of us—for the moment.” He turned his tired eyes on Merral. “Is that all right?”

Merral hesitated. “Yes. I'll do it. There's a place on the flight?”

“Yes. I took the liberty of booking you on it. It goes at two.”

“I see,” Merral answered, feeling unhappy about this most irregular commissioning but unable to express his concerns. “Oh, we had a meeting with Professor Habbentz.”

Corradon gave a gleaming smile. “I'm glad. Gerry is a remarkable woman. Very determined.” Then he glanced at his watch. “More meetings, I'm afraid.” He extended a hand. “Thanks, Forester.”

“I'll see what I can do, sir.”

As a result of the disruption to flights caused by the suddenly announced Day of Prayer and Fasting, the short-haul flier to Larrenport was full of people and cargo. Merral was pleased to get a seat by a rear window, even if it did mean he was squeezed in next to a crate of engineering equipment.

As he stared out of the window at the view, he realized that he was rather relieved at not having to talk to anyone. It was, he decided, another disturbing implication of no longer being part of an open society: silence and isolation had become desirable.

As they flew on, Merral stared down at the wild and often savagely indented coastline. Despite having just seen his world from space for the first time in his life, he still enjoyed seeing it from this altitude.
Is it,
he wondered,
because from this height, you can see not just the physical features but also the human elements: the farms, homesteads, and orchards?
And yet this was an artificial division.
After all, on the Made Worlds, human beings made everything except the rocks.

He had been to Larrenport twice before, both times on conferences, and had, each time, been struck by the town's geometry. The town was on a half circle of steep cliffs facing south and was split into two almost symmetrical parts by a sheer-sided gorge. On one of the best-protected bays of eastern Menaya, Larrenport had long served as a port and provided vital ferry links to the few communties scattered around the long Henelen Archipelago of over a thousand jagged-peaked islands that stretched almost as far as the equator.
In other words, it is a quiet town on what was once the quietest part of the Assembly.

As he thought about Larrenport, Merral remembered that his aged Great-Aunt Namia, having outlived her expectations of dying in early spring, was still in an intensive nursing home there.
Well,
he thought,
if I get the time I will visit her.

What with two stops and a two-hour time-zone shift, it was just before six o'clock local time when the descent into Larrenport began, and Merral caught a glimpse of the deep and precipitous-sided gorge that bisected the town. The airport was on the western part of the plateau, and after a struggle against wayward wind gusts from the sea, the plane landed gently.

“Felenert Terrace?” Merral asked a blonde clerk at the reception desk, reading the address off the envelope Corradon had given him.

“Top end of Sunset Side,” she answered, with a ready smile.

“ ‘Sunset Side'?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said, giving him an apologetic look, “you're from out of town.
Sunset
is the eastern side.
Sunrise
is the western side. You're one or the other in Larrenport.”

“I see,” he replied, feeling that the last phrase sounded like some sort of local idiom, and walked over to where a bus with “Larrenport (East)” marked on its destination screen stood waiting. Ten minutes later, having crossed the five-hundred-meter-long suspension bridge, it paused at the crest of the plateau and Merral got off. He could carry what luggage he had in one hand and felt that after the hours in the plane, he needed the exercise.

As the bus disappeared down the first of the hairpin bends into the town, Merral went over to the stone wall and leaned on it, looking down at the rows of neat, gray-roofed houses broken up by clusters of trees that, in a dozen rows, dropped down to the blue sea nearly three hundred meters below. He looked beyond the houses at the white-flecked waters stretching out ahead, at the clustered shipping in the harbor complex and the white wakes of the vessels entering and leaving. In the middle distance, the great black snake of Fircorta Isle that gave the town its natural protection against storms and tsunami stretched across the waters. Beyond that lay the white-tinged waters of the open ocean that stretched out into the hazy distance, and on the very horizon a dark peak like a broken tooth rose out of the water; Merral recognized the nearest island of the Henelen Archipelago.

I love this world. I've fought for it before and I'll fight for it again.

Then—mindful of his recent ankle wound—he walked slowly down a line of steep steps between the houses, enjoying the early evening warmth and salt air. The steps were almost empty; a gull perched on a wall flew away as he approached and a cat scurried silently for cover at the sound of his feet. As he descended, Merral became conscious of the stillness of the town. He listened harder, hearing only the voices of children playing behind walled gardens, the soft chatter oozing out from behind opened windows, and from far below, the melancholy hoot as a heavy freighter made its way out of the harbor.

Merral felt troubled. There seemed to be something wrong about this town, but he found himself unable to say what it was. There was not the bustle he had expected; for all the brilliant evening sunlight, Larrenport seemed like a town over which a shadow hung.

My own strained imagination,
he told himself.
Anyway, why shouldn't a town be subdued days after the greatest calamity in the planet's history?
Yet these thoughts did not reassure him.

Eventually, Merral found a street of three-story, balconied houses labeled “Felenert Terrace” and, at the number he had been given, stepped inside the weather porch and pressed the doorbell. There was no answer. Merral opened the door.

“Anybody home?” he called.

As his words echoed along the white walls of the hallway with its carefully hung seascapes, his eye was caught by a slip of card displayed on a message board. The handwritten note, signed by Daniel Sterknem, simply said,
While my wife is away visiting her family, I'm staying down on the
Miriama
.

Closing the door carefully behind him, Merral walked on and turned down a new set of winding steps. After a few minutes of descent, he began to feel again that there was something oppressive in the town's silence. It was almost with relief that he saw four youngsters sitting on a wall at the bottom of the next flight of steps, swinging their feet idly.

“Evening,” Merral called out as he approached.

One of the boys, no older, Merral guessed, than thirteen or fourteen, stared inquisitively at him. “You from Rise Side?” he asked in a sharp voice.

Rise Side?
It took Merral a moment before he realized that he was being asked if he was from the Sunrise Side, the western half of the bay.

“Does it matter?” he inquired, slightly perturbed at both the nature and the tone of the question.

The answer was sharp. “You're one or the other.”

“Actually neither,” answered Merral. “I'm from Ynysmant.”

“Ah, let 'im pass,” muttered one of the other boys, and they returned to kicking their feet against the wall.

Merral shrugged and walked on, his feeling of unease deepening. A few minutes later, he came out by the lowest line of houses. The seafront lay ahead of him. He began walking eastward along the promenade, heading toward the harbor and the boats. He passed a few people walking in the evening sun, but they gave him no greeting other than rather formal nods of acknowledgement and distant, cool smiles.
How strange,
he thought, beginning to wonder more about this town.
Is it subdued, or is there something worse going on?

In the port area, the first vessels Merral came to were small sail craft, each labeled with the school, street, or even congregation it belonged to. As he walked by them Merral, still troubled by the
something
that hung over the town, caught the sounds of the wind rattling cables and cleats, of the hulls creaking, of the small waves slopping against sides, and of chains clinking. There was, he reflected, something timeless about ports. Jason, Ulysses, Columbus, and Cook would have, with only the slightest adjustment, soon been quite at home here.
True,
he decided,
they would wonder at our sea's lower salinity, marvel at our artificially generated tides, and doubtless be frustrated by the strangeness of our moonless night sky. Yet surely, on whatever world it occurred, the sea is the sea?