Vale of Stars (51 page)

“Of course,” Sirra said, moving rapidly away from Iede to help him unpack. Iede observed where to move different items, then also assisted.

When the gear was stowed into the airfoil, Fozzoli turned to Iede and said, “We’ve met, but only on holo. I’m Abromo Fozzoli, but everyone calls me Foz. Well, not everyone, but your ha’lyneice does,” he stopped and paled slightly. He opened his mouth to say something else, closed it, then opened it again. “So, er, is there anything else to do, or…?” he trailed off, his eyes darting quickly to Sirra, then to the airfoil, with an affected air of examination.

“Dr. Fozzoli. I’m very glad to meet you in person,” Iede said softly. She could see that her words did not have the calming effect she had hoped. Fozzolijumped when she approached him and laid a hand on his arm. “My ha’lyneice has told me a little about you—not much, though. I gather that she has represented me to you as well.”

Fozzoli had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, not a lot. Just, well, a few things.”

“I hope you can form your own impressions in the next three days.”

Fozzoli squinted at her. “So you’ve really been up there?” he said suddenly.

“I have.”

“What’s it like?”

Now Sirra interrupted. “Dr. Seelith is here.”

Fozzoli and Iede turned to see Khadre’s one-person transport (an enclosed model, unlike Fozzoli’s open-air scooter) approach from the south. The craft sighed to a stop close to the airfoil and unfolded elegantly. Khadre climbed out of the pilot’s saddle and stretched luxuriously. “Hello, everyone. Am I late? The trip took longer than I had expected,” Iede knew Khadre, of course, revering her only slightly less than her gods. The woman was wrinkled, but sturdy—her face carried implacable strength behind considerable age.

“Dr. Seelith. I am honored you agreed to come with us,” Iede said, beginning a genuflection then thinking better of it.

“Iede, how are you?” Khadre asked, sincerity evident in her voice. “You are looking well.”

“I am well.”

Khadre’s absent gaze drifted past Iede to Sirra and Fozzoli. “Hello, Doctors.”

Fozzoli smiled and thrust out his hand. “Dr. Seelith, it’s an honor. I’ve read everything you’ve published about the vix. Brilliant stuff.”

“Thank you.” Khadre acknowledged the complement gracefully, then turned her attention to Sirra. “Dr. Geniker?”

Sirra smiled. “I haven’t used that name in years. It’s just Sirra. How are you, Khadre?”

“As well as could be expected. I’m still fighting against the dying of the light, so far.”

“Rage,” Iede said suddenly. The others turned to look at her. “I’m sorry, Dr. Seelith, but the quote is ‘rage against the dying of the light.’”

Khadre’s lower lip thrust outward. “Hm. Thank you. I’ll try to remember that.” She turned toward Sirra again. “Are we ready to go?”

“Ask Iede. This is her expedition.”

Khadre turned back toward her. “Are we?”

“I’d like to say a brief invocation before we depart,” Iede said. She saw Sirra’s eyes roll skyward but pressed on nonetheless. “If you would all please raise your eyes to the skies and repeat after me,” she said, lifting her arms up. She paused briefly and intoned, “Those who watch over us protect and guide this holy endeavor.” She paused to allow the others to repeat her words. They did not. Iede continued regardless. “We go at Your bidding to fulfill Your will. May Ship continue its great circle forever and ever.” She lowered her arms and opened her eyes. The others had not repeated her words, nor, Iede suspected, had they even looked upwards. Remaining genial, she said, “If you’d like to take your seats, we may begin now.”

The journey to the ruins was uneventful, if one discounted Sirra’s occasional outbursts at Iede’s explanations of her religion. Fozzoli’s questions seemed, to Iede, to be devoid of spite and sarcasm—when he asked her about some of her doctrines, he did not seem to be trying to trap her in an inconsistency. Khadre did not comment on the discussions, and Iede did not dare appeal to her for an opinion.

Only once did Sirra’s temper flare so badly that Iede seriously considered abandoning the project and finding new companions. On the evening of their second day out, Fozzoli resumed his questions about planet-bound life under the guidelines laid down in Costellan’s verses.

“So you verify that your interpretation of the verses is correct through meditation and prayer?” he had asked quietly. Khadre and Sirra were sleeping the rear of the airfoil.

“Mostly, though we do use textual analysis and scholarly research. For example, we check the passage in question against the other verses He has written to find inconsistencies. If the interpretation matches other established verses, we consider it valid.”

“But those original verses—how did you interpret them properly if you had nothing to base your decisions on?” Fozzoli’s question, like all his others, seemed to Iede to be a genuine attempt to comprehend her religion.

“Some of the verses were quite simple to interpret. We consider those the ‘base’ verses, if you will. For example, here’s one of the most basic tenets we have. It’s from Costellan’s Verse 223. ‘Consider the sun/While it shines upon your head/You will always have life.’” She smiled at Fozzoli.

“That’s a simple one?”

“Of course. The sun isn’t Epsilon Eridani III, of course—it’s the Ship itself. As long as it is there, we are safe and protected.”

Fozzoli frowned. “I don’t know. It seems to me that that verse admits to several meanings. How can you be sure that that one is correct?”

“As I said, we pray and meditate as well. No one has ever proposed an alternate meaning for that verse. It is one of our most basic beliefs.”

“Pardon me for sounding rude, Iede, but how do you know that’s not an example of
credo consolans
?”

“Of what?”

“A belief you cling to because it is comforting. It’s very comforting to believe that Ship is watching over us, protecting us, ready to intervene to stop tragedy from….” He stopped. His eyes widened. “Of course! I see what you’re saying!” Iede smiled and nodded as he continued, “You were saved by Ship those thirty some-odd years ago, weren’t you? When the Dome flyer malfunctioned and flew away! And so was—” he began to turn in his seat to find Sirra’s eyes watching him.

When Sirra spoke, her bitterness was almost palpable. “Yes, Foz. Everyone in this airfoil except yourself was saved by ship’s actions that day. But not all aboard the vessel lived. Viktur Ljarbazz died. Ship didn’t save him, did it, Iede?”

“No. But I am surprised that you admit Ship saved the rest of us.”

“I accept the theory for now. I have no compelling proof of it, but I will accept your theory until more facts come to light.”

Iede turned to face her completely. “Before we left you said that Ship was deserted, that it was a lifeless hulk floating around in orbit. Do you still think so? Did you ever think so? How can you, a scientist, deny facts that are right in front of you merely because they lead to a conclusion you do not wish to draw?”

“I don’t know what happened that day. Maybe Ship didn’t intervene. Maybe it did, but only on some automated system that we can’t understand. But if there are gods on board, and they chose to save our lives but not Viktur’s, then they are no gods of mine.”

“It is presumptuous to try and understand the will of the gods. I do not fully understand why they sent me back to explore these ruins, but I go at their bidding. Can we condemn them for failing to save the life of one man when they saved three others?”

“If I believed in them, I would send them all to hell. You should be thankful that I don’t,” Sirra said, turning her back on Iede and Fozzoli and pulling the thin blanket snugly around her.

The party arrived midmorning at the coordinates Iede’s map designated. Fozzoli, Iede, and Sirra clambered out of the vehicle and helped Khadre extricate herself. The old scientist seemed appreciably stiffer and more tired than the others but brushed off questions about her health with remarks regarding the upcoming survey.

Iede scanned the landscape, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. She had not truly expected to find tall alien monuments reaching skyward in fantastic splendor but could not help but feel a twinge of disappointment at the bare horizon. The terrain seemed even more inhospitable than several of the places they had traveled through on their way. Rough-hewn rock formations broke up the hilly countryside, and gnarled Kentleigh trees twisted towards the sky like arthritic fingers.

Iede sighed quietly, lifted her face skyward, and intoned the prayer of guidance. She faltered in the middle of the prayer, imagining Aywon’s disapproving face watching her from the observation room. She smiled at the sky and said quietly, “All right, Aywon. No more prayers. I suppose I should just help with the survey equipment.” She turned back towards the airfoil and blinked in surprise. Sirra was standing not two meters behind her, staring at her in disgust.

“You were praying,” Sirra said, her comment more a statement than a question.

“Not exactly. How can I help you?”

“You can’t. This is scientific. You just watch.”

“There is nothing I can do to help?” Iede spread her arms.

Sirra crossed hers. “No. If you really want to help, just stay out of the way. Let us do our work.”

“It would seem, ha’lyneice, that your cult is more exclusive than mine.”

Sirra scowled and stepped closer. “What do you want from me, Iede? I’ve come all the way out here to test your domed ‘vision’ against reality. I’ve even brought in two others, one of whom is still young enough to be impressionable, and by the way I don’t really appreciate you brainwashing him—”

Iede’s outstretched hands rotated, palms up, as if deflecting Sirra’s ranting. “Sirra, please. You can’t believe that a few days of casual conversation about my lifestyle—”

“Your religion. Call it what it is.”

“—Religion, then, could fundamentally change his belief system? And even if it could, that would be his choice.”

“Not when you fill his head with lies and distortions, half-truths and—”

“None of what I say is a lie.”

Sirra’s jaw twitched. She said softly, through clenched teeth, “No, I suppose not. Not when you yourself believe it so fully.” Her voice rose again. “But just because you believe it doesn’t make it true.”

“Of course not.”

Sirra’s eyes widened at this. “What?”

Iede laughed gently. “You think I believe in my religion out of blind faith? I have arrived at this stage in my spiritual growth through dedicated study, prayer, meditation, and finally, in an incontrovertible, empirical experience aboard Ship. I know what I believe in is true through thought, prayer, and experience. That’s why I believe in it—because it is true. Not the other way around.”

Sirra’s head shook slowly, softly, her eyes moving evenly in their sockets to stay fixed on Iede.

“I might add, ha’lyneice, that you should take your own advice. Just because you do not believe in something doesn’t make it false.”

“Hey! Ladies! You care to lend a hand over here?” Fozzoli’s petulant voice sliced through the tension between the two old women, and they both walked back towards the airfoil to help the young scientist set up his survey equipment.

“You take a look, then,” Fozzoli said, more than a little irritation in his voice. He withdrew from the eyepiece and let Sirra examine the data. Iede and Khadre watched, the former still serene despite the nine hours of work it had taken to arrive at their first dubious finding. Iede looked at Khadre, still not daring to speak.

Khadre must have felt Iede’s gaze on her, for she turned and met her eyes. “I think they’ve found something.”

“I see,” Iede said. She had not been offered much information, but was content. She had learned all she needed to from Aywon.

Khadre seemed to interpret her remark as a request for explanation. “They’ve found some trace amounts of an alloy that should not occur naturally. At least, I think that’s what they’ve found. None of us are really skilled in this field, so we can’t be sure. But if it is an artificial alloy, someone must have created it. Which lends credence to your, uh, thoughts about the ruins.”

Iede nodded. Khadre opened her mouth again, then closed it and turned to watch Sirra and Fozzoli.

Sirra leaned back from the eyepiece. “I don’t see how we can tell. So you found something that registers on the mass spectrometer as an iron-carbon alloy. So? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. And even if it is, how do we know it isn’t a natural occurrence?”

“No way. No way this happens this close to the surface.” Fozzoli was shaking his head violently.

“But we don’t even know if we’re reading the instruments properly.”

Now Fozzoli looked at Sirra with contempt. “I know how to read a mass spectrometer, Doctor. Iron-carbon admixture. No doubt. In more than trace amounts.”

Iede did not understand the science, but Fozzoli’s voice was all she needed to hear to know that the devices he had planted in the ground had come up with something.

“Pardon my ignorance,” Iede said, causing her halfonlyniece to turn to her and scowl, “but what is the significance of this find? What do you mean, an iron-carbon alloy?”

Sirra exchanged glances with Fozzoli and seemed to resign herself to the discovery. Iede noted without pleasure that her halfonlyniece appeared defeated even as she answered the question.

“Steel.”

The survey group changed position a dozen times before they found it.

Sirra could no longer pretend that Fozzoli was reading the instruments incorrectly, especially when Khadre had gently confirmed his results after the third site. Iede had not gloated, Sirra had to admit, but her ha’lyaunt’s calm self-assurance was nonetheless grating.

After the sixth change in location, Fozzoli was no longer grumbling about the work involved in loading the survey equipment, shifting their position a few kilometers, and unloading again. He was far too excited about the discoveries. Even Khadre was energetic, helping Fozzoli calibrate the samplers with each shift. Sirra helped, but her mind was elsewhere.