Echo

FORTY

Alex showed everyone a picture of the tablet that had been found at Sunset Tuttle’s former home. “Anybody have any idea what it is?”

No one did.

“Does anyone recognize the language?”

More headshaking.

“It might be Arinok,” said Seepah. “It looks a little bit as if it might be.”

Turam studied the picture. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“What’s Arinok?”

“Ancient language. From the Bagadeish. They used to carve stuff like this on their tombs.”

“But you can’t read it?”

“No. I’m not even sure that’s what it is.”

“Is there anyone here we could ask?”

They looked at one another.

Most evenings, there was a party going on in the dining hall. People who’d spent the day constructing irrigation ditches and planting seeds for the coming season picked up wind and string instruments. They had drums, and they even produced a couple of singers with some talent. But the energy was missing. I got a sense of people trying hard to be happy.

The conversations roamed near and far. “You had electricity at one time,” we told them. Actually, they had no word for electricity, so we resorted to the Standard term. “But the places we’ve been to had only candles and gas lamps for light. What happened?”

Seepah smiled. Painfully. “What is electricity?”

Alex tried to explain. Seepah smiled tolerantly and shook his head. “I’m reluctant to say this, but it sounds as if you’re making it up. Lightning, you say?”

A young woman who’d served as one of Seepah’s aides wanted to know how the vehicle we’d been riding floated in air. “Well,” she corrected herself, “it didn’t exactly float, but it wasn’t really falling, either.”

Alex asked me if I wanted to explain about antigravity.

But I had no idea how the system worked. “Push a button,” I said, “and you lift off.”

Then there was the material from which our clothes were made. I was wearing my own blouse that day, and one resident fingered the sleeve. “It’s so soft.”

We had drawn a crowd, as usual, and they ooohed and aaahed with every revelation.

“Are you aware,” Alex asked, “that you’ve been off-world? Sometime in the past?”

They laughed. “You mean to the moons?”

“Better than that,” Alex said.

“Never happened.” An older man who always walked with a cane shook his head. “I’ve read every history book there is,” he said. “Nobody says anything about it. It’s just superstition. It can’t be done.”

I was tempted to point out there were only five or six histories at the compound. But there was no point starting an argument.

Someone else, a middle-aged woman, credited us with marvelous imaginations. “When we went off-world,” she asked, “where exactly did we go?”

That generated laughter.

When it had subsided, Alex’s reply created another skeptical reaction: “You, your forebears, have been to the second world in your system.”

“We’ve traveled to Zhedar?”

“If that’s the second world.”

“That’s crazy.”

“It’s true.”

“How do you know?” The questions were coming from all sides.

“We’ve been there.”

More laughter. Then, maybe, something else. The mockery drained out of the room. “What’s it like?” The question was asked by a teenage boy.

“It’s a lot like here. Except you’d weigh a little less.”

That got still more laughter.

A young man had been sitting listening, taking it all in. His beard was just starting to grow. “Well,” he said, “I’m not going to say there’s a mistake somewhere, but next time you go back, Alex, I’d love to go along.”

Viscenda was there at the time. She smiled politely at Alex’s claim. “I’ve heard that story,” she said. “It appears in everybody’s mythology. They rode winged steeds.” She smiled at us. “But even you and your partner would have to admit it’s a little hard to believe.”

Sestor was an oversized male with a gray beard and a polished skull. He’d been wearing a superior smile throughout, as if listening to nonsense. Now he broke in: “Even if we had the means,” he said, “there’s no reason to go anywhere else. We’re unique. The universe is empty.”

“What about our guests?” asked a man seated beside him who looked ancient.

“Look,” Sestor said patiently, “I don’t want to offend anybody, but you can see they’re just like us. They’re from here. I don’t understand that thing they were running around in, but there’s no difference between them and the rest of us. For God’s sake, people, use your eyes.”

“I agree,” said a woman with a serene expression. “Nobody really exists out there.” She looked apologetically at Alex, and at me. “I’m sorry. But your claims just don’t make sense. They fly in the face of everything we know to be true. But even if there were some truth to your story, I’d suggest we let it go. Our job is to repair the damage here. If we can. This is the only world that matters.”

And then there was Kayla, a resident member of the staff. “We’ve blundered away the gift of the Almighty,” he said. “I’ve never been one of those who was forever saying that God had grown to find us despicable. But one thing is certain: We’re being tested.”

“There is no God,” said one of the others, a young man with fire in his eyes. “If there were, where was He when we needed Him?”

Turam, beside me, whispered his name. “Hakim. He’s an atheist.”

“Mind,” said Hakim, “is the only thing that’s sacred.”

“Well.” Alex reached for his crutches. “Time to head for the salad bar.”

“I think it’s silly,” said Turam, “to deny what Alex tells us. He has no reason to lie. And ask yourself whether anyone in this world could devise a vehicle that floats.” He looked at the others, defying anyone to argue the point. Then he turned to us: “We always believed, most of us did, that we were alone. Yet here you are. You look like us, but you’re alien.”

“I don’t feel like an alien,” I said. Belle had drifted out of range, but it almost didn’t matter anymore. “We don’t really know what the truth is. But I’ll bet we’re from the same line.” (I didn’t know how to say species, but I thought line worked better anyhow.)

Some witticisms went back and forth. And a young man, about nineteen, who’d stopped to listen, leered at me, and said, “I hope so.”

Then Turam asked an unexpected question: “Is there purpose to the universe?”

“I think that’s a bit above our competency level,” said Alex.

A couple of people rolled their eyes. “That is the short answer,” said Hakim. “But surely an advanced culture has thought about these things, Chase.” (They all tended to pronounce my name “Cheese.”) “There must, for example, be an advantage in being alive. A reason for it, wouldn’t you say?”

“Of course.”

“But what is the purpose for most living forms? What could conceivably be the point of being alive if you’re a tree? Or an amoeba?”

I passed the question to Alex. “Hakim,” he said, “we just don’t have answers to questions like that. But what about you? Would you rather be alive or dead?”

“To be honest,” he said, “I’m not sure.”

Eventually, they asked why we’d come. “There are so many stars. If you are what you say,” said Sestor, “what brought you to us?”

“We’ve been looking for someone,” said Alex, “for ten thousand years. It was inevitable that eventually we would arrive here.”

That brought smiles. Seepah, changing course, whispered a response. “And thank God you did.” His voice shook.

When the band took over, the nineteen-year-old, whose name was Barnas, asked me to dance and told me I was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen. Was I doing anything tomorrow evening? He suggested a walk along the riverbank. Or possibly a canoe ride. In the moonlight. Actually, he added, he wasn’t sure the moon would be up, but he’d do what he could to arrange it.

“You know, Barnas,” I told him, “you’re going to be a heartbreaker one day.” Unfortunately, I didn’t know the word for “heartbreaker,” so I said it in Standard. But he knew what I meant.

He responded with an expectant grin. “Is that a yes?” he asked.

Alex asked Viscenda if we could speak with her privately. She nodded and led us into a small room across the corridor from the library. “I’ve been wanting to sit down with you anyhow,” she said. “When your rescuers come, is there anything we will be able to do to facilitate matters?”

“Thank you, Viscenda,” he said. “You’ve already done everything we could have asked.” A fire was burning placidly in a small stove.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Your people have a long history. I was wondering about your prospects. What does the future hold?”

“I take it you’ve noticed that the situation is not good.”

“I’ve noticed too few children. I’ve noticed you have empty rooms.”

Her eyes closed. I suspected she’d been an attractive woman in her youth. And somehow she didn’t seem old. Beaten down, maybe. But not old. “We have about thirty children altogether under the age of twelve. It’s not nearly enough to sustain us.

“Life here is difficult. People work very hard. The weather is inconstant. The sickness is getting worse. We are not always able to manage a harvest, so more die off each year. We try to store food for lean times. But—” She looked up and stared for a moment at the stove. “Many of our residents have given up. People do not want to bring children into this world. It’s too painful. We remember what we had less than two generations ago. And we look around now and see what’s left. Many of our older people tell us they wish they’d died during the Dark Times. Those were the lucky ones. You hear it all the time.” She looked at the dark-stained walls. On one hung four or five family sketches. Images of Daddy and small animals and kites and boats. Drawn in better times, maybe. “It appears,” she said with a sad smile, “that God has decided to end it. And that the end is not quite what we’d expected. It has not been quick and clean for all of us. A few survivors were left, for whatever reason, perhaps to contemplate what has happened, and to ask ourselves why.”

Alex looked intently at her. “Viscenda, we can help.”

She shook her head, beating down any impulse to hope. “I’ve been praying that you would be able to. That you would wish to. But how—?”

“I’d like you to call a general meeting. Let me speak to your people.”

The meeting was set for the following evening. Meanwhile, we sat down with Viscenda, Seepah, and some of the other community leaders to get as much information about our hosts as we could. Alex asked what the world population had been before the onset of the Dark Times, a term that seemed to refer both to the general disaster and to the aftermath. “I would guess,” Viscenda replied, “maybe a billion. Possibly not quite that many. I don’t think anyone ever did a count.”

Had there been nation-states?

The concept was foreign. Most people had lived in regions centered on cities.

Had there been wars?

“Not for a long time, until the lights went out,” said a man named Argo. “There’ve been a few, here and there. But for centuries they’ve been rare. And usually, people tend to be horrified when the killing starts. Historically, the wars have always been short-lived.”

One of her people asked about the Confederacy. How many worlds did it encompass? What other aliens were there? He and the others had a hard time believing that the Mutes could read minds. “How is it possible?” asked Viscenda. “By what medium do thoughts travel from one mind to another?”

As usual, we didn’t know the answer.

“Don’t take offense,” she said, “but you and Alex, for members of an advanced race, seem remarkably incurious.”

I didn’t know how to explain that our world was full of wonders. That we simply accepted them and didn’t concern ourselves with the mechanics.

They described the years before the Dark Times as a golden age. “It’s true,” said Seepah. “It was a good life back then. But we didn’t appreciate it until it went away.”

Next morning, I wandered into the dining hall and found a woman in tears. She’d heard that Alex wanted to speak, and she had guessed it would be about the future. She was seated with three or four other women. When she saw me, she tried to get control of her voice and stood up to face me. “There is no future for us,” she said. “Let Alex know, if he hasn’t figured it out yet.” One of her companions stood and tried to pull her back into her seat. But she would not be restrained: “You know what I think, Chase? I think it’s immoral to bring children into a world that’s cold and dead.”

Her friend wrapped an arm around her, and a long silence followed.

I smiled and said I’d pass the message along. As I was walking away my link activated. “Chase.” Belle’s voice. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“StarCorps is here.”

“What? Already? That can’t be right.” They weren’t due for almost two days.

“Shall I patch them through? It’s audio only.”

“Yes. Please.”

A momentary delay. Then: “Belle-Marie, this is the Vanderweigh, IEAA patrol craft. We were in the area when your code white was relayed to us. What is your status?”

The voice was female. It was also reassuring and calm. Everything’s under control.

“Vanderweigh, this is Chase Kolpath. I’m the pilot of the Belle-Marie . I’m currently stranded groundside with my passenger. There is no emergency. We are in no immediate danger.”

“We’re glad to hear it, Kolpath. We’ll achieve orbit in about nineteen hours and will send a rescue vehicle as soon as we have a window. Is there anything else about your situation we should know?”

“My passenger, Alex Benedict, has a broken leg and will require medical care.”

“We read you. We’ll be with you as quickly as we can. Vanderweigh out.”