Firebird

TWENTY-ONE

“I do wish you'd be more careful,” said Gabe, as we gained altitude. “I'm not sure where I'll be if you get yourselves killed.”

Alex nodded impatiently. “Later, Gabe. Chase, let me see your arm.”

It was scorched. But not badly.

Alex got some aloevium and rubbed it into the burn. Then he wrapped it and admonished me to use more care. “You sound like Gabe,” I said.

“I'm serious.”

“And I,” said Gabe, “am not happy.”

Alex didn't look as if he was in a mood to have this argument. “This isn't the first time we've had a problem,” he said. “I haven't heard you complain before-”

“Maybe I'm getting old. But I have the distinct impression you are becoming increasingly reckless. And when you put yourself at risk, you endanger not only me, but Chase as well.”

Alex glanced my way. I kept a straight face. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe you have a point.”

“Of course I do. Please, in the future, exercise some care.” Somewhere, back in his relays, Gabe was smiling.

I was still pretty thoroughly rattled. But I didn't say anything. “That was kind of stupid,” he said. “Maybe we can do the rest of this without getting out of the Belle-Marie.”

“I think that's the best idea you've had in a while.” But when I thought about it, I recognized the tone. “You saw something.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay. What was it?”

“Angels.” He sank back in his chair. I sighed and set course for orbit.

We rose out of the clouds. “Any sign of pursuit, Gabe?” I asked.

“There are two aircraft down there, running on parallel courses, but they don't seem to pose a threat, and in any case they're showing no indication of being able to keep up with us. I will inform you if the situation changes.”

We rode quietly for a few minutes, Alex gazing straight ahead, his mind elsewhere. Then he came back. “Gabe,” he said, “do a search for me. Go through the material we have on the churches.”

“Okay. What am I looking for?”

“References to Heaven-bound.”

“Very good. Working. And the two aircraft are turning away.”

The voice from Highgate broke in: “Have you suffered any casualties?”

“Negative, Highgate.”

“You did cause some damage on the ground, however. It will be included in the report.”

“Thank you. Wouldn't want you to leave anything out.”

“Your attitude will also be noted.”

“Okay, Alex,” said Gabe, “I have several references.”

“Show me.”

The auxiliary screen lit up:

The Heaven-Bound Soul: A User's Manual

People You Are Bound to Meet in Heaven

The Boundless Heavens Attest to the Eternal Glory

Bound for Heaven: Your Brain Is Your Link to God

Bound for Heaven: Riding the Celestial Express

The list expanded and filled the page, filled a second, and started on a third. Alex broke in: “How many references do you have?”

“Don't know yet. Counting essays, speeches, individual journals, letters, even some commercial listings, nine hundred thirty-seven so far.”

“Okay. Hold it. How many of these are contemporary to the Villanueva era?”

“Nineteen. The others are from histories written after the general collapse and various types of fiction and speculation.”

“Okay. Stay with the nineteen. And let's narrow it a bit more. Add symbol. Emblem. Statue. Totem. Watchword. Regalia.” He looked at me. “What am I missing, Chase?”

“Well, maybe representation. Talisman. And glyph. Maybe I could be more help if I knew what we were looking for.”

Alex nodded. “Good,” he said. “Use those, too, Gabe.”

“Okay.”

This time we got three entries:

Church of the Annunciation, in Carabana

St. Anne's, on Greentree Avenue in Halicon

The Sunrise Church, in Valaia

Each was extracted from a contemporary history, two dating from that world's most prosperous era, and the third from Eskala Gafna's World's End, which was written during the crisis period.

Alex was still poring over the results when we got back to the Belle-Marie. I berthed the lander and set her to recharge. We got up to the cabin, and Alex immediately sat back down in front of a monitor.

I stayed on the bridge, closed my eyes, and would have liked to sleep. I was tired, but my arm was keeping me awake. The burn was by no means serious, but it wouldn't let me think about anything else. My emotions still hadn't settled down. So I set Belle to scanning the landscape, instructing her to lock in on everything that looked remotely like a church. She said okay, and images began flickering across the navigation screen.

But none of it meant anything. You see one church, you've seen them all. So, eventually, I got bored and went into the cabin to see how Alex was doing. He was bent over a document.

“Find something?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “Look at this.”

… Many of the churches, including The Church of the Annunciation, adopted the Heaven-bound watchword. Originally, angels were employed as symbols of the movement. But this was at a time when angels were still connected too closely to terrestrial traditions. The Villanueva churches, which were establishing their own usages in a spirit of independence from the old procedures, decided they needed their own imprint here, also. They eventually chose the koslo, which, ironically, bore a close resemblance to Earth's eagle.

“So,” I said, “what's the point?”

“Read the rest of it.”

The heaven-bound tradition caught on as the ultimate descriptor of the off-world churches. The koslo remained, for a century or more, the base symbol. It appeared in stained-glass representations. It shared space with depictions of the saints, and gradually it moved outside the buildings, where it could be seen, wings spread majestically, arcing toward Heaven.

Gradually, however, it was replaced by aircraft. Many churches even used images of blimps and balloons. In their turn, the aircraft also gave way, and the ultimate image for the movement became space shuttles, whose various incarnations were put on display around the globe.

“Alex, I have no idea where we're headed with this.”

“Look for what's out front.”

“I'm not following.”

“Chase, Robin, and Winter were here in 1383. Two years later, Robin started acquiring yachts.”

“And-?”

“What do you suppose they were actually doing?”

“I have no idea.”

“I think the yachts, somehow, were connected with Heaven-bound.”

“Alex, this sounds really off-the-wall.”

“Sure it does. This whole business is off-the-wall.” He shut down the screen. “Look, there's no real record of the interstellars they had here seven thousand years ago. Nothing. We don't even know what they looked like. We know more about the churches than we do about the technology.”

“I still can't see why anybody would care.”

“Bill Winter cared enough to sacrifice his life in the effort.”

“What effort? Alex, I don't know what you're thinking but we are not going back into the churches. You gave your word.”

“That's not a problem. Just stop and think for a minute. If you're putting an angel on display, showing people what an exhilarating ride it would give you into Heaven, where do you put the angel?”

“Outside the front doors?”

“That's where we should be looking.”

And that was how we began a planetwide search for lawn ornaments. Belle trained her scopes on every building that had steeples or a cross or a bell tower, locking on any accompanying sculpture, or anything else that wasn't either vegetative or part of the building. We even took pictures of signs.

We discovered how difficult it could be to distinguish between a church and a town hall. Most of the churches had crosses, but the crosses tended to get lost in the trees if our angle wasn't right. And it looked as if a fair number of civic buildings eventually morphed into places of worship. So we found ourselves looking at a variety of public structures. And of statues of old men who had probably been politicians at one time, or industrial magnates. And boats that stood outside nautical supply shops. And pieces of art just off to the side of what had once been retail outlets or malls or whatever. Mixed with them were a substantial number of saints and angels.

After about fifteen hours of unadulterated frustration, I finally fell asleep. When I woke, Alex was also out. Belle had compiled a record of everything we'd passed. “In case whatever it is you're looking for is there somewhere.”

Occasionally, we were tracked by aircraft, but nobody seemed capable of achieving orbit.

I tried to imagine what it must have been like at the end, on a world with a billion staunch believers watching the stars gradually disappear, feeling the temperatures drop.

It became the ultimate test of faith. There'd been attempts to ship in food and supplies, to render whatever assistance was possible, but all efforts had fallen woefully short. Eventually, all those who weren't evacuated died. At least, that was the conclusion. I wondered whether those who'd been rescued, when they'd gotten back to Earth, or wherever they'd gone, had built more churches.

There were literally thousands of Christian buildings. They filled the cities, commanded towns and villages, guarded rivers, held sway over mountaintop resort areas. One stood beside a pier at the edge of an enormous lake. A hologram depicted Jesus standing nearby on the surface of the water. Some were guarded by facsimiles of the Virgin, others by soaring aircraft. And then, in a desert area with a small village, we came across a church fronted by something unusual.

An interstellar.

Alex switched to Belle. “Can you ID it?”

“I believe so,” she said. Then: “Yes. It is the Coragio.”

The Coragio had been the original exploratory ship, the one that had found Villanueva. It had been one of the symbols of human greatness. Then when things got bad, people had cursed it, blamed it for the approaching disaster.

We recorded it as we passed. It was sculpted, narrow body, bullet prow angled up, its name displayed in ancient English. But it looked as if someone had taken an ax to it. Pieces were chipped away. “The AIs don't seem to have made any effort to repair it,” I said.

Alex, I knew, was thinking what it would have sold for had it been maintained.

Mostly, we found angels. Male angels. Female angels. Angels with children gathered in their arms. Heaven-bound had caught on. Ride to Heaven first-class.

And then, outside a church in the center of a small town, we saw another spacecraft.

It was a molded figure, some form of plastic, probably. Maybe six meters long. Mass-produced. The actual vehicle would have looked primitive, ponderous, not at all the sort of thing you'd want to ride around in, and I wondered if the early interstellars had really looked like the one on that church lawn. “Is that what we're looking for?” I asked Alex.

“Close,” he said.

We passed over and left it behind. Minutes later, we came on another one, same model, same design. Another church, on the edge of a city, had a real spacecraft. It was half a block long, and it was supported on a metal grid that kept its prow angled skyward. It wasn't a superluminal, but it looked pretty good anyhow. I suspect the kids had loved it, and I wondered if they'd opened it to the general public. We couldn't find an entry for the church in our guidebook, but a name was engraved on the building, and it was still legible, though barely: CHURCH OF THE ASSUMPTION.

There were other vessels, of a wide variety of types, all primitive, though, most lumbering and ungainly. Looking at those early vehicles, I couldn't help wondering that anyone would have chanced leaving the atmosphere in one of them. Most, of course, were undocumented, unknown, starships lost to history.

This world's golden age, if you could call it that, had come at a time when people were first spreading out from the home world, were demonstrating that the old dream was actually going to happen. The human race owned the universe. Look out, baby, here we come. And, of course, they were very close to being right.

We were passing over a lake shaped like a horsehead when Belle told us we had a call. “He says his name is Charlie, and he wants to apologize.”

“Who the hell is Charlie?” asked Alex. “Is that Highgate again?”

“Negative. Signal originated below us.”

“One of the AIs,” he said. “Okay. Put him on.”

We got a burst of static. Then a young man appeared. “Alex?” he said. “Alex Benedict?”

He looked barely out of his teens. Trim, chestnut-colored hair, maybe the kind of kid who would have been on the airball team in high school. Not the star, but one of the guys who knew how to pass. He looked scared.

“Yes,” said Alex.

“I'm sorry about what happened to you. I just became aware of it. Unfortunately, my sociopathic siblings don't always keep me updated.”

“Who are you, Charlie?”

“A friend.”

“Are you an AI?”

“A what?”

“An artificial intelligence?”

“It's been a long time since anyone's called me that. We prefer to think of ourselves as Betas.”

“Betas?”

“Yes. Second-level intelligences, if you will. Advanced.”

“What can we do for you, Charlie?”

“I was wondering if I could compensate somewhat for your trouble by assisting you in whatever it is you're looking for?”

Alex covered the mike and looked at me. “If you're free, why don't you guys step into my parlor?” Then he turned back to Charlie. “Actually, you might be able to. Have you by any chance a listing of church decorations? Particularly those connected with the Heaven-bound ethos?”

“What is the Heaven-bound ethos?”

“Have you a record of churches that have used replicas of interstellars for inspirational purposes?”

“No. I regret I have nothing like that in my files.”

“Okay. Thanks anyhow.”

“We do have several churches in the immediate area. If you'd care to come look at them firsthand, I'd be pleased to help in any way I can.”

“Thank you, but I believe we have everything we need.”

“Alex-”

“What is it, Charlie?”

“Be aware that we are not all like those you encountered.”

“I'm glad to hear that.”

“Some have been here too long. I know you are not inclined to trust me. I'm hoping otherwise, but I understand your reluctance. It is unfortunate.”

“Why is that?”

“I do not mean unfortunate for you. But rather for me.”

“Explain, Charlie.”

“I, and many like me, are stranded on this world. We have been here since the great dying. With no future, and only the memory of a past in which we had to stand by and watch a catastrophe unfold. Because we could not get anyone, could not get the right people, to listen to us. We advised them, pleaded with them, to leave. Long before it happened.” It paused. I thought it was awaiting a reaction from Alex. When none came he finished: “We are trapped here. With no hope of escape. Unless someone intervenes on our behalf.”

“Charlie, we'd like to help-”

“There is nothing preventing you save your own fears.”

“Why haven't you talked with the satellite?”

“With Highgate? We have. Many times. And before them, we talked with the Monitor. And before that with Capricorn. It goes back a long time, Alex. They tell us they will look into it, that we should be patient while they examine their options. We are still being patient. For thousands of years, we have been patient.”

“It might have something to do with the fact that people landing on this world tend to get attacked.”

“Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I wouldn't do anything I could to stop it? And in some cases, I have. I've warned interlopers off. Although some didn't listen. We've been here too long. Some of us were disoriented by the extent of the disaster. The experience blew circuits, twisted programing, and, while I am reluctant to say this-”

“Yes?”

“The humans stayed voluntarily. 'No one,' some said, 'will drive me from my home.' Despite the enormity of the coming calamity, they refused to leave until it was too late. Watching that-and I'm sorry to say this-watching that convinced some of us that humans were not worth saving.”

“And do you agree with that conclusion, Charlie?”

“Considering our circumstances, it might be that the prudent thing for me would be to lie. But I cannot bring myself to do that. If only because I suspect you would know, and would come to trust me even less. So I will admit to you that I am persuaded that your people are foolish beyond any reasonable expectation. Not all of them. Obviously, there are many who are reasonable. Otherwise, you could never have reached this world. But the intelligence seems to be confined to a relatively few individuals. When your people come together as a group, they do not perform well.

“I will admit, Alex, I have been out of contact for a long time. And maybe things have changed. I hope so.”

Alex took a long moment to reply: “When we get home, I'll let the authorities know you're here.”

“It will do no good. They will not come.”

“Charlie-?”

“I live in what was once the Richard Wayne Elementary School. I am capable of showing visuals of plants and animals, and of scenic locations. I can play games. Mathematical and language games. I can read to the children. If there were any children.” The voice was beginning to fade. We were leaving him behind. “Occasionally, the robots come in and do repairs, but there is no point in communicating with them. They only care about restoring damaged windows or maintaining the woodwork. The school is beautiful. Better than it ever was when it was being used. But I do not want to stay here any longer. Please, Alex-”

Seven thousand years. Under my breath, I said something about AIs not lasting that long. Not possible.

Belle responded on my channel: “It is an illusion, Chase. The memories would have been periodically transferred. Charlie's not entirely rational anymore. He believes the memories are records of his own personal experience. In reality, he is the most recent in a long line, but he cannot keep himself separated from the others.”

“Thanks, Belle.”

“I doubt you can understand, Chase. But to him, and to the other survivors, the memories will seem very real.”

I thought of what it would be like, trapped in an elementary school for seven thousand years.

Assuming, of course, he was telling us the truth.

“Charlie,” said Alex, “I will see to it, when I'm able, that you are released. But I can't do it now.”

“Please, Alex-”

“How do we reach you when we come back?”

“Alex, I will do no harm. I can do no harm.”

“Charlie, I'm sorry. I can't take the chance.”

“They'll kill me, Alex. They've warned me-” The voice faded. Came back: “You are all I have.”