Starship Winter

— SEVEN —

I drove Hannah down to Mackinley the following morning. We were subdued. The fact that we were parting later that day◦– albeit for less than a week◦– was bad enough, but what Matt had communicated last night made us more than a little apprehensive.

I left the roadster in the empty parking lot and we hurried hand in hand towards the sliding doors of the centre; it was a little after ten.

Hawk and Kee were in the foyer. “Matt said he’d called you last night,” Hawk said. “Any idea what this is about?”

I shook my head. “Whatever it is, I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

Further conversation was brought to a halt with the arrival of Matt and Maddie, accompanied by the small blue figure of the Ambassador.

“Matt,” I said as they joined us.

He ushered us through a door to the main exhibition area where last week Concordance had played. The dome was empty now, but for a litter of plinths, cables and strewn plastic containers.

Matt indicated a semi-circle of empty foam-forms situated by the concave wall of the dome. I glanced at Hannah, who raised her eyebrows fractionally, and we sat down. Hawk and Kee sat across from us and Maddie sat beside the Ambassador to our left.

Matt remained standing, chin in hand, as he considered his words.

The suspense was unbearable. At last Hawk said, “For chrissake, Matt! What’s all this about?”

Matt smiled. “You’re all trusted friends.” He looked at Hannah. “You too, even though I’ve known you only for a matter of days.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been in consultation with the Ambassador”, he went on, nodding towards the primly seated figure, “and he agreed that the truth should be known.”

The Ambassador gestured. “But known only to a small group of select people: yourselves, the friends of Matt Sommers.”

The alien sat back and all eyes switched to Matt. He began pacing back and forth, then paused and looked at us. “First of all”, he said, “I need to explain why Darius Dortmund visited Chalcedony, and specifically the exhibition.”

Kee said, “He was planning to steal the Epiphany Stones, no?”

Matt smiled. “Well, in a way I suppose he was.”

“In a way?” I said.

He resumed his pacing. “He wasn’t planning a traditional heist. His theft would have been◦– was◦– even more audacious and seemingly impossible than any physical theft.” He paused. “To explain, you must understand the range of Dortmund’s abilities. We all know he was empathetic, perhaps even telepathic◦– and that exhibition the other night with the hleth barb: he was telekinetic into the bargain, though it drained him to perform such feats. He also had other mental abilities, gained through his empathetic talents and learned from the many races he met in his travels around the Expansion.”

He paced back and forth, then went on, “He was a driven soul. I think we all agree that he wasn’t a particularly pleasant human being. He’d turned his back on humanity and on human philosophy. He wanted more, and his entire existence was about gaining intellectual and philosophical understanding from the alien races he came into contact with. When he learned of the Elan, of their philosophies and their reverence of their ancestors via the Epiphany Stones, he wanted to investigate. He went to Epiphany some years ago, but was refused access to the stones.

“On Chalcedony, however, at my exhibition, he was not◦– and for the first time he could mentally engage, on a level we cannot even begin to imagine, with the stones and their unique contents.”

I recalled Dortmund’s first experience of the stones, his subsequent collapse, and then his later rapid sampling of the exhibits.

Matt was saying, “We became aware that something was wrong on the first day the exhibition was open to the public. That afternoon people reported that certain stones appeared to be losing their power, their strength. The Ambassador investigated and discovered that indeed some stones had mysteriously weakened. There seemed to be no explanation for this, until we examined a recording of the exhibition, and realised that only the stones experienced by Darius Dortmund had been affected, perhaps thirty in all.”

The Ambassador carved a fluid gesture in the air and addressed us. “Forgive me, but perhaps you cannot, being human, fully appreciate the meaning of what had happened to the stones. Words and phrases like ‘weakened’ and ‘lost their strength’, while conveying in factual terms the effect on the stones of Dortmund’s depredations, do not do full justice to the extent of his… ah… sacrilege.”

Matt went on, “Dortmund had not just ‘weakened’ the effect of certain stones in the display… I know this might sound fantastic and unbelievable to you, but he had drawn into his consciousness the essences of the Elan dead contained in the stones he sampled. He wanted the knowledge of the elders, their wisdom. In effect, he had abducted the souls of revered and worshipped Elan elders.”

The Ambassador used both hands to shape his emotion. “You cannot imagine the tragedy, the… the desecration, my friends.”

Hawk cleared his throat and said, “So that’s why the Elan Fhen killed Dortmund and fled?”

A silence met his words.

Matt glanced at the Ambassador, who said, “As I mentioned at the villa the other morning, we Elan do not kill. We do not kill animals, insects. We certainly do not kill human beings—”

Hannah said, “But perhaps Fhen, driven to go against his people’s ways by what Dortmund had done…?”

Matt was shaking his head. “Like the Ambassador said, the Elan do not kill, under any circumstances. Fhen didn’t murder Darius Dortmund.”

We stared at him. I said, “Then who…?”

Matt returned our collective gaze. At last he said, “I did.”

Looking back, I realise I was in shock for several long seconds. My pulse pounded, and I experienced hot and cold flushes as I tried to take in Matt’s words.

I stared at Hannah, who was staring wide-eyed at Matt. Hawk was open-mouthed, and Kee was clinging to him as if in fright. On the couch, Maddie had lowered her head and was inspecting her fingers; she looked up and smiled to each of us in turn. Obviously Matt had told her, at some point, of his actions.

Now he said, “Together with the Ambassador and Fhen, we went through how we should respond to Dortmund’s theft, and we came to a decision, hard though it was. The opportunity arose after Dortmund displayed his ability with the hleth barb, when everyone had retired that night. Minutes later I returned to the lounge with Heanor and Fhen and confronted him. I…” Matt drew a breath, evidently reliving the moment, “I didn’t take the murder of a fellow human being lightly, but I knew that it had to be done.”

“But,” I said, “but…” I was stuttering and shaking, failing to understand the actions of my friend. “But Dortmund had already… already weakened the stones. He’d done the deed. What was to be gained from killing him, other than revenge?”

Hawk said, “David’s right. What had happened to the stones, and the souls of the elders they contained, had happened. Revenge was useless. Dortmund’s death doesn’t achieve anything.”

Into the ensuing silence, Matt said, “But Dortmund is not dead, Hawk.”

I leaned back, resting against the foam-form for support. Hawk laughed, “What?”

“I didn’t ‘kill’ Dortmund for revenge, or to stop him continuing his desecration.” He turned to Heanor. “Ambassador…”

The little Elan stood up. “My friends, that evening when Matt consented to ‘kill’ Darius Dortmund, we had explained to him that Dortmund would not die, though it would seem so to the outside world. Dortmund contained, in his head, in his soul, the essences of our ancestors◦– and we wanted them returned.”

“But how…?” Hannah began.

“Fhen and I set up one of the emptied, desecrated stones”, said the Ambassador, “and the apparatus with which to convey the essence of Dortmund to it…” He stood, moved around the foam-form, and lifted into view a small valise. He opened it and carefully, with reverence, lifted out a long, faceted Epiphany Stone, sparkling emerald in the light spilling through the wall of the dome.

“My friends,” he said, “this stone contains the essence of Darius Dortmund◦– and also, more importantly, the essences of those ancestors he stole from us. They are now returned, and I give thanks.”

Hawk said, floundering for words, “But… my God. Dortmund is in… that?” He gestured to the stone. “I don’t believe it!”

Matt smiled at the Ambassador. “Heanor, perhaps…?”

The alien nodded, rose to his feet with the stone and moved across the exhibition area to a vacant plinth. He set the Epiphany Stone in a recessed housing and nodded to Matt.

“I thought you might find the truth hard to take,” Matt said. “So I arranged for a little demonstration. If you’d care to…” and he gestured us towards the plinth.

Cautiously, as if we were expecting some kind of trap, we stood and crossed the floor. When we were gathered before the plinthed stone, Heanor touched a switch on the column of the plinth and stood back.

Matt said. “It’s ready now, if you’d care to step forward.”

Hannah looked at me, gripped my hand, and we moved towards the stone. We entered a nimbus of ruby light, and were soon joined by the others.

Instantly we were enveloped by a sensation of being removed from the here and now, quickly followed by what I could only describe as an impression of enlightenment◦– intellectual enlightenment, that is, not some beatific spiritual dawning of realisation. It was as if I were a scientist who had happened upon some fundamental truth underpinning the reality of the universe. What that truth was, exactly, was beyond my intellect to comprehend: I merely sensed the excitement of curiosity fulfilled, of knowledge gained…

And then I saw the figures in the ruby mist before us. They were Elan, a small gathering of the alien beings◦– and I knew that they were the dead ancestors ‘abducted’, as it were, by Darius Dortmund’s desecration.

A second later, shockingly, I saw the tall figure of Dortmund himself in their midst, looming above them like some kind of patriarch.

And, at the sight of him, it was as if I were granted some intimation of his joy at being united at last with what he had sought for so long… or at least that’s the sensation I gained at the time.

I was aware of Hannah’s hand in mine, gripping me tightly. Beside us I made out Hawk and Kee, Matt and Maddie.

Dortmund approached, seeming to drift into greater focus. He paused before us, smiling at us◦– genuinely smiling, something I had never seen him do while alive.

His thin, pale face turned in the direction of Matt, and he mouthed something to him.

Later, we debated his words. I was convinced he said, “Thank you…” while Hannah thought he shaped the words, “The wonder…” Hawk was convinced he heard a soft, “Unity… The answer, at last…”

Seconds later the image faded; Dortmund receded along with the Elan, and we stepped, dazed, from the nimbus of ruby light.

We stood in stunned silence for a long minute. I held Hannah to me, her solidity reassuring after the abstract reality we had experienced.

A little later, Matt looked across at Hannah and said softly, “You can arrest me, Hannah, and I’ll make a full confession. I’ll willingly go on trial and defend what I did, for the sake of the Elan and their ancestors.”

I looked at Hannah, stricken, and realised that I was gripping her hand as if in desperation. She was open-mouthed, wide-eyed, and slowly shook her head back and forth. At last she said, “How could I do that, when…?” and she gestured towards the Epiphany Stone.

I glanced across at Matt; he was holding Maddie and she was weeping against his chest.

Heanor was removing the Epiphany Stone from its plinth and slipping it into the case. He smiled at us, “And now, my friends, perhaps it is time to repair to the shipyard?”

Together we moved from the exhibition centre and emerged into the dazzling winter sunlight.