Empress of Eternity (4 page)

10 Siebmonat 3123, Vaniran Hegemony

Duhyle and Helkyria sat across from each other at the small table on the lower level. That was where he served all their meals. He preferred the wall-diffused more natural light of the main and upper levels, but not to the extent of carrying food, dishes, and utensils up the ramp…and then back down.

He took a methodical swallow of the bergamot tea, then set down the silvered crystalline mug. When Helkyria didn’t speak, he did. “You worked late last night. You didn’t come to bed until past midnight.”

She lowered her mug and nodded. She’d been holding it just below her chin and savoring the scent and vapor of the tea. Her irises remained their natural silver.

“The environmental parameters…or the treasure hunt?” he pressed. “Or something else?”

“The first drives the second. The latest reports from EnvCentre in Vaena aren’t good,” Helkyria admitted. “With essentially no compensating feedback on any subsurface systemic level, there’s just not enough planetary core radioactivity remaining. The solar cycle is at a minimum, and the projections are that it will be another ten thousand years, at a minimum, before received solar radiation returns to past estimated baselines.”

“Past estimated baselines? How reliable are they?”

“Not so reliable as we’d like. You know what happened when the Jhaenists tried entangled fermionic solar manipulation from Mercury…”

“That’s still a theory. We don’t know.”

“The results of whatever they were trying seared half the planet and disrupted the deeper solar processes enough to reduce the amount of solar radiation emitted,” replied Helkyria. “They succeeded, by chance or accident, or the sun just obliged them on its own, but that fractional reduction of radiation left us with less than we need for a stable envirosystem, and for the millennia since then we’ve been teetering on the edge of ice age after ice age.”

“Where is global warming when we need it?” Duhyle added quickly, “Isn’t that what the Aesyr would ask?”

“They’ve asked it enough, without any real understanding. You know that, Kavn. Most important, the ancients burned so much of the Earth’s fossil fuels that we couldn’t replicate that even if we wanted to and if we could deal with the polluting by-products. The green house gases that we could create are too long-lasting, and we’d be back where the Jhaenists were. A compounding green house effect is almost always a runaway process over any length of time—something the most distant ancients didn’t understand, even with the obvious example of Venus. Neither did too many of their successors. That’s why the Jhaenists were so desperate. Life in the universe appears to be balanced on the edge of a very sharp and unforgiving blade, and in the end entropy will always win.” She offered a sardonic smile, enhanced by a momentary flash of green in her eyebrows. “But only eventually, and not until after the sun becomes a red giant.”

“Not before Earth freezes solid again.”

“That probably won’t happen. Unless we can discover something less catastrophic, the advocates of enhancing the green house effect will win out, backed by the Aesyr, and our descendants will face another seared Earth. This time, there’s not likely to be any way to recover.”

“Haven’t scients said that before?”

“When the clock finally stops, it’s usually the wrong time.”

Duhyle didn’t ask about the applicability of that metaphor. She was convinced that the clock was all too likely to stop when it melted in the furnace of a runaway green house. From the recent comm-system disruptions staged by the Climate for People and the Warm Clean Earthers, both Aesyr fronts or sympathizers, it was also clear that too many humans wanted the ice gone—now. They wanted it to vanish without any untidy or unpleasant complications. That had never been possible, and it wasn’t likely to happen this time, either. That also was why his tech status had been reactivated and why Helkyria had been called up, again, as a scient-commander. He had asked if she’d really been assigned, but she’d always evaded the question.

“What about terraforming Mars again?” he asked after a moment.

“With what? It takes water, and the previous efforts scoured the easily available ices from the Kuiper Belt. Those remaining are farther out and smaller. That takes time, resources, and energy. We’re short on all three.”

“Even if…?”

“Enhancing thorium for a breeder program would require massive energy concentrations as well, and it’s politically unthinkable, except for the most radical of the Aesyr. Besides, even if we could do that, we don’t have the resources to move four hundred million people.”

“The distant ancients numbered billions…”

“When everything fell apart, most of those billions died. You’ve seen enough of the fossils and all the evidence of total societal collapse. The Hu-Ruche apparently evaded one collapse, and they’re the only ones who did…and that only postponed the inevitable.”

“Are you certain?”

“Every simulation I can run predicts Iceberg Earth. So does every other simulation attempted by the Department.”

“With no rebound?”

“I wouldn’t say that the probability of no rebound is unitary, but it’s so close that…” Helkyria offered a sad smile, and the tips of her silver-gold locks flickered the off-blue of disappointment. Her eyebrows did not shift hues, suggesting that her discouragement was perhaps not so deep as her words conveyed.

“That it might as well be,” Duhyle finished.

“That’s why I’m here. The Stats center has calculated a ten percent chance that detailed study of the canal will reveal data or information not presently known.”

“Based on what?”

Helkyria smiled. “An array of inputs that would take far too long to even summarize over breakfast.”

“How about one?”

“The fact that the apparent density of the canal, as measured by indirect gravitational distortion, suggests a structure that could not hold itself together for more than fifty years, let alone millions.”

“Indirect distortion?” He already knew the answer.

“Do you know a direct way to measure something embedded in a planetary crust?” A faint twinkle of gold glittered from the tips of her eyelashes and eyebrows. “We did work out an even more indirect method, since the traditional means showed nothing at all.”

“Indirection is everything,” bantered Duhyle.

“No one’s ever measured the material of the midcontinent canal before,” Helkyria continued as if he had said nothing. “How could you measure or determine the properties of a substance you can’t sample? It’s essentially impervious to all forms of energy. It either reflects or scatters anything focused on it, or both, depending on the wave form and amount of energy involved.”

“What did you discover?”

Both her irises and the tips of her hair turned a blackish purple.

Duhyle had never seen that, and he swallowed.

A crooked smile followed. “The results were…mixed. It has no mass; it has the same average mass as the Earth’s crust; its mass is independent of the Earth.” She rose from the table.

“How is your scanning project coming?” He also stood.

“I’ll know when the last equipment arrives. It might work…and it might not. I’ll need your help with the equipment.”

“You’re worried.”

“They’re sending a spec-ops team and weapons with the equipment. They should be here tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Several days ago, the Aesyr extremists launched a stealth submersible from Urda—that isle under the northern ice. They’ve learned about the project, and they’re afraid our probing will unlock immense forces and devastate the entire globe.” Her laugh was soft, ironic, and bitter, and the tips of her curls flickered cold silver. “That’s a cover. They think that we’re doing weapons research. As if the ancients would have made all the effort to create and plant the canal into the crust just to leave a doomsday weapon for the future. If they’d wanted to destroy the world, they had far better options.”

“The Aesyr don’t understand,” he temporized.

“Extremists never have. That’s because they don’t want to.” She shrugged. “Time to get back to work.”

“Refining the control programming while you wait for the rest of the equipment?”

She nodded, offered a brief smile, and turned.

As she left, Duhyle wondered if he’d ever understand more than the basic theory of fermionic ghost diffraction imaging. He certainly had had more than a little trouble when Helkyria had tried to explain quantum ghost imaging and the differences between it and fermionic diffraction imaging. As for fermionic ghost entanglement…and he was an electrical engineer. He shook his head and picked up her dishes.

He’d have to take a midday meal up to her. She forgot to eat when she immersed herself in the depths of her work.

Still…an armed stealth submersible sent to attack or infiltrate and take over a research installation on an ancient canal that hadn’t ever done anything to anyone or anything over the millennia?

35 Eightmonth 1351, Unity of Caelaarn

Once more, Maertyn read over the dispatch that had come with the canal-runner that morning.

Saenblaed, reflected Maertyn as he lowered the dispatch for a moment, was where the bulk of the refugees from Edelburg had settled. They always voted for the Returnist party and any scheme, no matter how improbable, that offered hope of reclaiming their lands. What the short dispatch had not said, but clearly implied, was that the strictly biologically based projects and research, always the strength of the Unity, were not turning out as planned, because of either star-high costs or technical problems, if not both.

He couldn’t say that he was surprised. Biological means of providing the concentrated energy required by technological societies tended to be inefficient or to require significant additional processing and/or infrastructure to increase that energy concentration, effectively diluting the end-use efficiency. Also, efficiency declined in extremes of heat or cold, and the earth was definitely cooling.

His thesis had been relatively simple. After scanning of the records of temperature observations taken at the east and west end of the canal and at selected points in between and cross-matching them, as best he could, to comparable observations within a kay or more away from the canal, but still within the same climatic area, there seemed to be a definite indication that the canal moderated temperatures more than could be accounted by all the known factors. In the year and a half since he and Maarlyna had been at the station, his own measurements had made that clear. He had yet to figure out why. The impervious blue-gray stone—although he doubted it was stone in any chemical or compositional sense—never changed temperature, regardless of how much sunlight fell or how chill the winters were. Did it somehow regulate its temperature instantly, or did its very composition insulate it from temperature changes?

He’d originally hoped that determining the basis for that definite temperature differential might lead to developing possible means for pushing the ice back from the northern side of the canal. The more he studied that aspect of the problem, the more he doubted that he could develop even a viable theoretical approach. While he was not about to tell the Ministry that, not yet, there were other aspects of the canal that offered better prospects, including his growing awareness of what might almost be called “messages,” such as the understanding of when a berg might calve or when a tsunami might reach the station—although that had happened but a handful of times. He couldn’t very well put those into a research paper or presentation. Even Maarlyna, who loved and trusted him, had hardly given him any indication that she believed what he sensed. Yet…he had the feeling she sensed something as well, although he had not pressed her on that, not when she was neurally so vulnerable.

Now he had to give a convincing presentation on a thesis in which he no longer fully believed in order to retain Ministry support to allow him to pursue a research alternative he couldn’t logically justify or quantify. And Minister Hlaansk’s dispatch had made it more than clear that he had best be very convincing.

There was also the question of whether that was even the real purpose of Hlaansk’s politely worded demand. Was it as simple as what he had stated, or was Maertyn’s presentation designed to provide political cover for the minister against the appointees who were loyal to other political figures, or was it to make an example of Maertyn by showing that even lords were accountable…especially if they requested more equipment? Or was it something else entirely?

Finally, he pushed the chair back and stood, turning from the pale green screens that held meaningful but irrelevant data. He stretched, then, after several moments, walked from his workroom into the main study. He did not see Maarlyna, and he turned toward the ramp that began just inside the main entrance on the canal side of the station building and headed down to the kitchen, located in the chamber below his work space.

Maarlyna was not there, but Shaenya was standing before the cook-top.

“Might I ask what’s for dinner?”

“Carplet stew, but with a pinenut glaze, and spiced potatoes in yogurt with some greens I gathered from the sheltered garden.”

“The panels have kept it from freezing?”

“Them and the water walls. For now. In another two weeks…who could say?”

“If there’s time next week in Daelmar before I catch the maglev to Caelaarn, I’ll see if I can stop and have a side of lamb sent over from there on Haarlan’s freightrunner.”

“You’d not have to do that, Lord Maertyn.”

“I want you, Svorak, and Maarlyna well-fed in my absence.” He grinned. “If I do, don’t you dare save it for my return.”

“Not if you’d be telling me not to, no, sir.”

“You haven’t seen Maarlyna, have you?”

“Lady S’Eidolon?” The cook shook her head. “She came down an hour ago, but not since then.”

“Thank you.” Maertyn turned and walked back up the ramp and then outside onto the narrow space between the station and the canal wall. He glanced around before catching sight of Maarlyna. For a moment, he just looked, taking in the glint of light off her amber hair and the way she appeared so much a part of the canal and the light house.

She stood in the weak late-afternoon sunlight to the left of the light house, looking out at the cold gray waters of the ocean. She did not turn as he joined her.

“It’s peaceful here.” Her voice was quiet, so low he could barely make out her words above the hum of the wind turbines, the rush of the wind, and the intermittent muffled crash of the waves below hitting the enduring blue-gray stone.

He understood. “Not that many people around.”

“They didn’t used to grate on me so much.”

“Times change.”

“So do people. I’ve changed, Maertyn.”

“We all change as we grow.”

“You’re humoring me.”

“Perhaps a little. Isn’t that the husbandly thing to do?”

She finally turned to face him. “You never used to do that. You never were so solicitous before…before…”

“No. I should have been, but almost losing you made me realize how much you meant to me.” His eyes looked into hers, a shade of amber that matched her hair almost perfectly.

“I know. I don’t pretend to understand, but I know.”

He leaned toward her and brushed her cheek with his lips. “I’m glad you do.”

“The longer we’re here,” she mused, “the stranger the station seems, and yet the more like home. I have the feeling that I won’t want to leave.”

Maertyn nodded. He wasn’t certain he felt quite that way, but then, he’d never felt as though any place had ever been home. In those moments as he stood beside her under the high gray clouds, his thoughts returned to the station itself. As Maarlyna had said, there were so many prosaically strange aspects to the station. There were no vermin, no pests, and, according to the records, domesticated animals howled and moaned if they were kept inside. Yet the old records showed that the former light house-keepers had had fewer accidents and lived seemingly healthier and longer lives than their contemporaries. Had some of them sensed what Maertyn did? At least subconsciously?

The functionality of the doors bothered him. They had from the beginning. According to the older records, they didn’t respond to animals, only to people, and that included children, and generally only to bare skin. Did the “windows,” doors, and ducts respond as much to mental intent as to human touch? Did the windows admit light if no people were present? How could he easily test the effect of presence or intent?

“You have the oddest look on your face, Maertyn…”

“I was just thinking…”

“About what?”

“The station.” He paused. “Would you do me a favor, dearest?”

“If I can.” Her voice was puzzled.

“I’d like you to touch parts of the station wall as we walk back, but I want you to close your eyes after the first touch, take several steps, and touch the station wall again. You remember when I was doing that? I didn’t think about doing it with my eyes closed when I couldn’t see the wall.”

“Would that make a difference?”

He laughed softly. “I don’t know. I just never thought of it.”

“If you think it will help,” she offered, smiling.

“One way or the other, it will,” he promised.

As they walked back toward the station, she grasped his arm with her left hand a trace more firmly than usual.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Right at the corner, here. Then you close your eyes and take several steps. I’ll tell you when to touch the wall again. Keep your eyes closed, but reach out and touch the stone. Then, we’ll do it once more…several times more.”

Maarlyna reached out and touched the rounded square corner of the stone, then closed her eyes. “How many steps?”

“Try three.”

Maertyn let her lead him.

“Here?” she asked.

“That’s good.”

At the third stop, where, on the inside, Maertyn thought there was a window, there was no change in the opacity of the stone. Maertyn hadn’t expected there would be, but the confirmation was slightly satisfying.

After the fourth stop, he said, “Just two steps this time.”

Maarlyna took the two steps, then stretched her arm and touched the smooth gray stone.

Maertyn watched intently. For a long moment, nothing happened. He counted silently.
One, two, three.

Then the door opened, the stone sliding/folding into itself as it always did.

He almost nodded. “You can open your eyes.”

“We’re back. What did you find out?”

He gestured for her to enter the study, following her inside, before replying. “The door opened more slowly when you weren’t thinking of it as a door.”

Behind them, the door re-formed into the smooth stone wall.

She nodded. “I can’t say that surprises me. I couldn’t tell you why, though.” She smiled. “I wonder if it would refuse to open if someone hostile tried.”

“I’d rather not have to try that experiment.” He returned the smile. “I need to think about some things before dinner.”

“I’ll just read in here, if it won’t disturb you.”

“You never do.” Maertyn returned to his workroom through the open archway and settled into the swivel, thinking.

Had that long hesitation meant what he thought? Exactly what else could he do? He nodded. He should have thought about it earlier. He could certainly measure the light levels in the main rooms just by leaving a recording photometer behind. That would tell him about the windows. He leaned forward and began to list the equipment he needed. He’d have to modify some of it to get the accuracy he desired, but it wouldn’t take that much work.

When he finished, some time later, he straightened and considered the situation.

The first and most obvious question was why had others not discovered what he had. The first thought that came to mind was that they might well have, but how would he know, given the fragmentary nature of the records remaining? If they had discovered only what he had observed so far, then the results would only have been a curiosity. To discover more would have required higher-level technology, and human records tended to become more and more impermanent with such technology, not to mention that humans seemed to have great difficulty hanging on to civilization—and records—once technology reached a high level.

Maarlyna’s question raised another line of thought. Determining hostile intent suggested more than mere mechanical response. Could the stone hold an entire intelligence of some sort?

Yet, if it did, why had it remained detached, or at least passive, over all the years? Was there some sort of test involved? Or was the test simply to discover what the canal truly was and how to best use it?

He frowned. Then again…could anything as enigmatic as the canal truly be “used” by anyone?

As always, what he discovered was raising more questions than answers, and he needed some sort of answers to keep the Ministry off his back…and to keep Maarlyna away from Caelaarn—indeed anywhere near Unity spies and functionaries—for as long as possible.