Ghosts in the Machine (The Babel Trilogy Book 2) (11 page)

I tried to smile back, but my face still wasn’t cooperating. I got about halfway there. Then I burst into tears.

C
HAPTER
7

H
ISTORY AND
H
OPE

That dry eastern rangeland was one of the places you’d always promised to show me, and you’d described it well, but its strangeness still came as a surprise, so breathtakingly different from the misty, tree-conquered coast. The land was open, undulating, and almost barren, with nothing but small angular rocks littered among the sagebrush. We could see snowy peaks, low and distant on the horizon. Occasionally the sagebrush gave way to plowed fields, cleared fields, fields furred emerald with new grass. Miles of this—and then, down a dirt farm road, we came over a small rise and saw a silhouette so unexpected that it might have been an alien spaceship. It was a lone boulder, tapered and rounded at the bottom so that it seemed to float a few inches above the ground. A lone boulder the size of a house.

“That’s it,” Ella said. “The Bretz Erratic. Five thousand tons of greenstone, brought here from hundreds of miles away by the Missoula Floods.”

“I know,” I said. I knew because you’d told me the story. The ice dam giving way at ancient Lake Missoula, fifteen thousand years ago. Walls of water two hundred feet tall roaring across the land, an unstoppable inland tsunami that carried giant icebergs with these monster rocks embedded in them. By then, the first Native Americans would have been scratching out a life here. I tried not to imagine, and couldn’t stop imagining, how small doomed groups of them might have heard thunder one clear morning, and looked up in puzzlement, and watched as the eastern horizon glinted, flexed, and rushed forward to engulf them.

Ella pulled off the road next to the boulder. We parked so close to it that we missed the ageing dark-brown VW minibus that was lurking on the other side. But the figure I saw on the ridge—baggy clothes, lopsided stance, wild tufts of hair—was instantly recognizable.

“Oh my God, I don’t believe it.”

Kit followed my gaze. “Who is?”

“It’s—I don’t believe it. Wait here, OK?”

We locked eyes again for about half a second as I scrambled across her to the door.

“You are run away already?” she said, pouting theatrically. “Before even have kissed me?”

“Rain check?” I said. Then I ran across the field, stumbling on the uneven ground.

“Professor! How on earth—?”

It was Derek Partridge, beaming at me. “Ah. Good afternoon, Morag. A relief to know that I’m in the right place. Wonderful to see you.”

“But you were in Boston when you called! You must have driven nonstop.”

“I did pull over and nap once or twice. As for the driving, a scholar’s job is to sit in a chair all day, and I’ve been doing that for decades. The same thing at fifty miles an hour is not much of a hardship. And, after our conversation at the beginning of the week, I had to see you. So”—he pointed to the Volkswagen—“I got Brunhilde an oil change and pointed her west.”

“But—”

“Morag, please,
I know
. I’m a seventy-six-year-old wine-lover who’s survived a brutal mugging and a week being prodded and condescended to by perky Italian medical experts who could have been my grandchildren. At the end of it all, I had to deal with the awful news you gave me when we spoke. And it follows that my decision to jump into my faithful old
Kombinationskraftwagen and drive 2,904 miles just so that I can talk to you in person is incontrovertible proof of my senility. I humbly accept your judgment.”

I stared at him.

“Wasn’t that what to were going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say any of it.”

“You are a true diplomat.”

“No, I’m not. I say what I think. But I’m also big on subtle distinctions, and I don’t think you’re senile. I think you’re a nutter.”

He smiled indulgently, as if accepting that that was an improvement. There was something paradoxically strong in him, for a frail old man. That, or his connection to Bill Calder, or maybe his connection to you, made me lose it at that point. I flung my arms around him and nearly knocked him onto the grass. When he didn’t fall over, I kissed him on both cheeks. He smelled of cheap shaving foam, and his skin was thinner than loo paper.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “The first thing I should have said is I’m so glad that you’re—that you’re not dead. But I still don’t understand why you came all this way.”

“I came all this way because we’re in trouble, Morag. Big trouble.”

“We?” I looked around at the empty field with its handful of human figures.

“We, meaning all of us.
Homo sapiens.
History is repeating itself. I know a lot of history, and I’d rather it didn’t.”

“Are you talking about the Seraphim? Or the Architects?”

“Both, but the Seraphim are just enablers. The important point is that what’s happening now is like a mirror of what happened at Thera and after, in the Bronze Age. The Architects were there then, and they did a huge amount of damage. But something scared them off. Now they’ve come back to finish their work.”

“You believe the Architects are literally
gods
, don’t you? The Mesopotamian gods, returning?”

His eyes twinkled mischievously. “Would that bother you very much?”

“Bill Calder taught me that calling something supernatural was the essence of unscientific thinking.”

“Oh, Morag, my dear, you learned all Bill Calder’s lessons well, and I’m going to miss him as much as you do,” he said. “But
unscientific
is a bully word. People swing it around like a fat stick to intimidate people. To stop them thinking.”

“Shouldn’t we try to be clear about what’s scientific and what isn’t?”

“Indeed yes—and one of the dirty secrets of science is that scientists themselves often fail that test. Learn some of science’s
history
, my dear! When I was growing up, well-known psychologists were telling parents that it was ‘unscientific’ to hug and comfort their children. That wasn’t science! That was baseless, evidence-free drivel! But a white lab coat has such prestige in our culture that if you wear one and talk loudly enough, you can persuade people to believe any nonsense you dream up.”

“Sure,” I said, “but one example of bad science isn’t a reason for believing the theology of ancient Mesopotamia.”

“So let’s just say that
the ancient gods have returned
is my working shorthand for a pattern that I see but don’t understand. What they ‘really’ are, leave that aside for now.” He picked a piece of lint from his sleeve, held it up to the light, and gently puffed it away. “The thing to focus on is that they visited us before and went away again—which is why half the world’s religions are about begging the absent gods to come back. But leave that aside. Now the Architects are back. And they want what happened at Ararat to repeat, all over the world.”

“So we have to prevent that,” I said.

“It may already be too late to prevent it. The Seraphim have just declared six semiofficial ‘areas of interest’—Epicenters, as they call them. Places where they’re concentrating their resources for the next attempts at Anabasis.”

“They’re planning multiple Ararats?”

“Ararat had all sorts of historical significance for them, but it’s in a remote area. Amazing that they got as many people to it as they did. These new Epicenters are all volcanoes in populated areas. Vesuvius in Italy. Popocatépetl in Mexico—”

“Holy shit. Sorry. Vesuvius. Popocatépetl. Fuji. Merapi. Mauna Loa. And Mount Rainier.”

“You’ve heard about it too, then?”

“Daniel had, apparently.” I told him about the atlas and your list on the wall; I left out the blood. “So this is like Shul-hura said about all the ancient worship at volcanoes—and all the pyramids and ziggurats, which were just models of the volcanoes, in effect. Places for the Architects to tune in?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And then what?”

“More Anabasis, I assume. More Mysteries. And more power: they’re getting stronger, you see. They’re
feeding
, and—”

But he stopped there and looked around, like an old dog smelling the wind, and then waved his hand dismissively. “Now that we’re together, Morag, in this beautiful place, let’s save for later any more of these cheerful speculations about humanity’s destruction. First things first: introduce me to your friends. And reintroduce me to Daniel—do you think he’ll know me?”

“He doesn’t even know me. Or I don’t know that he does. He’s only lucid from time to time, and the lucid bits don’t always make a lot of sense either.”

I walked him back to Ella’s truck, where the three of you stood watching. “Look who came to join us,” I said. “Rosko, this is—”

“Herr Professor,” he said, all German and formal, putting out his hand. “Professor Partridge. Yes, I recognize you from your author photograph.”

“Well well well, and you are Rosko Eisler. Der berühmte Bergsteiger!”

“Climber, yes. Not famous yet.”

“Aber es ist mir eine Ehre, Sie kennenzulernen,” Partridge replied, with a little bow. Such a charmer:
An honor to meet you
. It was flattery, but the real charm lay in the fact that he so obviously meant it.

“Danke,” Rosko said. “Sie auch.”

Partridge turned to Kit, and bowed slightly. “And you must be Natazscha Cerenkov’s daughter. Yekaterina, isn’t it?”

“Kit,” she said, taking his hand. “Kit is easier. You recognize how?”

“Daniel’s father once introduced me to your mother at a conference.”

“I am looking like my mother?” She sounded horrified.

“Oh, there is a slight family resemblance,” Partridge said delicately. “It must be your eyes.”

“Good catch, Professor,” Ella said.

It
was
kind of funny, I had to admit; I was glad to be turned toward her, so that Kit wouldn’t see me smiling. “And this is Ella Hardy,” I said. “Ella had the idea for the trip. You could say she’s our resident astronomer.”

I assumed that a crusty old Brit in a tweed sport coat and an overpainted teen in a microskirt and combat boots would disapprove of each other on sight. Instead, it was like long-lost friends.

“An astronomer? In that case, no doubt you have much to teach me. I see that’s a Dobsonian telescope you’re unpacking.”

“Fifteen-inch f4.2.”

“I’m going to make a wild guess that you’re a deep-sky fan. Galaxies? Planetary nebulae?”

“The Cat’s Eye’s my favorite.”

“Ah, yes! Dear old NGC 6543. Evidently we share the same refined aesthetic sensibilities! I shall look forward to the privilege of exploring the sky with you tonight. By the way, I do love those earrings.”

I was about to introduce you last of all, but you’d stepped away from the truck to watch the dust trail as a convoy of other cars approached—your musician friend Julia Shubin, who had all the food, plus half a dozen others. You quietly absented yourself from those introductions too. It was only half an hour later that I managed to get the three of us—you, me, Partridge—away from the others. As the late afternoon light turned the fields from green to gold, we went for a long walk back along the farm road, Partridge propelling himself awkwardly but energetically with the help of a stick.

“Daniel, it’s so good to see you again. Perhaps you won’t remember me, but we’ve met several times before. Your father was my star student.”

I didn’t expect you to say anything. I was happy enough to see how clearly you were focused on him—how obviously you were listening. But you nodded, or perhaps I imagined you did, and you said your father’s name.

“Bill Calder.”

“Yes,” Partridge said. “Bill was a remarkable person, as both your parents were. I’m very sorry.”

He had the right instincts with you—kind of the way Kit did. Instead of pressing you to say more, he just chatted, as if it was a normal conversation, reminiscing to you about your parents. Gradually he came around to Bill’s work on the Disks, and Iona’s search for an answer about the Mysteries, and the way those both connected up with his own research on Thera and the Bronze Age. You didn’t once take your eyes off him.

“I suppose I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that we might be thoroughly wrong about everything,” he said. “That, with all our knowledge and our sophisticated theories, we might be missing something fundamental. And that seems to have become a bit more probable of late, what with one thing and another! You see, I think the Architects you met on Ararat were the same beings our ancestors worshipped at Thera. The same beings that Morag’s Shul-hura worshipped, and then developed some doubts about worshipping. And the record seems to show that they were powerful—but that someone fought back.”

“Too much knowledge,” you said. “Babblers. Too many languages.”

He looked at you for a long time, as if assessing something, and raked his hair into place with his mottled, lumpy old man’s hands. Then he turned to me. “You only managed to read part of the
Geographika
before you two dropped it into the Mediterranean, am I right?”

“You’re not going to forget that, are you?”

“No,” he said mildly. “But no use crying over spilled milk, as my mother used to say. The point is, I did read the part about some Therans ‘ascending’ and others ‘failing.’”