Starship Winter (David Conway 03) (3 page)

“But I take it you’re off duty tonight, Lieutenant?”

“Wrong, Mr Conway,” she said. “I might be out of uniform, but I’m working. I’m heading a team to ensure that everything here runs like clockwork.”

I smiled. I hadn’t heard that archaic expression since my childhood.

I think it was then that I knew I was going to screw up my courage and, at some point in the evening, ask Lieutenant van Harben if she would care for a drink, or even a meal, later that week.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your first name,” I said. “And it doesn’t feel right calling you Lieutenant all night.”

She laughed, and proffered her hand again. “Of course, I’m sorry. I’m Hannah.” And it might have been my imagination, or hope, but I detected that she held onto my hand for a moment longer than etiquette required.

“So you’ve made the acquaintance of Mr Darius Dortmund,” I said.

She leaned towards me and said in a lowered tone, “Can’t stand the man. There’s something about him… he’s not only arrogant, but creepy.”

I raised my glass. “I’ll second that, Hannah.”

“He got into an argument with Matt Sommers ten minutes ago about the validity of his artwork – and particularly this exhibition. Dortmund claimed it transgressed art and strayed onto the territory of cultural profanity.”

“What did Matt say?”

“He was brilliant. He said all art was about broadening human – and alien – understanding of experience, and as such his current artwork was doing that. He cited the compliance of the Elan themselves in the project. Dortmund started to object, but that’s when Director Chandranath suggested we go outside to watch the spindizzies.”

“What did you think of them?”

She shook her head. “I can safely say I’ve never ever seen anything quite so beautiful.”

“Have you ventured out of Mackinley since your arrival?”

She shook her head. “Too busy with work.”

“The coast, especially north of here, is spectacular. I live up at Magenta Bay.”

She nodded. “I’ve read about your ship, the
Mantis
.”

“You should come up some time. I’ll show you around. The foothills have a series of incredible waterfalls…” I stumbled to a halt, blushing like a schoolboy.

She reached out, gripped my hand, and tipped her head to one side. “I’d like that,” she said.

She released my hand just as there was another commotion among those gathered behind us. Heart racing, I turned to see a tiny, blue-green figure step daintily through the crowd towards us.

He was perhaps three feet tall, and thin, with long spindly legs which had two sets of knees. His torso seemed disproportionately compacted, and his arms – again with double joints – too long. His facial features were almost reassuringly normal, in that he had two large eyes and a long mouth. I found myself thinking the alien’s head resembled some kind of bushbaby or lemur.

He paused before our group, bobbing slightly on the suspension of his bi-jointed legs.

Matt made the introductions. “This is Heanor, Ambassador of the Elan. Heanor, I’d like to introduce you to my good friends.”

As Matt spoke our names, the alien Ambassador looked at us each in turn, shaping a graceful gesture in the air before his chest. “I am pleased to meet you,” he said in a high, reedy voice, then looked up at Matt and went on, “I am happy with the conjunction of events, Mr Sommers. I am happy to see the exhibition commence. I would be pleased if you might commence the opening ceremony.”

Matt nodded graciously, cleared his throat and said, “Ladies and gentlemen…” A hush settled over the assembled guests. “I’m not going to make a big speech. My art speaks for itself, I hope. I will say, however, that this piece marks a radical departure in my work, as you will shortly appreciate. Also, I would like to thank the kindness and understanding of the Elan people in affording me the opportunity to bring from their homeworld the Epiphany Stones that comprise this installation, entitled
Concordance
.” He bowed his head to Heanor, and murmured something I took to be in the Elan language, and then, “My eternal gratitude.”

I happened to glance at Dortmund, then. He was watching the artist with an expression which mixed annoyance and disgust.

Matt raised his arms. “Please, if you would care to make your way to the main hall…”

Hannah caught my eye, tipped her head and gave a quick smile. “Shall we?”

We moved with the crowd towards the entrance.

* * *

The exhibition centre was a big, low-slung dome, perhaps a hundred metres in diameter. Usually it was divided into sections for exhibitions and shows, but tonight the entire floor space was given over to
Concordance
.

The interior of the dome was dimly lit, to begin with. Then, as the guests entered the exhibition, a centrally mounted ceiling light, like some kind of giant pendant ruby, began to glow. As we watched, perhaps fifty individual beams of crimson light spoked from the ruby and struck the faceted surfaces of as many stones located on plinths around the dome.

There was a gasp from a guest up ahead. I made out a woman in her fifties, who had approached one of the faceted stones.

Beside me, Hannah grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Look.”

A nimbus of verdant light surrounded the woman, and within the circumference of that light I could see the shapes of small, moving figures. They were Elan, a trio of the small beings seemingly addressing the woman, phantom figures gesturing with their long, bi-jointed arms as she stared at them in wonder.

Other guests had approached the plinthed Epiphany Stones and were similarly bathed in light and confronted by the ghostly alien figures.

I moved to a vacant stone, pleasantly aware that Hannah was at my side. I glanced at her before entering the stone’s activation field. “You first,” I said.

She touched my arm. “Let’s do it together, David.”

Side by side we took a step forward. Instantly a bright light hit us – sky blue this time – and I experienced an odd, and unsettling, sensation of being disconnected from my immediate surroundings. Not only did I no longer seem to be in the exhibition centre, but I had the intimation that I was no longer on Chalcedony. I looked out, beyond the central radiance emanating from the stone, but could not make out the rest of the dome.

I glanced at Hannah. “Do you feel that?”

She nodded, a pinched expression of concern on her elfin features. She had taken my hand. “It’s… where are we, David? I feel as if I’m on another planet.”

The odd thing was that, although I knew we were in a nimbus of light no more than two metres across, it was as if we were standing upon a vast plain without boundaries, as if we might set off walking and never step from the encapsulating light.

I laughed. “Me too. Hey – look.”

In the distance I saw three alien figures approaching us. They were Elan, and for some reason I gained the impression that they were aged and wise. They came within a metre of Hannah and me, stopped and gazed at us with their big, round eyes.

And I was flooded with a sensation of… how can I express this without seeming insane or gullible? I felt then that I was in some kind of communication with these beings. No words were exchanged, not even gestures. It was a mind-to-mind thing, a meeting of emotions, perhaps. I was overcome with a sense of peace, of harmony – an intimation of the universal oneness of all things in existence.

I felt Hannah’s small weight against me, almost as if she were swooning. “It’s like… like music,” she gasped.

That was, I thought, the best way to describe the sensation. It was wordless, thoughtless, a communication that transcended species barriers and the need for the normal channels of explication.

The figures gestured, and there was something reassuring and gentle about the grace of their movements. They retreated, backed away, and the blue light surrounding us suddenly vanished, pitching us into the stark reality of the exhibition dome.

“Good God,” I said as I staggered from the plinth. Hannah was with me, and I realised that we were still holding hands. I looked around, shocked by the fact of my sudden translocation back into the real world.

All around, others were undergoing the same shocked transition. Hawk and Kee came up to us. They were speechless. We stared at each other, smiling inanely.

At last Hawk said, pointing to the stone he and Kee had just stepped away from, “Try that one, it’s… it’s
magical
…”

Hannah nodded and like an eager child dragged me over to the plinth. We stepped into its embrace.

This time, the light that surrounded us was cerise, and again I experienced that odd sense of dislocation, as if we were no longer on Chalcedony. Two figures approached us, two bent and stooped Elan, who regarded us with their massive eyes and gestured with their oddly articulated arms. And the mood communicated this time was of loss – I was filled with a moving sense of bereavement, not for an individual person, but the universal melancholy of that inexplicable and inescapable pre-emptive grief, almost terror, that grips you in the empty early hours when the preoccupying details of daytime are gone and you apprehend the unavoidable fact of your mortality and the fact that you will be dead for all eternity. Beside me, Hannah was weeping quietly.

And then, suddenly, the aliens reached out, one to Hannah and the other to me, and their ghostly hands seemed to brush our brows. And how to describe the rush of nameless emotion that assailed us then, for I was sure that Hannah was undergoing the same.

The sense of loss and fear was banished, and I knew – I knew with a certainty beyond all doubt – that life would not end with my death; that existence was ongoing and eternal, that the ills of the physical were but a passing phase that would be transcended when I passed from this life to the next.

I was filled with a joy beyond description – and then the light ceased and Hannah and I were back in the mundane surrounds of the dome.

Tears tracked down her pale cheeks and we came together suddenly in an embrace that celebrated what we had just experienced.

Hannah shook her head. “But how does Matt do it? I mean… it’s more than just art!”

I laughed. “What did he say, that art was all about broadening human and alien understanding of experience? I’d say he’s pretty well succeeded in doing that.”

“Me too. I can’t wait to ask him how he managed it.”

“Knowing Matt”, I said, “I think he’ll want to keep the secret to himself. Like a magician, you know?”

She tugged my arm. “Shall we try another one?”

“Try stopping me.”

For the next hour we moved from stone to stone, as entranced as the rest of the guests. We passed through three very different experiences. One communicated to us the joy of birth; it was as if the essence of the feeling I experienced at the birth of my daughter had been somehow distilled by alien alchemists and poured into my soul.

The emotion conveyed by the next stone seemed to be the futility of hatred, at least that was how I interpreted it: I was assailed by vengeful feelings, swiftly followed by a notion of the negativity of these feelings.

The next stone communicated an emotion so alien, so inexplicable – yet always hovering on the very cusp of my apprehension – then it vanished, like the content of a dream upon awaking, as the light ceased and returned us to the dome.

“David!” Hannah said, thrusting her wrist in front of my eyes. “Look, we’ve been in the dome for more than an hour and a half. And yet… I could have sworn we’ve experienced each stone for no more than five minutes.”

“Yet another wonder of the things,” I murmured.

I was about to suggest we take a break and have a drink when I noticed a commotion at the far side of the dome. One of the guests had evidently found the experience too much and collapsed. A couple of first-aiders had hurried to assist, followed by Matt Sommers and the Elan Ambassador. As the guest climbed to his feet, waving away all offers of help, I saw that it was Darius Dortmund. He hurried for the exit to the patio, accompanied by Matt.

Hannah was frowning to herself, and I wondered if she was thinking the same as me: that perhaps, due to his heightened empathetic ability, Dortmund had found the extraterrestrial displays just too much.

“How about a drink?” Hannah suggested, taking the words from my mouth.

We moved to the patio, where the last rays of the sun were playing over the waters of the straights. Dortmund and Matt were at the rail, speaking in lowered tones. The off-worlder was clutching a whisky.

Maddie, Hawk and Kee were seated at a table in the bar area. Maddie waved us over. “Well, what do you think?”

“Amazing,” I said, then laughed at the inadequacy of my response. “I thought Matt’s emotion crystals were great, but these are something else.”

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” Hannah said.

I ordered a couple of beers from a waiter. “But how does he do it?” I said.

Maddie said, “Well, why don’t you ask the man himself?”

Matt had joined us, clutching a glass of beer and looking thunderous. Now Matt is usually the most pacific of people; I’d rarely seen him angry about anything. I looked beyond him. Dortmund was at the bar, ordering another whisky.

Maddie laid a hand on Matt’s arm. “What is it?”

He gave a tight smile, shaking his head. “I just find Dortmund’s attitude arrogant and… ignorant,” he said. “Let’s forget him, anyway.”

Hannah said, “We enjoyed the exhibition, Matt.”

“It’s exceeded all my expectations. Even when I was setting it up, I never dreamed the experience would be quite so… so powerful.”

“David was wondering how you achieved the effect,” Maddie said, smiling. “Come on, your secret’s safe with us.” As an aside to us, she went on, “I live with him, and he’s not said a word to me!”

Matt relented. “It’s no secret really. The Epiphany Stones are religious relics to the Elan. They contain the essences of their ancestors – each stone housing, if you like, the lineage of certain families.”

Hawk, ever the materialist, was frowning. “You mean, they
believe
the stones contain these essences, or that they really do?”