A Talent for War Read online

  The taxi turned to run parallel to the coastline. It was a brilliant, summery morning. I retracted the canopy, and luxuriated in that golden climate. I’ve read since that the atmosphere on Fishbowl is relatively oxygen-rich, inducing a sense of euphoria. I can believe it. By the time the taxi banked and headed inland again, I had acquired a remarkable sense of well-being. Everything’s going to be fine.

  A few sails tacked gracefully before a light wind out of the west, and a blimp floated listlessly through the sky. Small fountains of spray erupted rhythmically from the surface, but I couldn’t see the creatures that produced them.

  Land came up quickly, and I soared in over the highlands. There were wide, well-maintained beaches, backed by forest, and a long line of rock and crystal homes. The coastline was scored with piers; pools and cabanas were visible among the trees. Several domes stood in the shallow waters along the coast, supported by glittering struts of articulated gantner light.

  The area was dominated by Uxbridge Bay. You’ve probably seen the masterpiece by Durell Coll which made it famous. Supposedly, it formed during Coll’s time, two-and-a-half centuries ago, when one of the gantner projection stations failed, and the ocean rushed in.

  The taxi drifted along the bay shore, collecting a few sandmongers that flapped excitedly alongside. It turned inland, proceeding across the neck of the island, passing over heavy forest, and drifted down onto a pad on the side of a hill. The sandmongers crashed into the surrounding branches, where they kicked up a substantial racket.

  I hadn’t seen a house from the air, and I couldn’t see one from the ground. The pad was small, barely big enough for the skimmer. I instructed it to wait, climbed out, and followed a footpath into the woods.

  I passed almost immediately out of the sunlight, into a cool green world of thick branches and chittering squirrels. I should note here by the way that Fishbowl has virtually no native land forms, and is stocked heavily from Rimway. Even the trees. I felt right at home.

  A permearth bungalow appeared at the crest of the hill, amid ferns, branches, and great white sunblossoms. A single chair stood on a wide deck. The windows were empty, the door shut tight. The walls sagged slightly, and the leafy overhang trailed down onto the roof. The air was warm. It smelled vaguely of decay and old wood.

  I knocked.

  The house was very still. In one of the trees, something flapped and a limb shook.

  I peered through the front window into the living room. It was gloomy in half-light: sofa and two armchairs, an antique desk, and a long glass table. A sweater lay on the table, and a crystal figure of a sea creature which I did not recognize. A doorway led out to another room. Against the doorway was a trophy case. It was filled with rocks of various kinds, all of which were labeled. Samples from the outworlds, probably.

  The walls were covered with prints, but I was slow to realize what they were: Sanrigal’s Sim at the Hellgate, Marcross’s Corsarius, Isitami’s Maurina, Toldenya’s pensive On the Rock. There were others, with which I was not familiar: a portrait of Tarien Sim, several of Christopher Sim, one of the Dellacondan high country at night, with a lonely figure who must have been Maurina surveying it all from beneath a skeletal tree.

  The only portrait that did not seem to be associated with Sim hung near the trophy case. It was of a modern starship, ablaze with light, warm and living against strange constellations. I wondered whether it was the Tenandrome.

  I knew what Scott looked like. In fact, I’d brought a couple of photos with me, though both were old. He was tall, dark-skinned, dark-eyed. But there was a diffidence in his appearance, a suggestion of reluctance that implied he embodied more of the shopkeeper than a leader of research teams onto alien worlds.

  The cottage felt empty. Not abandoned, exactly. But not lived in, either.

  I pushed at the windows, hoping to find one open. They were all secured. I circled the house, looking for an entry, and considered whether I could gain anything by breaking in. Probably not, and if the place took my picture in the act, I could be assured of losing Scott’s cooperation, and possibly end with a hefty fine as well.

  I took to the air and circled the area. There were maybe a dozen houses within a kilometer or so of Scott’s property. One by one, I descended on them and asked questions, representing myself as a cousin who had found himself unexpectedly on Fishbowl. It appeared that hardly anyone knew Scott by name, and several said they’d wondered who lived in his house.

  No one admitted to being more than a casual acquaintance. Pleasant man, they said of him. Quiet. Minds his business. Not easy to get to know.

  A woman whom I found pottering about in the garden of an ultra-modern slab-glass house partially supported by gantner light added an ominous note. “He’s changed,” she said, her eyes clouding.

  “You know him, then?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “We’ve known him for years.” She invited me up into a sitting room, disappeared momentarily into her kitchen, and returned with iced herbal drinks. “All we have,” she said. “Sorry.”

  Her name was Nasha. She was a tiny creature, soft-spoken, with luminous eyes, and a fluttery manner that reminded me vaguely of the sandmongers. It was easy to see she’d been beautiful once. But it fades quickly in some people. I thought she seemed pleased to have someone to talk with. “In what way did he change?”

  “How well do you know your cousin?” she asked.

  “I haven’t seen him in years. Since we were both quite young.”

  “I haven’t known him that long.” She smiled. “But you’re probably aware that Hugh was never much for socializing.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “But he wasn’t really unfriendly,” I hazarded. “Just shy.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Though I’m not sure all of his neighbors would agree, I do. He seemed all right to me, solitary if you know what I mean. Kept to himself. Read a lot. Most of the people he worked with would tell you he always seemed pressed for time, or preoccupied. But once you get to know him, he loosens up. He has a wonderful sense of humor, kind of dry, and not everybody appreciates it. My husband thinks he’s one of the funniest people he’s ever known.”

  “Your husband—”

  “—was with him on the Cordagne.” She squinted out into the double sunlight. “I’ve always liked Hugh. God knows he’s been good to me. I met him when Josh—my husband—and he were training for the Cordagne flight. We had our kids with us, and we were new to Fishbowl then. We started having power problems. The house was owned by Survey, but their maintenance people couldn’t seem to get things working, particularly the video, and the kids were upset. Going through withdrawal, you know? I don’t know how Hugh found out, but he insisted on switching quarters.” She noted that I’d finished the drink, and hurried to refill my glass. “He was like that.”

  “In what way did he change?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it exactly. All the characteristics that used to be eccentricities became extreme. His sense of humor took on a bitter flavor. He used to be somber; but we watched him slip into depression. And if it used to be that he kept to himself, he eventually became a hermit. I doubt many of the people around here have even seen him to talk to in the last couple of years.”

  “That seems to be true.”

  “Only the people who worked with him. But there was more. He developed a mean streak. Like when Harv Killian donated half his money to the hospital to get a room named after him. Scott thought that was pathetic. I still remember his remark: ‘He wants to buy what he could never earn.’”

  “Immortality,” I said.

  She nodded. “He told Killian that to his face. Harv never spoke to him again.”

  “Seems cruel.”

  “There was a time Scott wouldn’t have done that. Told him, that is. He’d have thought it, because he was always like that. But he wouldn’t have said anything.

  “But these last couple of years—” Small fine lines appeared around her lips and eyes.


  “Do you see much of him anymore?”

  “Not for months. He went someplace. I have no idea where.”

  “Might Josh know? Your husband?”

  She shook her head. “No. Maybe somebody down at Survey could help you.”

  We sat for a bit. I shooed off a couple of insects. “I don’t suppose,” I said, “that your husband was ever on the Tenandrome?”

  “He only made the one flight,” she said. “That was enough.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was. Do you know anyone who was on a Tenandrome mission?”

  She shook her head. “They’d be able to tell you in Pellinor. Try there.” She looked thoughtful. “He’s traveled a lot the last couple of years. This isn’t the first time he’s just taken off.”

  “Where did he go on those other trips? Did he ever tell you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s become a history buff. He spent a couple of weeks at Grand Salinas. There’s some sort of museum in orbit out there.”

  Salinas was the scene of Christopher Sim’s first defeat, the place where the Dellacondan resistance very nearly died.

  “Maybe he went to Hrinwhar,” she said suddenly.

  “Hrinwhar?” The famous raid. But Hrinwhar was no more than an airless moon.

  “Yes.” She shook her head vehemently up and down. “Now that I think of it: he’s said any number of times that he wanted to visit Hrinwhar.”

  Scott’s house wasn’t visible from her front porch, but the hill on which it rested was. She shielded her eyes from the sunlight, and looked toward it. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I think Josh is just as glad he’s gone. We’d reached a point where we got pretty uncomfortable when Scott was around.”

  Her voice had gone brittle. Cold. I could sense a thin red line of anger just below the surface. “Thanks,” I said.

  “It’s all right.”

  I asked everyone I spoke with to let me know when Scott returned. Then, disappointed, I returned to Pellinor.

  Survey’s Regional Headquarters complex consists of half a dozen buildings of radically different architectural styles, old and modern, imported and native. A crystal tower stands next to a purely functional block of offices; a quadripar geodesic occupies a site adjacent to a gothic temple. The overall effect is, according to the guide books, that of an academic contempt for the order and form of the mundane mind: the casual motifs of the scholar created in glass and permearth. I suppose that, by the time I’d arrived at this point in my journeys, I’d been thinking too much about Christopher Sim’s war; but my impression of the place was that it looked as if it had been assembled under enemy fire.

  The library was located on the ground level of the dome. It was named the Wicker Closure for an early administrator. (I was struck by the fact that all the buildings, wings, and laboratories memorialized bureaucrats or fund-raisers. The people who had gone out to the stars had to settle for a few plaques and mementoes in the museum. A couple of dozen, who had been killed, got their names carved into a slab in the main lobby.)

  It was late when I got there. The library was almost empty. A few people who appeared to be graduate students sat at terminals or wandered quietly through the files. I picked out a booth, went in, closed the door, and sat down.

  “Tenandrome,” I said. “Background material.”

  “Please put on your headband.” The voice came out of a speaker atop the monitor. It was masculine, erudite, middle-aged.

  I complied. The illumination softened to the color of the nighttime sky, in the manner of a planetarium. A splinter of light appeared in the darkness, grew into a pattern of boxes and rods. It was slowly spinning about its own axis.

  “Tenandrome,” said the narrator, “was built eighty-six standard years ago on Rimway, specifically for deep space exploration. It is one of the Cordagne class of survey ships. Hyperspace transition is provided by twin Armstrong-drive units, recharge time between jumps estimated at approximately forty hours. Ship is powered by accelerated fusion thermals, capable of generating 80,000 megawatts under normal running conditions.” The ship continued to grow until it occupied half the booth. It was gray, utilitarian, uninteresting, two groups of boxes built along parallel spines, connected in the after section by a magnetic propulsion system (for linear space maneuvering), and forward by the bridge.

  I cut the description short.

  “History,” I said, “of most recent mission.”

  The ship floated in the dark.

  “I am sorry. That information is not available.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ship’s log has been impounded pending outcome of judicial matters arising from alleged irregularities in equipment. Liability considerations preclude further release of data at this time.”

  “What sort of alleged irregularities?”

  “That information is not currently available.”

  “Was the mission cut short?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “That information is not currently available.”

  “When will further information be available?”

  “I regret that I do not have data to answer that question.”

  “Can you tell me what the planned itinerary of Tenandrome was?”

  “No,” it said after a moment.

  “But wouldn’t the itinerary be a matter of public record?”

  “Not anymore. It has been removed.”

  “There must be a copy somewhere.”

  “I do not have that information.”

  Schematics of the Tenandrome were flickering across the monitor, as though the system had become distracted. “Where is the Tenandrome now?”

  “It is in the second year of a six-year mission in the Moira Deeps.”

  “Can you give me a list of crew and research team members from Tenandrome?”

  “For which voyage?”

  “For any of the last four.”

  “I can supply the information for missions XV and XVI, and also the current voyage.”

  “What about XVII?”

  “Not available.”

  “Why not?”

  “It is classified.”

  I pulled off the headband, and squinted out through the windows at an illuminated park. In the distance, lights reflected off the ocean wall.

  What the hell were they hiding? What could they possibly be hiding?

  Somebody knew.

  Somewhere, somebody knew.

  I took to stalking Survey bureaucrats and researchers. I hunted them in bars, at the Field Museum, on benches in the malls, on the beaches, in the gleaming corridors of the Operational Headquarters, in the city’s theaters and restaurants, and in its athletic and chess clubs.

  Approached obliquely, almost everyone was willing to speculate on the Tenandrome. The most widespread theory, one that amounted among many to a conviction, was Chase Kolpath’s notion that the ship had found aliens. Some claimed to know for certain that naval vessels had been dispatched to the discovery site, and almost everyone had heard that several young crewmembers had returned with white hair.

  There was a variation of this story: Tenandrome had found an ancient fleet adrift, and had attempted to investigate. But there was something among the encrusted ships that had discouraged further examination, forcing the captain to break off the mission and return home. One bearded endocrinologist told me, in dead earnestness, that the vessel had found a ghost. But he could not, or would not, elaborate.

  An elderly systems analyst with whom I fell in one evening on a ramp overlooking the sea told me she’d heard there was an alien enclave out there, a cluster of turrets on an airless moon. But the aliens were long dead, she said, perfectly preserved within their shelters. “What I heard,” she added, “is that all the turrets had been opened to the void. From the inside.”

  The wildest account came from a skimmer rental agent who said the ship had found a vehicle full of humans who spoke no known language, who could not be identified, who were identical w
ith us in every fundamental way—which was to say, he whispered, that their sexual organs complemented ours—but that they were not of common origin.

  There was a young woman who had known Scott: there always is, I suppose, if you look long enough. She was a sculptor, slim and attractive, with a good smile.

  She had just broken off with someone (or he with her: it’s often hard to tell), and we ended in a small bar on one of the piers. Her name was Ivana, and she was vulnerable that night. I could have taken her to bed, but she seemed so desolated that I could not bring myself to take advantage of her.

  “Where is he?” I asked. “Do you know where he went?”

  She was drinking too much, but it didn’t seem to affect her.

  “Off-world,” she said. “Somewhere. But he’ll be back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He always comes back.” There was a trace of venom in her voice.

  “He’s taken these trips before?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “He’s not one for hanging around.”

  “Why? Where does he go?”

  “He gets bored, I guess. And where he goes is battle sites, from the Resistance. Or memorials, I’m not sure which.”

  It was getting loud in the bar, so I steered her outside, where I thought the fresh air might help us both. “Ivana, what does he tell you when he comes back? About what he’s seen?”

  “He doesn’t really talk about it, Alex. I never really thought to ask him.”

  “Have you ever heard of Leisha Tanner?”

  She started to say no, and changed her mind. “Yes,” she said, lighting up. “He’s mentioned her a couple of times.”

  “What did he say about her?”

  “That he was trying to find out things about her. She’s an historical character of some sort.” The ocean crouched out there beneath us like a dark beast. “He’s a strange one. Makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes.”