Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

[Sight unseen.]

“Yeah, that. Look, we’re flogging half of an alien doohickey for less than a six-pack of cheap beer. The price isn’t important. What it actually is isn’t important either. We could end up with a wiring loom with none of the stuff it attaches to. We could have the equivalent of the entire ship’s memory. What is important is that we get it out of the country.”

Moltzman leaned in close to his camera. “How far away are you from Lucy? Because you’ll have pictures soon enough. Why not wait?”

“Because then we’ll know what it is we’re selling, and they’ll know what it is they’re buying. I don’t want to run the risk of having to ask Zhao if he wants to buy a pile of melted crap that could have come from anywhere. He commits his government to the purchase now, while neither of us have a clue what it is.”

Then O’Malley, a repatriated Irishman, extended his forefinger from his big fist and shook it at Petrovitch. “We don’t actually own this whatever-it-is, do we now? So how can we be selling it?”

[Technically, Lucy Petrovitch has a claim of ownership, since she found the material abandoned. There is no immediate prospect of finding the original owner.]

“Isn’t there some law about things that fall from space?”

[I have made a brief overview of Alaskan state law within title thirty-four, chapter forty-five, and I can see no reason why she does not have a valid claim. Certainly she must register her find, but not until the first of November of this year.]

“But,” argued O’Malley, “won’t the government just say it’s theirs?”

[They indisputably will. But they have no basis in law to do so. The law of treasure trove does not apply, Alaska does not escheat abandoned vehicles, and she was not trespassing on the land where the artefact was found.]

“So it is the girl’s?”

[Yes.]

“Just not the Freezone’s.”

[The concept of individual versus corporate ownership temporarily escaped me. Apologies.]

There was a deep and profound silence. After a while, the youngest member of the ad-hoc found the courage to speak up. “We shouldn’t make a decision without Lucy.” Her brown skin flushed darker with embarrassment, and she lowered her gaze. “I mean, I know you’re Sam Petrovitch, and you know we all love you. But… you need to ask her. Sorry.”

Moltzman gave a frown that threatened to obscure his eyes completely. “I’m sorry too, Doctor. I move we suspend this ad-hoc. Lucy Petrovitch needs to makes the request, not her father.”

“ Pizdets ,” hissed Petrovitch, and the ad-hoc voted to disband.

[I still maintain the capacity to be surprised by humans.]

“Surprised? Yobany stos , we needed to set this up now. We can’t wait.”

[And yet wait we must. Lucy’s rights as finder cannot be violated simply because you find it expedient. The Freezone holds much in common for its members, yet we still maintain a separation between communal and personal property. She can gift the artefact to whoever she wishes; it is her choice.]

“Why the huy did she have to grow up?” Petrovitch gunned the motor on the snowmobile and started chasing Avaiq in earnest.

[I understand that is a common complaint that fathers have against their daughters. Sasha, you have brought her up well. She is intelligent, wise, fearless and kind.]

“Yeah, all those things despite me. She’s going to do something stupid: I can feel it in what’s left of my bones.”

Avaiq’s skidoo appeared out of the fog bank, parked up on the east side of the river. He was no longer on it. Petrovitch slowed down and coasted to a halt next to it. A single set of footprints led away.

Grabbing his bag, Petrovitch followed the trail across the snow. He felt his heart spin faster, his feet pick up pace in sympathy. Everything suddenly hurt less.

“Lucy? Lucy?”

Out of the fog came a single word.

“Sam?”

Then there she was. Whip-thin despite the swaddling of coats and blankets, her face translucent-pale, her eyes dark and heavy. But she seemed to have all her limbs, and her head.

He dropped his bag and they stumbled towards each other. Even though she was fractionally taller than him, he caught her up and crushed her to him.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.

“Hey.” She smelled of her, of short-term panic and week-long fear, unwashed and unkempt. “You’ll never guess what.”

“Part of an alien spaceship crash-landed close to the research station, while a decaying fusion drive knocked out electronics for tens of kilometres. You opened it up and took something vital. You then hid out here until either I came to get you or the Americans found you and killed you.” He looked over her shoulder. “Where is here, exactly?”

She pushed him away. “How did you know? How could you have possibly known?”

“Some people think I’m quite smart.” He kept on looking for some sort of shelter or structure, but couldn’t see anything that might resemble one. Avaiq’s dark shape appeared, and stood a way off. Petrovitch flipped to infrared: deep blue but for the people and the snowmobiles.

“I would have thought you’d have said it was the Chinese.”

“Yeah, that was so this morning. You have to move fast to keep up.” He reached out for her and gave her a rattling shake. Nothing fell off. “You okay?”

“If I have to eat another tin of lukewarm beans, I’m going to hurl. I’m tired, cold, stir-crazy, and I’ve spent the best part of two weeks wondering where the hell you were. What took you so long?”

“You hide pretty well, and Avaiq wasn’t exactly advertising where you were,” he said. “Where is it, then?”

“Back in the igloo. Come on.” She walked towards where Avaiq was, stopping to look back at Petrovitch. “You’re limping.”

“I jumped from a plane. A flying, burning plane. Doesn’t matter.”

She took him at face value. “Okay.”

“I blew stuff up, too. And we jihaded some teletroopers. That was fun.”

“It doesn’t sound like they made it easy for you.”

“Quite the opposite. They did everything to make sure I could find you. But they were playing a different game, one that ended with you and me eaten by bears.”

“And you decided not to go along with it?”

“I never liked rules, did I?”

There was a small hill, a flattish mound some two metres tall. It had a slit at its base, just wide enough to crawl through. It was impossible to see, even when right up close: someone could walk over it and never even notice it was there.

“There,” said Lucy. “What d’you think?”

“Not too shabby. I take it you added the thermal blanket.”

“Snow,” she said. “It’s called snow.”

“Yeah. But you wanted to make yourself invisible to infrared.”

“It took three of us half a day,” said Avaiq. “At least it seems to have worked.”

“Speaking of which, what happened to Dog-team Guy?”

“Inuuk. He’s one of my uncles. He tries to live the old ways. Hunting, fishing. Works a sled team. He can’t do it any more: it’s the weather, the animals, the community — everything he knew is now wrong, so I help him out. That’s what I was doing here, taking him supplies. He,” and Avaiq looked away. “The weird shit doesn’t scare him. He says he’s seen all kinds of things out here alone, on the Slope, in the winter. Yet when we — him, me, your daughter — managed to get the hatch open and this clear Jell-O just pours out? It was all I could do to stop him from running off into the night.”

“Like the gel inside impact armour,” said Lucy. “It looked, you know…”

“Wrong?” offered Petrovitch.

“Very.”

“So after we got back here and made her safe, he took off. Towards Barrow. He dragged me and the skidoo back to Deadhorse and didn’t stop. I guess he didn’t want to hang around any longer than he had to.” Avaiq looked glum. “I don’t know where he is. Alive, dead, I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything either way.”