Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“It might be mythic,” said Chung. She smiled and brought her fingertips thoughtfully together in one of those porcelain movements that one associates with pagodas and silk screens. “But I doubt there’s any religious connotation.”

“Oh.” Steinitz had been making toast. He buttered a piece and bit into it. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I have a hard time imagining whatever created that thing beating a drum.”

“You’re assuming a star-traveller,” I said.

“Of course. What else? I think we can assume she’s not from Pluto.”

Steinitz looked across at her, his eyes narrowed. “You’re assuming more than that. I take it you wouldn’t expect to find religious institutions in an advanced society?”

Chung smiled defensively. Had she offended anyone? Sorry. But of course not. “No,” she said. “Taking myths literally is not characteristic of an enlightened civilization.”

“So what do you mean when you say it might be mythic?”

“The thing wears clothes. So I think that lets out the eagle. It’s probably a cultural icon, something that represents the sculptor’s past in some way, but which she, he, whatever, would not have taken literally. The way we might think of Pegasus, for example. Or Lady Liberty.”

“Not God.”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Steinitz.

“How do you mean?”

“The universe shouldn’t exist at all. To function, to hold together, it requires a parade of absurdities. Four-dimensional space. Curved space. Relative time. The gravity settings have to be exactly right. If they were a bit stronger, stars would collapse too quickly. A bit weaker, they wouldn’t form at all. I know all this sounds like a back door into theology, and it probably is. But I think any really advanced race would at least keep an open mind on the subject.”

“You’re saying,” said Morgan, “that when we run into an extraterrestrial civilization, they’ll be Presbyterians.”

Steinitz nodded. “Something like that.”

“In a Darwinian universe,” said Chung, “any right-thinking Presbyterian can expect to get eaten.” She turned in my direction. “What about you, Terri?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What’s the thing doing in this neighborhood? Talk about a zillion miles from nowhere. It’s a marker, maybe. Laying claim to the area. Or maybe Kilroy was here.”

The interior of the shelter wasn’t particularly comfortable. Stiff plastic chairs. You ate from folding trays. Our individual quarters were the size of broom closets. But, after being outside, it felt warm and cozy.

“Ray,” said Steinitz, “were you serious?”

“About God? Sure.”

“What do you think the inscription says?”

“It’ll turn out to be his name, and the date the sculpture was done.”

I laughed. “You want to predict what his name will be?”

“Frank,” he said. “A casual sort of deity. Friendly. Informal.”

Chung grinned at him. “Frank.”

“Good as any.”

“I can’t tell what he believes,” Chung told me later, when we were alone.

“Does it matter?”

“Out here? Where a mistake can get you killed? Sure, I like to know how the people around me think.”

“His religious views shouldn’t make any difference, Cath.”

“They don’t . I didn’t say what they think. I said how . I like to know who I can trust. Who’s serious and who isn’t.”

We were out taking pictures of Jennifer. Chung posed me beside the thing, set the camera low and angled it up, then joined me and we smiled as the light flashed. “You’re not a believer, are you?” I asked.

“I went to a Catholic school,” she said.

“And it didn’t take?”

“I read too much Melville when I was a kid.”

“Oh.”

“White whale. Clockwork universe. Nothing personal, but stay out of the way or get run down.”

“What made you read Moby Dick ?”

“Book report in high school.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think they understood the book. What it was really saying.”

I’d tried to read it once. Couldn’t get into it. Still don’t understand when people cite it to talk about a universe that doesn’t give a damn. To me, it’s a book about whales. The lesson is that you don’t screw around with something a hundred times your size. Nothing subtle about that.

“What’s the point,” she continued, “of having a compassionate God if he doesn’t bail you out when your air supply fails?”

“Is that what Melville says?”

“Pretty much. Get in trouble, you’re on your own.”

“Ahab.”

“Right. Nothing personal. No devils. Just make sure your harness is in place.”

Next on the schedule was a TV show. That would happen as soon as the satellites lined up. We decided where we wanted the cameras, ran lighting tests, discussed what we were going to say, and, with an hour or so to go, informed Smitty we were ready. Steinitz was the senior guy, so he’d be front and center. The plan was that he’d explain everything we’d been able to figure out about the object, which wasn’t much. Then he’d invite me and Morgan to talk about whatever we wanted. Our instructions were to do some philosophical stuff, how it felt to be out here with an artifact from another civilization, that sort of thing, and to go slowly on the technical stuff. After all, they’d told us, everybody already knows you can’t read the inscription, and they can see for themselves how big and ugly the damned thing is. I’d been writing down some of the stuff I planned to say, but Steinitz warned me no reading. Make it look spontaneous. Right. I could see myself standing there with the lights on and my mouth open trying to remember my name.

Steinitz invited Chung to participate. She looked good, and she’d have been an asset, but she was scared, too. I wouldn’t have believed it. So he’d asked me whether I didn’t think we could spring it on her, turn a camera her way when she wasn’t expecting it, and ask a question, get her on before she had time to get nervous. But I vetoed that idea. If Chung felt the way I did, she might freeze as solid as Jennifer.

“By the way,” I told my male colleagues, “don’t let’s screw up on the name. Mention Jennifer and we’ll go home to a lawsuit.”

We made ourselves as comfortable as we could while we waited for the satellites to get together. We placed the cameras so neither the lander nor the shelter nor the probe was visible. We’d show them toward the end of the program, but we wanted first to establish a sense of complete solitude. We wanted the people at home to feel how absolutely far we were from Chicago. We wanted them to see Saturn, which never moved from its place over the distant ridge line, and the rings, and the moons currently visible. We wanted them to see the stars the way we did, bright and distant and more numerous that they were in any terrestrial sky. And unimaginably far.

I was sitting there thinking it wasn’t going to happen, not with people in their living rooms and kids charging around outside. No one had ever been farther from Earth than we were at that moment, and it just wasn’t possible to understand what that meant unless you were standing there with us.

Smitty gave us a ten-minute warning. Moments later he was back. “ Jay. ”

Steinitz was standing in front of the image, gazing up at it, trying to imagine, as we all were, who had been there. “Yes, Smitty,” he said, “What is it?”

“ Heads up. We have an inbound debris field. ”

“Say again.”

“ Rocks and dust. Headed your way. ”