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

He jerked his head around. Stared toward the hole we’d cut through the blocks. “So soon?” He looked dismayed.

“I guess.”

He went back to the inscription. “The last three words are mind of man . No question about it.”

Doors slammed. From the main tunnel came the rumble of a passing train. Dust drifted down on us.

“ …Have sworn…altar…mind of man. ”

“Makes no sense,” I said.

“I can’t make out the rest of it.” He changed his angle again. “I need to get closer to it. You have a ladder handy?”

“Not high enough to reach that ,” I said.

“Damn. We need a little time.”

“Maybe it’s something this guy said,” I suggested, indicating the statue.

He sighed. “Of course it is. Said or wrote. What else would it be?”

I didn’t much like the attitude he was taking. “The statue’s blasphemous,” I reminded him. There was a line from the Divine Handbook : You don’t make statues of people because that implies they are godlike.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. Then he went back to the inscription: “The first word is only a single letter. Probably a pronoun. Has to be I .”

There were voices outside now.

“ Hostility . Some kind of hostility . Maybe extraordinary .”

The voices became loud.

“I think it’s hostility against. Has to be. And tyrant. Yes.… Hostility against something something tyrant .”

There was a scuffle outside. Mercifully short.

“No. It’s not tyrant . It’s, I think it’s tyranny . Yes. That’s it. Tyranny .”

People were crowding into the chamber. Five men, four in police uniforms. “I’m Inspector Valensky,” said the one in plain clothes. He flashed an ID toward Trexler, as if I weren’t there. He was middle-aged, bearded, very official. Cort trailed in behind them, hands apparently secured behind his back.

“Good afternoon, Inspector,” said Trexler, at which point Valensky saw the statue.

“The Lord is my keeper, sir,” he said. “We do have devil’s spawn here, don’t we?”

Trexler’s light fell on the police officers and I saw they were carrying bags of explosives. “Don’t come in here with that,” he warned. “What are you doing? Get that out of here.”

The inspector drew himself up straight, and tugged at his beard. “Sir,” he said, “gentlemen, I think who comes and who goes is our decision. And the fact is, I must ask you to leave.”

Trexler didn’t budge.

“This thing is blasphemous,” said Valensky, sounding as if he were struggling to keep his voice level. “We’ll have to get rid of it.”

“What do you mean, ‘get rid of it’?”

“I meant exactly what I said, sir. We’re going to send it back where it belongs. Meantime, you’d be prudent to mind your manners.” He turned to me. “I take it you’re Blinkman Baylor.”

I winced. I never understood what my folks were thinking when they gave me that name. “That’s correct.”

“Good. You did the right thing, Mr. Baylor, although it might have been a good idea to keep these two out of here.” He raised his voice so we could all hear. “I hope none of you touched this abomination.”

“No,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Of course not.”

He looked dead at me. “You do know not to touch any of these relics, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I keep my hands off.”

“Good, Mr. Baylor. Very prudent.”

“ I touched it,” said Trexler.

“It renders you unclean, sir. You’ll want to come with us when we’re finished here.”

“What for?”

“We’ll have to take you to All-Sorrows for a ceremonial cleansing.”

Trexler glared back with contempt. They’d have to carry him.

Valensky managed to look both annoyed and disappointed. “I do wish you’d cooperate, sir.” He turned to Cort. “What about you?”

“Me?” Cort said. “I haven’t been anywhere near it.”

“Good.” Two of the officers put on white gloves. They carried the charges across the chamber, picking their way through the debris, and laid them against the statue.

When Trexler tried to intervene, a third officer, a woman, headed him off. “Just stay calm, sir,” she said, “if you will.”

We watched while they made adjustments and connections.

Trexler glared at Valensky. “You blockhead,” he said. “Do you have any idea what this place is worth? What it is ?”

Valensky looked unmoved. “I know exactly what it is. Thank God one of us does.” He turned to me. “I suggest you get him out of here.”

The two who were setting the explosives stood up and brushed off their knees. “All set,” one of them said. The other knelt back down and tugged at something. “Ready to go,” he added.

Valensky took a remote from his pocket. “Everybody out, please,” he said. He moved toward the exit, walking slowly while he waited for the rest of us to file out. Trexler stayed where he was.

“Come on, Eddie,” said Cort.

Trexler shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A signal passed between the inspector and the officers. They filed past Trexler. The woman touched her cap and said goodbye.

“I do wish you’d be reasonable,” said Valensky.

Trexler moved closer to the statue. “Go ahead,” he said. “Do what you have to.”

“You leave me no choice, sir.”

“Idiot.”

The officers left, taking a struggling Cort with them. All except Valensky. “I’ll set off the charge in one minute,” he said. “That gives you time to change your mind and get out.”

Trexler did not move. “Blow it up and be damned.”

“Eddie.” I felt helpless. “Getting yourself killed won’t help anything.”

“Listen to him,” said Valensky. Then he looked my way. Time to go.

I waited a few seconds, watched Valensky disappear. “Ed,” I said, “for God’s sake—.”

“He won’t do it,” said Trexler. “Too much paperwork if he kills somebody.”

When the rebellion started, two months later, with the coordinated robberies of two banks and the looting of a parish arms warehouse, the authorities were slow to recognize it for what it was. And that cost them everything.

The two historians of the revolution, the two I know of, both believe Edward Trexler’s death was the spark that started it all. There’s some truth to that. But of course a lot of other people had died before he did, charged with heresy, or blasphemy, or various other attitudinal felonies.

God knows, though, Trexler’s death motivated me . Who would ever have believed that conservative old Blinky Baylor would pick up a gun and go to war? But there was something else that stuck in my mind. That, for a lot of us, eventually became the engine that drove the revolution.

“ (I?)…Have sworn…altar….hostility (against?)…tyranny…mind of man. ”

It wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. And sometimes, during the dark times, it kept me going. I think it kept a lot of us going. You want to make a revolution work, you need more than a taste for vengeance.

And this is an anti-grav generator. Do you know what that is, Harry?”

Did Harry know? Sometimes his father was such a nit. “Sure, Dad,” he said.

“Good.”

“We have one at school.”

“Do you want to try it?”

A bot was standing by, waiting for him to answer, or to get out of the way for the next kid who, Harry thought, also knew what an anti-gravity generator was. Was there anybody on the planet who didn’t know?