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

I took a few minutes to stroll through the news room, where I overheard someone saying that Pierik would be officiating at a torch-light rally that evening. I got the details and pinpointed the location on a wall map.

There was a bust of Pierik in the newspaper’s front entrance. On the way out, I sliced off its ears.

I needed something that would seriously undermine Pierik. I was thinking about it and not paying attention to my surroundings. I was about a block from the Guardian offices, on a broad tree-lined avenue crowded with pedestrians when I suddenly became aware of footsteps behind me. Closing in on both sides.

Nobody there.

I hadn’t been wearing my goggles, because they’re more visible to observers than my eyes. As I pulled them out of my vest, I saw another pair of goggles, afloat and closing in. Damn.

Paul McCarver and one of his associates. “Hello, Art,” said the director.

Hassan was with him, his number two, tall, olive-skinned, short-tempered. He said hello too, but he didn’t mean it. I knew he didn’t like having his time wasted, and having to chase a maverick do-gooder around the planet would not have made him happy.

Seen through my goggles, they had an orange, spectral appearance.

“I have to tell you, Art,” said McCarver, “you’ve really been a problem.”

Hassan’s meaty hand settled on my arm. Nothing rough, but he was letting me know I wasn’t going anyplace without permission. “I hope they toss you in jail,” he said.

“You’ve seen the pictures?” I asked McCarver.

“I’ve seen them.” He was staring straight ahead, his goggles a bit too big for his head. It might have been comic except the anger showed, and it was hard not to take McCarver seriously when he got irritated. “There’s nothing in them we haven’t been looking at for years. What do you think? We’ve been here all this time with our heads in the sand? You think we don’t care? You’ve no idea how many reports I’ve filed over the years. Or Huang. Or Packard.” His predecessors. Packard went way back to the beginning.

“You filed reports, Paul, and what did the Third Floor say?”

“You know damned well what they said.”

“And you accepted it.”

“I had no choice, Art. You should know that.”

“You did have a choice.”

It was more than the director could stomach. We’d been walking, but with that we stopped dead and he turned to face me. “Look, Kaminsky, who in hell do you think you are? You breeze in here from some school back home, never been anywhere, never did anything, shouldn’t have been here in the first place—.”

Hassan nudged him. Several Noks had stopped and were staring in our direction. “They see us,” he whispered.

We turned our backs on them to hide the goggles, so whatever they thought they saw vanished. McCarver made a rumbling sound deep in his throat, and some of the passersby caught that too. He pointed at me and mouthed the words, Bring him , and strode ahead.

We got across the street, where it wasn’t so crowded. I was still being half-hauled by Hassan. I tried to free myself, but he only tightened his grip. “Don’t even think about it,” he said softly, his tone full of menace.

“You going to send me home, Paul?”

Without turning. “Yes. Charges have been drawn up. Don’t make it worse.”

A young Nok, maybe four or five, broke free of parental restraints and bounced off McCarver. The child screamed in surprise, and the director almost fell into the street trying to get out of the way. “I hate these things,” he said. Apparently meaning the lightbenders.

It was a gray, oppressive day. Threatening rain. “You ever see Pierik?” I asked.

“No. Not in person.”

“He’s a maniac.”

“Come on, Art. Give it a rest. He’s not our problem.”

“Whose problem is he?”

We stopped to let a couple of Noks pass. “Look, Art, if it makes you any happier, they’re pulling me back, too.”

“You? Why?”

“Are you serious? Because Hutchins sees I can’t keep my own house in order. I’m being reassigned.”

“I’m sorry, Paul.

“Thanks. That helps.”

We reached another intersection. A military convoy was approaching. Soldiers loaded into the backs of small trucks. It looked like scenes I’d seen in VR dramas about wartime back home. In the days when they had wars. Except of course the soldiers looked like nothing human.

“I’ll tell them you had nothing to do with it,” I said.

“They already know that. It’s irrelevant.” Those intense dark eyes locked on me, seething.

I watched the soldiers go past. The convoy was followed by a government car and another truck. There were no private vehicles anywhere.

I regretted what had happened to McCarver’s career. I don’t know why. But I did. Even though he’d stood by. That’s how I’ve always thought of him. He and everybody else at that place over a forty-year span. The people who stood by. Did nothing. In his own way, the director was worse than the Beloved Leader. “You know,” I told him, “you are one sorry son of a bitch.”

I thought for a minute he was going to swing on me. “I hope they put you where you belong,” he growled.

And I decided I’d had enough.

I reached around and switched off Hassan’s lightbender.

Suddenly, passersby were gawking at us. Some screamed, some simply ran for their lives. A couple of terrified kids scrambled into parental arms.

Hassan did not at first understand what had happened. But he saw the panic around him, and someone in uniform aiming a rifle at him. Next thing I knew I was free. And running.

I got as far from the turmoil as I could.

McCarver’s voice came over the commlink. “ Art, what do you think you’re doing? ”

And: “ Art, this isn’t going to help. Get back here. ”

“ Art, answer up. You okay? ”

I kept going. Down a couple more blocks, past the Department of Piety, across a square, and finally sat down behind a tree.

I was getting my breath when I heard klaxons. Noks began to scatter. They hurried into a couple of government buildings. I thought it was connected to Hassan until I saw movement in the sky. Dirigibles.

The buildings were marked with flags. An ‘X’ inside a circle. Air raid shelter.

There were three airships. And a fourth one just coming out from behind a rooftop. I heard the boom of anti-aircraft guns. Noks with rifles appeared and began to blaze away, although the airships were hopelessly out of range.

So much for the theory that only soft outlying targets got hit.

I couldn’t very well crowd into a shelter. And with the streets empty, my chances of getting spotted by McCarver and Hassan rose considerably. Best, I decided, was to sit where I was. Behind the tree.

The dirigibles stayed high, out of range of the guns. I expected to see some sort of defensive squadron appear. But it didn’t happen. What did happen was that bombs rained down. They fell heavily in the government district, which is to say, where I was. They blasted buildings and blew dirt, wood, bricks, and Noks into the air. I turned on the imager and recorded it. Got the explosions, the screams of casualties, the sirens, everything.

As far as I knew, this was the first time they’d hit the capital. Happens on the day I show up. I called Cathie in the middle of it and put the question to her. “ Yes, ” she said. “ That’s right. At least, the record shows it’s the first time Roka’s been attacked in twelve years. Apparently they do occasionally bomb major targets. I guess they figure they can do a surprise run and get clear. Are you going to get through this okay? ”