Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

For T.E.D. Klein and Terry Carr with my appreciation

I’m indebted to Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History, to David DeGraff of Alfred University, and to Walter Cuirle, for advice and technical assistance. To Jerry Oltion, for reading and commenting on an early version of the manuscript. To Ginjer Buchanan, for editorial assistance. To Ralph Vicinanza, for his continuing support. And, as always, to my wife and inhouse editor, Maureen McDevitt.

“We advise that our patrons not attempt the slopes today, other than the Blue Run. A distinct danger from avalanches is still present throughout the skiing area. It would be prudent to remain in the chalet, or perhaps to consider spending the day in town.”

Wescott knew he was dead. There seemed little chance for Margaret, either. Or for his daughter. He had followed the instruction and stayed inside and now he lay beneath tons of ice and rock. He could hear weeping and screams, lost in the dark around him.

He was trembling in the cold, his right arm crushed and pinned beneath a fallen timber. He could no longer feel the pain. Or the arm.

He thought of Delia. Just beginning her life and almost certainly swept away. Tears ran down his cheeks. She’d been so anxious to come.

He closed his eyes and tried to resign himself. Tried to place himself again aboard the Falcon, where he and Margaret had met. Those had been priceless years. He’d known the day would come when he would wish he could go back and do it all again.

The Falcon.

My God. It occurred to him that, if Margaret had not escaped the building, their discovery would die with them. Delia knew about it, but she was too young to understand.

They had told nobody! Except Mattie. Mattie knew.

He tore at the timber, tried to drag himself free. Tried to change his angle and get his feet against it. He had to survive long enough to tell them. Just in case…

But Margaret was not dead. Could not be dead.

Please, God.

The cries and screams around him dwindled, became occasional moanings. How long had it been? It seemed like hours since the chalet had crashed down on him. Where were the rescue workers?

He listened to his own labored breathing. The floor had shaken, had stopped, had shaken again. Then, after the shocks, when everybody in the dining room had thought maybe it was over, he’d heard the sudden roar. They’d looked at one another, some people had gotten up to run, others had sat terrified, the lights went out, and the walls had imploded. He was pretty sure the floor had collapsed and that he was trapped in a cellar. But he couldn’t be certain. Not that it mattered.

He heard distant sirens. Finally.

He pushed at the timber that held his arm. He didn’t feel entirely connected to his body anymore. He’d retreated into his head and looked out, not unlike a spectator hiding in a cave. Beneath him, the ground trembled again.

He wanted to believe Margaret had survived. Bubbly, immortal, farseeing Margaret, who was never, ever, taken by surprise. It didn’t seem possible she could be caught in all this, swept aside in that single terrible moment. She’d gone back to their room to get a sweater. Had left just moments before it had all happened. Had gone up the staircase and vanished forever from his life.

And Delia. In the apartment. Eight years old. Sulking because he’d refused permission for her to go out on her own, I don’t care if they’re saying the Blue Run is safe, we’ll wait until we hear everything’s okay. The apartment was on the third floor, toward the front of the building. Maybe it had been spared. He prayed they were both standing out there somewhere now, in the snow, worrying about him.

When they’d issued the warning, they’d said the chalet was safe. Safe and solid. Stay indoors and everything will be okay. Avalanche-free zone.

In the dark, he smiled.

They’d been sitting in the dining room with their newest acquaintance, Breia Somebody-or-Other, who was from his hometown, when Margaret had gotten up, said something about now don’t you two eat all the eggs I’ll only be a minute, and walked off. A group of skiers stood near the front doors, ready to go out, angrily complaining about the level of caution at the chalet and how Blue Run was for beginners. Two couples sat amid potted plants enjoying a round of drinks. A heavyset man who looked like a judge was descending the staircase. A young woman in a gray-green jacket had just sat down at the piano and begun to play.

Margaret would just have had time to reach their room before the first shock came.

The diners had looked around at each other, their eyes wide with surprise. Then the second jolt, and the fear in the room became palpable. There’d been no screams, as best he could remember, but people were throwing back their chairs and starting for the exits.

Breia, middle-aged, dark-haired, a teacher on vacation, had looked out the window, trying to see what was happening. His angle was bad so he couldn’t see much, but his hair stood straight up when she gasped and whispered Run in a terrified voice.

Without another sound she threw back her chair and fled.

Outside, a wall of snow appeared and bore down on them. It had been smooth, rhythmic, almost choreographed, a crystal tide flowing down the side of the mountain, engulfing trees and boulders and, finally, the heavy stone wall that marked the perimeter of the chalet’s grounds. As he watched, it swept over someone. Man or woman, it happened too quick to be sure. Somebody trying to run.

Wescott had sat quietly, knowing there was no place to hide. He took a sip of his coffee. It was as if time had stopped. The desk clerk, a simulation, blinked off. So did the host and one of the doormen. The skiers near the front door scattered.

Wescott held his breath. The rear and sidewalls blew into the dining room and there was a sharp pain and the sensation of falling.

Somewhere, doors slammed.

Something wet was running down his ribs. Tickling him, but he couldn’t reach it.

Breia hadn’t gotten out of the dining room. She was probably within a few meters. It was hard to speak. He didn’t seem to have much air in his lungs. But he whispered her name.

He heard a voice, far away. “Over here.” But it was a male voice.

And then there were boots chunking through snow.

“See if you can get him out, Harry.”

Somebody was digging.

“Hurry.”

No answer though from Breia.

He tried to cry out, let them know where he was, but he was too weak. No need anyhow. Margaret knew he was in trouble, and she was surely out there somewhere, with the rescue workers, trying to find him.

But a deeper darkness was coming. The rubble on which he lay was fading, and he stopped caring about the secret that he and Margaret shared, stopped caring about the timber that pinned him down. Margaret was okay. Had to be.

And he slid away from his prison.

… But what provided the truest sense of the antiquity of (the Egyptian tomb) was to see graffiti scrawled on its walls by Athenian visitors, circa 200 C.E. And to know the place was as old for them, as their markings are for me.

- Wolfgang Corbin,

The Vandal and the Slavegirl, 6612 C.E.

The station was exactly where Alex said it would be, on the thirteenth moon of Gideon V, a gas giant with no special characteristics to recommend it other than that it circled a dead star rather than a sun. It was in a deteriorating orbit, and, in another hundred thousand years, according to the experts, it would slip into the clouds and vanish. In the meantime it was ours.