Jack McDevitt - Infinity Beach

“I believed the chances for a catastrophe were slight, though what evidence I based that on I cannot now conceive. We thought, given a few days, we could determine the nature of the fuel and the state of any containment system. Unfortunately, we were not given a few days.

“We had no difficulty getting the artifact past the customs people. Yoshi walked it through, describing it as a toy for a nephew. She gave it a modest value, and was told it fell within her exemption.

“We took the artifact to Kile’s home, where it turned out that the equipment he had available for analysis was considerably less than he’d implied. We had to go out looking for almost everything we needed. The result was that we wasted the little time we had. For example, we needed a full day simply to locate a Vanover sensor, which would allow us to look into the interior.

“I’m not altogether certain of some specifics regarding the events of April 3, because I was upstairs when I first realized there was a problem. Kile and Yoshi were down in the lab and they started screaming. I ran for the stairs and saw Yoshi coming up. She was scared out of her wits.

“Then I saw that an entity very much like a living cloud had apparently emerged from the ship. It immediately attacked Yoshi. When Kile and I went to her rescue, it released her, and she fell off the staircase, struck her head, and must have been dead when Kile reached her. Meanwhile, the entity came after me. It delivered an electrical shock, which left me temporarily stunned. As I went down, I thought I saw a small vehicle, a tiny lander if you will, glide past me in the creature’s wake. It was hard to be certain, because I was a bit shaken up. Furthermore I’d sliced an arm as I fell and had got blood in my eyes. In any event, something blew a hole in a window, and the cloud and the lander, if that’s indeed what it was, disappeared into the night.

“At about the same time Kile must have seen he could do nothing for Yoshi. He stormed upstairs, and asked me where the intruders had gone.

“I pointed to the window, and without another word he raced after them. I tried to dissuade him, and hurried outside just in time to see him lifting off the pad. I called after him not to go, but he persisted.

“I raised him on his commlink. He told me he was tracking the celestials, that he had them on his screen, and that he intended to make sure of them this time. Then he told me he would call me when it was over, and he signed off. I made repeated efforts to contact him after that, but he didn’t respond.

“I went back to see if I could do anything for Yoshi. But she was dead. A few minutes later, I heard the blast that blew the side out of Mount Hope. The house shook and the lights dimmed and went out. When I went outside, debris was still raining down on the town.

“Fires burned everywhere. There were screams in the wreckage.

“And God help me I knew it had been the fuel cells, that the celestials had somehow transferred them to the lander, and that Kile and I were responsible.

“I did what I could to help. Emergency teams from Eagle Point and elsewhere came in quickly. I tried again to raise Kile, but I never heard from him again.

“At the time I believed people would know who had done it. How could they not know? We were just back, the explosion had been triggered by antimatter, Kile was almost certainly dead in the blast. We had another crew member missing, and a third dead in the village. Clearly we had been up to something.

“Nevertheless I could not face public humiliation, and I did what I could to keep these events from coming to the attention of the authorities. It seemed to me two things needed to be accomplished.

“The first was to dispose of Yoshi’s body, so that it would not be found at the scene of the disaster and, when she was identified, raise even more questions. I wrapped it in plastic, weighted it, and put her in the river, above the dam, in the deepest part.

“Second, I had to remove the starship. I’d decided to bury it in the mountains, and then try to ride out the storm of suspicion which I knew would rise, and which indeed did rise, after the event. But when I got back to Kile’s villa, to my horror his mother had arrived and taken charge of things. I had no immediate opportunity to retrieve the microship, so I left it, hoping that no one would recognize it for what it was. Several days later, when I visited her, she was talking about sending it to her grandson.

“The thing that attacked Yoshi is still loose in the mountains. People come back with stories, and it has become something of a local celebrity, although fortunately very few take it seriously. And they are written off as lunatics.

“I have felt some sympathy for the creature, lost and alone in a strange world. I do not believe it meant to injure Yoshi, but only wished to clear the way for the escape vehicle. I’ve even gone looking for it on occasion. If it’s there, and if it recognizes me, it stays away.

“The lost crew of the microship, in spite of everything, has my respect. They killed two, and possibly three, of our people. Yet they must have known an explosion was imminent, and they took the fuel with them anyway. Did they do it for some incomprehensible reason? Or did they recognize they were in a populated area and sacrificed themselves in an effort to save creatures for whom they should have had no concern and no sympathy?”

The three great stars in Orion rose out of the sea at about nine o’clock. Kim sat on her deck, watching them. Next door, they were celebrating a birthday with loud music and rockets. When the noise subsided and the lights eventually went out, she was still there.

“And you thought Tripley’s grandmother put the body in the river.” Matt’s eyes contained a rare twinkle.

“I couldn’t imagine who else might have done it. I never even thought of Kane.”

“Do you think Tora knows?”

“She knows.” They were on the sundeck at Kim’s home. It was a trifle cool but the day was pleasant and the sound of the surf soothing.

“I wonder what the customs people will say when they find out somebody smuggled a starship past them.” His eyes closed. “So what are you going to do now? You can’t really sit on something like this.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Turn it over to Woodbridge.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. We’re out of it at that point.”

“Matt—”

“Look, Kim, I understand how you feel. The reputations of Kane and Tripley are hanging out there. People think they’re killers. But they’re the ones who mismanaged everything. You have an agreement with Woodbridge and he’s absolutely right. We’re just going to have to swallow this as best we can.”

She stared out to sea. “Matt, we aren’t talking reputations anymore. Or politics. Think about what happened out there. At Alnitak.”

“They blundered.”

“Yes, they did. They encountered a vehicle from another civilization, and they hijacked it.”

“I know.”

“One of the most important events in human history. We need to find a way to set things right.”

“Are we talking about the celestials ?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Kim, how in heaven can we do that? It’s done . Fini. Too late.”

“Maybe not. We could try mounting another mission. Go back to Alnitak and try again to talk to them.”

“ That’s good. Wasn’t it you the other day who was calling them murderous sons of bitches? Who wanted to kill them all? Wasn’t it you who stirred up Woodbridge? Warned him that we shouldn’t let anybody near the little bastards? I think that’s quoted correctly.”