Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

“Well,” he said, “we’ve got something. Our wall switches do tie in to a power source.”

“How about,” said April, “we try one of the other icons?”

He pointed the minicam at the chair and started it.

“Maybe,” she said, “we should make sure we’re not standing on another one of these grids.”

Max brushed away some of the earth with his heel. No sign of a gridwork. “I think we’re okay,” he said.

The smoke symbol was next. She pushed on the wall.

The icon stayed dark.

“I don’t think it’s working,” said Max.

“Apparently not.”

Almost casually, she tried the egg icon.

It blinked on. “We got a light,” she said.

Max backed up a few steps and started the minicam again.

April glanced at her watch.

The red lamp glowed in the viewfinder. The minicam got heavy, and Max shifted it higher on his shoulder.

He was beginning to suspect the phenomenon would not repeat when a tiny star began to glow in the middle of the viewing field.

“Twenty-three seconds,” she said.

The star expanded and grew brighter.

“My God,” said Max. “What is that?”

It enveloped the chair.

He watched it glitter and swirl until it hurt his eyes. Then it was gone.

So was the chair. They had a clean grid.

Edward (Uncle Ed) Crowley was in his third year as CEO of the Treadline Corporation, which had been a subsidiary of Chrysler but had gone independent three years before and was scoring a major success with its line of quality cars at reasonable prices (the company motto) and its emphasis on customer service.

Treadline was doing everything right. It had gone for a legitimate team concept, had got rid of its autocrats and replaced them with managers who understood how to motivate, had encouraged employees to make decisions, and had seen to it that everyone had a stake in success. Now, at last, things were coming together. The previous quarter had given Treadline its first net profit, and the curve was now decidedly up. He could see nothing ahead but prosperity.

His calendar lay open on his teak desk. German trade reps were due in fifteen minutes. That would spill over into lunch. Staff meeting at one, reflection at one-forty-five, wander down to the Planning Effectiveness Division at two-fifteen. Uncle Ed subscribed to the theory of management by walking around. He understood the importance of being seen. Conference with the legal director at three, and with Bradley and his technicians at four. Open door in effect from four-thirty. Anyone could pop by and say hello to the boss.

In fact, he got relatively few visitors. The line of command immediately below him, because they normally had easy access, were prohibited from taking advantage of his time. People further down the food chain were somewhat reluctant to drop in on the head man. But they did come by on occasion. And anyhow the open door was a valuable symbol, both to the rank and file and to his chiefs.

He had been going over the plans for restructuring Treadline’s long-term debt, in the hope of finding a way to finance needed R and D. But he was tired of looking at numbers, and his back was starting to hurt. He glanced at his watch and realized he’d been at it for an hour and a quarter. Too long.

Time to take a break and clear his mind. He got up, walked over to the window, and looked out at the Indianapolis skyline. The intercom beeped.

“Yes, Louise?”

“Mr. Hoskin on line one.”

Walt Hoskin was his vice president for financial operations, a fussy little man who had never learned to think outside the parameters. Which was why he would never rise higher than he was now. It was Hoskin’s plan that lay on his desk. And it was perfectly satisfactory within the general rules and principles of company policy and past practice. But the man did not know how to kill sacred cows. If Treadline was to take full advantage of recent market trends, they had to get out of the old buggy Hoskin was driving. He picked up the phone. “Yes, Walt?”

“Ed, have you seen the news this morning?” Hoskin’s voice was reedy and thin.

As a matter of fact, he hadn’t. Uncle Ed was a bachelor. On days when he worked late, as he had last evening, he often stayed overnight at the office. He hadn’t been near the TV either last evening or this morning. “No,” he said quietly. “Why? What’s going on?”

“We opened seventeen points down.” Hoskin delivered the news like a sinner announcing the Second Coming.

Uncle Ed prided himself on his ability to react coolly to crises and shocks. But this blindsided him. “ Seventeen points ?” he bellowed. “What the hell’s going on?” He knew of nothing, no bad news, no market speculations, that could produce this kind of effect.

“It’s that thing in North Dakota.”

“What thing in North Dakota?”

“The UFO.”

Uncle Ed had discounted the reports from Johnson’s Ridge as a mass delusion. “Walt,” he said, struggling to regain his composure. “Walt, what are we talking about?”

“There are reports that it’s about to become possible to make automobiles that will run damn near forever!”

Uncle Ed stared at his phone. “Nobody’s going to believe that, Walt.”

“Maybe not. But people might think other shareholders will. So they’re dumping their stock. There was a woman on ABC this morning saying that a car made of this stuff would last the lifetime of the owner. Provided he changed the oil and didn’t have any accidents.”

Hoskin was on the verge of hysteria. Uncle Ed eased into his chair.

“Are you there, Ed?” asked Hoskin. “Ed, you okay?”

The markets had opened mixed, unable to make up their minds for an hour or so. Then a wave of selling had set in. By late morning they were in free fall. The Nikkei Index lost 19 percent of its value in a single day, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 380 points.

They ran the sequence through the VCR.

The chair.

The light.

The empty grid.

They ran it a frame at a time, watching the incandescence build, watching it acquire a sparkle effect, watching it reach out almost protoplasmically for the chair. “Go slow,” said April.

The chair looked as if it was fading .

There were a couple of frames during which Max thought he could see through the legs and back. It looked like a double exposure.

They were in the control module. Around them, phones continued to ring. Helicopters came and left every few minutes. April had hired a bevy of graduate students to conduct the tours and coordinate visits by VIPs. Two of these students, wearing dark blue uniforms with a Roundhouse shoulder patch, were busy at their desks while simultaneously trying to follow April’s progress.

“We need to try this again,” said Max. “And use a filter.”

But they would apparently have to try a different icon: Like the tree, the egg seemed to have only one charge to fire and was no longer working.

She seemed not to be listening, but was instead staring into her coffee cup. At last she looked up. “What do you think it is, Max?”

“Maybe a garbage disposal.” The thought amused him. He looked back at the image on the monitor. Something caught his eye.

“What?” she said, following his gaze.

Behind the nearly transparent chair, against the wall, Max could make out two vertical lines.

“Those are not in the Roundhouse,” he said. He tried to visualize the space between the grid and the rear wall. There was nothing that might produce such lines. Nor anything on the wall itself.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

Max’s imagination was running wild. “I wonder,” he said, “whether we haven’t sent an old chair into somebody’s vestibule.”