Jack McDevitt - Ancient Shores

Management tried on several occasions to promote him. Double his money. But he wouldn’t take it. “They need me,” he’d told plant manager Adrian Cox, “to keep you and the rest of your crowd from eating them alive.” Yeah. Adrian knew the real reason: Al liked power too much to give it up. And no mere supervisor at Cougar possessed the kind of power Al had.

The shop steward disliked Cougar’s managers both personally and on principle. He made it a point not to be seen in their company, save when he was bullying them. It came, therefore, as an uncomfortable surprise when Cox’s secretary notified him that Al had arrived downstairs and was on his way up.

Cox’s first reaction was to take a deep breath. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“No, sir. Janet asked him, but he just walked past her.”

Moments later Al strolled through Adrian’s outer defenses and walked into the inner office while the intercom buzzed a late warning.

It was a spacious office, with framed awards and certificates of appreciation and a couple of expensive oils that his wife had picked out. Cox sat behind his mahogany desk in sunlight softened by an array of potted palms. It annoyed him that the shop steward pretended not to notice all this. Al advanced into the center of Cox’s Persian carpet, insolently neglecting to remove his cap, and leveled his gaze at the plant manager. “Mr. Cox,” he said, “I assume you’ve seen what’s been happening in North Dakota.”

Al was a little man, round, long out of shape, with uncombed thinning hair. His belly pressed against his greasy shirt, and a stained handkerchief was stuffed into his breast pocket. It was all part of the act.

“The UFO?” Cox felt instant relief that there was not a problem on the floor.

“Yeah.” Al dropped into one of the wing chairs. “What are we doing about it?”

Cox leaned forward. “About what ?” He knew what was coming, of course. There had already been talk in the boardroom and with corporate about the materials that might emerge from the Johnson’s Ridge discovery.

“About a tougher tire.” Al rocked back and forth. “What happens to Cougar if the industry begins to produce tires that will run two hundred thousand miles?”

“That won’t happen,” said Cox.

“I’m glad to hear it.” The man’s eyes never blinked.

“What do you want me to say?” asked Cox. “All I know is what I see on the TV.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Al’s face had no range. The only emotion it ever revealed was sarcasm. “You know I’ve always said that we should work together more. After all, we have the same objectives. A healthy company means good jobs.”

Cox couldn’t resist smiling. “I couldn’t agree more, Al.”

The steward scowled. “If this stuff can do what they’re saying it can, there won’t be any tire and rubber business in this country in another three years. If I were sitting in your chair, I’d have somebody up there making an offer.”

Cox frowned. “Offer? To do what?”

“To buy them out.”

Cox stared at Al. “There’s no need to panic,” he said finally. It felt like a weak response, but he couldn’t think what else to say.

Al shook his head. “If the worst happens, you’ll wind up getting a government bailout. There’ll be hard times, and the company will go Chapter Eleven. But you’ll do fine. You’ll vote yourself a bonus and complain about the business cycle. Along with everybody else up here. The rank and file will get walked on, like they always do. In the end, they won’t get nothin’.”

Cox’s skin crawled. “Al.” He tried to sound forceful but knew his voice was shaking. “Al, you’re overreacting. None of this is going to happen.”

“Yeah. Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t just sit around up here hoping it’ll all blow over.”

April cleaned the icons with a couple of damp cloths. Each lit up when she touched it, with the exception of the smoke, which stayed dark no matter what. But there were no special effects at the grid. She interpreted it to mean that there had to be something on the grid to produce the lights.

Near the pit she found a seventh icon. Bigger than the others, it resembled a kanji character. Like the smoke, it stayed dark when she touched it.

Marie McCloskey had always been able to feel the imminence of the divine presence. There had never been a time, not even during her most difficult days—when the news had come of Jodie’s death in the wreck on I—29, when her husband had first assaulted her, when they’d told her she had diabetes—there had never been an instant when she had not been aware that Jesus walked beside her. That sure and certain knowledge had carried her through all these years and had brought her, in spite of everything, an inner peace that she would not trade for any of life’s more tangible assets. Marie McCloskey was a fortunate woman.

She came to Fort Moxie to visit her sister, and she would not ordinarily have shown any interest in the events atop Johnson’s Ridge. But the town, which had been so quiet and orderly in past years, was overrun with tourists and salesmen and journalists and college students and busloads of people from all over North America. So it was natural that her curiosity would be aroused, and anyhow her sister’s husband, Corky Cable, wanted to go see the Roundhouse. They drove out and got in the line of cars over on Route 32. They rode up one side of the escarpment, cruised past the odd green building that looked like a fancy salt cellar, and rode down the other side, talking about Martians the whole time. It didn’t mean anything special to Marie or to her sister, but Corky raved about it.

They had dinner in Walhalla at the Cat’s Eye, and afterward drove back toward Johnson’s Ridge. It was dark now, a cold, crystal night with silent stars and no moon and a few wisps of cloud. They were riding three across the front seat in Corky’s Mazda when they rounded a curve and saw the soft green glow at the top of the ridge.

“Look at that,” said Marie’s sister.

Corky would have pulled off somewhere so they could watch, but the road was lined with cars. Instead he slowed down and crept along at about twenty.

To Marie, there was something supernatural in that quiet radiance. As though God himself had provided a lighthouse for His lost children. A reassurance that He was still here.

Oddly, she had felt nothing when she’d been alongside the structure two hours earlier, in broad daylight. But now the full weight of its significance caught her.

“We can see it all the way out to the border,” said Corky. He was a customs inspector at the Fort Moxie border crossing, and that statement was exaggerated. The border was too far away. But tonight it seemed possible. Tonight everything seemed possible.

“Slow down, Corky,” Marie said.

Corky was already creeping along, and some headlights had come up behind them.

Marie’s sister said, “I wonder what causes it. Maybe it’s made of phosphorous.”

Marie began to see an image. If you backed away a little bit mentally, stayed away from the details, and looked just so, you could make out a woman’s face. And she knew the woman.

“It’s the Virgin,” she said.

Arky Redfern ushered his guest to a seat, sat down behind his desk, and smiled politely. “Dr. Wells,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

Paxton Wells was a tall, lean man with a gray mustache and a manner that would have been aristocratic had he not been burdened with oversized ears. “Mr. Redfern,” he said, “I understand you represent tribal interests on Johnson’s Ridge.”

The lawyer nodded.

“I have an offer to make on behalf of the National Energy Institute.” He released the catches on his briefcase, searched inside, and withdrew a contract. “We would like to have permission to investigate the power source in the Roundhouse.” His eyebrows rose and fell, signaling, Arky thought, a fair degree of stress, which otherwise did not evince itself in Wells’s manner. “There’s a possibility we might be able to develop some of the technologies in the building. If indeed there are any technologies that can be adapted. We don’t know that, of course.”