Jack McDevitt: A Talent for War

The crosses were arranged in precise rows, the oldest in front and to the left, proceeding in somber sequence through the years across the top of the ridge and down the opposite slope. Each displayed a name, the proud designation of the Order, O. D. J., and the date of death stated in standard years of the Christian Era.

Toward the rear, he discovered Father Brenner. Brenner had been redheaded, robust, overweight. But he was young in the days when Chulohn had been young. His class was History of the Church during the Great Migration.

"Surely, you knew…" said the Abbot, noting the Bishop’s reaction.

"Yes. But hearing that a man is dead is not quite the same as standing at his grave."

There was a painful number of familiar names along that back row. They were, at first, his instructors: Philips and Mushallah and Otikapa. Mushallah had been a silent moody man with quick eyes and relentless conviction who loved to duel with any student who dared question the sophisticated reasoning that demonstrated God’s existence through logic.

Further on, he found John Pannell and Crag Hover and others. Dust now. All the theology in the world didn’t change that.

He looked curiously at Thasangales, standing patiently in the falling snow, hands pushed deep into his pockets, apparently untouched by it all. Did he understand anything of what it meant to walk through such a place? The Abbot’s expression showed no trace of pain. Chulohn was uncertain whether he would really wish his own faith so strong…

Uncomfortable notion: the sinner clasping the sin.

There were numerous stones, dating back several centuries. And there were many here to whom he should pay his respects; but he wished ardently to turn back, perhaps because of the deteriorating weather, perhaps because he wished to see no more. And it happened that as he turned, intending to retreat, his gaze fell across one of the stones, and he saw that something was wrong, though he was not immediately sure what it might be. He walked toward the marker, and peered at its inscription.

Jerome Courtney

Died 11,108 A.D.

The grave was a hundred sixty standard years old. Relatively recent by St. Anthony standards. But the inscription was incomplete. The sign of the Order was missing.

The Bishop squinted at the marker, and brushed at the stone, to clear away a few flakes that might have obscured the designation.

"Don’t bother, Cam," said the Abbot. "It’s not there."

"Why not?" He straightened, his obvious perplexity giving way to displeasure. "Who is he?"

"He is not one of us. In any narrow sense."

"He is not a Disciple?"

"He’s not even a Catholic, Cam. I don’t think he was a believer at all."

Chulohn took a step forward, crowding his subordinate. "Then what in God’s name is he doing here? Among the Fathers?" It was not a place for shouting, but the Bishop’s effort to control his voice produced a modulated rasp that embarrassed him.

Thasangales' eyes were round and blue. "He’s been here a long time, Cam. He came to us for refuge, and lived with the Community for almost forty years."

"That doesn’t explain why he lies here."

"He lies here," the Abbot said, "because the men among whom he lived and died loved him, and decreed that he should remain among them."

ON THE NIGHT we heard that the Capella had slipped into oblivion, I was haggling with a wealthy client over a collection of four-thousand-year-old ceramic pots. We stopped to watch the reports. There was little to say, really, other than that the Capella had not re-entered linear space as expected, that the delay was now considerable, and an announcement declaring the ship officially lost was expected momentarily.

The names of prominent passengers followed: a few diplomats were on board, some sports figures, a musician who had clearly lost his mind years before but whose work seemed only to have prospered by the experience, a group of students who had won some sort of competition, and a well-heeled mystic with her male retinue.

The loss of the Capella entered almost immediately into the rarefied atmosphere of legend. Certainly there have been far worse disasters. But the twenty-six hundred people riding with the big interstellar had not died in any ordinary sense. They might, in fact, not have died at all. No one knows. And therein lies the fascination of the event.

The client, whose name I no longer recall, shook his head sadly at the hazards of life, and returned quickly to the artifacts at hand. We compromised nearer his end than mine.

The Capella had been the flagship of the newest class of interstellars, equipped with every conceivable sort of safety device, piloted by a captain of documented ingenuity. It was painful to think of it reduced quietly to the stature of a ghost.

It’s happened before. But never to anything so big. And with so many people. Almost immediately, we had a hit song. And theories.

The vessel had struck a time node, some said, and would emerge at a future date, with the passengers and crew unaware that anything unusual had happened. Of course, we’d been losing ships for a hell of a long time now, and none has ever reappeared. So if they’re going uptime, it must be a considerable distance.

The idea most widely held was that the Armstrongs had simultaneously failed, leaving the ship to wander forever, unseen, unheard. (That, it struck me, was a wonderful thing to tell the families of the travelers.)

There was a host of other ideas. The Capella had emerged in another universe. Or there’d been a glitch that had propelled her to another galaxy (or more likely, into the gulfs between the galaxies). The one that seemed most likely to me was the boulder theory: Armstrong space is not a perfect vacuum, and the Capella had struck something too big for its deflectors.

Of course I have no more idea than anyone else. But it was unnerving all the same. And it was just one more reason why I didn’t ride the damned things unless I absolutely had to.

During the days that followed, the net was filled with the usual human interest stories. The man who had overslept, missed the shuttle, and thereby missed the flight, mentioned his appreciation to an Almighty who, apparently, was less indulgent to the twenty-six hundred others. The captain was on her last cruise, and was to have retired when the ship reached Saraglia Station, the final port of call. A woman on Rimway claimed to have dreamt, on the night before the disaster, of the loss of the Capella. (She eventually parlayed that claim into a lucrative career, and became one of the leading seers of the age.)

And so on. We heard that an inquiry would be conducted, but of course that was likely to lead to nothing. There was, after all, little to examine, other than passenger and cargo manifests, shipping schedules, and the like.

The carriers released fresh statistics that demonstrated people were safer traveling between Rigel and Sol than tooling around the average city.

About ten days after the loss, I received a transmission from a cousin on Rimway with whom I’d had no communication in years. In case you haven’t heard, he said, Gabe was on the Capella. I’m sorry. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.