Jack McDevitt - A Talent for War

The Corsarius was equipped with a tunable gravity wave collector, enhanced by hyperconductive magnets designed to reduce electrical resistance to a negative factor. The result: the ship was able to achieve displacement in the time/space fabric with a zero time interval.

Well, you already know all that. But that’s how it happens that Chase and I are not still out on the far side of the Veiled Lady.

The quantum drive.

Range isn’t unlimited, of course. It’s a factor of the nature of the drive, and of available power. Energy is stored in a hyperconducting ring, and must be applied within excruciatingly exact limits at the moment of transition. And a ship can’t move freely even within that range. The minimum distance it will cross is slightly longer than a light-day. After that, intervals are reduced by infinitesimal, but steadily increasing, variables. It’s somewhat like stations. All this is apparently tied in with statistics and quantum logic and the Hays Certainty Principle. But the result is that the method isn’t practical for voyages that are either very short, or very long.

We have a better understanding now of what relations among the various human worlds really were during the War against the Ashiyyur. (Or at least Chase and I do.) Though we had always known they hadn’t trusted one another, it came as a shock that the Dellacondans withheld their discovery from their allies. And that it was consequently lost for two centuries after Rigel.

A lot has changed since we brought the Corsarius back from Belmincour.

Political unity on a grand scale has become practical, and the Confederacy appears to be stabilizing. We may make it after all.

I’ve also been happy that the drive has not been used in any particularly offensive way against the Ashiyyur. I owe them no love, and yet, if there is a lesson in all this, I think it points in that direction. We own an immense technological advantage now. Tensions have eased, and some experts claim you can’t have a serious rivalry without a military balance. Maybe we’re looking toward a new era. I hope so.

The Maracaibo Caucus is still open down at Kostyev House. I’ve never gone back, but I wish them well.

You can still see Matt Olander’s grave outside Point Edward. The Ilyandans dismissed Kindrel Lee’s story out of hand.

There’s talk now of an intergalactic mission. Power remains a problems; the voyage would have to be made in a series of (relatively) short jumps. Recharging is slow; and the experts estimate that a trip to Andromeda would consume the better part of a century and a half. But we’re coming. There’ve already been some improvements on Machesney’s basic design; and I hope to live long enough to crack a bottle across the prow of the first intergalactic survey ship. (Promises have been made.)

The reputations of the Sims have suffered no lasting damage. In fact, most people dismiss the Belmincour story and believe firmly that the hero died off Rigel.

There’s a theory that has gained some status among scholars that I’ve found interesting: the notion that there was a final confrontation on the shelf, and that the brothers ultimately embraced, and parted in tears.

Which brings us to the inscription on the rock:

The first section is a cry of anguish, used often by the hero in classical Greek tragedy. Then: O Demosthenes. Most historians read that cry as a tribute by Christopher Sim to his brother’s oratorical abilities and hence as a demonstration of forgiveness: I am in agony, O Demosthenes, it seems to say. This also supports the view of the final parting on the shelf, attended by all the concomitant bitterness and affection that such an event would have generated.

But I have my doubts. After all, Demosthenes persuaded his countrymen to fight a pointless and suicidal war against Alexander the Great!

If we have not understood the remark, I think Tarien would have.

We’ve always wondered about Tanner and Sim, why she searched so relentlessly for so many years. Somehow, there seems to have been more than simple compassion or loyalty in that quest. Chase would inject a romantic note: She loved him, she has told me on occasion, when the wind blows hard outside, and the fire leaps high. And she found him. I am sure of that. She would not have given up—

Maybe.

I’ve always suspected that Tanner was part of the original plot. That it was she, and not a nameless staff officer or crewman, who saw the Wheel. And that it was guilt, rather than love, that drove her.

And anyhow, we know he didn’t come back. Christopher Sim was never heard of again, after Rigel. Sometimes I think about him on that rock, and I want more than anything else in my life to believe that she came down out of the clear blue sky. And that she took him away.

I like to think it. But I don’t believe it.

And finally, Gabe.

Today, the logs of the Corsarius, and a personal notebook in the hand of Christopher Sim, are on display at the Center for Accadian Studies. In the Gabriel Benedict Wing.

THE SKIMMER ARCED in over the rim of St. Anthony’s Valley, circled the abbey, and set down on the visitors' pad near the statue of the Virgin in front of the administration building. A tall, dark-skinned man climbed out of the cockpit, blinked in the sunlight, and glanced round at the cluster of dormitories, the library, and the chapel, which seemed to have been scattered over the landscape in no very orderly fashion.

A young man in red robes had been standing off to one side, near the Virgin, watching. Now he walked swiftly toward the visitor. "Mr. Scott?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"Welcome to St. Anthony’s. I’m Mikel Dubay, the Abbot’s representative." Usually, Mikel broke the formality of the announcement with the additional observation that he was a novice. But Scott’s manner did not encourage spontaneity.

"Ah." He was looking past Mikel’s shoulder.

"We’ve prepared a room for you."

"Thank you. But I won’t be staying overnight."

"Oh." That was puzzling. "I understood you had intended a retreat here."

"That’s true," Scott said, suddenly aware of the novice. "In a way. But it will take only a half hour or so."

Mikel’s jaw tightened, but he did not reply until he was sure he could keep the ice out of his voice. "The Abbot wished me to see that you receive whatever assistance you require."

With his heart hammering, Hugh Scott followed his guide behind the residence halls and past the recreation area. Shouts from a group of young ballplayers drifted on the late afternoon air. A couple of white-clad priests came from the other direction, greeted Mikel and his charge cheerfully, and continued on. The portion of their conversation that Scott had caught seemed to have something to do with high energy physics.

The chapel bell tolled. A large avian flapped wildly in one of the trees, and fell out. It hit the ground with a shriek, got up, and galloped away on enormous wedge-shaped feet. "It followed one of the fathers home from a mountain novena a few weeks ago," the novice explained. "We’ve been trying to catch it so that we can take it back."

"I’ve never seen anything quite like it," Scott said reflexively, looking uphill, perhaps not thinking of the creature at all. Indeed, he might not even have been aware of its existence.

"It’s a mowry bird," continued Mikel, falling into silence thereafter.

The walkway curved past groves of flowering bushes and dwarf trees. They turned uphill. On the ridge, behind an iron fence, Scott could see rows of white markers.

He slowed his pace. It was a lovely day, an afternoon to enjoy a moment to savor! And the blood rushed in his veins!

Marble benches were set near the entrance, intended obviously as places where one might with profit contemplate the brevity of a lifetime. His glance swept past them to the arch, beneath which the fathers pass on their final journey. A cross stood at its apex, and it was inscribed: He that would teach others how to die, must know how to live. Yes, Scott thought. Sim had known!