Джек Макдевитт - Engines Of God

Harley didn't have much use for simple sentences. His energy overflowed ordinary syntax. His ideas sallied out to battle. He trampled (rather than refuted) opposing views, lit off objections with glee, and imposed decisions with crushing finality. Harley never expressed an opinion. He delivered truth. She wondered what sort of person his partner had been, cooped up with him for a year or so.

Reading through the report of his visit to 4418, she could hear his voice. Harley had found things to engage his interest here, as he did everywhere. He found volcanic and seismic activity in unlikely places, and an anomalous magnetic pattern around one of the gas giants. He took a series of measurements of the sun, and entertained himself by calculating the date of its eventual collapse.

They had surveyed the individual worlds, and moved on. Since Bode's Law told them where to look for worlds, they might not have bothered doing an intensive sweep, and it was therefore possible to understand how he might have missed other objects in the system, even objects of planetary dimensions.

Had the two objects been here at that time?

"Okay. Now."

Hutch punched the button, and a ruby beam flowed from the nozzle. Carson could feel the hair on his arms rise. The beam was pencil-thin. It flashed across the landscape, and bit into the ice.

"That's good," said Hutch. And, to Angela: "Ease it around to port just a mite. Okay. Hold it there." Carson knelt behind the unit, aiming it. He tracked vertically down the face of the cliff. A cloud of steam began to form. Ice, snow, and rock fell away. But the cloud grew, and obscured the target.

Carson shut the projector off. "This may take longer than we thought," he said.

The commlink chimed. Channel from Ashley. "Go ahead," said Angela's voice. It was Terry.

"Got some more information for you."

"I'm listening."

"Neither of the two objects is in solar orbit. They are passing through the system. They are not attached to it."

"Are you surel" Angela sounded skeptical.

"Yes, I'm sure. And here's something else for you: they are maintaining parallel courses. And they're moving at almost the same clip."

Carson grinned at Hutch, Maybe we've got the son of a bitch, and the smile widened as they heard Angela inhale the way she might if she were standing in front of an oncoming glidetrain.

Hutch broke in: "The velocity," she said. "What's the velocity?"

"Twenty-eight hundred for the far one and slowing down. Thirty-two and accelerating for the other."

"The speed of the wave," Hutch said hopefully. "They're in the neighborhood of the speed of the wave."

Carson was trying to keep his imagination under control. "Janet, what do you think?"

"Just what you're thinking."

Maybe that was it, that single piece of encouragement from the only other professional archeologist in the area. The old colonel's reserve fell away, and his eyes blazed. "Terry," he said, "how close will they come?"

"To us? One's already past," he said. "The other will get within thirty million klicks. Give or take a few."

"How big did you say it was?"

"It's twenty-three thousand kilometers wide. Sometimes."

"Sometimes?" asked Hutch. "What kind of thing is this?"

"We don't know. It isn't a sphere. We get a lot of different measurements. False readings, maybe. Hard to say."

The steam clung to the cliff wall. "It sounds as if the dragon might really be here," said Hutch.

"Premature," he said. But his expression belied detachment.

"I still think it's a cloud" said Drafts.

"Let's take another look," said Angela softly.

Thirty minutes later, they had piled back into the shelter, and were studying incoming images. The more distant object was little more than a misty star, a blur seen through heavy rain. But its companion was a thundercloud, lit ominously within, a storm on the horizon just after sunset.

"Well," said Angela, as if that single word summed up the inexplicable. "Whatever it is, just the fact that something is there, that anything is there, is significant. The intrusion of an extrasolar object into a planetary system is a rare event. I can't believe it just happened to occur while we're in the area. Since there are two of these things, I'd be willing to bet there are more coming. A lot more."

"Sounds like a wave to me," said Hutch.

"I didn't say that."

"Nevertheless it does."

"Unfortunately," said Janet, "if that's our critter, we're not going to get a very good look at it."

"Why not?" demanded Carson.

"Thirty million klicks is not close."

"I wouldn't worry," said Hutch. "If Angela is right, there'll be another along shortly. I think we ought to finish making our Oz, and see what happens."

On the Ashley, Janet and Drafts took turns monitoring the commlinks.

Unlike most of the hard-science specialists she knew, he had interests outside his chosen field. He had a sense of humor, he knew how to listen, and he encouraged her to talk about things she was interested in. She decided that if her duties required her to be holed up inside a tin can for a year with a single companion, Drafts would be easy to take.

He asked her about the book of Japanese poetry she'd been reading, and challenged her to produce a haiku. After a few minutes, and a lot of rewriting, she had one:

// they ask for me,

Say, she rides where comets go,

And outpaces light.

"Lovely," Drafts said.

"Your turn."

"I can't match that."

"Not if you don't try."

He sighed and picked up a pad. She watched him intently during the process. He smiled tentatively at her, struggled a lot, and finally presented her with one:

/ have walked on stars,

And sailed the channels of night.

To sip tea with you.

"I like it," she said.

His dark eyes found her. "I know it's not on a level with yours," he said. "But it's true."

Delta. Tuesday, May 17; 1535 hours.

The comer was almost a perfect 90 degrees. The problem was that the ice was brittle, and tended to crumble. But it was good enough. Carson called it a victory, cut power to the 1600, and accepted a handshake from his partner. "That's it, Angela," he said. "We're done for now. Let's go."

She acknowledged, and laid power to the engines.

They wheeled overhead and admired their work. Not bad for amateurs.

Angela spent the evening looking at the data coming in from Ashley. She kept moving files around, switching images, talking to herself.

"What's wrong?" asked Hutch.

"These things" she said. "There's no way to explain them. And I'm thinking where we're going to be if we let them get away and another one does not show up."

"Looking dumb?" suggested Hutch.

"To say the least. We've got a major discovery here. Whatever it is. They violate physical law. The one that's approaching us will pass the sun and apparently keep going. I mean, this thing is really traveling." She was quiet for a moment. "I don't know what holds them together."

"What are you suggesting, Angela?"

"I think we should arrange to take a close look as it goes by."

"Is there time?"

"We can arrange an intercept. We won't have much time alongside, because the ship can't begin to match the object's velocity in the time available. But we can get a quick glimpse, and maybe the sensors will be more effective up close." She looked at Carson. "What do you think?"

"Can't we catch it later if we have to?" He directed the question to Hutch.

She considered it. "Hazeltines are notoriously poor for pinpoint work. We did pretty well at Beta Pac, but that's the exception. Usually, you pick a star system, and land somewhere in the general neighborhood. With something that's moving trie way this thing is, if we let it get away, we might never see it again."