Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

“Here’s something else that’s been kept quiet. Why?”

“Why did I keep it quiet? What makes you think I knew anything about it? My father didn’t have a very high regard for me, Chaka. I’m the last one he’d confide in. I didn’t even know the sketch existed until we cleaned up the day after the ceremony. Anyway, I suspect he didn’t make it public because it would have led to exactly this kind of reaction.”

Her expression hardened. Flojian hated confrontations. He preferred to be liked, and much of his personal success was predicated on the fact that people willingly threw business his way, and others were anxious to work for him.

“I think you owed me the truth,” said Chaka.

“What is the truth, Chaka? That he might have found what he was looking for? Or that your brother might have jumped to an unjustified conclusion? You know as well as I do that at least one of the sketches is pure fantasy. Remember The Dragon? Who knows where the truth is?

“My father devoted his entire life first to trying to establish that Haven existed, and then to trying to find the place. He dreamed about it, fought for it, and lost his reputation over it. Do you seriously believe that he could have found it but neglected in the face of all that repudiation to mention it to anyone? Does that make any sense to you at all?”

She stood her ground. “No,” she said. “But neither does his failing to mention the Mark Twain to anyone. There’s a pattern here.”

“What pattern? Look, he could have found the book anywhere.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “When he told me about my brother’s death, he said they got careless, that they were preoccupied because they thought they were almost there. In fact, if this is what it appears to be, Arin was alive at the end of the journey.”

“Chaka, it’s all guesswork.” He opened the packet, removed the sketch, and studied it. July 25.

“It’s the last in the series,” she said.

He sighed. “I’m sorry there’re still all these questions. But this is why I didn’t say anything. It’s why I should have destroyed it. I knew it would just start the old trouble up again.” He put the sketch back inside its wrapper and held it out for her. “Keep it if you like.”

She stared at him. “And that’s the end of it?”

Flojian’s anger had drained. He was just tired of it all and wanted it to go away. “Chaka, what do you want from me? You know as much as I do. Tell me what I can do that will satisfy you, and I’ll try to comply.”

Her eyes were wet. “Help me find out what really happened,” she said.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Flojian leaned against the edge of a table. “Chaka, you’re aware that if we make this public, my father’s reputation is going to take another beating. I don’t know, maybe he deserves it. But I can’t see what good will come out of it.”

“I’m interested in the truth,” she said, “and I’m not much worried about anyone’s reputation.” She put the oilskin into her pocket and started for the door.

“I’m sure you are,” he growled. “Incidentally, if you think about any more late night visits, please be careful. I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a prowler.”

“I wish we could be sure.” Silas hunched down on his elbows, studying the thirteenth sketch by candlelight. “But he’s right: It could just be something Arin made up. Or a misunderstanding. They thought they were there, but they weren’t. It could be that simple.”

She shook her head. “Why would he do that? He was along for the specific purpose of recording the expedition.”

One sketch, River Valley, still hung on a wall in Flojian’s villa. The others were arranged sequentially on Silas’s worktable.

March 11 Frontier The expedition moves along a broken highway above forest and river

April 4 Memorial Sign on rusted post: Dixie Gun Works & Old Car Museum

April 6 The Dragon Glowing eyes in a dark woodland

April 7 The City Towers in a misty sea

May 13 The Ship The hulk of an iron ship lies on its side in a dry channel

May 16 Nyagra Shola Kobai gazes at a spectacular waterfall

May 22 Pathfinder Karik on horseback consults a scroll

May 29 Ruins Random and Mira seated on concrete slab examining moonlit ruins that extend to the horizon

June 13 River Crossing Fording a river

June 30 Vista Landon Shay and Tori Niss survey a mountainscape

July 2 Sundown A Roadmaker bridge framed against a setting sun

July 25 Haven Granite cliffs overlook a sea

Silas looked at Frontier. “1 know this place,” he said.

“I do too. That’s upriver, just south of Argon. It’s the fork. Where the Ohio breaks off.”

They were in Silas’s modest house in the tiny government quarter near the Imperium. A light rain fell against the windows. Chaka glanced out at the winding gravel street, which had been full of people when she’d arrived, but was now deserted. It had grown dark, from both the storm and the sunset.

Silas moved the lamp closer to the sketch titled The City. “Have you ever read Showron?” he asked.

“I never heard of him.”

“Showron Voyager was a Baranji scholar. He’s supposed to have visited Haven near the end of his life. He writes about the scholar-caretakers, still living there generations after the October Patrol era. More to the point, he describes his journey.” Silas dipped a pen into his inkwell and began to write, stopping periodically to gaze at the wall. When he’d finished, he looked critically at the result, changed a word, and handed it to her.

We fled the demon towers.

And came at last to Mamara,

With its restless spirits.

“Demon towers and restless spirits,” she said, smiling. “Sounds ominous.”

He rapped his fingers against the table. “Demons are all in the imagination,” said Silas dismissively. He looked down at the sketch. “But those towers could be what he was talking about.”

“It’s all just too vague,” said Chaka.

“Maybe not.” Silas produced a sketch of his own. “This is from a Baranian edition of The Travels” The Baranians had occupied the Mississippi Valley for a brief period before the rise of the modern cities. “The original’s in Makar.”

The sketch depicted a metal cradle and platform, mounted against the face of a cliff. A curious bullet-shaped object lay in the cradle. Two human figures stood beside it, engaged in conversation. There was a sense of deep sky.

“What is it?” asked Chaka.

“This one’s a vehicle. I don’t draw very well, so it’s hard to tell. In the original, the vehicle is drawn in a way that incorporates motion. But look here.”

She didn’t see what he was driving at until he put the thirteenth sketch, Haven, under her eyes. Slight bulge here. Narrow shelf there. Vertical lines in the rock face. It looked like the same cliff. “They did find it,” she said.

“Maybe. Or maybe Arin had seen this and was reproducing it. Possibly without realizing it. Or maybe it’s a coincidence. But whatever it is, how could we possibly figure out where they went?” He blurted it out, without immediately realizing what he was suggesting, and they stared uncomfortably across the table at each other.

She had not intended to tell anyone else what she’d done, least of all Raney. But somehow, after they’d shared a meal that evening at her villa, she couldn’t resist. He responded predictably by adopting a severe mien and asking whether she’d lost her mind. “What would have happened if you’d been caught?”

“I think he would have booted me out and told me not to come back.”

“It could have been a lot worse,” he said. Raney had a tendency to talk to her sometimes as if they were married. Illyria was a society in transition. It had been puritanical under its emperors, who guarded the sanctity of the family and the honor of the nation’s women with enthusiasm, while maintaining their own harems. But the overthrow of the autocracy and the rise of republican principles had fueled a new sense of liberty. The old institutions and centers of authority were being swept away. And with them, some were saying, the decency and common courtesy that made civilization worthwhile. There seemed to be more roughnecks in the streets, more pushing and shoving in the bazaars, more open sexuality, more abandoned children, more violations of good taste. Many were calling for a return to imperial rule. And almost everyone agreed that the nation was in decline.