Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

“Not good.”

“No. Not good. Imagine it’s always like that. Year after year. So I don’t know what I want to do.”

Eventually, gray light appeared overhead. It leaked through windows at the top of a domed ceiling and crept down the walls. They were in a cavernous hall that rose more than two hundred feet and could readily have housed an army. Graceful arches were supported by massive columns. There were seven platforms and eight trenches, and the whole was surrounded by the concourse. The storefronts gaped open, dark, dingy.

Dead. “Are we ready?” Shannon asked her.

Had Mike been a flesh-and-blood human being, Avila would have conceded he had a tendency to babble. But a disembodied voice tends to command respect and attention, whatever it says.

They avoided the issue. They talked about the death of Silas and what Mike dreamed about during the long nights and whether civilizations were destined to grow old no matter what they did and whether there were other entities like Mike still alive somewhere. And they talked about whether there was purpose in the world. “We need a logic to our lives,” Mike said. “A reason to exist.”

“Are there gods?” Avila asked.

“I’d like to think so. I’ve wanted very much to believe there’s something transcendent out there.”

“But?” asked Avila.

“I can see no reason to believe in any greater intelligence than our own.”

“Yet the world is clearly designed for our use.”

“It’s an illusion. Any world that produces intelligent creatures will necessarily appear to have been designed specifically for them. It is impossible that it should be otherwise.”

Chaka, braver by daylight, had accompanied her and Shannon. The room was bare, cold, dreary. She sat with a blanket draped around her shoulders. “Tell us about the people who lived here,” she said.

“What do you want to know?”

She smiled. “Silas should be here for this. What were they like?”

“The question is vague, Chaka. They were, I’m sure, just like you.”

“What did they care about?” asked Chaka. “What was important to them?”

“I’m not sure I can answer that in a satisfactory way. They cared about keeping the trains on time. About maintaining electrical power. About having communications systems functioning properly.”

“Are there any records of the period?” asked Avila.

“Oh, yes. I stored information as requested.”

“What kind of information?”

“I didn’t bother to look at any of it.”

“Can you show us some of it?” asked Chaka.

“I have no working screens or printers. No way to display it for you. I could read it, but you’d find it very boring.”

They stared at one another. “Mike,” said Avila, “we’d like to learn about life in the City, but we don’t understand a lot of what you’re saying.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“I also retain copies of the personnel regulations, the safely manual, the operating regs, and the correspondence guide. If they would be any help.”

“I don’t think so.”

“And there are some books stored in my flies.”

“What books?”

“The Random House Dictionary, the most recent edition of Roget’s Thesaurus, The Columbia Encyclopedia, The Chicago Manual of Style, The World Almanac for 2078.”

More baffled looks. “What’s an encyclopedia?”

“It’s a collection of general information. You look up what you’re interested in, say, the Philadelphia Megadome, and it tells you all about it.”

Chaka felt a surge of excitement. “That’s just what we want. How long is it?”

“Several million words.”

Avila sighed. “That’s not going to work.”

“I wish I’d paid more attention,” said Mike. “But I really don’t know what kind of information you’re looking for.”

Chaka looked frustrated. “Nor do we,” she said. “We need

Silas.”

Three horizontal lines and an arrow were painted on a wall in one of the exit corridors. The lines were like the ones they’d seen on trees all along the trail. But the arrow pointed disconcertingly toward a stairway. It was angled up.

Flojian gazed toward the next landing, puzzled.

Up?

He too missed Silas. There was no longer anyone for him to talk with. Although the scholar could scarcely have been described as a friend, he was a willing listener, a man with whom it was possible to share a mature viewpoint. Quait and Chaka were young and impulsive. Shannon thought anyone who didn’t live in the woods was a slave, and Avila was a religious fanatic who had not come to terms yet with the fact she had walked away from her gods.

He sighed and looked at the stairwell. Whatever happened now, it was going to be a long trip.

He wandered outside. Concrete towers soared toward the clouds. Others had collapsed into islands of debris. Toward the east, through a tangle of asphalt and iron, a sea was visible. The gray tower that Avila had first seen from the second floor lay on the north side. It rose out of a narrow shelf of brown ridges, and was separated from Union Station by a swift-flowing channel.

He walked along the water’s edge, marveling at the enginering capabilities of the Roadmakers. This, he decided, had undoubtedly been their capital. Their center of empire.

He turned a corner and stood with a complete frontal view of the gray tower, and understood at once the significance of Shay’s arrow. A covered walkway, four floors up, connected it with Union Station.

At midmorning, they heard the sound of a train leaving the terminal. “It’s outbound, “said Mike. “Coming up from below.”

“Is it the one we were in?” asked Avila.

“No. It goes north to Madison.”

Chaka said, “Why do you keep fhem running?”

“I did shut them down once, but it made me uncomfortable, so I restarted them. For a while, I was running trains all over the Midwest.”

“And these two still operate, after so much time. I’m amazed.”

“One train crashed near Fulton, and another lost power at Decatur. It’s still out there.” He paused. “There’s no real friction and the powersats are apparently going to go on forever. And I retain some remote maintenance capabilities. Actually, most of the trains would still run except that their routes have become heavily overgrown by forest. Eventually, that’ll happen with the others, too.” He was silent for a few moments. “I wish I had visuals from the trains. What’s the world like now?”

“What was it like when you knew it?”

“Busy. I really thought, despite everything, my makers were going somewhere.”

“Despite what?”

“Most of the data entered into my systems was trivial. But you expect that, right? I mean, they saw me as a glorified computer. I don’t think there was anybody in the building, and hardly anyone on the net, who had any idea of my capabilities. So they used me to record memos and arrange train schedules. Do you know, you’re the only biological person to ask me about cosmic purpose? Your ancestors, I’m sorry to say, may have been exactly what they appeared to be.”

“And what is that?”

“Dullards.” He remained quiet for a moment. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”

“No.” It was a strange term to apply to the Roadmakers “Not at all.”

“Yes,” he said. “I think that’s actually a kind way to put it. They were absorbed with matters of the most inconsequential nature. And yet they managed quite impressive achievements.”

“You mean the architecture? The roads?”

“I mean me. Forgive me. I’m not designed to express false humility. But creating a self-aware entity was a spectacular stroke. I haven’t decided yet whether they owed their advances to a few talented persons or whether they were able to cooperate to overcome their individual limitations and acquire a kind of synergy. They did seem able to inspire each another through an upward cycle of escalating performance, it really was something to watch.”