Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

“But there are ruins?”

“Yes.”

“Extensive?”

“They fill the forests, clog the rivers, lie in the shallow waters of the harbors. Yes, you could say they’re extensive.

Some are even active, in strange ways. Like this one.”

“And what do you know of the British?” She shrugged. “I don’t know the British, sir.”

“Well, that will probably make the Americans happy. You say everything is locked away in this Haven?”

“Yes.”

“On which you are about to turn your back.”

“We’re exhausted, Winston.” She had by now concluded that Winston was related to Mike and the entity or entities in the bank. He was real, but not a man. He looked like a man, but he talked like someone misplaced in time. She was beginning to recognize the trait.

“Your driving curiosity, Chaka, leaves me breathless.”

Damn. “Look, it’s easy enough for you to point a finger. You have no idea what we’ve been through. None. We have three people dead.”

Winston looked steadily at her. “Three dead? I’m sorry to hear that. But the prize sounds as if it might be of great consequence.”

“It is. But there are only three of us left,” she said.

“Chaka, history is never made by crowds. Nor by the cautious. Always, it is the lone captain who sets the course.”

“It’s over. We’ll be lucky to get home alive.”

“That may be true. And certainly it is true that going on to your goal entails great risk. But you must decide whether the prize is not worth the risk.”

“We will decide. My partners and I.” Her temper was rising. “We’ve done enough. It would be unreasonable to go on.”

“The value of reason is often exaggerated, Chaka. It would have been reasonable to accept Hitler’s offer of terms in 1940.”

“What?”

He waved the question away. “It’s no matter now. But reason, under pressure, usually produces prudence when boldness is called for.”

“I’m not a coward, Winston.”

“I’m sure you aren’t. Or you would not be here.” He bit down hard on his weed. A blue cloud drifted toward her. It hurt her eyes and she backed away.

“Are you a ghost?” she asked. The question did not seem at all foolish.

“I suspect I am. I’m something left behind by the retreating tide.” The fire glowed in his eyes. “I wonder whether, when an event is no longer remembered by any living person, it loses all significance? Whether it is as if it never happened?”

Flojian stirred in his sleep, but did not wake.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Chaka.

For a long time, neither of them spoke.

Winston got to his feet. “I’m not comfortable here,” he said.

She thought he was expressing displeasure with her.

“The floor is hard on an old man. And of course you are right: You and your comrades will decide whether to go on. Camelot was a never-never land. Its chief value lay in the fact that people believed in certain qualities associated with it. Perhaps the same thing is true of Haven. Maybe you’re right to turn back.”

“No,” she said. “It exists.”

“And is anyone else looking for this place?”

“No one. We will be the second mission to fail. I don’t think there will be another.”

“Then let it be buried, Chaka of Illyria. Let it be buried with your lost companions.”

She backed away from him. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Why do you care?”

“Why did you come so far?”

“My brother was with the first expedition. I wanted to find out what happened to him.”

“And the others?”

“Quait? He’s a scholar. Like Silas.” She took a deep breath. “We lost Silas. And Flojian came because his father’s reputation was ruined by the first expedition.”

His eyes grew thoughtful. “If those are your reasons for coming, child, then I advise you to go back. Write the venture off and invest your money in real estate.”

“Beg pardon?”

“But I would put it to you that those are not the reasons you dared so much. And that you wish to turn away because you have forgot your true purpose.”

“That’s not so,” she said.

“Of course it’s so. Shall I tell you why you undertook to travel through an unknown world, on the hope that you might, might, find a place that’s half mythical?” Momentarily he seemed to fade, to lose definition. “Haven has nothing to do with brothers or with scholarship or with reputation. If you got there, if you were able to read its secrets, you would have all that, provided you could get home with it. But you would have acquired something infinitely more valuable, and I believe you know what it is: You would have discovered who you really are. You would learn that you are a daughter of the people who designed the Acropolis, who wrote Hamlet, who visited the moons of Neptune. Do you know about Neptune?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“Then we’ve lost everything, Chaka. But you can get it back. If you’re willing to take it. And if not you, then someone else. But by God, it is worth the taking.” His voice quivered and he seemed close to tears.

Momentarily, he became one with the dark.

“Winston,” she said, “I can’t see you. Are you still there?”

“I am here. The system’s old, and will not keep a charge.”

She was looking through him. “You really are a ghost,” she said.

“It’s possible you will not succeed. Nothing is certain, save hardship and trial. But have courage. Never surrender.”

She stared at him.

“Never despair,” he said.

A sudden chill whispered through her, a sense that she had been here before, had known this man in another life. “You seem vaguely familiar. Have I seen your picture somewhere?”

“I’m sure I do not know.”

“Perhaps it is the words. They have an echo.”

He looked directly at her. “Possibly. They are ancient sentiments.” She could see the cave entrance and a few stars through his silhouette. “Keep in mind, whatever happens, if you go on, you will become one of a select company. A proud band of brothers. And sisters. You will never be alone.”

As she watched, he faded until only the glow of the cigar remained. “It is your own true self you seek.”

“You presume a great deal.”

“I know you, Chaka.” Everything was gone now. Except the voice. “I know who you are. And you are about to learn.”

“Was it his first or last name?” asked Quait, as they saddled the horses.

“Now that you mention it, I really have no idea.” She frowned. “I’m not sure whether he was real or not. He left no prints. No marks.”

Flojian looked toward the rising sun. The sky was clear.

“That’s the way of it in these places. Some of it’s illusion; some of it’s something else. But I wish you’d woken us.”

She climbed up and patted Piper’s shoulder. “Anybody ever hear of Neptune?”

They shook their heads. “Maybe,” she said, “we can try that next.”

After the encounter in the grotto, Chaka became more prone to investigate sites that aroused her interest. It may have been that she began to view the quest differently. The value of the expedition, in her mind, would no longer hinge exclusively on whether she learned what had happened to Arin, and to the other members of the first mission. Nor even to whether they found the semi-mythical fortress at the end of the road. In a sense this was also an expedition into time, a foray into an elusive past. They had already seen marvels that exceeded what she would have considered the bounds of the possible. What else lay waiting in the quiet countryside?

I think it’s a flying machine,” said Flojian.