Jack McDevitt - Eternity Road

Mark Twain. Silas’s breathing became audible. “May I?” he asked at last.

“Of course.”

He touched the cover cautiously, reverently. The title was written in gold script across soft leather. He pulled the taper closer, but was careful not to get it too near to the volume. He opened it and turned over the title page. The text was in black ink, the letters skillfully executed. He studied the one-page preface. Two paragraphs, followed by the writer’s name. Written at Hartford, July 21, 1889.

“How long ago was that?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Where was Hartford?”

“We think it’s where he was born. But nobody’s sure where it was.”

He leafed through it cautiously. Was this what it purported to be? That would be the next question, and it might be hard to answer definitively without knowing the source of the book. He turned more pages, lingered over chapter headings, nodded at the precise lines. She watched his lips move, saw a smile appear, saw his eyes glow. “Yes,” he said. “It sounds right.” Good. “Silas. Are you satisfied this is really Mark Twain?” He gazed very hard at her. “I know what I want it to be. It seems very much like his style, the little I’ve seen of it.” He took a deep breath. “Do you have reason to doubt its authenticity?”

“Why did Endine keep it secret? Why didn’t he tell anyone he had this?”

Silas carried the book over to the table, set it down in the light of the lamp, and lowered himself into a chair. The burning oil smelled sweet.

“I don’t know, Chaka.”

“It makes no sense.”

“I agree. Still, I think this is exactly what it looks like.” He turned more leaves, nodding and smiling until he was barely able to contain himself. “Oh, yes,” he said. He began reading lines to her, stopping occasionally to chuckle.

“I’ve been advised to sell it,” she said, breaking the mood.

He looked up, suddenly worried. “I’d recommend you not do that. This is priceless.”

“But what else can I do with it? It won’t be safe here. I have no servants. I’d have to hire a guard.”

Silas grew thoughtful. She understood he would prefer she sell it to the Imperium. In no case did he want it auctioned off, because the scholars could not compete with wealthy collectors, and the book would ultimately godnto a rich man’s drawing room and become generally inaccessible. “Lend it to the Senatorial Library,” he suggested. “It will be locked away, kept secure, but made available to scholars. Meantime, we can set people to making copies.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“You’ll get payment for the sale of copies. It won’t be a lot of money, but it will be reasonable. Moreover, I’ll arrange suitable recognition.” He smiled. “We’ll have you out regularly for lunch, the finest people in the Republic will feel indebted to you, and you can stop worrying about thieves. If at some future date you wish to sell it, you’ll be free to do so.”

A long silence settled between them. “Silas,” she said at last, “why did he give it to me?”

“I thought you would know the answer to that.”

“I barely knew him.”

Silas was trying to keep eye contact with her, but his attention kept drifting back to the book. “There must be a reason he settled on you.”

One of Arin’s sketches, a waterfall, hung on the wall. It was one of the group Karik had given her in that long-ago meeting. “I recognize this,” he said.

That couldn’t be. Silas had not been in her home before. He saw her confusion. “The style.” He went over to it. “Not the picture itself. Karik had one very much like this.”

“I know. There were twelve altogether. Ann made them during the expedition. That’s why he was invited, because Karik wanted a visual record.” She shook her head. “I wish he’d been more like me.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I can’t draw a stick.” The old sense of helplessness and anger seeped through her. “When I went to see Karik, after he came back, he gave me the sketches. And then he asked whether he might keep one. It was a river scene. Very quiet, very peaceful. That’s the one you saw, I’m sure.”

The waterfall was very wide. The sketch was titled Nyagra. Ann had included a tiny human to suggest the enormous scale. “May I see the others?”

She brought them from another room. They were separately wrapped in soft cloth. She uncovered them one by one and placed them on the table. They pictured the expedition variously fording rivers, looking down from bridges, moving along ancient highways in the setting sun. All were dated, so it was possible to set them in sequence. Three particularly drew Silas’s attention.

One, titled Dragon, showed a set of glowing eyes set above a dark forest. Another, dated the following day, depicted a spectral city apparently afloat in a misty sea. It was close to sunset, and enormous dark towers rose in the gathering gloom. This was The City.

“Even for the Roadmakers,” she said, “It looks incredible.”

He nodded and returned to the preceding sketch. “If we can believe this,” he said, “It’s guarded by a dragon.”

She shrugged. “It does look like it.”

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a literal record?”

“I would have thought so.”

The shop bell rang. Chaka got to her feet and went off to take care of a customer. When she came back, Silas was once again poring over the book. “I wonder,” he said, “if you’d trust me with this for a while?”

“Yes,” she said. “If the library would make a copy for me.”

“Of course. That will be easy to arrange.” She could see he was relieved. “Would you want me to take it now? Tonight?”

“Please,” she said.

He smiled, dosed and rewrapped the book.

“Not that I don’t trust you,” she said. “But I wonder if you could give me a receipt?”

“Of course.” There were several stacks of paper sheets on the table. She gave him a bottle of ink and took a pen down from a shelf. He wrote:

JANUARY 4, 306 THE IMPERIUM

RECEIVED OF CHAKA MILANA ON THIS DATE THE ONLY EXTANT COPY OF A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT. TO BE RETURNED ON DEMAND.

Thank you,” she said. “And I’ve got one other question for you.”

Silas picked up the book and cradled it. “Yes?”

“Where do you suppose he got it?”

Silas should have been delighted with the find. He kept the book in his bedroom that night, leafing through it and reading passages aloud until the first gray streaks appeared in the sky. But he could not shake a sense of foreboding. Karik’s footprints had made it clear he’d walked into the river. Drowned himself.

Now there was this strange business of the book.

Why had he kept such a secret?

In the morning Silas reluctantly turned the book over to the library. In a society that lacks the printing press, a library is necessarily a facility whose primary concern is security. Users are permitted access to books only under close supervision, and nobody ever takes one home.

The custodians thanked him effusively, gushed and burbled as he must have to Chaka Milana the previous evening. The Director came out and assured Silas that the board would not forget his services, and they were all still poring over the volume when he left.

His morning was free and he was still too excited to sleep, so he paid a second visit to Flojian, finding him at his waterfront shipping dock. He was supervising a half-dozen workmen who were constructing a new ferry. He wore a yellow cotton shirt and gray workpants. “They don’t get anything right unless you watch them every minute,” he told Silas. “When we started this business, you could trust people to do an honest day’s work for a day’s pay.” He squinted, shook his head, and sighed. “What can I do for you?”