Vale of Stars (50 page)

She was being silly, she knew.

“Thanks, Foz,” Sirra said faintly. Fozzoli opened his mouth, but Sirra turned to look at him and he understood.
Not now, my friend.

When Fozzoli had left, Sirra activated the comm outlet in her sitting room. The screen lit up to reveal Iede’s face, still youthful despite its thirty-six years. Iede was three years younger that Sirra, but Sirra knew her own face was far more aged.

“Ha’lyneice. It’s good to see you again after all these years,” Iede said, her voice a youthful melody. She was smiling broadly in what appeared to be sincere delight.

Sirra was determined not to return the emotion. “What do you want, Iede?”

“It’s been…nineteen years since I last spoke to you.”

Sirra was unimpressed. “Yes, it has. I won’t lie to you and say I’m interested in what you have been up to, Iede. So why are you calling?”

The faintest hint of disappointment flickered over Iede’s face, but then it was gone, replaced by her placid mask of composure.
My God,
Sirra thought
, she really does look happy. Brainwashed, but happy.

“You want me to get to the facts, eh, ha’lyneice? You haven’t changed. Ever the scientist. Just like Grandmother.”

“Yes, and you’re still just like….” Sirra couldn’t finish the thought. The effort she had expended to remove Iede from her conscious life was nothing compared to the mental energy she had directed trying to eradicate her knowledge that Iede’s father was the traitor that had nearly cost the fledgling Family their lives—Lawson. That Yallia was her Grandonly and Sirra herself had no genetic connection to him did not help in this instance—her ha’lyaunt carried his blood in her veins. Nothing could wash it out.

“Don’t call me ha’lyneice. Call me Sirra. What did you want?”

“I’ve been on a journey to Ship.”

Sirra resisted the impulse to sigh in exasperation. “Really, Iede, I’m a little busy here,” she lied, “and I haven’t got the time or the patience to hear about your visions, so—”

“No, no, Sirra. Not a spiritual journey, though the experience was certainly…enlightening. No, I was
there
. Physically.”

“Up in Ship?” Sirra’s eyebrows climbed.

“Yes. And I have learned something the gods wish me to impart to all of us.”

“You’re saying you are a prophet?” Sirra couldn’t quite keep the disdain out of her voice. Was Iede telling her the truth or had she finally lost what tenuous grip on reality she possessed?

Iede cast her eyes downward. “I make no such claim. I am just a messenger from the gods.”

“A prophet, then,” Sirra snorted.

“If you want to use the term.” Iede’s voice was cool and even.

“All right, give it to me. The revelation.”

“I have a memdisk the gods gave me with the data on it, but before I send it, I need your help. I came to you so that you might point me in the proper direction to investigate this data. I did not know where to go, and although your area of specialty is the sea, I thought that you might know of a reputable and open-minded person who could conduct an excavation on land. Discreetly.”

“What are you talking about?” Sirra spread her hands helplessly in front of her. “Excavation?”

“You will understand when you see the contents of the disk. Are you ready to receive?”

Sirra’s expression of annoyed puzzlement intensified, but something in Iede’s manner made her curious. Her ha’lyaunt had never been forceful or focused on mundane affairs to this degree—Sirra’s memory of her was that she had always seemed in a slight daze, as if she were in the grip of a narcotic. Iede was still gentle, soft, and mystical, but now had an added aura of
purpose
to her Sirra had not seen before. Against her better judgment, Sirra nodded and gave the appropriate instructions to her computer to record the data in Iede’s memdisk. “Go ahead,” Sirra said faintly, and she saw the panel indicator acknowledge the transmission and begin recording.

Half a minute later, the transfer was complete, and Iede’s smile, which had remained faint on her placid face, intensified slightly. “Review this revelation carefully, Sirra, and please contact me when you have an idea for someone who could lead the expedition.” And Iede’s image winked out, leaving Sirra with an odd feeling of dread as she considered the contents of the transmission.

In twenty minutes, Sirra knew the data, if authentic, would overshadow even the discovery of the vix thirty-six years ago. She spent two more hours examining the contents carefully, looking for any alternate explanation for what she had seen. She could imagine no other. The formation was far too symmetrical and orderly to be merely the product of water and wind erosion on ordinary rock. There were but two possibilities, both almost equally shocking.

If the data was authentic, there seemed no other explanation but that a civilization had existed on land on Epsilon Eridani III some eight thousand years ago. If the data was a carefully designed forgery, then someone had gone to an incredible amount of trouble for…what? Could this all be merely a hoax designed to embarrass whomever was taken in by it? If that was so, was Iede in on the ploy? Sirra could not believe that. Iede was many things, but a prankster was not one of them. Therefore, Iede must have been taken in as well. Who would want to deceive someone like Iede—Iede, who had deceived herself with her ‘religion’ so well?

The thought struck her that Iede was not the target of the hoax—Sirra herself was; Iede was only being used as the conduit. But the question then remained, why would someone go through such an elaborate hoax just to embarrass Sirra if she chose to reveal the findings to the scientific community?

Sirra could think of no reason, but she could not shake the nagging feeling that someone was watching her, baiting her, tempting her to go public with the data and ruin whatever standing she had among her colleagues. She could imagine the derision when scholars all over the planet descended on the supposed site of the ruins to find nothing but chlorinated lichen and ordinary rock. Whatever clout she had wielded would be lost to her—she could forget about trying to buck the Coordinator’s ban on vix research.

But if the data were authentic, she could hardly conceive of the sheer import of the discovery. Could she ignore what Iede brought to her merely because of the risk of professional embarrassment? But how could she ask other scientists to drop their work to pursue this if it turned out to be a false lead?

There was only one option. She would have to go herself. She was no archaeologist, but surely she could visit the site and learn if Iede’s data represented a real find or a hoax. And by going alone, she did not risk embarrassment should it turn out to be nothing.

She opened her mouth to tell her house computer to call Iede, but heard herself say, “Call Doctor Khadre Seelith.” She sat back, surprised at herself, as her computer completed the call. Then she leaned forward defiantly. Why shouldn’t Khadre be in on this? And for that matter, why not Fozzoli, too?

It took little convincing to secure Khadre’s participation (“You don’t think I’ll hold you back?” was the aged scientist’s most serious objection, and Sirra had dismissed it with a wave of her hand) but Fozzoli was another matter.

“We’ll need surveying equipment, which we don’t have,” he was saying over an hour into the discussion, “and none of us has the first domed clue how to run the sorts of tests that’ll make the trip worthwhile.”

“Foz, you’re not understanding the point of this trip,” Sirra said. She could sense his resolve against the trip weakening. “We’re not going to make a detailed survey, we’re going to see if there is anything to see. I’m sure we can do that much. If there is something, we’ll come back and announce our findings. If not, well, no one’s to know we went at all.”

“And if there is something, then what? We announce that the gods told us about this place?”

Despite herself, Sirra found herself defending her halfonlyaunt. “Why not? It’s the truth, or nearly. What does it matter how we came by the knowledge, anyway? If there is evidence of a pre-colony civilization here, that will shatter the entire field of epsilology.”

Another half hour and Fozzoli was convinced. She had smiled at his final comment before he switched off: “I wasn’t really that opposed to the idea until I discovered how much you wanted to go. Then I had to fight you.”

Sirra sighed when Fozzoli’s image blinked out. Only one call left to make.

“I’ve found you some scientists, Iede.”

Sirra was the first to meet Iede at the departure location two days later. The four “conspirators” (as Fozzoli had persisted in calling the quartet) had agreed to meet well outside the outskirts of the city in an inconspicuous area that Iede had frequently used as a gathering point for her religious meetings. Iede liked the spot—to the north, the direction the expedition would be heading, was a vast flat plateau that most Epsilologists agreed was a dry salt lake. The area commanded the plain in such a way that Iede had frequently imagined thousands of followers standing on the dry lake, looking up at the crude pulpit some of the rocks created. Now, of course, the lake was empty, save for Sirra approaching on her landsail. She had told Iede that she had relegated most of the task of assembling the necessary survey materials to Fozzoli, who had grumbled at the impossibility of stuffing all the tools he wanted to bring into the tiny compartment on Iede’s airfoil. In the limited contact Iede had had with the man, she had liked him, even with his complaining.

Sirra navigated the landsail to a stop near Iede’s outcropping and walked the short distance up the crags. She carried only a small knapsack, which she unceremoniously unslung and dumped on the ground a few meters before Iede.

Iede stood next to the airfoil. She had chosen her vestal gown for the trip and indeed had brought no changes of clothing.

Sirra glanced pointedly at Iede’s head. “Still keeping the baldness, eh?”

“As the gods command,” Iede responded calmly, looking into the distance.

Sirra started at her head for a moment longer, then snorted. Iede made no comment.

“So, three days?”

Iede’s voice was even as she replied, “At the recommended speed for this airfoil, the journey to the ruins will take three days, yes.”

“Better find something to talk about, then, hadn’t we?”

“If you wish. I am content to remain silent.”

“Does that mean you don’t have anything to say to me?”

Iede turned to look at Sirra. Her ha’lyneice was grinning, but there was no mirth in her eyes. “You do not approve of me,” Iede said simply. “As you would have it, I have wasted not only my own life but the lives of countless followers who worship a dream, a fantasy, a—”

“No, no, no—not a dream. I’m aware that there is a ship up there somewhere—” Sirra gestured vaguely with her hands “—and I know what it was. It was the ship that carried us here about seventy years ago, or what’s left of it. But that’s all it is. It’s empty. About thirty years ago, I think, we sent up a ship, at great expense, to investigate. There was nothing. No radiation, no openings, no response to communication attempts. The only reason we haven’t gone up there to scrap it completely is that anything of value has already been shuttled down ages ago.”

“And why do you believe that?”

Sirra blinked at the question. “Why? Because it’s true.”

Iede softened her voice to a near whisper. “How do you know? Have you been up there? You are a scientist, Sirra, and I would have thought, an empiricist. Do you have firsthand knowledge of conditions inside Ship?”

Sirra did not answer immediately, and when she did, her voice had lowered as well. “No, I don’t. I also don’t have firsthand knowledge about the interior of this planet, but I can deduce what must be there from surface features. Much of science is not empirical observational data but a chain of reasoning, of deduction, from observable features.”

“And if I claim observational data that disproves a deduction, what then? If I were to go to the interior of this planet and find not molten rock but, let us say, a little old man squatting on a toadstool, what then? Do you still hang on to your deductions in the face of observations to the contrary?”

“When such observations are unreliable, of course,” Sirra answered, her eyes locked on Iede’s.

“And you believe that mine are unreliable? The product of a deranged mind?” Iede had not raised her voice during the conversation and did not now. She did not blink as her eyes absorbed her ha’lyneice’s gaze and turned it back.

After a breathless interval, Sirra said, “Deranged? No. But I don’t know that your observations weren’t a vision, a dream, or a hallucination. Can you honestly say that there is no chance that all of your experience wasn’t a product of an overactive imagination?”

“Perhaps it was. In that same vein, can you absolutely confirm that you are not now experiencing a dream?”

“I hate philosophy,” Sirra muttered. She raised her voice again. “Of course not,” she said. Her voice softened and she shifted her weight a bit. Her posture became less confrontational and more sisterly. “But, look, Iede—can’t you see that this ‘experience’ of yours is exactly what you have been wishing for for years? Doesn’t that make you doubt it just a little bit?”

“If you are saying that I have deluded myself into seeing exactly what I want to see from my gods, I concede that such a phenomenon is possible. But I have not created the topological data, have I? From where did this data that our expedition will examine come?”

Sirra gave up. “That’s why I’m here. To see if there is anything to this.”

“And if not? If somehow you are right and this is all a product of my fancy?”

“I don’t what to hurt you, Iede. I don’t like you, and I don’t like your religion, but I won’t take you to anyone for treatment if this all turns out to be a hoax.” Iede could hear the pain in Sirra’s voice.

“And if it is real?”

Sirra didn’t answer. The silence stretched out for several seconds until a sound startled both of them.

“Hey! I could use a hand with some of this stuff!” Fozzoli called out from his small single-occupancy scooter, onto which he had stuffed an impressive array of scientific gear. He brought his scooter alongside the airfoil and powered down. He looked at the two women quizzically. “What’s going on? We still going?”