Jack McDevitt - A Talent For War

A Talent for War

Jack McDevitt

1989

Contents

PROLOGUE

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

THE AIR WAS heavy with incense and the sweet odor of hot wax.

Cam Chulohn loved the plain stone chapel. He knelt on the hard bench and watched the

crystal water dribble across Father Curry's fingers into the silver bowl held by the postulant. The

timeless symbol of man's effort to evade responsibility, it had always seemed to Chulohn the

most significant of all the ancient rituals. There, he thought, is the essence of our nature,

displayed endlessly throughout the ages for all who can see.

His gaze lingered in turn on the Virgin's Alcove (illuminated by a few flickering candles) and

the Stations of the Cross, on the simple altar, on the hewn pulpit with its ponderous Bible. It was

modest by the opulent standards of Rimway and Rigel III and Taramingo. But somehow the

magnificence of the architecture in those sprawling cathedrals, the exquisite quality of the

stained glass windows, the satisfying bulk of marble columns, the sheer angelic power of the big

organs, the sweeping choir lofts: it all got in the way. Here, halfway up a mountainside, he could

look out over the river valley that the early fathers, in a burst of enthusiasm, had dedicated to St.

Anthony of Toxicon. There was only the river, and the ridges, and the Creator.

Chulohn's visit to the Abbey was the first by a presiding bishop (so far as he could determine)

during the entire existence of the community. Albacore, this snowbound, cold world at the

farthest extreme of the Confederacy's influence, was home to few other than the fathers. But it

was not difficult—enjoying its massive silence, listening for the occasional distant rumble of a

rockslide, taking the cold vigorous air into his lungs—to understand how it was that it had

housed, at one time or another, the finest scholars the Order had known. Martin Brendois had

written his great histories of the Time of Troubles in a cubicle just above the chapel. Albert Kale

had completed his celebrated study of transgalactic strings, and Morgan Ki had composed the

essays that would link his name irrevocably to classic economic theory.

Yes, there was something about this place that called forth greatness.

After mass, he walked along the parapet with Mark Thasangales, the Abbot. They were

wrapped in coats, and their breath hung before them. Thasangales had much in common with St.

Anthony's Valley: no one in the Order could remember when he had been young. His features

were as uncompromising and lined as the limestone walls and snowswept crags. He was a tower

of faith: Chulohn could not imagine those dark blue eyes beset by the doubts that harried

ordinary men.

They were reminiscing about better times—as middle-aged men who have not seen each other

for a long time will—when the Abbot shook off the past. "Cam," he said, raising his voice

slightly to get above the wind, "you've done well."

Chulohn smiled. Thasangales was talented: his capability for raising and managing funds in

no way diminished his certifiable aura of sanctity. He was a superb administrator and a

persuasive speaker, precisely the sort of man to represent the Church and the Order. But he had

always lacked ambition. And so he had returned to St. Anthony's when the opportunity offered.

And he had stayed a lifetime. "The Church has been good to me, Mark. As it has been to you."

They looked down from the mountaintop on which the Abbey stood. The floor of the valley was

brown with approaching winter. "I've always thought I would have liked to come here for a

couple of years. Maybe teach theology. Maybe just put my life in order."

"The Church needed you for more important things."

"Perhaps." Chulohn studied his ring, the emblem of his office, and sighed. "I traded a great

deal for this. Maybe the price has been too high."

The Abbot neither agreed nor disagreed, but merely stood his ground, awaiting his bishop's

pleasure. Chulohn sighed. "You don't really approve of the path I've taken."

"I didn't say that."

"Your eyes did." Chulohn smiled.

A sudden burst of wind raked the trees, and snowflakes flew. "First of the year," Thasangales

announced.

St. Anthony's Valley is located in the high country of the smaller of Albacore's two

continents. (There are those who say the small, compact world consists almost exclusively of

high country.) But, in Chulohn's eyes, it was one of God's special places, a corrugated land of

forest and limestone and snowcap. The Bishop had grown up in this kind of country, on rugged

Dellaconda, whose sun was too distant to be seen from St. Anthony's.

Standing in that ancient wilderness, he felt emotions he had not known for thirty years. The

thoughts of youth. Why was it they were so much more real than anything that would follow

after? How had it happened that he'd fulfilled his earliest ambitions, had in fact far exceeded

them, and found it all so unsatisfying?

He drew his coat around him, fending off a sudden icy gust.

It was disquieting here, among the cold still peaks. Somehow, in a way he couldn't grasp, they

challenged the warm comfort of the tiny chapel. There was a movement back home, a group of

zealots who pretended to speak for Christ, who wanted him to sell off the churches, and give the

proceeds to the poor. But Chulohn, who loved the bleak places of the worlds because they were

fearful, understood that churches are shelters against the intimidating majesty of the Almighty.

He watched the snow gathering force.

Several seminarians boiled out of the refectory and hurried noisily toward the gym. The

sudden activity shook Chulohn from his reverie. He glanced at Thasangales. "Are you cold?" he

asked.

"No."

"Then let's see the rest of the grounds."

Little had changed since the Bishop had been ordained here: stone grottos and sweeping

lawns and gray somber church buildings compressed the decades. Had the midnight beer raids on

the refectory really been half a lifetime ago? Was it really so long since the forays into

Blasinwell and the innocent flirtations with the young women there? Since those naked dips into

mountain pools? (My God, how did it happen he could still feel the delicious bite of cool

currents along his flanks?)

It had all seemed deliciously sinful then.

The stone chip walkways, which were covered lightly by snow, crunched pleasantly

underfoot. Chulohn and Thasangales circled the library. Its antenna, mounted at the peak of the

sharply sloping roof, turned slowly, tracking one or another of the orbiters. The flakes were wet

in Chulohn's eyes, and his feet were getting cold.

The Fathers' quarters were located in the rear of the complex of buildings; safely away from

the distractions of visitors and novices. They paused at the entrance, a simple bilious green metal

door that had been built to withstand the ages, and threatened to do so. But Chulohn was looking

away, up the gently rising slope that dominated the ground behind the abbey. At its crest, almost

invisible against the gathering storm, were an arch, an iron fence, and several long rows of white

crosses.

The place of honor for those who had persevered.

Thasangales had pulled open the door and waited patiently for the Bishop to enter.

"A moment," said Chulohn, brushing the snow from his shoulders, drawing his collar about

his neck, and continuing to stare thoughtfully at the ridge.

"Cam, it's cold." There was a hint of irritation in Thasangales' voice.

Chulohn gave no appearance of having heard. "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said

presently. And, without another word, he set off at a brisk pace up the slope.

The Abbot let go of the door, and fell in behind with a suggestion of resignation that a casual

observer might have missed.

The walkway to the cemetery had vanished beneath the snow, but Chulohn paid no attention

and, bent against the incline, he made directly uphill. A pair of stone angels, heads bowed, wings

spread, guarded the approach. He passed between them and paused to read the legend carved into

the face of the arch: He that would teach men to die must know how to live.

The crosses were arranged in precise rows, the oldest in front and to the left, proceeding in

somber sequence through the years across the top of the ridge and down the opposite slope. Each

displayed a name, the proud designation of the Order, O. D. J., and the date of death stated in

standard years of the Christian Era.

Toward the rear, he discovered Father Brenner. Brenner had been redheaded, robust,

overweight. But he was young in the days when Chulohn had been young. His class was History

of the Church during the Great Migration.

"Surely, you knew ..." said the Abbot, noting the Bishop's reaction.

"Yes. But hearing that a man is dead is not quite the same as standing at his grave."

There was a painful number of familiar names along that back row. They were, at first, his

instructors: Philips and Mushallah and Otikapa. Mushallah had been a silent moody man with

quick eyes and relentless conviction who loved to duel with any student who dared question the

sophisticated reasoning that demonstrated God's existence through logic.

Further on, he found John Pannell and Crag Hover and others. Dust now. All the theology in

the world didn't change that.

He looked curiously at Thasangales, standing patiently in the falling snow, hands pushed deep

into his pockets, apparently untouched by it all. Did he understand anything of what it meant to

walk through such a place? The Abbot's expression showed no trace of pain. Chulohn was

uncertain whether he would really wish his own faith so strong. . . .

Uncomfortable notion: the sinner clasping the sin.

There were numerous stones, dating back several centuries. And there were many here to

whom he should pay his respects; but he wished ardently to turn back, perhaps because of the

deteriorating weather, perhaps because he wished to see no more. And it happened that as he

turned, intending to retreat, his gaze fell across one of the stones, and he saw that something was

wrong, though he was not immediately sure what it might be. He walked toward the marker, and

peered at its inscription.

Jerome Courtney

Died 11,108 A.D.

The grave was a hundred sixty standard years old. Relatively recent by St. Anthony standards.

But the inscription was incomplete. The sign of the Order was missing.

The Bishop squinted at the marker, and brushed at the stone, to clear away a few flakes that

might have obscured the designation.

"Don't bother, Cam," said the Abbot. "It's not there."

"Why not?" He straightened, his obvious perplexity giving way to displeasure. "Who is he?"

"He is not one of us. In any narrow sense."

"He is not a Disciple?"

"He's not even a Catholic, Cam. I don't think he was a believer at all."

Chulohn took a step forward, crowding his subordinate. "Then what in God's name is he

doing here? Among the Fathers?" It was not a place for shouting, but the Bishop's effort to

control his voice produced a modulated rasp that embarrassed him.

Thasangales' eyes were round and blue. "He's been here a long time, Cam. He came to us for

refuge, and lived with the Community for almost forty years."

"That doesn't explain why he lies here."

"He lies here," the Abbot said, "because the men among whom he lived and died loved him,

and decreed that he should remain among them."

I.

She passed Awinspoor in the dead of night, lights blazing. The cloud of relay shuttles which

had raced through the system with her fell rapidly behind. Many persons later claimed to have

picked up broadcasts from the onboard radio station, featuring a popular nightclub comic of the

period. She approached jump status near the outermost rocky world shortly after breakfast, and

entered Armstrong space precisely on schedule. She carried twenty-six hundred souls,

passengers and crew, with her.

—Machias, Chronicles, XXII

ON THE NIGHT we heard that the Capella had slipped into oblivion, I was haggling with a

wealthy client over a collection of four-thousand-year-old ceramic pots. We stopped to watch the

reports. There was little to say, really, other than that the Capella had not re-entered linear space

as expected, that the delay was now considerable, and an announcement declaring the ship

officially lost was expected momentarily.

The names of prominent passengers followed: a few diplomats were on board, some sports

figures, a musician who had clearly lost his mind years before but whose work seemed only to

have prospered by the experience, a group of students who had won some sort of competition,

and a well-heeled mystic with her male retinue.

The loss of the Capella entered almost immediately into the rarefied atmosphere of legend.

Certainly there have been far worse disasters. But the twenty-six hundred people riding with the

big interstellar had not died in any ordinary sense. They might, in fact, not have died at all. No

one knows. And therein lies the fascination of the event.

The client, whose name I no longer recall, shook his head sadly at the hazards of life, and

returned quickly to the artifacts at hand. We compromised nearer his end than mine.

The Capella had been the flagship of the newest class of interstellars, equipped with every

conceivable sort of safety device, piloted by a captain of documented ingenuity. It was painful to

think of it reduced quietly to the stature of a ghost.

It's happened before. But never to anything so big. And with so many people. Almost

immediately, we had a hit song. And theories.

The vessel had struck a time node, some said, and would emerge at a future date, with the

passengers and crew unaware that anything unusual had happened. Of course, we'd been losing

ships for a hell of a long time now, and none has ever reappeared. So if they're going uptime, it

must be a considerable distance.

The idea most widely held was that the Armstrongs had simultaneously failed, leaving the

ship to wander forever, unseen, unheard. (That, it struck me, was a wonderful thing to tell the

families of the travelers.)

There was a host of other ideas. The Capella had emerged in another universe. Or there'd been

a glitch that had propelled her to another galaxy (or more likely, into the gulfs between the

galaxies). The one that seemed most likely to me was the boulder theory: Armstrong space is not

a perfect vacuum, and the Capella had struck something too big for its deflectors.

Of course I have no more idea than anyone else. But it was unnerving all the same. And it was

just one more reason why I didn't ride the damned things unless I absolutely had to.

During the days that followed, the net was filled with the usual human interest stories. The

man who had overslept, missed the shuttle, and thereby missed the flight, mentioned his

appreciation to an Almighty who, apparently, was less indulgent to the twenty-six hundred

others. The captain was on her last cruise, and was to have retired when the ship reached Saraglia

Station, the final port of call. A woman on Rimway claimed to have dreamt, on the night before

the disaster, of the loss of the Capella. (She eventually parlayed that claim into a lucrative career,

and became one of the leading seers of the age.)

And so on. We heard that an inquiry would be conducted, but of course that was likely to lead

to nothing. There was, after all, little to examine, other than passenger and cargo manifests,

shipping schedules, and the like.

The carriers released fresh statistics that demonstrated people were safer traveling between

Rigel and Sol than tooling around the average city.

About ten days after the loss, I received a transmission from a cousin on Rimway with whom

I'd had no communication in years. In case you haven't heard, he said, Gabe was on the Capella.

I'm sorry. Let me know if there's anything I can do.

That brought it home.

In the morning, an electronic package containing two sponders arrived from the law firm of

Brimbury & Conn, which, according to the routing information, was also located on Rimway. I

fed it into the system, dropped into a chair, and put on the headband. The standing image of a

woman formed, about a half-meter off the floor, and angled at maybe thirty degrees. The tone

wasn't quite right either. I could have compensated easily enough, but I knew I wasn't going to

like this, so I didn't bother. The woman was talking to the floor. A library tried to take shape

around her. I screened it out.

The woman was attractive, in a bureaucratic, well-pressed sort of way. "Mr. Benedict, please

allow us to extend our condolences on the loss of your uncle." Pause. "He was a valued customer

here at Brimbury & Conn, and a friend as well. We'll miss him."

"As will we all," I said.

The image nodded. The woman's lips trembled, and when she spoke again there was enough

uncertainty in her voice to persuade me that, despite the canned speech, there had been some

genuine feeling. "We wanted to inform you that you have been named sole heir of his estate. You

will need to file the necessary documents as outlined in the appendix to this transmission." She

seemed to flounder a little. "We have started procedures to have Gabriel declared officially dead.

There will be some delay, of course. The courts are not anxious to move in the case of a missing

person, even in this type of situation. However, we will want to be prepared to act on your behalf

at the earliest opportunity. Consequently, you should forward the documents to us without

delay." She sat down and arranged her skirt. "Your uncle also left in our custody a sealed

communication for you, to be delivered in the event of his death. It will be activated at the

conclusion of this message by your voice. Say anything. Please do not hesitate to inform us if we

can be of further assistance. And, Mr. Benedict—" her voice fell to a whisper, "—I really will

miss him."

I stopped it, ran a test, and adjusted the picture. Then I went back to my chair, but I sat a long

time before putting the headband back on.

"Gabe."

The lights dimmed, and I was in the old second-floor study back home, seated in a thickly

cushioned chair that had once been my favorite. Nothing seemed to have changed: the paneled

walls were familiar, and the ancient heavy furniture, and the mahogany-colored drapes. A fire

crackled in the grate. And Gabriel stood at my side.

He was barely an arm's length away, tall, thin, grayer than I remembered, his face partially in

shadow. Without a word, he touched my shoulder, pressed down on it. "Hello, Alex."

This was all simulation. But I knew in that moment how much I would miss the old bastard. I

had mixed emotions about this. And it surprised me: I'd have expected Gabe to accept his

misfortune without subjecting anyone to a maudlin farewell. It was unlike him.

I wanted to break the illusion, to just sit and watch, but you have to respond, or the image

reacts to your silence by telling you to speak up, or by reassuring you everything's okay. I didn't

need that. "Hello, Gabe."

"Since I'm here," he said ruefully, "I guess things must have gone wrong."

"I'm sorry," I said.

He shrugged. "It happens. Timing could hardly have been worse, but you don't always have

control of everything. I assume you have the details. Though possibly not, now that I think of it.

Where I'm going, there's a chance we'll just disappear and never be heard from again."

Yes, I thought. But not in the way you expect. "Where are you going?"

"Hunting. Into the Veiled Lady." He shook his head; and I could

see he was full of regret. "It is a son of a bitch, Alex, the way things turn out sometimes. I

hope that, whatever happened, it happened on the way back. I would not want to die before I find

out about this."

The plea—for that is what it was—hung there. "You never made it to Saraglia Station," I said.

"Oh." His brow furrowed, and his frame seemed to collapse. He turned away from me, circled

a coffee table that had been in the house for years, and eased himself stiffly into a chair opposite

mine. "Pity."

He'd slowed down: his movements were more deliberate now, and the quixotic face had

sobered. It was difficult to judge whether he was showing the effects of age, or simply

responding to the news of his death. In any case, there was a grayness about the conversation, a

quivery uncertainty, and a sense of things undone.

"You look good," I said, emptily. It was, under the circumstances, an eerie remark. He seemed

not to notice.

"I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk together at least one more time. This is a poor

substitute."

"Yes."

"I wish things had been better between us."

There was no easy way to respond to that. He'd been the only parent I'd known, and we had

suffered the usual strains. But there had been more: Gabe was an idealist. "You made it very

difficult," he continued. What he meant was that I'd made a comfortable living selling rare

artifacts to private collectors. An activity he considered immoral.

"I broke no law," I said. Arguing was pointless: nothing I could say would be carried back to

the sender. Gabe was beyond this sort of communication now. The illusion was all that remained.

"You'd have broken a few here. No enlightened society allows the sort of thing you do to go

unregulated." He took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "Let it go. I paid a higher price for my

principles than I would have wished, Alex. It's been a long time."

The figure before me was nothing more than software, knew only what my uncle had known

at the moment of storage. It had no grasp of the principles of which it spoke, no real sense of the

Jack McDevitt - A Talent For War

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