Roger MacBride Allen - Chronicles of Solace 02 - The Ocean of Years

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THE OCEAN OF

YEARS

by Roger MacBride Allen

A Bantam Spectra Book / July 2002

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are

trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random

House, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic

or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

If you purchased this book without a cover you

should be aware that this book is stolen property. It

was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the

publisher and neither the author nor the publisher

has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

ISBN 0-553-58364-6 Published simultaneously

in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a

division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark,

consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the

portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent

and Trademark Office and in other countries.

Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540

Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF

AMERICA

OPM 10 987654321

To Matthew’s Aunts and Uncles—

Edie and Connie,

Carl, Jim, and Chris

for all the good times, past and future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to offer my thanks to all those who

had a hand in making this book better than I could

have made it on my own. Thanks first and foremost

to my wife, Eleanore Fox, who made it possible to

do the work, and to our son, Matthew, who did his

exuberant best to make it most entertainingly

impossible to get anything done at all. Thanks again

on another score to Eleanore, for per-forming

much-needed surgery on the manuscript. Thanks

also to my father, Thomas B. Allen, for reading the

book and making many valuable suggestions.

Charles Sheffield made sure that a certain

semi-mathematical puzzle didn’t stretch the rules

too far.

Thanks to Michael Shohl for his patience,

courtesy, and poise in difficult times, as well as for

his clear and di-rect editorial notes. And thanks to

Juliet Ulman of Ban-tam Books, who took the ball

and ran with it, just as the clock was running down

toward the deadline.

—Roger MacBride

Allen Takoma Park, Maryland

December 2001

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dramatis Personae

Prelude / Diamond Redux

Chapter One / The Realms of Thor

Chapter Two / Bodyguards

Chapter Three / All Their Sins Remembered

Chapter Four / Recalled to Life

Interlude: DeSilvo

Chapter Five / Eighty Years at a Cocktail

Party

Chapter Six / Always Halfway There

Interlude : Report in Transit

Chapter Seven / Playing It Close

Chapter Eight / Schools of Thought

Interlude: Kalani Temblar

Chapter Nine / The Drunk Under the

Streetlight

Chapter Ten / Lost at Home

Chapter Eleven / Adventures in Serendip

Interlude : Kalani Temblar

Chapter Twelve / Lost and Found

Chapter Thirteen / Phoebe, Lunchtime, and

Swift

Chapter Fourteen / Falling Down

Chapter Fifteen / The Ruined World

Chapter Sixteen / Truth Underlying

Chapter Seventeen / Calling Card

Chapter Eighteen / Rockets and Rocks

Chapter Nineteen / Dust and Clouds, Smoke

and Fire

Chapter Twenty / Clean Burn

Chapter Twenty-one / Aftermath

Interlude: Olar Sotales

Chapter Twenty-two / All That Is Not Gold

Interlude: Kalani Temblar

Chapter Twenty-three / A Pack of Silent Dogs

Chapter Twenty-four / Last Man Standing

Chapter Twenty-five / The Shores of

Tomorrow

Glossary

Chronology of Key Events

Puzzle Solutions

He hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that

man cannot find out the work that God hath done

from the beginning even to the end. —Ecclesiastes

3:12

That which is hath been long ago; and that which

is to be hath long ago been: and God seeketh again

that which is passed away. —Ecclesiastes 3:15

Wherefore I saw that there is nothing better,

than that a man should rejoice in his works; for

that is his portion: for who shall bring him back to

see what shall be after him? —Ecclesiastes 3:22

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Note: A Glossary of Terms and Gazetteer of

Places and Ship Names, along with a Chronology

of Key Events, appears after the main text of the

book.

Wandella Ashdin—historian and expert on

Oskar DeSilvo.

Ulan Baskaw—Scientist who lived

approximately five centuries before the main action

of the story. Little is known about her—it is not even

certain whether or not Baskaw was a woman or in

fact a man. Baskaw invented many terraforming

techniques that were later appropriated by DeSilvo.

Baskaw also discovered certain mathematical

principles underlying the science of terraforming.

Jerand Bolt—Starship crew member stranded

aboard Asgard Five, later recruited to serve aboard

the dis-guised Dom Pedro IV, AKA “Merchanter’s

Dream.”

Alber Caltrip—Alias used by Anton Koffield

aboard the disguised Dom Pedro IV.

Lieutenant Commander Burl Chalmers

—Head of section in Kalani Temblar’s office at

Chronologic Patrol Intelligence Command

Headquarters.

Norla Chandray—Second Officer aboard the

Dom Pedro IV.

Sindra Chon—Starship crew member stranded

on Asgard Five by equipment malfunctions aboard

her ship. Later, recruited along with Jerand Bolt to

serve aboard the disguised Dom Pedro IV.

Oskar DeSilvo—Architect and terraformist of

the previ-ous centuries, and director of the project

to colonize Solace. He managed the centuries-long

project by us-ing cryosleep and temporal

confinement, arranging to have himself revived

from time to time in order to oversee critical points

in the process.

Neshobe Kalzant—Planetary Executive, Solace.

Anthon Kolfeldt—Variant spelling of Anton

Koffield name used in Glistern rhymes and stories

for children. The Glistern convention in writing is

that Kolfeldt is the evil monster, while Koffield is

the historical figure.

Admiral Anton Koffield (ret)—A retired

officer in the Intelligence Command of the

Chronologic Patrol, and former commander of the

Chronologic Patrol Ship Upholder.

First Officer Hari Leptin—Alias used by

Captain Felipe Henrique Marquez aboard the

disguised Dom Pedro IV.

Captain Felipe Henrique Marquez—Captain

of the Dom Pedro IV.

Dixon Phelby—Cargo officer aboard the Dom

Pedro IV.

Commander Karlin Raenau—Station

commander of SCO Station, orbiting Solace.

Hues Renblant—Disaffected officer aboard the

Dom Pedro IV who seeks to resign from the ship’s

company.

Second Officer Leona Sendler—Alias used by

Norla Chandray aboard the disguised Dom Pedro

IV.

Captain Olar Sotales—Director of the Station

Security Force aboard SCO Station.

Yuri Sparten—The former assistant to Karlin

Raenau, commander of SCO Station. Now assigned

to serve aboard the “Merchanter’s Dream,” the

name under which Dom Pedro IV is traveling.

Although he has no interstellar experience, he is

posing as the “Dream’s” captain. His parents, as

children, were refugees from the fall of Glister.

Lieutenant Kalani Temblar—An investigator

working for the Chronologic Patrol’s Intelligence

Command.

Clemson Wahl—Starship crew member

stranded on Asgard Five by equipment

malfunctions aboard his ship. Later, recruited along

with Jerand Bolt to serve aboard the disguised Dom

Pedro IV.

Lira Wu—Very junior crew member serving

aboard the Dom Pedro IV.

THE TIMESHAFT WORM HOLE

TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

1. Spacecraft departs home star system, bound

for target system, ten light-years away. Crew enters

cryosleep hibernation and/or temporal confinement

for duration of voyage.

2. Spacecraft travels for fifty years at one-tenth

light-speed, thus traveling fifty years uptime and a

distance of five light-years.

3. Spacecraft reaches timeshaft wormhole,

midway between home and target systems. Captain

is revived briefly to pilot ship through timeshaft.

4. Both uptime and downtime ends of wormhole

are guarded by Chronologic Patrol ships.

5. Spacecraft drops through timeshaft and is

propelled one hundred years downtime, into the

past.

6. Spacecraft emerges from wormhole, fifty years

before its departure from its home system and one

hundred years before it enters the wormhole.

Captain returns to temporal confinement.

7. Spacecraft onces again travels fifty years at

one-tenth light-speed, again traveling fifty years

uptime and five more light-years.

8. After traveling for one hundred years

shipboard time, spacecraft arrives at target system

a few days or weeks after departure in objective

time. Crew is revived from one-hundred-year

hibernation to find less than a month has passed.

THE OCEAN OF YEARS

by Roger MacBride Allen

PRELUDE

DIAMOND REDUX

Office of the Planetary Executive,

Solace City, Solace.

5340 A.D., Terrestrial Common Era

Neshobe Kalzant, Planetary Executive of Solace,

leaned back in her office chair. She read, once

again, the letter found in the tomb of a man who

had not died.

The man who had brought her the letter, the man

to whom the letter had been written, stood before

her desk, his posture rigid, his expression utterly

unreadable. But for all of that, Neshobe knew what

he wanted.

It was a long letter. She skimmed through it,

letting phrases jump out at her.

… my tomb was not my tomb… It is no one’s

tomb. The ashes are as false as the reports of my

recent death.

“Recent” indeed. The letter had been discovered

over a hundred years after it had been written. But

there were strong reasons to believe the writer was

still alive, in some form of suspended animation.

… I have failed. Failed utterly and ignobly, failed

because I ignored facts I did not find convenient,

failed because I believed I could make the world,

the universe, fit the mold I decreed.

But I have… learned far more secrets than those

that Ulan Bashaw taught me. There is much to be

found in the most secret places of the Grand

Library, and in other archives. You need only look

to the events of the Circum Central incident to

know that is true. The ships you called the

Intruders did indeed exceed light-speed.

“This exceeding light-speed business,” Neshobe

said to the man standing in front of her desk. “They

gave up even trying to do that thousands of years

ago. But you believe him.”

“I was at Circum Central,” he said quietly. “I saw

it.” Neshobe hummed tunelessly for a moment,

staring at a patch of nothing just over her visitor’s

left shoulder, and then went on reading. She

skimmed down, past the writer’s boasts, and into

his confession. She had to read the words again.

The collapse of Solace is coming. I believe that

now. But I also believe that it will serve as a

wake-up call, a warning to all the worlds…

She blinked, lost her place, and tried to settle

herself. She had known for a long time, down in her

bones, that the planet she governed was too far

gone to recover. But the writer was the man who

had quite literally made her world, who had

directed the terraforming project. To have him

admit it, from a hundred years in the past— that

cut deep. If he had known, back then, it would

fail—why hadn’t he stopped it?

But failure is not mine alone. Humanity itself is

failing. The enterprise of our interstellar

civilization is subject to the same physical and

mathematical laws as Solace. All our worlds are

doomed…

Well, yes, that was the news her visitor had tried

to bring to Solace. It was the letter writer who had

pre-vented him from delivering the warning. She

skipped back and forth through the letter. The

writer’s defense of himself was a mishmash of

tortured logic and special pleading. No need to go

through it again. She skipped to the end. Where the

Great Man offered up a deal.

I have great good to offer, prizes of knowledge

and technology that I alone can give… but much of

what I can offer will not be accepted willingly.

Drastic ideas will not be possible until the situation

is desperate.…

Seek me out. I live, but slumber. I am hidden,

but hidden where you can find me. Find me, and

together, we can do great things.

… Hate me, forgive me. Feel what you will

toward me, and I will accept it. There are larger

matters at stake, and my own guilt and shame do

not matter.

Only one thing does matter.

Seek me out.

With heartfelt respect,

I remain

Your sincere admirer

Dr. Oskar DeSilvo

Neshobe Kalzant set the pages of the letter down

on her desk. She looked at the man who stood

before her, at Admiral Anton Koffield. “Who knows

about this let-ter?” she asked.

“You. Me. Wandella Ashdin, Norla Chandray, and

Captain Marquez. No one else. The various support

people know we found something, of course. They

just don’t know what.”

Neshobe swiveled her chair about to stare out at

the endless rain.

Oskar DeSilvo, the man who had written the

letter, had designed the Diamond Office they were

in, the man-sion of which it was a part, and the city

that formed the view seen from it. That is to say,

the view she would be seeing right now, if not for

the endless rain. In a sense, DeSilvo had made the

rain as well. DeSilvo had directed the terraforming

of Solace—and, according to the letter, had not had

the courage to admit that fundamental flaws in the

process had made it a predictable, mathematical

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THEOCEANOFYEARSbyRogerMacBrideAllenABantamSpectraBook/July2002SPECTRAandtheportrayalofaboxed“s”aretrademarksofBantamBooks,adivisionofRandomHouse,Inc.Copyright©2002byRogerMacBrideAllen.Coverartcopyright©2002byGregoryBridges.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronico...

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