wrinkled, his voice a bit too loud, and he wore an uneven, scraggly gray beard. He was lowering himself carefully into a large armchair. His bleary gaze touched Alex, moved around the room, and settled on me. “Who's the woman?” he asked.
“Chase,” Alex said, “this is Professor Lisle. Professor, this is Chase Kolpath. She's my partner.”
He studied me intently, considering, I thought, whether he wanted me present. Eventually, he must have decided I did not constitute a threat. “You're extraordinarily lovely, my dear,” he said. His eyes didn't leave me as he addressed Alex: “Had I known about Ms. Kolpath, I'd have preferred that you come in person.”
“Thank you, Professor,” I said. “You're very kind.”
He started to smile but slipped into a spasm of coughing and choking as if he'd just swallowed something.
“Are you okay?” asked Alex.
It was that strange inclination we all have to ask someone who's choking to speak to us. Lisle gradually got control of himself, held out a palm, and nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “I have a couple of allergies that show themselves at this time of year.” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. Then: “Now, what was it we were talking about earlier, Joseph?”
“Alex, Professor. My name is Alex”
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” He pressed his fingertips against his temple. “The years are getting to me, I fear. So how can I help you?”
“We were talking about your old friend William Winter.”
“Oh, yes. Bill. Hard to believe it's been as long as it has.”
“You miss him?”
“Yes, indeed. By God, there was no one like him. Died too early.”
“What happened to him, do you know?”
“Only what's been reported. He went out on a mission of some sort, though God knows what it was, and he never came back. He was with Christopher Robin.”
“They went looking for something to do with the space-station sightings?”
“What?” He held a hand behind one ear, inviting Alex to speak louder.
“Did they go looking for what was causing the sightings at the space stations, Professor?”
That set him off on a long round of laughter that ended in another spasm. He fought his way through it and finally raised his palm again, assuring us he was okay, inviting us to be patient. “Sightings? Lights in the sky? Yes, certainly, that was what he wanted to find. Look for these strange things that come and go, whatever they are. And what he found was his own exit.”
“What exactly were they looking for, Professor?”
“I don't know what he expected to find. He didn't want to discuss it.”
“Why not?”
“I think because whatever it was, he was concerned it would be perceived as silly.”
“Do you know where they went?”
Lisle hesitated. Bit his lip.
“They didn't go to Indikar, did they?”
“You know that?”
“Yes, we know. Was it Villanueva? Was that where they went?”
He needn't have said anything. His reaction gave it away. Eyes closed, regret written large on those gray features, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Why, Professor? Why did they go to Villanueva?”
“God help me, Joseph, I don't know.”
“No idea at all?”
“He told me he'd bring it all home with him. And we'd go out and celebrate together. That's what he said.”
“Professor, you must have had some idea why they went there.”
“Only that it had to do with the contact flights.”
“The unidentified ships.”
“Yes.”
“What precisely did he say?”
“Alex, it's been almost half a century. Or has it been longer? The years pass so quickly.” He was hurting. Whether it was physical or not, I couldn't tell. “I remember asking Robin later, after Bill had been lost, what it had been about. He wouldn't say. Still wouldn't tell me, damn him. I lost a good friend. But he just shook his head, told me I wouldn't believe it anyway, and walked away.” He looked exhausted. “There was something else, though, now that I think of it. Something Bill said before they left.”
“What was that, Professor?”
“He said that, with luck, they'd find it in the churches.”
“Find what?”
“I don't know.” He sank back exhausted in his chair. “When I asked him to explain, he just laughed and said there'd be plenty of time for that later. Sure there was.” His teeth clamped together, and he sucked in air. “I told him not to go. I kept telling him what might happen. But he was determined to do it.”
“Churches.” Alex tasted the word. Frowned. “He said churches. Not church.”
“That's correct.” He shook his head. “God knows what he was talking about.” Lisle never cracked a smile.
Villanueva was reportedly a beautiful world, stable climate, gravity index almost exactly that of the home world, fertile land, a biosystem that was quick to adapt to human needs. According to legend, it was where the first off-world lemon tree sprouted. It had served as a home to human pets. Cats and dogs and parrots all did well there. The planet had a moon even lovelier than Earth's because it had an atmosphere and consequently emitted a softer, more luxuriant glow than Luna. Its broad oceans and deep forests and snowcapped mountains reportedly won the hearts of visitors. It was an ideal outpost. But its prospects as a colony world were dim.
When the first survey ships arrived, during the third millennium, they were probably already aware of the dust cloud. Tradition denies it, though, picturing a scenario in which the explorers landed in a peaceful green valley, bathed in its crystal springs, listened to the wind in the trees, and partied under its luminous moon, only to discover, later, that the world was moving toward destruction at a rate of about twenty million kilometers per day. It would be a long time before it arrived in the danger zone. Centuries. But eventually the bright skies would darken, and the flowers and shrubs would freeze into stumps. Meanwhile, though, the world was an Eden. And it must have seemed to a few early adventurers that there was more than time enough. Time to live out their lives, time for their children, and their grandchildren. They needed only avoid creating a permanent presence.
They named the place Villanueva because it was Earth as everybody had always dreamed it should be. A magnificent garden world, where the day was always cool, and the birds always sang. So they did what anyone would have done: Despite the cloud, they built homes. Villanueva became the place where you stopped if you were headed out along the Orion Arm, where people climbed out of the crowded spartan ships of that primitive era for a few days in the tropical breezes of the world that everybody loved.
They set a space station in place and named it Felicity. It became a haven for casinos and sex clubs. The support facilities on the ground expanded. And expanded again. People moved in. The cloud was too far down the road to worry about.
Towns took root. The towns became cities. Population soared. Young families saw it as an opportunity to get in on a ground floor, or as an adventure, or as an ideal place to raise kids. A thousand years, eight hundred years, whatever, it was a long time. Somebody else's problem.
Estimates range widely as to what the global population was when it finally happened. Most historians put it at about a billion. By then, Villanueva had become fully independent, and prosperous beyond anyone's dreams. Even when the outer planets began to drift into the cloud, the population, which everyone had expected would shrink dramatically at that point, continued to increase. The skies grew dark, and the days became cooler, but there was still no concerted effort to leave. The reports indicated that people thought they could ride it out. Stay with their homes and just wait for the passage to end. Trust in the Lord. This, even though Villanueva's time in the cloud would be in excess of three hundred years.
