so much figured out. He knew I’d end up on his perch. He knew there would be temptations to get into the field. Those first decades of the Bright, there were a dozen times when I know I could have fixed things—even saved lives—if I’d just go out and do what was necessary myself. But Greenval’s advice was more like an order, and I followed it, and lived to fight another day.” Abruptly she laughed, and her attention seemed to come back to the present. “And now I’m a rather old lady, hunkered down in a web of deceit. And it’s finally time to break Strut’s rule.”
“Ma’am, General Greenval’s advice is right as ever. Your place is here.”
“I… let this mess happen. It was my decision, my necessary decision. But if I go to Southmost now, there’s a chance I can save some lives.”
“But if you fail, then you die and we certainly lose!”
“No. If I die things will be bloodier, but we’ll still prevail.” She snapped her desk displays closed. “We leave in three hours, from Courier Launch Four. Be there.”
Hrunkner almost shrieked his frustration. “At least take special security. Young Victory and—”
“The Lighthill team?” A faint smile showed. “Their reputation has spread, has it?”
Hrunkner couldn’t help smiling back. “Y-yes. No one knows quite what they’re up to… but they seem to be as wacko as we ever were.” There were stories. Some good, some bad, all wild.
“You don’t really hate them, do you, Hrunk?” There was wonder in her voice. Smith went on. “They have other, more important things to do during the next seventy-five hours…. Sherkaner and I created the present situation by conscious choice, over many years. We knew the risks. Now it’s payoff time.”
It was the first she had mentioned Sherkaner since he’d entered the room. The collaboration that had brought them so far had broken, and now the General had only herself.
The question was pointless, but he had to ask. “Have you talked to Sherk about this? What is he doing?”
Smith was silent, but her look was closed. Then, “The best he can, Sergeant. The best he can.”
The night was clear even by the standards of Paradise. Obret Nethering walked carefully around the tower at the island’s summit, checking the equipment for tonight’s session. His heated leggings and jacket weren’t especially bulky, but if his air warmer broke, or if the power cord that trailed behind him was severed… Well, it wasn’t a lie when he told his assistants that they could freeze off an arm or a leg or a lung in a matter of minutes. It was five years into the Dark. He wondered if even in the Great War there had been people awake this late.
Nethering paused in his inspection; after all, he was a little ahead of schedule. He stood in the cold stillness and looked out upon his specialty—the heavens. Twenty years ago, when he was just starting at Princeton, Nethering had wanted to be a geologist. Geology was the father science, and in this generation it was more important than ever, what with all mega-excavations and heavy mining. Astronomy, on the other hand, was the domain of fringe cranks. The natural orientation of sensible people must be downward, planning for the safest deepness in which to survive the next Darkness. What was there to see in the sky? The sun certainly, the source of all life and all problems. But beyond that nothing changed. The stars were such tiny constant things, not at all like the sun or anything else one could relate to.
Then, in his sophomore year, Nethering had met old Sherkaner Underhill, and his life was changed forever— though, in that, Nethering was not unique. There were ten thousand sophomores, yet somehow Underhill could still reach out to individuals. Or maybe it was the other way around: Underhill was such a blazing source of crazy ideas that certain students gathered round him like woodsfairies round a flame. Underhill claimed that all of math and physics had suffered because no one understood the simplicity of the world’s orbit about the sun or the intrinsic motions of the stars. If there had been evenone other planet to play mind games with—why, the calculus might have been invented ten generations ago instead of two. And this generation’s mad explosion of technology might have been spread more peaceably across multiple cycles of Bright and Dark.
Of course, Underhill’s claims about science weren’t entirely original. Five generations ago, with the invention of the telescope, binary star astronomy had revolutionized Spiderkind’s understanding of time. But Underhill brought the old ideas together in such marvelous new ways. Young Nethering had been drawn further and further away from safe and sane geology, until the Emptiness Above became his love. The more you realized what the stars really were, the more you realized what the universe must really be. And nowadays, all the colors could be seen in the sky if one knew where to look, and with what instruments. Here on Paradise Island, the far-red of the stars shone clearer than anywhere in the world. With the large telescopes being built nowadays, and the dry stillness of the upper air, sometimes he felt like he could see to the end of the universe.
Huh?Low above the northeast horizon, a narrow feather of aurora was spreading south. There was a permanent loop of magnetism over the North Sea, but with the Dark five years old, auroras were very rare. Down in Paradise Town, what tourists were left must be oohing and aahing at the show. For Obret Nethering, this was just an unexpected inconvenience. He watched a second more, beginning to wonder. The light was awfully cohesive, especially at the northern end, where it narrowed almost to a point. Huh. If it did wreck tonight’s session, maybe they should just fire up the far-blue scope and take a close look at it. Serendipity and all that.
Nethering turned back from the parapet and headed for the stairs. There was a loud rattle and bang that might have been a troop of one hundred combateers coming up the stairs—but was more likely Shepry Tripper and his four hiking boots. A moment passed, and his assistant bounced out onto the open. Shepry was just fifteen years old, about as far out-of-phase as a child could be. There had been a time when Nethering couldn’t imagine talking to, much less working with, such an abomination. That was another thing that had changed for him at Princeton. Now—well, Shepry was still a child, ignorant of so many things. But there was something starkly strong about his enthusiasm. Nethering wondered how many years of research were wasted at the end of Waning Years because the youngest researchers were already in early middle age, starting families, and too dulled to bring intensity to their work.
“Dr. Nethering! Sir!” Shepry’s voice came muffled by his air warmer. The boy was gasping, losing whatever time his dash up the stairs had gained him. “Big trouble. I’ve lost the radio link with North Point”—five miles away, the other end of the interferometer. “There’s blooming static all across the bands.”
So nothing would be left of his plans for tonight. “Did you call Sam on the ground line? What—” He stopped, Shepry’s words slowly sinking in:static all across the bands. Behind him the strange auroral “spike” moved steadily southward. Irritation merged silently into fear. Obret Nethering knew the world was teetering on the edge of war. Everyone knew that. Civilization could be destroyed in a matter of hours if the bombs started falling. Even out-of- the-way places like Paradise Island might not be safe.And that light? It was fading now, the bright point vanished. A nuke burst in the magnetopatch might look like aurora, but surely not so asymmetrical and not with such a long rise time. Hmm. Or maybe some clever physics types had built something more subtle than a simple nuclear bomb. Curiosity and horror skirmished in Nethering’s head.
He turned and dragged Shepry back toward the stairs.Slow down. How many times had he given Shepry that advice? “Step by step, Shepry, and watch your power cord for snags. Is the radar array up tonight?”
“Y-yes.” Shepry’s heavy boots clomped down the stairs just behind him. “But the log will just be noise.”
“Maybe.” Bouncing microwaves off ionization trails was one of the minor projects that Nethering and Tripper managed. Almost all the reflections could be tied to returning satellite junk, but every year or so they’d see something they couldn’t explain, a mystery from the Great Empty. He’d almost gotten a research article out of that. Then the damn reviewers—the ubiquitous T. Lurksalot—ran their own programs, and didn’t buy his conclusions. Tonight there would be another use for the array. The pointed end of the strange light—what if it were a physical object?
“Shepry, are we still on the net?” Their high-rate connection was optical fiber strung across the ocean ice; he’d intended to use mainland supercomputers to guide tonight’s run. Now—
“I’ll check.”
Nethering laughed. “We may have something interesting to show Princeton!” He poked up the radar log, began scanning. Was it Nature or War that was talking to them tonight? Either way, the message was important.
FIFTY
