weirdest radio masts. Heh, if things were orderly and efficient, the building beside it would be the crypto academy. On the other side of the road lay a field of asphalt wider and smoother than any road. It was no surprise that two low-wing monoplanes sat on the far end. Sherkaner would have given a lot to see what was behind them, under tarpaulins. Farther on, a huge digger snout stuck steeply out of the lawn in front of one building. The digger’s impossible angle gave an impression of speed and violence to what was the slowest conceivable way of getting from here to there.
He was nearing the end of the valley. Royal Falls towered above. A rainbow of a thousand colors floated in its spray. He passed what was probably a library, drove around a parking circle featuring the royal colors and the usual Reaching-for-Accord thing. The stone buildings around the circle were a special part of the mystique of Lands Command. By some fluke of shade and shelter, they survived each New Sun with little damage; not even their contents burned.
BUILDING 5007, the sign said. Office of Materials Research, it said on the directions the sentry had handed him. A good omen that it was right at the center of everything. He parked between two other autos that were already pulled over at the side of the street. Better not be conspicuous.
As he climbed the steps, he could see that the sun was setting almost directly down the path he had come. It was already below the highest cliffs. At the center of the traffic circle, the statues Reaching for Accord cast long shadows across the lawn. Somehow he suspected that the average military base was not quite this beautiful.
The sergeant held Sherkaner’s letter with obvious distaste. “So who is this Captain Underhill—”
“Oh, no relation, Sergeant. He—”
“—and why should his wishes count for squat with us?”
“Ah, if you will read on further, you’ll see that he is adjutant to Colonel A. G. Castleworth, Royal Perch QM.”
The sergeant mumbled something that sounded like “Dumb-ass gate security.” He settled his considerable bulk into a resigned crouch. “Very well, Mr. Underhill, just what is your proposed contribution to the war effort?” Something about the fellow was skewed. Then Sherkaner noticed that the sergeant wore medical casts on all his left legs. He was talking to a veteran of real combat.
This was going to be a hard sell. Even with a sympathetic audience, Sherkaner knew he didn’t cut a very imposing figure: young, too thin to be handsome, sort of a gawky know-it-all. He had been hoping to get to an engineering officer. “Well, Sergeant, for at least the last three generations, you military people have been trying to get some advantage by working longer into the Dark. First it was just for a few hundred days, long enough to lay unexpected mines or strengthen fortifications. Then it was a year, two, long enough to move large numbers of troops into position for attack at the next New Sun.”
The sergeant—HRUNKNER UNNERBY, his name tag said—just stared.
“It’s common knowledge that both sides on the Eastern Front have massive tunneling efforts going, that we may end up with huge battles fought up to ten years into the coming Dark.”
Unnerby was struck by a happy thought and his scowl deepened. “If that’s what you think, you should be talking to the Diggers. This is Materials Research here, Mr. Underhill.”
“Oh, I know that. But without materials research we have no chance of penetrating through to the really cold times. And also… my plans don’t have anything to do with digging.” He said the last in a kind of rush.
“Then what?”
“I-I propose that we select appropriate Tiefstadt targets, wake ourselves in the Deepest Dark, walk overland to the targets, and destroy them.” Now, that piled all the impossibilities into one concise statement. He held up forestalling hands. “I’ve thought about each of the difficulties, Sergeant. I have solutions, or a start on solutions —”
Unnerby’s voice was almost soft as he interrupted. “In the Deepest Dark, you say? And you are a researcher at Kingschool in Princeton?” That’s how Sherkaner’s cousin had put it in the letter.
“Yes, in math and—”
“Shut up. Do you have any idea how many millions the Crown spends on military research at places like Kingschool? Do you have any idea how closely we watch the serious work that they do? God, how I hate you Westerling snots. The most you have to worry about is preparing for the Dark, and you’re barely up to that. If you had any stiffness in your shell, you’d be enlisting. There are peopledying now in the East, cobber. There are thousands more who will die unprepared for the Dark, more who will die in the tunnels, and many more who may die when the New Sun lights and there is nothing to eat. And here you sit, spouting fantasy what-ifs.”
Unnerby paused, seemed to tuck his temper away. “Ah, but I’ll tell you a funny story before I boot your ass back to Princeton. You see, I’m a bit unbalanced.” He waggled his left legs. “An argument with a shredder. Until I get well, I help filter the crank notions that people like you keep sending our way. Fortunately, most of the crap comes in the mail. About once in ten days, some cobber warns us about the low-temperature allotrope of tin—
Oops, maybe Iamtalking to an engineer!
“—and that we shouldn’t ought to use it in solder. At least they have their facts right; they’re just wasting our time. But then there are the ones who have just read about radium and figure we ought to make super digger heads out of the stuff. We have a little contest among ourselves about who gets the biggest idiots. Well, Mr. Underhill, I think you’ve made me a winner. You figure on waking yourself in the middle of the Dark, and then traveling overland in temperatures lower than you’ll find in any commercial lab and in vacuum harder than even we can create.” Unnerby paused, taken aback at having given away a morsel of classified information? Then Sherkaner realized that the sergeant was looking at something in Sherkaner’s blind spot.
“Lieutenant Smith! Good afternoon, ma’am.” The sergeant almost came to attention.
“Good afternoon, Hrunkner.” The speaker moved into view. She was… beautiful. Her legs were slender, hard, curving, and every motion had an understated grace. Her uniform was a black black that Sherkaner didn’t recognize. The only insignia were her deep-red rank pips and name tag. Victory Smith. She looked impossibly young. Born out- of-phase? Maybe so, and the noncom’s exaggerated show of respect was a kind of taunt.
Lieutenant Smith turned her attention on Sherkaner. Her aspect seemed friendly in a distant, almost amused way. “So, Mr. Underhill, you are a researcher in the Kingschool Mathematics Department.”
“Well, more a graduate student actually….” Her silent gaze seemed to call for a more forthcoming answer. “Um, math is really just the specialization listed on my official program. I’ve done a lot of course work in the Medical School and in Mechanical Engineering.” He half-expected Unnerby to make some rude comment, but the sergeant was suddenly very quiet.
“Then you understand the nature of the Deepest Dark, the ultralow temperatures, the hard vacuum.”
“Yes, ma’am. And I’ve given these problems considerable thought.” Almost half a year, but better not say that. “I have lots of ideas, some preliminary designs. Some of the solutions are biological and there’s not much to show you yet. But I did bring prototypes for some of the mechanical aspects of the project. They’re out in my automobile.”
“Ah, yes. Parked between the cars of Generals Greenval and Downing. Perhaps we should take a look—and move your auto to a safer place.”
The full realization was years away, but in that moment Sherkaner Underhill had his first glimmering. Of all the people at Lands Command—of all the people in the wide world—he could not have found a more appropriate listener than Lieutenant Victory Smith.
SIX
In the last years of a Waning Sun there are storms, often fierce ones. But these are not the steaming, explosive agony of the storms of a New Sun. The winds and blizzards of the coming Dark are more as though the world is someone mortally stabbed, flailing weakly as life’s blood leaks out. For the warmth of the world is its lifeblood, and as that soaks into the Dark, the dying world is less and less able to protest.
There comes a time when a hundred stars can be seen in the same sky as the noonday sun. And then a thousand stars, and finally the sun gets no dimmer… and the Dark has truly arrived. The larger plants have long since died, the powder of their spores is hidden deep beneath the snows. The lower animals have passed the same
