seen, and I’m the only one watching these skies. Are you going to tell me?”
“My department has an ongoing observation of the Dyson Pair; some of our benefactors were interested in them. I just want to confirm something, that’s all.”
“Ah.” LionWalker’s smile grew wise. “I see. Unnatural events it is, then.”
Dudley began to relax slightly. Eccentric he might be, but LionWalker was also pretty shrewd.
They reached the end of the platform and the tall man suddenly twisted his wrist and pointed a finger, then slowly drew a semicircle in the air. The OCtattoos on his forearm and wrist flared in a complicated swirl of color. A Toyota pickup truck pulled up sharply in front of them.
“That’s an interesting control system,” Dudley commented.
“Aye, well, it’s the one I favor. Sling your bags in the back, will you?”
They drove off along one of the newly extruded concrete roads, heading out of the busy settlement. LionWalker twitched his fingers every few seconds, inducing another ripple of color in his OCtattoos, and the pickup’s steering would respond fluidly.
“Couldn’t you just give the drive array some verbal instructions?” Dudley asked.
“Now what would be the point in that? My way I have control over technology. Machinery does as I command. That’s how it should be. Anything else is mechanthropomorphism. You don’t treat a lump of moving metal as an equal and ask it pretty please to do what you’d like. Who’s in charge here, us or them?”
“I see.” Dudley smiled, actually warming to the man. “Is mechanthropomorphism a real word?”
LionWalker shrugged. “It ought to be, the whole bloody Commonwealth practices it like some kind of religion.”
They quickly left the settlement behind, driving steadily along the road that ran parallel to the coast, just a couple of kilometers inland. Dudley kept catching glimpses of the beautifully clear ocean beyond the small sandy hillocks standing guard behind the shore. Farther inland the ground rose to a range of distant hills. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, nor any breeze. The intense light gave the tufty grass and coastal reeds a dark hue, turning the leaves almost jade. Small scrub trees grew along the side of the road; at first glance similar to terrestrial palms, except their leaves were more like cacti branches, complete with monstrous red thorns.
Fifty kilometers clear of the settlement the road curved inland. LionWalker gave an elaborate wave with his hand, and the pickup obligingly turned off, heading down a narrow sand track. Dudley wound the window down, smelling the fresh sea air. It wasn’t nearly as salty as most H-congruous worlds.
“See the way they laid the road well inland?” LionWalker called over the wind. “Plenty of prime real estate between it and the coast. Thirty years’ time, when the city’s grown up, that’ll sell for ten thousand dollars an acre. This whole area will be covered in rich men’s beach houses.”
“Is that bad?”
“Not for me,” LionWalker said with a laugh. “I won’t be here.”
It was another fifteen kilometers to LionWalker’s house. He’d taken over a curving bay that was sheltered by dunes that extended for several kilometers inland. His house was a low bungalow of pearl-white drycoral perched on top of a large dune only a hundred meters from the shore, with a wide veranda of decking facing the ocean. The big dome of the observatory was a little farther back from the water, a standard concrete and metal design.
A golden Labrador ran out to greet them, tail wagging happily. LionWalker fussed with it as they walked to the house. Dudley could hear the sounds of a furious argument while they were still twenty meters away.
“Oh, Lord, they’re still at it,” LionWalker muttered.
The thin wooden shutter door slammed open and a young woman stormed out. She was startlingly beautiful, even to Dudley, who was used to a campus full of fresh-faced girls.
“He’s a pig,” she spat at LionWalker as she hurried past.
“Aye, I’m sure,” LionWalker said meekly.
The woman probably didn’t hear, she was already walking toward the dunes, face set with a determination that made it clear she wasn’t going to stop until she reached the end of the world. The Labrador gave her a longing look before turning back to LionWalker.
“There, there.” He patted the dog’s head. “She’ll be back to give you your supper.”
They’d almost reached the door when it opened again. This time it was a young man who came out. With his androgynous features, he was almost as beautiful as the girl. If it hadn’t been for the fact he was shirtless, Dudley might even have questioned his gender.
“Just where does she think she’s going?” he whined.
“I don’t know,” LionWalker said in a resigned tone. “She didn’t tell me.”
“Well, I’m not going after her.” The youth set off for the beach, slouching his shoulders and kicking at the sand with his bare feet as he went.
LionWalker opened the door and gestured Dudley inside. “Sorry about that.”
“Who are they?” Dudley asked.
“They’re my current life partners. I love them dearly, but I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it, you know. You married?”
“Yes. Several times, actually.”
“Aye, well, you know what it’s like then.”
The interior of the house was laid out in a classic minimalist style, which suited the location perfectly. A big circular fireplace served as the focal point of the living room. Tall curving windows revealed an uninterrupted view of the bay and the ocean. Air-conditioning provided a relaxing chill.
“Sit yourself down,” LionWalker said. “I expect you could do with a drink. I’ll take you over to see the telescope in a minute. You can check it out then. I’m confident you’ll be satisfied.”
“Thanks.” Dudley lowered himself into one of the big sofas. He felt very drab and colorless in such surroundings. It wasn’t just the richness of the house and its setting, but the vivacity of the people who lived here as well.
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” he admitted a few minutes later, when he’d drunk some of LionWalker’s very agreeable fifty-year-old scotch.
“You mean you thought I’d be somebody like you? No offense, my man.”
“None taken. So what are you doing here?”
“Well, I was born with a reasonable trust fund; then I went and made even more money for myself in the commodities market. That was a couple of rejuvenations ago. I’ve just been loafing ever since.”
“So why here? Why Tanyata?”
“This is the edge. This is as far out from our starting point as we’ve got—well, with the exception of Far Away. That’s a wonderful thing, even though everyone regards it as commonplace. I can sit here at night and look where we’re going. You look at the stars, Dudley, you know what marvels there are to be seen out here. And those cretins behind us, they never look. Where we are now, this was what our ancestors thought was heaven. Now I can look out from their heaven and see where our future lies. Do you not think that’s a thing of glory?”
“Certainly is.”
“There are stars out here that you cannot see from Earth with the naked eye. They shine down out of the sky at night, and I want to know them.”
“Me, too.” Dudley saluted him with the crystal tumbler that was a hundred years older than the scotch it held, and gulped it down in one.
The two youngsters returned after a couple of hours cooling off by themselves. LionWalker introduced them as Scott and Chi as they sheepishly greeted Dudley. As a penance, the two of them set about building a bonfire on the beach, using the local driftwood that had a curiously matted texture. They lit it as the sun sank down toward the ocean. Bright orange sparks blew out of the flame tips to swirl high above the sand. Potatoes were pushed into the heart of the fire, while a makeshift barbecue grill was prepared for when the flames died down.
“Can we see the Dyson Pair from here?” Scott asked as the stars began to appear in the darkening sky.
“No,” Dudley said. “Not with the naked eye, they’re too far away. You can barely see Earth’s star from here, and the Dyson Pair are almost a thousand light-years beyond that.”
“So when were they enveloped?”
“That’s a very good question—we’ve never been able to pin down the exact construction time of the shells—that’s what my observation project is going to help solve.” Even now Dudley wasn’t going to admit what he’d observed.
Astronomy post 2050 had effectively ceased to be a pure science. CST had long since taken over all major deep-space observation for purely commercial ends. In any case, when you could visit stars of every spectral type to observe them directly, there was little point in prioritizing astronomy. Few higher education institutions on Commonwealth worlds bothered building observatories; even Oxford’s telescope had been over a century old when it discovered the Dyson Pair.
An hour after sunset, Dudley and LionWalker walked through the dunes to the observatory. Inside, it was little different to the one on Gralmond: a big empty space with the fat tube of the telescope in the middle, resting on a complex cradle of metal beams and electromuscle bands. The sensor housings surrounding the focus looked a lot more sophisticated than anything the university could afford. A row of neat, modern display portals was lined up along the wall beside the door.
Dudley glanced around at the professional equipment, feeling a degree of tension ebbing away. There was no practical reason the observation shouldn’t occur. All he had to deal with was his own memory of the event. Could it really have happened like that? Five months after the fact, the moment seemed elusive somehow, the memory of a dream.
LionWalker stood close to the base of the telescope, and began what looked like a robot mime dance. Arms and legs jerked about in small precise movements. In response, the doors on the dome started to peel open. Electromuscle bands on the telescope cradle flexed silently, and the fat cylinder began to turn, aligning itself on the horizon where the Dyson Pair were due to rise. LionWalker’s body continued to twist and whirl, then he was snapping his fingers to some unheard beat. The portals came alive one by one, relaying the sensor images.
Dudley hurried over to them. The image quality was flawless. He gazed at the starfield, noting the minute variation from the patterns he was used to. “What sort of linkage have we got?” he asked his e-butler.
“The planetary cybersphere is negligible; however, there is a landline to the CST station. Available bandwidth is more than capable of meeting your stated requirements. I can open communication to the unisphere whenever you want.”
“Good. Begin a quarter of an hour before estimated enclosure time. I want full SI datavault storage, and a unisphere legal verification of the feed.”
“Acknowledged.”
LionWalker had stopped his gyrations, allowing the telescope to rest. He raised an eyebrow. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” A datavault store and legal verification were expensive. Along with his ticket, the cost had taken quite a chunk out of their carefully saved holiday money.
