—
Calandra and I were taken to the Butte City at mid-morning the next day, to find the preliminary preparations nearly complete. Shepherd Zagorin, sitting alone this time at the edge of the thunderhead mass, was being fitted with sensors and monitor leads as Eisenstadt stood fidgeting over her. Further back, in the ridge hollow, the techs were checking out their equipment and taking readings with a sense of quiet chaos that reminded me of an orchestra warming up before a concert.
Physically, it was like a replay of the last contact. Emotionally, it was drastically different. Three weeks ago the men and women here had been contemptuously amused by the suggestion that a simple religious practice could accomplish something their science had so far failed to do. We'd offered them a miracle, and it had been granted... and as I looked around the Butte City now I found only sober anticipation and even traces of respect.
Beside me, Calandra snorted gently. "Look at them," she murmured, nodding fractionally at the busy techs.
"What about them?" I murmured back.
"The way they look at Joyita—you see it? They've adopted her as an honorary member."
I frowned, studying their faces more closely. Calandra was right; I could indeed sense an odd camaraderie when they looked in her direction. "I don't understand."
"The last time they did this she and Adams were just religious fanatics," Calandra said, a trace of bitterness in her voice. "Not worth more than basic legal tolerance. But their method worked, and every scientist and tech knows that only science works. So the method must be science, and she must be a scientist."
I felt an echo of her bitterness in my own stomach. For the wisdom of its wise men is doomed, the understanding of any who understand will vanish... "It's always easier to come up with a rationalization than to change your basic assumptions," I reminded her. "At least it gains her some acceptance—maybe even gains some acceptance for the Halo of God in general."
Eisenstadt spotted us, beckoned us over. "We're about ready here," he told us as we approached, his voice and expression rich with slightly nervous anticipation. He raised his eyebrows questioningly—
"We're ready, too," I assured him. Calandra and I had kept up our end of the bargain with Eisenstadt, spending a good seventy or eighty hours with Zagorin over the past three weeks. If the thunderheads were planning any intellectual or emotional manipulation, I had little doubt that we'd be able to catch it.
Eisenstadt nodded, the tension in his sense easing just a bit, and turned back to Zagorin. "Whenever you feel ready, Ms. Zagorin."
She nodded and closed her eyes. Eisenstadt stepped back to stand between Calandra and me, and together we waited.
My subjective feeling was that the contact was made faster this time than the last, but as nearly as I could tell everything else was the same. Zagorin straightened abruptly from her meditative slouch, glazed eyes opening to stare at us. "Greetings to you," she whispered, the husky sound again containing overtones that never existed in her normal voice. "We are the thunderheads. We have waited long for... your return."
Eisenstadt cleared his throat, and I could tell he was mildly impressed by the thunderheads' easy acceptance of our name for them. "I greet you as well," he said. "Yes, I'm afraid it has been a while. We had a great deal of work to do, and it seemed best for us to finish it before talking to you again. For one thing, this sort of communication is rather hard on the humans you speak through."
A slight pause. I glanced back at the techs monitoring Zagorin's biological functions, read no alarm or danger in their faces. Apparently the medical pre-treatment was successfully warding off the more extreme side effects of the contact. "We mean no harm," Zagorin whispered. "It is not possible... for us to change this."
"Yes, we understand," Eisenstadt assured the speaker. "It may be possible for us to do something from this end—we're still experimenting with it." He paused, and I felt him brace himself. "We appreciate your generosity in letting us examine one of your dead. We've learned a great deal from our work; however, there are still some questions we've been unable to answer. Several weeks ago, for instance, you used a heat weapon—we think probably it was a chemically-pumped laser—against a human that you thought was about to attack you. We're very interested in the commercial and industrial possibilities of such a device, but we've been unable to identify either the mechanism or the biochemistry from the drone we studied. If you could enlighten us—even give us a clue as to where the source is located—we would be most grateful."
Zagorin gazed at him with those flat eyes, but remained silent. "Even a second demonstration would help," Eisenstadt tried again, uncertainty and uneasiness creeping into his sense. "Under controlled conditions, of course, with recording instruments in place—"
"The Cloud," Zagorin cut him off. "You seek the origi... nation of the Cloud, do... you not?"
Eisenstadt threw a slightly startled glance at me. "Well... yes, of course we do. We've, uh, been speculating that it was your people who've been guiding our ships through the Cloud all these years—"
"We will take you to the... origination of... the Cloud."
Eisenstadt stared at Zagorin, and it took him two tries to get any words out. "You mean... the mechanism that generates the Cloud? Where is it, on Spall?"
"In space," Zagorin whispered. "Deep in space."
Eisenstadt nodded slowly, his sense that of a man who has seen the answer to a long-time puzzle. "I understand. We'll need some time to get a ship ready. Can we communicate like this with you off of Spall?"
"There is no need. When you are ready, speak... to the pilot. To—" Zagorin hesitated, and I could sense the thunderhead searching his host for the right word. "To the zombi."
"All right," Eisenstadt said, forehead furrowed slightly. "Well get started on the preparations. In the meantime—"
"Farewell until then," Zagorin said.
"Wait!" Eisenstadt barked; but it was too late. Zagorin slumped over, her face and eyes returning to normal.
Eisenstadt took a step toward her, fury in his eyes. "Who told you to break contact?" he snarled.
Zagorin blinked up at him; but Calandra spoke up before she could reply. "It wasn't her doing, Doctor," she told him. "The thunderhead left her of his own volition."
Eisenstadt glared at her, and I could see him fighting to choke down his anger. "I wasn't through asking questions yet," he bit out, to no one in particular. "Couldn't he see that?"
"Perhaps he could," I said. "Perhaps he was through giving answers."
Eisenstadt paused in mid-sentence, swinging around to focus on me... and as I watched, the scientist within him gave way once again to the official representative of the Patri, with all the political and military considerations that role included. It was something of a shock; I hadn't really appreciated how different the man had been without those encumbrances.
"I see," Eisenstadt said at last. His voice, too, had subtly changed. "Sounds like they don't really want to discuss their organic laser, doesn't it?"
"Or else," I offered, "they consider whatever it is about the Cloud to be far more urgent."
Eisenstadt looked sharply at me, and I could tell he was remembering back to that Process of Elimination game with Zagorin three weeks earlier. "You could be right," he admitted grudgingly, and I could see him thinking about how much trouble it would be to organize a trip out into space to actually take a look. There was a long moment of indecision; and then his face cleared. "Lieutenant?" he called, turning to look for the Pravilo officer in charge.