When Rue got to her office, there was a message summoning her to see the director.
Galbro Hess was already in the director’s office when she came in. “Of course I told her,” he was saying. “It’s just the truth. There is no way Atoka culture could have survived intact through hundreds of years of persecution on Radovani.”
The director was a handsome, distinguished older man with a neatly trimmed beard. His aura of scholarship was a sham; his main job was care and feeding of the museum’s benefactors. He was good at it, and Rue considered it in her own best interest to make his job easy.
When he saw Rue, he said, “Magister Savenga, what’s this about our rejecting a repat claim out of hand? You know we can’t legally do that.”
Rue settled down in a chair, deliberately projecting confidence and calm. The director knew how to handle donors, but she knew how to handle him. “We haven’t rejected any claim. In fact, I am the one who told Traversed Bridge how to file one.”
Outraged, Galbro said, “You did what?”
“If he’s a charlatan,” Rue said, “it will come out. Did you listen to the interview?”
Uncomfortably, Galbro said, “All right, maybe not a charlatan—just deluded and naïve. But now he’s got an attorney and a pipeline to the press. His story’s an invasive weed, a virus people have no immunity to. It’s going to sweep the world.”
The director interrupted, “But there hasn’t been a repat claim?”
“Not yet,” Rue said.
“All right.” The director had his talking point. That was all he needed. “I want you two to handle this as you would any other claim, and refer all press to my office. We need to graciously suspend judgment, as befits our responsibility as guardians of Saronan cultural heritage.”The press release was almost writing itself.
“We need to find out what he wants,” Galbro said. “He may just be an opportunist, wanting to hold the painting hostage for gain.”
“No,” Rue said calmly. “He wants to destroy it.”
The two men looked at her in speechless horror.
Galbro found his voice first. “What, is he threatening to re-enact an Immolation? This really is a hostage situation.”
“He’s following voices. Revelations.”
“Oh great. We’re dealing with a lunatic.”
Severely, the director said, “That doesn’t leave this room. You could jeopardize our case, Galbro.”
“But we’ve got to expose him!”
“We won’t do anything. If he’s exposed, it will be the media, the court, or other scholars. We have to appear neutral.”
As they were leaving, Galbro muttered to Rue, “You really have gotten us into a mess.”
“Don’t worry, Galbro,” she said. “I’m not letting anyone set a match to Aldry.”
Galbro was right: Atoka fever swept the land, sea, and sky. The story enthralled the public. It was better than finding a species given up for extinct. It was a chance at redemption, a chance to save what was lost, to reverse injustice, to make everything right.
The reality of the Atoka faded into inconsequence.
The museum was forced to put its other Atoka artifacts on display—a bronze drum, a life-size wooden baby, a carved eggshell, and an obsidian knife so thin it was transparent. Visitation shot up. Archaeologists were sudden celebrities. Musicals revived, bad old novels came out again, embroidered jackets crowded the racks. Rue’s coffee shop sold Atoka breakfast buns.
Suddenly, there was money for all things Atoka. When Orofino University received a grant to investigate the claims of the Manhu, Rue felt reprieved. With the length of the light-speed journey to Eleuthera, it would be at least ten years before the researchers could travel there and reach any conclusion. By then, the mania would have died down.
But she had not reckoned with recent improvements in instantaneous communication by Paired-Particle Communicator, or PPC. It was now possible to send video via arrays of entangled particles, thwarting the limits of light speed. Sarona had no direct PPC connection to Eleuthera, but the university was able to set up a relay via Radovani, and enlist local researchers.
“They’ve got universities on three planets collaborating,” Galbro told Rue in gloomy discontent—partly at the fact that they were taking the Manhu seriously, and partly at being left out. “I can’t imagine what it’s costing.”
“Conscience money,” Rue observed. “Guilt is a powerful thing.”
“It’s not guilt,” Galbro said. “It’s pride, to prove that we’re better than our ancestors—as if we inherited their planet but not what they had to do to get it.”
“You are a cynic, Galbro,” she said.
Though they were banned from participating, both of them had contacts at the university who kept them up to date, and so they were prepared for the report’s conclusions even before it came out.
All the evidence lined up. DNA traces from old bones on Sarona matched Manhu blood samples. Linguistic similarities showed through the haze of poor records on Sarona and imperfectly transmitted grammar and vocabulary on Eleuthera. The chain of documentation from the Radovani Archives told the shameful tale of their persecution and deportation. Science said it: the Manhu were descended from the ancient Atoka of Sarona.
The report’s release revived interest that had grown dormant in the many months it had taken to complete the research. Legislatures passed resolutions honoring the Atoka, money poured in for statues and murals. Documentaries aired until everyone thought they knew the story.
It was then that the repatriation request arrived.
The first meeting the two sides held was in the director’s office at the museum. It was to be an attempt to negotiate a compromise solution and avoid litigation. Rue was invited; Galbro was not.
“Don’t give it all away,” he told her beforehand.
It was more than a year since she had seen Traversed Bridge, except on-screen in interviews, explaining over and over that the Manhu did not really have feathers or owl eyes. Today, dressed in business attire, he looked anxious and ill at ease; but still he had that aura of self-possessed silence. His lawyer was a young woman with flaming red hair and a sprinkling of cinnamon freckles. She would have looked winningly roguish if only she had been smiling, but she was not. She introduced herself as Caraway Farrow.
The museum’s attorney, Ellery Tate, mirrored his client,the director—a distinguished older man with an air of paternal authority. The director was present, but silent. He had told Rue he wanted her to represent the museum, so he could stay above the controversy.
Tate opened the meeting, speaking in a generous, calming tone.“Thank you all for coming to help find a mutually agreeable solution.”
“We are happy to talk,” Farrow said.
The museum’s first proposal was to create high-resolution replicas of all the Atoka objects for the Manhu to take to Eleuthera. Farrow glanced at Traversed Bridge, then said, “I don’t believe that would be acceptable to my clients.”
“Oh?” Tate said, as if surprised. “We can make replicas that are quite identical to the original, down to the molecular level.”
Traversed Bridge said softly, “A replica would not have a ghost. It would be soulless.”