Gretchen nodded, and then started to laugh. "All you had to do was see the thing and…it was so old, Parker. Like it had seen the first light of the first star to condense out of the birth-caul of the universe. You could just…feel the weight of millennia in the metal, pressing on the world around the device. It felt like so much time had passed, every atom had collapsed…"
"Oh." Parker took a drag on his tabac. "Sure, a feeling. Like, that time in the cave-shrine on Shimanjin when you felt where the little girl was, or…or when we were at the Resident's party and you felt the way to the door?"
Gretchen looked up, fixing the pilot with a sharp stare. "What do you mean?"
The pilot shrugged. "Just, you know…we've noticed that from time to time you can…um…you can tell where things are without seeing them, or, uh, you can find your way when there's just no way you could know the proper path…"
Anderssen made a face and avoided looking at him. In the corner, Malakar's head rose slightly, her dark eyes bright with interest.
"I'm lucky sometimes…"
"Sure, boss. Whatever." Parker pointed with his tabac at the comp. "So, did you get enough data on this eldest tree-thing to make the trip worthwhile?"
"No." Gretchen hefted the comp with a bitter expression. "There was so little time. I had this on broadband scan, but we were outside when the sky lit up – I'm sure this comp, and all the data, are minging dead. My medband went crazy with radiation warnings…and these little hand-helds aren't shielded against EMP flash."
"Crap." Parker stubbed out his tabac and held out a hand. "Lemme look."
Gretchen tossed him the comp and slumped back in her chair, watching the pilot wince with pain as he fiddled with the device. She was feeling worse and worse with every passing moment. Oh, Mother Mary, I nearly got poor Parker killed. I nearly got myself killed, I ran Malakar out of her home, dragged Maggie all over the back of beyond…for what? For a prize beyond price I had to destroy.
"Does look kind of fried," Parker admitted, turning the comp over. He pressed a tab on one side of the unit, popping the back cover free. The data cartridge fell out on his chest. "I've got a spare in my kit, can you hork it over here?"
"Sure." Gretchen got down on the floor and began rummaging in the filthy, oily mess of odds and ends in the pilot's spare duffel. "God, Parker, don't you ever clean this stuff up?"
"Never," he said, keying a self-test on the cartridge. "Rusts if you keep it clean. Gotta protect the tools, right?"
Anderssen found a working comp and handed it over. Malakar watched them intently, snout hidden behind crossed arms. Parker popped out the data cartridge in the new unit, swapped in the old one and thumbed the unit awake. The comp beeped, made a squeaky sound and the screen glimmered awake.
"See…might have something left to say." The pilot thumbed through to a diagnostic screen. "We'll just let it check itself out." He smiled wanly, tired just from using his hand. "Maybe we'll get a bonus after all!"
"We do not have gruel," Magdalena declared as she bustled in with a tray heavy with covered bowls. "But there are edible things to eat."
Gretchen accepted a warm plate covered with freshly cut vegetables, a bowl of murky-looking broth and hunks of brown bread. A little amazed at the Hesht's ability to produce something other than reprocessed threesquares, Anderssen made an amused face. "What, no chocolatl?"
"Do not complain, wet-nose, about the food on your plate," Maggie said testily, curling up on the end of the bed with a head-sized bowl of red meat swimming in a dark oily sauce. "Unless you have caught and skinned the prey yourself!"
"I'll bet these were hard to catch," Parker mumbled, mouth full of food. He waved something like a bright-green carrot at the Hesht. "Tasty, tho'. Is there butter for this bread?"
"No," Maggie said, lips wrinkling back from her fangs. "There is no butter. There are no cows on this planet."
"But they have cheese…" Parker's voice trailed away at the expression on the Hesht's face.
"Ahhhh…" Malakar breathed in the aroma of her bowl, which was filled with noodles slathered in black paste. Gretchen's nose twitched, assailed by an astringent smell of salt, pepper and garlic. "You are kujena of tasty foods," the Jehanan said, pressing her snout to the floor in respect. "I have not had such a delicacy in many years."
Maggie winkled her nose, watching the gardener inhale the noodles. "Gruel! Indeed."
The comp sitting beside Gretchen chirped to itself, announcing the completion of its tests. Parker and Malakar stopped eating. Anderssen put down her bowl of soup and picked up the device. The screen displayed her usual set of tools and interfaces.
Well, she thought, tabbing into the archive of sensor logs. What did we see?
Gretchen scrolled through the data, frowned, loaded some AI to process the raw feeds, frowned again, slid out of the chair and sat cross-legged on the floor. Without looking up, she took a notepad from her jacket pocket, found some writing pens and began making notes. Her soup grew cold. Magdalena turned onto her side, bowl empty of entrails, curled her tail over her nose and went promptly to sleep. Parker was already snoring.
Late afternoon sunlight crept across the floor, washing over Anderssen's back, and vanished as the sun passed into the clouds again. Malakar stirred after watching for a long time, picked up all the dishes and shuffled off into the kitchen. Anderssen's face remained tight with concentration, her brow furrowed. The comp hummed warmly in her hands. Her control stylus made faint squeaking sounds on the panel. At one point she took off her field jacket and carefully examined the durafiber surface for marks.
"Ahhh…" An hour later, Gretchen looked up with a grimace and stretched her back. She creaked and said "Ow!" before rubbing her sore muscles.
Malakar appeared at the doorway. "What did it see?"
"Nothing." Anderssen laid the comp down on the rug. She looked disappointed and relieved at the same time. "Nothing but dust."
"How can this be?" Malakar knelt beside her, leathery tail flipping around and out of the way. "I felt the air tremble with unwholesome power! Such strange lights there were in the old fane! Those technicians did not fall unconscious for no reason…did not your mind reach across thousands of pan in the blink of an eye, giving warning?"
"I did." Gretchen spread her hands on either side of the comp. Her face was impassive. "Yet, none of my instruments detected anything. All of this data just shows the kalpataru standing inertly in the shrine. No power fluctuations, no radiation emissions from the tree itself – nothing but the generator signatures of the kujenate equipment."
"Nothing?" Malakar rolled back on her heels, claws tapping her snout. "But -"
"We heard you!" Parker tapped his earbug, confused. "Both Mags and I heard you clear as day -"
"Whatever happened was beyond the capability of these sensors," Anderssen said, trying find the words to explain. "But I saw…" She paused, remembering something which Hummingbird had once said.
"A teacher once said to me: Every time we do something, anything – eat, sleep, read a book – we leave an impression upon the world. Usually, normally, the impressions are wiped away by new things happening – someone else comes into the room, opens the door, picks up the book – but if a solitary object has been in one place for a very long time, if the same things keep happening in its immediate presence, then that repetition leaves a mark, a memory, a shadow of substance upon the pattern of the world…that pattern can be enormously strong."