It was a grand claim, and he sat in silence as I worked it out. At last I nodded. “I see…” I said. “And just how do you go about… facilitating this?”
He raised his glass to his lips with thin fingers and took a tight sip of whisky. “I apprehend the truth of a situation, of an individual or group, and dispense what I judge to be the appropriate recommendations. I am invariably right,” he finished.
I bit into a croissant, at a loss to know how to respond. After a growing silence, I said, “So… you mentioned Matt Sommers?”
He turned his head and looked at me. The effect of his piercing regard, coming as it did for the first time since we sat down, was disconcerting.
He said, “You are lonely, Conway.”
I stared at him, aware of holding a corner of croissant ludicrously before my open lips. “I don’t see what…” I began.
He raised a hand, as if to stall my objections, and turned his gaze out to sea. “I sense that you suffered loss recently, and use as a crutch the enduring friendship of those around you.”
“I wouldn’t call my friendship a crutch,” I said. I wondered whom he’d been talking to, to know so much about me.
“I sense”, he said again, with an air of pronouncement, “that your years on Chalcedony, after fleeing Earth, have been a period of withdrawal, almost of complacency. I would recommend a widening of your horizons, both geographically and personally◦– that is, you are a man in search of, in need of, love.”
I felt a curious ambivalence of emotions, then: first of all anger at the arrogant assumptions of this superior stranger, and then a gnawing apprehension that what he had said might contain a grain of truth.
Not that I would admit as much. “After what I went through on Earth”, I began, “I needed to get away. Matt and Maddie, Hawk and Kee… they’ve become my family.” As soon as I said this, I hated myself for feeling I had to justify my situation.
I said, “Anyway… I presume you didn’t come here to talk about me. You mentioned Matt?”
I was relieved when he nodded and said, “I take it he has returned to Chalcedony?”
“He came back last week.” He’d been away a month◦– on Epiphany, Acrab IV◦– a month away from Maddie, which he’d said was torture. He’d brought back a collection of what he called Epiphany Stones, which would be the centrepiece of his next work of art, due to be shown down at Mackinley in a few days.
Dortmund nodded. “Has Sommers told you anything about why he was on Epiphany, Conway?”
I decided to play my cards close to my chest. Matt had said something about the Stones he’d brought back, but I had no intention of telling Dortmund this.
“No. It’s all a bit hush-hush.” I hesitated, then said, “I’m eager to see the exhibition on Thursday.”
He inclined his head. “As am I, Conway. As am I.”
He finished his drink, rose to his considerable height, and inclined his head at me. Again his regard made me uneasy: I gained from the cold look in his eyes the idea that he was merely gazing upon me to confirm the negative impression he had already formed.
“I will see you at the exhibition,” he said, and stepped from the verandah.
I watched him walk across the sands, around the Fighting Jackeral, and disappear from sight.
I was about to order another coffee when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up. “Hawk!”
I stood and embraced him, feeling the occipital console that spanned his shoulders like a yoke, and the spinal jacks which he used to interface with his starship.
He was wearing his faded black leather jacket and his piratical face was unshaven. All he needed to complete the image was an eye-patch◦– and perhaps a voluble parrot on his shoulder.
“How was the trip?” I asked. He’d taken Matt to Epiphany, via the golden column, and I hadn’t seen him since his return.
Maddie was behind him. “They had a great time,” she said. “I wish I’d gone with them.”
After the frosty presence of Darius Dortmund, it was nice to be in the company of friends. We ordered coffee. “No Matt? And where’s Kee?” I asked.
Hawk laughed. “Where else? She’s tending her garden.” Kee kept a small plot of beautiful native plants at Hawk’s shipyard.
“Matt’s down in Mackinley,” Maddie said. “The exhibition’s taking up his every spare minute. But it should be something special.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I said. I loved Matt’s opening nights, when I could watch my friend relax, after months or years of hard work, and bask in the rewards of creation.
“So…” I said to Hawk. “The trip.”
He said, “Epiphany was… well, magical sounds lame, but it was. It’s a pastoral planet; the aliens there are hunter-gatherers. Rainforests with trees miles high, and flowers the size of sails◦– the gravity’s much less strong there, you see. And there’s something about the air… as if it’s infused with a drug. Every breath is invigorating.”
I’d seen Matt briefly on his return, and he’d mentioned the Epiphany Stones in passing. It was a project he’d been working on for a year or more, but before the trip he’d kept tight-lipped about it lest the art world got to know and a publicity leak pre-empted the announcement of the exhibition. From Mackinley it was due to go on to Earth, where it was booked to show in Paris, London and Manila.
“Matt said that the stones were magical, too?” I fished.
Hawk smiled. “Matt wouldn’t tell me why exactly they were so special. We were taken by the equivalent of a bullock cart from the spaceport and into the mountains. From there it was a two-day trek through the rainforest to their◦– the Elan’s◦– holy city, more of a great, sprawling township, really. I spent the next day wandering around, admiring the views, while Matt was in conference with the Elan’s holy elite.”
“Requesting the stones?” I said.
Hawk nodded. “And he was successful, obviously. With one condition.”
I took a mouthful of beer. “Which was?”
“That the stones be accompanied at all times by a member of the Elan’s holy orders◦– an Ambassador.”
“So you brought the Ambassador back aboard the ship?”
“He’ll be at the opening night on Thursday.”
Maddie said, “I’m more than curious to see the alien. He’s been holed up with the stones at the exhibition centre all week..” Cut: Won’t leave them for a minute.”
I looked at Hawk. “What do they look like? The aliens, I mean.”
Hawk shrugged his great shoulders. “Small, just over a metre high, very thin and delicate, and furred. It’s the colour of their fur that’s odd, though. They’re turquoise.”
I tried to envisage these creatures. “They sound fascinating. And they’re friendly?”
Hawk nodded. “Extremely so.” He thought about it. “I suppose you’d call the Elan innocent, guileless.” He shrugged. “Matt was over the moon when they agreed to loan him the stones. This is the first time any have been allowed off-planet.”
I looked at Maddie. “What did he do to get them to agree?”
“The Elan were aware of his work,” she said. “Matt had an exhibition of crystals on Epiphany about ten years ago, and the Ambassador attended it. He was bowled over, apparently.”
Hawk said, “Matt visited Epiphany back then and heard about the stones. He became aware of the Elan’s reaction to his exhibition only later, and that’s when the idea formed to use the Epiphany Stones in an artwork.”