Hadn’t wanted to press it with Liam, but didn’t want company. Also didn’t want to be alone, rest or no rest. Found my feet taking me up the ramps to the launch deck.
Lerrys was the only one in the ready room. Made sense. The needle pilots had auxiliary duties on the Magellan. We didn’t.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Appreciated his concern. “Yes. Could be getting to be more right.”
He nodded slowly. “Pardon me if I intrude too much. Fitzhugh?”
No point in denying it. Not to Lerrys. I nodded.
“He might actually be good enough for you.”
“Is that condescension… ?”
Lerrys grinned. “From me?” He shook his head. “I meant it. He talks to everyone else. He listens to you.” Another grin. “Most of the time, I hear.” He paused. “He’s not that much older. You wouldn’t have to worry about taking care of him.”
“You didn’t worry about that with Ilendra.” Braun had told me that. Almost winced when I thought about her.
“When I’m not piloting, I need someone to take care of me. Ilendra does. I admit it. You could use someone taking care of you now and again.”
Knowing that hadn’t been the problem. Finding the someone had been. Was Liam the one? Thought so, but… wanting it to be so has always been women’s greatest self-deception and weakness. Maybe for men, too, but they bull through. We bleed. Inside. Hate that.
Lerrys didn’t say more. Probably figured he’d said too much.
“You hear anything about the Covenanters?” I finally asked.
“They’re not moving.”
“Anyone else?”
“Morgan said he didn’t expect anyone else out this far. The others can’t spare the ships and don’t have the science to track where Danann is.”
“He expects trouble on the return.”
“He didn’t soy that.”
I snorted. “Lots he doesn’t say.”
“Like you.” Lerrys laughed.
Decided to go suit up and run sims in one of the needles. Might let my subconscious sort some things out.
71
Fitzhugh
After Jiendra left, I just stood there.
A line came to mind, something about how the quilled rodents of Old Earth had made love—most carefully. That was us. Were we so prickly, so armored against unwanted intrusion?
My laugh was somewhere between self-acknowledgment and outright rue.
Then I looked down at the analysis, less than half-completed, on the console. Would it matter what I determined? Not to anyone besides myself, because the amount of speculation involved was so great that it would not withstand the criticism of any scholar determined to dismantle it. While my logic was as sound as my expertise and intelligence could make it, the assumptions were all open to question. But then, so were most of those on which we based our actions and our lives. Those were just not questioned.
More to the point, why else was I present on board the Magellan, and what else would I do while Jiendra was possibly risking her life as a pilot? What else besides analyze?
Such reasoning was impeccable—and manifestly incorrect, since I just sat and stared at the console. After a time, I leaned back and began to search for Chendor Barna’s commcode.
He answered, leaning forward. “Chendor Barna.” When he glimpsed my visage in the screen, he tilted his head. “Liam… I hadn’t expected…”
“Might you have a moment to discuss something with me if I stopped by your studio?”
“I could do that.”
His work space was one deck down, and I took the ramp, passing several techs—a shield mech, a screen mech, and a quartermaster. All three moved quickly and barely glanced at me.
When I reached Chendor’s space, I rapped.
“Liam? You can come in.”
As I entered, he turned away from a canvas that he had just covered and set a palette on a small table beside the covered easel.
The walls were filled with canvases. I had to stop, just halt and limit my scrutiny to one at a time, or the intensity of those images would have overwhelmed me. Everyone on the expedition was reputed to be one of the foremost in his or her field, and I had not considered the impact of encountering the work of such an artist. The painting that caught my eyes first was not one of the haunting scenes of Danann, but a composition of three pilots—Jiendra, Lieutenant Braun, and Lieutenant Lerrys. To me, Jiendra stood out, but objectively, they all did, and yet, in a fashion that I could not have described, Chendor had captured each one, both as an individual and as a part of a unity. Braun embodied strength beneath apparent doll-like delicacy; Jiendra the wiry resilience of an unbreakable cable beneath breathtaking beauty; Lerrys an adaptability and competence with sensitivity.
Beyond that, farther to the right, was a portrait of Braun. Without inquiring, I knew that Chendor had painted it as a memorial. Beyond that was one that must have been Chendor’s imagination of how I had dealt with the false steward. While artistically impeccable, it conveyed a heroism that was far beyond anything I had ever felt or attempted.
Rather than dwell on that, I turned my concentration to the scenes of Danann. Had I not seen them, I would not have believed it possible to have captured so much diversity when the towers had all seemed so visually alike. Several stood out, but the one that caught my attention was not one of the towers as they were, but one clearly as Chendor had visualized it as it must have been, billions of years in the past. There were no figures, and no direct sunlight, yet it was definitely a morning scene, and one where I could feel that one of the aliens was just about to appear beside the stillness of the canal.
Finally, I turned back to him.
“You didn’t do one of Lieutenant Chang, did you, by any chance?”
“No. Just the portrait of the three.”
“I understand that you found an artifact down on Danann. Could I ask you to tell me about it?” My eyes drifted to a canvas—covered—the only one so masked. “Is that—”
“It is, but it’s so unfinished…” His words drifted off. “I can show you some images. I’d appreciate it if you would keep the information to yourself for now.”
“I can do that.” I certainly could honor such a commitment.
When the first image appeared on the wall screen, I found myself staring, drawn into the curves and the artistry of the object. From its balance and proportions, it could have been almost any size, although, from the background of the tower chamber in which the image had been captured, it was unlikely to have been exceedingly small. I had to wonder about the intensely bright point of light captured in midair above it. “The proportions are so balanced that its size could vary…”
“From the base to the top of the artifact is almost four and a half meters. It’s about three meters wide.”
“The image doesn’t capture its mass and magnitude… its grace minimizes its stature…”
“That’s right,” Barna said.
“What about that point of light?”
“It captures and intensifies light.”
“Do you have any idea of the artifact’s purpose or employment on Danann?”
“It’s a model of some sort, according to several of the scientists. They have an idea, but they’re still working on the mathematics behind it.” Barna did not look at me in replying, and it was more than obvious that discussing its usage discomfited him.
“I take it that you’ve been requested not to comment.”
He nodded. “There could be considerable controversy.”