Determining Cleon Lazar’s location required a certain amount of drudgery, including exerting percussive announcements on a few wrong doors, but by midmorning on fourday, I stood looking at him, through little more than a slip between the edge of his plastrene door and its equally gray plastrene casement.
“Dr. Fitzhugh… this is the physical science area, not the social studies section.”
“That is a fact of which we are both fully cognizant, Cleon, and in this particular instance, irrelevant. I presume you did receive my message.”
“I thought it was more like a threat.”
“I don’t make threats, Cleon, but I do chase down information, and if I can determine what you have in the artifact on the few clues I have, so will any competent physical scientist.” I managed a facsimile of a pleasant smile. “I think it would be best if you offered me some hospitality.”
“I’d rather not.” He started to close the door.
His efforts were ineffectual, and after several moments, he reeled back, and I closed the door behind me.
He moved toward the console. “If you do not depart immediately, I will summon ship’s security.”
“You do, and Commander Morgan will require you to divulge far more than I want, and he will not be precisely pleased to be required to deal with such a matter at a critical time. Because of my particular skills, I can ensure that he will have to focus on this issue, and when he discovers why, and what you have withheld, he will be exceedingly less than pleased.”
He paused. Some of his fine black hair had fallen across his low forehead, almost touching his dark brows. His gray eyes were bright, and his skin far too white, if not quite that of an albino.
“Dr. Lazar… you appear not to be terribly understanding of the situation your discovery has precipitated, a situation which will most certainly deteriorate. Either that, or you prefer a time of galacticwide warfare.” Lazar might well laugh at my presumptuousness, for if my own sociopolitical calculations were correct, that period of warfare had already been proclaimed with the arrival of the CW and Covenanter ships off Danann.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your discovery shatters some very basic social truths, and it is upon those truths that a plurality, if not the majority, of human polities have been constructed and operated.” I managed a smile, one far less amicable than the first I had offered.
“Are you always so… direct?”
“No. Usually those I deal with tend to be less isolated from the social and political aspects of the universe that surrounds them, and thus more inclined to at least listen before reacting.”
“I believe in only what is observable, provable, and verifiable, and, ideally, what is scientifically replicable.”
“Then we agree in principle. I’d like to tell you what I think you’ve found, and I’d like you to correct any basic misconceptions I may have.”
“For what purpose?”
“For my own research and publications. If you choose to announce what you and Dr. Taube discovered within the near future, I will be more than pleased to refrain from publication until your announcement.”
“And if I do not, then you will publish… anyway?”
“You may have overlooked the fact that everyone on the team was given great incentive to publish their results once we returned. Not when every fact and mathematical proof was laser-edge perfect.”
Cleon actually sighed. “Do you beat up your students this way?”
“If necessary.”
“It will come out. You’re correct about that. I had hoped for a bit more time to refine the mathematics and the proofs while the rest of the expedition was exploring Danann.” He paced toward the blank wall screen, then turned back, halting. “As you have deduced, and as I told Barna, the artifact is a physical representation of what the culture that created Danann did in creating an entire new universe…”
I listened, attempting to correlate everything he said to what I had attempted to set forth logically.
After he finished, including providing responses, doubtless oversimplified, to my inquiries, his eyes narrowed as he asked, “What does this have to do with history and its trends?”
“Everything,” I replied. “Just about everything.” I inclined my head, in courtesy, and added, “Thank you. I look forward to seeing your initial announcement.”
Then I left. I had more work to do than I’d thought, especially based on Lazar’s initial response to my concerns and his apparent inability to grasp the magnitude of the artifact’s impacts—technological, scientific, and particularly, cultural.
81
Chang
At fourteen-seventeen on fourday, I sat at the ops junior duty officer’s console. Tiny space in the corner of main operations. Gray plastrene bulkheads, decks, and overheads, no wonder Morgan looked gray all the time.
Just a junior command pilot under instruction… that was all, but I had passive access to all the screens and systems. Could access anything, but couldn’t do anything unless the command pilot—that was the captain at the moment—shifted the conn to me. Wasn’t about to happen. Still, getting to know a ship as big as the Magellan felt good. Could also put it on my cert record.
Time to translation, one start. The link announcement was restricted to those in control.
Morgan appeared, almost at my shoulder. “You’re off duty now.”
I frowned. My watch didn’t end for two-plus stans. “I do something wrong?”
“No. I’m shifting you back to the needleboats. I’m having all needle pilots on standby for immediate launch once we clear the Hamilton Gate inbound.”
I could see that. Didn’t like it, but could see it. “Trouble waiting for us?”
“That’s likely.”
He was lying. He knew, probably from the Owens— courier had rejoined the Magellan less than ten stans earlier.
“You’re not surprised?”
“With three attacks already, and a bunch of attempts at sabotage? I’d be surprised if trouble weren’t waiting. How bad?”
“We don’t know. D.S.S. intelligence had indications of possible recon and hidden Gate translations in a number of Comity systems.”
“We could wait, couldn’t we?” Doubted that either Morgan or the captain would have bought that, but wanted a reaction.
“For how long? And how safely, without escorts? Two fleets found us at Danann. Also, if Hamilton system comes under attack, the Magellan might be critical.”
“You think someone will attack Hamilton?” Managed not to raise my voice. That was definitely an act of war, the kind of war everyone had been trying to avoid for centuries.
“The Covenanters and the Alliance believe we have the Morning Star or the Spear of Iblis, or whatever the true believers call the mythical weapons of Lucifer.”
“We don’t have anything like that… do we?” While Liam had told me about the artifact and what Dr. Taube believed, Morgan wasn’t going to get that from me.
“No.”
Didn’t like the touch of equivocation behind his denial. “But the artifact… it’s the key?”
“The scientists can’t prove what it is. They don’t know how the Danannians built it, or how they even created the materials it’s made from, and it’s anyone’s guess when we will, or if we will.”