The Best of Edward M. Lerner, page 43
The men, remembering our recent mishap with the Blackfeet, grumbled that I should not go off alone. I agreed to bring along Pvt. Cruzatte—him being blind in one eye and seeing but poorly at a distance with the other. If, before I could send away Cruzatte, we should happen upon my hairy acquaintance, I hoped I might convince the private he had mis-seen.
The private ventured without protest to hunt in the direction I suggested, leaving me to return to the riverbank. The shiny thing beneath the tangled tree limbs indeed seemed to be of a kind with the airship, only smaller. I had only begun to speculate that I had found a fragment of the airship, shattered by some unimaginable disaster, when a sharp pain pierced my buttock!
Somehow, the gunshot had been silent. Beside me, a shrub had burst into flames. As I flung myself to the ground, twisting as I fell, I saw the creature taking aim for another shot! It seemed my last thought would be bewilderment, wondering why he had turned against me. A red beam sprang from its weapon, setting grass smoldering, scything toward me—
A loud gunshot rang out! Cruzatte? As the creature turned toward the noise, the red beam from its weapon swept over me. From behind a nearby tree, a second red beam appeared—and my assailant crumpled. A second creature emerged from behind the tree. In English, it bellowed, “You are safe.”
~~~
After a more leisurely completion of his own more modest meal, Harry rejoined me in the library. Reading upside down, he made note of my place in the private journals. “Good friend though Meriwether became, I must admit: he could be verbose. Lest you disturb my sleep for a second night, here’s the quick version.
“I had gone AWOL. Tomorrow we can discuss why. Today I’ll leave it at my shipmates didn’t want me to stay, and that even after a year, they still had hope of finding, if not me, the gear I had taken with me. Likely, they expected only to find the latter. You see, to cover my tracks, I had abandoned my shuttle in a rapids upriver. The day I’d met Meriwether, in fact, I’d been surveying places for staging such a crash. I wanted somewhere with whitewater, into which it would seem I’d slipped getting clear of the wreck, hit my head, and been carried off downstream. If searchers never found my body, well, the battering it would have taken in all those rapids and waterfalls would explain it. Right?”
I sipped brandy, considering. “Even after your encounter with Meriwether, you wanted to fake your death?”
“Then more than ever.” Harry plopped into his chair, and it protested his weight. “Again, that’s a topic for tomorrow. But you’re reading about the day, much later, when Meriwether was shot. There was much he didn’t know till well after these journal entries. Trust me, you’ll sleep better tonight if you hear the back story.”
Hard as it was to imagine ever sleeping again, I knew I needed sleep—badly. I saluted with my snifter: please go on.
Harry said, “If my people weren’t willing to leave me behind, they certainly weren’t willing to abandon my shuttle. For my own reasons—again, that’s a topic for another day—I didn’t want it left there, either.”
“Some sort of Prime Directive?” I guessed. “Like in Star Trek?”
“Yes and no. Tomorrow, I remind you. Anyway, after my first encounter with Meriwether, I stayed clear of the river until the Corps had completed their arduous portage around the Great Falls. When no one was nearby to observe, I set down my shuttle in the rapids above the first cascade, shorting out some key electronics to suggest an in-flight emergency. I gave myself a small cut, smearing some blood on a console, as if from a banged head.
“With sparks arcing and crackling on the bridge and the hatch left open, as I carefully made my way to shore, I heard behind me this great scraping and a clang. Either I had underestimated the force of the current, or some freak wind gust hit the shuttle just wrong. Maybe some of both.
“In any event, the shuttle had begun to slide. I watched, helpless, as the shuttle slipped downstream, faster and faster, bouncing and bounding in the rapids, to tumble over the first cascade. Quicker than I could run to that first waterfall, the wreck was in several pieces, those rushing down the next stretch of rapids, breaking into smaller pieces. My shipmates were a long time collecting it all.”
That was quite the picture, if not yet any kind of explanation. “So that’s what Meriwether saw, beneath the logjam? Debris from your broken shuttle?”
Harry interlaced his fingers (strangely jointed), whether as body language I couldn’t read or as something to do with his hands. “Yes, and my shipmates were still tracking down and collecting the key bits. They were after anything that might, even years later, reveal technological secrets. It was Meriwether’s misfortune to have gone close for a look at the wrong time. Hence my former shipmate, we’ll call him Esau, attempted to kill him.”
“By laser,” I offered, remembering the red beam from the journal.
I got another dose of blat plus tremolo. Laughter. “Careful, my young friend. Knowing too much about our tech isn’t healthy.
“Meriwether’s quick reflexes saved his life. Indeed, Pierre Cruzatte had been tracking something: Esau. The private’s shot missed, but the loud clap of the rifle or the bullet zinging past was sufficient to disrupt Esau’s aim long enough—
“For you to kill him,” I offered. “But why were you there?”
Blat plus tremolo, again. “It’s like you were there. Since Meriwether and I had missed our early summer appointment, I’d been wandering up and down a stretch of the Missouri. Whenever he did return, I hoped to find an opportunity to speak privately with him. His calm, thoughtful reaction to our first encounter had proven him to be exceptional.”
I remembered another detail from the private journals. “And during that time, you’d mastered English. How, if I may ask?”
“My translator had learned a little, not me. But mastered? Not even close. Regardless, since my defection I’d been interacting with the locals, the Indians. Some had learned scraps of English from the Corps on its way upriver and, more recently, from trappers following. It was enough that when Meriwether and I did next speak, we could each get some points across.” Blat plus tremolo. “Yet another a topic for tomorrow.”
Belatedly, guiltily, I remembered my benefactress. “And Cruzatte? What of him?”
“For a critical few seconds, frantically, he was reloading. Meriwether shouted out that he should approach slowly—and desist from shooting at his furry friend. As Meriwether and I hastily consulted, it being clear that he required more medical attention than Cruzatte’s improvised bandage, he limped off toward his camp. Cruzatte then helped me carry Esau’s body to his shuttle—”
“I’d been wondering how Esau had gotten there.”
“Stop interrupting, please. I, for one, am ready for bed. So: Cruzatte and I put the body into the nearby shuttle. I disabled its transponder, then set the autopilot to fly west over the mountains and then go down in the deepest part of the Pacific. A second feigned crash would be one too many. A mysteriously vanished shuttle was the best I could improvise. Then Cruzatte headed back toward camp, and I went as far away as I could. It would be more than three years until I next saw Meriwether.”
From poring over the Corps’s published journals, I pictured what ensued: The alarm as Lewis stumbled back to camp. The search in vain for an Indian shooter. Cruzatte, by default, taking the blame.
“Why so long?” I asked. “I mean, three years?”
“Playing it safe,” Harry said. “I couldn’t predict how long my shipmates might search for Esau and me. Meriwether needed to find ways to discourage trappers and settlers from getting into the likely search area. Had there been a third incident, my people might have concluded you people were already too dangerous.”
Ways like withholding publication of the expedition’s journals. Like getting himself nominated by Jefferson and confirmed by the Senate as territorial governor. In that office, Lewis had delayed westward expansion, not least through conflict with tribes whose good graces he had once cultivated.
I said, “Oh, and I see another reason for delay. Before rejoining you, Meriwether had to stage his financial problems, depression, death, and burial. That couldn’t have been easy. But what was that about ‘already too dangerous?’”
“That’s enough,” Harry decreed, standing. “Tomorrow is another day.”
~~~
The camouflaged library, not my guest quarters, was to be locked overnight. That left me free to slip away with the scoop of the millenium—but neither any explanation for these incredible events, nor proof. As Geoff, Harry, and their undisclosed... colleagues? cronies? coconspirators?... had anticipated (by bedtime that first night, my closet and dresser offered several changes of clothes in about my size), I stayed.
I had to know the why of everything. Why had Harry defected, and why had his people been so determined to stop him? Why had Gramps and TJ kept his secret? What, if anything, did they (and, I was all but certain, William Clark) conspire to accomplish? And why did the family still protect secrets more than two centuries old?
Perhaps Harry slept that night. Certainly I didn’t. Around two in the morning, I went for a ramble about. Geoff had told me to remain on the ninth level, much of which was dedicated to the “Lewis family project.” For a time I did, but mysteries barely glimpsed up and down the grand central staircase got the better of me. By penlight, I explored. I don’t claim to understand the square-and-compass symbols all over the temple, or the altar in the third floor lodge room, with its velvet-covered kneeler and anachronistic electric candles, or the mindset behind the incongruous art-deco touches. I didn’t need to know anything about the Masons to appreciate the massive marble columns, the cathedral ceiling of an unfinished auditorium, and the grand, two-storied, marble-tiled lobby—or to put a name to the larger-than-life statue that dominated said lobby. Without doubt, that was Thomas Jefferson.
Before I could survey even a small portion of the temple’s wonders and excesses, a short, barrel-chested man rushed out of a dim side corridor. He was unmistakably a Lewis, notwithstanding the sagging, St. Bernard jowls of old age. He said, “I must insist you come upstairs with me.”
“I’m merely admiring the architecture, Mr. Lewis,” I rebutted. “Anyway, the public is allowed on this floor.”
“On particular occasions, scheduled and well monitored. As for my name, it’s Doctor Wilson. It’s Vincent, if we can skip being so formal. But indeed, I am a Lewis on my mother’s side. Geoffrey is my nephew. Come with me, please.”
“Maybe later. Or feel free to walk with me.”
Vincent shook his head. “You have been afforded a rare glimpse of secrets little known even among the orders permitted broad access to the temple. That privilege doesn’t make you a Mason, nor does it entitle you to wander wherever you wish, much less to do so unescorted.”
“So escort me. I need to stretch my legs after sitting all day.”
We compromised on walking circuits around the unfinished auditorium. Apart from several stacks of chairs against the side walls, the vast space was empty. Vincent raised the lights enough to walk about safely and, incidentally, to reveal vibrant stained-glass windows. Thick carpet swallowed the pad of our footsteps.
Midway through our second circuit, I burst out, “Why? Why did Harry stay on Earth?”
“Are you sure?” Vincent let out a deep breath. “The answer goes beyond family lore, into matters that reverberate even today. There will be no going back once you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well,” Vincent said, pointing to the nearest of the chair stacks, “I think it’s best you sit some more.”
~~~
The bottom line: Hroath civilization was paranoid and murderous. Their saving grace—in the most minimalist possible meaning of the phrase—was a trace of conscience. Not every intelligence encountered by their starships merited reflexive genocide.
“How?” I shivered.
“They have a variety of tools,” Vincent said. “Biotech plagues. Dropping big rocks. Erupting a supervolcano, like Yellowstone. I don’t understand all the possibilities. Maybe no human does. It’s enough that Harry knows. And that, fortunately, he had his doubts humanity needed to be hurled back into a stone age.”
“Is he helping us progress faster, to protect ourselves?”
“Quite the opposite.” Vincent cleared his throat. “You’re certain you want to know?”
“At this point, I couldn’t stand not knowing.”
“I understand.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “The Great Silence spooked the Hroath. You know about that?”
Occasionally it paid to work for the Truth. “On the one hand, there are stars and planets all around. So why not life, and intelligence, and radio chatter? On the other hand, after decades of listening, radio astronomers have yet to hear any alien transmissions. And so what? Maybe we’ll hear something tomorrow. There are lots of possible explanations, starting with we are alone.” I laughed nervously. “Okay, having met Harry, I know that possibility doesn’t hold water.”
“Exactly one candidate explanation for the Great Silence matters: the belief that drives Hroath civilization. Preemption. It would take only a single advanced but genocidal civilization to stomp out the rest. For centuries, the Hroath have been in a panic that whoever caused the Great Silence will, sooner or later, come after them. So, Hroath technology is optimized to not draw attention. No high-powered radio, for example.”
“And what has that to do with us?”
Vincent said, “Hroath silence won’t suffice if their neighbors are shouting. Any civilization they come across with radio or interstellar travel, or even with the near-term potential to develop either, they squash.”
Squash. As one would a bug. “J-jeez.”
“Jeez, indeed.”
I willed my voice steady. “And Harry disagreed?”
“In our case, anyway. He thought it wasn’t too late to redirect us.”
“I guess I’m not following.” That was seriously understating my confusion. “Steamboats and hot-air balloons were high tech when Harry met Meriwether Lewis.”
“Hroath look for habitable worlds. If they find one unoccupied, they might settle it. When a world is inhabited by an intelligent species, they monitor for signs of dangerous progress. The more developed a civilization they find, the more frequently they return to... assess it.”
And maybe squash it. I shivered.
“Technology had advanced considerably in the thousand or so years since Earth had last been visited. Humanity wasn’t yet announcing itself to the cosmos—no radios or starships!—but the pace of inspections would be stepped up. Before Harry defected, his shipmates were considering whether a follow-up visit was in order in as little as another hundred years.”
My aptitude for trivia kicked in. The Titanic sank in 1912 and—for all the good it had done—she had broadcast a distress call. And that wouldn’t have been the first use of radio! “A hundred years after Harry met Meriwether, Earth had radio. Why weren’t we stomped flat?”
Vincent yawned into his hand. “A hundred years on their home world. That’s more like 140 years on Earth. Let’s just say humanity dodged a bullet—but you can see why the Lewis clan does what it can to discourage certain kinds of tech.”
The divining of Meriwether Lewis’s hidden past had sometimes come maddeningly slowly, like the drip... drip... drip of Chinese water torture. This conversation came at an opposite aqueous extreme: like trying to drink from a fire hose. Questions—some half-formed, many far less—filled my brain, jostling for egress one against another. I managed to get out, “If the point is to assess Earth’s technology, why inspect the western Louisiana Territory in 1805? It was hardly a center of civilization.”
“Have you seen Harry?” Vincent yawned once more. “A Hroa doesn’t exactly blend into a human crowd. So, they visited rural areas, found natives in isolation, learned various languages, and observed and inferred what they could about our native technology. Besides”—elaborate, jaw-unhinging yawn—“scientists and inventors generally work in population centers. The Hroath never want to inspire a native inventor by flying shuttles anywhere near cities.”
“But why inspect in the Americas at all? In Meriwether’s day, the Old World had far bigger cities and its share of undeveloped regions.”
“Harry can’t explain that.” Vincent leaned forward in his chair. “I mean, he has an answer, but it involves his people’s theories of social and technological development, neither of which was his field. But the fact of the matter is, the Hroath were right. I mean, the United States did soon become a technological leader, then the technological leader, on Earth. If Harry can’t explain how his shipmates predicted that outcome, perhaps Napoleon did.”
I knew exactly two Napoleon quotes. The one about taking Vienna couldn’t possibly have applied, so I tried the second. “Geography is destiny?”
“Maybe so.”
Among my many remaining questions, I chose, “So why did Harry defect?”
“Because he...,” Vincent yawned yet again. Glancing at his wrist, he winced, then stood. “Come with me.”
I tried again. “But why did Harry—”
“You can ask him tomorrow.”
Only I never saw Harry again.
~~~
Back in my temporary quarters, exhausted and exhilarated, I struggled to piece together all I’d read and heard that past few hours. It was too much, too fast. I couldn’t pull it off, at least until I slept. So I lay down, pulled the extra pillow over my head, tossed fitfully—and bolted upright.
