Starship Winter (David Conway 03) (4 page)

Matt pursed his lips, tipping his head. “The Elan believe”, he said, “and so do I. Of course, I didn’t before I went to Epiphany. I’d read about the stones. I was intrigued. But what I experienced on the planet…”

“When you were with the elders in the cavern?” Hawk asked.

Matt nodded. I looked at Hannah. She was wide-eyed. Matt said, “The Elan believe that when they die – that is, when their bodies die – their souls migrate to the stones. Of course, the stones have to be in the vicinity. It’s considered a tragedy if an Elan dies away from a stone. Anyway, when they die, their souls or essences are imprinted within the atomic matrices of the stones – and their descendants are able to commune with the stones, with their ancestors.”

“And you experienced this with the elders?” Hannah asked.

“Not as such. They gave me a drug, a sedative, which sent me into a trance. An elder then communed with his family stone, and with the facility of the drug I was able to apprehend a small part of the wonder he was experiencing.” He shrugged. “After that, it was a technical problem I had to solve: how to make something of that experience available to a human audience. That’s what I’ve been working on for the past year, before my second trip to Epiphany to formally request from the Elan the loan of fifty stones.”

Hawk was still frowning. “But do you really think the stones contain the souls of the aliens, or are they merely recording devices which store an impression of their essences?”

Matt pointed a stubby forefinger at the pilot. “Now that, my friend, is the big question. I suppose it depends on your philosophical standpoint.”

“But how were you able to communicate what’s in the stones to us?” Hannah wanted to know.

Matt shook his head. “I don’t think I have. That is, I haven’t been able to communicate the full experience. What I’ve done is suggest, through piezoelectric enhancement, a small part of the content of the stones. You can’t really communicate with the spectral Elan you see when in the vicinity of the stones, merely understand a mood or feeling.”

“Whatever it is”, I said, “it’s damned powerful.”

“But”, said a new voice to the group, “is it art?”

Like a ghost, Dortmund had joined us. He stood beside the table, clutching a tumbler and looking superior. He drew up a seat – a barstool was all that was available – and sat down side-saddle, looming over us.

He did not look at any one of us, as was his habit, but rather stared down at the centre of the table as he said, “I mean, I don’t wish to demean Sommers’ technical accomplishment in staging this… ‘show’, but I would question whether it is really a valid rendition of what it is to be Elan, or whether it’s merely a meretricious, I might even say sensationalist, pantomime.”

Matt said, reasonably, “I never meant it to be a comprehensive statement on what it is to be Elan – that’s impossible. How can the member of one species really apprehend what it’s like to be another? I meant to give some approximation. To communicate this fundamental fact – that despite the differences between the Elan and humans, we have a lot in common.”

Dortmund smiled to himself. “I think that answers my question satisfactorily, then. The exhibition is no more than a pantomime.”

“Don’t be so bloody sententious, Dortmund!” This came from Hannah, seated beside me, and I stared at her in surprise. She was sitting back in her chair and staring at the off-worlder.

Dortmund then did something odd – odd, that is, considering his previous aversion to eye contact. He stared at Hannah, piercingly. “Sententious?”

I expected his gaze to flick away, to rest on the centre of the table again, but it remained fixed on Hannah.

She said, “Just because your ability enables you to commune with the stones and thereby gain a heightened experience of what they contain, that doesn’t mean you have the right to demean the experience the rest of us have had.” She held his gaze, unflinching.

He remained staring at her. He wore an odd expression, as if trying to read something in her features, but was unable to do so.

He said, “But my dear, I don’t demean the value of your experience, I merely criticise the value of the exhibition as a work of so-called art. After all, if criticism has any validity, then surely the considered opinion of a critic with honed expertise and insight ought to be respected.”

Matt joined in. “But you’re not bringing artistic criteria to the exhibition, Dortmund. You have your own agenda. I present
Concordance
as a work of art, not of xeno-ethnological fidelity.”

“Which brings me back to my initial question,” Dortmund said. “Is it art?”

Hannah said, “What is art, anyway, but a means of communicating experience? I’d say that Matt’s exhibition pretty much fulfils that criteria.”

Dortmund gave his maddeningly superior, frosty smile. Oddly, his gaze hadn’t left Hannah since she’d first spoken. “It brings a tawdry, diluted vaudeville of second-hand emotion to a jaded, bourgeois audience,” he said.

Maddie said, “Well, we could be arguing this point all night. Who’s for another drink?”

While she collected orders, Dortmund slipped from his stool and moved across to the rail. I noticed, as he did so, that his stare never left Hannah.

I looked at her. She was watching him as he turned and stood with his back to us, gazing out across the waters of the straight.

I murmured, “I don’t think he likes you, Hannah.”

She took my hand and squeezed. “Then the sentiment is reciprocated.”

Maddie ordered drinks and we chatted of other things. At one point, as Hannah was in conversation with Hawk and Kee, Maddie touched my arm and murmured, “You two are getting on rather well, if I might say?”

I smiled. “She is rather wonderful, Maddie.”

Later that evening, after a few more drinks, I screwed up my courage and said to Hannah, “Ah… you said you’d like to see more of the exhibition. It opens officially tomorrow, and I know a great restaurant on the seafront. I was wondering…”

She tipped her head to one side and smiled at me. “That would be fantastic, David.”

“Great. And there’ll be another show of spindizzies to watch.”

For the rest of the evening I felt like an adolescent on the eve of his first date.

Much later, as we finished our drinks and were about to leave, I happened to glance across at Darius Dortmund, still standing by the balcony rail. I think I was the only one among the group who saw what happened next.

The last of the female spindizzies were making their way inland, and one or two had lost their way and strayed into the bar area. One approached Dortmund by the rail, the insect a thing of scintillating beauty. As it sailed by him at head height, the bar lights catching its iridescent wings, the off-worlder reached out quickly, snatched the spindizzy from the air, and crushed the hapless creature in his fist.

Which was shocking enough, but even more so was the expression of satisfaction on his cold, pale face.

I looked across at Kee to make sure she had not witnessed this arbitrary act of cruelty, but she was hanging onto Hawk’s arms and laughing at something he was saying.

The evening was at an end and I followed the others from the patio.

— THREE —

The following evening I met Hannah at a seafront bar. We had a couple of drinks then moved on to the restaurant. She was wearing a short yellow dress, her only adornment a black velvet choker set with a green oval stone which matched her eyes. As she walked into the bar, my breath caught at the sight of her. I wanted to say how wonderful she looked, but stopped myself from such crassness.

“It’s lovely to see you. Can I get you a drink?”

We kissed cheeks and she said, “I could really kill a beer, David,” and her accent sent a thrill through me.

We slipped into easy conversation from the outset, and my nervousness diminished. We talked and laughed, and I told myself that this was meant to be.

We dined outside by the old harbour, swapping our stories as the light show of the spindizzy mating ritual raged above the straits. The restaurant specialised in local Chalcedony food, and we ordered grilled jackeral and a red salad, my favourite, accompanied by a local rosé.

The most amazing thing about the evening was how easily the conversation flowed. There was never a second when I felt awkward or self-conscious. We made each other laugh with stories of our past, her childhood in rural Holland and mine in British Columbia.

Hannah had been married, briefly, in her early thirties, to a fellow police officer. All she said was that the marriage had been a big mistake, and had ended without recriminations a year later.

I told her about my failed marriage to a gallery owner, about the accident that claimed my daughter, and how the marriage had never recovered from the grief of our mutual loss.

“And that’s when you came to Chalcedony,” Hannah said.

“And met Matt and Maddie, Hawk and Kee.”

“They’re nice people, David. They made me feel so comfortable last night, as if I were one of the crowd.”

I smiled. “They’re like that. They’re… I know this’ll sound corny, but I consider them family.” I took a long swallow of wine, beaming at my companion. “Anyway, that’s enough of me – what brought you here?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I became sick of work on Earth. I was stationed in Rotterdam, with the Homicide Division. I was with the force almost twenty-five years and I was becoming jaded. Desensitised. The murders became… routine. I decided I had to get out.”

I did a quick calculation. “Twenty-five years? So you joined the police straight from school?”

She laughed, covering her mouth with a small hand. “David! You’re trying to flatter me! I joined in my mid-twenties.”

I stared at her. “You’re fifty?”

“Next year.”

“Christ… I mean, I had you down as not a day over forty. I was worried that our age difference…” I stopped, flustered.

She reached out and touched my hand. “David, it wouldn’t matter if you were eighty. Honestly.”

I laughed. “Well, I’m not quite that old. Just eight years your senior.”

“A mere youngster,” she smiled. “Hey, look, we’ve almost finished the bottle. How about another half?”

I agreed to that excellent proposal, and when it arrived I poured two glasses. “So why Chalcedony particularly?”

She shrugged, and I found that slight hitch of her slim shoulders – like every other gesture she made – enchanting. “I was looking for somewhere quiet. I’d never been off-world, and I thought I should experience it before I grew too old. Then I saw a posting advertised here in Mackinley. It sounded great: not too onerous, but with a little responsibility. So I applied, was accepted, then read up on the planet. I’d heard about the golden column, of course, but I never realised that one day I’d be dining with… what did that book call you?”

I held up a hand. “Please, don’t embarrass me!”

“The Opener of the Way.” She tipped her head, looking at me. “How does that make you feel, David?”

I often looked back on the accidental chain of events that led to Hawk flying the
Mantis
into the golden column – and finding that the alien bolt of light was a gateway between two points in space. The discovery opened up the spaceways again, revolutionised star travel, and made Telemass transportation a second-rate means of travelling the Expansion.

I smiled. “I’m a very ordinary person who was caught up in a very extraordinary chain of events. I’m thankful more for having met my friends back then, though of course it was all bound up together.” I shrugged. “I think I’m the most fortunate person on the planet.”

She looked at me over her glass. “And there’s never been anyone since your wife?”

I told her that I’d had a brief fling a couple of years ago , and she nodded to herself and allowed me to change the subject.

“I hope this doesn’t sound sexist, but you’re not what I would imagine a police lieutenant to be.”

She smiled. “I know what you mean. How could I fight my way out of a tricky situation with my build?” She tipped her head. “Well, I’m trained for things like that, of course. But the reality is that police work these days is all about up here,” she tapped her temple. “It’s about working out motives, assessing psychological states, making lateral cognitive leaps.”

“I think you displayed that last night when you argued with Dortmund,” I said. “I was impressed.”

“Him?” She blew, dismissing the off-worlder. “Dortmund is an egotist with megalomaniacal traits. Let’s not talk about him.”

We finished the wine and I suggested we make our way to the exhibition.

Hannah laughed. “I’ve been anticipating this all day! Let’s go.”

We left the restaurant and made the short walk along the seafront to the exhibition centre.

* * *

Word had evidently got out that Matt Sommers’ latest show was something special. There was a long queue outside the entrance and officials were allowing entry to only six individuals at a time. We had to wait for about fifteen minutes before being allowed inside, but the wait only increased our anticipation.

We stepped into the chamber – illuminated by the central ruby light casting radial lances at the fifty stones – like children entering Santa’s grotto. I was delighted when Hannah took my hand and led me across to a plinth we had not experienced yesterday: I had feared she might want to enjoy the stones alone.

The first stone bathed us in tangerine light and communicated something which Hannah later described as “an alien Gaia experience”. We were one with the planet of Epiphany, escorted through a series of natural wonders – mountains and waterfalls and rift valleys – by a pair of venerable Elan. For a long time we ceased to be ourselves, all thoughts of life on Chalcedony banished, as we absorbed the unspoilt natural beauty of the alien world.

We tottered from the stone when the light dimmed, a little drunk with the experience. Hannah looked at her watch. “My God, David. We were in there an hour!”

I shook my head. “I’d’ve guessed fifteen minutes…”

Hannah stiffened. She was still holding my hand and I felt her whole body tense. “What…?” I began.