Part 43 (1/2)

”The Horgans?”

”They'd been preaching for centuries that the final days were coming.” He made a strange noise in his throat. ”Now they've come and gone, and the Horgans are still here. Left behind. I wonder what they make of that.”

Belle faded out of range, but we stayed where we were, trying to talk to one another without her help, relying instead on a combination of laughter and patience. We drank the local hot brews, and eventually Viscenda gave up and left, saying that she had work to do. Or something like that. I had never realized that so much communication was non-verbal. That language was a kind of refinement of information pa.s.sed by other means. We discovered that, with the most limited vocabulary, a half dozen words, you could still cover a lot of ground. And eventually, Belle came back.

We asked her to get an explanation about ”the Dark Times.”

When she asked for details, they all looked surprised. ”Well,” said Turam, ”it was, in fact, the end of the world.”

”What happened?”

That brought laughter. ”It got dark,” said Seepah. ”And cold.”

”When?”

”Do you really really not know?” not know?”

”Humor us.”

Belle complained she had no phrase for ”humor us.” Alex said, ”Just ask them to a.s.sume we've been asleep a long time and to tell us what happened.”

”Twenty-four years ago,” Turam said, ”the skies grew dark, and the world became cold.” I did a quick calculation: Echo III needed fourteen months to complete an orbit. So twenty-eight years had pa.s.sed on Rimway.

”Crops wouldn't grow. Whole species of animals died off. We got storms more severe than anything anyone had ever seen. Shortages led to struggles over resources. In the end, people died by the millions.

”It went on for eighteen years. In fact, it never really went away. It's still colder here than it used to be. But the skies have cleared. More or less.”

For a long moment no one spoke. Then we prompted Belle again: ”Why? What caused this to happen?”

”We don't know. Maybe the Horgans are right. Maybe it was a divine judgment. I have no idea.”

Somebody who had stopped to listen said that it was was, and a woman standing off to one side remarked that the notion was crazy.

”How did you you survive?” we asked. survive?” we asked.

Seepah answered: ”We were lucky. We were here. At Akaiyo Akaiyo.”

”Akaiyo?”

”It means,” said Turam, ”the sacred place. It was designed as a place where you could escape, for a time, the outside pressures. Ironic, isn't it?”

”So this is a religious community?” I said.

”No. Think of it, rather, as a place of contemplation. Where the only thing barred is a closed mind.”

”Good,” I said. ”If we had to crash, this was the place.”

Turam smiled. ”We're reasonably well isolated here. When the troubles began, most of the people who were here went home. And probably died. A few made it back. With terrible accounts of life on the outside. Others arrived during the years, and stayed.”

”It was the greenhouses that saved us,” said Seepah. ”We already had two when the Dark Times began. Kaska-he was the director at the time-knew immediately that greenhouses were essential for survival, and they built several others and began to utilize them.”

The room was still.

”We have a hard life here,” said Turam. ”But it is is a life.” a life.”

”The Dark Times,” said Alex, when we were alone. ”That's the connection.”

”I've been thinking the same thing. It began about the time the Silver Comet Silver Comet was here.” was here.”

”Yes.”

”It sounds like an asteroid strike.”

”I suspect that's exactly what happened, Chase.”

”So maybe she saw it. And couldn't help. She saw millions die. And never really recovered from the experience.”

”If that had happened,” Alex said, ”wouldn't her pa.s.sengers have said something?”

”Not necessarily. They might not have known. They wouldn't have had access to the images from the scopes. To them, it would just have been a matter of watching the asteroid go down.”

Alex shook his head. ”I think there's more to it.”

”Like what?”

”I don't know. It doesn't feel feel right.” right.”

And suddenly I saw what had happened. ”There's another possibility, Alex. We know Cavallero didn't do his job properly. He never found the civilization that was here. Probably never looked. So Rachel came out here on a tour. Probably because Cavallero had had noticed an asteroid on a course toward Echo III. It was close enough that they could steer it into a collision. And that's what they did. Give the customers a real thrill. n.o.body ever knew there were people here. There was no electronic signature, so Rachel didn't see them either. Until it was too late.” noticed an asteroid on a course toward Echo III. It was close enough that they could steer it into a collision. And that's what they did. Give the customers a real thrill. n.o.body ever knew there were people here. There was no electronic signature, so Rachel didn't see them either. Until it was too late.”

Alex pressed his fingertips against his forehead and closed his eyes. ”You think she dropped a rock on them?”

”Yeah. The more I think about it-They set the asteroid on a collision course, then sat back and watched it happen. When it hit, it threw up a lot of dust. The weather got cold. Crops failed. When she realized what she'd done, she went back and screamed at Cavallero.”

”But what about the Amicus Society?”

”The Amicus Society? What do they have to do with it?”

”And Winnie.”

When he saw I didn't know what he was talking about, he sighed. A man of infinite patience. ”Rachel's pet gorfa gorfa. We saw two of them, remember? And she said she had a third. All strays.”

”I'm sorry, but I-?”

”Chase, do you think for a minute that a woman who took in strays and worked for at least one animal-rights group would drop an asteroid on a green world?”

We waited twenty minutes until Belle was in range again. Then Alex called her. ”Belle, I want you to go off course for a while.”