“I didn’t know such a profession existed.”
“There aren’t many. She was the lead on the New Cu-morah project.”
I’d never heard of New Cumorah.
“That was an archeological expedition to the New Zion system. A solar flare wiped out all life on the inner planets more than two hundred years ago. Recently, there was some question whether the flare was caused by New Zionist technology. The Sunnis had claimed it was the Will of Allah…” Elysen broke off and nodded to Henjsen. “Might we join you, Kait? This is Chendor Barna.”
“Please do. I’m pleased to meet you, Chendor. Ely has told me about the portrait you did of her. It must be marvelous. She’s a perfectionist.”
“You’re too kind.” What else could I say?
“Neither Ely nor I is kind.” Kaitlin offered an expression that was wry, not exactly a smile, but not disapproval. Her forehead wrinkled slightly, and her thick blonde eyebrows lifted. Unlike Elysen, while she was tall, she was fine-boned, with a small but squarish chin and gray eyes that could look as cold as rain-soaked stone when she was angry, I suspected.
“Perfection is hard on kindness.” I eased into the seat across from her and on Elysen’s right.
“Spoken like a true artist,” added the black-haired man to Kaitlin’s right. “I’m Reyal Torres. Paleontology.”
There was a momentary silence. I looked at Elysen. “You never finished explaining.”
“It’s something I’ve always wondered about, and since we were here…”
“Wherever ‘here’ is,” murmured Torres.
“… it seemed like a worthwhile idea. We’ve been making observations—the ones that we can with the relative velocity of the Magellan—trying to determine the gas density of the hole in the Small Wall.”
“Small Wall?” My murmur was almost inadvertent.
Elysen turned to me. “I’m sorry, Chendor. The Small Wall of Galaxies is a section of the universe. Generally, the spacing is regular, far too regular for chance, except there’s nothing that suggests it’s anything but coincidence, but there is a hole in that spacing, and we have a chance to take observations that the earlier astronomers who studied it could not do.” She smiled. “They were called the Hole-in-the-Wall gang and never had the data to reach a consensus. Since the exact center of the gravi-ton trace line of Chronos appears to come from the hole in the Small Wall, persuading the commander that it might be relevant was not too difficult, particularly since there appear to be traces of some unusual energies involved. This could be of import, because the concentration of matter in the hole in the Wall is extraordinarily low and comes from a later date than the galaxies of the Small Wall, all of whom ate true second-generation population-two galaxies.”
I was still lost, but nodded.
“We’re not that far, not in astronomical terms, from where Chronos and Danann started, and they represent at least a high Type II civilization…”
“How did you know where they started?” asked Kaitlin abruptly.
“Once we knew that Chronos and Danann were on the opposite ends of the same course,” Elysen replied, “that wasn’t too hard. We did have to persuade Commander Morgan to surrender some navigational information. When we explained the significance to Project Deep Find, he provided it He wasn’t totally enthusiastic, and he made us sign a secrecy agreement of sorts.”
“What have you discovered?” I finally asked. “And what’s a Type II civilization?”
“A Kardashev Type II civilization is one that can harness all the energy from a single star. A Type III civilization should be able to harness all the energy from a single galaxy. Not that anyone knows how that might be done. We humans are roughly a low Type II.” She paused to take a sip of wine. “As for what we’ve discovered… nothing. That’s what’s surprising. We’d always thought that the hole in the Small Wall was just a random effect, or even a thick intergalactic dust cloud. It’s not. It’s truly a hole, and the samplings and observations we’ve taken over the last day seem to support that.”
“A hole? A hole in the universe?” That seemed unlikely, but I was only an artist. I depicted what was there, usually, not what wasn’t.
“In a way. It’s as if something had been removed once, somehow. Over the eons, gases have drifted in, pushed and pulled by various forces, but the area that we think is where the two bodies started out is closer to a pure vacuum than anywhere else we’ve found in the universe. That’s a preliminary observation, of course. We’ll need more and better data to confirm that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s unprecedented.” Elysen shrugged and smiled. It was an expression that even the ancient Leonardo would have called enigmatic. “If… if the finding holds… who knows?”
“You don’t use terms like ‘unprecedented’ lightly, Ely,” Kaitlin pointed out.
“It’s anomalous, just like Chronos. Two connected anomalies generally mean that either the data or the observations are wrong, or that our understanding of that aspect of the universe is about to change. I don’t know which it might be yet. There’s no point in speculating.”
“Do you think that Danann will help?”
Elysen shrugged again.
I looked to Kaitlin. “Do you think you’ll find anything of interest on Danann?”
“Even the preliminary data suggests there is a great deal of interest on Danann. Whether we can make any sense out of it… that’s another question.”
“You may be able to accomplish more than any of us scientists.” Elysen looked at me.
“Me?” As I spoke, I could see a tightness in Kaitlin Henjsen’s face. She didn’t like the idea that an artist might discover more than an archeologist.
“Images spark ideas,” replied Elysen. “That could be because most artists work more directly from the subconscious. My only suggestion would be that you don’t be secretive with your work. Let people see it, even before it’s finished.”
I couldn’t stop the wince. I hated to display unfinished work.
“Chendor,” Elysen went on, “you don’t have to show it publicly. Just let a few of the scientists working in that area see it.”
I might be able to do that.
FINDING
30
Chang
Sevenday night was when we went through the third Gate. I didn’t have duty, and it was late. Knew we had another day or more after translation before we got near Danann. Didn’t watch. Just strapped into my bunk. Barely woke up for the moment of null grav, then went back to sleep.
Oneday, I spent another couple of hours in the shuttle, going through systems checks, running sims, until Morgan chased me out He told me some of the backups needed time, too. Braun and Lerrys would have told me. Besides, I’d checked with them.
Went back to the ready room at fifteen hundred for the pilots’ briefing. Braun and Lerrys were already there. Morgan wasn’t in the ready room, but Tepper was. So were the surviving needleboat pilots, all but Shaimen. She was still in sick bay, but likely to get out before long.
Tepper had the farscreens focused on Danann. Could barely see it. Not much more than a dark orb, even with full enhancement.
“We won’t be in orbit until tomorrow around ten hundred. The Alwyn is already running sweeps. There’s no sign of any life or energy concentrations except for the expedition. Even so, we’ll be maintaining full defensive surveillance the entire time the expedition is here.”
Full defsurv in the middle of an intergalactic void? Couldn’t fault it, but had to wonder whether we had to worry more about alien defenses billions of years old than Sunni or Covenanter attacks. How would anyone track us through three Gates?