The Shadow and Night (66 page)

“Excuse me,” the visitor said, in a sharp, no-nonsense voice, “Representative Corradon said to call here. Are you—?”

“Forester Merral Stefan D'Avanos.” Merral turned. “And this is—”

But Vero had joined him. “Verofaza Laertes Enand, sentinel. Or Vero.”

The visitor's smile was open and toothy. “And I'm Gerrana Anna Habbentz, Research Professor of Physics, Isterrane University. You can call me Gerry.”

Vero shook her hand and gestured to the balcony. “Welcome, Gerry. Come and join us; take a seat. I'm afraid my physics is rather decayed. What sort of physics, anyway?”

“Stellar physics,” she said, walking out onto the balcony with a grace that seemed surprising for such a large woman. Yet as he looked at her, Merral was aware that, for all her vigor, she was troubled.

“We have a good little department, really,” Gerry said, taking in the view. “Or
had
. . . before the Gate went. Fifty years of isolation isn't going to help.” Suddenly she looked glum.

“I'm sorry. Can we get you a drink?” Vero said.

“Thanks. Water's fine,” Gerry said, lowering herself into a chair and stretching out long legs. “And we will lose lab access. Of course.”

“Lab access?” Merral asked.

“Far Station physics lab and solar observatory. Thank you,” she said, as Vero offered her a glass of water. “Yes, flight cutbacks.”

“Ah,” Merral said.

She shrugged wearily. “That's the least of the issues.” She sipped the water. “Look, guys, sorry to come here without warning, but I have something that
may
be of value.”

Vero smiled—Merral decided that there was something about Gerry that invited smiles—and said, “Let me guess: you have a faster-than-light-speed ship all ready to launch?”

Gerry returned his smile, but Merral felt there was pain in it. “Now wouldn't
that
be nice?” She sipped at the water again. “But you are pretty close. I may—mark the word
may—
have a way for you to contact the Assembly.”

“Surely not.” The smile left Vero's face and his eyes widened. “You'd need a Gate link of some sort.”

“No. We may be able to send a message by quantum-linked photons.”

Vero looked at Merral with a baffled expression; Merral felt sure that he returned it.

“Gerry,” Vero said, “go slow here, please.”

She shrugged. “It's been known since the dawn of physics—well, Einstein anyway—that you can link subatomic particles so that if you separate them, what happens to one happens to the other.” She looked inquiringly at them with her big dark eyes. “ ‘Quantum entanglement?' No? ‘Spooky action-at-a-distance'?”

“Sorry.”

“Oh well . . . Anyway,” she said, “trust me. Einstein got a lot wrong, but not this. If you had some linked photons on Ancient Earth and brought some of them here, what you did to those here would instantly be duplicated on Earth. Okay? So, in theory, if you released them as flashes of light here, matching flashes of light would occur on Earth. Instantly. So you could send a message.”

“But—,” Vero began.

“Why isn't it used? Because it's horribly complex to set up. And there's noise. And conventional Gate links work well, are simple, and 100 percent reliable.”

“Until now,” Vero added.

“Exactly,” she agreed, and Merral heard a tinge of sadness in her voice.

“But, Gerry,” Vero said slowly, “if I understand you—you'd need two things: A supply of linked photons here and someone somewhere else watching their—
entangled,
you said?—counterparts.”

“Exactly. And it turns out that we have a limited supply of the first and we may have the second.”

“Go on,” said Vero, his face a picture of eagerness.

“As part of advanced physics, post-Einsteinian physics part three—never the most popular course, by the way—we demonstrate the principle. We have a twinned department—at Zacaras University on Tahmolan—two hundred light-years away, and we have a small supply of entangled photons they sent us. And, at a prearranged time, we send them simple messages.”

“It works?” Vero asked.

“Of course it works,” she said sharply. “That's why we do it. So, theoretically, we could send them a message. And if someone is watching—expecting a signal—then they might see and decode it.”

“And
would
anyone be watching?”

Gerry colored slightly. “The professor there, Amin Ryhan, is a good friend. Well, more than that—”

Suddenly, Merral understood exactly why this woman was troubled. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm very sorry.”

Gerry's face wrinkled. “Yeah. Well, it happens. We were committed and going to get engaged. Amin wanted me to leave Farholme. . . . Sorry, that's all personal stuff—” For a second, Merral thought she was going to cry, but she blinked and began again. “I was going to try to send a message to him. Then I thought that was selfish. So I had a chat with Anwar—Representative Corradon—yesterday; he's a distant relative. And he said to talk to you. Straightaway. I suppose he wants me to send a message to the Assembly saying that we are okay and that the casualties are low. To list the seven dead on the ship.”

“No,” Vero said, with a fierce shake of his head. “Gerry, we have a far more important message. How much can you send?”

She hesitated. “Not much. Forty words sent a hundred times, or a hundred words sent forty times. And there's no guarantee. We may not even get an acknowledgement. I'd go for repetitions over length. Send them on the hour, Universal Assembly Time.”

“Merral,” Vero said, his face a confusion of emotions, “we need to talk. Gerry, will you excuse us?”

Merral followed Vero into his bedroom.

Vero closed the door. “My friend, if this works, it's a gift of God,” he hissed. “We have to use it now.”

“Shouldn't we get it approved by the representatives?”

Vero shook his head. “No. Definitely
no.
Corradon's given us the go-ahead. They could spend months debating the wording. Or that's the way I read it. Besides, the warning needs to be sent now.” He clenched his fists. “Merral, my caution caught me out last time. I will not risk another delay.”

“But do we let her in on the secret?”

“Of course. We have to. She's a useful ally.” Vero pulled out his notebook. “But what to say?”

After a few minutes of scribbling and crossing out, they had agreed on three sentences:

Farholme Gate destruction not an accident but sabotage by non-Assembly forces. Evidence of genetically modified humans, superior technology, and hostile intent. Intruder presence associated with a corrupting spiritual evil.

Vero hesitated, looked at it again, and shook his head.

“No point in messing about, is there?” he said quietly. He took a deep breath and added three words:
Arm the Assembly!

“I can't believe I wrote that,” he said in an awed tone and looked at Merral. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” answered Merral slowly, feeling—yet again—out of his depth.

Vero signed it. “There,” he said. “That will put the cat among the pigeons.”

“The what?”

Vero shrugged. “A twentieth-century Ancient English idiom. It was one of their sports; they would chase pigeons with cats. They were odd like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, not really. But it's a confident guess. They
were
odd—” Vero slapped Merral on the back—“but let's see what the prof says.”

They walked out to see Gerry leaning on the balcony rail and staring out to the western headland where the fluffy clouds still hung over the plateau.

“Gerry,” said Vero, handing her a sheet of paper from the notebook, “you'd better sit down and read this. You should add some words of your own to Amin.”

She sat down and read it, shook her head so her dark hair flew about, and read it again. The color drained from her face. Then, without warning, she slammed her fist down on the table so hard the glass bounced off it, scattering water on the floor.

“I knew it!” she snapped, her voice bitter and angry. “I knew it. It wasn't an accident. These . . . animals!” She glared at the paper again, then looked up with wild and angry eyes. “You'd better tell me what's going on.”

Over the next ten minutes, Merral and Vero explained to Gerry what had happened. As they did, Merral felt that Gerry's mood seemed to harden. When they had finished, she got up from her chair, paced around for a moment, then stood against the wall and stared at them, a picture of defiance.

“Okay, I get the picture,” she said. “It's
war.
I'll send the message this evening. But what else can I do? These things are our enemy. The Assembly's enemy. They are evil.”

“I think we can use a physicist,” Vero said. “I'd like you to think about how these things got here. These creatures have come a long way. By a ship, not a Gate. Hibernation? Colony ships?”

She nodded. “Or faster-than-light travel. Autonomous Below-Space travel, perhaps.” She paused. “Okay. I'll go and send the message. It will take time to set up the equipment. It should go tonight. But no guarantees, right? We may not even get a confirmation back.”

“Gerry, do what you can,” Vero said. “I'll be in touch.”

“I hope so,” she said, and there was determination in her voice. “I'd like to do something to fight back.”

As they strode to the door, Merral felt Gerry's shoulders had straightened, and her eyes glittered with a new purpose.

“Oh, Gerry,” Vero said, “you know Perena Lewitz?”

“The captain? Yeah, she's flown us to the lab before now.”

“That's her. Get together and talk with her on the travel issue. She has some orbital data.”

“Okay, I'll do just that.”

“Anything else you can think of you might want to look at?”

“Yes,” she said, fixing Vero with brown eyes from which any softness had fled. “I'm surprised you didn't mention it.”

“What?”

“Weapons.
” There was a cold anger in her words.

“I'm not sure—,” Merral began to say, but Vero silenced him with a gesture. Merral said, “Okay, Gerry. You look into that too.”

As their visitor's footsteps faded away down the corridor, Merral turned to Vero. “Was that wise? To talk of weapons?”

“It was her suggestion,” said Vero defensively. “And it's only research.”

“And shouldn't we have warned her not to get too deep in exploring Below-Space?”

“My friend, it's only a theory. But I'll mention it when we meet again.”

There was a knock at the door. Merral opened it to find a man in an official uniform who introduced himself as the driver sent to collect him.

“My apologies for being early,” the man said. “There has been a change in schedule. Are you ready to leave now?”

Vero followed Merral as he went to his bedroom to collect the few things he had.

“I leave it up to you what to say to people in Ynysmant and Herrandown,” Vero said with quiet insistence. “Thankfully, in a strange way, the destruction of the Gate has wiped our trip north out of most people's minds.”

“True, but I will have to talk to Henri about it at least.”
And Isabella will want to know.

“Yes, it's difficult. But you could, I think, just say that there may be some genetic anomalies up there. If people want to think that they are natural mutations, just let them think so.”

“So we tell the partial truth and not the whole truth?”

“Oh, I suppose so.” Vero sighed. “It's all so difficult. Remember: what is said cannot be unsaid; what is unsaid can yet be said. But encourage some precautions, though.”

“I will.”