The Fatal Tree (17 page)

T
he tenth observation session at the Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope produced profoundly alarming results for two different reasons.A first-pass analysis of the data indicated that the disturbance in sector B240-22N was growing in size. The region where the original discrepancy had first been noticed had mushroomed in the relatively short time since the previous scan. The two other observatories that Dr. Segler had pulled into the project confirmed this result, which brought about the second alarming development: the NASA team that had arrived to look into developments now demanded complete control of the programme.

“They’re hijacking Operation Nightfall!” bellowed Dvorak. “They’re trying to freeze us out completely. They can’t do this – it’s
our
programme!” He pounded on the desk for emphasis. “You’ve got to tell them where they can shove it!”

“Okay, Leo, calm down,” Segler said. “Nobody’s hijacking anything. I’ve got a call in to the administrator’s office and another to the COCC. We’ll get this sorted out. Just be patient.” He regarded his technical director with bemusement. “Operation Nightfall, huh? Is that what they’re calling it?”

“This wouldn’t even be on NASA’s radar if it wasn’t for us!” Dvorak said, refusing to be diverted. “They can’t just take over like this. They don’t know how to run the equipment properly, and they’re slowing things down. You’ve got to get them out of here. Send ’em packing.”

Dvorak left the office, slamming the door as he went.

“Your concerns are duly noted,” Segler sighed, sinking back into his chair once more. “Don’t slam the door.”

The director raised his eyes to see Tony Clarke watching him from his place at a makeshift desk across the room. “I sympathise, Sam.”

Segler gave a mirthless bark of a laugh. “Who with – him or me?”

“With both of you, actually. It isn’t right that NASA tries to take over the show. I can’t see that being good for anybody. Bad for morale, for one thing, and you’re going to need happy campers to advance the operation. I’ve been project director a few times in my career and, believe me, I know how tricky it can get trying to appease various warring factions and keep the project moving forward.”

“That
is
the main thing right now,” Segler said, resting his elbows on the table and holding his head in his hands. “Keeping it all together – which we won’t be able to do for too much longer anyway. With data being verified and analysed by independent facilities elsewhere, it is only a matter of time before somebody drops a dime to CNN. The whole thing could blow up in our faces any minute.”

“You’re right, of course. We’re not going to be able to keep the lid on this much longer. It is big and it is going to get out. So we’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize – finding out what is actually going on out there.” Tony gestured out the window in the direction of a pale desert sky. “You might disagree, but the main objective at this point, as I see it, is to stay in the game. It is information we want – the best we can get – let’s not lose sight of that. We should put our efforts into keeping ourselves in a position to gather and maintain access to information no matter who is running the show.”

Sam Segler nodded and gave his old friend a forlorn smile. “Thanks for the pep talk.” Seeing Tony’s protest forming, he held up a hand quickly. “No, I mean it. I needed to be reminded. This is all about the data. I’ll cut a deal with NASA that, if nothing else, will let us keep our place at the table.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Tony. He glanced around the room as if suddenly remembering something he had forgotten. “Where’s Gianni got to?”

“I think he must be down in command central. Want me to call him?”

“No thanks,” replied Tony, rising from his chair. He stretched his back and neck and started for the door. “I think I’ll wander down and see how the troops are getting on. You need me for anything?”

“No, you go ahead,” replied Segler, reading off a small desk monitor. “I just got an e-mail saying I’m to expect a conference call from NASA COCC in ten minutes.”

“Good luck with that.”

Tony closed the door and made his way down to the Desert Rats’ den where he found Gianni sitting at a workstation. The technical staff were all huddled around the Italian astronomer, heads down, staring at a monitor. Tony ambled over to the group. “Greetings, Earthlings,” he said. “What’s up?”

One of the group raised his head. It was Jason, the grad student. “UT–Austin just sent us an updated data sheet,” he said, nodding toward the unseen screen. He hesitated.

“And… ?” inquired Tony.

“It’s definitely whacked.”

“Hmmm…” Tony nodded. “Maybe I should take a look.”

Jason stepped aside, allowing Tony to take his place in the huddle. Leaning over Gianni’s shoulder, Tony saw a black LCD screen with a green grid on which was superimposed a jagged line in glowing red tracing a downward trajectory that ended below the green line at the bottom. Tony took in the coordinates on the graph and said, “Is that what I think it is?”

One of the astronomers turned his face to Tony and nodded. “The cosmic cliff, man. That’s what it is.”

A routine scan of the red-shift values of objects near the cosmic horizon had indicated a disturbance – the initial anomaly that had set the current project in motion. That disturbance had been confirmed by subsequent scans and others from different sectors conducted by participating facilities. Astrophysicists from the Texas facility had applied the data of the last five scans from three separate radio telescopes to a timeline in order to show the predicted course of events. In other words, if trajectories continued as observed, the end result – as portrayed by the graph – would look like the crosssection of a hillside that began as a gently rounded slope and then plummeted like the Grand Canyon.

“What’s the time coordinate?” Tony indicated the bottom line of the graph. “Years or months?”

Gianni shook his head gravely. “Weeks,” he said, never lifting his eyes from the monitor. “Weeks only.”

One of the astronomers put a finger to the screen where the red line met and dropped below the bottom line of the graph. “That is where expansion ends and collapse begins.”

“The beginning of the end,” whispered another. She raised her head and with moist eyes gazed in shock at her fellow astronomers. “God help us all.”

K
it stood over the body of Thomas Young.Tiny tendrils of smoke issued from the collar and cuffs of the doctor’s linen coat; Thomas’ left foot was bare – the energy surge had knocked off both shoe and sock.The stench of singed cloth, hair, and flesh hung heavily in the air.

“Kit?” Cass, kneeling beside the body, raised her face to him. “What are we going to do?”

Kit knelt down beside the still-warm body and leaned close. There was no breath in the lungs, and the steel frames of the doctor’s glasses were skewed, the lenses cracked. He took one of Thomas’ hands and laid it gently on the still chest; the other hand was burned almost beyond recognition.

“I’m scared, Kit,” Cass murmured. Her voice quivered and her hands were shaking. “I’m really scared.”

Kit put his arm around her shoulders and held her close as the first waves of guilt washed over him. He felt as if he should have prevented it somehow. If only he had been more vigilant, more cautious… He should have known something like this could happen. He should have been ready. He should…

“We’ve got to do something,” said Cass, her voice suddenly strident, almost frantic. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged off his pack and dug out his leather flask of water. “Here, take this to Mina. Get her to drink some.” When Cass did not move, he pushed the flask into her hands. “Go on.”

Kit sat back and surveyed the damage. Wilhelmina was badly injured and Dr. Thomas Young – the polymath physician, linguist, Egyptologist, humanitarian, and one of the greatest scientists ever to have lived, Mina’s mentor, his friend, the Last Man in the World to Know Everything – was dead. Killed by the Fatal Tree. The name, conferred by Young himself, mocked him now. Staring at the body, Kit felt his stomach roil with grief and remorse. His mouth filled with bile and he swallowed it back down. Putting his head in his hands, he closed his eyes and let stinging tears of sorrow and regret fall. How could he have let this happen?

In a moment, he felt a cool hand on his neck. “It’s not your fault,” whispered Cass.

“I should have warned him better, made him understand. I should have looked out for him.”

“Yes,” agreed Cass. “We both should have. But Mina needs us now.”

Kit rubbed away the tears and drew a deep breath. He stood. “We have to dig a grave.”

“Okay,” began Cass, “but maybe first – ”

“Right now,” Kit insisted. “Mina needs help, and we can’t leave Dr. Young like this.” He pushed Cass away. “Take care of Mina. See if you can find something to make a sling for her arm – a scarf or something. I’ll start digging a grave.” He stood, picked up his pack, and moved toward the doctor’s corpse.

Kit fished the small hand ax from his pack and, after scratching a large oval outline in the soft dirt beside the body, began chopping into the outline. When he had scored up a fair section, he scooped out the dirt with his hands, then chopped some more.

Cass joined him a few minutes later, took her place beside him, and started digging. “Mina’s pretty foggy, but she thinks she can walk on her own. I gave her some more water and told her what happened.”

“How did she take it?”

“How do you think?” Cass snapped, then relented. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Mina doesn’t look good. I think she’s in a lot of pain.”

Kit nodded and continued to dig. “As soon as we’re finished here, we’ll head for the Valley Ley. We can rest there until the ley becomes active.”

They worked together without speaking and managed to hollow out a shallow grave. When they judged it sufficient, they gently rolled the doctor’s body into it. Kit arranged the doctor’s limbs and straightened his clothes and glasses, trying to make the man as dignified as possible. Then he sat back on his heels and regarded his handiwork. After a moment, Cass said, “It’s got to be done.”

Kit nodded and began scooping loose earth onto the body of the great Thomas Young. He would have preferred to cover the mound with stones, but there were none around and he could not spare the time searching for them. The activity reminded him of another burial he had conducted – with Dardok and the River City clansmen when one of the hunters had been attacked and killed by a lion at the entrance to the cave. Wilhelmina joined them as they were finishing and, with her good hand, added a last handful of dirt onto the grave. “It isn’t much, is it?” she observed, her voice thick and laboured. “For a man like that there should be more.” She gazed at the sorry mound with deep, sad eyes, then dropped her head. “There should be more.”

“There should be,” Kit agreed, brushing dirt from his hands and knees. “But this will have to do for now.”

They all three stood for a time, just looking at the grave, each saying farewell in their own way. Then Kit moved to his pack and slung it over his shoulder. “We should go.”

Cass bent down, placed a hand on the mound, and said, “
Vaya con Dios,
Dr. Young.”

Kit moved to where Mina stood with her arm in a sling Cass had fashioned out of the blue pashmina. “Can you make it down to the valley?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, we’ll go slowly. We stay together and stay alert.” With a last good-bye glance at Thomas Young’s grave, he pushed through the encircling beech hedge and into the wood beyond. Cass, with an arm around Mina’s shoulders, followed, and they slowly, painfully retraced their steps through the thick-grown woodland and out across the grassy plain.

The little herd of gazelles had moved on, and the plain now hosted larger ruminants that Cass identified as
Bos primigenius
, or aurochs – large, lumbering creatures that looked like oversized cows with a high shoulder hump and massive outspread horns. The animals eyed the humans with docile indolence and continued their grazing. Kit called it a good sign and took it to mean that no other predators were around. They reached the trailhead at the canyon rim and paused to allow Wilhelmina to rest a moment, then started down the long slope to the ley point. “We’ve got plenty of time,” Kit told them. “We can rest and eat while we wait.”

They made Wilhelmina comfortable and, though no one had much appetite, ate a little from the provisions in their pack, then settled down to nap and wait for the ley to become active. But, though they waited through the long afternoon, they waited in vain. Despite Kit’s best efforts and several futile attempts, the travellers failed to detect even the slightest itch or tingle of telluric energy – no prickling on the skin, no tickling of the scalp. The sun had long ago sunk below the western horizon when Kit finally called a halt to their efforts. “Well, this is bad,” he said. “This is what happened before.”

“Before,” echoed Wilhelmina. “You mean – when you got stuck here before?”

“We could be here a long – ” began Kit.

“Don’t say that,” Cass said sharply. “Don’t even think it.”

“I’m just saying…” Kit let it go and glanced to the sky to judge the time. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Right now we’d better see about getting some shelter for the night. Come on.”

The trail leading down into the gorge was already sunk deep in shadow; here and there the edge sheered away, forcing them to walk single file next to the rock wall lest they stumble and plunge over the side. Upon reaching the valley floor, Kit paused to allow Wilhelmina a chance to rest, but she urged them to move on. “It’s best if I keep going,” she said through clenched teeth. So they continued on along a path parallel to the river, moving upstream. Kit blazed the trail before them; Cass and Mina followed close behind with grim, robot-like determination.

The river track, forged and used by animals, was bounded on either side by blackberry brambles, nettles, and stickery dog roses – not a problem in the daytime, but treacherous in the failing light. They kept getting snagged and raked and stung as they pushed through the undergrowth. The air at the bottom of the gorge was heavy and moist, and warmer than on the upper rim. Sweating, swatting gnats and tiny biting flies, the three picked their way carefully along, watching as the last light of day faded in the pale sky above.

Mina, moving with much more difficulty, slowed their progress; the first stars were shining when Kit finally spied the outline of the familiar bluff. He paused, wiped the sweat from his face, and announced to the women a few steps behind, “I see it! Just ahead. We’re almost there.”

“Thank God,” sighed Cass. To Mina she said, “A little farther and then you can rest.”

Mina, eyes glassy, jaw clenched, merely nodded.

The way widened somewhat as the path became barren rock leading to the rounded limestone bluff and the cave above. The sky still held a little light, and away to the east a sliver of moon was cresting the canyon rim. Kit stopped. “Here we are,” he said, indicating what appeared to be little more than a dark spot in the cliff face. “Listen, Mina, there’s a shelf protected by a rock overhang with a small cave behind it. It’s a bit of a climb, but we’ll get you up. Just sit tight for a second until I get it sorted out, okay?”

Kit disappeared into a gap between two boulders and climbed the old familiar stairway formed by tumbled rocks and rubble. Upon reaching the top, he turned and signalled to Cass. “Okay, ready!”

Wilhelmina raised her eyes to where Kit was waving to them. “I can’t do it,” she said, looking at the too-narrow gap and the scramble up the rocks protecting the entrance. “My arm is killing me.” She glanced around in the failing light. “Maybe I can just stay down here.”

“You can make it,” Cass said. “Kit will help you from above and I’ll support your weight from below. All you have to do is relax and put yourself in our hands. Let us do the work, okay?”

Mina, eyes shut, her mouth pressed tight, gave a nod of resignation.

Cass guided Mina through the gap and up the stony steps. When they were in position, she grasped Wilhelmina around her knees and lifted; Mina used her good hand to steady herself against the rock face and protect her injured arm. Kit, on his stomach, leaning over the ledge, took Mina under her arms and lifted; together, he and Cass slowly manoeuvred her up and over. Mina, biting her lip against the pain, was in tears by the time she collapsed onto the ledge.

“We’re there,” declared Kit as he eased Mina up onto the platform. “It’s over. You made it.”

Cass scrambled up into the shelter. “Well done, Mina,” she said, wiping sweat from her face. She steered Mina to the nearest wall and eased her down into a sitting position; she put down her pack and joined Kit at the shelter opening, looking out across the lower valley and the curve of the slow-flowing river as it bent around the base of the bluff and out of sight. The water was silky in the soft evening light, and the air was alive with the sounds of cicadas buzzing and birds flocking to roost. She breathed in the soft air and exhaled a heavy sigh. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and forget the last few hours. Instead, she squared her shoulders and asked, “What’s next?”

“It might get chilly later on,” Kit replied. “I’d better get some firewood up here before it gets completely dark.” He stepped to the edge of the shelf and started to climb down onto the path leading to the river. “Look after Mina and I’ll be back.”

Wilhelmina roused herself sufficiently to say, “Just do what you have to do. I’ll be all right for a little while.”

“You’re sure?” said Cass.

“A hundred percent.”

Cass called down to Kit, “Want some help?”

“You could fill the water flasks and cut some fresh bullrushes to add to what we’ve got. We’ll make Mina as comfortable as possible.”

Kit and Cass worked until they could no longer see their hands in front of their faces, then retreated to the rock shelter. While Kit hauled up the last of the deadwood he had collected, Cass set about spreading the rushes and arranging them in a neat crosshatch pattern to make a thick pallet for Wilhelmina. Later, after Kit got a fire going, they forced themselves to eat from the last of their provisions. They had light and warmth from the fire, but that was where the comfort ended. They sat and glumly watched the flames and thought about the events of the last few hours as avalanches of regret and guilt crashed down upon them.

Finally, they gave up and decided to get some sleep, but even that proved difficult. One or the other would occasionally drop off, only to be awakened by the howl of an unseen animal or, more often, by Wilhelmina’s moaning. Cass eventually achieved something resembling repose, but Kit was not so lucky. He dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness, and each time he surfaced he remembered that Dr. Young was dead. Into his mind flashed the image of the good man’s last moments and his crude burial. He saw the makeshift grave and could not help picturing what seemed to him unavoidable: wild dogs or hyenas digging up the corpse for a gruesome nocturnal feast.

Some few hours before dawn he achieved sufficient clarity to resolve that they simply had to get Wilhelmina back to civilization where she could receive proper treatment for her injury. Sunrise, of course, was his next opportunity for ley travel. So when the night sky began to lighten, he woke the two women and said, “Sorry, ladies, but I think we’ve got to go.”

Cass came awake instantly at his touch and then groaned as the grimness of their situation bit hard once more. While Kit went to stoke up the fire, Cass crawled over to where Mina lay and put her palm to Mina’s forehead, then gave her shoulder a gentle shake. When this brought no result, she leaned close and whispered into Mina’s ear and, after a few moments of gentle coaxing, brought Wilhelmina out of a deep, coma-like sleep. “How are you feeling?”

Mina gave a low moan and said, “I’m thirsty.” Her voice was raspy and cracked.

“I’ll get you some water,” Cass told her. “Where do you hurt?”

“My arm,” Mina whispered. “And my side.”

Cass brought a flask and raised Mina’s head so she could drink. While Mina sipped, she said, “We need to get you home. Do you think you can make it up to the ley line?”

Wilhelmina gave her head a shake and sank back onto her mat. She closed her eyes once more.

“Is she awake?” said Kit, crouching near. “We’ve got to hurry if we’re going to reach the ley while it’s still active.”