Ancient Shores Part 23

The wind worked in the trees, and the sea broke and rolled up the beach.

Bannerman, who was a diminutive, sharp-featured man with thinning white hair, watched it come, and then glanced out at the Horsehead. "We are less than two miles from Johnson's Ridge," he said.

The wave played itself out and sank into the sand.

"It's absurd," he continued. "What happened to the laws of physics?"

MIRACLE IN N NORTH D DAKOTAThe port works.A team of eleven people stood today on the surface of a world that astronomers say is thousands of light-years from Earth....(Wall Street Journal, lead editorial, Mar. 18)Are there people in Eden? If so, we may be hearing from them shortly. Whoever built the bridge between North Dakota and the Horsehead Nebula will probably be less understanding than the Native Americans were when their neighborhood went to h.e.l.l.(Mike Tower, Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune)

Tony Peters left his office in the Executive Office Building just after the markets closed. His face was ashen, and he felt very old. His cellular telephone sounded as he strode out onto West Executive Avenue. "The Man wants you," his secretary said. The president was at Camp David for the weekend. "Chopper will be on the lawn in ten minutes."

Peters had known the call would come. He dragged his briefcase wearily through the crowds and the protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue ("Bomb the Roundhouse") and entered through the main gate just as a Marine helicopter started its descent toward the pad. The wildest of wild cards had been introduced into the global economy. And he could think of only one recommendation to make to the president.

"The world needs to be rea.s.sured," Peters was telling him a half-hour later in the presence of a dozen advisors. "The wheels came off the markets last fall because people thought that automobiles might not wear out every five years. Now they think automobiles might become obsolete altogether. And aircraft and elevators along with them. And tires and radars and carburetors and G.o.d knows what else. You name it, and we can tie it to transportation."

The people seated around the conference table stirred uneasily. The vice president, tall, gray, somber, stared at his notebook. The secretary of state, an attack-dog trial lawyer who was rumored to be on the verge of quitting because Matt Taylor liked to be his own secretary of state, sat with his head braced on his fists, eyes closed.

The president looked toward James Samson, his treasury secretary. "I agree," Samson said.

When the secretary showed no inclination to continue, the president noted something in the leather folio that was always at his side and tapped the pen on the table. "If we a.s.sume this device really works, and it can be adapted to ordinary travel, what are the implications for the economy?"

"Theoretically," said Peters, "technological advance is always advantageous. In the long run we will profit enormously from developing a capability for cheap and virtually instantaneous travel. The equipment requires, as I understand it, no more power than would be needed to turn on your TV. The benefits are obvious."

"But over the short term?"

"There will be some dislocation," he said.

"Some dislocation?" Samson smiled cynically. He was small, washed-out, possibly dying. He'd been wrong during the winter in the rea.s.surances given the president concerning the Roundhouse, but he was nevertheless generally credited with having the best brain in the administration. "Chaos might be a little closer to the truth." His voice shook. "Collapse. Disintegration. Take your pick." He coughed into a handkerchief. "Keep in mind, Mr. President, we are not concerned here with the next decade. Allow this to continue, and there may be no United States to benefit in the long term. And there certainly will be no President Taylor." He subsided into a spasm of coughs. dislocation?" Samson smiled cynically. He was small, washed-out, possibly dying. He'd been wrong during the winter in the rea.s.surances given the president concerning the Roundhouse, but he was nevertheless generally credited with having the best brain in the administration. "Chaos might be a little closer to the truth." His voice shook. "Collapse. Disintegration. Take your pick." He coughed into a handkerchief. "Keep in mind, Mr. President, we are not concerned here with the next decade. Allow this to continue, and there may be no United States to benefit in the long term. And there certainly will be no President Taylor." He subsided into a spasm of coughs.

Taylor nodded. "Who else has a comment? Admiral?"

Admiral Charles (Bomber) Bonner was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was right out of central casting for senior military officers: tall, well-pressed, no-nonsense. He appeared to be still in good shape, although he was in his sixties. He walked with a limp, compliments of a plane crash in Vietnam. "Mr. President," he said, "this device, if it exists, has defense implications of the most serious nature. Should this kind of equipment become generally available, it would become possible to introduce strike forces, maybe whole armies, into the heart of any nation on earth. With no warning. And probably no conceivable defense. All that would be necessary, apparently, would be to a.s.semble a receiver station." He looked around to gauge whether his words were having the desired effect. "No place on earth that could be reached by a pickup truck would be safe from a.s.sault forces."

Taylor took a long, deep breath. "You are suggesting we appropriate the device, Admiral? And do what?"

"I am suggesting we destroy it destroy it. Mr. President, there is no such thing as a long-term military secret. When this device becomes part of anyone else's a.r.s.enal, as it will, it negates the carriers, the missile force, SAC and TAC, and everything else we have. It is the ultimate equalizer. Go in there, buy the d.a.m.ned place from the Indians if you can, seize it if you must, but go in there, get the thing, and turn it to slag."

Harry Eaton shook his head. Harry was the White House chief of staff. "The Sioux just turned down two hundred million for the property. I don't think they're interested in selling."

"Offer them a billion," said Rollie Graves, the CIA director.

"I don't believe they'll sell," Eaton said again. "Even if they did, this is high-profile. Give them a billion, and the media will be asking questions right up to election day about what the taxpayers got for their money. What do we tell them? That we did it to protect General Motors and Boeing?"

"I don't much care what you tell them," said Bonner. "That kind of capability converts the carrier force into so much sc.r.a.p metal. Think about it, Mr. President."

Mark Anniok, secretary of the interior, leaned forward. Anniok was of Inuit heritage. "You can't just take it away from them," he said. "It would be political suicide. My G.o.d, we'd be pictured as stealing from the Native-Americans again again. I can see the editorials now."

"We d.a.m.ned well can can take it away from them," said Eaton. "And we should immediately thereafter arrange an accident that blows the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n thing off the top of the ridge." take it away from them," said Eaton. "And we should immediately thereafter arrange an accident that blows the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n thing off the top of the ridge."

"I agree," said Bonner. "Put a lid on it now while we can."

Elizabeth Schumacher, the science advisor, sat at the far end of the table. She was a gray-eyed, introspective woman who was rarely invited to strategy meetings. The Taylor administration, committed as it was to reducing the deficit, was not generally perceived as a friend of the scientific community. The president knew this, and he was sorry for it, but he was willing to take the heat to achieve his goal. "Mr. President," she said, "finding the Roundhouse is an event of incalculable importance. If you destroy it, or allow it to be destroyed, be a.s.sured that future generations will never forgive you."

That was all she said, and Peters saw that it had an effect.

They talked inconclusively for two more hours. Eaton was on the fence. Only Anniok and Schumacher argued to save the Roundhouse. Tony Peters was torn, and he gradually came around to the view that they should try to exploit the ridge and take their chances with the economy and whatever other effects the artifact might have. But he was cautious by nature, and far too loyal to the welfare of his chief executive to recommend that course of action. Everyone else in the room argued strenuously to find a way to get rid of the artifact.

When the meeting ended, the president took Peters aside. "Tony," he said, "I wanted to thank you for your contribution tonight."

He nodded. "What are we going to do?"

Taylor had never been indecisive. But tonight, for the first time that Peters could recall, the president hesitated. "You want the truth? I don't know how to proceed. I think this thing will disrupt the economy, and n.o.body knows how it will look when we come out the other side. But I also think Elizabeth is right. If I allow the Roundhouse to be destroyed, history is going to eviscerate me."

His eyes were deeply troubled.

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know, Tony," he said. "I really do not know."

"Go ahead, Charlie from the reservation."

"Hi, Snowhawk. I wanted to comment on the meeting."

"Go ahead."

"When I went down there last night, I thought the way you do. I thought we should take the money."

"What do you think now, Charlie?"

"Have you seen the pictures?"

"From the other side? Yes."

"I think Arky was right. I think we should pack up and move over there and then pull the plug on the system."

"I don't think that's what Arky said."

"Sure he did. And I'm with him. Listen, Snowhawk, all the money in the world isn't going to get us off the reservation. They can keep their two hundred million. Give me me the beach and the woods." the beach and the woods."

"Okay, Charlie. Thank you for your opinion. You're on, Madge from Devil's Lake."

"h.e.l.lo, Snowhawk. Listen, I think that last caller is absolutely right. I'm ready to go."

"To the wilderness?"

"You got it. Let's move out."

"Okay. Jack, from the reservation. You're on."

"Hey, Snowhawk. I was there, too."

"At the meeting?"

"Yeah. And you're dead wrong. This is a chance for a fresh start. We'd be d.a.m.ned fools not to take it. I say we pack up and go. And this time we keep out the Europeans. After we're over there, do what what's-his-name said. Bar the door."

22.

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pineThat lights the pathway but one step aheadAcross a void of mystery and dread....-George Santayana, "Sonnet III"

Arky was adamant: "n.o.body else goes across into this wilderness world until we're sure it's safe."

April was ready to explode. "d.a.m.n it, Arky. We'll never be sure it's safe safe. Not absolutely."

"Then maybe we ought to write everything off. Take the best price we can get for the Roundhouse and let somebody else worry about the lawsuits."

"What lawsuits?" lawsuits?"

"The lawsuits that will be filed as soon as one of your pie-in-the-sky academics gets eaten."

"n.o.body's going to get eaten."

"How do you know that? Can you guarantee it?"

"Of course I can't."

"Then maybe we better think about it." He took a deep breath. "We need to ask ourselves whether we really want all these people blundering around over there."

"They aren't blundering." April took a moment to steady her voice. "These are trained people. Anyhow, we can't keep all this to ourselves. We have to let as many people get a look at it as we can."

"Then let me ask you again: What happens if one of them gets killed?"

"There are no large predators," she said.

"You haven't seen any large predators, April. There's a world of difference. How about diseases? Any exotic bugs?"

"If there are, it's too late. Max and I have been there and back."

"I know." Arky looked sternly at her. "I didn't care much for that, either. Look, until now this has been a shoot-from-the-hip operation. It's time we got a handle on things. Before we get burned. First off, I want you and Max to get full physicals. Complete workups. Meantime, we're going to stop the tours until Adam certifies it's safe. Okay? I don't want anyone anyone going over there until that happens. Not even going over there until that happens. Not even you you."

"Arky," she protested, "we can't just lock the door and tell people it's unsafe."

"We just did," he said.

Adam put together his team. They included Jack Swiftfoot, Andrea Hawk, John Little Ghost, and two more April did not know. He parceled out M-15's, grenades, and pistols. "You look as if you expect to run into dinosaurs," she said.

He shrugged. "Better safe than sorry." He signaled his people onto the grid, pressed the arrow icon, and joined them. "See you tonight," he told April. He was slipping an ammunition clip onto his belt when they began to fade.

Max walked in carrying a couple of yellow balloons and his minicam. "I wouldn't mind," April told him, "but this sets a bad precedent. What do we have to do now? Send a SWAT team in before we can look at any of these other places?"

"a.s.suming there are are other places," said Max. "I don't know. But I'm not sure it's a bad idea." other places," said Max. "I don't know. But I'm not sure it's a bad idea."

She grumbled but said nothing.

"Do you think," Max asked, "whoever built the system is still out there somewhere?"

Her eyes lost their focus. "It's been ten thousand years," she said. "That's a long time."

"Maybe not for these people."

"Maybe not. But the Roundhouse was abandoned a long time ago. And there's no evidence of recent usage in Eden, either. What does that tell you?"

Through the wraparound window, Max could see tourists taking pictures. "I wonder where the network ends," he said.

Her eyes brightened. "I'm looking forward to finding out."

The outside door opened. They heard footsteps in the pa.s.sageway, and Arky Redfern appeared. He waved, peeled off his jacket, and laid it on the back of a chair. "There's some talk," he said, "of making you two honorary tribal members."

"I'd like that," said April.

The only other person Max could think of who had been so honored by a tribe was Sam Houston. Not bad company. "Me too," he said.

"So what's next?" asked Arky, gazing pointedly at the balloons.

"We want to see what else we have."

The balloons sported the legend Fort Moxie Fort Moxie and a picture of the Roundhouse. Two long strings dangled from each. Max, enjoying center stage, pulled over two chairs and set them on either side of the grid, outside the perimeter. He tied one of the balloons to the chairs so that the balloon itself floated directly over the grid. and a picture of the Roundhouse. Two long strings dangled from each. Max, enjoying center stage, pulled over two chairs and set them on either side of the grid, outside the perimeter. He tied one of the balloons to the chairs so that the balloon itself floated directly over the grid.

"What are you trying to do?" Arky asked.

"We don't want to clog the system," said April. "If we send a chair and n.o.body moves it off the receiving grid, that's the ball game. We lose that channel. We need to send something that won't stay put."

Arky nodded. "Good," he said.