Academy 3 - Chindi by Jack McDevitt

Author:Jack McDevitt [McDevitt, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_space
Published: 2011-04-05T04:18:05+00:00

Chapter 19

Remote places soothe the soul, and give fire to the creative enterprise.

— JAMES PICKERING, SOUND RETREAT, 2081

NICK FOUND THE graves.

Maybe it was pure luck or maybe it was because everything in the house had been put away the way people do when they’re leaving town except that it seemed as if nobody had left because the lander was still out on the shelf. Or maybe it was a funeral director’s instincts. The courtyard, with its tract of earth, with the soil in which he suspected plants had once grown, would have been the only spot available for a burial.

But who had conducted the services?

He smiled, imagining a cosmic funeral director, not unlike himself but with better thrusters. Perhaps relaying to grieving relatives and friends in another part of the sky the assurances that everything was all right. That the appropriate honors had been rendered.

It had been a tribute. A final act of respect. He felt that in his soul, knew it to be true.

These people, whoever, whatever they were, did not mark their graves. That was odd, but who was to say what constituted strangeness in someone else’s cultural habits?

The plot of soil in the courtyard measured about twenty by twelve meters, and was ringed by a brick walkway. Brick. He wondered about the kind of entity that so respected its origins that it would haul brick across interstellar distances.

There were two oversize gray benches, one of which had partially collapsed. He stood on the walkway, between them, gazing at the disturbed ground. Right there, near a postlight that, of course, did not work.

“Recent,” he told George.

“How long ago?”

“To be honest, I hate to make a guess here, because it’s not like home, where things change pretty quickly—”

“How long ago?” George asked again.

“If we were home, I’d say within the last few days.”

George knelt down and looked at the earth. It was freshly disturbed. There seemed no question about that. He picked up a handful, rubbed it with his fingers, and glanced up at the sky. “Are they buried together?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Could be.”

The house had been unoccupied for years. Probably decades. The thick dust everywhere told him that.

George went looking for Hutch. When they returned, moments later, he was already upset. “I don’t think the Memphis has a spade in its gear locker,” she was saying, “but regardless, we should not dig them up.”

“Why not? Isn’t that what archeologists do?”

“We’re not archeologists, George. And that’s the reason why not. We need people here who know what they’re doing.”

He looked at Nick, who made it a point to study the cupola. Nice design, that. “Do you have an alternative?”

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s have Bill take a look with the sensors. That’ll tell us what’s down there. You won’t get the chance to unearth the bones, but you’ll preserve the site, and the Academy will thank you for it.”

“All right,” he said. “Do it.”

Nick watched while she sent instructions back to the Memphis. It was below the horizon, so they had to wait.

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