Chapter 17

By the time the planning revisions were complete the Ark had, at last, entered worm space for its faster-than-light transit to the Eden system. As MacPherson had noted in his greatly abbreviated pre-launch briefing, the transit was in objective terms instantaneous; from the moment they entered the wormhole to the moment they emerged no time whatever would elapse in the physical universe; the two events would occur simultaneously. Subjectively, though, it would seem aboard the Ark to last about two full weeks, adding that much to their preparation time.

The realignment process was now down to minutiae, tiny tweaks meant to accelerate the evacuation as much as possible. These were the province, as they'd been back on Earth, of AC, and Meiersdottir was again free first to catch up on the rest she'd sacrificed to help in laying out the amended plan and subsequently to pursue her own interests. Including the ship's former captain.

And so for the second time she found herself knocking one afternoon (ship's arbitrary time) at his door. This time there was no delay at all before he called peremptorily, "Come!" Once again she proceeded cautiously, activating her communicator and leaving her key outside; once again it proved unnecessary, as she found him seated where he'd been the last time she'd seen him—again with no visible or olfactory evidence of alcoholic consumption.

"Good day, Angus," she said as she closed the door behind her.

"I though' I'd no' see ye again," he remarked. "I though' ye'd gi'e up on me." He smiled. "I am glad ye didna, Missus, 'tis pleasan' to ha'e yer company once mair e'en afterr sae lang."

"I've been a little busy, Angus," she told him. "As you can imagine, we've had to revamp a lot of plans because of the delay."

There was no need to remind him, and no point to doing so, that the "delay" was entirely of his own making. Still, she was a bit disappointed that he showed no hint of remorse when he acknowledged her. "Aye," he said blandly, "I can see hoo tha' woul' be th' case."

She shook her head in mild frustration; had the man not read over the records of the previous missions, as she'd urged him to? Bluntly she put her question into words.

He nodded. "I rread th' whole thing, both jourrneys," he said. "I rread them all twa times a' leas', an' mair forr some o' i'. They say jus' wha' ye tol' me, exac'ly."

"Well, then?"

"Bu' who's t'say these arre th' trrue rrecords, th' rreal ones, an' no' somethin' jus' made up la'err on t'hide th' fac's?" he asked.

"Oh, for God's sake!" she expostulated. "Do you seriously think that I, or anyone else, went through hundreds and hundreds of pages of reports line by line and doctored them up for the sole purpose of tricking you? Or tricking anybody? That's taking conspiracy theory all the way to sheer insanity! Angus, I thought you were a serious man, and an honest one. If you're not, I'm wasting my time."

He held up his hand to quiet her. "Calm, Missus," he said soothingly. "I willna deny to ye tha' th' though' crross' me min', mair than once. Bu' ye're rrigh', i' is too farr-fetch'. I said tha' a' firrs' mos'ly t'hearr yer rresponse, which is as I though' i' woul' be."

She took a deep breath to settle herself. But he wasn't finished. "O' courrse 'tis possible I am wrrong, but i' is, as ye say, unlikely, an' I accep' tha' wha' I rread is th'accoun' o' wha' happen' as i' was wrri'en a' th' time by them as was therre. Bu' ye see my prroblem."

After a moment's thought she nodded. "It was written by people like me, who were on Eden."

"Prrecisely. Ye say th'Edeni'es canna ta'e me min', norr th' min' o' any human, because we canna hearr theirr though's. Th' rrecords say th' same, jus' as ye tol' me. Ye' is tha' no' wha' th' rrecords would say if 'twerre no' trrue an' th'Edeni'es did ta'e yer minds when ye werre therre? Naethin' is prrove', no' ain way or t'other."

"I understand," she said, nodding again. "But I think you're overlooking something. If it had been as you say, that somehow the Edenites took some kind of control of our minds when we were on the planet, then why would we report back that they were telepathic at all? Why not conceal that, too? It's not as though the idea would have occurred to anybody on Earth, is it?"

He frowned. "I didna think o' tha'," he admitted. "I canna answerr ye th' noo." His face changed again. "Bu' this is why they warrn' me no' t'discuss this wi' ye, nivverr t' talk aboo' i' a' all. They said ye woul' deny i' all, an' keep denyin' an' keep denyin', an' tha' ye'd ha'e yer arrgumen's all rready, arrgumen's tha' coul' perrsuade th' mos' doub'in' man. An' so i' is, exac'ly as they tol' me," he finished triumphantly. "They prredic'ed all ye would say. Does tha' no' prrove they werre rrigh'?"

For a moment she simply stared at him. Then she spoke in a suddenly harsh, accusatory tone. "Do I have to listen to this from a man who's a liar, a fraud and a coward?" she snapped.

"Wha'?" he said in astonishment.

"Oh, I know all about it," she went on relentlessly. "I know how you faked that whole business on Lucifer. How you incompetently took your ship into orbit way too low, and then instead of facing up to it like a man you made up this whole preposterous story about—"

"Who tol' ye sich a lie?" he thundered. "Was i' Crromar'ie? Is i' no' enough th'mon has me comman', mus' he besmirrch me guid name inta th' barrgain?"

"What does it matter who told me?" she asked. "Of course you deny it, he said you would, but that just proves he was right."

"Tha' is comple'e crrap!" he bellowed. He looked at her to continue but her expression stopped him abruptly; she was looking back calmly with one eyebrow raised. After a moment he let out a burst of hearty laughter. Her face relaxed in a responding smile.

"All rrigh', Missus, ye had me gaein'," he said. "'Tis divilish clivverr ye arre, t'turrn me worrds back on me. Crromar'ie nivverr said nae sich a thing, did he?" She shook her head, still smiling. "I though' no', I dislike grrea'ly tha' he comman's me ship noo bu' 'twas no' by trreachery, he's a mon o' honorr, i' was me own doin', tha' I ken weel. Bu' o'courrse a body denies whetherr 'tis trrue or false, i' also prroves naethin'."

"That's right, Angus," she agreed. "But I'd like to find out what you think did prove something, what it was made you do the thing you did. I think you're a man of honor, too. Yet you threw away your honor for reasons I still don't understand, and I want to. Will you talk to me about that?"

"Why d'ye carre?" he asked.

She gave it a moment's thought. "Angus, I'm a sociologist. Do you understand what that is?" He shook his head. "It means I study the makeup of society, and the interplay of society and the individual, how the individual fits into the social structure and what makes that a good fit or a bad one. Human motivation is a big part of that. What makes one person behave in ways that help society, contribute to it, and what makes another behave the opposite?

"For example, some people attack others blindly just over tiny, inconsequential differences—race, gender, religion, perceived social status, sexual preferences, on and on. Why do they do it? How does it take away from, say, a man that someone else is a woman? From a white person that another one's skin is black? From a Christian that a neighbor is Jewish, or Muslim, or Hindu? Why do people hate and fear each other because of only tiny distinctions without even knowing each other? Do you understand?"

"Aye."

"Well, that's what you did," she said. Seeing his immediate disagreement she went on before he could speak. "Yes, you did. You decided that you hated and feared the Edenites without ever seeing or knowing one of them, just because they were Edenites, because they were different. You tried to do them harm, terrible harm, only for that reason. And I'd like you to tell me why."

He fell into a deep study while she simply waited. Twice he seemed to start to speak, and twice he thought better of it. Finally he looked into her face.

"Aye," he said. "As I tol' ye, they said t'me strrongly tha' I shoul' nivverr, nivverr talk t'ye aboo' this. 'Twas verra convincin' as they said i'. Bu' ye ha'e shown me alrready tha' perrhaps no' all they tol' me was entirrely accurra'e. So I will tell ye th' rres', an' hearr wha' ye may say in coun'err.

"Bu' firrs', forr this, I woul' like a wee drram t'gae wi' me storry, an' I preferr no' t'drrink alain. Will ye ha'e summa' wi' me?"

She didn't ordinarily drink at such an early hour, but she wasn't about to turn that invitation down. "You have scotch, I think?" she asked.

"Aye."

"I'll take a small one."

"Ice?"

"Neat."

He nodded to her approvingly. "Th' bes', then," he said. "I ha'e some single mal', we shall both ha'e tha'." He busied himself with bartending duties for a moment, pouring, she noted with approval, the same small amount in his own glass as he did in hers.

"Sláinte!" he toasted, raising his glass as he handed her hers.

"Sláinte, " she replied, taking a small sip. He did the same.

"Weel, noo," he told her, setting his glass down. "Therre werre trrey o' 'em. Y'unner­stan', I'll no' gi'e ye th' names."

She waved that away.

"I wouldna lis'en a' firrs'. Bu' they said they could prrove t'me—min' ye, prrove—tha' wha' I was doin' would be th' en' o' th' human rrace, o' ivverr'thin' livin' in th' worrl', an' asked would I no' e'en hearr them. I had nae answerr t' tha', sae I said I woul' lis'en 'em oo'.

"They said muckle, an' mos' o' i' soun'ed like crrap t'me, bu' therre were twa things I couldna dispu'e. An' I'm sorry t'tell ye, Missus, bu' th' firrs' o' 'em was yer own lies."