Infinity Beach

“It wasn’t hard. You’re one of the most famous people in the Republic.”

“Well,” she stumbled, “I apologize. I—”

“I know,” he said. “No need. It’s all right.”

Snowbanks were piled high around them and another storm was on the way. “I’m glad you came. I’d have contacted you, but I was embarrassed.”

“I understand.” He looked hesitant. “I was wondering. We still have an outstanding di

She hesitated, started to explain that she had a commitment that evening, wondered why she was begging off, and decided what the hell. “Of course, Mike,” she said. “I’d love to.”

They went to the Ocean View and ordered a couple of glasses of white wine to dawdle over in the candlelight. It was still early, the restaurant was almost empty, and soft music was being piped in.

They talked about her voyages to Orion and when she tried to change the subject, to ask him how things were going at the Archives, he laughed and brushed it aside. “Same as always,” he said. “Nothing exciting since the big break-in.”

He asked how she’d felt when that first message had come through, Where are they?, and what had run through her mind when the shroud approached while she stood atop the McCollum, and what it had been like being in the same room with one of the Cho-Choi, as the celestials were now known. Tern’s name for them had stuck.

In sequence, she said, exhilarated, terrified, and the last event had never happened. “Only Eric got to share space with one. They’re so small, and there are so many complications that the physical meetings are difficult to bring off. It was intended to be purely symbolic. We and they will probably never spend much time hanging out together.”

He asked why their ships were armed.

“That’s a misunderstanding,” Kim said. “The device that killed Emily isn’t a weapon. It’s used to project a gravity field in front of the vessel. It rearranges space. Or matter and energy, if they happen to get in the way.”

There was also a widely held view that the new species wasn’t as bright as humans. Their civilization was, after all, almost thirty thousand years older than ours, and yet their technology did not seem greatly advanced.

“Cyclic development,” Kim explained. Dark ages. Up and down. “It looks as if we can’t rely on automatic progress. We’ve had a couple of dark ages ourselves. The big one, after Rome, and a smaller one, here. The road doesn’t always move forward.” She looked at him in the candlelight. “These periodic downturns may not be simply aberrations. And that knowledge alone might be worth the price we paid.”

“So what are you going to do now?” he asked.

What indeed? She had offers from facilities throughout the Nine Worlds, positions that would allow her to unload the fund-raising job and become a serious astrophysicist. “Pick and choose,” she said. “Do what I’ve always wanted to do.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. “I never forgot you,” he said.

She smiled. “I can see that.”

“Will you be leaving the area?”

“Probably.”

“Anything I can do to persuade you to stay?”

She moved closer to him and touched his cheek. “We do always seem to be moving in opposite directions, don’t we, Mike?”

Later, he rode out with her to the island, and she invited him in. It had begun to snow.

“No,” he said. “I’ll pass for now. I’d rather have you owing me an invitation. That way I can be sure I’ll see you again.”

Epilogue

The stone was set in a corner of Cabry’s Beach, not particularly noticeable unless one was looking for it. The engraving read, simply, IN MEMORY OF… and listed five names: Sheyel Tolliver, Benton Tripley, Amy Bricker, and two others. The remaining security guards.

Kim probably owed her life to Amy and her comrades.

During the more than two decades that had passed since that terrible night on the beach, life had come back to Severin. The village had been rebuilt, boats had reappeared on the lake, and a train station had been erected. Even the refreshment stand was back, and during the summer a new raft floated just offshore. It was off-season now, early December, but the place was nevertheless not as dark as she remembered. The village lights filtered through the trees, and the new city hall tower was visible if she was willing to stand at the water’s edge.

Overhead, lights moved through the sky.

Some of them would be carrying dignitaries from throughout the Nine Worlds to greet their first nonhuman visitors. Well—maybe not quite the first.

Tomorrow, they would arrive in Severin, guests and hosts. Speeches would be made, bands would play, and a second memorial would be dedicated: To the crew of the Valiant, who gave their lives for a people they never knew.

The term “crew” was probably meant to include the shroud, and she didn’t care much for that part of the idea. But she had no way of knowing what that abandoned creature had been through, so she was willing to forget. Nevertheless, she remained conscious of the stone behind her.

The Cho-Choi don’t name their vessels, and the designator doesn’t translate well, so everyone agreed that the name humans had given the microship was appropriate to the occasion. Several vessels of the Valiant class had already arrived at Sky Harbor in commemoration of the event.

Their home world was located three hundred light-years the other side of the Golden Chalice. Human ships had visited their worlds last year and had returned with tales of wondrous sights.

The Cho-Choi, like humans, had thought themselves alone. And also like humans, they seemed delighted to find they had company in a universe thought to be windswept and full of echoes.

Kim looked out across the lake. Homes were going up on the far side too.

Her taxi had set down almost exactly where she’d landed with Solly on that January night just after the turn of the century.

She sca