Blind Lake

“A little.”

“That’s all we need right now, another northeaster or whatever they call these fucking storms out here in cow country. So, did you read the docs? What do you make of them?”

Chris considered his answer.

The documents were exactly what Sue Sampel had suspected: text messages that had languished in the servers of the senior scientists who had gone to Cancun for the a

The structure resembled a spiky hemisphere with radial arms. One note compared the shape to a giant adenovirus or a molecule of C60. Ray summarized what he’d read: “Apparently it expresses a mathematical principle called an ‘energy function’ that can be written as an expression of volume in a higher-dimensional space — but so does any icosahedron, so that proves nothing. If it really is an artifact, the builders seem to have vanished. One of the messages claims the interior of the structure is ‘uniquely difficult to image,’ whatever that means…”

“And so on and so forth,” Elaine said. “Lots of really intriguing science, but tell me something: do you see anything here that looks like a threat? Anything that would explain the stuff in that magazine clipping?”

“There must be a co

“Sure, but think about what Ray was saying at the Town Hall meeting. He claimed he had evidence the O/BEC processors at Crossbank had become physically dangerous.”

“You could draw that inference.”

“Fuck inference; do you see any actual evidence of it?”

“Not in these papers, no.”

“You think Ray has evidence we don’t know about?”

“It’s possible. But Sue has been pretty close to Ray, and she doesn’t think so.”

“Right. You know what, Chris? I don’t think Ray has any real evidence at all. I think he has a hypothesis. And a giant-sized bug up his ass.”

“You’re saying he wants to shut down the Eye and he wants to use this as an excuse.”

“Exactly.”

“But the Eye could still be a threat. The fact that he’s biased doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“If he isn’t wrong, he’s at least irresponsible. There’s nothing in these docs he couldn’t have shared with the rest of us.”

“Ray doesn’t like to share. They probably wrote that on his kindergarten report card. What do you propose to do about it?”

“Go public.”

“And how do we do that?”

“We forward these documents to every domestic server in Blind Lake. Plus I’d like to write a little summary, like a covering letter, saying we got the docs from a protected source and that the contents are important but inconclusive.”

“So Ray can’t act unilaterally. He’ll have to explain all this…”

“And maybe get some input from the rest of us before he pulls the plug.”

“That might cause trouble for Sue.”

“She’s a good-hearted lady, Chris, but I’d say she’s already in trouble. Way deep. Maybe Ray can’t prove anything, but he’s not stupid.”

“Might get us in trouble.”

“How do you define ‘trouble’? Locked up indefinitely in a federal installation run by a lunatic, that sounds like trouble no matter what else we do. But I’ll leave your name off the forward if you like.”

“No, use my name,” Chris said. “Keep Marguerite out of it, though.”

“No problem. But if you’re thinking of Ray’s reaction, I have to repeat, he’s not stupid. Keep your doors locked.”

“They are locked,” Chris said. “Securely.”

“Good. Now get ready for a shitstorm that’ll make this blizzard look like summer rain.”

At di

After the meal Tess took a book to her room. Marguerite brewed coffee while Chris briefed her on the contents of the stolen documents. Many of them had been written by Bo Xiang. She had worked with Bo back at Crossbank, and he wasn’t the type to get excited without good reason.

There had never been even the slightest hint of a technological civilization on HR8832/B. The structure must be immensely old, she thought. HR8832/B had oscillated through a number of severe planetwide glaciations; the structure must predate at least one of them. The resemblance to the equatorial coral floaters was suggestive, but what did it mean?

But these were unanswerable questions, at least for now. And Chris and Elaine were right: none of it constituted evidence of a threat.

The storm rattled the kitchen window as they talked. We can image worlds circling other stars, Marguerite thought; can’t we make a window that doesn’t rattle in bad weather? The darkness outside was deep and intimidating. The streetlights had become veiled beacons, distant torches. It was the kind of weather that would have made the news in the old days: Winter Storm Blocks Highways in the West, Airports Closed, Travelers Stranded…

Tessa’s usual bedtime was ten o’clock, eleven on weekends, but she came into the kitchen at nine and said, “I’m tired.”

“Been a long day,” Marguerite said. “Shall I run a bath for you?”

“I’ll shower in the morning. I’m just tired.”

“Go on up and change, then. I’ll tuck you in.”

Tess hesitated.

“What is it, honey?”

“I thought maybe Chris would tell me a story.” She hung her head as if to say: It’s a baby thing to ask for. But I don’t care.

“Happy to,” Chris volunteered.

It would be hard not to love this man, Marguerite thought.

“What kind of story would you like?” Chris asked, perched on the edge of Tessa’s bed. He supposed he already knew the answer:

“A Porry story,” the girl said.

“Honest, Tess, I think I’ve told all the Porry stories there are to tell.”

“It doesn’t have to be a new one.”

“You have a favorite?”

“The tadpole story,” she said promptly.

Tessa’s bedroom window was still crudely boarded. Cold air came through the cracks and snaked down under the electric panel heaters and across the floor, seeking the house’s deepest places. Tess wore her blankets up to her chin.

“That was back in California,” Chris said, “where we grew up. We lived in a little house with an avocado tree in the backyard, and at the end of the street there was a storm drain, like a big concrete riverbed, with a wire fence to keep the local kids from getting in.”

“But you went there anyway.”

“Who’s telling this story?”

“Sorry.” She pulled the blanket up over her mouth.

“We went there anyway, all the kids in the neighborhood. There was a place you could duck under the fence. The storm drain had steep concrete walls, but if you were careful you could climb down, and in spring, if the water was low, you could find tadpoles in the shallow pools.”

“Tadpoles are baby frogs, right?”

“Right, but they don’t look like frogs at all. More like little black fish with long ski

“Because you were her older brother and she was too young.”

“We were all too young. Porry must have been about six or seven, which would make me eleven or twelve. But I was old enough to know she could get in trouble. I always made her wait by the fence, even though she hated that. One day I was down at the storm drain with a couple of friends, and we took maybe a little too long poking around in the mud, and by the time I got back Porry was tired and frustrated and practically crying. She wouldn’t speak to me on the way home.