thought that the guards were more for reassurance than anything else. The majority didn’t appear to be looking around with any purpose, and they only paid attention to him and Toni so far as to check the IDs they’d been issued.
It sank in that the normal operation of this place probably only ever required a nominal security force, probably smaller than the number of guards just assigned within the hotel where they were meeting. The majority of these blue-suited guards must be operations employees with little or no training.
At each ID check, Mallory got the bad feeling that they were relying on security through bureaucracy.
The Beta habitat was denser with buildings, and had much less landscaping than the habitat they had left. Not a place for tourists.
The hospital was a stark blocky structure placed in the center of a cluster of administration buildings. If he ignored the multiple reflections of Kropotkin above him, it could have been on any planet in human space, there was so little to distinguish it.
Alexander Shane was in a semi-private room with the still-unconscious Abbas. The blue-jumpsuited guard outside the room was an uncomfortable reminder that Stefan was still loose somewhere with a cache of weapons.
Inside, lying on a bed with tubes and wires running into him, Shane looked more than ever like a frail old man. The stark lighting in the room shone off his naked scalp, making his skin paler and the tattoos much more pronounced.
“Father Mallory,” he greeted them, his voice less frail than his body. “Who is your friend?”
“L—Captain Toni Valentine,” she answered him.
He smiled slightly. “That’s a Stygian accent, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She glanced at Mallory and said, “I thought your planet had no contact with anyone.”
“It didn’t,” Shane said. “It just happens that Dr. Pak made a hobby of collecting accents.”
Mallory didn’t want to be reminded of the mental rape Shane had been a party to. “You wanted to speak to me?”
Shane nodded. “According to the staff here, you seem to be in charge.”
“That’s overly generous.” Mallory rubbed his temple.
“I know how disturbing this is for you,” Shane said.
“No, you—” Mallory sighed. “Of course you do.”
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” Toni asked him.
“The Dolbrians,” Shane said.
“The Dolbrians,” Valentine repeated.
“You know that Bakunin has the most extensive set of Dolbrian ruins ever discovered, because of the unique geology of the planet, being tectonically stable for millions of years. The quiescent nature of Bakunin’s crust makes it all the more likely that there is still some physical access to other things the Dolbrians left behind.”
“What other things?”
“What is the key mystery the Dolbrians left behind?”
Mallory sighed. “Why they disappeared.”
Shane shook his head. “That’s the common answer, the one you gave your students. But that’s the wrong question. All existence is impermanence. The question is not ‘why they are gone?’ The question is ‘why did they leave these planets behind?’ ”
“What do you mean?” Mallory thought back to his xenoarchaeology courses in graduate school, and thought of the theories he had read; the terraformed planets were part of a colonization effort; or they were some sort of art form; or that the planets were naturally inhabitable and the ancient Dolbrians were there by coincidence.
“You’ve seen Adam, and the Protean, two sides of the same coin. That technology was the result of less than fifty thousand years of our evolution as a species. Just by dating the few artifacts and seeing the spread in time between them, the Dolbrians were active for at least fifty times as long.”
“So?”
“They had no need for ‘habitable’ planets. They had lived long past the point where they must have been able to adapt themselves to any environment. Not only that, but the artifacts they left almost
It sank in that the normal operation of this place probably only ever required a nominal security force, probably smaller than the number of guards just assigned within the hotel where they were meeting. The majority of these blue-suited guards must be operations employees with little or no training.
At each ID check, Mallory got the bad feeling that they were relying on security through bureaucracy.
The Beta habitat was denser with buildings, and had much less landscaping than the habitat they had left. Not a place for tourists.
The hospital was a stark blocky structure placed in the center of a cluster of administration buildings. If he ignored the multiple reflections of Kropotkin above him, it could have been on any planet in human space, there was so little to distinguish it.
Alexander Shane was in a semi-private room with the still-unconscious Abbas. The blue-jumpsuited guard outside the room was an uncomfortable reminder that Stefan was still loose somewhere with a cache of weapons.
Inside, lying on a bed with tubes and wires running into him, Shane looked more than ever like a frail old man. The stark lighting in the room shone off his naked scalp, making his skin paler and the tattoos much more pronounced.
“Father Mallory,” he greeted them, his voice less frail than his body. “Who is your friend?”
“L—Captain Toni Valentine,” she answered him.
He smiled slightly. “That’s a Stygian accent, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” She glanced at Mallory and said, “I thought your planet had no contact with anyone.”
“It didn’t,” Shane said. “It just happens that Dr. Pak made a hobby of collecting accents.”
Mallory didn’t want to be reminded of the mental rape Shane had been a party to. “You wanted to speak to me?”
Shane nodded. “According to the staff here, you seem to be in charge.”
“That’s overly generous.” Mallory rubbed his temple.
“I know how disturbing this is for you,” Shane said.
“No, you—” Mallory sighed. “Of course you do.”
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” Toni asked him.
“The Dolbrians,” Shane said.
“The Dolbrians,” Valentine repeated.
“You know that Bakunin has the most extensive set of Dolbrian ruins ever discovered, because of the unique geology of the planet, being tectonically stable for millions of years. The quiescent nature of Bakunin’s crust makes it all the more likely that there is still some physical access to other things the Dolbrians left behind.”
“What other things?”
“What is the key mystery the Dolbrians left behind?”
Mallory sighed. “Why they disappeared.”
Shane shook his head. “That’s the common answer, the one you gave your students. But that’s the wrong question. All existence is impermanence. The question is not ‘why they are gone?’ The question is ‘why did they leave these planets behind?’ ”
“What do you mean?” Mallory thought back to his xenoarchaeology courses in graduate school, and thought of the theories he had read; the terraformed planets were part of a colonization effort; or they were some sort of art form; or that the planets were naturally inhabitable and the ancient Dolbrians were there by coincidence.
“You’ve seen Adam, and the Protean, two sides of the same coin. That technology was the result of less than fifty thousand years of our evolution as a species. Just by dating the few artifacts and seeing the spread in time between them, the Dolbrians were active for at least fifty times as long.”
“So?”
“They had no need for ‘habitable’ planets. They had lived long past the point where they must have been able to adapt themselves to any environment. Not only that, but the artifacts they left almost
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