Fire with Fire(78)

“When we met last time, you were about to explain something more about this ruin, about to show me something else, and then you stopped yourself.”

A furtive look returned to Gnome’s face. “I suppose I did.”

“Show me now.”

Gnome nodded and beckoned with a crooked finger. He went to the side of the temple, disappearing around the corner from which he had emerged the first time. Caine followed him down into a narrow slit trench that had been dug along the southern, leeward side of the structure, exposing its foundation for at least twenty meters. Five meters in, Gnome stopped, pointed. “Look.”

Caine looked, saw a hole, about the size of his thumb, maybe a bit narrower. And then he saw the brown, rusty stain rimming it. He reached out, held his hand back, his breath coming short and fast.

“Go ahead,” said Gnome, “all us researchers do. Those of us with any sense of a larger universe, that is. Go ahead. Put your finger in.”

Caine did. He felt around. Felt a smooth, cold surface recessed half an inch from the exterior wall, restrained the impulse to either giggle or yell.

“Rebar,” supplied Gnome. “Eerie, if you ask me. Chemical composition consistent with mid-grade industrial steel. The stereobate—that’s the foundation—is actually risers of dressed stone, alternating with reinforced concrete. Probably the only reason the base held together all this time. The rebar was sunk a meter down, at even intervals all along the side.” He paused. “You know what it means, don’t you?”

Caine barely heard him, could not remember if he nodded or even waved farewell. He scrabbled up the berm and back toward the Marine lander. He was short of breath when he reached it, but not as a result of the exertion. Rather, he was overcome by a sudden, absolute, even desperate desire to begin his journey: to return home and discharge the burden of this final secret—the one which was the explanatory key to all the others . . .

* * *

Caine once again became aware of the faces ringing the round table. The looks were hard to read for a moment: fragments of many expressions were rippling up through the studied detachment of career diplomats and politicians. He saw shock, doubt, wonder, distrust, maybe even fear: too many threads, too tangled to separate.

They kept looking at him, as if they were waiting for more.

Nolan stood. “I think you see why we saved Mr. Riordan’s footnote for last. It is—singularly provocative. I’m sure there are questions. Who’d like to start?”

Visser leaned forward. “You finished by saying that the presence of the rebar explains all the other secrets of what you found. What did you mean by that?”

Where to begin? “I’m going to jump ahead to the most important conclusion that can be deduced from it.” Caine took a deep breath. “Taken along with the local’s ability to point out the Sun as my place of origin, it means that we have been on Delta Pavonis before.”

There were sounds of restlessness among the delegates. “How long before?”

“I can’t be sure, but I’d say at least fifteen thousand years. Probably more like twenty thousand.”

The first moment of stunned silence spawned its opposite: Gaspard snorted the word “outrageous” through pinched nostrils; Medina laughed; Karagawa smiled; MacGregor raised his eyes toward the ceiling. But Sukhinin, Ching, and Hollingsworth only looked more thoughtful. Durniak’s eyes were wide as if she were already seeing how the logical dominoes inexorably fell toward this conclusion.

Nolan had his hand raised for order, but Caine was suddenly weary of having to rely on someone else’s authority: “Listen: do you want to hear why this conclusion is inevitable, or not?”

Sudden stillness. Nolan was hiding a pleased grin behind the hand upon which his jaw was resting.

Caine leaned forward. “First, the facts: the local’s indication of our star was absolutely unmistakable, once I realized what he was doing and what he was pointing at. And he did so repeatedly. Until I understood. I think it safe to say that there are no grounds for suspecting that I misinterpreted his gestures.”

“So once we’ve established that he does know where I came from, the question becomes: how could he know? There are two reasonable answers, excluding blind luck and divine inspiration. One: he learned this from us, directly or indirectly, since our arrival on Delta Pavonis in 2113—but neither his behavior nor our records show any possibility that this could have occurred. Two: that he and his people knew of us—and our star system of origin—before we arrived in 2113.”

Durniak was thoughtful. “Could they have visited us? Were they once a starfaring civilization?”