A Wreath of Stars

Chapter Three

By the Spring of 1996 the passage of Thornton’s Planet was fading from the memories of those peoples who had been most alarmed at the time of its close approach to Earth. It had actually passed through the cosmic needle’s eye which was the space between the Earth and the Moon, but—as various authorities had predicted—the physical effects had been zero as far as the man in the street was concerned. As the object had dwindled in size to that of any other planet, so had its significance shrunk for the average human being who continued to be faced with the task of remaining alive in an increasingly hungry and factious world. Thornton’s Planet could still be seen by anybody who chose to put on magniluct glasses to search for it, but the novelty of sometimes being able to look downwards and observe a blue star shining up through the entire bulk of the Earth remained just a novelty. It provided neither food nor warmth, and was of no other practical value—therefore it was relegated to the same category of astronomical curiosities as auroras and falling stars.

The situation was different in the world’s scientific community. The very nature of the celestial intruder hampered its observation and study, but long before Thornton’s Planet swept past the Earth it had become obvious that it was being—captured by the sun. Angling down through the plane of the ecliptic, it had plunged inside the orbit of Mercury, gaining speed all the while, swung around the sun, then had retreated back through the dim outer limits of the Solar System. Its behaviour was not quite compatible with that of a planet made of normal hadronic matter, but calculations showed that it had adopted a highly elliptical precessing orbit with a period of little more than twenty-four years. The elements of the orbit were such that the planet was expected to revisit the Earth when it had completed four revolutions, that is, in slightly less than a century after its first pass.

This information had a mixed reception among scientific workers of many disciplines, all of whom—given the available data as a theoretical exercise—would have predicted that an antineutrino body should pass on through the Solar System in a straight line, completely unaffected by the sun’s gravitic pull. Most were appalled at seeing the entire citadel of human science threatened by a casual, heedless visitor from infinity; others were uplifted by the new challenge to man’s intellect. And a few totally rejected the interpretation of the data, denying that Thornton’s Planet could have any objective reality whatsoever.

For his part, Gilbert Snook knew beyond any shadow of doubt that Thornton’s Planet genuinely existed. He had looked into its livid, blind face, and he had experienced the devastation of his whole way of life.

There were a number of things which Snook disliked about his new career in the nine-years-old republic of Barandi, although—he was compelled to admit—many of the problems had been of his own making. The first of these had arisen within one minute of the Skywhip rolling to a standstill on Barandi’s principal military airfield on the northern shore of Lake Victoria.

Lieutenant Charlton, after some fast talking on the local communications band, had managed to arrange a sympathetic reception for himself. And when it was realised he was making Barandi the gift of a well-maintained counter-insurgency aircraft, plus his own services as a pilot, the reception was elevated to a state ceremony in miniature, with several high-ranking officers and their ladies present.

The belated discovery of diamonds in western Kenya had caused local acceleration of a world-wide process—the breaking up of countries into smaller and smaller political units as strong centralised government became impossible. Barandi was one of several new statelets in the region which were poised on the brink of legality, and it was hungry for defence equipment which would consolidate its position. Consequently there had been a distinct atmosphere of self-congratulation, almost of gaiety, among the resplendent group which assembled to greet the benefactors who were swooping down out of the northern skies.

Unfortunately, Snook had marred the occasion by turning to Charlton as soon as they were both on the ground and felling him with the hardest single punch he had ever thrown. Had it been his intention simply to induce unconsciousness he would have gone for Charlton’s solar plexus or chin, but he had been gripped by an overwhelming desire to mess up the pilot’s face, and therefore had hit him squarely between the eyes. The result had been two black panda-patches and an enormously swollen nose which had gone a long way towards spoiling Charlton’s public image of a clean-cut young airman.

That had been almost three years earlier, but—on days when his spirits were at a low ebb—Snook could still get a boost from remembering how Charlton’s social activities had been curtailed by his grotesque appearance during the first week in his adopted country.

His own life had been even more restricted, of course. There had been two days in prison while Charlton was making up his mind not to bear a grudge; a day of interrogation about his political attitudes; and a further month of confinement after he had made it clear that he was not going to service the Skywhip or any other Barandian aircraft. Finally he had been released, warned against trying to leave the country, and—in view of his engineering qualifications—given a job teaching illiterate tribesmen who worked the deep mines west of Kisumu.

Snook believed his post was something of a fiction, created as part of a scheme to give Barandi status in the eyes of UNESCO, but he had devised a workable routine and had even discovered certain aspects of the life which he could enjoy. One of them was that there was a plentiful supply of a superb Arabic coffee, and he made a practice of drinking four large cups of it every morning before thinking about work.

This was the part of the day, just at dawn, during which he most enjoyed being alone, so when the noise of a disturbance at the mine head reached him he doggedly continued with his fourth cup. The trouble, whatever it was, did not seem too serious. Against a background hubbub of voices there was a single high-pitched yammer which sounded like one man indulging in hysterics. Snook guessed that somebody had contracted a fever or had been drinking too much. Either way it was not his concern—picking up bugs and falling down drunk were almost national pastimes in Barandi.

The thought of alcohol reminded Snook of his solitary excesses of the previous night. He left the bungalow’s small kitchen, went into the living room and retrieved two empty gin bottles and a glass. The sight of the second bottle brought a momentary pang of dismay—he was fairly certain both had not been full on the day before, but the fact that there was a lingering doubt was proof enough that he was drinking far too much. It was coming near the time for him to move on to another part of the world, regardless of passport or other difficulties.

Snook went out to the back and was ceremoniously smashing the green bottles into the other glittering fragments in his rubbish bin when he realised he could still hear the lone voice in the distance, and for the first time he sensed the fear in it. Once again he felt the familiar yet ever-strange stirrings of prescience. There was the sound of footsteps at the side of the house and George Murphy, a superintendent at the mine, came hurrying into view. Murphy was a black man, a former Kenyan, but the new Barandian nationalism scorned the use of Swahili names as a relic of the past, on a level with performing tribal dances and carving wooden souvenirs for tourists, and every citizen had an Anglican name for official and general use.

“Good morning, Gil.” Murphy’s greeting seemed relaxed, but the heaving of his chest beneath the silvercord shirt showed he had been running. His breath smelled of mint chewing gum.

“Jambo, George. What’s the problem?” Snook replaced the lid of the bin, covering his trove of artificial emeralds.

“It’s Harold Harper.”

“Is he the one who’s making all the fuss?”

“Yes.”

“What is it? A touch of the horrors?”

Murphy looked uneasy. “I’m not sure, Gil.”

“What do you mean?”

“Harper doesn’t drink much—but he says he saw a ghost.” Murphy was a mature, intelligent man and it was clear that he was embarrassed by what he was saying, yet was determined to see it through.

“A ghost!” Snook gave a short laugh. “It’s amazing what you can see through the bottom of a glass.”

“I don’t think he was drinking. The shift foreman would have noticed.”

Snook’s interest quickened. “You mean he was in the mine when it happened?”

“Yes. Coming off night shift on the bottom level.”

“What did this…ghost look like?”

“Well, it’s hard to get much sense out of Harper the way he is at the moment…”

“You must have some idea. Are we talking about a lady in a long white dress? Something like that?”

Murphy shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets, hunched his shoulders and rocked on the balls of his feet. “Harper says a head came up out of the rock floor then sank back into it again.”

“That’s a new one on me.” Snook was unable to resist being callous. “I knew a guy once who used to see long-necked geese walking out from under his bed.”

“I told you Harper wasn’t drinking.”

“You don’t have to be swigging right up to the minute the DTs start.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Murphy was beginning to lose his patience. “Will you come and talk to him? He’s badly shaken up and the doctor’s away at Number Four.”

“What good would I do? I’m not a medic.”

“For some reason Harper looks up to you. For some reason he thinks you’re his friend.”

Snook could see the superintendent was growing angry, but his own reluctance to become involved was just as strong as ever. Harper was a member of several of his classes and on a few occasions had stayed behind to discuss points of special interest to him. He was a willing student, but many of the miners were hungry for knowledge and Snook failed to see that he should therefore be put on stand-by, ready to go running each time one of them bloodied his nose.

“Harper and I get on all right,” Snook said, digging in. “I just don’t think I can help him in a case like this.”

“I don’t think so, either.” Murphy’s voice, as he turned to leave, showed his disgust at Snook’s attitude. “Perhaps Harper is just a crazy man. Or maybe there’s something wrong with his Amplites.”

Snook suddenly felt cold. “Wait a minute. Was Harper wearing Amplites when he saw this…thing?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know—it seems odd, that’s all. How can anything go wrong with magniluct glasses?”

Murphy hesitated. He obviously realised he had caught Snook’s interest and was taking revenge by being meagre with his information. “I don’t know what can go wrong with them. Flaws in the material, maybe. Funny reflections.”

“George, what are you talking about?”

“This isn’t the first incident we’ve had this week. On Tuesday morning a couple of men coming off the night shift said they saw some kind of a bird flying around on the bottom level. If you ask me, they had been on the bottle.” Murphy began to move away. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Snook thought about the unmanning dread he had felt during the one moment, almost three years earlier, when he had looked on the blotched, glowering face of Thornton’s Planet at its closest to Earth. An instinct prompted him to wonder if Harold Harper, similarly unready, had made contact with the unknown.

“If you wait till I get my boots on,” he said to Murphy, “I’ll go down to the mine with you.”

Barandi National Mine No. 3 was one of the most modern in the world, and had few of the trappings associated with traditional-style diggings. The main shaft was perfectly circular in cross-section, having been sunk by a track-mounted parasonic projector which converted the clay and rock within its beam to monomolecular dust. Apart from the various hoist mechanisms, the dominant feature of the mine head was the snaking cluster of vacuum tubes which drew away the dust created by hand-held projectors on the working levels. It was then piped off to a nearby processing plant where, as a by-product, it formed the basis of high-quality cement.

One thing the mine had in common with all others yielding the same precious material was a very strict security system. His work as a teacher allowed Snook to move freely in the outer circle of administrative buildings and stores, but he had never before been through the single gate in the fence which surrounded the mine head itself. He looked about him with interest as the armed guards examined his identification. A military jeep bearing the star-and-sword emblem of the Barandian government was parked at the miner check-out shed.

Snook pointed the vehicle out to Murphy. “Royal visit?”

“Colonel Freeborn is here. He visits us about once a month to check the security procedures in person.” Murphy slapped his own jaw lightly in annoyance. “We could have done without this trouble today of all days.”

“Is he a big man with a dent in the side of his skull?”

“That’s right.” Murphy looked curiously at Snook. “Have you met him?”

“Just once—quite a while ago.”

Snook had been interviewed by several army officers during his one day of interrogation after arriving in Barandi, but he remembered Colonel Freeborn most clearly. Freeborn had questioned him in detail about his reasons for refusing to work on Barandian aircraft, and had nodded thoughtfully each time Snook had given a deliberately obtuse answer. In the end Freeborn had said, with perfect candour, “I’m an important man in this country, a friend of the President, and I have no time to waste on white foreigners, least of all you. If you don’t start giving plain answers to my questions, you’ll

leave this office with a skull like mine.” He had reinforced his meaning by picking up his cane and fitting the gold ball at its top neatly into the cup-shaped depression on his shaven head. The little demonstration had persuaded Snook that his wisest course would be one of cooperation, and it still rankled with him that he had been cowed so thoroughly within the space of ten seconds. He thrust the memory aside as being unproductive.

“I don’t hear Harper now,” he said. “Perhaps he’s calming down.”

“I hope so,” Murphy replied. He led the way across rutted hard clay to a mobile building which had a red cross on its side…They went up the wooden steps and into a reception room which was bare except for some utility chairs and World Health Organisation posters. Harold Harper, a broad-shouldered but very thin man in his mid-twenties, was slouched in one of the chairs, and two seats away—maintaining his professional detachment—was a black male nurse with watchful eyes. Harper gave a lopsided smile when he saw Snook, but did not speak or move.

“I had to give him a shot, Mister Murphy,” the nurse said.

“Without the doctor being here?”

“It was Colonel Freeborn’s order.”

Murphy sighed. “The Colonel’s authority doesn’t extend to medical situations.”

“Are you kidding?” The nurse’s face was a caricature of indignation. “I don’t want no dent in my head.”

“Perhaps the shot was a good idea,” Snook said, going forward and kneeling in front of Harper. “Hey, Harold, what’s been going on? What’s all this about a ghost?”

Harper’s smile faded. “I saw a ghost, Gil.”

“You were in luck—I’ve never seen one of those things in my whole life.”

“Luck?” Harper’s gaze slid away, seeming to focus on something far beyond the confines of the small room.

“What exactly did you see, Harold?”

Harper spoke in a dreamy voice, occasionally lapsing into Swahili. “I was down on Level Eight…far end of the south

pipe…started to run out of yellow clay, kept hitting rock…needed to reset my projector, but I knew it was near the end of the shift…turned back and saw something on the floor…a little dome, like the top of a coconut…shining, but I could see through it…tried to touch it—nothing there…took off my Amplites for a better look, you know how you do it, automatic like, but there’s hardly any light down there…without the glasses I couldn’t see a thing…so I put them on again…and…and…” Harper stopped speaking and began to take heavy, measured breaths. His feet moved slightly, as though a signal to flee was not being fully suppressed.

“What did you see, Harold?”

“There was a head…my hand was inside the head.”

“What sort of head?”

“Not human…not like an animal…about this size…” Harper crooked his ringers as though holding a football. “Three eyes…all together near the top…mouth near the bottom…my hand was inside the head, Gil. Right inside it.”

“Did you feel anything?”

“No. I just got back from it. I was up against the end of the pipe. I couldn’t get away…so I just sat there.”

“Then what happened?”

“The head turned round a bit…the mouth moved, but there was no sound…then it sank down into the rock. It was gone.”

“Was there a hole in the rock?”

“There was no hole in the rock.” Harper looked mildly reproachful. “I saw aghost, Gil.”

“Could you show me the exact spot?”

“I could.” Harper closed his eyes, and his head rolled slightly. “But I sure as hell won’t. I’m not going back down there again. Not ever…” He leaned back in the chair and began to snore.

“You! Florence Nightingale!” Murphy jabbed the nurse’s shoulder with a broad forefinger. “How much stuff did you shoot into this man?”

“He’ll be all right,” the nurse said defensively. “I’ve sedated men before.”

“He’d better be all right, man. I’ll be back every hour or so to check—so you’d better bed him down and look after him.” The superintendent, big and competent in his expensive silvercords, was genuinely concerned about Harper, and -uncharacteristically for him—Snook felt the sudden warmth of liking and respect.

“Listen,” he said, as soon as they got outside. “I’m sorry I was so slow off the mark up at my place. I didn’t realise what Harper was up against.”

Murphy smiled, completing the human link. “Okay, Gil. You believed what he told you?”

“It sounds crazy, but I think I do. It was the bit about the glasses that did it. When he took them off he couldn’t see the head, or whatever it was.”

“That made me think there was something wrong with the glasses.”

“It made me think that what Harper saw is very real, though I can’t explain it. Do all the miners wear Amplites?”

“They’re standard issue. They cut lighting bills by ninety per cent—and you know the energy situation now that they’re giving up the nuclear power plant.”

“I know.” Snook narrowed his eyes, watching the sun begin its vertical climb from behind the mountains due east. One of the things he disliked about living on the equator was that there was so little variation in the sun’s daily path. He imagined it wearing a groove in the firmament, getting into a rut. A line of men had formed at the entrance to the hoist, on their way to go on shift, and Snook became aware that a number of them were grinning and waving at him. One proffered his yellow safety helmet and pointed at the mine entrance, and others near him burst out laughing as Snook gave an exaggerated shake of his head.

“They seem in good form,” Snook said. “Most of them aren’t so chirpy in class.”

“They’re scared,” Murphy told him. “Rumours spread fast in a mining camp and the two men who thought they saw birds on Tuesday morning have been talking their heads off. This story of Harper’s has gone round the camp already, and when he gets into the bar tonight and has a few drinks…”

“What are they scared of?”

“Ten years ago most of these men were herders and farmers. President Ogilvie rounded them up like their own cattle, gave them all Anglo names, banned the Bantu languages in favour of English, dressed them up in shirts and pants—but he hasn’t changed them in any way. They never liked going down the mines, and they never will.”

“You’d think that after ten years…”

“As far as they’re concerned, it’s another world down there. A world they’ve no business to enter. All they need is a hint, just one hint, that the rightful inhabitants of that world are objecting to their presence and they’ll refuse to go back into it.”

“What would happen then?”

Murphy took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and gave one to Snook. They both lit up and gazed at each other through complex traceries of smoke.

“This single mine,” Murphy said, “produced more than forty thousand metric carats last year. What do you think would happen?”

“Colonel Freeborn?”

“That’s right—Colonel Freeborn would happen. Right now the government pays the men a living wage…and provides facilities like medical aid, even though there’s only one qualified doctor serving four mines…and free education, even though the teacher is an out-of-work aircraft mechanic…” Murphy’s eyes twinkled as Snook performed a stiff bow.

“The system doesn’t cost much, and the President’s advisers get what propaganda value they can out of it,” Murphy continued, “but if the miners tried refusing to work, Colonel Freeborn would introduce another system. This has always been good slave country, you know.”

Snook studied his loosely-packed aromatic cigarette for a moment. “Aren’t you taking a bit of a risk by talking to me like this?”

“I don’t think so. I take care to know the man I speak to.”

“It’s nice of you to say that,” Snook replied warily, “but would you be insulted if I went on thinking you must have a reason?”

“Not insulted—disappointed, perhaps.” Murphy gave a high-pitched chuckle which seemed incompatible with his solid torso, and the minty smell of his breath reached Snook. “The men like you because you’re honest. And because you’re nobody’s fool.”

“You’re still being nice to me, George.”

Murphy spread his hands. “What I’ve been saying is relevant. Look, if you will investigate this ghost thing and come up with some reassuring explanation the men will accept it. And you’ll be doing them a big favour.”

“Anything that teacher says must be true.”

Murphy nodded. “In this case, yes.”

“I’m interested.” Snook turned to face the steel-framed structures which covered the entrance to the three-kilometre vertical shaft. “But I thought visitors weren’t allowed down there.”

“You’re a privileged case. I talked to Alain Cartier, the mine manager, a while ago and he has already signed the special authorisation.”