My role in the story led some Edharians to view me as a traitor—as the guy who had sold Orolo out to the Warden Regulant. This was the kind of thing that, before Anathem, would have kept me up all night, every night, feeling bad. On even-numbered nights I’d have felt guilty about what I had divulged to Spelikon and on odd-numbered nights I’d have seethed with impotent rage at those in my chapter who so misunderstood me. But against the backdrop of all that had been going on, being worried about these things was a little bit like attempting to see distant stars against the daytime sky. Even though Orolo was not my father, and even though he was still alive, I felt about Fraa Spelikon as I would have about a man who had murdered my father before my eyes. And my feelings toward Suur Trestanas were even darker since I suspected that, in some sneaky way, she was behind it.
What had Orolo seen? We might have been able to get some clues from the computations Jesry had been doing before Apert. But the Warden Regulant had confiscated these from their niche and so all we had to go on were Jesry’s recollections. He was fairly certain that Orolo had been trying to calculate the orbital parameters of an object or objects in the solar system. Normally this would imply an asteroid moving in a heliocentric (sun-centered) orbit that happened to be similar to the orbit of Arbre. A Big Nugget type of scenario, in other words. But Jesry had a hunch, based on certain of the numbers he remembered seeing, that the object in question was orbiting, not the sun, but Arbre. This was extremely unusual. In all the millenia that humans had been observing the heavens, only one permanent moon of Arbre had been found. It was possible for an asteroid in a sun-centered orbit to pass near a libration point and be captured into an Arbre-centered orbit, but all such orbits were unstable, and ended with the rock striking Arbre or the moon, or being ejected from the Arbre—moon system.
It might have been that Orolo was looking at the triangular libration points of the Arbre—moon system, which harbored concentrations of rocks and dust that were visible as faint clouds chasing or being chased by the moon in its orbit about Arbre. But it was not clear why such a project would create so much hostility in the Warden Regulant. And as Barb had pointed out, the orientation of the M & M suggested that Orolo had been using it to take pictures of an object in a polar orbit, which was unlikely in a natural object.
Of our group, it was Jesry who first had the courage to give voice to what was implied by all of this: “It is not a natural object. It was made and put there by humans.”
It was not exactly spring. Winter was over, but frost still threatened; bulbs were thrusting green spears up through crystalline mud-ice. Several of us had spent the afternoon chopping down the dead stalks and vines of our tangles. We left these up through most of the winter to prevent soil erosion and provide a habitat for small animals, but the time of year had come when we had to take it all down and burn it so that the ashes could fertilize the soil. Now, following supper, we had gone out into the dark and set fire to the slash we’d heaped up during the day, creating a huge gaseous fire that would not last for very long. Jesry had found a bottle of the peculiar wine that Orolo used to make and we were passing it around.
“It could also have been made by some other praxic civilization,” said Barb. Technically, of course, he was right. Socially, he was annoying us. By putting forth his suggestion, Jesry had stuck his neck out—had exposed himself to the risk of ridicule. By agreeing with him, silently or not, we were accepting the same risk. The last thing we needed was Barb speculating about bug-eyed space monsters.
Another thing about Barb: he was the son of Quin, who in a sense had instigated all of this by making indiscreet remarks about the excellence of modern speelycaptors. This was hardly Barb’s fault but it did create a negative association in one’s mind that bobbed to the surface at awkward moments—and Barb was a copious source of awkward moments.
“That would explain the closure of the starhenge,” Arsibalt said. “Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Sæcular Power has divided into two or more factions—perhaps arming for war. One may have launched a reconnaissance satellite into a polar orbit.”
“Or several of them,” Jesry said, “since I got the impression I was making calculations for more than just one object.”
“Could it have been one object that changed its orbit from time to time?” Tulia asked.
“Unlikely. It takes a lot of energy to change an orbit from one plane to another—almost as much energy as launching the satellite in the first place,” Lio said.
Everyone looked at him.
“Spy satellite vlor,” he said sheepishly, “from a Praxic Age book on space warfare. Plane change maneuvers are expensive!”
“A satellite in a polar orbit doesn’t need to change its plane!” Barb snorted. “It can see all parts of Arbre by waiting long enough.”
“There’s one big reason why I like Jesry’s hypothesis,” I said. Everyone turned and looked at me. I hadn’t been talking much. But in the weeks since Anathem, I had come to be seen as an authority on all things Orolo. “Orolo’s behavior in the days just before Apert suggests that he knew there was going to be trouble. Whatever it was that he had seen, he knew that it was a Sæcular event and that the hierarchs would make him stop looking at it as soon as they found out. That wouldn’t have been true if it was just a rock.”
I was only agreeing with the consensus. Most of the others nodded. But Arsibalt of all people seemed to take what I’d said as a challenge. He cleared his throat and came back at me as if we were in dialog. “Fraa Erasmas, what you have said makes sense as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go very far. Since Anathem was rung down on Orolo, it’s easy for us to fall in the habit of thinking of him as a malcontent. But would you have identified him as such before Apert?”
“Your point is well taken, Fraa Arsibalt. Let’s not waste time taking a poll of everyone standing around this fire. Orolo was as happy to abide under the Discipline as any avout who ever lived.”
“But the launching of a new reconaissance satellite is clearly a Sæcular event, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“And, moreover, since that kind of praxis has been around for millenia—long enough that Fraa Lio here can read of it in ancient books—there is nothing new that Orolo could have learned by making observations of such a satellite, is there?”
“Presumably not—unless it embodied some newly developed praxis.”
“But such a new praxis would also be a Sæcular event, would it not?” Tulia put in.
“Yes, Suur Tulia. And therefore no concern of the avout.”
“So,” said Arsibalt, “if we accept the premise that Fraa Orolo was a true avout who respected the Discipline, we cannot at the same time believe that the thing he saw in the sky was a satellite recently launched from the surface of Arbre.”
“Because,” said Lio, completing the thought, “he’d have identified any such thing as being of no interest to us.”
All of which made sense; but it left us with nowhere to go. Or at least, nowhere we were willing to go.
Except for Barb. “Therefore it must be an alien ship.”
Jesry inhaled deeply and let out a big sigh. “Fraa Tavener,” he said, using Barb’s avout name, “remind me to show you some research, back in the Library, showing just how unlikely that is.”
“Unlikely but not impossible?” Fraa Tavener shot back. Jesry sighed again.
“Fraa Jesry,” I said, and managed to catch his eye and throw him a wry look—exactly the kind of signal to which Barb was oblivious. “Fraa Tavener seems very keen on the topic. The fire’s dying fast. We only have a few more minutes here. Why don’t you go on ahead of us and show him that research. We’ll put out the fire and tidy up.”