Free Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt

decade, and had no champions in the field that day.)
    “What characteristics,” asked Silas smoothly, “would you demand of a communication before you would pronounce it to be of divine origin?”
    Kaymon looked puzzled. “The official sanction of the Temple,” he said, glancing hopefully toward Avila.
    “I think,” said Avila, “that, in this case, you are the Temple.”
    “Exactly,” said Silas. “If a message were laid before you, with supernatural claims, how would you arrive at a judgment?”
    Kaymon’s gaze swept left and right, seeking help.
    “There is no way to be sure,” said Telchik, “unless you are standing there when it happens. And even then—”
    “Even then,” said Orvon, an advocate’s son, “we may be seeing only what we wish to see.”
    “Then we may safely conclude,” said Telchik, “that there is no way to know whether a communication does in fact have divine backing.”
    Several of the disputants glanced uncomfortably at Avila, to see how she was taking the general assault on her career. But she watched placidly, with a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
    “And what have you to say of all this?” Silas asked her.
    “They may be right,” she said matter-of-factly. “Even assuming that Shanta exists, we cannot know for certain that she really cares about us. We may well be living in a world that has come about by accident. In which everything is transient. In which nothing matters.” Her eyes were very dark. “I don’t say I believe this, but it is a possibility. But that possibility is outside the parameters of the discussion. I would propose to you that the gods may find us a difficult subject for communication.”
    “How do you mean?” asked Orvon.
    She pressed her palms together. “Orvon, may I ask where you live?”
    “Three miles outside the city. On the heights above River Road.”
    “Good.” She looked pleased. “It’s a lovely location. Let us suppose that, this evening, when you are on your way home, the Goddess herself were to walk out from behind some trees to wish you good day. How would you respond?”
    “He would lose his voice,” laughed Telchik.
    “I suppose it would be a little unnerving.”
    “And if she gave you a message to bring back to us?”
    “I would most certainly do so.”
    She nodded and raised her eyes to encompass the others. “And how would we respond to Orvon’s claim?”
    “Nobody’d believe it,” said Selenico, youngest of the participants.
    “And what,” asked Silas, “if the Goddess had said hello instead to Avila? Would we believe her ?”
    “No,” said Orvon, “I don’t think so.”
    “Why not?” asked Avila.
    “Because you are not objective.”
    “No,” said Silas. “Not because she is not objective, but because she is committed . There is a difference.”
    “Indeed,” rumbled Telchik. “I should like to hear what it is. Shanta would do better to give her message to me .”
    “Yes,” said Avila, brightening, “because if you came with such a story, we still might not believe it, but we would know that something very odd had happened.”
    Sigmon, a young man whose primary interest was in the sciences, suggested that a deity who wished to communicate would necessarily want an unbeliever, to allay suspicions. “And furthermore,” he said, “he might want to go for drama, rather than a simple statement that we should do thus and so.”
    “How do you mean?” asked Kaymon.
    Sigmon’s brow wrinkled. “Well,” he said, “if I were a god, and I wanted to tell the Illyrians that Haven exists—”
    All faces turned in his direction.
    “—I can think of nothing better than inspiring Karik Endine to produce a copy of the Connecticut Yankee .”
     
    The moon set at about midnight. It was well into the early hours when Chaka got out of the bed in which she had lain sleepless, and dressed. She put on dark blue riding breeches and a black shirt. She had no dark jacket and had to make do with a