Odyssey

by Jack McDevitt

  “I’m talking about the supernova of 2216.”

  That was nineteen years ago. A monster event. It had brightened the night sky for days. “How are you going to do that? We have a time machine?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We can pass the light, then turn around and look at it.”

  Yes. He knew that. Just hadn’t stopped to think. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Mac, it was before Amy’s time. We all got to see it, but Amy wasn’t born yet. I think she’d enjoy it, and we don’t really have to go out of our way. It’ll cost a day or so, but that’s all.”

  “I keep forgetting we can do this stuff.”

  “So what do you say? Is it okay? It’s on the way to our next site.”

  “Sure,” he said. “No moonriders associated with it?”

  “No. It’s part of the Blue Tour, but no lights have been seen near it.”

  MacAllister shifted his position. “Did you ask Eric?”

  “He’s all for it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Sure. I’d enjoy seeing it again.”

  THEY CAME BACK together and Valya put the question to Amy. “Would you like to take a ride into the past?”

  “Into the past?” she said. “How do you mean?”

  “Do you know about the supernova of 2216?”

  “Sure.”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  The child, apparently brighter than MacAllister, lit up. “Would you really do that for me?”

  “If you want.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  They made the jump into the mists that evening. When it was done, MacAllister announced he’d had enough excitement for one day and headed for his compartment. Amy was doing homework, and Eric had hunched down in front of his notebook, reading.

  He was glad to hit the rack, to get by himself for a few hours. That was another problem with the Salvator. Everybody needed time alone, MacAllister more than most. But he knew he couldn’t take to hanging out in his compartment for long stretches without exciting comment and resentment. You go on a trip like this, you have to be willing to socialize. So it felt especially good when night came and the ship’s lights dimmed, as they did at ten P.M., and he could justify retreating.

  He settled in with Ferguson’s latest, Breakout, a history of the first twenty years of interstellar flight. But it turned out to be dreary stuff. The most rousing piece of writing in the entire book was the title. The author had done substantial research, and he wanted the reader to be impressed. Consequently he loaded every page with irrelevant dialogue and descriptions of engine thrust, even to the point of listing the supply inventories for several early flights. Nobody went to the washroom without Ferguson’s recording it.

  MacAllister made a few notes and decided it deserved to be reviewed. It was his duty to warn an unsuspecting public.

  AT MIDAFTERNOON THEY transited out of the mist and glided back under the stars.

  “We’re about six light-years beyond 61 Cygni,” said Valya, “moving in the general direction of the galactic core. Out here, it’s not easy to be precise about distances. Can’t be sure exactly where we are.”

  “Which one is it?” asked Amy, looking at the stars on the displays. “The one that’s going to explode?”

  “It’s not visible to the naked eye,” said Valya. She used a marker to indicate its location. “It’s right here. Thirteen hundred light-years the other side of Sol. Out toward the rim. They figure it exploded in A.D. 946.”

  The light from the event reached Earth in 2216. “I was at Princeton,” said Eric.

  MacAllister had been in the second year of his marriage. He was with the Sun then, and Jenny had been teaching American history at a local high school.

  The supernova had happened on a warm Tuesday evening, just after sunset. MacAllister was clearing away the dishes from dinner. Jenny had been outside talking with neighbors, and suddenly she was at the kitchen door, urging him to come out. Look at this, Mac.

  He’d gone outside, expecting to discover that a flight of ducks had landed or some such thing—Jenny was forever feeding stray animals, and they came in swarms—but he was surprised to see her and his next-door neighbors staring at the sky.

  Directly overhead, a star had appeared.

  The sky was still much too light for stars.

  The “star” got brighter as they watched.

  He wondered whether it might be a comet. But there’d been no announcement to that effect.

  “What is it, Mac?” she asked.

  He checked with the Sun office. Nothing was happening that they knew of.

  And it kept getting brighter.

  The sky darkened, and other stars appeared, but none burned with the sheer intensity of whatever it was hanging over Eastern Avenue. People were coming out of their houses and standing on their lawns and in the street.

  Eventually, he went back inside and made more calls. Air Transport said it was not in the atmosphere. The Wilkins Observatory seemed surprised to hear there was an anomaly. They told him they’d get back to him, but never did. He was about to call the Deep Space Lab in Kensington when the city editor at the Sun contacted him: They think it’s a nova.

  By then the entire neighborhood was outside looking up. It was the only time in his entire life he’d seen something like that. Even the passing of Halley’s Comet, a couple of years earlier, had played to only a few people.

  Eventually, the experts would decide it was a supernova.

  EVEN AMY GOT bored while they waited. Valya showed them where the sun was; pointed out 61 Cygni, where they had been yesterday; and 36 Ophiuchi, where they would be tomorrow. Both were dim, even at close range.

  They watched The London Follies that evening, leaving Bill to keep an eye open for the supernova. It came in the middle of the second act.

  “It’s beginning,” he said.

  Amy led the charge out of the common room onto the bridge. Valya had turned the Salvator around so it was facing back toward Cygni, toward Earth, and they could see everything through the viewport.

  Valya had Bill rerun the event from the beginning. A star appeared where none had been before, and within moments it became the brightest object in the sky.

  “It’s a rare sight,” said Valya. “Whole generations live and die without seeing one of those.”

  He went up front and took his turn at the viewport. It chilled him to realize how far from Baltimore he was at that moment. “It was like that for three nights,” he said.

  She nodded. “Seventy-nine hours before it began to fade.”

  “I seem to recall they sent a mission.”

  “The Perth. That was the Long Mission.”

  Eric nodded. “At that time, it was the farthest we’d been from home. And the record stood a lot of years.”

  “Wasn’t there something about aliens?” asked MacAllister.

  “There was a theory,” said Eric, “that the supernova would attract anyone who could see it and who had an FTL capability. Just as it had drawn the Perth. So when they got to the system, they watched for a few weeks. Before they started back, they inserted a couple of monitors to say hello in case anyone showed up.”

  “But nobody ever did,” said MacAllister.

  Valya grinned. “Give it time. It’s early yet.”

  “It’s been thirteen hundred years since the event. I suspect if anybody intended to go, they’d have been there by now.”

  “But it’s only nineteen years since we left the satellites. There might have been visitors long before we got there. And most of the galaxy hasn’t seen the light yet. Doesn’t even know about the event.”

  AMY HAD HEARD her father describe the night it had happened, how he and her mother had been on a flight somewhere, and they’d thought a meteor had exploded overhead. He’d told her how the sky had filled with light, and they’d all held their breath until the pilot got on the comm system and told them there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, that they were looking
at some sort of astronomical phenomenon. “He didn’t have a clue what it was, any more than we did,” her father had explained. She’d heard him tell the story a hundred times. But until tonight she hadn’t really understood.

  Her father still believed that she was destined for a life like his. Maybe put in some years as a prosecutor somewhere. Eventually go into politics. Her fascination with the cosmos was a phase, a childish inclination that would go away with the onset of adulthood, of maturity. She loved him, and she wished he could see the world as she did. But she’d make him proud, in time.

  She thought how, one day, ten light-years closer to the galactic center, she’d park another ship in front of the wave and show her passengers this same supernova. In a way, it suggested that the future Amy Taylor already existed.

  Bill broke into her thoughts: “On average, the Milky Way experiences two supernovas per century.”

  “Were there any living worlds out there?” she asked. “Where the star exploded?”

  “We don’t know,” said Bill. “The system was so thoroughly wrecked it was impossible to be sure.”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be like,” she said, “to be in a place like that.”

  “Where the sun was going to explode?” MacAllister shook his head. “It would raise hell with real estate values.”

  Eric had seen so many reports of sterile systems that it had never really occurred to him there might have been anyone out there.

  “What about our sun?” MacAllister asked. “It’s stable, right?”

  Valya smiled at him. Amy thought the pilot liked him, although she never said anything. It was obvious that Valentina wanted to tell him no, the sun could blow up at any time, and you want to sink the space program. She could never bring herself to forget MacAllister’s opposition to the Academy. You could see it in the attitude of the two toward each other. It was a pity. They’d have made an interesting couple, though they were both kind of old. “It’s fine,” Valya said. “Good for a few billion years yet.”

  “How many?” asked Amy, trying to sound worried.

  “A few billion.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said, wondering if anyone there had heard the old joke. “For a minute I thought you said million.”

  MacAllister laughed and went on: “Just for argument, if the sun were going to go supernova, we’d know about it, right? Well in advance?”

  Valya passed the question to Bill. “As I understand it,” he said, “the sun’s not sufficiently massive to go supernova. And I don’t think it can go nova either. But I’m not sure.”

  “In either case, it blows up?” said MacAllister.

  “Yes. But the explosion is much less violent.”

  “I can see,” said Amy, “where that would make a difference.”

  “Have no fear,” Eric said. “The sun’s in good shape.”

  MACALLISTER’S DIARY

  I don’t know how to record this. I watched that star erupt, watched it become the brightest thing in the sky. And all I could think of was the first time I saw it, nineteen years ago, with Jenny. And I would have liked to have been able to see the Earth again, to see Baltimore on that night, just off Eastern Avenue. To see Jenny again. Alive and well.

  —Sunday, April 5

  chapter 20

  36 Ophiuchi is a multiple star system. It’s located slightly less than twenty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Tamer. The system is composed of three stars, all orange-red dwarfs. Ophiuchi A and B orbit each other in a highly irregular pattern, approaching within a range of 7 AUs, retreating to 170 AUs. A complete orbit requires 574 years. Ophiuchi C orbits the inner pair at an average range of about 5000 AUs. It is a variable star.

  —The Star Register

  “This is what everybody comes to see,” said Valya, as they approached a blue-green world. It was orbiting Ophiuchi A at a distance of seventy-five million kilometers, placing it squarely in the biozone.

  “Terranova,” said Amy. The new Earth.

  It was the second world on which life had been found, the first whose living creatures had been visible to the naked eye. That was eighty-five years ago. It was an unlikely system in which to find a planet with a stable orbit, let alone a living world. But there it was.

  In an odd bit of serendipity, Terranova numbered among its occupants the largest known land animal. That was the unhappily named groper, which maybe should not qualify because there was still an ongoing argument whether it was animal or plant or a hybrid. It spent most of its life squatting over nutrient sources. It fed on a variety of slugs, bugs, and grasses. And periodically, when it had exhausted the output in one location, it climbed onto about two hundred legs and rumbled elsewhere. It used photosynthesis as a secondary energy source. Seen in motion, the creature resembled nothing so much as a giant green slug.

  Also growing on Terranova were the largest known trees, the titans.

  “Can we go down and take a look?” asked Amy.

  “If you want.” Valya glanced toward MacAllister and Eric to see if anyone wanted to join them. “It wouldn’t take long.”

  “Be careful,” said MacAllister, who remembered his flight on the lander at Maleiva III.

  “You don’t want to come, Mac?”

  “Thanks. I’ll guard the fort.”

  “How about you, Eric?”

  Eric looked uncertain. “Okay,” he said, finally. “Yes. Sure. Why not?”

  “Good.” Valya looked back at Amy. “You understand nobody leaves the lander.”

  “No, no, that’s fine,” said Amy. There was, of course, no danger that Eric would want to get out and go for a stroll.

  “Just as a precaution,” said MacAllister, “what do I do if something goes wrong?”

  Valya looked amused. “What could go wrong?”

  “You and the lander could get grabbed by a pterodactyl.”

  That got a laugh from Amy. “Mac,” the girl said, “there aren’t any pterodactyls here. You’re always fooling around.”

  Valya raised her voice a notch: “Bill.”

  “Yes, Valya.”

  “If you lose contact with me, you will take instruction from Mac.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She looked serenely at MacAllister. “Eric already functions as a backup, in case something were to happen to me. But since he’ll be with us in the lander, you’re in charge. It’s not likely there’ll be a problem. If there is, and for some reason we can’t get back to the ship, and can’t communicate with you, tell Bill to relay the situation to Mission Ops. They’ll send help.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re at a substantial range, so it would take a few hours before you’d get an answer. But all you’d have to do is sit tight.”

  “All right.” MacAllister didn’t like the idea of their going down, but he didn’t want to be a spoiler. Let the girl get a look at the walking slug, if that was what she wanted. She might not get another chance.

  He accompanied them to the launch bay, which also doubled as a cargo hold. Valya broke out e-suits—electronic pressure suits—and gave them a quick course in their use. “We won’t be using them,” she said, “but we never go into hostile country without them. Just in case.”

  “Air’s not breathable?” asked MacAllister.

  “It has a bit too much methane,” she said. She opened the hatch and watched her charges climb in. “We’ll be back for dinner, Mac.”

  THE SHIP SEEMED bigger with everyone gone. MacAllister tried reading, tried to sleep, tried doing some work. Valya had left the lander’s link active so he could listen to the conversation on the ground. Bill aimed the ship’s telescopes at the surface and picked up visuals, which he put on-screen. MacAllister saw continents and oceans and an enormous inland sea. Terranova had ice caps and mountain ranges and island groups. It was an odd experience, looking at a place so Earthlike, but with unfamiliar landmasses. With one exception: A continent sprawled across the equator did vaguely resembl
e Australia.

  He asked Bill for close-ups and saw something that looked like a water spider charging across the ocean surface. Watched a pair of jaws seize one of its hind legs and drag it under. Saw hordes of animals that looked big, although he couldn’t be sure. And long-necked creatures with wings that did in fact resemble pterodactyls. He wondered what he’d say to Hiram Taylor if his daughter got snatched by something, and he went home alone. That would be an ugly scene.

  A lot of the animals had armor. A few predators were up on their hind feet. He watched a plant—at least it looked like a plant—seize a four-legged creature that might have been a zebra with a long snout.

  While MacAllister was admiring his good sense in staying behind, the lander settled onto a beach. There were huge shells in the surf, and a lot of birds.

  “Valya,” said Amy, “could we get out and look? Just for a minute? I’ll be careful.”

  The beach was rimmed by hills and wetland. MacAllister wanted to tell her no, stay where you are, you shouldn’t even be on the ground.

  Something that was almost a blur swept across the sand, angling toward them and then away. It was a blue-green streak, moving so quickly he couldn’t even tell whether it was airborne.

  “No,” said Valya. “Stay put.”

  He asked Bill if he could replay the sequence and freeze the image. Bill complied. The thing looked like a giant eight-legged mantis. Big jaws. Sharp mandibles. Scary eyes.

  He opened a channel to the lander. “Valya,” he told her, “be careful. You’ve got monsters in the neighborhood.”

  “I know, Mac,” she said. “I saw it.”

  Yeah, he thought. Great place for a stroll.

  THEY WERE BACK three hours later, flushed and excited.

  “I’d have loved to be there when they found this place,” said Eric. “They went through almost a hundred worlds that were in biozones before they found Genesis.” Genesis, of course, was the breakthrough world, the place where life had finally been found. It had been strictly unicellular, but nevertheless there it was. Those who’d been arguing that life on Earth was unique, that it took a combination of exceedingly unlikely conditions to get it started, or even a divine decree, had begun to look prescient. Then a sample of water from Alpha Cephei III, quickly named Genesis, had revealed cellular life. “You know,” he said, “they were getting ready to shut the program down then, too. People said it cost too much. And what was the point?”