Odyssey

by Jack McDevitt

  “Sure.”

  “What are you going to do about Terranova?”

  “You mean are we going to divert the asteroid? Turn it off course?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “That’s not my call, Wolfgang. I don’t know what’s been decided.”

  “You’re saying there’s a possibility we might just stand aside and let the thing go down?”

  “I’m saying I haven’t received my instructions yet. You want to know more, you’ll have to go higher in the organization.”

  WITHIN A FEW hours, the world’s attention had become focused on the object the media had begun calling the Terranova Rock. It was at the top of the news everywhere. Wolfie switched around and sampled several shows. The correspondents and their guests were alarmed. That was standard, of course. In an age of complete global media penetration, competition was fierce, and if you fell from a roof in Shanghai, people in Little Rock got the details. Shocking news from Shanghai, the anchors would proclaim. Life and death in the shadow of the Great Wall. Yes, it was not journalism’s finest hour. But, MacAllister often argued, it never had been. It was, however, the reason people appreciated Paris Watch and The Atlantic and The National. They were calm, analytical, serious.

  Odd objects in the sky had been around for ages. Some enthusiasts claimed they’d been seen in biblical times, pointing to the first chapter of Ezechiel. There’d been other manifestations, but sightings became widespread during the Second World War when pilots in several air forces claimed to see objects they called foo fighters. In the mid twentieth century they became flying saucers, or UFOs. A hundred years later they were ghost lights. Now they were moonriders. The assumption always was that only delusional people encountered them, so it was easy enough to dismiss the reports. Anyone who claimed to have seen one could expect not to be taken seriously again during his or her lifetime.

  When humans went to the stars, they continued to report strange objects. There were still occasional Earthbound sightings, for which no compelling evidence was ever brought forth. But when superluminals picked them up, it became a different story because there was usually a record. So the assumption became that the images reproduced by the AIs were gremlins in the software, manifestations of misaligned equations, or careless programming rather than actual objects. Or they might be reflections, or possibly even quantum fluctuations. But the Terranova Rock was changing all that. It was an intriguing story. The rock was there, and it was headed eventually for a living world.

  LIBRARY ARCHIVE

  …The rush to accept the notion that we have visitors, and that they constitute a threat to humanity, is not as premature as some would have us think. We should consider what our status will be if a technologically superior species arrives and begins making demands. Or worse yet, if they are overtly hostile. In the Terranova Incident, the evidence indicates a level of malice one would hope would have been bred out of beings with a high level of technological capability. If that is actually so, then what will our position be if they decide to amuse themselves at our expense as well? What defense have we? At the moment, no navy exists. An engagement would be a trifle one-sided. Let us hope either the World Council moves quickly to alleviate the risk, or that these neighbors, if they’re really there, don’t come this way.

  —Jerusalem Post, Saturday, April 11

  BEEMER: “I’D DO IT AGAIN”

  Accused Assailant Unrepentant in Interview

  chapter 25

  A surprising number of terrestrial worlds are in warm locations, with plenty of water, but no life. They are perceived as places where something went wrong. They are “sterile.” Maybe so. I tend to think of them as “clean.” If we’re at all honest with ourselves, we’ll recognize that life in fact is an infection. Cephei III has a pleasant climate and trillions of microscopic living things. Cephei IV also has a pleasant climate, and there’s nothing crawling around. Where would you rather spend your vacation?

  —Gregory MacAllister, “On the Move”

  Alpha Cephei. Forty-nine light-years from Sol. Most distant point on the Blue Tour.

  When the robot flights went out from Earth during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, they were looking for signs of life. Researchers, and indeed the general public, hoped something would be found on Mars. The imagined creatures of H. G. Wells and Ray Bradbury were, of course, long off the table, but there was hope of finding fossilized bacteria. Or some other evidence that living things had once existed on the Red Planet.

  But Mars was every bit as sterile as it had looked on July 20, 1976, when the Viking I lander set down in Chryse Planitia. It was dry, dusty, and a bitter disappointment to millions of people around the world who had hoped, and probably expected, to see at the very least a few shrubs.

  The next best hope was Europa.

  It had long been thought that life might be found in its ocean, which was sheltered beneath ice packs as much as twenty kilometers thick. There was liquid water, kept relatively warm by tidal effects.

  An automated mission was dispatched during the third decade of the twenty-first century. It drilled through the ice but found no life or any indication it had ever existed.

  There was talk for a while of life-seeding materials on comets, but that never provided a payoff either. So, as the century wore on, it became evident the solar system, save for Earth, was barren. Spectrographic analyses of planetary atmospheres in nearby star systems provided no evidence of an oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle. At that time, no one seriously believed humans would ever leave the solar system. So when, shortly after its eightieth anniversary, SETI shut down and was declared a failure, it looked as if the book had closed on the question of life elsewhere.

  Then, on New Year’s Day 2079, a probe took pictures of a carved figure on the jagged surface of Saturn’s moon, Iapetus. At first, researchers thought it was, like the Martian face and the zigzag wall on Miranda, an illusion. But a manned mission brought the electrifying confirmation that someone had visited the Saturnian system. The figure was chilling, a nightmare creation of claws, surreal eyes, and muscular fluidity. Simultaneously humanoid and reptilian, it was a thing out of a horror show, and yet there was a kind of quiet placidity in its expression. Its age was established at about ten thousand years.

  A set of prints in the dust suggested that the image was a self-portrait.

  Its origin remained a mystery for the better part of a century. Until Ginny Hazeltine showed that FTL travel, despite the common wisdom, was possible. And went on to demonstrate how it could be done. Within two years, the first light-ships, as they were then called, headed out to Alpha Centauri and Lalande 8760 and Epsilon Eridani and Procyon. These voyages were magnificent achievements, but again the celebratory mood was dampened when word came back that no life had been found.

  Most disappointing, at Lalande and Procyon, they saw terrestrial-style worlds, with broad water oceans and warm sunlight. And not so much as a blade of grass. For a time, the belief that humans had been the beneficiaries of a special creation made a comeback. The Iapetus figure became, in the minds of many, a hoax. Others thought it had been left by diabolical forces. And the idea that humans were alone in the universe gained credence.

  The fifth expedition went to Alpha Cephei, where they found two terrestrial planets within the biozone. When seen from orbit, both looked sterile. And indeed, Cephei IV was without life. But its sister world was the gold card.

  It was teeming with living creatures. They were single-celled, but they were there! Today, a half century later, scientists are still debating how it happens you can have two worlds in a biozone, with similar conditions on both. And life starts on one but not on the other.

  When the Salvator arrived in that historic system, MacAllister was thinking about that first expedition and wondering precisely what drove the human effort to find life elsewhere. He had long ago dismissed this yearning for other life as infantile. His position was completely rational: We are better off if whateve
r neighbors there are stay at a distance. God had done things the right way, he’d once written, when He put such vast distances between technological civilizations. In both time and space.

  “There it is,” said Valya, putting Alpha Cephei III on the display. It had the requisite big moon, which is apparently needed to produce tides and prevent a planetary wobble, plus two smaller ones. Oceans covered about 80 percent of the planet. It had a sixteen-degree tilt, and ice caps at both poles. The telescope zoomed in, and Mac saw rolling plains and rivers. But the place looked bleak. No forests. No grasslands. He could imagine the feelings of the crew in that first lightship.

  What was its name?

  “The Galileo,” said Amy, who was less impressed than MacAllister had expected. “It sure looks dead.” And with that she dismissed the discovery that, in its time, had been hailed as the greatest of all time. Well, kids are never much on history. Nor for that matter was anybody else. It had been MacAllister’s experience that most people think anything that happened before they were born didn’t count for a whole lot.

  Happily, there was no sign of moonriders. It was curious how drastically MacAllister’s perspective had changed. When they’d started out, almost three weeks ago, he would have been delighted to see black globes in the sky. But not now. The critters were too unpredictable. He was anxious for it to be over. It meant he would go home with no answers, hardly a healthy attitude for a journalist. But at least he would go home.

  Valya launched the monitor and, a few hours later, put them in orbit around Cephei III.

  SHORTLY AFTER THE Galileo’s discovery, the World Space Authority had established a base on the western coastline of one of the continents. Biologists, delighted with the opportunity to study off-world life, had lined up for assignment, and Cephei III had continued to receive researchers ever since. The base was still there, expanded over the years into a major facility, home to teams of specialists who, MacAllister suspected, couldn’t find anything better to do with their time than freeload on government funds and university grants.

  “Did you want to go down and say hello?” asked Valya. “I understand they do a tour.”

  Amy announced that she’d rather stay with the ship and keep an eye open for moonriders. Eric agreed. MacAllister had no interest in single-celled creatures, nor in the people who studied them. “Have they ever reported anything out of the ordinary?” he asked.

  “You mean biologically?”

  “I mean moonriders.”

  She checked her notebook. “A few times,” she said. “Most recent was last year. One of the researchers said she saw a formation pass overhead.”

  “Is she still here?”

  “Back in Rome.”

  MacAllister had been looking at a history of sightings. There’d been none that couldn’t be explained as runaway imaginations or hoaxes until about twenty years ago, when they first started showing up on the superluminal routes.

  The earliest deep-space sighting had occurred at Triassic II. A cargo ship, bringing supplies to a ground station, had spotted strange objects moving in formation through the clouds. The pictures, when relayed home, had created a sensation.

  During those first few years, such sightings had been rare. But their frequency had begun to increase. In ’54 there’d been eleven, the most ever reported in a single year. They’d been distributed among the Blue Tour stars, as well as Sirius and Procyon. There were no sightings farther out, none from Betelgeuse or Achernar or Spica or Bellatrix. Of course those stars weren’t on any of the tours. So, were the moonriders only interested in the worlds close to Earth? Or were they everywhere?

  THEY’D AGREED THAT each stop deserved some time. That if they just went in and unloaded the monitor and cleared out, they’d be neglecting an important aspect of their assignment: to conduct an active search. MacAllister wasn’t sure exactly when the mission changed, when it had gone from laying monitors and maybe if we got really lucky we’d see something, to prosecuting an aggressive hunt and dropping off the monitor more or less as a sideshow.

  Valya reported their presence to the people at the ground station. When, at Amy’s urging, she asked whether they’d seen anything unusual in the skies, they laughed.

  Meantime a transmission came in from Wolfie. He was going to expand the moonrider story in the coming issue, publishing not only MacAllister’s report, but covering the reaction at home as well. “People are getting stirred up,” he said. “I think it would be interesting to look at the political ramifications of this. The White House is trying to suggest everything’s business as usual, but I understand there are some behind-the-scenes concerns.” Did MacAllister concur? He included a bundle of news reports.

  Hutchins had forwarded a digest of the media reaction, so he already knew the Terranova Rock had ignited a firestorm. Now the talking heads were wondering why the aliens would keep their presence secret if they did not have malicious intent. MacAllister dismissed that reasoning. The moonriders were certainly not keeping their presence secret. They were flying right out there for anyone to see. What he sensed on their part was contempt. They didn’t much care whether we saw them or not.

  He told Wolfie to go ahead. “You’ve got it right,” he said. “The real story here isn’t the moonriders, but the overreaction of the media. Which means let’s show the public what they’re doing. Put it on the cover and play it for all it’s worth.”

  He made the mistake of relaying the conversation to Amy and Eric. Eric looked doubtful. “It’s true,” MacAllister insisted. “The media are out of control. And it’s time somebody called them on it. All they want to do is sell advertising space. So they go with whatever that day’s big story is and push it until it’s exhausted or something else comes along. We’ve become an oversized tabloid. Scandal, murder, and moonriders. It’s all we care about.”

  “Does that we include The National?” asked Eric. “I mean you’re complaining about media overreaction, but you put it on the cover.”

  MacAllister laughed. “We’ll be talking about the state of the media, not moonriders. And that is serious business.”

  “Don’t you think,” said Amy, “the media are broadcasting what people want to hear?”

  MacAllister nodded. “Sure they are,” he said.

  It wasn’t the response she’d expected. “Isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?”

  “No.” Don’t they teach anything in school anymore? “The media should be telling people what they need to hear. Not sex and scandal. But what their representatives are up to.”

  THEY ORBITED ALPHA Cephei III for a full day, which was the minimum time they’d agreed to invest at each site. The most exciting thing that happened was a chess game between Eric and one of the researchers at the ground station. (The researcher won, as MacAllister would have predicted.)

  Then they were on their way to Arcturus. He settled down to enjoy a biography that mercilessly attacked the previous president.

  NEWS DESK

  MOONRIDER SIGHTINGS UP

  In the seventy-two hours since the Terranova Rock story broke, reports of flying objects across the NAU and around the world have risen dramatically…

  BANNISTER WARNS ATTACK IMMINENT

  Retired Col. Frank R. Bannister, founder and president of the Glimmerings Society, which investigates moonrider sightings and other paranormal events, warned yesterday that we were running out of time. Bannister maintains that the government has been hiding the truth for years. He will lead a demonstration outside the capitol building tomorrow.

  MOONRIDERS ARRIVE IN LEISURE WEAR

  Popper Industries will offer a line of moonrider T-shirts for sale, beginning Monday. The shirts depict a squadron of lights and mottos like WATCH YOUR ROCKS and INVASION TUESDAY.

  ANIMAL RIGHTS GROUPS DEMAND ACTION ON TERRANOVA

  A consortium of animal rights groups issued a series of wide-ranging protests yesterday demanding that the World Council intervene to turn aside the Terranova Rock. Friends of Animals,
headquartered in Jamaica, said that standing by and doing nothing is “every bit as barbaric…”

  TAYLOR CAUTIONS AGAINST RASH JUDGMENT

  Senator Hiram Taylor (G-GA) stated today that “we’re a long way from knowing what really happened at Ophiuchi,” and that the government should wait until the facts are in before deciding what action to take. “If any.”

  REINHOLD THINKS TERRANOVA ROCK SHOULD REMAIN ON COURSE

  “We don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish,” the former German president said today after a press luncheon. “If there really are aliens involved, they may be conducting an experiment of some sort. We just don’t know, and I would be cautious about interfering until we have more information. Whoever did this seems to be at least at our level of technology, and possibly considerably higher. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by waiting until we are sure what’s happening. Certainly, with a lead time of seventeen years, there is ample opportunity for consideration.”

  SIKONIS WILL BE JUDGE IN HELLFIRE CASE

  “Maximum George” Has History of Handing Out Stiff Penalties

  chapter 26

  The development of faster-than-light technology expanded humanity’s psychological as well as physical boundaries. During the early years of the twenty-first century, human security could be challenged only by lunatics, fanatics, and crazed politicians. That is, by other humans. Beyond Pluto lay only unbroken silence. Nobody even thought about it, let alone worried about any deep-space threat. Even the occasional deranged author who wrote about such things took none of it seriously. But when the Centaurus tossed off its restraints in March of 2171 and engaged Ginjer Hazeltine’s new engine, the world changed more than anyone could have imagined.

  —Gregory MacAllister, “Aliens in the Attic”

  Saturday evening, April 25.

  Hutch was lounging at home when Peter’s call came in from Union. He was in his office. Papers were scattered around, displays lit up, data chips piled in a candy box. “We picked up a transmission from Origins. I thought you’d want to hear it.” Origins operated under the auspices of the International Science Agency, headquartered in Paris. “The message was sent to their ops center. Union sent a copy to us a few minutes ago.”