Tomorrow’s Heritage
Page 44
Science had attempted to educate humanity, these past months. During the frenzy caused by Earth First’s old campaign, the planetsiders had believed almost without question that the aliens were alive, waiting to strike and to enslave or kill everyone on Earth. Now, after months in which to calm down and listen—without the interference of campaign rhetoric—other possibilities were being spelled out to them. There could be another situation, a poignant and disappointing one. Maybe the vehicle was the relic of a vanished species. A lonely little messenger, cruising forever in search of neighbors for its masters who were now dead.
They didn’t know. They wouldn’t know, for months, years, decades.
“Faster-than-light drive?” McKelvey speculated, his eyes bright.
Dian was shaking her head. “I doubt it. A damned good drive, but there’d be no need, not for a robot messenger.”
“If only . . .” Mari’s gloved hand closed into a claw, possessive. The same lust Kevin McKelvey had expressed was in her voice and on her face. Goddard wanted the stars, and it wanted them now, not generations from now.
“We’ll have to wait and see what we find,” Todd said softly. Patience. He had a lot of that now. Once he had wanted things to happen in a hurry, too. Pat’s death and Jael’s seemed to have burned that out of his soul. He felt older, but not weary. Willing to bide his time. It no longer seemed so important that all the discoveries be made during his own life. There would be a future for mankind now. If not Todd Saunder—or Ward Saunder—maybe it would be a Saunder yet unborn who would find out what lay beyond the Sun’s family.
The long view. Ward would have approved. Live and do the best you can. But Ward Saunder had never been greedy. And his surviving son didn’t intend to be, either.
The alien machine. Opening. Communicating. On the close-up monitors Todd saw the microscopic inspection of the vehicle’s com systems and started. Not identical to his own ComLink satellite equipment. Yet he recognized certain shapes and connections, despite the alien alloys and features. For an instant, he thought of holo-modes. The vehicle, capable of . . . what? Creating an illusion to make them think they were seeing these things?
No need, he repeated to himself. Distance was the alien species’ protection. Humanity was an infant. Not yet a threat to them. If humanity grew up, maybe it would never be a threat, to the aliens or to itself, ever again.
One of the screens was continuing the relay from Earth. Carissa’s speech, over. A swelling of applause within Protectors of Earth’s assembly, a storm of approving feedback from the watching audience around the world. Carissa moving to Roy Paige, taking baby Stuart Saunder from him, cradling the infant in her arms, smiling to the world.
Through the pain of memories, Todd smiled back at her image. Dian was moving toward the vehicle, wanting to see it up close. He followed, one among the distinguished scientists, loyal Beth Isaacs, his sister, McKelvey, the techs, and Dian. People who had helped along the way—Fairchild, Ed Lutz, Dr. Tedesco, General Ames, countless others—would read and see what they found here, their minds reaching out into space.
Todd didn’t hurry, didn’t crowd. He had sponsored the search. His team had found it. He could wait. He stood back, gazing at the vehicle that had come across time and space an unknown distance to say hello to mankind.
Time and space, and Earth. The answers weren’t going to be simple. They rarely were. But mankind would get them. And someday, Todd Saunder was going to shake hands with a living being from another species, as well as observe the unlocking of that species’ robot messenger. Smiling, the smile becoming an optimistic grin, he teetered on his boots, leaning forward, as the real communication process finally began.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juanita Coulson began writing at age eleven and has been pursuing this career off and on ever since. Her first professional sale, to a science-fiction magazine, came in 1963. Since then she has sold fifteen novels, several short stories, and such odds and ends as an article on “Wonder Woman” and a pamphlet on how to appreciate art.
When she isn’t writing, she may be singing and/or composing songs; painting (several of her works have been sold for excessively modest prices); reading biographies or books dealing with abnormal psychology, earthquakes and volcanoes, history, astronomy—or almost anything that has printing on it; gardening in the summer and shivering in the winter.
Juanita is married to Buck Coulson, who is also a writer. She and her husband spend much of their spare time actively participating in science-fiction fandom: attending conventions and publishing their Hugo-winning fanzine, Yandro. They live in a rented farmhouse in northeastern Indiana, miles from any town you ever heard of; the house is slowly sinking into the swampy ground under the weight of the accumulated books, magazines, records, typewriters, and other paraphernalia crammed into it.
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Scanned and proofed by Amigo da Onça