Eschaton - Season One

by Kieran Marcus

  They sat down, and Lily put her papers on the coffee table in front of her. Then she placed both her hands around her cup of tea and inhaled the aromatic steam through her nose.

  “It smells wonderful,” she said.

  “I’ve grown it myself.”

  Surprised, Lily looked at Vinh. “Have you really?”

  Vinh nodded. “We—my family—have been growing our own tea for generations, on a small patch of land behind our house in Phú Minh, a very small town just outside of Hanoi. My great-great-grandparents used to sell it on the markets in Hanoi. It was their primary source of income. Nowadays we just grow it for ourselves and a few neighbors and friends. To honor the tradition, and because it’s really very good tea.”

  Lily took a small sip. “It is indeed,” she said.

  “So how are things going in the committee?” Vinh finally asked.

  “They’re not, to be perfectly honest. We’ve reached an impasse.”

  “An impasse?”

  “Yes,” Lily said and placed her cup on the table. “The committee is split right down the middle as to what—if anything—we should do about Fat Boy.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Vinh said, “the committee was set up with an odd number of members in order to prevent any impasses, was it not?”

  Lily nodded. “Sebastian Schröder and Victoria Sanchez are all for dealing with Fat Boy before it comes anywhere near us. They want to blast the motherfucker to pieces—pardon my French.”

  Vinh shook his head and smiled. “That’s all right. Your French is very good.”

  “Anyway, they want to blast that thing to pieces regardless of the consequences. Fat Boy is a problem, so let’s deal with it and worry about any subsequent problems if and when they arise. They know we don’t have the technology to do it, but they think that just because we don’t have the technology now doesn’t mean we can’t have it in a couple of years when we actually need it, if we put all our resources to it. However, if we put all our resources to it and the mission fails, which seems likely at this point, we will have no resources left o deal with the aftermath. Xin Hsing and Evgeni Nevzorov on the other hand think that any attempts to destroy Fat Boy before it hits us will be almost certainly futile and that we should focus all our efforts on finding ways to deal with what they think is inevitable anyway.”

  “So what about the fifth member?” Vinh asked.

  Lily sighed. “Well, the fifth member is split right down the middle herself. Both sides have valid points that aren’t easy to dismiss. Both cases can be argued quite convincingly. I’m swinging one way this minute and the other way the next. I simply don’t know what to do.”

  “I see,” Vinh said.

  “The thing is, I’ve worked my entire life for this moment. After my father and my brother were killed by the burst, I had but one goal: to prevent the next big cosmic catastrophe from happening. It’s all I ever wanted. To make sure that whatever the universe throws at us next and whenever that may be, we’ll be ready to deal with it before it happens. How could I possibly sit back now, look at this goddamn asteroid hurtling towards us and not do anything about it? Seeing disaster looming and instead of trying to prevent it just letting it happen while already thinking of ways to deal with the fallout stands against everything I’ve ever believed in. It’s like throwing in the towel before the first round.”

  Vinh looked at her with a probing smile. “But?”

  “But indeed,” Lily said. “I’m a scientist, I guess. I have to look at the evidence, and all the evidence suggests that we’re fucked. The overwhelming majority of my colleagues tells me that any attempt to destroy Fat Boy will result in incalculable consequences. Not necessarily disastrous consequences, mind you, just incalculable ones. It might be very bad, or it might be not quite as bad. However, allowing Fat Boy to hit us would probably result in a scenario that’s much more foreseeable. It will be pretty bad, but at least we can prepare for it. I’m wondering, are we cowards if we go for the foreseeable just because we’re too scared of the unforeseeable?”

  “That is a deeply philosophical question, Lily,” Vinh said. “However, I wonder if philosophy can help us make the right decision in this situation at all. You see, there is a very old Vietnamese saying. Let me try to remember it.” For a moment his gaze wandered off, out of the window into the distance. “Oh, I think I have it. It goes, ‘Chết tiệt xảy ra và cuộc sống đi vào.’”

  “What does it mean?” Lily asked, took her cup and had another sip of tea.

  “It means: shit happens and life goes on.”

  In a futile attempt to suppress her laughter, Lily blew tea out of her nose.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, “but that’s hilarious.” When Vinh replied with nothing but a subtle smile, she added, “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”

  “I’m being very serious,” Vinh said, “and I wonder if we are asking the right question. Do we want people to survive, or do we want our civilization to survive?”

  Lily thought about it as she blew her nose. “I guess what you’re trying to tell me is that if our civilization dies but there are still people, then they can build a new civilization. Whereas when mankind dies, civilization would die with it and there will be no one left to build a new one.”

  “That makes sense, don’t you think?” Vinh said. “You see, our civilization may be very precious to us because it’s all we have and it’s everything we’ve ever known, but objectively speaking, it is overrated like every civilization in history was overrated by its own people. Civilizations come and go like seasons in a year and like years in a lifetime. It’s the way of the world. Like people, civilizations are born, they live and thrive, they decline and die. Think of the great ancient civilizations of South America, Southeast Asia, or Mesopotamia. If you had a time machine and could visit them at their peak and tell them that in the twenty-first century their way of life will be but a distant memory, would they not be shocked? Would they not bemoan their impending demise and try everything in their power to stop it? Of course they would. But even if those civilizations have died, their people haven’t—not all of them at least. Through the woes and throes of history they have prevailed and built new, bigger, better civilizations. Mexico City was built not only on the ruins but literally from the ruins of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, and the Aztec language, Nahuatl, is still spoken by over two million people today. We may think fondly of these ancient civilizations, but as much as we sympathize with the tragedy of their downfall, we wouldn’t want to turn back time and try to prevent it, because we have moved on, and it’s a good thing that we have. History is a river. It never stands still, and it flows in only one direction.”

  Lily frowned at him. “Are you saying what I think you are saying?”

  “I don’t know, Lily. What do you think I’m saying?”

  “Are you saying we should let our civilization go under because it might be a good thing?”

  “Well,” Vinh said, “whether it’s good or bad is a matter of perspective, isn’t it? There may be millions of people who would want to keep our civilization alive or die trying, because it works very well for them. People like you and me, for example. We have good jobs, we have money, a nice house, a loving family. Why would we want to give up any of that in exchange for a world in which for all we know we might do nowhere near as well? But there are also very many people for whom our civilization doesn’t seem to work at all. The poor, the downtrodden, the wretched. Those who have nothing have nothing left to lose. Why would they oppose hitting the reset button if it means that we could all start from scratch and build something new, something better? Nowhere is there as much hope as in a new beginning. And not even to mention our descendants a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand years from now. Hop back into your time machine, Lily, and travel into the future. Go tell future generations about our plight and ask them for help. They enjoy the benefit of hindsight, so they should be able to
tell us what we ought to do in order to save our civilization. But why would they even want to? They will be very sympathetic towards us no doubt, just like we are sympathetic—grateful even—towards the civilizations that came and went before us. But they will be unlikely to help us, because they will know that our downfall is a necessary prerequisite to their rise. They will acknowledge that whatever it is that is going to happen to us is a terrible human tragedy for us but also a great opportunity for humankind as a whole.”

  Silent, with a gloomy look on her face, Lily stared into the distance. Deep down inside she felt the last of her half-hearted defenses crumbling.

  “Now don’t get me wrong,” Vinh said, seemingly guessing her thoughts. “I’m not saying we should shrug this whole thing off or take this decision lightly because everything is going to be fine in the end. It isn’t. No matter what we do, it’s going to be a terrible tragedy and people will inevitably die as a result of our actions. All I’m saying is that we must not be afraid to make difficult or even impossible decisions. It’s what we’re getting paid for—and rather generously too, I might add.”

  After another few moments of silence, Lily chuckled.

  Puzzled, Vinh looked at her. “Did I say something funny?”

  Lily shook her head. “Have you ever struggled really hard with a difficult decision, and then the moment you’ve come to a conclusion it suddenly all seems so obvious and you have to ask yourself what took you so long?”

  “All the time,” Vinh said, “even when I try to figure out what I should have for dinner. It’s a very human thing to do, even if it’s all just an illusion.”

  “An illusion?”

  Vinh nodded. “The moment you’ve made a decision after a long struggle with yourself, the last thing you need is more doubt and confusion. What you need in that moment is encouragement and confirmation that you’ve made the right decision, so your brain leads you to believe that all those counterarguments and doubts were much smaller than they really were. If you wait ten years and revisit the situation, you’ll find that your struggle was very real and very necessary.”

  “Maybe,” Lily said, finishing her tea.

  “Trust me.”

  “So where will you be when the time comes?” Lily asked. “Project Exodus or Project Nidus?”

  Vinh laughed heartily. “If I’m still anywhere, I’ll be seventy-four when Fat Boy hits. I don’t think there will be much use for a silly old geezer on a mission to the stars.”

  “Oh don’t say that!” Lilly said, nudging Vinh with her elbow. “No matter if in space or here on Earth, there will always be use for people of your wisdom and your composure.”

  “Nah,” Vinh said and waved his hand. “I mean, it’s very kind of you to say that, but I’m a Nidus man. I love this planet. I love these people. Seventy-four won’t be an unreasonably young age to die, and if I don’t die right away, I’ll regard every extra day as a precious, cherishable gift.”

  Lily looked at him with a somber smile on her lips. She couldn’t find it in her heart to tell him that every extra day might be an extra day in hell.

  “So what about you?” Vinh asked.

  Shaking her head, Lily said, “I have absolutely no idea. The decision will be another lengthy struggle for me, and of course I’ll have to consult with my family. Besides, Project Exodus will only be able to accommodate a few thousand people anyway, a few thousand out of twelve billion, so even if I wanted to be on a ship to the stars, the chances of actually being allocated a spot will be infinitesimally small.”

  “I see,” Vinh said.

  “Well, anyway,” Lily said and stood up, “I’ll go and get the paperwork done for you. You’ll have it on your desk by the end of the day.”

  “Take your time, Lily. I won’t make the official announcement until the end of the week anyway, when I address the General Assembly.”

  “All right then, but I want to get it out of the way. Now that the decision’s been made I need to move on and organize the future of mankind. Allocate the appropriate people and resources to Exodus and Nidus and all that.”

  “Okay, you do that then,” Vinh said.

  Lily nodded and opened the door, ready to leave.

  “Oh, and Lily?”

  She turned around and looked at Vinh.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  Lily sighed. “I’ve had happier ones,” she said with a wry smile. “But thanks.”

  1.5 Perfect Victim

  OAK HILL, MASSACHUSETTS – SEPTEMBER 21, 2133

  “You awake?” Castor asked into the darkness, carefully trying to balance the loudness of his voice between loud enough for his brother in the bed across the room to hear—if he was awake—and low enough as to not wake him, should he still be sleeping.

  Lying in his own bed, the light blanket pulled up to his chin for comfort rather than warmth, Castor looked up at the vast universe, or at least the small fraction of it that was visible from his vantage point under the roof of their parents’ home, a roof made out of polarized glass that could be adjusted to anywhere between fully transparent and completely opaque. Ever since they were children, he and his brother had been sleeping with at least a dim night light on, and when they had moved into their new home a few years ago, their father had spent a small fortune to have the original roof of the two-hundred-year-old house, the house of their great-grandparents, torn down and replaced by this new, state-of-the-art polarized glass ceiling. The boys hadn’t spent a single night in complete darkness ever since; too comforting, too soothing was the magnificent view of the night sky in their very own natural planetarium as they laid down in their beds after many an exhausting day full of excitement and wonder, the days of their childhood and youth that would soon be no more.

  With a sense of thrilling elation as always, Castor watched one of the four Nephilim make its way from east to west across the early morning sky. This was Nephilim 3, like its namesakes a man-made three-pointed star, after the moon the biggest and brightest object in the night sky. Giant space docks, two thousand meters across, orbiting the Earth at a distance of a thousand kilometers, the Nephilim completed a full orbit every one hundred and five minutes. The tips of each of the Nephilim harbored space shipyards, building sites for the ark-ships, three on each Nephilim, twelve in total. Each ark-ship had the capacity to accommodate two thousand people. In a little over two years time, the ark-ships would undock from their Nephilim, leave their low Earth orbits—and eventually the solar system—in different directions, carrying with them the hopes and dreams of the entire human race on their quest for a new home. The courage of a bunch of highly evolved apes to leave their home planet behind in an attempt to ensure their survival by trying to colonize the galaxy filled Castor with a sense of accomplishment and pride; the desperation out of which such a fantastic and indeed preposterous idea must have been born filled him with fear. He knew he wasn’t the only one to be scared, but he also knew that showing fear and doubt in the face of adversity, no matter how reasonable, no matter how necessary, was not fashionable. Boldness and confidence were the natural prerequisites of hope, even the little hope humankind had left at this point.

  “You awake?” Castor asked again after a minute, a little louder, a little more daring. This time his inquiry was met by an inarticulate groan as his brother tossed and turned in his bed until he found a more comfortable position, hugging his pillow like a child in demand of comfort would hug his mother. Castor looked at him, the little that was visible of him, the mop of dark brown hair resting on the pillow and the left leg that had escaped from under the blanket, precariously dangling over the edge of the bed. It reminded him of their adolescent growth spurt that had made it obvious that they were only fraternal twins. His brother had grown taller faster, rendering Castor even more conscious of their differences, the differences that throughout most of their childhood had been of a psychological rather than physical nature. It was during adolescence that people grew into that invisible mold of the person they w
ere meant to be, discarding some features along the way while enhancing and emphasizing others, and apparently Castor was meant to be what he had always been. He was the little one, the second born, less physical, less agile, more timid, more pensive than his brother.

  The older twin’s leg twitched, and accompanied by another groan he lifted his upper body, turned his head around so he faced Castor, and retracted his leg under the blanket as if it were aware and embarrassed of being looked at.

  “You awake?” Castor asked in a normal voice that presumed the answer.

  Pollux finally opened his eyes, looking right at Castor.

  “Well, I am now!” he mumbled. “How long have you been staring at me like that, you creep?”

  Castor turned his eyes back up towards the stars. “I wasn’t staring at you.”

  “What time is it anyway?”

  Looking at his watch, Castor said, “Five-fifteen.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Pollux said and yawned. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “Couldn’t. I’ve been thinking.”

  Pollux reacted with a sigh that turned into another yawn. “Bro, you think way too much.”

  Castor shrugged. He knew that in his brother’s opinion contemplation was an overrated activity, but unlike Pollux, whose many talents, from being good at sports to repairing cars to building robots, were generally considered useful, Castor’s sole talent seemed to be his ability to think, to analyze, to draw conclusions. It was not a bad skill to have, Castor knew that, but he couldn’t help but feel that his brother regarded it as anachronistic and dated, almost as if it belonged to a different era, a time long gone.

  “Philosophy,” Pollux had once said, “is a great way to pass the time if you’re walking from Athens to Sparta wearing sandals and a tunic, but it doesn’t serve any practical purpose in the twenty-second century on a planet we’ve been relentlessly antagonizing for so long that it can’t wait to get rid of us.”

  Castor had smiled at that statement but not bothered to point out the irony of it being deeply philosophical in itself. His superior intellect was trapped within the confines of his head, his thought processes often too complex to be expressed swiftly, eloquently. Unlike Pollux, he was’t quick and clever. In a written exam where he had the time to put his thoughts in order and to construct meaningful sentences and polish them for effectiveness, he could beat his brother any day. However, in oral arguments where facts and logic were often trumped by eloquence and witty remarks, he didn’t stand a chance. If he didn’t know any better, he’d even have thought—as many people undoubtedly did—that between the two of them, Pollux was the smart one. It was really quite depressing sometimes.