The Island of Hope

by Andrei Livadny

Those were people. The people of whom he had dreamed in the gloomy insides of the spheroid.

  A tear rolled down his cheek.

  12.

  The blue sun was rising above the low horizon, making its way through swirling clouds, while the red sun was going down and the yellow one was at its zenith; so, there were three shadows at the same time – a short shadow and two long ones. The shadows were cast by intensely sparkling groves spread over a boundless plain.

  This was a blessed country of eternal summer and wonderfully warm days when three suns shone in the sky, replacing one another; Only twice a month did the three suns' radiance fade, turning the sky gray. On such rare nights Stellar loomed into the sky: an enormous yellow disc shimmering with metal, glowing with the bright spots of cities under their force shield domes and blotted by the ominous shadows of orbital defense stations, the steel guarantors of the planet's safety.

  The planet Rory was the home of the famous Mirror trees, a blessed and bountiful place. Still, its mountains could be as fatal to an inexperienced wayfarer as a venomous frog’s bite.

  A world where spacecraft were not allowed to land; where super megalopolises didn’t poison the air with their dump sites. Not a single towering skyscraper challenged the planet’s mountain tops.

  All those facts were explained by the presence of the Mirror trees – the planet’s true inhabitants, which had appeared here long before man left his caves and entered space.

  Simeon had a very special kind of love for the place. All his childhood dreams evoked by his father's stories had become real here, materialized in boundless landscapes of velvety-green plains and sparkling mountaintops.

  He turned round. Jedian and Yanna were playing a game similar to lawn tennis, chatting nonstop.

  "Aren't you two tired?" he asked, approaching the tennis court.

  Yanna’s laughter chimed in the air. She wiped her face with a towel. "I love it. I need a cold drink though."

  "Let's go. We deserve a couple of cocktails!" Jedian agreed, looking at her with admiration. He apparently liked the mission the Commander had charged him with.

  They headed for the coolness of the canopy of their posh one-storied villa and slumped into wicker chairs.

  "There’ll be a reception in Fort Stellar tomorrow night in honor of the Commander's grandson," Jedian announced. "Your Granddad will make you his legal successor."

  "Which means?"

  "The command of Fort Stellar runs in the family. Actually the planet and its satellite are Vorontsov's private property. For one hundred years he managed to appropriate almost everything here. But the title isn't the main thing. He has billions in galactic banks, and a neat little income from his exclusive Mirror tree trade. You're now the sole direct heir," he concluded.

  "Does that mean that my arrival changed his plans for you?" Simeon asked.

  Jedian turned pale. "That’s not a nice thing to ask!"

  "Sorry," Simeon rose. "I haven't yet mastered the art of small talk. I say what I think."

  A shady alley led him to a terrace. Defense reflectors towered in an open area nearby. Simeon walked past the watchtowers manned by robots and entered the house. Unthinkingly, he headed for the library.

  Andor was still sitting in a soft chair. The android's hand was plugged into an electronic module. He was reading.

  Simeon took a seat next to him.

  The android gave him a studying look, then shook his head. "You’re not happy," he said, impassionate.

  Simeon shook his head.

  Andor pulled his fingers out of the plug. "The probability theory says that you have won one chance in a billion."

  "Why didn’t you go with us?"

  "Your second cousin hates me. Who am I? — a tin that walks about his villa and pretends to be a thinking being. To him, this is a personal offence. As far as he is concerned, creatures like myself should be scrapped."

  Simeon’s vision blurred. He couldn’t say whether he was happy or not. The wildlife around him seemed simple and beautiful while the locals had proven to be alien and incomprehensible. “Tell me more about the planet,” he asked.

  Andor gave a thoughtful nod. “You’ve come to love this world.”

  “Yes, I have,” Simeon’s voice rang with challenge. What was wrong with him? It was as if he had to lose all that was dear to him again. He sensed it but was powerless in the face of these new developments.

  Amidst the library, a 3-D image of the planet unfolded in mid-air.

  “This world is unique. The planet’s axis isn’t inclined and therefore, it has no seasons. The three suns of the system flood the planet with their energy scorching the equator while the poles forever remain icebound. It’s difficult to imagine worse conditions for organic life to originate and evolve. Nevertheless it did appear, and it happened in the narrow zone separating the two deserts, on the border of light and gloom, squeezed between intolerable heat and bitter frost.“

  Andor clicked his fingers. Two strip, one each along the northern and southern hemispheres, encircled the planet.

  Andor knew how to tell a good story. For a while, Simeon forgot all the problems that bothered him.

  “So, the first organisms began to evolve and very quickly populated the available habitat. Animal life quickly came to a halt – there was just not enough space and food to go around. On the other hand, the planet’s flora survived, being slower and less demanding.”

  He paused and flipped a few switches on the library control console. Simeon sat back, relaxing. ‘If you shut your eyes, you can mentally get back to those days.’

  “You sure you pressed the right button?” Simeon asked.

  Andor’s hand froze in mid-air.

  “I saw nothing: neither glaciers nor deserts,” Simeon explained. “Or did people turn the planet’s axis?”

  “No. People have got nothing to do with it. Sometimes nature - or to be more precise, evolution - disregards the laws of celestial mechanics. Vegetative forms occupied the narrow habitat and began to perish when attempting to exceed the limits of the favorable climatic zone. For millions of years they struggled against heat, perished, produced sickly descendants, mutated. Then, at last, the intricate paths of evolution brought forth the first Mirror tree. If we make an analogy, we can compare that event with the advent of the first mammals on Earth. In both cases the new class became dominant and predetermined the further development of the biosphere.”

  The history of the Mirror tree appeared before Simeon: from the first squat creepers with deformed stalks and tenacious roots to contemporary two-hundred-foot giants. There were about a hundred transient forms, and all plants had a recognizable thin layer of silvery substance covering their trunks and leaves, as if they’d been dipped into liquid mercury.

  “According to research, it has taken Mirror trees a billion years to conquer the torrid zone and finally meet by the equator. Their advance gradually changed the planet’s climate. “

  The outlines of a relief world map appeared in the middle of the library.

  "As you can see, the equatorial zone of the planet is almost entirely covered with mountains. It receives about seventy percent of all energy. The Mirror trees, conquering new vital space, gradually crept along mountainsides, their long leaves reflecting the light of the three suns, diffusing it. Thus the energy balance established by the laws of celestial mechanics was broken. Today we observe the result of a process that has been going on for about three billion years. The new energy equilibrium took a very long time to set in. The main mass of Mirror trees is presently concentrated in the equatorial zone. They receive radiation from the three stars and reflect it to the horizon. There a part of the radiation is diffused over the plain, transforming the formerly temperate zone into subtropics while the other part is reemitted farther to the poles by new Mirror tree forests. The ice caps of both hemispheres melted a million years ago, and the polar zones are now occupied by non-mirror vegetative forms that had in former times struggled for survival in the
sub-arctic zones."

  Andor switched off the holographic projector.

  "Is that it?" Simeon cast an inquiring glance at him. Andor felt somewhat uneasy under that steadfast gaze.

  "You've forgotten something," Simeon rose and went to the bar. "For example, these huge reflectors around the villa," he outlined an envisioned perimeter with his hand holding a glass. "By the way, they're operated by a special computer system. You've also forgotten to explain why there isn't a single building exceeding two story height here. I'd like to know as well why they build cities on Stellar which is deprived of atmosphere and where they have to resort to using force shield domes.

  Andor shrugged. In people's presence he assumed human body language. "That's another story."

  "Tell me."

  "Why? You're asking the right questions, so you must have already come to the right conclusions."

  "I’m sorry, Andor. I'm only trying to understand. But you've been sitting here for three days running. I know perfectly well that your processor is capable of analyzing the entire histories of Rory and Stellar in that time."

  "Very well," the android was about to smile, but changed his mind: mastering the expressions of his plastic face had proven to be a real challenge to him, so he could not bring himself to experiment, considering Simeon's state.

  The young man put the empty glass on the table and walked over to the window. "The arrival of humans was a catastrophe for this world," he said without turning.

  "I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. You asked for information. The planet Rory was discovered by a reconnaissance ship of the Tripartite Alliance. As is known, it consisted of about fifteen planets, and, consequently, there was no centralized power here initially. To define the colonization of this world, I'd employ the expression gold rush. It's not difficult to imagine the demand for the Mirror tree's timber on the galactic market. Two years later the Tripartite Alliance collapsed. All those who could afford a ticket for an interstellar flight and a trade license dashed here. At that time the planet was ruled by spontaneously formed local authorities. About a quarter of the Mirror trees were cut down in twenty years. New settlements grew on clearings without any system. In 2630 the Free Colonies brought about a fundamental change in the course of the war, assumed the tactics of active defense and began strengthening their space bases. Military fleets of diverse alliances and groups of planets dominated in different sectors. With a view to curb the chaos and control the military presence in those regions of space, the Free Colonies started creating a so-called Sphere of Strategic Interests. In fact, that was a network of strongholds and forts that literally encircled a particular area in space with the Free Colonies' planets at its center.

  "Commander Vladimir Vorontsov arrived here in 2633, leading ten cargo ships and five battle cruisers. His mission was to conduct negotiations with Rory's government, but an unexpected disaster disrupted their plans. The unsystematic felling of Mirror trees has disturbed the fragile energy balance that they had introduced. Now the remaining trees couldn’t reflect all of the triple-solar energy. In this situation they developed another unique ability: an adult tree could work as a battery, absorbing any surplus energy. However the rate of deforestation by far outpaced the trees’ adaptivity. The time came when even these live batteries couldn’t absorb all the surplus energy anymore."

  Andor looked out the window. The reflectors’ shining fins rotated slowly. A shady park lay around, washed clean by the rain. Still, Andor’s story offered a dramatically different picture.

  "The few survivors said that that the tops of the trees sparked because of all the power they’d accumulated. Bolts of lightning struck out from their branches, and the sky flickered with Saint Elmo's lights. Then the whole planet suddenly turned suddenly into a gigantic discharger as the trees began to release the power. The high-voltage sky showered cities with fireballs, burning everything around. Only the planet’s original life forms managed to survive as they were adapted to these levels of electricity.

  "The Rory colony ceased to exist. Vorontsov’s spacecraft which had special energy protection, managed to only pick up about three hundred survivors. The deforestation stopped. The planet made the colonists pay a terrible price but was unable to bring back its lost balance."

  Andor switched off the holographic projector and sat down.

  "So electric storms didn't cease?" Simeon asked, deep in his thoughts.

  Andor shook his head. "At present any tree felling is carried out very cautiously," he explained. "Mirror trees are planted in vast dedicated areas under the scientific monitoring of Stellar's specialists, but the electric storms haven't ceased – they've only become less frequent. It's practically impossible to forecast an electric discharge, that's why the local buildings never exceed a two story height. Reflectors safeguard every construction; only specially designed shuttle spaceships can approach the planet’s surface."

  Simeon rose and walked up to the window, thinking. The constant mental pressure only added to his exhaustion after staying in the cryogenic chamber, reanimation and the fight on board the Io.

  "You're not responsible for what's done by an entire civilization," he finally offered.

  "I'm not. But at least I can analyze what's going on," Simeon replied. "Rory is merely an episode in the galactic expansion of mankind."

  "It can't be helped."

  "I'm only analyzing... for the time being," Simeon repeated.

  "You're too moody. I don't like it. I've warned both Yanna and yourself that you might find it difficult to live in society."

  "Don't worry, Andor," Simeon sighed. "I don't intend to judge mankind. I’m just trying to work out certain people's motives. Besides, Yanna isn't in a bad mood at all," he failed to conceal a bitter note. "Thanks for helping me. This evening Yanna, Jedian and I are flying to Stellar. Will you come with us?"

  "I'm afraid I can't. Firstly, as far as I know an android isn't on the guest list. Secondly, didn't you ask me to prepare a brief review of Galactic wars? May I ask you why you need it?"

  "You may. But I don't know yet. Only vague ideas here," Simeon clapped himself on the forehead. "Above all, please don’t forget to copy the star charts of all the battles, okay?"

  "No problem. That'll be done by your return."

  Yanna's laughter rang clear from the terrace.

  "Well, it's time," Simeon slapped Andor on the shoulder and hurried to the door. "See you."

  The android nodded. Just as Simeon, he aspired to work out people's motives. He had already achieved some results in that field. Now as he watched his student go away, Andor realized that he was experiencing an odd discomfort somewhere in the circuits of his state-of-the-art photon brain. 'I wonder if this is what people call pain?' he thought. 'Or is it anxiety?'

  Jedian appeared in the corridor connecting the dining room to the library. Andor shrank into the shadows to avoid him. He pulled the library control console closer, contacted the data storage and sent the query, "Space battle operations. Full review since 2600."

  13.

  'We had left the Spheroid hopeful.

  The uncertainty we'd faced filled me with some semblance of delight. I anticipated the novelty that awaited us in the worlds populated by mankind. Now I understand: it would have probably been better for both Simeon and Yanna had the civilization burned to ashes in the furnace of the two Galactic wars; then their desperate dream of returning to people would have forever remained unchallenged.

  For the first time since my activation, my processor identifies the feeling I experience as fear. My identity becomes divided, and this division grows into an abyss. On one side there's the cold logic of my software, on the other, my life experience. I'm human and a machine at the same time. I'm so uncomfortable in my cermet-made body which keeps hindering my progress.

  I'm waiting. Fear is gnawing at my memory cards, interfering with their normal work. Two persons whom I love are now gone, and it's possible they might come back somewhat changed. My own fate does
not worry me: my photon processor is still unsurpassed. No machine can compete with me. My fear is for those two; but my hands are tied. At present I begin to realize why entities endowed with feelings inevitably create religions. I would so much like to pray to any god for Simeon and Yanna not to lose their identities. My logical perception of the world goes far beyond the visible future of the civilization, and I can see clearly that tomorrow belongs to them. To interfere in the course of history is a fallacy of arrogance. I'm unable to change the world: it isn't ready for changes and doesn't desire them. But who can do it if not Simeon and Yanna and others like them? Who can prevent mankind from its arrogant plunge into an abyss, from its continuous courting of some extremely dangerous and ruthless forces? And who will pick up the fragments of humanity after the Apocalypse?

  I swear that I'll never influence their decisions. They're people. I've been and will remain their faithful friend. I'm nothing without them. Just an excellent machine that has no equal. like there's no match for Simeon and Yanna. I represent the next generation of machines; they, the next generation of people.

  Oh gods, if you do exist, give them the strength to keep their souls intact.'

  * * *

  A clumsy orbital shuttle cocooned with three layers of reflective armor was cautiously making its way through Rory’s atmosphere. It was going on autopilot but Jedian Lange, just in case, had taken his seat at the control panel in the tiny pilot’s cabin.

  A real hell reigned in his heart.

  He cursed himself for that moment of weakness. For one brief second had he yielded to compassion, shattering his own future. He should have destroyed that wretched crystal disc with Simeon’s deciphered memories straight away.

  The thought made him uncomfortable. Jedian felt he was falling apart. It was as if an abyss, the existence of which he couldn't possibly suspect, had opened up in his heart. The thought of the lost inheritance was driving him crazy.