Earth

by Ben Bova

  “I fear that I don’t have much to add to Senator Stover’s oration. We have survived the Death Wave, thanks to the help of the Predecessors. We have indeed helped other intelligent species to survive that lethal danger. We have suffered losses in this quest and we grieve for them.”

  Tray saw that Kell was speaking without notes, without a prepared text. Or, he wondered, does the man have his speech recorded somehow in his brain? With microimaging, that was possible, he realized.

  Kell was going on, “We have taken on a deep responsibility. We have contacted sixty-three intelligent races among the stars within a two-thousand-light-year radius. Most of them are not as developed as we are. Most of them had no inkling that a wave of lethal gamma radiation was approaching their worlds. Most of them would have been wiped out if we hadn’t protected their worlds with the proper shielding.

  “Now the question is, where do we go from here? Do we abandon those worlds and leave them to develop on their own? Or do we try to help them, guide them, lead them to a richer, fuller existence?

  “The choice is ours. We cannot avoid it.”

  The capacious room fell absolutely still. Tray felt as if all the people at their tables had been frozen into silence.

  Kell looked out at his vast audience for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded once and said, “Thank you.”

  ARGUMENT

  The dinner broke up quickly after Kell’s brief speech. Most of the guests streamed toward the doors at the rear of the hall, although a few dozen men and women gravitated toward Kell, still at the head table.

  Tray saw that Bricknell took Loris by the hand and headed for the crowd clustered around Kell while he stood uncertainly by his emptying dinner table.

  Gesturing toward the head table, Para said, “Councilman Kell said he was looking forward to speaking with you.”

  “Yes,” Tray said uncertainly.

  With a barely detectable nod, Para confirmed, “You should go up there and speak with him.”

  Tray nodded uncertainly, but started forward, Para at his side.

  By the time they made their way to the front of the hall, the crowd around Kell had diminished somewhat. Tray saw that Loris was still standing beside Mance Bricknell, her eyes focused on Kell, as if there was no one else in the cavernous room.

  Standing beside Kell was a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick dark hair and an intent look in his deeply brown almost-black eyes.

  Jabbing an extended forefinger toward Kell’s chest, he was saying, “You’re right, as usual, Jordan. We have a tremendous opportunity before us.”

  “A tremendous responsibility, Harold,” said Kell mildly.

  The man broke into a deep, toothy chuckle. “Responsibility, opportunity … it’s all the same thing in the final analysis, isn’t it?”

  “Not quite, I’m afraid.”

  Still grinning, the man countered, “Don’t split hairs, Jordan. The human race is on the threshold of a new era. An interstellar community! We’re going to be the leader of an interstellar community.”

  Smiling uneasily, Kell turned slightly toward Trayvon and beckoned him to come stand beside him. “Harold, I’d like you to meet the sole survivor of the Saviour disaster.”

  The big man’s face flashed puzzlement for an instant, then his hearty smile returned. He put out his meaty hand. As Tray reached for it, Kell made the introduction:

  “Trayvon Williamson, this is Harold Balsam, currently president of the Interplanetary Council.”

  Balsam’s grip engulfed Tray’s hand, powerful, smothering.

  “How do you do, Trayvon Williamson?” he said.

  “It’s good to meet you, sir,” said Tray.

  Still smiling brightly, Balsam turned back to Kell and said, “The Saviour was the only ship we lost. You know that.”

  With a curt nod, Kell replied, “You’re forgetting the Mishima mutiny.”

  Balsam’s smile winked out. “The court ruled it wasn’t a mutiny.”

  “But people were killed.”

  For a moment, Balsam looked exasperated. But he put on his smile again and said, “Even with that, we’ve had an excellent record in our star missions. Excellent record.”

  Kell made a brusque nod. “I can’t deny that.”

  Bricknell jumped into the confrontation. “I’ve volunteered for a star mission.”

  “Have you?” Balsam said, his smile widening. “Good for you, young man.”

  “This is Mance Bricknell,” Kell introduced. Gesturing toward Loris, “And Loris De Mayne. Both geophysicists.”

  Balsam focused on Loris. “And are you going to the stars also?”

  Before she could reply, Bricknell said, “I’m trying to convince her that she should.”

  Looking slightly flustered, Loris said, “I have … obligations … responsibilities, here on Earth.”

  “Our future is among the stars,” Balsam said. “It’s inevitable.”

  Kell said, “I quite agree.”

  “You do?” Balsam said, with exaggerated astonishment. “Then what are we arguing about?”

  With a tight smile, Kell replied, “I wasn’t aware that we were arguing, Harold.”

  OPPORTUNITY

  Balsam laughed and patted Kell’s shoulder. “You’re right, Jordan. We’re both on the same team, despite minor differences.”

  “I suppose so,” said Kell.

  “Good,” said Balsam. “Good.” Turning toward Tray and the others still clustered around the speaker’s podium, Balsam raised his voice to say, “I’m afraid I must bid you all good night. I still have miles to go before I sleep.”

  Kell’s thin lips arched into a smile. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” he murmured.

  Balsam looked puzzled briefly. “What’s that … oh, another part of the poem.” He grinned at Kell. “Good for you, Jordan. Quick on your feet, as usual.”

  With that Balsam turned and headed toward the doors at the rear of the hall. But not without a long glance at Loris De Mayne. Tray thought the man came close to leering at her. It made him feel annoyed.

  Jordan Kell said softly, “Mr. Williamson.”

  Suddenly feeling red-faced with embarrassment, Tray pulled his attention away from Loris. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d like to talk with you about your time on the Saviour.”

  “Of course,” Tray replied. “What would you like to know?”

  “Not here,” Kell said, his face looking almost amused at Tray’s eagerness. “Could you come to my office sometime tomorrow?”

  “Certainly,” said Tray. “What time would be good for you, sir?”

  Kell pursed his lips slightly, then answered, “Why don’t we have lunch together? Could you come by my office around noonish?”

  “Certainly! Of course.”

  “Fine.” Turning to Para, Kell said, “I presume you can find my office.”

  “Of course,” said Para.

  “Excellent. I’ll see the two of you around noon tomorrow, then.”

  Para made a slight bow of acknowledgment. So did Tray.

  Kell said farewell to Bricknell and De Mayne, then left the table. Tray noticed that a pair of husky-looking young men fell in step behind him. Bodyguards? Tray wondered. Why would he need bodyguards?

  Mance Bricknell let out a soft whistle. “Jordan Kell wants to talk with you in private,” he said, his voice edged with wonder. “That’s an opportunity.”

  “Opportunity?” Tray questioned.

  “I mean,” Bricknell said, almost stammering, “Kell is one of the most important people in the solar system. And he wants to talk with you! In private, no less!”

  Tray glanced at Loris De Mayne, who was staring at him. “I suppose he wants a firsthand description of the … the…”

  “Disaster,” Para finished for him.

  Tray nodded. He found it difficult to get more words past his constricting throat.

  “It must have been awful for you,” said Loris, her voice low, sympathetic.

&n
bsp; Tray saw that the big dining hall was nearly empty now. Robotic waiters were clearing the tables like a procession of ants marching back and forth from their nest.

  The three of them—even Para—were waiting for him to say something. In his mind’s eye Tray saw the starship’s explosion from across the diameter of the Raman system. A sudden glare of light. Then nothing. Tray remembered how he had fumbled with his capsule’s telescope controls. Nothing to be seen but scraps of twisted metal hurtling outward from the explosion. Nothing recognizable as a human body.

  He realized that his hands were shaking again. He pulled in a deep breath and struggled to command his body.

  “I … I was the only one to survive the explosion,” he said, his voice faint, weak with memories. “The capsule’s automated systems tranquilized me. The next thing I knew, the medical team from the rescue mission had reawakened me. Three hundred and seventy years had passed.”

  “And you were unconscious all that time,” Loris said, her voice as muted as Tray’s own.

  “Cryonic suspension,” Tray said. “Deep sleep. It’s as close to death as a human body can come.”

  “For three hundred and seventy years,” Bricknell murmured.

  Para spoke up. “But that was all in the past. Trayvon is here with us now, alive, ready to take up his life once again.”

  Tray nodded, but fought down the urge to ask, “What life?”

  LUNCHEON

  Tray was surprised to see Harold Balsam in Jordan Kell’s office. At dinner the previous night he’d caught a strong impression of competition, rivalry, between the two men. But there was Balsam sitting before Kell’s efficient little desk, imposingly large, relaxed, and smiling.

  Kell got up from his high-backed padded chair and came around his desk as Tray and Para entered the office. It was a sizable room, thickly carpeted, with a round conference table in one corner and a ceiling-high credenza opposite. Low bookshelves and cabinets lined the other walls; artworks from across the solar system hung everywhere. On the other side of the room a handsome wide floor-length window looked out on the complex of buildings that made up the headquarters of the Interplanetary Council.

  Tray stared out at the bewildering mix of building styles. He recognized a replica of the Parthenon from Athens, another columned temple that looked vaguely Aztec, and a beautifully graceful structure that must have been copied from Angkor Wat in Cambodia; in the center of the sprawling hodgepodge of styles a soaring skyscraper dominated the entire mixture.

  As Tray stepped uncertainly into the office Balsam half-turned in his handsomely striped armchair, a wide smile on his beefy face.

  “Trayvon,” said Kell, extending both his arms toward him, “I’m so glad you could come.”

  Tray shook Kell’s hand and nodded toward Balsam. Para stopped just inside the door while Kell gestured Tray to the luxurious chair next to Balsam’s. Feeling a bit uneasy, out of place, Tray sat down next to the Council’s president.

  As Kell retook his handsome desk chair he gestured toward Balsam and said, “Harold here has invited me on a trip to Jupiter.”

  Smiling broadly, Balsam said, “I was surprised—shocked, really—to learn that Jordan’s never seen the Leviathans.”

  “I’ve seen the videos and the data files,” Kell said, almost defensively. “I’ve reviewed all the pertinent information about them.”

  With a shake of his head, Balsam said, “But that’s not the same as seeing them for real. Creatures as big as cities, swimming in Jupiter’s endless ocean! You owe it to yourself to see them with your own eyes.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Kell admitted.

  Balsam reached out and jabbed Tray’s shoulder. “Now that’s a typical politician’s answer. Perhaps I’m right.” With a deep-throated chuckled, he added, “What he’s really saying is ‘Go away, Harold. Stop bothering me.’”

  “Not at all!” Kell protested.

  “I’ve outfitted a ship and a deep-diving vessel,” Balsam went on. “Completely at my own expense. Won’t cost your beloved taxpayers a centavo. All expenses paid. Out to Jupiter, dive into the ocean, see the Leviathans firsthand.”

  Kell glanced at the ceiling, as if seeking heavenly guidance, Tray thought. Then he focused on Balsam once again.

  “Harold, you’re making it very hard for me to say no.”

  “Then you’ll do it? When?”

  Breaking into a happy grin, Kell said, “How long will the trip take?”

  “Three weeks, maximum. We’ll jet out to the Jupiter system at one-gee, spend the maximum time in the ocean with the big beasties.”

  “Three weeks.” Kell’s smile diminished somewhat. “All right. When do we start?”

  Balsam muttered, “Let me check…” He closed his eyes briefly, and Tray realized he was contacting an aide through an inbuilt communicator. “Two weeks from today. How’s that fit your schedule, Jordan?”

  Kell turned to the screen at one side of his desk. “Looks doable.”

  “Great!” Balsam heaved himself up from the chair and stuck his arm across Kell’s desk. “My people will send you all the details.”

  Rising to his feet, Kell said, “Fine.” He glanced at Tray and added, “I’d like Mr. Williamson to come with me, if that’s all right with you, Trayvon.”

  Tray gasped, “Me?”

  “You. Are you game?”

  Tray gulped once, then answered, “Certainly!”

  “The two of you, then,” Balsam said cheerfully. “And that young man we were talking to last night. What’s his name? Bracknell?”

  “Bricknell,” Kell corrected. “Mance Bricknell.”

  “And his girlfriend. Loris something-or-other.”

  “I’ll see if they’re willing to go,” Kell said.

  “They will be,” Balsam said firmly. “It’s the chance of a lifetime. To see those big whale things up close and personal.”

  He nodded once, as if convincing himself that he was right. Then, “Well, I’ve got to run. Lots of details to attend to.”

  And he hurried out of Jordan Kell’s office, leaving Tray feeling astonished. Even Para, standing by the door, seemed puzzled.

  Blinking, Tray said to Kell, who was still on his feet behind his desk, “That man moves like a lightning bolt.”

  His eyes still on the partially open door, Kell nodded warily. “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?”

  * * *

  Luncheon was served at the big round table in the corner of Kell’s office by a pair of robots—salad, delicate sandwiches of meat and cheese, and a light creamy dessert.

  Kell asked questions about the Saviour disaster, gently probing Tray’s memory. To his own surprise, Tray found himself speaking quite easily. It was as if once he started recalling the tragedy he couldn’t stop talking about it.

  The two men sat with the littered remains of their luncheon scattered across the table, while Tray talked nonstop and Para sat inertly beside him. Tray knew the android was recording every word he said and sending it all to the psychotechnicians back at the hospital, but it didn’t matter to him. Once he began to speak it all came out in a steady, suffering stream.

  “There wasn’t anything I could do,” Tray said, his voice low, steady, unflinching. “I was orbiting more than twelve billion kilometers from the Saviour. One moment it was there sending out its regular homing beacon and the next it was a flash of light. Nothing left. Nobody left. They were all gone.”

  His face totally serious, Kell asked, “That’s when the capsule’s automated medical systems put you into cryosleep?”

  Tray nodded hesitantly. “I suppose so. It all got kind of confused. I guess it was too much for my mind to accept.”

  “But you seem to have gotten it down in good order now,” Kell observed.

  “I’ve had more than a year to sort it out,” Tray said. Then he added, “And a lot of psychological help.”

  “Indeed,” said Kell, with a curt nod. “Well, it’s all behind you now.”

  Tray nod
ded back at him, but he was thinking, No, it’s not behind me. It’s in my dreams. It’s in my thoughts. Felicia will never be behind me.

  Kell abruptly changed the subject. “Did I push you too far by inviting you on this Jupiter flight?”

  Feeling relieved to get away from his haunted memories, Tray honestly replied, “I was surprised, but … no, it’s a wonderful opportunity. I’d love to see the Leviathans close up. Maybe I can compose a musical piece about them.”

  Kell’s face lit up. “That’s right. You’re a musician, aren’t you?”

  “Amateur,” said Tray.

  “Maybe this trip to Jupiter will make a professional musician out of you.”

  “Maybe it will,” Tray replied. “That would be good.”

  JOVE’S MESSENGER

  Tray stood on the observation platform, flanked on either side by Kell and Para, as he goggled at the huge curving bulk of Jove’s Messenger. The spaceship hung weightlessly in its orbital docking berth, a bright silvery globe that dwarfed the trim metal structure of the platform.

  The platform itself was part of the elevator system that rose from a mountaintop in Ecuador up to the nearly 40,000-kilometer altitude of the twenty-four-hour geosynchronous orbit and beyond. It was encased in clear Plastiglas, so that onlookers could stand in shirt-sleeved comfort while a team of human and robotic workers serviced the huge ship.

  Beyond the curving rim of the spacecraft Tray could see the enormous bulk of Earth, dazzling blue and white, incredibly beautiful.

  The home of humankind, he thought. The nursery in which a race of large-brained hominids created a civilization that now reaches outward to the stars. A trace of a musical passage twined through his brain, but it was too placid, too calm to represent such an awesome theme.

  I’ll have to come up with something better, he told himself. Something grander.

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?” asked Jordan Kell, his eyes fixed on the gigantic spacecraft.

  “It certainly is,” replied Tray. His voice climbing almost a full octave, he asked, “President Balsam owns this spaceship?”