by Ben Bova
The star was one of the galaxy’s most commonplace, faint and cool, but destined to continue shining feebly long after giant bright beacons such as Sirius had depleted their nuclear energy sources and destroyed themselves in titanic explosions.
The planet orbiting it was a world of stark contrasts: jagged cliffs and harsh deserts surrounding seething purple seas that crashed against the rugged cliffs and sent huge waves of violent surf surging across beaches of ruby-red sand.
Those seas teemed with life. And living creatures inhabited those deserts, carved homes for themselves in those cliffs, soared across the brooding scarlet skies.
One species of life on that planet was intelligent. Part animal, part plant, they called themselves The People and called their planet Home.
A brood of them was flying across the rocky desert, gliding on the tidal wind that blew unfailingly across their world, high above the rugged cliffs, their backs to the red sun that filled half their sky. They were long, thin, ethereal creatures, gliding on wide gossamer wings that drank in the feeble sunlight, searching for one of their family who had wandered far from their usual haunts.
Across the barren landscape they soared, incomplete as long as one of them was missing. They headed away from their sun, toward the distant shadowed land that bordered the half of their world that was always in darkness.
“This is foolishness,” grumbled one of them. “The farther from the sun we fly, the weaker we become.”
“It’s cold here,” complained another. “How can we bud in such a wasteland?”
“We cannot bud until we are complete,” said their leader, the oldest among them. “We must find Phen-he. Then we can return to the warmth and begin to bud.”
One of the others complained, “Phen-he has always been strange, a loner. It would be better to bud without Phen-he, leave the strange one in solitude.”
“That is not our way,” said the leader, sternly. “We must have unity before we can bud.”
“I see Phen-he!” cried their youngest, flying some distance ahead of the others. It extruded an arm from its malleable body, pointing.
And there was Phen-he, a thin filmy reed standing with wings folded about its body on an outcropping of rock, roots wormed into the thin layer of nourishing soil, swaying gently in the tidal breeze, head turned toward the darkest part of the sky.
The others fluttered about Phen-he and, one by one, landed around it. Their roots found precious little nutrition in the meager soil that coated the underlying rock.
“What are you doing here, Phen-he?” demanded the eldest. “Don’t you realize you are required for the budding?”
Phen-he turned toward the eldest, its heat-sensitive eyeplates so enlarged they covered most of its upper body. Extruding an arm, it pointed into the dark sky.
“Look,” it said.
The others stared into the darkness. As their eyeplates adapted and grew, they saw that the inky sky was peppered with specks of light.
“What are they?” asked one of the brood.
“I don’t know,” said Phen-he. “I first saw them many cycles ago, when I was blown to the dark side by a storm.”
“Lights in the sky?” wondered another. “What does it mean?”
“They exist only on the dark side of Home,” said Phen-he. Then it added, “Or perhaps they are too faint to be seen where the sun fills the sky.”
“They are meaningless,” decided the eldest. “Come, Phen-he, you are needed for the budding.”
“But they are so beautiful—”
“You are needed. You must come.”
Reluctantly, Phen-he bowed and stretched its wings wide. The entire brood disengaged from the soil and took flight.
Phen-he turned its head for one final look at the flecks of light. Its breath caught in its throat.
The sky was becoming brighter. The darkness was changing into light. Hard, fierce light, so brilliant it hurt its eyeplates. Phen-he turned away from the growing light but it was no use. The entire sky was ablaze. It saw the eldest’s wings crumple and it plunged to the ground, smoking and shrieking. All the others screamed and died, falling like burning leaves. Phen-he felt itself burning, roasting as the sky blazed furiously and even the soil below and the rocks themselves began to smolder.
Everyone died. The People were no more. The planet they called Home was reduced to a smoking ruin of rubble-strewn bare rock.
Surging past at the speed of light, the gamma burst enveloped everything and then sped onward, outward, spreading death wherever it touched.
CRUSADERS
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
BASE CAMP
“I’m proud of you, Bran,” said Jordan. “You’ve become a leader.”
Brandon smiled shyly. “With your help, Jordy. With your help.”
The two brothers were walking alone through the white mounds of their camp’s bubble tents, beneath a darkening sky. The first few stars were appearing in the gathering twilight. Jordan knew that Earth’s Sun would be visible once the night became fully dark. It would appear as a faint yellowish star, undistinguished and terribly far away.
“I wish there were some way we could convince Harmon that Adri’s people mean us no harm,” Jordan said.
Brandon huffed. “Meek’s a lost cause. He’s scared out of his wits. He’ll never be able to adapt to this situation.”
They walked along slowly, out toward the periphery of their camp. The forest trees sighed in the soft night breeze. Jordan thought of Aditi, back in the city, waiting for him, waiting for the people from Earth to make up their minds.
Turning toward his brother, Jordan said, “Bran, we’ve got to present a united front back home. We can’t have a divided team, we can’t have Harmon giving them a dissenting minority report.”
Brandon nodded. “That’d give the naysayers a reason to deny everything we have to tell them.”
Jordan thought of other times, earlier crises that had been worsened by inaction. World War II. The American Civil War. We might have avoided the greenhouse floods if we’d acted early enough, strongly enough, he said to himself.
Strangely, Brandon began to chuckle softly.
“Something funny?”
“I was just thinking about the Neanderthals.”
“What in the—”
“I was picturing a council of Neanderthals sitting in their cave around a fire, debating what they should do about global warming.”
“You have a weird sense of humor, Bran.”
“No, Jordy. Imagine it. Here they are, beautifully adapted to the Ice Age. But the climate’s warming up. The glaciers are melting away. And they’re squatting around their fire, wondering what to do.”
“There wasn’t much they could do,” said Jordan.
“They could have adapted. They could have changed their ways and adapted to the warmer climate.”
“Could they?” Jordan wondered. “As you say, they were physically adapted for the Ice Age climate.”
“They were intelligent, Jordy. As intelligent as we are. They had larger brains than we do, actually.”
“But—”
“Some of them lived in the Middle East, you know. They could have adapted to a warmer climate.”
Jordan pointed out, “Some of them interbred with our ancestors, actually. We carry a few Neanderthal genes in our DNA.”
“We absorbed them.”
“Which is what Harmon fears that Adri’s people want to do to us.”
Brandon snorted a bitter laugh. “Yeah, their few thousand are going to absorb our twenty billion.”
“He’s still afraid of the possibility.”
With a dismissive shake of his head, Brandon continued, “Most of the Neanderthals didn’t get absorbed. They didn’t adapt. They must’ve had a guy like Meek telling them that the warming is all a fake, a temporary anomaly, nothing to worry about.”
; Jordan got the point. “So they didn’t change.”
“And they went extinct.”
“Just as we will.”
“If we don’t change our ways, Jordy. If we don’t change our ways.”
“Can we?” Jordan asked. “Will we?”
“There’ll be plenty of people back on Earth who won’t want to believe what we have to tell them. People who’ll deny it all, claim we’ve been hoodwinked by scheming aliens.”
“Just like Harmon.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do about him, Bran?”
In the lengthening shadows, Jordan couldn’t make out the expression on his brother’s face. But he heard the undertone of anger in Brandon’s voice. “Personally, I’d like to stuff him back in a cryosleep capsule and keep him there permanently.”
“Not an altogether bad idea,” Jordan said lightly, “but it’s rather impractical, don’t you think?”
“I just don’t understand him, Jordy. He’s supposed to be a scientist, but he’s not thinking logically at all. He hasn’t done a lick of work since we arrived here.”
“He’s frightened.”
They had reached the edge of the camp. Brandon stood in silence for several long moments, fists on his hips, head turned skyward.
“You’re right, Jordy,” he said at last. “If we can’t convince Meek that Adri’s people are being honest with us, we won’t have a chance in hell of convincing the powers-that-be back on Earth.”
“So what do you propose to do?” Jordan repeated.
“I’m supposed to be our fearless leader, right?”
“You are the team’s leader,” Jordan agreed.
“So I’m going to do what a leader’s supposed to do,” Brandon said. “When facing a really tough job, fob it off on somebody else.”
“What do you mean?”
Stepping closer to Jordan, Brandon placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and said, “Jordy, I’m giving you the task of bringing Meek around. I just don’t get along with the pompous ass, but you get along with everybody. The job is yours … if you’ll accept it.”
Surprised, Jordan actually staggered back a step. “You want me…?”
“To get Meek to see the light. You’re a trained diplomat. If I try to convince him I’ll wind up socking him in the nose.”
“But—”
“No buts, Jordy. I need you to do this. We all need it. If you can bring Meek around, Longyear and the others will fall in line.”
Jordan stared at his brother. His first thought was, Bran’s evading his responsibilities again, just as he’s done since we were children. He wants to be recognized as our leader but he can’t face up to doing the work.
But then he realized, Wait. Maybe Bran’s really taking his job of leadership seriously. Maybe he’s thought this out, after all. A real leader delegates authority. A good leader picks the best people for the tasks that have to be done.
He gazed into his brother’s questioning eyes with new respect. Placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, in imitation of his brother’s gesture, Jordan replied, “I’ll do it, Bran. I don’t know if I’ll be successful, but I’ll talk to Harmon, one on one.”
Brandon nodded. “I knew I could count on you, Jordy.”
“I don’t know if I can bring him around,” Jordan warned again.
“If you can’t, nobody can,” Brandon said, with absolute certainty.
ONE ON ONE
Jordan went to his cubicle, sat on the springy cot, and phoned Aditi. He always felt a little awkward speaking to her from the cubicle; its two-meter-high partitions didn’t allow much privacy. He kept his voice low, but his eyes focused on Aditi’s alert, vivacious features.
He couldn’t tell her about Brandon’s request; he might be overheard. Instead he asked her about her day, and they chatted about inconsequential matters.
Until he said, “I’d really like to get back to the city as soon as I can.”
“Tomorrow?” she chirped.
With an unhappy smile, Jordan answered, “I don’t think so. I have a lot to do here.”
“I’ll come there, then.”
Jordan shook his head. “No. That would be … a problem. Let me work out what I have to do here and then I’ll call you.”
“I miss you, Jordan.”
Almost whispering, he replied, “I miss you, too.”
They said reluctant good-byes, then Jordan clicked his phone shut. Maybe Bran has the right idea, he thought. Maybe stuffing Harmon into a cryosleep capsule is the answer to our problem.
* * *
He dreamt that night of Miriam: happy, laughing, in the healthy bloom of youth when he had first met her. And in his dream she morphed into Aditi, happy, laughing, young.
He woke and sat up on the cot, thinking, How lucky you are, Jordan Kell. To find another woman who loves you. You had to travel more than eight light-years to find her, but find her you did.
For long moments he sat there and watched the dawn brightening the dome of the bubble tent. At last he told himself, Now you’ve got to do what’s necessary to keep her.
And that means convincing Harmon to accept Adri and all he had told them.
A pang of memory assailed him as he shaved: Miriam’s last agonized days. But then he realized that the memory was his subconscious mind’s way of showing him a way to solve his problem.
Dressed in slacks and an open-necked shirt, Jordan found Meek in the dining area, his breakfast laid out on the table before him as precisely as a military formation. Longyear was sitting beside him, the two of them leaning their heads together in intense conversation.
Jordan filled a tray with juice, buttered toast, and a steaming mug of coffee, then went to their table and sat down facing the astrobiologist.
“Good morning, all,” Jordan said cheerily. “May I join you?”
“Of course,” said Meek. Longyear nodded.
De Falla came up and started unloading his tray opposite Jordan. “Good morning,” he said as he sat down.
Meek nodded at the geologist, said nothing as he reached for his glass of juice.
“I’m going back to the city this morning,” Jordan said as he lifted his own juice glass. “Anyone want to come along with me?”
“I’m busy with the geological mapping,” said de Falla. “Adri’s people have promised to send me a detailed profile of the planet’s interior.”
“It must be fascinating,” Jordan said, “working out how they constructed this planet.”
De Falla nodded warily. “It’s hard to believe, constructing a whole planet. But it’s true. That’s what they did.”
“That’s what they claim they did,” Longyear objected.
“No, Paul,” said de Falla, “they did it. This planet’s been built around a hollow shell. We’re standing on fourteen kilometers of dirt and rocks. Then there’s the metal shell, and inside it nothing but an energy generator that creates the gravitational field we feel.”
Longyear glanced at Meek, who said nothing, busily slicing the omelet on his plate.
“Thornberry’s working up the specifications of their grav generator,” de Falla went on. “He says it could make a tremendous weapon, handling all that energy.”
“A planet wrecker,” Longyear muttered.
Jordan said, “Perhaps it would be best if we didn’t bring that level of technology back to Earth.”
Meek’s brows rose. “Will they let us return to Earth?”
“Yes, Harmon,” Jordan replied. “I’m sure they will.”
“When?”
“When we’re ready to leave, I should imagine.”
“I thought you said we were their prisoners,” Meek said.
“Adri won’t keep us here against our will. His whole approach to dealing with us has been to answer our questions, honestly and forthrightly.”
“But not completely.”
Patiently, Jordan said, “Harmon, we’re like schoolchildren, compared to Adri’s people. We ha
ve a lot to learn, and they’re being very patient with us.”
“But you think they’ll allow us to leave?” Longyear asked.
“When we’re ready to, yes.”
“I wonder.”
“Come into the city with me and ask Adri yourself, Paul.”
Longyear seemed to think it over for a heartbeat, then he said, “All right, I’ll do that.” He hesitated, then added, “I’ve been thinking about taking them up on their offer to teach me what they know about biology.”
Meek looked up from his plate, startled, a forkful of omelet in midair.
“I mean, Mitch has learned a helluva lot about physics from them. I’d like to learn what they know about biology.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Meek.
“It’s damned tempting,” Longyear said.
“So was the apple that Eve gave to Adam.”
“You think we’re going to damn ourselves?” Longyear challenged.
“I think we’re in over our heads,” said Meek.
Jordan smiled and said, “Harmon, if we are in over our heads, wouldn’t education be a good way to get our heads above water?”
“Education or mind manipulation?”
“Does Mitchell seem different to you? Manipulated?”
Meek stared at Jordan for a wordless moment, then turned his attention back to the remains of his omelet.
As gently as he could, Jordan said, “Harmon, I’ve got to let Nara examine me. Would you go with me?”
“Examine you? What for? Are you ill?”
“It’s just a routine exam. I picked up a bug before we left Earth and she wants to keep an eye on it.”
His eyes narrowing with suspicion, Meek asked, “And why do you want me to accompany you? Are you afraid she’s going to stick you with a needle?”
Longyear suppressed a laugh; de Falla grinned openly.
“Not exactly,” said Jordan. “But I’d appreciate it if you came along with me.”
