Alien Earth

by Megan Lindholm

  “I told you. To talk. To allow us to become acquainted, independent of the constraints of crew duties and the chain of command. These lengthy trips grow tedious even for me. One longs for the stimulation of conversation. Don’t you agree?”

  “I suppose.” She took another draw of the stim drink to cover the awkwardness. The food on the tray smelled good.

  “So then. Let us talk. About you, if you don’t mind. Your records say your first aptitude was for Motherhood. But you selected your twelfth option, Mariner, instead. I find that fascinating, especially since I have always heard that the Motherhood career was an exceptionally desirable option, difficult to qualify for and held in high esteem. So why did you choose Mariner over it?”

  Connie slowly returned the drink to the gripper tray. The anxiety, almost dispersed, suddenly became a tight knot in the base of her stomach again. Why did he want to know about that? Was this what John had meant when he’d referred to Tug as a “vivisectionist”? She could not think of a topic she’d be less happy to discuss. But she could handle this. For a moment she considered telling him what she’d seen of women who’d become Mothers; the rigorous exercise and diet regimens necessary to keep an old uterus youthful enough for use. The frustrations of the numerous attempts at inseminations; only one in twelve usually “took.” The high rate of death choice and mental breakdowns among Mothers. No. She’d become too emotional.

  “Well, there’s a lot to consider when choosing a career, Tug. One of my reasons for rejecting Motherhood was the relative shortness of the career. Most women bear three children or so in their careers. So after, say, fifteen years, a woman faces retraining before she can become career active again. That just didn’t appeal to me, whereas the longevity of Mariner, as a career and as a life option, did.” Connie couldn’t count how many times she’d rattled off this excuse. She paused for breath.

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. You see, the increased life span of a Mariner lets me witness a number of generations of change in Humanity. So, if and when I choose to change career options, I can switch to my number four option, Historian, and bring the benefits of my personal observation to my career.” There. She’d skirted that nicely. John’s warnings about Tug now seemed a bit excessive.

  “I was unaware of your interest in the histories. Do you have a specialty yet?”

  “As of yet, no. Just a great interest in the history of my own species.” She felt as if she were being interviewed for this job all over again. What was Tug getting at, and why?

  “Wonderful! It is a fascination we share. Connie, I think we shall become great friends and companions. Here is a question I have often puzzled over. Do you think Humans have changed a very great deal since they left their planet of origin?”

  “Certainly.” She still wasn’t hungry, but the protein sticks smelled so good, she found herself picking one out of the gripper pack. “We’ve been adapted to a harmonious environment. Physically, we’re smaller, we mature later, one hundred percent of reproduction is by voluntary insemination, we live longer, we are no longer predators, nor carnivorous at all…. There’s too many changes to even list them. Tug, why do you ask?” She bit the end off the protein stick, hoping her question would keep him busy while she thought. It wasn’t that hard to keep Tug at a distance. She wondered again why John had warned her.

  “I am curious and interested. It will be so exciting to have you aboard, to finally have someone to converse with. We have so much to share. You are aware that I have writings by ancient Humans. Many are obscure and puzzling. I ask you about changes, for I wonder if a contemporary Human would be able to interpret what one of their ancestors had written?”

  Connie shrugged. “I don’t know. My historical strengths were more in the areas of biotechnology and dirty technology. My aptitudes showed little strength in areas like literature and language. I think that’s one of John’s areas of expertise, though. Didn’t he have a option in Human literature? You might want to ask him.”

  “No.” Tug’s response was flat.

  “Oh?” Connie was intrigued by the Arthroplana’s sour tone. What, exactly, was between him and John?

  “John has been a very great disappointment to me.”

  “I see.” Connie suddenly decided she didn’t want to know why. Some things were better left alone. “Perhaps this is something better discussed with John,” she ventured cautiously.

  “Perhaps not,” Tug replied gloomily. “John has little tolerance for what he calls my ‘dabbling’ in Human literature and arts. He maintains that one must be a Human to understand Humanity. I maintain that with sufficient time and studying, one can understand anything. But he scoffs at my efforts at poetry, and when I playfully alter any of the older writings to make them more currently relevant, he becomes incensed. He refuses to share his resources with me. I am well aware he brought a large selection of new recordings on board with him, but he restricts access to himself and has not let any of them be added to the ship’s library. It is simple selfishness on his part. It has reached a point where I can no longer discuss Human literature with John at all. As that was one of the primary reasons I hired him to captain aboard Evangeline, it is a great disappointment to me. I have even considered replacing him.”

  “But you haven’t. Why?” Despite herself, Connie was fascinated. She picked up a second protein stick.

  There was a long pause, as if Tug had not expected the question and did not have a ready answer. Odd. “He is a very able captain. I could not justify it to Evangeline.”

  “And that’s important?” Connie tried not to sound too interested. Arthroplana were notoriously closemouthed about their exact relationship to their Beasts. The Arthroplanas that Humans had met face-to-face were of a different type than the ones that were enBeasted. Connie understood it to be some sort of cycle of molts and body forms they went through. What the Arthroplanas inside a Beast were like, no Human knew. Theories varied from that each Arthroplana and his Beast became a single entity to that they were symbiotic to that each Arthroplana was an internal parasite within an animal Beast. They had only the Arthroplanas’ word for it that the Beasts were independently intelligent or had any will of their own. No Human had ever communicated directly with a Beast.

  “Of course it’s important. Surely you must know how highly Beasts value peace and tranquillity. If I were to dismiss John, it would cause Evangeline distress over our apparent discord. No, it is better she knows nothing of it. She approves of John, and is quite happy with his skills as a captain.”

  “Beasts notice such things?” Connie finished the last of her meal and took the tray to the recycler. She found that she was relaxing. It seemed to her that she was drawing more out of Tug than he was out of her.

  “Um. In that he finds good missions for us that result in ample nourishment for her. Not that she approves of our present mission, of course.”

  “Evangeline doesn’t want to go back to Earth?”

  “Exactly the problem. As you may know, she was one of the original ‘lifeboats’ and made every evacuation trip from Earth to Castor and Pollux. No Beast enjoys being in such close proximity to a dying planet; they sense the discord and become alarmed by it, even as they feel constrained to rescue survivors. She does not wish to return to the scene of such unpleasant memories. But just as compelling, to her, is her boredom with the idea. She has been there before, several times. Why visit there again? she wonders. Especially on a mission she sees no reason for.”

  “Well, that’s a sentiment we share then.” The discordant words slipped out before Connie could edit them.

  “Indeed? Please enlarge on your feelings?”

  Was there something else behind the politely interested voice? Just how bluntly could she speak to Tug before he would construe her as mutinous? He seemed to sense her uncertainty, for he suddenly added, “You know, when we are alone and talking like this, I do not think of myself as owner, nor you as crew. I consider us friends, even confidantes. That is, as
ones who do not betray each other’s secrets. Shall we be that?”

  “I … suppose so.” She still couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

  “For, of course, John might be angry if he found I had awakened you off schedule, and that we had conversed casually, like this. For the sake of harmony, you will not tell him?”

  “No. Of course not.” That was Tug’s trade then. He’d admitted to her that he shouldn’t have awakened her, and asked her not to tell. It was his way of assuring her she could speak freely and not have it get back to John. Well. Maybe she would. Maybe Tug could explain what looked like obvious gaps in the mission briefing she’d received.

  “Here’s what makes me nervous about this mission. John and I are supposed to go back to Earth, gather data, and return to Delta with the information. Right?”

  “That is a correct summation of the mission goals, yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It surprises me that you’d ask. Earth Affirmed’s politics are well known. They seek to prove that Terra is viable, and could be an alternate living area for Humanity, and …”

  “Not that,” Connie sighed. “That’s obvious. Why did the Conservancy grant the permit for this mission? Everyone knows Terra is dead. I never understood why they let groups like Earth Affirmed go around stirring up discontent and unrest, let alone something like this. I’m not sure I like being a part of it.”

  Tug chuckled affably. “Maybe I can put your mind to rest, there. Do you really think I’d allow my ship to leave on such a mission without making sure it was completely cleared with the Conservancy first? Their position is quite simple; they’ll grant the permit and allow Earth Affirmed to expend their own resources to prove the Conservancy has always been right. The proof will be undeniable and will dispel the notion that Terra is a reclaimable place. The idea that there may be an alternative to living harmoniously within the bionet of Castor and Pollux has become more and more unsettling to Human civilization in the past few generations. Humans are a restless, some might even say ungrateful, race. Living on Castor and Pollux requires restraint and self-control, the surrender of the excesses that Humans once regarded as their ‘rights.’ The Conservancy knows that, and seeks to constantly remind your people of it. But Humans seem to need to be reminded, over and over. Anyone who has observed the Human race for more than a few generations can see the danger signs. You are becoming careless. Some few of you become greedy, others think willpower alone can overcome natural limits and boundaries. Some think that their wealth allows them to buy ecological privileges, that someone else will do without to allow them to satisfy their hunger for excess. It is the same pattern seen before Terra had to be abandoned. The same pattern we Arthroplana have seen destroy three other civilized races: the Evadorians, the Thetans, and the Caraks-a-lan.”

  The fervency in Tug’s artificial voice surprised her. She faltered. “But I still don’t understand. How can our mission to Terra change any of that?”

  “To use an ancient idiom, it will rub the nose of Earth Affirmed in the smelly truth. That the same excesses and wild dreams of Human immunity to natural laws totally destroyed the last planet entrusted to Humans. The Conservancy will use Earth Affirmed’s own data to prove it. Humans will have to recognize the necessity for the firm controls the Conservancy applies; it may even lead to a new austerity.”

  “And if they’re right?” Connie asked softly.

  “Pardon?”

  “And what if Earth Affirmed is right? What would happen then?”

  “In the opinion of the Conservancy, total destruction of the social system on Castor and Pollux and the orbiting stations. Too many Humans accept the constraints and discipline of the Conservancy only because they are offered no alternative. The Conservancy’s mandate to govern is founded on the disastrous example of Terra’s destruction. Remove that, and you open the door to the overthrow of the Conservancy. Some say it would be the end of the Human race, for Humans could never readapt to Terra. It was an unimaginably harsh place, Connie.”

  A small pang of disappointment surprised Connie. “So all this is so we can prove, once again, that Terra is dead.”

  “We only gather the data,” Tug reminded her. “The Conservancy will prove that Terra is dead. The Arthroplana will back their decision. There will be no more visits to Terra.”

  “It doesn’t seem worth it,” she declared suddenly. “Going so far, to look at a planet that, at departure readings, was almost totally poisoned or sterile. Those Humans who had to be left were making frantic efforts to save bits of their ecology by transplanting plants and lower life-forms—”

  “Animals. The correct word is animals.”

  “And animals into the cleaner areas. But they knew that they were only staving off the inevitable. They knew Humanity could survive on Earth for only a few more generations, and that the planet itself was moving toward a totally lifeless state. All the historical records say so.”

  Connie paused for breath. The knot was back in her belly.

  “‘The death of one’s home planet is a tragedy that transcends time,’” Tug suggested.

  “Exactly.” Connie tried to sigh her tension away.

  “I was quoting, actually. From one of the early poets on a recording I have. It still troubles you, then? Even though it happened long before your birth?”

  “It … I had this philosophy teacher. I took the course as a recreational thing. I’d never taken a course like that before, so I didn’t realize how strange he was. His whole focus seemed to be Humanity’s destruction of Terra. He told us it was the Original Sin of the Human race. He had this old book of myths, only he claimed they were prophecies. He said we’d been cast out of Paradise for destroying it, and that the radiation in the atmosphere was an angel with a fiery sword. He said it was a sin that would never be forgiven, and that Castor and Pollux were actually eternal damnation for our race. All kinds of stuff like that. With every class session, he got stranger. Finally, someone reported him. Later, it turned out he was unadjusted. Totally unadjusted. He’d grown up on a dirty-tech satellite, and been to a lot of therapy, and for a while he did okay there, but then he’d faked credentials and somehow ended up teaching philosophy, planetside. No one ever found out how he’d managed to get off a dirty-tech station and to Castor, and he wasn’t telling. He was terminated, of course, and all the people who’d taken his courses had to be adjusted.”

  “My quotation made you recall all this?” Tug sounded mildly perplexed.

  Connie shook her head and took a deep breath. “Something about it transcending all time, I guess. But here’s the thing, Tug. Even before we poisoned Terra, it was a dangerous place. Animals would suck your blood, or kill and eat you. Just the touch of some plants would poison you. Sometimes you’d get too hot and the sun would burn your skin, and in other places you could freeze to death. And that was normal, was what it was like before Humanity poisoned it. We’re talking about a very hostile natural environment. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest. That’s what competitive evolution was all about. I’ve seen holos of it. The schools used to get the really good ones you could walk into. Not anymore. Too many kids had screaming nightmares. It’s nothing like Castor or Pollux. No serenity or order, all strife. In one holo, there was this dead animal, with other animals biting pieces off it, and there were plants growing right out of another plant and sucking away its nutrients. Everything just grew every which way, with no plan or order. Different colors and shapes of leaves everywhere, and up overhead, there were these other animals screaming while they jumped from one tree to the next, ripping live foliage from the trees and eating it, and seed-bearing fruit that was still viable, they were eating that, too. And …”

  Connie paused. She shut her eyes against the memory of that awful lesson. Don’t think about it, she counseled herself. Think of a curtain grove, soft dangling fronds gently stirring to pollinate the creme moss that always carpets the soil beneath curtain trees. Think of the ordered
ranks of marcher palms in their precise rows. Every nine hundred twenty-seven days they sent out a questing tendril, to bore into the soil about twenty meters from the parent tree. A new rank of marchers would spring up from the tendril, and the old tree would die and return its essence to Castor. That was ecology, that was harmony. Not some place where men had once ripped the skin of the planet open with iron blades, forced seeds into the soil and ruthlessly torn up every other plant that tried to compete with the favored crop. That wasn’t home to her, could never be. Home was Horticolony Six on Castor, and a Humanity that harvested fallen foliage and nonviable seed-fruits, a place where nutrients were returned in exact balance with what had been harvested. Not a place where men kept animals penned ankle deep in their own excrement, and then slew them with hammers, to have bloody meat on their tables.

  “Connie?” Tug asked gently.

  “Maybe you can’t understand how I feel, at the prospect of actually going there. Maybe we evolved there, maybe in some weird sense it’s ‘home’ to our species, but it isn’t to me. I grew up on Castor, Tug, in a cooperative environment. I’m a different creature from those which the Earth spawned. I’ve got no desire to see the place. It’s like a sort of … shame in my past, or something. Hostile as it was, it was a living place, and my ancestors killed it. That’s wrong.” Connie ran her hands through her short hair, standing it up on her skull. It was damp. Tension sweat. She was getting too worked up over this. She wished she’d never gotten into the discussion. Was this what John had been warning her about?

  “Interesting.”

  The very restraint of Tug’s response was like a rebuke. With a jolt she realized who she’d been spilling her feelings to.

  “It’s just something I have strong feelings about. If I’d have known I was this distressed by the topic, I’d have gone in for Adjustment on it. Believe me, it will be one of the first things I do when I go back.” A lie, but a correct lie. She wished she could undo the whole conversation.