At length we arrived at Capitol Square, which had been closed to the public for the day. Armed militia stood on guard at each of its three entrances.
No one had known how many guests we would be entertaining, but the news that only three Earthmen had landed must have been swiftly relayed to Nathan’s staff, for when we entered the banquet room, a single long table which would accommodate everyone had been set up with all the pomp the occasion demanded. Pewter vases of freshly-cut flowers vied for pride of place with M’threnni lightsticks mounted mi elaborate silver candleholders; the table-cloth was immaculately white, and the cutlery gleamed. Nathan had insisted that only official delegates should attend the dinner and I had previously agreed to slip away after cocktails. Following the exchanges on Round Island, however, I was beginning to regret this concession; I wanted to see how things developed. I consoled myself with the thought that I would be seeing Annia instead.
I went over to Eilan and spoke briefly with her before I left.
“I don’t like it,” she told me. “Something’s not right.”
“I agree,” I said. “They seem a little remote, don’t they?”
She nodded. “Especially considering the amount of good will that Nathan is radiating.” She gestured with her glass towards the far end of the room. The french windows had been opened and Nathan, the Earthmen and half the delegation were standing out on the balcony overlooking the square. Nathan was talking and waving his arms with great animation, while the two Chinese (the translator stood in the background like a shadow) looked on with their perennial smiles. Smiles that were thoroughly devoid of humour or goodwill.
“We expected Americans,” Eilan said. “Nobody actually said so, but subconsciously we all assumed that the people on board the Earthship would be like us. Evidently there have been some changes since our ancestors left the planet.”
“Perhaps that’s why they seem a little—cool,” I said, searching for a glimmer of optimism. “Perhaps we’re a little strange to them as well. Maybe they’re just overwhelmed by the occasion.”
“Perhaps,” Eilan said, still staring towards the balcony. But she obviously didn’t believe it.
I finished my drink. “I must be off,” I said. “It’s visiting time.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, turning back to me. “Keep up the good work. If anyone can break through to Annia, it’s going to be you.”
“Jacobsen told me yesterday that he thought Annia had the best prospects for rehabilitation of all the Voices.”
“I would think so,” Eilan agreed. “She seems to be the youngest.”
“Will I see you later?”
“Who can say? I’ll contact you if anything crops up.”
I set my glass on a tray. “Well, have a good dinner.”
“It’s sure to be an interesting one,” she said.
Wendi and I took Annia back to the villa that afternoon. On the pretext that she had some shopping to do, Wendi went off to the city centre and left me alone with Annia.
In my spare moments I had been attempting to renovate the garden. I sat her on a chair in the sunlight and while I was attending to the weeds, I told her all about the arrival of the Earthmen. She did not respond, of course, but I had decided that it might be therapeutic to converse with her as if she was a normal human being. Junith’s pet bird, which I had rescued, half-starved, from the harbour the day after our return and had installed in the garden, wandered around the fringes of the lily-pool, rooting amongst the grass. It seemed quite content in this miniature approximation of its island habitat, although it had developed an unwelcome taste for mistflower buds, thus forcing me to tether it to a post on a long string which did not quite extend to their beds. On one occasion, the bird waddled up to Annia’s chair and she looked down at it momentarily. I said nothing, but I felt elated. It was coming; slowly, it was coming.
Towards sunset, a courier arrived with a message from Eilan.
Important news, it read. Come to the Star. Eilan.
Roger had provided Eilan with a small room above his restaurant until she could find accommodation nearer the city centre. I arrived there just after dusk. Only it was no longer the Alien Star. Roger had had the sign replaced with another: it was now Sol Three, and a stylized globe of the Earth hung from a bracket in place of the red neon star.
“We’re opening in three days’ time,” Roger told me as he led me through the main eating area. Several artists were at work painting murals on the walls. I recognized the Pyramids of Egypt and the Colossus of Rhodes.
“We’re doing the Seven Wonders of Earth,” Roger explained. “Should prove popular, yes?”
“You had better make room for the Great Wall of China,” I said.
“Eh?”
“They’re Chinese. The men from Earth.”
“Oh, yes. Eilan told me, I’ve been looking for designs for Chinese lanterns. I’m told they’re really attractive.”
When I tapped on Eilan’s door and opened it, I saw that she was lying on top of her bed, asleep.
“Forgive me,” she said, rousing as I entered. “I must have dozed off.”
“It’s a hangover from our life of exile,” I said; we had fallen into the habit of taking a nap most evenings while on the island.
She went over to the wash-basin and splashed water on her face.
“How did it go?” I asked. “You’re back earlier than I expected.”
She patted her cheeks with a towel. “Our guests found the Gaian day rather too long,” she said. “Before dusk they were exhausted and they asked to be returned to their ship.” She put the towel back on the rack. “Nathan was disappointed, of course. He tried to persuade them to spend the night in his residence, but they were adamant. They told him that they were under orders to return to their ship by sunset.” She settled herself in an armchair and invited me to sit down. I perched myself on the edge of the bed, since there were no other chairs.
“There are good reasons why they left in such a hurry,” Eilan said. “We talked for several hours after dinner, and a number of interesting facts emerged. Firstly they told us that of the seven prospective colony planets to which our ancestors had sent ships, four had already been investigated, and ail but one were lifeless. Apparently there’s a thriving colony on Delta Pavonis Four. Contact was made about a cycle ago, and a permanent link with Earth has already been established. A similar link with Gaia is the object of this mission. They are quite willing—indeed, eager—to initiate supply flights, but there is a condition. They want to establish a permanent base on Gaia—which seemed quite reasonable until they told us its size: they want five thousand people down here. For what purpose? we inquired. For scientific and cultural liaison, they told us. We pressed them, and at length they revealed that one of its prime functions would be ‘ideological instruction’. Earlier they had shown a great interest in our political organization, and they now informed us that it was based on American Federalism, a system which has been found to be ‘untenable’ in the long term. They would not explain exactly what form of government they have, but it certainly doesn’t appear to have any democratic flavour. What they were effectively saying was that they intended to reform our society in their own image; Gaia would become another constituent state of their Confederation—a colony in all senses of the world. We refused outright. They told us that the people on Delta Pavonis Four had come to see the wisdom of their proposals—a veiled threat if I ever heard one. Nathan began to waver, but several of us got together and made it perfectly clear that we were not prepared to allow any interference in our internal politics. It was shortly after this that they decided that they were tired and had to return to their ship.”
“What about the M’threnni?”
“Naturally they were fascinated by them. None of the other colonies ever encountered aliens. They were completely surprised. No doubt it will give them added incentive to establish a base here.”
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t kno
w. After the Earthmen left, we spent a few hours arguing over the wisdom of our decision. Quite a number of people thought we should have accepted their proposals—we’ve been so dependent on the M’threnni, they find it impossible to conceive that we could exist without outside aid. Eventually I grew weary of their bickering and I walked out.”
“You resigned?”
“Oh, no. I’m waiting to see what happens next. Assuming that we stand fast, then the Earthmen must either agree to our conditions or force us to comply with theirs.”
They did, in fact, do neither. That same night, a number of landers descended on Round Island, and the following morning one of them, obviously armed, was positioned at the island end of the bridge, blocking the entrance to the terminus. Attempts to contact the mother-ship met with no response, so Nathan led a small delegation across the bridge. They were refused entry by the guards on duty, who did not speak English but brandished sinister-looking rifles in an unequivocal fashion. Nathan and his party retreated to the shore and again attempted to contact the Earthmen via radio. They would not reply.
Ten days have passed since the Earthmen first landed, ten days of anxious waiting. The Earthmen have barricaded themselves on Round Island and have refused to communicate with us. It appears that they have gained access to the M’threnni tower and are currently investigating its interior. The Senate dithers, but does nothing. What can it do? The Earthmen possess superior weaponry and could doubtless annihilate the whole of Helixport from their mother-ship if they so desired. We await some ultimatum, some ultimatum which we will be unable to refuse.
Despite our weakness, there are those amongst us who are foolish enough to suppose that we could resist. The Children of the Divine Light view the Earthmen as the incarnation of the promised Force of Evil from which their Messiah will deliver them—the M’threnni having inconveniently disburdened themselves of this role by their abrupt departure from Gaia. Already they are rallying their support, with Junith, who has found her role at last, in their vanguard. Any one of them might be capable of an irrational act which could bring the full wrath of the Earthmen down upon us.
What of the M’threnni, our vanished mentors? Of them, there is no sign, nor, I believe, will there be. They have retreated to some distant star where no human will ever find them. My own belief, for what it is worth, is that they are supremely rational beings, devoid of all the worthy passions which we humans hold dear, but lacking, too, our madnesses. That is why they hid themselves inside the tower, and that is why, when they knew they could hide no longer, they fled. Perhaps the Voices are the outcome of their attempts to eradicate the base emotions of humanity. If so, then it is a sad testimony that the end product is something less than human. But these are speculations only, and cannot approach the truth. The Earthmen probe the tower, but I do not think they will discover much. The essence of the aliens is their mystery.
All is not bleakness, however. Inside my garden, the flowers bloom, and for two hours each day I bring Annia there, and she, too, is blossoming. Whatever method the M’threnni used for depilating the Voices, it was not permanent, for Annia’s hair is beginning to grow back. A soft, fine stubble now covers her head, and her eyebrows are sprouting. A subtle but noticeable animation in her features accompanies this growth; she is coming alive again. Yesterday, when I was crouching in from of her, tying a loose buckle on one of her sandals, she reached forward and gently touched my beard; at the same time, her lips parted momentarily as if she was about to speak. Some day soon she will speak, I am sure, and that will be the most joyous moment of my life.
And so we wait, and I have been filling the empty hours in composing this account. It is a tale full of incompletenesses, a story which ends, perhaps, with beginnings. But what beginnings, what destinies await us, I would not venture to guess. I am content to sit in ray garden and let events unfold as they will. Meanwhile Gaia turns, and each day Capella’s golden eyes look down upon us.
A Note on Gala
The fifth planet of the Capella star-system, Gaia has a period of rotation of 35.84 hours and a revolutionary period of 968.1 rotations. Its diameter is 12,400km and its surface gravity 0.95G. The planet has only one major land-mass, a roughly semicircular island (also called Gaia) about twice the size of the Iberian Peninsula which straddles the equator in the Western Hemisphere. An archipelago of small volcanic islands, the Antipodean Isles, on the opposite side of the globe is the only other surface feature.
The Gaian calendar comprises four seasons (each season approximately equivalent to a Terran year) which make up a complete cycle of the planet. Gaia has no appreciable axial tilt, the high eccentricity of the orbit accounting for the seasonal variations in temperature. The seasons are subdivided into twelve months, each of twenty days’ duration, with two additional days designated Newseason’s Day and Midseason’s Day. Thus a typical Gaian date 8.7 Summer 29 would refer to the eighth day of the seventh month of Summer in the twenty-ninth planetary cycle, dated from the time of the first landing.
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