by Ben Bova
“That is true. But you who are here on our world pose a potential danger to our survival.”
“Two thousand of us?” Mandabe scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Two thousand today,” the avatar countered. “How many of you will there be in a million years, if you are left alone?”
Shaking his head, Ignatiev said, “Let me ask you a different question. Why do you think the Predecessors gave us the shielding technology that can protect us from the coming death wave?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Smoothly, the avatar replied, “We have been trying to determine that for ourselves. It makes no sense to us.”
Mandabe said, “Apparently it made sense to the Predecessors.”
“They are much older than we,” said the avatar.
Ignatiev suggested, “And perhaps wiser?”
“Hardly. They are dying. In another few million years they will be gone.”
“But they wanted to establish something before they went extinct,” Ignatiev said, realizing the truth of it as he spoke. “They wanted to establish a partnership between machine intelligences and organic.”
The avatar fixed Ignatiev with a cold stare. Its eyes are cobalt blue, Ignatiev realized for the first time.
“What would be accomplished by a partnership between machines and organics?” the avatar challenged.
Mandabe said, “The Predecessors asked for our help in saving intelligent species from the death wave.”
“That seems unlikely,” the avatar scoffed. “What can organics offer that machines cannot do for themselves?”
“Drive!” Ignatiev answered. “Organic species have drive, curiosity, a will to overcome obstacles.”
Mandabe’s face lit up. “Yes! We short-lived organic creatures are willing to give our lives to accomplish a goal. Our emotion-soaked minds take on challenges that strictly logical intelligences would never attempt.”
The avatar looked back and forth from Mandabe to Ignatiev. In silence.
“The Predecessors foresaw a partnership between machines and organics,” Ignatiev added. “You have knowledge. We have determination. You have information. We have empathy. Together they add up to understanding.”
“Understanding what?” the avatar asked.
With excitement growing within him, Ignatiev answered, “Everything! The whole universe!”
Mandabe gaped at him. The avatar stood absolutely motionless, frozen.
“We could study the galaxy’s core together,” Ignatiev went on, “learn how to predict the next death wave, perhaps eventually learn how to prevent death waves altogether!”
The avatar said, “That seems … unlikely.”
“Who knows?” Ignatiev challenged. “Who knows what we might accomplish together, machines and organics. Who knows what our shared intelligence can achieve?”
“You suggest a collaboration between us?” the avatar asked.
“Not merely between the two of us, but a partnership among all the intelligent species we can reach, organic and machine!”
“A partnership,” the avatar repeated.
“With the goal of saving every intelligent species we can reach,” Mandabe said, practically quivering with excitement.
The avatar abruptly disappeared.
“I think we frightened it,” Mandabe said, his voice hushed. He was still sitting in his leopard-hide armchair, staring at the spot where the avatar had been a moment earlier.
“They don’t know fear,” Ignatiev replied.
Mandabe heaved a heavy sigh. “Well, something made it go away. Perhaps not fear as we understand it, but something that it didn’t want to face.”
“I wonder,” Ignatiev muttered.
“Your idea of a partnership between organic species and machines,” said Mandabe. “Something about that possibility was too much for it to face.”
Ignatiev shook his head. “Perhaps. It might be doing a long-range projection, looking at such a possibility.”
“Do you think it regards a man-machine relationship as a threat?”
“I wish I knew,” Ignatiev said.
* * *
Ignatiev was still mulling over the possible consequences of the avatar’s behavior as he walked back to his quarters.
Gita should be returning from her lab soon, he thought. We’ll have a drink together and then dinner. I’ll ask her what she thinks of the avatar’s beha—
The pain struck him with the abruptness of a lightning strike. His chest flamed with sudden agony and he collapsed to the floor.
Panting, gasping, blinking tears from his eyes, Ignatiev looked up and down the corridor. No one in sight. No one to help. Good, he told himself. No one to watch the old man making an ass of himself.
His chest heaved, like the aftermath of an electric shock, desperately trying to pull air into his lungs. Get yourself back on your feet, Ignatiev thought, fighting to keep from panicking. His legs felt as if they were asleep, numbed, unresponsive. Doggedly, he leaned against the wall and pulled himself slowly upright, fighting for breath. Then he stood for several trembling moments, uncertain that he could command his legs to walk.
Panting, sweating as if he’d run ten kilometers, he forced one foot forward, then hesitated, testing whether he could compel his lungs to work. They did, painfully, grudgingly, but it felt as if he were drowning, suffocating.
“One … step … at a … time,” Ignatiev choked out through clenched teeth.
He clumped forward slowly, staying close enough to the corridor’s cool, blank wall to gain some support for his outstretched arm. One step at a time he advanced toward the door to his quarters, torn between a desire for someone to show up to help him and a red-faced embarrassment at his own body betraying him so badly.
By the time he reached his door he could breathe almost normally. His lungs were still wreathed in a sullen, dogged rawness, but at least he was breathing, even if painfully.
As the door to his quarters slid open, a pair of young men came striding along the corridor, deep in animated conversation.
“Hello, Professor,” one of them said cheerily. The other nodded at Ignatiev.
“Hello,” he managed to gasp out.
They walked on past, oblivious to Ignatiev’s sweat-sheened face. Feeling thankful, Ignatiev staggered into his sitting room, ordered the door to close, and sank gratefully onto his recliner.
“ALS,” he muttered. “Degenerative neural disease. It gets progressively more severe.”
This seizure had been the worst he’d ever endured. As he lay back on the recliner, his breathing slowly returning to normal, his clenched muscles gradually relaxing, Ignatiev knew that he had more such attacks to look forward to. Until the nerves controlling his lungs stopped working altogether.
It was only a matter of time.
* * *
Ignatiev was still on the recliner, half asleep, when Gita returned to their apartment. As he opened his gummy eyes she rushed to him and knelt at his side.
“Alex! What happened?”
He tried to make a reassuring smile. It came out as a grimace. “I’m all right,” he managed to say. His voice was hoarse, raw.
Slowly, he explained what had happened.
“I’ve never had an attack so severe,” he admitted.
Gita put her hand to his cheek. “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
Still kneeling beside him, Gita said, “You must ask the machines to cure you. The avatar said they could.”
“The avatar said they might,” Ignatiev corrected.
“So ask them!”
He looked into her troubled eyes. He felt better now, almost normal.
“Well?” Gita pressed.
With a shake of his head, Ignatiev replied, “I’m not sure that I should. It would be a special favor, specifically for me alone. I’m not sure we want to be indebted to them. I’m not even sure they could do it, even if they tried.”
Gita rose to
her feet. Looking down at him she said, “You’d rather die? You’d rather throw your life away?”
Ignatiev tried to smile. “Gita, dearest, I’m going to die sooner or later.”
“And leave me alone.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to…”
Planting her tiny fists on her hips, Gita said sternly, “Alexander Alexandrovich, if you won’t ask them, I will!”
Ignatiev broke into a cheerless smile. Raising both his hands and lowering them in a symbol of submission, he said, “Harkening and obedience.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
This is going to be embarrassing, Ignatiev thought as he sat alone in his cramped little study. How can I ask them for their help? They intend to let us all die when the death wave hits. Why should they prolong my individual life when they’re going to let me be snuffed out with everyone else, eventually?
He looked around the overcrowded room. Images of star fields covered the windowless walls. A lifetime’s work, he knew, packed tidily into less than two dozen optical capsules. How pitiful. The machines have accomplished a hundred times more. A thousand times more.
Of course, they’ve been at it for thousands of times longer than I have. But still …
Sitting up straighter in his desk chair, Ignatiev reminded himself that he had promised Gita he would ask for the machines’ help. The worst they can do is refuse me. And even if they do, I’ll be no worse off than I am now.
But he remembered yesterday’s attack. Suffocating. Barely able to breathe. Drowning, choking, chest aflame. I don’t want to go through that again. Not if I can help it. Then he corrected, Not if the machines can help me.
But it’s so damnably embarrassing! I don’t want to feel beholden to them. I don’t want to go crawling, begging.
But the alternative is death. A painful death. Choose life, old man. Ask them for their help. Live—if you can.
Abruptly, the avatar appeared beside his desk, dressed in a softly flowing floor-length robe of purest white.
“You are troubled, Alexander Alexandrovich.”
And Ignatiev suddenly realized that the machines knew the inner turmoil that was seething in his mind. Of course! They know everything I’m thinking. Of course. Of course.
“I can feel my death approaching,” he said flatly, as emotionlessly as he could put it.
“And you want our help to avoid it.”
“Yes,” Ignatiev choked out.
The avatar said nothing.
Rising shakily to his feet, Ignatiev said, “I know that organic life is ephemeral, by your standards. Still, I’d like to go on living, if that is possible. I don’t want to be quite so ephemeral, if you can help me to live.”
Its face grave, the avatar replied, “It might be possible. The human brain is very complex, but we might be able to identify the neuron groups responsible for your affliction.”
“Yes?”
“But to what end? What would be accomplished by extending your life?”
Ignatiev closed his eyes briefly. Then he replied, “We could begin to build the partnership we spoke about yesterday.”
“The partnership of machine and organic intelligences?”
“Yes.” Sensing the possibilities of such a partnership, Ignatiev went on, “We have already begun it, haven’t we? The human race and the Predecessors are already working together. Why not extend the partnership as far as we can? Why not bring all the intelligences in the galaxy together, machines and organics?”
The avatar stared intently at Ignatiev for several long, silent moments. At last it said, “That would take ages, millennia.”
“The longest journey is started with a single step.”
“But where would such a journey end? What would it accomplish?”
“Survival,” said Ignatiev. Spreading his arms and slowly turning a full circle to take in all the starry images on the crowded room’s walls. “Survival for your civilization. And ours. Survival for all the intelligences in the galaxy, machine and organic.”
The avatar slowly nodded and repeated, “Survival.”
“That is your ultimate goal, isn’t it? But your survival is bound up with the survival of other intelligences. You’re not alone in the galaxy. You’re part of a brotherhood, a family of intelligent species, all struggling to live, to learn, to understand the universe. All striving to survive, to triumph over inevitable death, to defeat the forces of entropy and emptiness.”
“Entropy is inescapable,” said the avatar. “It is the ultimate end of everything.”
“How do you know? We might be able to avoid it, reverse it, renew the universe, rebuild the worlds.”
The avatar stared at Ignatiev, its face grave, troubled.
At last it said, “You have asked for our help in curing your disease.”
Ignatiev nodded dumbly, thinking, It’s backing away from the grand picture. Going from saving the galaxy to saving my one pitiful life.
“Not so, Professor Ignatiev. Your one life is part of the larger picture. It is the test that underlies everything.”
Frowning with puzzlement, Ignatiev said, “Test? I don’t understand.”
Its lips curving slightly in the barest hint of a smile, the avatar replied, “You trust us. You have placed your hopes for continuing your life in our hands.”
“Yes, I suppose I have.”
“Trust is the fundamental basis of all fruitful relationships. Despite everything we have done, you trust us.”
“Despite everything…?”
The avatar said, “We deliberately cut you off from your homeworld, Earth. We have made you prisoners on our planet. We have told you that we will allow the death wave to annihilate you. We have given you every reason to hate and fear us.”
“I suppose…” Ignatiev said uncertainly.
“You have kept your two thousand individuals focused on learning, expanding your knowledge. You solved your differences with Dr. Mandabe peaceably. We expected a violent clash, but you avoided that with intelligence and skill.”
“It seemed the reasonable way to handle the problem.”
“And now you propose a grand scheme that is built on our two intelligences working together, in partnership. You propose a collaboration between machine and organic intelligences everywhere in the galaxy. You ask for our help in dealing with your disease.”
Ignatiev shrugged and nodded dumbly.
“The breadth of your vision is extraordinary. The trust you show in us is even more so.”
Breaking into a wide smile, Ignatiev said, “Human stubbornness can sometimes be helpful.”
“It can be useful,” the avatar agreed. “It is a trait that we lack, but we can admire it when it is turned to such a grand vision: a union of machine and organic intelligences, a brotherhood to resist the force of entropy itself. Magnificent!”
“You mean you accept the idea?”
“How could we not?” the avatar replied. “Our survival and yours. The survival of intelligence across the galaxy. We will join you in that quest. Willingly. Gladly.”
Ignatiev sank back onto his desk chair. For emotionless machines, he thought, they’re showing a wonderful enthusiasm.
CHAPTER SIXTY
“… you talk about frustration,” said Captain Thornton. “We could see the ground in high resolution, see the machines’ city and the village they’d built for you, but we couldn’t communicate with you at all. Not a peep.”
Thornton was sitting near the head of the conference table, at Mandabe’s right, a heavy mug of beer before him, a relieved grin on his bearded Viking face.
“The machines told us that they’d sent Intrepid away,” said Mandabe.
“No,” Thornton said. “We’ve been in orbit all the time, sailing around the planet again and again. It was—”
Mandabe cut him short. “And then suddenly full communications were restored.”
Thornton nodded heartily. “Not just communications with you here on the surface! The QUE system came back
to life. And the propulsion system, too.”
The full executive committee sat around the conference table. Ignatiev was down near the end, between Vivian Fogel and Laurita Vargas. Gita was in one of the extra chairs that lined the conference room wall to Mandabe’s left.
“We can leave for Earth whenever we wish,” Mandabe said, a rare smile brightening his heavy-featured face.
Thornton cast a quick glance at the avatar, sitting on Mandabe’s other side, then answered, “Apparently.”
The avatar said nothing.
“Good,” said Mandabe. “The question before the committee, then, is who will return to Earth and who will remain here.”
“My team and I will remain,” said Vivian Fogel. “We’ve just barely begun to study the hominids.”
From Ignatiev’s other side, Laurita Vargas piped up. “We want to remain also. There’s much work for us to do.”
One by one, every department head voiced a wish to remain on Oh-Four. Except Ignatiev.
Mandabe looked halfway between surprised and pleased. “Yes,” he said, “much work remains to be done.”
Ignatiev caught Gita’s eye momentarily. She smiled at him. Led by the avatar, the previous morning they had gone to a laboratory built by the machines. He lay on an examination table for a few minutes while sensors built into the walls and ceiling buzzed and chirped at him.
Then the avatar said, “We are finished. You can get up now.”
“That’s it?” Gita asked.
Nodding, the avatar said, “Yes. The neurons have been repaired. The genes have been corrected.”
Ignatiev felt puzzled. Just a half minute of buzzing? That’s all? He hadn’t even been asked to take his shoes off. Immediately he felt ridiculous for such an inane thought. He swung his legs off the table and stood up. He felt no different than he had before the brief session. It can’t be that simple, he said to himself. Yet he was certain that the machines’ avatar would not lie to him.
Maybe I’m cured, he thought, knowing that Intrepid’s medical team was constructing—with the machines’ help—a diagnostic laboratory to examine him for any lingering traces of the ALS.
Meanwhile, the news from Earth had been surprisingly good, as well. Through the QUE communications link, Ignatiev and the other humans had learned that Earth had come close to a shooting war with the human settlements scattered through the Asteroid Belt—a war that they barely averted.
