Lord of All Things

by Andreas Eschbach

  “Really?” she said. Was she getting bored? For a moment he thought so, but then he decided he must be mistaken; girls never got bored when James Michael Bennett was around. He looked at her again. What was her name? Ah yes, Belinda. Nice name. Kind of rare.

  “Belinda,” he cooed, looking deep into her eyes. “That’s such a beautiful name, you know that? And so unusual.”

  “That’s the third time you’ve said that.”

  He shut up, flabbergasted. Really? He wasn’t sure what he’d said by now. Whatever. Didn’t matter.

  “I could say it all night,” he said insistently. “It’s such an unusual name. Belinda—a name like that tastes good on the tongue.” He flicked his tongue out from his lips for a moment to show her what he meant.

  She laughed. “Okay, so you study anthropology because there’s not much to study. Did I get you right?”

  “No, no.” Where on earth did she get that idea? If there was one thing that women shouldn’t try, it was logic.

  “Because we know so very little,” he told her earnestly, “that must mean there’s a whole lot of research still to be done, don’t you see? Fundamental work. And it means anything is still possible.” He shuffled closer and put his mouth close to her face. It smelled good. “And there’s something else as well, something I have to whisper in your ear. It’s kind of politically incorrect. Extremely.”

  He was playing her, of course. The music drowned out everything in the room, some British band that sounded like buzz saws on steel; the two of them could have been shouting at the top of their voices and nobody would have overheard them. But women loved it when you whispered in their ear. It got them hot. And flat-chested Belinda was ready to get hot.

  She giggled. “That tickles.”

  “The truth, my dear Belinda, is not democratic. Truth cares only about facts, evidence, solid proof. Truth cares whether the questions we ask can truly be answered.” He came still closer to her ear, close enough to lick, and carried on. “The white race is descended from Cro-Magnon man. Everybody agrees on that. However, I suspect there’s more to it. It doesn’t fit today’s orthodoxies, but I strongly suspect that Cro-Magnon man was not descended from Homo erectus but represents a much older lineage in its own right. Homo erectus was merely the ancestor of the other races.” He chuckled. “The white race…sounds like Ku Klux Klan stuff, doesn’t it? But you mustn’t think I’m a racist. I’m a scientist. Let’s say the Caucasians then, which means the same thing, but it’s a word we’re allowed to use. Crazy old world, huh? Taboos everywhere. No wonder we’re not making any progress.”

  It was also proving harder than he had thought to make progress with Belinda. Why was she so tense? He wasn’t doing anything to her, wasn’t even touching her. Except for his arm around her neck.

  “If you look at world history,” he went on, “the fact is that all the greatest achievements have been made by Caucasians. Technology. Science. Empires. Landing on the moon…”

  “Two World Wars,” Belinda added. “Environmental havoc. Atom bombs. Global warming.”

  “I never mentioned morality,” Bennett protested. “I said great achievements.”

  “So what about the Great Wall of China?” she asked. “What about the pyramids? Or Machu Picchu?”

  She understood him. At last. It was good when a woman understood what a man was saying. Although there was something a little odd about her examples. He couldn’t quite think what at the moment but figured it wasn’t important.

  “Great achievements,” he repeated. “That’s it. The Caucasians have some gift for greatness, while the other races—or let’s call them ethnic groups…okay, other ethnic groups live more in harmony with nature instead, more simply. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying it’s a difference. And differences are there to be explained. That’s what science is for.”

  He looked at her. There was desire in her glittering eyes, no question. He could see such things.

  “And me, dear Belinda. I have a gift for greatness, too,” he told her. “And I have a hypothesis that you may have caused it.” He took her hand and put it on the fly of his pants. “I think we should subject this to scientific study. Let’s go upstairs and see if one of the labs is free. We may achieve great things.”

  She smiled. Dear Belinda. “I have to go somewhere real quick,” she said.

  He watched her go and felt a further stirring behind his zipper. Pretty good ass. Almost made up for the small tits. He picked up his drink and tipped it down his throat in one go. Damn good stuff, and crazy-cheap prices. Aimed fair and square at the normal clientele here.

  The next thing Bennett knew, someone was shaking him awake, and when he prized his eyelids open, it was unpleasantly bright. And a voice said, “Good morning, champ. Time to go home.”

  At some point they had just given up looking and gotten on with the party. Partying, it seemed, meant standing around with people they barely knew and talking about stuff that barely mattered. And drinking alcohol at the same time.

  Hiroshi decided it was an interesting experience. All the same, he steered clear of the hard stuff and stuck with beer, since he doubted it would remain an interesting experience if he lost his self-control. Besides, he didn’t understand how anybody could like whiskey.

  A little before midnight he was standing with a group watching from the roof terrace as the alumni left. Some of them were well advanced in years, and they tottered down the front steps, chattering away, laughing fit to burst, and visibly unsteady on their feet. A line of limousines had pulled up. A knot of freshmen was bringing out overcoats and other belongings for the honored guests, opening car doors, and otherwise making sure the dear old souls got away in good order.

  Rodney had finally found a girl who was willing to listen to him explain the Fermi paradox. The two of them were sitting on one of the very few comfortable seats in a corner of the terrace, paying no attention to what was going on down below.

  “Enrico Fermi,” Rodney explained, waving his hands as he spoke, “was an Italian atom physicist who fled the Nazis and came to America. He won the Nobel Prize, so he was generally considered to be a smart guy. And he was thinking about the alien question more than fifty years ago. Imagine that. I mean, that shows it’s not just a hobby horse for wackos, right?”

  The girl giggled, but in a friendly way. Hiroshi watched the two of them for a moment. He would have been willing to bet good money Rodney had already buttonholed everyone in Boston with his theories. Looked like he was wrong. The girl was kind of plump. She had a mop of messy hair, and she would have looked better in some kind of flowing Indian robe than in the tight jeans and skintight top she had on, but Hiroshi thought she looked nice nevertheless. Cuddly. And she could make a good match for Rodney.

  “So, Fermi said all of this back then. Given how large the universe is—with hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, all of which possibly have planets—it’s likely for simply statistical reasons that there are other life-forms out there like us. But then he went on to ask, if that’s really the case and aliens exist, then why aren’t they here?”

  “They live too far away, is that it?” asked the girl, wide-eyed.

  There were still five cars downstairs waiting for the last gray-haired passengers standing in front of the open doors, unable to tear themselves away from one another’s company. Meanwhile, fraternity brothers were already carrying the parts of a drum kit up the stairs into the great hall, along with loudspeakers, cables, and mic stands.

  “Now this party’s really gonna get started!” whooped someone standing next to Hiroshi.

  Hiroshi wondered what it would look like when the party got started. He had no idea. Was everybody going to strip naked and indulge in pagan orgies? Was this when the drugs showed up? He felt rather like an alien himself, a man who fell to Earth to do an anthropological
field survey.

  Over in the candlelight, he heard Rodney chuckle. “Yes, well of course they live a long way away. But that’s the whole point. Fermi saw it like this: if the aliens are anything like us, then one day they will develop space travel. And if they develop space travel, then we have to think things through and consider what is theoretically possible and what isn’t.”

  “Like in Star Trek?” the girl asked. “Warp speed and all that?”

  “Well, that’s probably going to stay beyond the realm of possibility. You can’t travel faster than light. But that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t fly to another star. It just wouldn’t be with starships like we see in the movies. Maybe we could hollow out an asteroid, turn it into a generation ship, and set out on a journey lasting several centuries. Maybe the ones who finally leave the solar system one day will be some religious sect, the Pilgrim Fathers of the future—who knows?”

  “I get it. And this Fermi guy figured the aliens would do the same thing?”

  “Exactly. Then he calculated how quickly they could get from star to star. The calculations are just fascinating. I’ll have to run them by you in detail when we have time. Anyway, he calculated that even if it took centuries to get from one star to the next, the whole of the Milky Way would still be settled within a very short time compared with the age of planet Earth, for instance. He said that if the aliens had reached our stage of development even as recently as one hundred thousand years ago, then they would be everywhere by now. Right at our doorstep.” Rod pointed up to the sky, where the stars were just visible despite all the lamps, party lanterns, and spotlights. “Instead of which, silence. Not a peep. We send out all our signals and we’re not getting any answer.”

  Hiroshi looked up, too. It was a clear night. He shivered. “I need another beer,” he said to nobody in particular.

  He went inside and headed downstairs, carrying his empty glass. The atmosphere had already changed since he’d come up to the roof; it was more febrile, more excited, full of expectation, as though anything might happen at any moment. Though he couldn’t have said what he might have wanted to happen, the excitement took hold of him as well.

  “Bar’s moved,” he learned from a guy with a scrubby little beard and striking gray eyes. He waved his hand. “Back there in the gallery. Last room.”

  Hiroshi wandered off in that direction, shoving his way past kissing couples and groups of people laughing uproariously. He hadn’t been in this part of the house before, or at least he didn’t think he had. In the hallway through to the bar the crowd got thicker until it was almost like being in the metro again. Everyone here, however, had a drink in their hand.

  He’d almost reached it. Between him and the bar were just two more guys—broad shoulders, leather jackets—blocking his way. He tapped them both on the shoulder and asked, “Can I get by?”

  He would remember what happened next as though it had taken place in slow motion. The two men stepped aside. Somebody laughed loudly. A white curtain gusted in the wind.

  And there was Charlotte standing in front of him.

  2

  Dorothy liked to sleep in on Sundays. Not only because she was sometimes out late on Saturday night, but for its own sake. It was her way of marking that it was Sunday, so to speak, and if she opened her eyes before ten o’clock, then that counted as early in her book.

  And now here she was, awake, even though it was practically still dark. It was little more than twilight outside; she could see outlines and shadows, but no colors. It was early for anyone, not just her.

  Her first thought was of Hiroshi and how good it would be to have him lying next to her so that she could snuggle up to him and put ideas in his head. Sex on a Sunday morning, warm and relaxed, then drowsing off to sleep again and finally untangling themselves long enough to have breakfast: it would be the best way to start a Sunday she could imagine.

  The doorbell rang. In the same moment, Dorothy realized it was not the first time, that the first ring was what had woken her up. It was horribly loud, especially at that hour, and the dorm had terribly thin walls, as she sometimes had cause to remember. Now, for instance. She jumped out of bed and hurried over to the intercom.

  It was Hiroshi. “I have something important to tell you,” she heard him say, his voice crackling and buzzing on the line.

  “On Sunday morning?” she asked in astonishment, then turned to look at the clock radio on her bedside table. “At twelve minutes past five?”

  She was surprised to hear herself say that. Why wasn’t she happy that he was here, that he had turned up as if by magic just as she was thinking of him? But she wasn’t. Something was wrong.

  “It’s urgent,” Hiroshi said insistently. Once he was in that mood, there was no dissuading him anyway.

  “Okay,” said Dorothy, pressing the button to let him in.

  It was chilly. She looked around. Should she put something on, her robe perhaps—if she could find it? On the other hand, she looked good right now in just her thin nightshirt. Who knew, it might turn into a lovely Sunday morning after all? Outside her door she could hear footsteps echoing on the stairs, and Hiroshi’s words echoed in her thoughts: “I have something important to tell you.” What could it be? Those three little words, perhaps? She hardly dared think. Suddenly Hiroshi was standing in her doorway. His clothes were awry, he smelled of beer and smoke, his eyes were red, and he looked like he hadn’t slept all night.

  Dorothy closed the door behind him. “Hey. Um…were you at the Phi Beta Kappa party?”

  “Yes,” Hiroshi answered, his voice rough.

  “Without me?”

  It hurt, for sure. Why had he gone all of a sudden? She had talked till she was blue in the face about how Hiroshi should go to this or that party with her, as well as all her other invitations. Hiroshi didn’t even try to defend himself. He took her hands and drew her over toward the bed. Dorothy hesitated. Sex with a man who stank of beer and smoke was not part of her ideal Sunday. She would send him off to have a shower before she even let him kiss her.

  But he didn’t even try to kiss her. He just sat down and said, “Something happened to me.”

  Dorothy felt the hairs stand up on the back of her head. He spoke in the same tone he might use if he had said, “I killed someone.”

  He began to talk, but he seemed to be speaking some foreign language. Or was there something wrong with her ears? She could barely understand what he was saying—didn’t want to understand—as he told her about some woman he had known when he was a child and how he had met her again. He was telling her about a fence he had had to climb, about a doll he had repaired, about taking a flight to see his sick aunt. And he was saying he had to think things through. He said that several times. That something important had happened, that fate had stepped in, that he had to think things through.

  And then he uttered the words that pierced her to the heart like a red-hot nail. “I’ve realized that I don’t love you.”

  Dorothy thought she would fall apart.

  “I thought I did,” Hiroshi told her earnestly, looking at her with his dark Japanese eyes, which seemed to glow in the half-light of dawn, “but I don’t. I realized that tonight. I’m meant to be with Charlotte. Not with you.”

  “I understand,” Dorothy heard herself say. Something inside her took control of the situation—some kind of autopilot, a simple but robust little mechanism that was ready for all emergencies. The rest of her collapsed in uncomprehending misery.

  It was one of those moments when she wished everything was just a bad dream but she knew it was no such thing. The worst of it was that, for the very first time since she had met Hiroshi, she felt he was being completely honest with her, opening himself up to her—only to say he didn’t love her and never really had.

  “Which is why it would be best for us to stop seeing each other.”

  “Yes,” said auto
pilot Dorothy.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “You don’t deserve this,” he went on. “You deserve someone who really loves you.”

  “Yes.”

  She could never remember afterward whether they had said anything more after that. All she remembered was she had somehow managed to see him out without falling to pieces, and then she had crept into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and screamed—screamed and howled—until she was hoarse.

  “You did what?” Rodney stared at him incredulously. The wooden spoon in his hand hung motionless.

  Hiroshi pointed to the saucepan. “Hey! That’s burning.” Rodney was cooking up a batch of his special hangover cure, a combination of all that was sharp and fierce in Mexican cookery. The whole corridor smelled of tomato, garlic, chili, and chocolate. “It wasn’t as bad as all that. She took it surprisingly calmly.”

  “Calmly?” Rodney echoed as the onions turned black in the oil. “You don’t really believe that, do you? If I were in your shoes, I would worry she’d do something to herself.”

  Hiroshi looked at him. He didn’t feel well, his eyes were burning, and though he had snatched a couple of hours of restless sleep, it had done nothing to fix the daze he was in. “Don’t get such wild ideas,” he muttered uncomfortably.

  Rodney pushed the pan off the heat, stormed out of the kitchen, and came back with his cell phone. “What’s her number?”

  Hiroshi took out his own phone and passed it over. “It’s on speed dial. Number nine.”

  “Do you really think she’s going to answer if she sees your number?”