Lord of All Things

by Andreas Eschbach

  “Remember to pack something for the rain,” his mother’s voice added over the phone. “The rains have been here for a while now.”

  Hiroshi rolled his eyes. “I know that!”

  “And I can’t meet you at the airport. I have stacks of paperwork to get through at the office.”

  Because Inamoto was too stingy to hire another pair of hands. “You know that you don’t have to do that job, don’t you?”

  “I have to do something with my time.” Her usual answer. She hadn’t even bothered looking around for another job. Obviously, she enjoyed squabbling with Inamoto.

  “Don’t worry about the airport. I can manage.” He looked at the clock. “I have to get going if I don’t want to get stuck in the traffic. See you tomorrow.”

  “Yes, I’ll see you tomorrow.” The way she said it made it sound like “Come if you must.”

  He made all his usual preparations for departure, securing his data and walking through every room in the house, checking whether the windows were all closed, the lights turned off, and so on. One last look at his travel bag, only half-full as always, then he zipped it shut, put it over his shoulder, and left the house.

  In recent years he had come to enjoy spending the day before his flights to Tokyo in Mountain View with Rodney and Allison. As always they spent the whole evening debating the couple’s favorite topic: If there really is intelligent life out there, why hasn’t it gotten in touch?

  “How probable is life? That’s the real question,” Allison summed up at the end of a sumptuous three-course meal. The love of Rodney’s life was a short, sturdy woman who was a great cook—which was beginning to show in Rodney’s waistline. “And that’s where I see a contradiction that I just can’t resolve. If we could safely assume that the rise of biological life on Earth was some dizzyingly unlikely event that might not have happened anywhere else in the universe, then of course it’s quite clear why we haven’t heard from any extraterrestrial intelligence: because there isn’t any. But can we really assume that? I don’t think we can. I mean, look at it this way—where do we find life on Earth? Answer: absolutely everywhere. In hot regions, cold regions, volcanoes, sulfur lakes, even in the ocean trenches; we find at least bacteria everywhere we look. Even up in space. Did you know that bacteria survived out on the hull of the Apollo moon rockets?”

  Hiroshi raised his hands. “It’s news to me.”

  “A bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans. Characteristic feature: extreme radiation resistance. The DNA falls to bits, but after a while it’s reassembled—correctly—by self-repairing mechanisms.”

  “Which raises the question of what kind of evolutionary process could produce a feature like that.”

  Allison frowned in thought. “Well, yes it does, but in any event, when we look around ourselves we have to conclude that the occurrence of biological life is something quite normal, something that happens wherever certain not particularly rare conditions are in place. And then that raises the much more interesting question of why those conditions shouldn’t have been met somewhere out there as well.”

  “We’ve found well over two hundred extrasolar planets,” Rodney put in, thoughtfully swirling his glass. They were drinking an herbal liqueur as a digestif. “We can say with something approaching certainty that there’s nobody within, say, four thousand light years giving any sign of life. And four thousand light years is no small distance.”

  “Hold on there,” Hiroshi said. “You’re overestimating your abilities. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack here. There are billions of frequencies ETs could be using; you can’t listen in on all of them. And perhaps they’re not using any of them. Could be that communication via the electromagnetic spectrum is something that technological civilizations give up on sooner or later because there are better options. I mean, no one sends messages in Morse code these days.”

  His old college buddy smiled wryly. “Just what I’ve been saying. The aliens are out there, but they’re avoiding any contact. Because they are highly developed civilizations and they follow a moral code of leaving the less developed in peace.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Allison said. “And what makes you think we’re not just some kind of reality show for them? Given the amount of stupid crap we get up to, maybe half the galaxy is laughing at us.” She picked up the bottle of liqueur. “Hiroshi—another drop?”

  Hiroshi put his hand over his glass. “Thanks, but I have to fly all the way across the Pacific tomorrow.”

  “I would think that’s why you’d want some.” But she put the bottle down again.

  It was always good to visit these two. He’d probably spend a good deal of tomorrow’s flight wondering just why that was, as always. Their small apartment was crowded with rickety bookshelves, odd bits of furniture, and exuberant houseplants. Star charts hung on the walls in the living room alongside framed photographs of distant galaxies taken by the Hubble space telescope, and neither of them ever put much effort into tidying the place. But it was good to be here. He wasn’t the only one who thought so; the two of them always had friends visiting. Perhaps the mess was part of the charm. The way there had been the same pile of lumber lying in their side driveway for years, and the way Rodney always swore that by the next time Hiroshi came to visit he’d have that garage built. And the way both of them knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  “If the aliens really are highly developed,” Hiroshi mused, “it could be that they’re out there, and we simply haven’t noticed them.” It seemed to him that they’d had exactly this discussion more than once before. It was almost a kind of ritual. And they’d drunk quite a bit of the strong red wine, now that he thought about it. “Imagine you’re an ant. And you wonder, is there any other intelligent life out there, or is it just us ants? But when an ant crawls over a parking lot, do you think it notices that someone built that? Can it even recognize cars for what they are?”

  “Rebecca says that’s an easy question to answer.” Allison always wore the same long-suffering expression when she talked about her sister, who found the answers to all life’s questions in the Bible. Or, rather, in what her pastor told her the Bible said about any given matter. “If there really were aliens, there’d be something about them in the Bible. At least whether or not they’re saved. But there isn’t—so they don’t exist.”

  Rodney made a face. “I’d be more likely to believe the government has been in contact with the aliens all this time and is just keeping it quiet,” he said. “Area 51, Roswell, and all that—maybe it’s even true what they say.”

  “Don’t say that so loud,” Allison said with a grin. “You know they come and silence everybody who finds proof.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. Allison burst into a fit of giggles. “There! Didn’t I tell you, Roddy? They’re coming for you.”

  Rodney got up to look out the window. He didn’t seem to find it very funny. “Be serious for a moment; there are two men in suits at the door. And a big, black limousine waiting in the street.”

  “Well of course! It’s the Men in Black!” Allison was almost falling off her chair, laughing. It was one of those moments when Hiroshi could understand what Rodney saw in her. “They’ve come to wipe your memory!”

  “Very funny.” Not in the least amused, Rodney walked out through the dining room and went down to open the door.

  Allison wiped away the tears of laughter. “It’s probably just the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” she said, still grinning. “But that was quite a coincidence, eh?”

  Hiroshi looked at his watch. It was long after ten o’clock. “At this time of night?”

  It wasn’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses. When Rodney came back to the living room, he looked even more worried than when he had left. “They’re from the Department of Defense. And they want to talk to you, amigo.”

  “Me?”

  “My guest, Mr. Hiroshi Kato,” Rodney said, obviou
sly repeating the wording they had used.

  Allison was wide-eyed. “You cannot be serious. Are we under surveillance?”

  Rodney shrugged helplessly. “No idea. I feel like I’m dreaming.”

  Hiroshi pushed back his chair. “I’ll go talk to them.”

  The two men waiting at the door weren’t dressed in black like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Rather, they wore light beige suits, which were much more appropriate for the California weather. And they were practically hopping with impatience. As though every minute counted.

  “Good evening, Mr. Kato,” said the taller of the two, a brown-haired man whose skin was scarred as though by bad acne in his youth. “We’re very sorry to have to disturb you at this late hour. We wouldn’t do so if it weren’t necessary.” He held out an ID card. “Neal Hopkins, Department of Defense, Internal Security.”

  Hiroshi looked at the ID. He had no idea whether it was a genuine card issued by an organization that really existed. It looked real enough, but given a computer, a printer, and half an hour he could have drummed up something that looked just as good himself.

  “How did you know where to find me?” he asked.

  “We know these things,” the other man remarked tersely.

  His colleague glanced across at him disapprovingly. Then he told Hiroshi, “A certain Jens Rasmussen…” and paused for a moment. “Rasmussen? Yes. He’s a business partner of yours, isn’t he? He told us that you would probably be here.”

  That sounded plausible. Of course, he kept Rasmussen up to date on his travel plans, and he had once told him about Rodney and Allison Alvarez. And anybody who searched for Hiroshi Kato’s name on the Internet would find Rasmussen Investments on the first page.

  “Okay,” Hiroshi said, handing back the card. “What’s this about?”

  The man who was apparently called Hopkins hefted his leather ID briefcase in his hand as though uncertain what to do with it. “We’d like you to watch some video footage. Over in the car,” he said, nodding toward the black limousine. “If you can make any sense of what you see there, we’ll tell you the rest.”

  “If I get into this car,” Hiroshi asked, “will I be able to get out again when I choose to?”

  The man’s face pinched into what was probably meant to be a smile. Perhaps his superiors needed to be told he wasn’t the best man for the job next time they needed to talk someone into an adventure late at night. “We don’t kidnap people, Mr. Kato. We’re asking for your help on behalf of the president of the United States.”

  Wow. Even if that wasn’t true, it sounded hugely impressive. “Okay,” Hiroshi said. “Let me just go tell my friends.”

  On the way back to the living room he took his phone from his pocket. He pressed one button to switch it on, then another to dial Rasmussen’s number.

  “It’s me. Did you tell somebody from Defense where I was?”

  “Hiroshi!” Rasmussen groaned. Bar music tinkled in the background. “Life would be a whole lot easier if you didn’t switch your phone off the whole time. I wanted to give you a heads up, but do you have any idea how many Alvarezes there are in San Francisco? Two pages in the phone book!”

  “Fine, sorry. So this is serious?”

  “I even called the White House to be sure. Yes. A couple of hours ago the threat level was raised to red alert. There’s some sort of crisis at sea, but in Russian sovereign territory, and they want your technical expertise. I don’t know anything more than that.”

  “They’re here at the door, and they want me to climb into their big, black car.”

  “I think in this instance you can do that.”

  “Okay, thanks.” He hung up. Rodney and Allison were looking at him with fear in their eyes. “No need to worry,” he said. “This will only take ten minutes.”

  Rodney took out his own phone. “I’ll film you getting into that car. And then I’ll call someone, and I’ll stay on the line until you get back here,” he declared grimly. “Just in case.”

  The two men accompanied him to the car, opened the back door, and joined him on the seat. The taciturn one took out a laptop and logged on via a fingerprint scanner. It booted up in an instant. He passed it over to Hiroshi’s lap. “Here,” was all he said.

  Hiroshi watched the video footage. It had obviously been taken on an island in the Arctic Ocean; some of the sequences had been filmed underwater.

  “Once more, please,” he said when the screen went black.

  The taciturn man pressed “Return,” and the whole thing started again from the beginning. Hiroshi felt a feverish excitement seize hold of him. How was this possible? These were images he had until this moment only seen in his deepest, strangest dreams.

  “Where was this footage taken?” he asked. “And what would you like me to do?”

  They told him. Hiroshi considered for a moment, then said, “Okay. I just need to call my mother, tell her something’s come up.” He saw Rodney standing in the living-room window with his telephone to his ear. “And say good-bye to my friends.”

  “Your luggage,” said the man whose badge had identified him as Hopkins. “It’s kind of handy you’re ready to travel.”

  “I’ll need a computer. And a multiband radio to go with it.”

  “You’ll get them.”

  They let him out, and he walked back into the house. Allison was waiting for him in the hall, still wide-eyed, and Rodney came to stand next to her, phone in hand. “So?” he asked.

  “I have to go. Now. Right away.” He reached for his travel bag. “Thanks for everything. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”

  “You have to leave? Why? Has something happened?”

  Hiroshi looked at him seriously. “Your aliens,” he said. “By the look of it, they’re here.”

  In the end they were taken back to the sick bay, where they had no news of whatever might be happening next. But at least it looked as though nobody was preparing a nuclear strike. The ships continued to plow through the Arctic, from time to time an iceberg struck the side, and that was about all the entertainment on offer. At one point a soldier came to the sick bay to have a scrape bandaged. Charlotte overheard him telling the doctor that they were expecting a helicopter with “yet another” American from Amderma air base.

  The helicopter arrived shortly after dinner. They couldn’t see the landing pad from the sick bay, but the sound was unmistakable. And shortly after that an officer appeared and asked Charlotte in Russian to come up the bridge. “No. Only her,” he insisted when Adrian and the others began to get up off their beds as well.

  Charlotte was not a little surprised to see another figure standing in the middle of the bridge, deep in conversation with the admirals and other commanding officers. Hiroshi!

  “How did you get here so fast?” she asked when he left the group and came over to greet her.

  “Ask whoever had them call me,” Hiroshi answered with a wry grin. “Just a few hours ago I was with Rodney and Allison. Then all of a sudden some government agents turned up, drove me to an airport, and took me off by helicopter to a military airbase, where they…put me in a B-2 bomber. Unbelievable. I mean, I’ve seen photographs, of course, but when you’re actually standing in front of a machine like that you really think you’re in a science-fiction movie and the little green men are going to pop out from around the corner. An unladen B-2 without the full complement of weapons can fly halfway around the world at the speed of sound without needing to refuel.” He passed his hand through his hair, as though making sure his head was still on his shoulders. “It was interesting. I don’t ever want to do anything like that again in my life, but it was interesting.”

  It struck Charlotte that he was unusually chatty, surprisingly so. He was also still rather green in the face. Maybe that was why.

  “So?” she asked. “Can you make anything of all this?”

 
He puffed out his cheeks. “Well…Hrrm. I mean, sure, those are nanites. Nanobots. Nanotechnological machines, whatever else they are. Even if only because there’s no other explanation for what I saw in the footage. The only other possible explanation would be CGI. Special effects.”

  Charlotte thought of Leon and the way he had vanished before her eyes. “This isn’t special effects. It all really happened.”

  “Okay. Then…” He paused. “Come over here. I’m just loading one of my programs on the computer. It should be ready in a moment.” He smiled briefly. “The secret services of two countries are going to be all over my Internet connection, and then they’ll be on my binary code like flies after honey. Well, let them.”

  They all sat down together at the conference table and gathered around Hiroshi, who had a chunky and somehow military-looking laptop before him. “In the dossier they gave me to read on the flight over there was something about legends surrounding Saradkov Island,” he said. “Supposedly more than a thousand years old. One is about a war between heaven and earth, and a black angel who fell down onto Saradkov and was buried in the ice. He was the leader of the heavenly hosts and, as the legend goes, if the ice ever melts, war will begin anew. Which is why it always had to be winter up here.”

  The Russian admiral nodded. “An old Siberian folktale.”

  “I can imagine how this story might actually contain memories of a real event—of a probe that shot down from space. A probe that uses nanotech machinery and that has some mission that we know nothing about.” Hiroshi folded his hands. “As I see it, this is how events unfolded: the probe struck Earth at some point and sank into the ice. It must have tried to activate itself and carry out its mission. We should imagine it as something like a seed: the nanites within it had a certain amount of energy and raw material at their disposal already. But when they were surrounded by millions of cubic meters of ice, they had no access either to further energy sources, or to a wide enough selection of elements—all they had were hydrogen and oxygen atoms, and they couldn’t carry out their mission with just those. So they did as much as they could and then they waited.”