Days had passed since I received Marty’s letter, and I hadn’t begun to prepare my response. One evening Paul and Betty brought Sally and Clara to stay with Sera and me, while they attended an adult-only grand opening of our outer habitat. We five children, one from each family, were scheduled to come out to play the following afternoon.
Sera chose the absence of adults as an opportunity to present some new information to Sally and me after swearing us to secrecy. Her lack of discretion when including a six-year-old bothered me, and I wondered if any of the information had been passed on to my mother, or what else she already knew but hadn’t shared with me.
Sera revealed that all Biblical stories have been stricken from children’s literature. Their omission had gone unnoticed by the adults, and Sally’s generation would be the first preteen group to feel the impact. Following an elaborate swearing-to-secrecy ceremony, Sera presented the animated stories that Albert and I interpreted as having a hidden or metaphorical truth. Sally exhibited rapt attention, and I speculated about Sera’s intentions. A belief in God had to germinate throughout childhood, much like how the concept of a single divine creator evolved in humankind. A leap of logic led Albert and me to predict the stories were based in fact. Adults in outer space and probably back at Earth had been weaned off religion as their intellects developed, convinced the notion was merely childish. On Mission Two even the childhood fantasy would be lost. I understood why Sera kept my mother and father out of this discussion and trusted that a six-year-old would enjoy keeping the secret. My only concern, why this from Sera, a total product of science?
To the best of my memory, I had never told Sera about Albert’s and my conviction that God actually exists.
ARIEL GORDON: JOURNAL ENTRY #7
SATURDAY, JULY 15, 3150
THE REALM REJECTED my response to Marty’s letter almost in its entirety. It extended my deadline an additional two weeks to rewrite my message or accept its rewritten version, my first experience with the tight censorship under which we live. Sera chastised me for bypassing her prior approval. She asked for a copy of what I had written, so she could figure creative ways to get around the censor. On impulse, I said the original had been destroyed, and then I immediately destroyed it. In the past, I’ve held back information from Sera and from my parents, but I never directly lied, except the one fib I told my father when he caught me using his computer. I felt a need to test Sera’s ability to detect my lie. Also, I admitted in my letter that I believed in a Divine Creator, subsequent heaven and maybe even hell.
I stared at the Realm’s censored text on my monitor, a bare skeleton of what I had sent.
Marty: I’m not sure what one can say that will be relevant a year from now, but here goes. I’ll start with my age, the same as yours when you receive this memo to spare you having to calculate it. I grew up in a world quite different from yours, yet I am sure we experience many of the same problems with parents, friends and changing bodies. I am a virgin and probably will remain so when you receive this message, but if all goes well, I will have a son by then. Thank you for listing all our ancestors on your side.
The line about ancestors had been meant as sarcasm, but in the Realm’s rewrite it sounded sincere. The contradiction of a virgin having a child didn’t seem alarming since mothers need not be sexually active. From my observation, a rarity but nonetheless possible.
I reread the most curious part of her message to detect a possible a touch of cynicism that I might have missed. Female names sounded quite different from those used in Twentieth Century sitcoms. Odd that popular-use names should begin to change so noticeably in less than a century, starting with what I considered a man’s name.
Adam begat Seth. Seth begat Enosh. Enosh begat Cainan. Cainan begat Mahalalel. Mahalalel begat Jared. Jared begat Enoch. Enoch begat Methuselah. Methuselah begat Lamech. Lamech begat Noah. Noah begat Shem, Ham, Japheth, David, Angel, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Savior, Peter, Paul, Popes, Mohammad, Luther, Phyllis (my mother) and Marty (me).
What else might she be trying to get past the censors here or back on Earth? I scrolled down to the next bit of trivia, her DNA structure. I compared it to mine—another sneak peek using Dad’s computer—and nearly fainted. Had earthlings evolved into some different creatures in a thousand years? Our two sequences bore no resemblance. Unless she’d become an unrecognizable monster, this could not be her DNA.
My respect for her ingenuity soared, but how would I ever decode her hidden message? The format suggested a binary code, but the extent of my knowledge or skill ended there. My first thought, ask Sera, and my immediate reaction, exclude her. I felt I could trust no one. If only Albert were here.
Clara! A droid could decipher the code and be commanded to forget it. I could swear Sally to secrecy, as Sera had done with the Biblical stories. I had a premonition that Marty’s message might be in the same category, and I wasn’t disappointed.
The decoded text of Marty’s message:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. So Joseph went from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, the town of David. He belonged to the house and line of David and traveled there to register with Mary. She gave birth to her firstborn she named Jesus. Wrapped in cloth, she placed the baby in a manger. And there were shepherds keeping watch over their flocks. Angels of the Lord appeared and the glory of God shone around them. An angel said, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today a Savior has been born.”
Sally readily agreed to include this narrative with the Biblical myths Sera had us memorize. I deleted the story of Jesus’ birth from Clara’s memory bank, but commanded the droid to retain the formula used to decipher it. After I prepared my message to Marty, I’d have Clara encode it as my DNA. The gimmick might work a second time.
From my memory tableau, I printed a copy of Marty’s message and hid it under the satin-lined box containing the piece of jewelry my mother never wears.
Since Sera revealed her enhanced powers, she spent most of the day meeting with my parents and Paul in his office, returning when her batteries needed a charge. How they intended to utilize the calculations she generated puzzled me, but I found that which they were willing to share quite frightening. A channel of communication appeared to exist between the Realm and us, but Paul claimed our messages were no longer acknowledged. Sera couldn’t confirm the reception between Earth and us. For all we knew, Earth hadn’t any notion we’d separated from Mission One. I decided to include this information in my coded response to Marty, if contact with Earth remained possible.
Under the guise of researching my specialty, I scanned my backlog of Twentieth Century programs for names that appeared in both of Marty’s coded messages, Angel, Joseph, Mary, Jesus, and Savior. The first three appeared in myriads of novels and movies, but Jesus and Savior drew blanks.
When I scanned for Caesar Augustus, the computer brought up the actor Rex Harrison, famous for his role as Julius Caesar in the movie Cleopatra. Had fiction been the extent of Albert’s interest in Rome? The movie hadn’t been included in my tutorial, but I located it in the data library. Albert hadn’t checked it out, but Sera must have. The characters’ names consistently became Albert Caesar and Egyptian Queen Ariel. Sera had attempted to attract Albert’s attention and direct it to The History of the Roman Empire where we could exchange messages. I doubted he even thought about Rome since the chaos that surrounded both our lives.
Albert was free to read history, while I had been relegated to fictional accounts of make believe people and events, mostly spoon fed through soapy dramas. Angered, I opened The History of the Roman Empire and attempted to delete Sera’s message. No luck. The system would only work with her permission.
I had never attempted to write comments in any of the Twentieth Century novels from my tutorial, assuming that system wasn’t interactive. I opened a book at random and typed Ariel hates Albert. The words appeared on the scre
en, as if the author had written them. Panic stricken that the Realm might punish me for desecrating its property with graffiti, I immediately erased my message and exited the program. The experience had shaken me, and I had difficulty concentrating on my letter to Marty. I lamented the loss of intimacy with my personal avatar. Albert lucked out when his father gave him a dog.
Paul stopped by to announce the human incubator’s availability in a lower level of the central pentagon. Mother summoned Sera and instructed me to inform Dad of their whereabouts when he returned from his rooftop gardens. I was alone with an adult male other than my father for the first time in my life. An aroma of cloves drifted into my room. I sensed him peering through my doorway. A picture of Rex Harrison as Albert Caesar filled the monitor.
“Whatcha working on?” I blanked the screen and caught his reflection as he advanced uncomfortably close.
“Researching my specialty.” I turned my chair to face him.
“Your folks tell me you’re the expert on the Twentieth Century.” He stepped into my personal space. “Some pretty important stuff.”
I began to feel more patronized than ogled. Had he and everyone else known I’d been given a near meaningless task?
“You’ll be teaching us history lessons soon, I suspect.” The scent of cloves soured.
I locked eye contact. “How’s the conspiracy going?”
He didn’t flinch. “What do you mean?”
“Whenever Sera returns from your office, her batteries are exhausted,” my not-so-subtle attempt to imply a sexual relationship between them.
“Your folks and I use her to crunch some numbers and make projections. Nothing that would impair her ability to tend your needs.”
He’d missed my point, but I held my gaze steady.
He squinted and moved back a fraction of an inch back. “We purge her memory after each session.”
“Don’t be so sure.” I had the advantage but uncertain which way to go with it.
“What do you mean?” his reaction parrot-like.
A hint of apprehension? I couldn’t tell. “She accumulates and stores all her experiences.”
He inhaled through pursed lips and glanced toward our door. “She’s isolated from the Realm.” Our eyes locked again. “Isn’t she?”
“Your information is safe with her.” I returned my attention to the monitor still blank. “But maybe not from her.”
One eyebrow raised on his reflection. “Please elaborate your concerns.”
I had gained par status with this adult. “Can we exchange secrets?”
“May I sit down?” He gestured toward a bench opposite my dressing table.
“Of course.” I nodded but didn’t move to fetch it.
He placed the bench a respectable distance from me. “What do you know?”
“If I told you I’d have to kill you.” I chuckled and he scowled. “Sorry. Just a bit of humor between Albert and me.”
“You were a friend to Albert, Frank’s kid?”
“Yes, my neighbor, at least for the short time before we were evicted. Our relationship has been temporarily interrupted.” I grasp at a straw. “Can you get a message to him?” Juliet or Maria from West Side Story, I could have been either.
After a pause, Paul shook his head.
I knew he lied. “I already offered to share my secret.”
He pondered. “Okay. I might be able to get through to the boy, but Frank would intercept any message. He’s my counterpart in our opposite hemisphere.” He corrected, “Sphere, actually, but we claim to be part of one habitat.”
“Wouldn’t he pass the message on to Albert?”
He glanced around and then whispered, “Of all the humans on either side, Frank’s our number one suspect.”
I grew tired of speaking in riddles. “I can get a secret message back to earth.” On impulse, I added, “To someone who can be trusted.”
His eyes lit up. “What do you want me to tell Frank’s kid?”
“To access a book from the data library.”
“Agreed. Now what can you do for us?”
“Like I said, a message to Earth. On one condition. It remains a secret between us.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t want my parents to know about it. And definitely not Sera.”
He rose, extended his hand, and we shook on it. I trusted he’d keep his end of the bargain, but I wasn’t sure why I wanted secrecy in the first place.”
His eagerness rendered him vulnerable, and I took the advantage. “Just out of curiosity, how are you able to communicate with the families on the other side? A wire connection or radio waves?”
His face sagged. “If only it were that easy. Except through the Realm, we are isolated from all electronic communication from any place in the universe, including Frank’s side.”
I realized I had another chip to barter. “I can tap into an unlimited stream of chatter floating across the cosmos left over from the Twentieth Century. My main problem is selection from the myriad of prattle available.”
“Ariel, radio waves are multi-directional, but they pass a given point only once. They might rebound off an object but not in any predictable pattern. There aren’t any just floating around ready for someone to scoop up. Radio waves from last year whizzing by would be another matter.”
“But my specialty…?” Nothing but information filtered through the Realm! Like Dad, my purpose in the scheme of things dissipated, artificially kept active merely to feed our egos. I summoned Dad’s courage and gathered the fragments left of my self-esteem. I cleared my throat. “The Realm created my tutorial to present a human face to information rather than our chasing research droids throughout the data library.”
“Ariel, I need to be up front because you have instantly become instrumental to our cause.” He took my hand and I allowed it. “We, your parents and I, created your specialty, not the Realm.”
“For what purpose?” I’d been reduced to child status.
“An intellectual challenge. We realized the Realm selected our literature and rewrote most of our history, but we provided the best information available.”
“Why not crossword puzzles or math equations to keep me occupied?” My voice cracked, and I struggled not to break into tears.
“Droids are the experts with math and rote memory. We wanted to expand your people skills.”
“By watching old movies and television sitcoms?” Instant rage erased all other emotions.
“By observing humans interact.”
“Contrived behaviors,” I yelled.
“Created, directed and performed by humans. More than I can say about the never-ending saga in which our cast of a thousand blind actors obediently follow the Realm’s stage directions, presently reduced to twenty nine characters in separated theaters.”
I had never bothered to estimate the sizes of the ten families removed from the support of the total population. Assuming each family consisted of two adults, Sally, Albert and I have only six peers. I immediately became interested in the rooftop social gatherings that had developed.
Paul stood and raised his fist. “The Realm doesn’t give a damn about humanity other than safely delivering the human species, its primary mandate. It focuses entirely on the advancement of technology, and any intellectual evolution of its human cargo would be perceived as a threat.”
“We are evolving.” I blushed. “According to my mother, my intelligence is rated genius.”
“As is Sally’s and three other youngsters on this side, and four including Albert on the other. Mission Two could be the Realm’s attempt to isolate and destroy families of exceptionally bright children.”
Our situation began to make sense; Mother’s willingness to allow Albert and me to conceive, her comment that Albert may father more than just our child, and the indefinite moratorium on births if the Stork ever becomes operational. Mother had more than just a drinking problem, certainly enough reason to have one.
He asked, “
How can we contact your friend back to earth?”
I assessed how much I should readily admit. “A message embedded in my designated sister’s DNA made it past our censor and theirs if they have one.”
“What did she say?”
I needed an edge. “Just some girl talk, but the medium is available for my answer, within the next two weeks or not again for six months.” I wasn’t sure how much he’d known of our families’ connection.
He flashed a ‘good girl’ smile avoiding any indication he’d been aware of my mother’s and my first-family status. It didn’t matter. I had become useful, and Paul might have solved my problem of what to include in my message.
“How hard is your rule not to share this with your parents?”
“Flexible, but do not include Sera. Make my mother swear to it.”
He stood and shook my hand again. “Come with me to my office and we can run the test.”
We had become partners, and I felt perfectly safe with him. However, a realization rocked what little composure I had mustered. We have no verifiable human history other than the past millennium aboard our artificial world and what little Marty sent. Again, I wanted to cry.
Once secured in his office, he explained the secret communication system he and Frank had devised when they were technicians back on Mission One. By way of a formula, a string of one hundred letters could be embedded inside the word why. During trial runs, the Realm hadn’t noticed the slight bump of data bytes it caused, even when a series of why questions were sent through the intercommunication system. They hesitated to use the technique between the two halves of Mission Two, not sure if communication flowed through the mother ship or if the new habitat had an independent Realm. Or perhaps both with twice the censorship capabilities.
My message to Albert’s father would test their system. Paul had a legitimate operational question he intended to ask Frank, but held off until the need arose for a secret communication. He objected to my message, Tell Albert to read THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, as not important enough to break silence. What would Frank think? I reminded Paul of his promise and the breakthrough I had to offer in return. In addition, an inane communication would have less serious repercussions if detected, something Frank would surely understand.
LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME Page 7
