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Ishiguro frowned. “But shouldn’t we offer them some protection, to make sure that the tradition is not lost?”
Cameron grinned, shaking his head. “Just the opposite, my friend. That temple is probably the best chance that our world has of preserving the gift for future generations, because it will remain pure, without the distortions of reality likely to be injected by our world as it gets passed down from generation to generation. I guarantee you that for most of the world, what took place here today will be quite forgotten in a hundred years, and a vague memory at best in five hundred years. But with the Maya, the gift has endured over five thousand years, and it’s likely that, if left alone, it may endure five thousand more. But if we try to help them out, we would be doing to them just what the Spaniards did five hundred years ago, staining their pure culture with our imperfect ways. Trust me, they’re much better left alone.”
Ishiguro did not look convinced. “What’s preventing another terrorist group from looting the place?”
“The Maya warriors were able to neutralize that terrorist group in minutes, just as they probably did through the centuries, as other threats neared it. They have been able to protect it since it was first erected in A.D. 690. That’s over 1,300 years. You tell me what other civilization has lasted that long. Our own United States has only been around for a couple hundred years. How can we provide them with long-term protection when we haven’t been around that long in the first place?”
The Japanese scientist nodded. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Most people don’t,” Cameron said. “We’re trained from birth to think in terms of the next ten, maybe twenty years. The Maya are trained to think in terms of thousands of years. Take the temple back in the jungle, for example. It was built thirteen hundred years ago, and yet, those slabs slid back and forth on mechanisms that performed as smoothly as when they were first constructed. That kind of longevity is quite alien to our way of thinking. Most automobiles and appliances won’t go much beyond ten to fifteen years, and that’s with a lot of maintenance. Our technology doesn’t age well. It’s a reflection of our McDonald’s society. Everything is like fast foods, want it now, get it now, but it won’t last long. However, that doesn’t matter because you can always get a new one down the road, and another one later on. I tell you with the utmost certainty that we have little to offer to the Maya in terms of protection or assistance in preserving the gift we received today. We must leave them alone, that’s the best present we can give them in return for allowing us to experience this soul-cleansing event.”
“And that’s exactly what will happen,” said Susan. “All records of those coordinates are being deleted. I learned the other day that the reinforcements that we got a couple of weeks ago at that site had been blindfolded to prevent any of them from knowing the exact location of the site. The pilots were told that this was just a SEAL training exercise in conjunction with the FBI high-tech crime unit. As for the medics at the village, none of them ever saw the site, just a harmless village in the jungle. Right now the secret is preserved, for as long as we choose to keep it preserved.”
“At least the world has the celestial observations,” said Ishiguro, recalling the image of the tenth planet, now called Maia, displayed on the covers of many magazines and newspapers around the world, including Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report. “Now the SETI community has something concrete to focus their efforts on.”
“Problem is,” said Jackie, “that with our current technology, all we can do is observe. We can’t communicate real time because our transmissions can’t exceed the speed of light, meaning it will take 139 years before they reach Maia.”
“They do have the capability of communicating with us,” said Cameron. “If they choose to do so, like in their daily transmissions, or with the way in which they scanned our millennium clocks, reading our sequence of numbers almost real time, somehow, using a technology that we may not discover for centuries.”
Susan smiled. “Speaking of undiscovered technologies, Reid told me yesterday that the word in Washington is that NASA’s trying to come up with a proposal for a voyage to Maia.”
Ishiguro frowned. “How? We barely got to the moon, and Mars is still on the drawing board at NASA.”
Susan shrugged. “Back in 1961 reaching the moon seemed like an impossible task too. Yet, we got there eight years later. You know the old saying, when there’s a will…”
Cameron raised an eyebrow. “It would certainly bring unity to the world, just as it did to this nation back in the sixties.”
They remained silent, considering the possibilities of such a project.
Two days later, Cameron and Susan were driven to a nearby airport, where an Army C-130 Hercules transport flew them to New Orleans. There they boarded a commercial jet to Washington. The morning papers were already packed with speculation as to the true meaning of the surreal, worldwide event, including several speculative articles on Maia, the recently discovered planet in the southern constellation Centaur.
Everyone from radical religious groups and heads of state to talk-show hosts had an opinion, and most were as far apart as the galaxies in the universe. It didn’t surprise Susan and Cameron to learn that the experience did fade as it left the limestone shelf of the Yucatán Peninsula. People in northern Mexico and the southern United States experienced a few seconds worth of a back flash, in many ways almost like an intense daydream. By the time it reached Canada, the effect had faded to a warm feeling of sudden comfort. It also didn’t surprise them to see that news of the event was competing with the initial results of the Year 2000 transition, which had not gone nearly as badly as everyone had forecast it would. Some systems had gone down, but others had picked up the load. Countries in South America and the Middle East were having the worst problems, but they were already being addressed as they flared up. In all, computer industry experts felt that the worst Y2K problems would be corrected within a couple of months, and most issues addressed within the next eight months.
“It’s already happening,” Cameron said, pointing to several articles in the paper he had picked up at the airport. “Everyone’s got his own spin on what happened, and although many mean well, the variety of opinions will only distort the true meaning of what took place.”
They remained silent for a moment.
“What’s next for you?” she asked, gazing out of the window, watching the swamplands surrounding New Orleans disappear beneath the clouds.
Cameron Slater took her hand and kissed it. “With some luck our names will never make it to the papers, meaning we get to return to our normal lives.” At the scientists’ unanimous request, the United States and Japan had worked out an agreement to keep their names out of the media. Both countries had also shred all evidence of the site in Yucatán, except for two time capsules, which housed the files containing the descriptions of the event as witnessed by the presidential envoy. One capsule would be kept in the White House, not to be opened for five thousand years. The other, under a similar time stipulation, would be buried at a secret location in Japan.
“A normal life?” Susan sighed. “That sounds too good to be true.”
“I think if we both work at it we have a good shot of making it, don’t you?”
She stared into Cameron’s dark eyes and smiled, peace filling her for the first time in two years. A normal life did seem within her reach, and Cameron Slater was certainly someone with whom she could share that life.
Susan Garnett took his hand and placed it over her heart while staring out of the window. A layer of clouds extended toward the blazing horizon as the morning sun spread its luminous beams on the new millennium.
BOOKS BY R. J. PINEIRO
Siege of Lightning
Ultimatum
Retribution
Exposure
Breakthrough
01-01-00
Y2K*
*forthcoming
This is a work of fiction. All the characte
rs and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
01-01-00™
Copyright © 1999 by Rogelio J. Pineiro
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
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New York, NY 10010
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
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First Edition: June 1999
eISBN 9780765386069
First eBook edition: May 2015