The Fifth Science

by Exurb1a

  “Tarnovan is the watertongue. It is spoken across all of Morae,” Meto muttered as though to an idiot.

  Io Clements smiled gently again. “Across Morae sir, yes. Elsewhere not.”

  “You claim you're from elsewhere?”

  “I do. If you require proof, I can provide it.”

  Meto smiled with open amusement. “I do require proof.”

  “That's quite reasonable. Have your scientists discovered x-rays?” No one spoke. “Electromagnetic waves up to 10 nanometers, standard metric?”

  “Yes,” Tisho said. “But we call it Melnik radiation.”

  “And you have machines for looking into bodies with them?”

  “We do.”

  “Then before we go any further, may I recommend you have a machine brought here to examine me? I think you will find the results interesting.”

  Curiosity getting the better of him, Meto sent for the machine. All were silent while the room waited. The machine and technician arrived. Io said, “I recommend using the machine on my back.”

  The technician waited for Meto's nod, then did so.

  A piece of parchment was produced by the machine. The technician squinted in disbelief.

  “What is it?” Meto said.

  The technician said, “Sir…she has two kidneys. And an organ I don't recognise jutting from the large intestine.”

  Io smiled, delighted. “That's right. Two kidneys instead of one, and the anomalous organ is called an appendix. It isn't very useful.” There was a confused silence. Io broke it with: “The orb, the planet, I come from is descended almost exclusively from original humans. I've studied enough of Morae history to know your ancestors came from a planet more creative with its genetic palette.”

  Meekly Tisho said, “Madam, where is it you come from?”

  They met eyes and Tisho found himself staring into several thousand possible futures.

  Io said, “I would be happy to get to that in a moment. First may I ask what has become of my travelling companion, Majister Denyer?”

  Meto left no pause and said, “He's dead. His injuries were too severe.”

  There was almost no change in Io's placid expression save for a slight flutter of the eyes. Flatly she said, “I see. Thank you for informing me. May I see him?”

  “Later perhaps. Now, you were getting to tell us where you're from?”

  “Yes, of course. Please excuse me for just a moment.”

  She left for the bathroom and returned some minutes later with red eyes, but expression neutral.

  She sat on the sofa opposite and her faithful sphere settled itself down beside her and she stroked it as one might a cat.

  “What I say next will sound quite fantastic, but I assure you every word of it is true, and for some of these things I can provide proof. For others I cannot.”

  The entourage leant in.

  “The Old Empire is dead. It collapsed around two thousand Morae-years ago. There were over seven thousand populated planets. Now there are only three left, including your own. I come from an orb called Ertia. There is one other orb in our system called Al'Hazaad and that is populated too. Together we're all that remains. Ertia and Al'Hazaad are very different worlds to your own. If I may be so bold, Ertia is far more advanced, spiritually. We're much closer to the Old Empire, while yourselves have gone off in an entirely unique direction. If I had to give a quick summary of my home and its sister orb I would say that Ertia is a forest planet and its peoples are very interested in abstractions and theory. Many of us are what you would call psychologists and historians and scientists. Al'Hazaad on the other hand is a highly industrialised world, far more interested in pragmatism and engineering. Our differences can be useful. Together we have rediscovered the Old Empire technology of ribbondash. It was this technology that Majister Denyer and I used to reach your world several days ago.”

  “Ribbondash?” Meto interrupted.

  Without any prompting, Io's sphere exploded into many fine fragments, then divided again, and the fragments morphed into thousands of equations, hanging perfectly silently in front of the entourage. She said, “Ribbondash is a method of very fast travel using extra spatial dimensions.” She smiled to Dr. Alexander. “I believe your mathematics has already hypothesised these dimensions.”

  Dr. Alexander nodded.

  The equations vanished. “Unfortunately there are still some problems with the technique. Upon reaching your planet a number of our systems were damaged. We attempted atmospheric entry, but there were complications.” She idly set her eyes on the window. “My elder, Majister Denyer, suffered as a result of this.”

  “I'm sorry, madam,” Dr. Alexander said.

  Meto glared at the mathematician a while then said, “And what is it you're supposedly here for, Io Clements?”

  Io folded her hands somewhat awkwardly. “I believe you practice astronomy?”

  “We do,” Tisho said, trying not to sound too eager and still sounding too eager.

  “Have you noticed any unusual activity in the motherstar recently?”

  “No,” Meto said.

  “Yes,” Tisho said. “The flares have been increasing a lot in the last fifty years.”

  Io nodded knowingly. “I'm afraid it's going to get worse. Now, you're lucky since your technology is biological rather than based on electricity. The flares won't affect your equipment. However, as the bursts increase they may start proving fatal to…living things.”

  Meto spoke up. “How convenient, a visitor from the heavens come to prophesise doom. And how do you know so much, living as you do on your distant planet? From—how distant?”

  “Twenty thousand light-years.”

  “—twenty thousand light-years. How could you possibly know such a thing?”

  Io looked to the window again. This would not be an easy explanation.

  It was evening on Orb Ertia, for the east at least. In the cities, folk were catching canal ferries back to their hovels for the night, tired and longing for beer.

  In the sky, somewhat to the left, clearly twinkled Ertia’s sister planet, Al'Hazaad. If one had a moderately powerful telescope, they could clearly observe Al'Hazaad shining a wistful red, its atmosphere sent that hue from years of delphium refinement and advanced and macabre science.

  On Ertia though, now, this evening, some psychodynamists would stay out late in bars looking for friends or partners; though the mating customs there were quite different from what you might be used to. The majority of the population was from a psychodynamic background, obsessed with the mind, obsessed with culture, with the various currents and eddies that determine the rollicking swish of history’s river. To put it simply, no one was much good at small talk.

  In a large cylindrical building, a great chamber was in session—the two thousand and fifty-sixth convening of the House of Assembly.

  The day had been a long one given the new legislation to discuss, and the poisoning of a few spies on the southern continent in the weeks previous. Now the High Judge and the Minor Judges and the many congressional staff were quietly all waiting until the events of the day concluded and they could return to their homes, or slink off to bars and make terrible small talk.

  The High Judge turned to his Minor Judges and murmured, “Now, is that it for the day?”

  “No, your honour. Two academics have made a request for an off-world excursion.”

  “What business do they have with Al'Hazaad?”

  “Not to Al'Hazaad, your honour.”

  “Ah…” the old judge muttered, knowing that meant only one thing. He smiled to himself. This would be an easy dismissal.

  He waved to the doormen and the doors were opened. Two folk entered, one tall and upright like a mechanical pencil, his hair greying. The second was slightly shorter, a woman, with bobbed hair and a pale face and eyes that looked far older than the head they found themselves in. Both of them were accompanied by silent floating spheres.

  A Minor Judge announced, “Majister Denyer a
nd Apprentiad Io Clements.”

  Denyer and Clements bowed ceremonially, and the High Judge did so also.

  Majister Denyer opened his mouth, but the High Judge spoke first. “Well, I’ve been informed of the nature of your request and I’m afraid it is not one we can grant under any circumstances.”

  Majister Denyer smiled kindly. “My associate and I are aware of the restrictions on travelling to the new orb.” He averted his eyes with the thought of what came next. “But in light of the recent…communications, my associate and I believe a diplomatic team should be dispatched to at least inform the population of their fate.”

  The High Judge looked about, evidently old and not a little stupid. “Has a message not been sent to the folk?”

  “They have no sensible methods of communication, no quiet chambers,” Denyer said. “That is, we have no means of signalling them. Their technology is rather different to ours.”

  “Well…well…” the High Judge said in a manner that suggested primitives deserved whatever fate befell them anyway.

  Io Clements pulled her pale hands from her robe and spoke up. “Sir, if I might, this is the first populated world we’ve found in generations. These people could be an enormous asset to Ertia, if only we—”

  “What?” snapped the High Judge. “Transfer the population to Orb Ertia? Integrate untold millions, savages, thieves, crooks, charlatans, and vagrants into our culture? Even if we should favour such a thing, how do you propose it? We’ve no craft capable of transporting hundreds, let alone millions.”

  Io went to speak, but Denyer made a complex hand gesture in the private language of their faculty: Passion is the slip before the fall, it said.

  Io composed herself. Denyer said, “When the new orb was colonised, whenever that might be, they must have arrived in some kind of colony ship. It may be buried on the planet somewhere. We might teach them to repair it, shepherd them to a new world. Not necessarily our own.”

  “And if the colony ship is damaged beyond repair? It must be several millennia old by now…”

  “Then we'll live out our days on the planet,” Majister Denyer said without hesitating.

  Io watched him from the corner of her eye. She had not known him in his youth — she hadn't even been alive then — but she suspected he'd been handsome. Age had transmuted that handsomeness now into a quiet and wise dignity.

  “Even if I sympathised with your positions, sirs,” the judge said, “you know the cost of travel across such great distances. Where do you intend to get the money?”

  “Our department has offered to pay for the expedition.”

  The judge stared. “The Psychism Union?”

  “Quite so. Your grace, surely you're aware that this is more than just the extinction of an orb. Their star is unique, or unique for this point in the—” his sphere whispered helpfully into his ear. He repeated it: “Process. At this point in the process.”

  “I won't be drawn into a mystical argument…” the judge muttered.

  “With respect, the argument is far from mystical, your grace. The new stellar directions are intentional. This is a fact.”

  The judge put up his hand to indicate that a controversy had begun. This was a common event on Ertia when two people disagreed regarding a large and important matter. Majister Denyer put up his hand to indicate that he accepted the challenge.

  They both switched to Mandala, that language once spoken in the Old Empire using hand gestures and precise vocal tones. On Ertia it was only used in formal situations such as this one now, but all Ertian children were raised knowing the tongue.

  The court officials had been on the verge of sleep, but now they sat up in their seats, aroused by the promise of a conflict.

  In Mandala the judge said: “I do not accept the fifth science hypothesis.”

  Majister Denyer said: “I respectfully recognise that. But the evidence is overwhelming.”

  “Evidence?”

  “Stellar positions are altering drastically.”

  The judge bent the little finger on his right hand to 57 degrees (the equivalent of which, when spoken, may have been: Ha ha ha!) and said, “Many scientists suggest there is a physical process at work that we do not understand, a previously overlooked force of nature moving stars about in fashions we formerly thought impossible.”

  Majister Denyer had known this rebuttal was coming and parried well. “Your grace, our foundational model of physics is complete. Nothing is left out. All quantum and classical anomalies were accounted for centuries ago. Furthermore, we know scientists at the end of the Old Empire were experimenting with injecting physical systems with sentience.”

  The judge made the universal Mandala symbol for unprovable rubbish!

  Majister Denyer said, “The hypothesis is unusual, I know, but not unpopular.”

  “Endless attempts have been made to contact these supposed beings. They have not responded once. This is because they are not beings. They are simply stars being acted on by a new force of nature we shall endeavour to discover.”

  “Your grace!”

  “You are a mystic, Majister Denyer. You are a shaman. You make assertions that lack authority. You build veneers without veracity.”

  “If I am so ignorant, your grace, then I will go one further. My apprentiad and I, Io Clements, believe not only in the fifth hypothesis. We also hold that the Old Empire was ended as a direct result of the Fifths coming into existence. Moreover, that they engineered the collapse of human galactic civilisation via small, well-placed disruptions in delphium production across the galaxy.”

  “Fifths? Call them as they are, Majister! You mean stars! Living stars!”

  “That is so, your grace,” Denyer said with his hands. “And other entities also.”

  “How can you possibly expect to convince anyone of such a ridiculous notion?”

  “The same way anyone is convinced of ridiculous notions eventually. With sufficient evidence, with an open mind, and with an underlying appreciation of the terror of a new idea.”

  The judge banged the gavel and switched back to Standard Spoken Ertian. “Permission denied, sirs. Return to your faculty and rest the matter.”

  The High Judge took his leave, then the Minor Judges, then the court staff.

  Denyer and Io stood alone in the great sanctum of justice.

  Io said, “What just happened?”

  Denyer said, “They’re afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “If we’re wrong about the fifth hypothesis, they may as well ignore us. If we’re right, there’s nothing they can do anyway. In the face of an intangible problem, ignorance is generally the safest option.”

  “What will we do?” Io said in a quiet voice.

  Denyer wrapped his toga about himself, picked at his enormous grey beard. He was proud of his apprentiad, had known her since she was a little girl, had watched her graduate into that great attic of abstractions at their faculty.

  As the old Aerth adage went, Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they’ll never sit in.

  “What will we do?” Io said again, quieter.

  “We’ll go anyway,” Denyer said.

  “How?”

  “Somehow we’ll go anyway.”

  Io was prodded and examined by Tarnovan medical folk for the next three days. They concluded reluctantly that not only was her physiology drastically different to that of anyone alive on the planet, but genetic tampering was impossible. Or, if it was possible, then whoever possessed the technology was several centuries ahead of the rest of Morae.

  In short, it was generally accepted that Io was from elsewhere. Possibly where she claimed.

  Next they turned their attention on her little white sphere. She claimed she wasn't able to explain how it floated or operated. When quizzed on this she asked if they knew how any of the systems on Tarnovo worked, the radios and weapons, etcetera. The doctors glumly admitted they did not.

  When she was finally let out
of the Central Hospital she organised a demonstration.

  She invited Sar Meto and his court officials, as well as Tisho and Dr. Alexander of course, to the waterpen at the base of Tarnovo where they were storing her flotsam. On closer inspection the flotsam was actually a perfectly circular white disc.

  “No tricks,” Meto murmured.

  “No tricks,” Io agreed. “Now, it might not look like much, but this is the craft Majister Denyer and I arrived in.”

  “What is?” Meto said.

  Io gestured to the white disc. “This, sir. The material looks solid but it's really plasma captured in what Ertians call a leptonic field. It may take any shape the occupant wishes.”

  “Rubbish!” Meto cried.

  Io smiled and stepped back. The white disc folded itself with ease into a perfect sphere that floated on the water, large enough to contain fifteen humans.

  “Dear Yeshua…” Meto sighed.

  The sphere split into ten separate smaller spheres. Then it took the shape of an Aerth swan. Then a facsimile of Meto himself, standing and looking regal. Then a white, harmless disc again.

  Dr. Alexander's eyes were wide. Everyone's eyes were wide. Dr. Alexander said, “Madam, what is a leptonic field?”

  “Ah yes, excuse me. You are aware of the various elementary particles?” Dr. Alexander cocked his head. “The electric particles, the force carriers and so on?”

  “We call them the table of water currents,” Tisho said helpfully.

  Io smiled. “Ah, what a lovely analogy from an ocean planet. Well, leptons are a division of these currents, as you would have it. The building blocks of most of the material in the universe. More than that I cannot say. You see, our sister planet Al'Hazaad builds these machines. We devise the theory. And besides, I’m not a theoretician.”

  Meto produced a small bottle of chacha from his robe and drank. Then he said, “And for what reason are you telling us all of this?”