Boundary

by Eric Flint

  "Fifth, that of all the untold trillions of death scenes across the entire world over the past hundreds of millions of years, it was this— already utterly improbable—death scene that just happened to be one of the very few preserved as a fossil."

  Having run out of fingers, he lowered his hands. "And, finally, to add insult to statistical injury, you want us to believe that all this just happened to occur at the very moment the asteroid or comet struck the Yucatan. So that all of these perfectly preserved corpses ended up literally sitting on the K-T boundary."

  He gave Helen a level stare. Not an unfriendly one, no. But it was just as disconcerting today as she remembered that stare being when she was a young graduate student.

  "Helen," he said softly, "I just demolished Pinchuk by showing the mathematical absurdities that his scheme would entail. I can assure you—this is my own field of expertise, as you know—that if I subjected your theory to the same sort of mathematical scrutiny, the results would be several orders of magnitude worse. I did a rough estimate, as it happens, the moment I finished your paper. I stopped once I realized that your theory is statistically more improbable—far more improbable, as a matter of fact—than the existence of dragons and unicorns."

  Helen couldn't argue with the statistical improbabilities involved. She was not an expert on the math involved, the way Glendale was, but she knew enough to know that he was right. She'd been bothered all along by the cumulative series of unlikely coincidences, and had no good explanation for them herself.

  Still . . .

  Helen was a fieldworker, not a theoretician like Glendale.

  "But facts trump probability, don't they, Nicholas?"

  "Certainly, Helen. Facts always trump theories. And if you had found that our mysterious friend had a fossilized repeating shotgun on his person, I would have conceded immediately—and then wracked my brains trying to figure out how to explain the improbabilities involved. In this case, however, I think what you are seeing is something still very improbable, but at least a couple of orders of magnitude more likely than fossilized aliens. That is, a creature of a previously unknown phylum which, through quite amazing probability events, has not had any of its precursor forms discovered previously.

  "Or," he added, "which I personally think is what we'll find, that such fossils have been found but weren't recognized for what they were. Helen, I suspect that if you could take a few years and search through the miscellaneous fossils in the New York Museum of Natural History and similar places, you'd find some misfiled shells that are, in fact, parts of precursors to your Bemmius. Such things happen often enough, as you well know. Look how long it took before we finally realized what the conodonts were. This is just an extreme version of it."

  He looked aside, for a moment, pensively. "It may even be less unusual than it seems, for that matter. The oddity isn't really the design of the phylum, after all, if you consider the incredible range of evolutionary possibilities we can see in the Burgess Shale. Is Bemmie really so outlandish, matched up against Wiwaxia and Opabinia and Anomalocaris—not to mention Hallucigenia? For that matter, it occurred to one of my current graduate students, when we discussed the subject, that your initial impression may actually not be far from the truth. Imagine an offshoot of the cephalopod family which took to land; had some of its tentacles migrate and become shorter for movement, and others evolve for manipulation or catching prey on land. It develops the platelike supports for land propulsion and the skull is the internalization of the shell. Farfetched, perhaps, although . . ."

  He shrugged. "You know as well as I do that the real mystery is not the creature itself; it's explaining why we haven't seen any previous indications of such a phylum in the fossil record. But if the lifestyle of such animals kept them away from conditions which lend to fossilization, it's by no means impossible. And what's certain, mathematically speaking, is that the discovery of even a large, highly evolved representative of an unknown phylum is still a far, far more likely event than the fossilization of a singular alien from some distant planet."

  She suddenly felt exhausted, emotionally as well as physically. Her extended session of fury in Pinchuk's lecture, the abrupt relief, the lack of sleep from worrying about A.J.'s condition—and, now, the realization that even her defender didn't believe what she'd found, had drained her.

  "I don't know about that." She summoned enough energy for a last sally. "I do know this—and so do you. Using that same method of statistical analysis, you can demonstrate that the likelihood of a universe emerging which could eventually produce intelligent human life on Earth is every bit as farfetched."

  Alas, Glendale just grinned. "Yes, you're right. I hate to think how many innocent trees have been slaughtered to provide the paper for the endless debate over the anthropic principle. But there's still a fundamental difference, Helen. Facts do trump theory, and here we have a fact. We know there is life here on Earth, and we know it's produced other phyla of life, including intelligent life. We have no such evidence for life on any other planet. Much less intelligent life. Much less life so technologically advanced that it can visit our own world."

  He spread his hands a bit. "My own hypothesis is admittedly unlikely. But it is less unlikely than your own—and has the great logical advantage of being based on facts that we know to be true."

  He looked at her sympathetically. "You're wiped out, Helen, and no wonder. You've been worrying about just this sort of reaction for weeks, and it's not doing you any good. If you'll just accept that what you have is a wonderful terrestrial find, and write up some papers that way, you'll find it's a lot easier to sleep at night—and idiots like Pinchuk won't be able to bother you."

  He checked his watch. "I have a panel in five minutes. Helen, take care. You have a magnificent find; just stop thinking of an explanation that really doesn't hold water, even if it does look, well, a lot cooler than any other explanation out there."

  After Glendale left, Helen sank into one of the empty chairs nearby. "I wish I could do that, Nicholas. But—unlikely or not, impossible or not—I'm sure that Bemmius secordii died a long, long way from home."

  PART III: FAERIES

  Paradigm shift, n: a sudden, transformative

  change in world view, generally the result of new

  information or events which render the prior world view

  ineffective in describing the world in which the person or

  civilization now finds itself.

  Chapter 12

  "No, it's okay. You deserve to go, Joe."

  "I didn't ask for them to do this."

  "Are you deaf, Joe? I said it's okay."

  To someone who hadn't known him for years, A.J. sounded like he was one hundred percent recovered. Joe, though, could hear both the overemphasized casual tone and the very slight roughness, the latter indicating the cause of their current discussion.

  A.J. put his VRD glasses back on, pointedly trying to act as though it was a normal day at work. "I knew something like this would happen once the doc had his little talk with me."

  Joe put a hand on his shoulder. "Cut the crap, A.J."

  The blond imaging whiz sat still for a moment, trying to maintain a casual pose. But it collapsed and A.J. tore the glasses from his face, flinging them down violently.

  "God damn it. Damn it!" His voice broke, bringing a sympathetic sting to Joe's eyes as he saw actual tears break through A.J.'s reserve and spill down his face before he savagely scrubbed them away with his sleeve.

  "I shouldn't be crying about this. I shouldn't even be angry about this. I did it to myself, didn't I?"

  He tried to stop the rant, choked off a sob, and dissolved into a racking cough. Joe waited until his friend had recovered breath and some self-control.

  "Yeah, you did do it to yourself. Saving my own engineering staff. The whole project, really. Look, A.J., the Faeries are on their way to Mars right now. You watched the launch yesterday. You'll be exploring Phobos soon, on schedule, and if you hadn't
pushed yourself past the limit, we'd have missed that deadline. I can't override the docs, A.J., but no one can take away what you've achieved, or what you're going to achieve."

  A.J. glowered down at the table, obviously trying to keep from crying, shouting, or both again.

  "And you weren't the only one who paid that price. There were two, three other people ahead of me, and the accident took them out one way or another. That's why I'm at the top of the list now."

  The blue eyes closed again. A.J. took a deep, carefully controlled breath that still held a faint wheezing note, a sign of the damage to his lungs. When his eyes opened again, the fury was fading from them.

  "I know. It's just . . . going to take me a little time to accept it, okay? I was so close to that part of the dream. I knew they hadn't actually decided the crew, but I sort of assumed I'd be on it."

  "And so did everyone else."

  "I'm not entirely off the list," A.J. said after a pause. "The doc said I was down to eighty-two percent of my normal—former—capacity, and there were things that could trigger other problems, but that it wasn't absolutely out of the question, depending. The rest of me is healthy."

  "Well, that's good. Maybe then on the next trip . . .?"

  A.J. nodded, a bit too lightly. "Maybe so. But I should get to work. Have a lot of things to do before I move out to JPL and handle the Faeries for NASA."

  He picked the glasses back up and put them on. A moment later, he took them off, stared at them, and then suddenly burst out laughing, a laugh which also turned into a short coughing fit.

  "Just perfect. I've killed my VRD."

  He stood up. Then, so suddenly it startled Joe, turned and hugged his friend. "Thanks."

  Joe recovered and returned the embrace. A.J. wasn't affectionate with too many people, but with those few he tended toward unabashed displays of joy and sorrow. Joe appreciated the fact that

  A.J. considered him one of those few. "Thanks for what?"

  "For making me explode, letting it all out. It'd be a poison if I kept it in. I know myself that way."

  A.J. wasn't really all right yet, Joe knew, but at least he'd acknowledged the anger and started to face it. They needed that anger worked out as fast as possible, because the Project still needed A.J. badly, and Joe very much did not want to lose one of his best friends over something like this.

  "I guess I'd better go pick myself out another VRD. Congratulations on making the crew, Joe."

  "Thanks, A.J."

  The imaging specialist walked out, just a bit more slowly than he might have a few months before, shoulders slumped the least little bit. Joe heard himself sigh. What a goddamned shame.

  Helen rubbed her eyes and pushed back from the desk. Opening her eyes, she found that the tests had, alas, not magically finished grading themselves as she had hoped.

  "What I wouldn't give for a distraction," she muttered. Being a professor had its advantages, but this wasn't one of them. Especially with the quality of students these days.

  She suddenly chuckled, remembering that her father—a professor of long standing himself—had made the same complaint, and mentioned that his favorite professors had done the same. If all of them had been right, by now she should be teaching a class of mostly australopithecines.

  Opening up the next test file, she winced. Perhaps she was. Was it really so very difficult for a student to master basic language skills before entering college? Yet Jerry was always attentive in class, and he didn't do badly on the lab practicals. He just could not seem to put into written words anything he knew. Maybe he needed a verbal examination.

  Her phone dinged, then gave voice to a four-note chime that she hadn't heard in months. "A.J.!"

  "What's up, Doc?"

  "To my neck in tests, is what's up," she answered. The tanned face displayed before her had the subliminally odd cast that came from generating the face image based on the actual face, but using sensors set at a much different location than the apparent camera viewpoint. Still, there was something about the expression that seemed additionally wrong.

  "What about you, A.J.?"

  "Oh, I just . . . thought I'd give you a call. It's been a while."

  "Uh-huh. I'm actually a little pissed at you. I also got a call from Jackie Secord. About five hours ago."

  "Oh."

  "What the hell is wrong with you, A.J.? She calls to give you some good news and you practically freeze her from long distance. Then won't answer her calls? I know the two of you argue about a lot of stuff, but that's just plain rude."

  A.J. was silent, but his expression was failing to maintain the usual open and carefree look. The imaging expert looked . . . miserable.

  Helen couldn't recall ever seeing him even look momentarily glum. She was silent, waiting. He obviously had some kind of trouble, but she wasn't going to let him completely off the hook.

  "Yeah. I had better send her an apology. She . . . it was just a really, really bad time to call."

  "A bad time to call? Come on, A.J."

  "You know what she called about?"

  "Well, of course. She's made the cut to be on Nike's crew. It's not guaranteed yet, but things are looking much better than she ever—"

  "I've been grounded."

  It took a moment for Helen to grasp what A.J. meant. "Grounded? I didn't . . . Oh, God. You found out today?"

  The answer was almost a whisper. "Yeah. Joe managed to talk me out of a major tantrum, so I went out to get myself new shades, and while I'm doing that Jackie calls me out of the blue."

  "Oh, A.J." She didn't honestly know what to say. What could she say?

  "I figured you might understand better than anyone."

  "Huh? I'm not one of you space cases."

  "No," A.J. conceded. "But you've had your career take a down turn because you did something you knew was dangerous to it, even though you really didn't have a choice."

  "I thought . . . Joe called me last week. He told me your recovery was going very well, according to the doctors."

  "Yeah, I guess. The way the doctors look at it, which isn't the way I do. I'm not blaming them, you understand. They did what they could. Twenty years ago I'd have lost a lot more function, and fifty years ago they'd have written me off, even if I'd lived to get out of the fire. I'm a little better than eighty percent; but in space, they're looking for a hundred and ten percent, you know?"

  "Even so, I can't believe they've taken you off the list entirely!"

  "Well . . . no. But I'm down around where Joe was. Oh, and just by the way, Joe's now on the list for Ares."

  No wonder he hadn't been able to handle Jackie's call! His two best friends got the nod just as he got the boot, and then. . .

  "I'll have to congratulate him. But. . . that must hurt."

  "A lot." The roughness in his voice became apparent as he tried to control it. "More than I told Joe, though I know he knows me enough to know . . . does that make sense? And I feel like such a complete and utter dickhead, Doc. I shouldn't be mad at Joe, it's not his fault, and it's not Jackie's. There's no one to blame except a faulty valve that happened to blow a few months back. But I'm still mad at him. I'm so fu—frigging mad that I could punch him out, and all the damn doctors, and I'd take a swing at Jackie if she wasn't a girl. Because, dammit, it's my dream. Mine."

  "I know," she said softly.

  "And here I am, crying to you. I sorta cried in front of Joe before, but I can't really do that. And my folks, well . . ."

  He didn't finish, but she already knew that A.J.'s parents had been killed in an auto accident several years earlier. "So I guess you get the really short end of the stick. First Jackie gets to tell you what a jerk I am, and then I get to tell you in person."