Starbound

by Joe Haldeman

  “My blood was not cold that day. Those days.”

  “Do you still think they were guilty?”

  “I think now that two, at least, were not. But since we have never been able to pin down the organization responsible, I can’t ever know for sure.”

  I closed my eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you, burdened you with it. I’ve never told anyone before.”

  “Not even Dustin?”

  “No. He knows I’ve done some wet work that was not formally sanctioned. He doesn’t know how many, or the fact that I was on a rampage.”

  “I won’t tell him. Or anyone. They killed your mother. And four million others. Including the seventeen they killed using you as an intermediary.”

  “That’s about the way I rationalize it. But it is a rationalization. Deep down, I know I’ve committed the one sin that can’t be reversed. Or forgiven.”

  “God would forgive you. If there were a God.”

  I smiled at her. “Yeah. That’s a problem.”

  She held me to her softness for a warm moment, her cheek against mine. “There’s another problem,” she whispered. “We seem to be at the wrong planet.”

  “Wrong what?”

  “Show you.” She pushed away from me gently and floated down to the bed, as I rose to the ceiling. She pushed a couple of buttons on the wall there, and the paintings faded, replaced by a huge dun circle, a planet that resembled Mars. Clear atmosphere, a wisp of cloud here and there. No obvious craters, though; I wasn’t sure what that meant scientifically. Weathering, I supposed.

  “We aren’t at Wolf 25?”

  “We are, apparently—just not at the planet of the Others. Another one in the same system. Much closer in.”

  “Why?”

  “Spy said we’re going down tomorrow. Until then, we’re free to speculate.”

  11

  DEAD WORLD

  Some of the humans, like Paul and Namir, were disappointed or apprehensive when they learned that we were not going down to the planet’s surface in our own lander, carried twenty-four light-years for that purpose, but instead were to go down in Spy’s “starfish” spaceship. I was relieved. Going to and from a planetary surface in a rocket is unpleasant and dangerous, even if it is “the devil we know,” as Carmen put it. We had no idea how the starfish worked, but the Others had probably been using them for a long time.

  We had to cross over to their ship holding on to a cable, as before, and Snowbird did not enjoy the experience any more than I had the first time. This wasn’t in cool starlight, either. We had the huge disc of the ashen planet looming beneath us and the brilliant glare of Wolf 25 moving overhead.

  Moonboy was not able to cross by himself. Paul and Namir carried him over like a deadweight.

  Spy had told us that we couldn’t pronounce the name of the planet in any Martian or human languages, but that it translated to “Earth” pretty accurately. We might call it “Home” to reduce confusion.

  “Whose home?” Carmen asked.

  “Allow me to be mysterious,” Spy said, though the answer was obvious, if the details were not.

  The air inside the ship was oppressively hot and humid, probably comfortable for humans. When we took off, though, the gravity was light, about normal for Mars.

  It was not acceleration-induced “gravity,” either. It didn’t change direction or strength when the ship took off.

  A circle opened in the floor of the craft, like a large window. We got an interesting view of the engine side of the iceberg/asteroid, which seemed to have diminished by about a third, in regular concentric grooves where the automatic ice- mining machines had gnawed their way around.

  The landing was as smooth as the humans say their space elevator is, no lurching or vibration. As we approached the ground, though, the gravity increased to about that of Earth. Spy apologized to the two of us but said there was no way around it.

  We approached the ground very fast. Snowbird and a few others reacted, but I assumed the Others hadn’t gone to all this trouble just to smash us into a planet. It was too fast, though, to get a good idea of what surrounded the landing site. Just a hint of regular architectural structure, and we were on the ground, and the floor window irised shut.

  “The abrupt landing was necessary because of the physics involved,” Spy said. “We will observe from low altitude later.”

  It had warned us that we would have to “suit up” before we left the ship, so Snowbird and I had not removed our footgear, and it was only a matter of donning four gloves and letting the protective cloaks form around our bodies. So we were the first two out the air lock, the human crew following by a few minutes.

  Carmen would later say that it was “beautiful in a horrible tragic way,” which juxtaposes three contradictory ideas in what I realize is a standard human ironic frame. About beauty I have no opinion, and horribleness and tragedy are just dramatic observations about the fact that the universe runs downhill.

  This is what I saw: on a plain that extended to the horizon in every direction, there were regularly spaced objects that we were told had once been space vehicles. The outer shells had mostly been eroded or corroded away; a lacy framework of some more durable metal remained, a gleaming cage for more corrosion within.

  I wondered whether everybody else was thinking what I was thinking: The fleet that humans were building to protect the Earth might as well be paper airplanes.

  “This was an invasion fleet,” Spy said. “It was poised to attack the planet of the Others.”

  “How long ago?” Paul asked.

  “It was about thirty thousand of your years ago. The planet was more hospitable to you then, more like Earth than Mars. A world with plentiful liquid water and oxygen; you could have survived here without protection.”

  “We couldn’t now?” Carmen said.

  “That’s correct. All the plant life died. Things oxidized and dried out.”

  “And how did that happen?” Namir asked.

  “Things got very hot for a short time. When it cooled down, it left mostly ash and carbon dioxide.”

  “The Others fried the planet,” Namir said.

  “I think ‘baked’ would be more accurate. They raised the surface temperature, as I said. I think for only a few minutes.”

  “Enough to kill everybody,” Namir said.

  “Every thing, I think. There is nothing alive now.”

  “This is what they wanted to do to Earth,” Carmen said.

  “Not quite as extreme. Though few humans would have survived.”

  “The ones on Mars would have,” I said.

  “The Others knew that,” Spy said. “And eventually they might have wound up coming here.”

  “And met the same fate,” Namir said.

  “Who can say? Let’s return to the ship.”

  “Wait,” Paul said. “Can’t we look around for a while?”

  “First I want you to see something else. Rather, the Others want you to. They suggested that before you meet with them, you have the proper context.”

  “If they want to convince us that they can destroy us all, here and on Earth, it isn’t necessary,” Paul said. “We knew that before the plans for ad Astra were drawn up.”

  “I’m not sure exactly what they want to do. Our communications are necessarily slow and indirect. I do know what they directed me to show you. You may have time for exploration later.”

  We filed back through the air lock into the starfish, and it rose slowly and hovered. The engine made noise, a barely audible rushing sound. It had been silent, dropping from orbit.

  We rose high enough for the horizon to show a slight curve. The humans all gasped at the sight, though it was not surprising. Thousands of the ruined ships stood in precise ranks. It was an impressive display of destruction, though I was more impressed by the idea that they could raise the temperature of an entire planet enough to cause this to happen.

  Before we sped away, I counted 4,983 of the relics, though presumably there w
ere more over the horizon.

  “These creatures were of course intelligent,” Spy said, “and they knew that aggression against the Others might result in their extinction. So they left a record nearby.” As it spoke, we descended toward a glittering golden dome.

  “One index of their mastery over the physical universe is this hemisphere of absolutely pure gold, more than a meter thick and almost five hundred meters in diameter. Its roundness is mathematically perfect to within a millionth of a meter.”

  “I wonder why they would bother to do that,” Paul said.

  “To show that they could,” Namir said.

  “That’s probably true,” Spy said. “It also gives the structure some resistance to certain weapons. What’s inside is more interesting, though.”

  The ship floated down to rest next to the dome, the window closing as we approached the ground. The humans had been told not to remove anything but their helmets, so they put them back on, and we were through the air lock in minutes. They left Moonboy resting behind.

  We picked our way over an expanse of weathered rubble. Whatever else had been here was made of less durable stuff than gold.

  The dome did not have an air lock; just a door. There were unambiguous symbols incised in the metal, lines of dark dots that pointed toward a dark square. When we approached it, the square opened.

  I was second to enter, after Spy, so I knew that it had been dark inside, and lights glowed on as we entered. The light was bright and warm, the same spectrum as Wolf 25.

  It was a display, like a museum. There were no words, written or spoken. It was obviously designed for any audience capable of getting here and standing at the door.

  In the center was a large globe of a planet that resembled Earth—more water than land, with polar caps and clouds.

  “This is what the planet used to look like?” I said unnecessarily. Spy nodded and led us to the first display case.

  This must have been the race that built the fleet of spaceships. The exhibits showed what they looked like, inside and out, and demonstrated various aspects of their lives.

  They looked very much like us, with four legs, but only two arms, which at first made them uncomfortable to look at. They also had tails, which made them morphologically similar to the Other-prime, and presumably all the Others.

  The first display was kinetic, disassembling a model of the creature, then reassembling it one organ group at a time, which was also uncomfortable to watch but no doubt educational. Likewise, the next display showed mating and budding, processes almost exactly like ours, but strange to watch.

  Then it moved from the strictly biological into social, showing a thing like a playground, or the humans’ creche on Mars. Lots of immature ones living together under the supervision of two adults.

  This was followed by six similar play scenes, with different details, like the background scenery or the level of technology in the rooms. In two of them the creatures were colored reddish or blue, rather than black.

  Carmen figured it out. “They’re different cultures,” she said. “They’re showing the different ways their young are handled, around the planet.” That interpretation was reinforced by the next seven displays, which showed the same different cultures, or races, having meals. Then there were seven showing what appeared to be social gatherings, or perhaps religious meetings. Then seven that appeared to be athletic competitions. This brought us back around to the door.

  “Seven different cultures,” I said, “but one species. They’re Martians, aren’t they? Despite having only two arms.”

  There was no doubt in my mind that these creatures were our ancestors. And the Others killed them all.

  Spy did not respond directly. “Be ready,” he said. “One of you is about to learn a lot.”

  I was suddenly overwhelmed, overloaded with information. My legs buckled, and I collapsed, knowing that this was what I was here for, and not liking it.

  12

  NO SURVIVORS

  I first met Fly-in-Amber back when I was “The Mars Girl,” before we knew, or thought we knew, what the different colors of Martians did. I just observed that they wore different colors and seemed to group together by color.

  Five years later, we thought it was all sorted out, and his yellow family seemed to be the one that had the most obvious and easy-to-understand function. Absolute memory freaks, who never forgot anything they saw or heard.

  Then, in 2079, we found out they had another job—in fact, the primary job of the entire manufactured Martian race: to serve as intermediaries between the Others and Earth’s human race. The Others couldn’t predict with any certainty when, if ever, the humans would develop spaceflight, so they created the Martians and put them on the planet that came closest to the Earth. When a member of the yellow family was taken to Earth orbit, he went into a trance and recited a complex message in a language he couldn’t understand; a language only comprehensible to the Martians’ leader, whom we called Red. He had been studying the language since childhood, knowing, like all his predecessors, that it might be extremely important but not knowing why.

  The Others’ message to Red was ambiguous and disturbing. They had the ability to destroy life on Earth but might not do it. Depending on various factors.

  Red was supposed to keep this threat to himself, but wound up passing it on to me, and I told Paul. We were overheard, and everything unraveled.

  So here we were again, with Fly-in-Amber speaking in a mysterious tongue, but instead of Red, we had Spy to decipher it for us.

  Fly-in-Amber had babbled on for about ten minutes, Spy paying close attention. Then the Martian shook himself all over and groggily got to his feet.

  “Did I do it again?” he said. “Talk in the leader language?”

  Spy confirmed that he had. It was all recorded, and he could hear it back in the relative comfort of the starfish, whenever Fly-in-Amber felt strong enough to move. “Two minutes,” he said, and did some kind of breathing ritual or exercise routine. Then we made our way across the uneven ground, Snowbird shuffling alongside Fly-in-Amber, supporting him.

  The interior of the starfish had been reconfigured. There were enough comfortable couches for all of us and, amazingly, a deep pool of water for the Martians. They stripped with comical haste and slid into it. We helped one another out of our suits, too.

  There was a table with pitchers of water and plates of what looked like cubes of cheese. Namir picked one up and sniffed it.

  “It is food,” Spy said. “Rather bland, I suppose.”

  Namir bit into it and shrugged. “Won’t kill us. How long?”

  “That partly depends on the message, and your reaction to it.” It sat on the couch nearest to the Martians. “Sit down if you want.”

  I ate a couple of the cubes. They had the texture of tofu but less flavor. I wished for salt. And wine. Maybe a whole bottle of wine, and a big steak.

  Spy waited until everyone was seated. “As you may have deduced, this planet is where the Others came from, and the people, or creatures, you saw in the displays are their ancestors, in a manner of speaking.”

  “The Others didn’t evolve from them,” I said. You didn’t have to be a xenobiologist to see that.

  “Not in any biological sense. About thirty thousand years ago there was a profound disagreement, what you might call a philosophical schism. It was about the fundamental nature of life, and the necessity for, or desirability of . . . its ending. Whether thinking creatures should die.”

  “They had a way around it?” Namir said. “Not just longevity, but immortality?”

  Spy nodded, but said, “No. Not exactly.

  “It’s difficult to put this into terms that have universal meaning. That would mean the same thing, for instance, to humans and Martians.”

  “But we can agree about what life is,” I said, “and that death is the cessation of life.”

  “I don’t think so,” Snowbird said. “That has always been a problem.”

  �
�Don’t get all spiritual,” Elza said. “As a doctor, I can assure you that dead people are much less responsive than living ones. They also start to smell.”

  Snowbird held her head with both large hands, a laughter expression. “But the individual was alive in the genetic material of its ancestors, and also will be alive in the ones that follow after the organism dies.”

  “Not me. I don’t have any children and don’t expect any.”

  “But it’s not limited to that,” Snowbird said. “Before the individual was born, it was alive in the teachings that would eventually form it. Everyone you meet changes you, at least a little, and so becomes a kind of parent. As you yourself become a parent to anybody’s life you touch. It’s the only way, for instance, that humans and Martians can be related. Many of us feel closely related to some of you. Fly-in-Amber and I are closer to you humans here than we are to many Martians.” And I had been closer to Red, I realized, than I’d ever been to my own father.

  “I’ll grant that’s true in a certain sense,” Elza said, “but it’s not as physically real as a genetic connection.”

  “You claim your brain is not physically changed by accepting new information? I think that it is.”

  “This is good,” Spy said. “It’s one aspect of the disagreement between the Others and you people. But only one aspect.

  “Over the centuries, the ones who would become the Others physically isolated themselves, first on an island, then in an orbiting settlement, which grew by accretion. The separation became more complete as the ones on the planet encouraged belief systems that were inward-looking, antagonistic to space travel.

  “The Others also pursued research into longevity, which most of the ones on the planet came to consider blasphemous.”

  “Let me guess,” Namir said. “There was a war.”

  “Several, in fact. Or you could see it as one ongoing war with phases that were decades apart. Centuries.

  “The Others moved farther and farther out, for their own protection. Meanwhile, their individual life spans increased, up to what seemed to be a natural limit. They couldn’t push it far beyond about eight hundred years, with half of that life span in reduced circumstances . . . basically, alive and alert, but maintained by machines. You see where this would lead?”