The Gentle Giants of Ganymede g-2

by James P. Hogan

  He paused again to allow time for his meaning to sink in.

  "This decision did not come easily. My people have spent a large part of their natural lives wandering in the depths of space. Our children have never known a home. A journey to The Giants' Star will, we know, take many years. In many ways we are sad, naturally, but, like you, we must in the end obey our instincts. Deep down we could never rest until the question of The Giant's Star has been finally answered.

  "And so, my friends, I am bidding you farewell. We will carry with us pleasant memories of the time that we knew here on the sunny blue and green world of Earth. We will never forget the warmth and hospitality of the people of this world, nor will we forget what they did for us. But, sadly, it must end.

  "One week from today we will depart. Should we fail in our quest, we, or our descendants, will return. This I promise."

  The Giant raised his arm in a final salute, and inclined his head slightly.

  "Thank you--all of you. And good-bye."

  He held the posture for a few more seconds. Then the broadcast cut out.

  A half-hour after the broadcast, Garuth emerged from the main door of the conference center at Ganyville. He stopped for a while, savoring the first hint of winter being carried down from the mountains on the night air. Around him all was still apart from an occasional figure filtering through the pools of warm orange light that flooded out of the windows into the alley between the wooden walls of the chalets. The night was clear as crystal. He stood for a long time staring up at the stars. Then he began walking slowly along the path in front of him and turned into the broad throughway that led down, between the rows of chalets, toward the immense floodlit tower of the Shapieron.

  He passed by one of the ship's supporting legs and moved on into the space spanned by its four enormous fin surfaces, suddenly dwarfed by the sweeping lines of metal soaring high above him. As he approached the foot of one of the ramps that led up into the lowered stern and stepped into the surrounding circle of light, a half-dozen or so eight-foot figures straightened up out of the shadows at the bottom of the ramp. He recognized them immediately as members of his crew, no doubt relaxing and enjoying the calm of the night. As he drew nearer, he sensed from the way they stood and the way they looked at him that something had changed. Normally they would have called out some jovial remark or made some enthusiastic sign of greeting, but they did not. They just stood there, silent and withdrawn. As he reached the ramps they stood aside to make way and raised their hands in acknowledgment of his rank. Garuth returned the salutes and passed between them. He found that he could not meet their eyes. No one spoke. He knew that they had seen the broadcast, and he knew how they felt. There was nothing he could say.

  He reached the top of the ramp, passed through the open airlock and crossed the wide space beyond to enter the elevator that ZORAC had waiting. A few seconds later he was being carried swiftly upward into the main body of the Shapieron.

  He came out of the elevator over five hundred feet above ground level, and followed a short corridor to a door which brought him into his private quarters. Shilohin, Monchar and Jassilane were waiting there, sitting in a variety of poses around the room. He sensed the same attitude that he had felt a minute before at the ramp. He stood for a moment looking down at them while the door slid silently shut behind him. Monchar and Jassilane were looking at one another uneasily. Only Shilohin was holding his gaze, but she said nothing. Garuth emitted a long-drawn-out sigh then moved slowly between them to stand for a while contemplating a metallic tapestry that adorned the far wall. Then he turned about to face them once more. Shilohin was still watching him.

  "You're still not convinced that we have to go," he said at last. The remark was unnecessary, but somebody had to say something. No reply was necessary either.

  The scientist shifted her eyes away and said, as if addressing the low table standing between her and the other two, "It's the way in which we're going about it. They've trusted you unquestioningly all this time. All the way from Iscaris . . . all those years. You. . ."

  "One second." Garuth moved across to a small control panel set into the wall near the door. "I don't think this conversation should go on record." He flipped a switch to cut off the room from all channels to ZORAC, and hence to the ship's archival records.

  "You know that there's no Ganymean civilization waiting at The Giants' Star or anywhere else," Shilohin resumed. Her voice was about as near an accusation as a Ganymean could get. "We've been through the Lunarian records time and again. It adds up to nothing. You are taking your people away to die somewhere out there between the stars. There will be no coming back. But you allow them to believe in fantasies so that they will follow where you lead them. Surely those are the ways of Earthmen, not Ganymeans."

  "They offered us their world as home," Jassilane murmured, shaking his head. "For twenty years your people have dreamed of nothing but coming home. And now that they have found one, you would take them back out into the void again. Minerva is gone; nothing we can do will change that. But by a quirk of fate we have found a new home--here. It will never happen a second time."

  Suddenly Garuth was very weary. He sank down into the reclining chair by the door and regarded the three solemn faces staring back at him. There was nothing that he could add to the things that had already been said. Yes, it was true; the Earthmen had greeted his people as if they were long-lost brothers. They had offered all they had. But in the six months that had gone by, Garuth had looked deep below the surface. He had looked; he had listened; he had watched; he had seen.

  "Today the Earthmen welcome us with open arms," he said. "But in many ways, they are still children. They show us their world as a child would open its toy cupboard to a new play-friend. But a play-friend who visits once in a while is one thing; one who moves in to stay, with equal rights to ownership to the toy cupboard, is another."

  Garuth could see that his listeners wanted to be convinced, to feel the reassurance of thinking the way he thought, but could not--no more than they had been able to a dozen times before. Nevertheless he had no choice but to go through it yet again.

  "The human race is still struggling to learn to live with itself. Today we are just a handful of aliens--a novelty; but one day we would grow to a sizable population. Earth does not yet possess the stability and the maturity to adapt to coexistence on that scale; they are just managing to coexist with one another. Look at their history. One day, I'm sure, they will be capable, but the time is not ripe yet.

  "You forget their pride and their innate instincts to compete in all things. They could never accept passively a situation in which their instincts would compel them, one day, to see themselves as inferiors and us as dominant rivals. When that time came, we would be forced to go anyway, since we would never impose ourselves or our ways on unwilling or resentful hosts, but that would happen only after a lot of problems and eventual unpleasantness. It is better this way."

  Shilohin heard his words, but still everything inside her recoiled from the verdict that they spelled out.

  "So, for this you would deceive your own people," she whispered. "Just to insure the stable evolution of this alien planet, you would sacrifice your own kind--the last few pathetic remnants of our civilization. What kind of judgment is this?"

  "It is not my judgment, but the judgment of time and fate," Garuth replied. "The Solar System was once the undisputed domain of our race, but that time ended long ago. We are the intruders now--an anachronism; a scrap of flotsam thrown up out of the ocean of time. Now the Solar System has become rightly the inheritance of Man. We do not belong here any longer. That is not a judgment for us to make, but one that has already been made for us by circumstances. It is merely ours to accept."

  "But your people . . ." Shilohin protested. "Shouldn't they know? Haven't they the right . . . ?" She threw her arms in the air in a gesture of helplessness. Garuth remained silent for a moment, then shook his head slowly.

  "I will not re
veal to them that the new home at The Giants' Star is a myth," he declared firmly. "That is a burden that need be carried only by us, who command and lead. They do not have to know. . . yet. It was their hope and their belief in a purpose that nurtured them from Iscaris to Sol. So it can be again for a while. If we are taking them away to their doom to perish unsung and unmourned somewhere in the cold, uncharted depths of space, they deserve at least that before the final truth has to become known. That is precious little to ask."

  A grim silence reigned for a long time. A faraway look came over Shilohin as she turned over again in her mind the things that Garuth had said. And then the look changed gradually into a frown. Her eyes cleared and swung slowly upward to meet Garuth's.

  "Garuth," she said. Her voice was curiously calm and composed. All traces of the emotions she had felt previously were gone. "I've never said this to you ever before, but. . . I don't believe you." Jassilane and Monchar looked up abruptly. Garuth seemed strangely unsurprised, almost as if he had been expecting her to say that. He leaned back in his chair and contemplated the tapestry on the wall. Then he swung his eyes slowly back toward her.

  "What don't you believe, Shilohin?"

  "Your reasons . . . everything you've been saying for the last few weeks. It's just not . . . you. It's a rationalization of something else. . . something deeper." Garuth said nothing, but continued to regard her steadfastly. "Earth is maturing rapidly," she continued. "We've mixed with them and been accepted by them in ways that far exceeded our wildest hopes. There's no evidence to support the predictions you made. There's no evidence that we could never coexist, even if our numbers did grow. You would never sacrifice your people just on the off-chance that things might not work out. You'd try it first. . . for a while at least. There has to be another reason. I won't be able to support your decision until I know what that reason is. You talked about the burden of we who command and lead. If we carry that burden, then surely we've a right to know why."

  Garuth continued staring at her thoughtfully for a long time after she had finished speaking. Then he transferred his gaze, still with the same thoughtful expression, to Jassilane and Monchar. The look in their eyes echoed Shilobin's words. Then, abruptly, he seemed to make up his mind.

  Without speaking, he rose from the chair, walked over to the control panel, and operated the switch to restore normal communications facilities to the room.

  "ZORAC," he called.

  "Yes, Commander?"

  "You recall the discussion that we had about a month ago concerning the data that the human scientists have collected on the genetics of the Oligocene species discovered in the ship at Pithead?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd like you to present the results of your analysis of that data to us. This information is not to be made accessible to anyone other than myself and the three people who are in this room at present."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The crowds that came to Ganyville to see the Shapieron depart were as large as those that had greeted its arrival, but their mood was a very different one. This time there was no jubilation or wild excitement. The people of Earth would miss the gentle Giants that they had come to know so well, and it showed.

  The governments of Earth had again sent their ambassadors and, on the concrete apron below the towering ship, two groups of Earthmen and aliens faced each other for the last time. After the final formalities had been exchanged and the last farewell speeches had been uttered, the spokesman for each of the two races presented his parting gift.

  The Chairman of the United Nations, acting on behalf of all of the peoples and nations of Earth, handed over two ornamental metal caskets, heavily inscribed on their outside faces and decorated with precious stones. The first contained a selection of seeds of many terrestrial trees, shrubs and flowering plants. The second, somewhat larger, contained the national flag of every one of the world's states. The seeds, he said, were to be planted at a selected place when the Giants arrived at their new home; the plants that grew from them would symbolize all of terrestrial life and provide a lasting reminder that henceforth both worlds would always be a home to Man and Ganymean equally. The flags were to be flown above that place on some as yet unknown future day when the first ship from Earth reached The Giants' Star. Thus, when Man came at last to launch himself into the void between the stars, he would find a small part of Earth waiting to greet him on the other side.

  Garuth's gift to Earth was knowledge. He presented a large chest filled with books, tables, charts and diagrams which, he stated, provided a comprehensive introduction to the Ganymean genetic sciences. In presenting this knowledge to Earth, the Ganymeans were attempting to atone in the only way that they could for the species of Oligocene animals that had been made extinct during the ugly extermination experiments of long ago. By techniques that were explained in these texts, Garuth said, the DNA codes that existed in any preserved cell from any part of an animal organism could be extracted and used to control the artificially induced growth of a duplicate, living organism. Given a sliver of bone, a trace of tissue or a clipping of horn, a new embryo could be synthesized and from it the complete animal would grow. Thus, provided that some remnant remained, all of the extinct species that had once roamed the surface of the Earth could be resurrected. In this way, the Ganymeans hoped, the species that had met with sudden and untimely ends as a result of their actions would be allowed to live and run free again.

  And then the last group of Ganymeans stood for a while to return the silent wavings of the multitudes on the surrounding hills before filing slowly up into the ship. With them went a small party of Earthmen destined for Ganymede, where the Shapieron was scheduled to make a short call to allow the Ganymeans to bid farewell to their UNSA friends there.

  ZORAC spoke over the communications network of Earth to deliver a final message from the Ganymeans and then the link was broken. The Shapieron retracted its stern section into its flight position and for a while the huge ship stood alone while the world watched. And then it began to rise, slowly and majestically, before soaring up and away to rejoin its element. Only the sea of upturned faces, the lines of tiny figures arrayed around the empty space in the center of the concrete apron, and the rows of outsize deserted wooden chalets remained to show that it had ever been.

  The mood inside the Shapieron was solemn too. In the command center, Garuth stood in the area of open floor below the dais surrounded by a group of senior officers and watched in silence as the mottled pattern of blue and white on the main screen shrank and became the globe of Earth. Shilohin was standing beside him, also silent and absorbed in thoughts of her own.

  Then ZORAC spoke, his voice seemingly issuing from the surrounding walls. "Launch characteristics normal. All systems checked and normal. Request confirmation of orders."

  "Existing orders confirmed," Garuth replied quietly. "Destination Ganymede."

  "Setting course for Ganymede," the machine reported. "Arrival will be as scheduled."

  "Hold off main drives for a while," Garuth said suddenly. "I'd like to see Earth for a little longer."

  "Maintaining auxiliaries," came the response. "Main drives being held on standby pending further orders."

  As the minutes ticked by the globe on the screen contracted slowly. The Ganymeans continued to watch in silence.

  At last Shilohin turned to Garuth. "And to think, we called it the Nightmare Planet."

  Garuth smiled faintly. His thoughts were still far away.

  "They've woken up from the nightmare now," he said. "What an extraordinary race they are. Surely they must be unique in the Galaxy."

  "I still can't bring myself to believe that everything we have seen can have evolved from such origins," she replied. "Don't forget I was brought up in a school that taught me to believe that this could never happen. All our theories and our models predicted that intelligence was unlikely to develop at all in any ecology like that, and that any form of civilization would be absolutely impossible. And yet .
. ." she made a gesture of helplessness, "look at them. They've barely learned to fly and already they talk about the stars. Two hundred years ago they knew nothing of electricity; today they generate it by fusion power. Where will they stop?"

  "I don't think they ever will," Garuth said slowly. "They can't. They must fight all the time, just as their ancestors did. Their ancestors fought each other; they fight the challenges that the universe throws at them instead. Take away their challenges and they would waste away."

  Shilohin thought again about the incredible race that had struggled to claw its way upward through every difficulty and obstacle imaginable, not the least of which was its own perversity, and which now reigned unchallenged and triumphant in the Solar System that the Ganymeans had once owned.

  "Their history is still abhorrent in many ways," she said. "But at the same time there is something strangely magnificent and proud about them. They can live with danger where we could not, because they know that they can conquer danger. They have proved things to themselves that we will never know, and it is that knowledge that will carry them onward where we would hesitate. If Earthmen had inhabited the Minerva of twenty-five million years ago, I'm sure that things would have turned out differently. They wouldn't have given up after Iscaris; they would have found a way to win."

  "Yes," Garuth agreed. "Things would certainly have turned out very differently. But before long, I feel, we will see what would have happened if that had been true. Very soon now the Earthmen will explode outward all over the Galaxy. Somehow, I don't think it will ever be quite the same again after that happens."

  The conversation lapsed once more as the two Ganymeans shifted their eyes again to take in a last view of the planet that had defied all their theories, laws, principles and expectations. In the years to come they would no doubt gaze many times at this image, retrieved from the ship's data banks, but it would never again have the impact of this moment.