“Airlock is cycling,” Wenyuan announced.
The intercom crackled, an unfamiliar sound at that point. “This is Charan. I have made my decision, and will be opening the core hatch shortly. Please remain on the bridge. I will join you there.”
Within ten minutes Charan appeared at the bridge passway. “Joanna and I both have reports ready to transmit. When will you let us send them?” Rankin demanded immediately.
“The only report that will be sent has been sent,” Charan said, pulling himself inside. “I’ll tell you what it said shortly. But we’ve some other things to cover first and there’s not a lot of time.”
“Time till what?” Wenyuan asked, his voice a knife edge.
“I’ll get farther faster without interruptions. And remember what I said—I’ve made my decision and I’m committed to it. But you’ll have one of your own to make in a few minutes.
“We camp out here to meet the Senders, not out of goodwill so much as to cushion the shock to Earth their existence represented. None of us knew what to expect, except that they would be different from us. But instead of aliens we found unknown brothers.
“You all tried to reject the evidence of your eyes to preserve your preconceptions. Major Wenyuan, you never wondered—once you were confident that they were too weak to conquer us, you began to look for a way to conquer them. Joanna attributed the surprise to God’s mysteries and so avoided messy explanations. Dr. Rankin wanted Journans to be illusionists, wanted to find alien offal behind the human face they turned to us.
“For my own part, I am content to accept what the Journans propose. I believe we are the Founders. Earth has the ancestors of what became their gelten and our triticum, their tell and our domestic dog, themselves and ourselves. This is not the first time we have ventured away from our homeworld.
“Why we forgot those earlier times I’m not prepared to say. Perhaps there are more colonies. If so, perhaps they remember more clearly than Journa. Perhaps the answers are on Journa herself, though not easily seen by Journan eyes. In any case, it is too early to be concerned with answers. We must think instead of effects.
“All three of you are eager to fulfill the narrowly conceived charges of those who chose you, while the broader questions seem to escape you. What shall we tell Earth? The troth? The Major-still suffers from shock, acting as though this whole affair were of no significance except for whatever advantage might be gained in global politics. The Scion has glibly abandoned most of her heartfelt beliefs and Albert a goodly portion of his cherished scientific troths. Look at yourselves! Look at each other!”
He paused for breath, and when he resumed it was at a slower pace, a calmer pitch. “We cannot tell Earth the truth. As the Major pointed out to me, they are not prepared for it. We have ourselves as proof of that.
“But if we don’t tell them the truth, what then? An outright lie? We can’t lie to them, for how will we ever wean them from the lie?”
He paused to let that sink in. “An hour ago, I sent them this message: Contact confirms Journan homeworld orbits Mu Cassiopeia.”
He saw no need to add that he had tagged the message Charan Rashuri, Commander. Pride of Earth. That part of the message was personal.
“And the rest they will learn when we reach home,” Wenyuan said approvingly.
“I don’t understand,” Rankin broke in. “Why that message? And what good will staying silent do with Jiadur due to arrive at Earth in five years?”
“That will not happen. At my request, Ryuka and Sialkot are preparing to slow their ship so that its arrival at Earth will be delayed eighteen years, to 2045. That—and our silence—will give those we’ve left behind the time that they need.
“Earth is on the brink of achieving that quality of planetary unity and commonality of ethics which the Journans have apparently enjoyed for ten thousand years. The Consortium has struck a spark—but it has not yet lit a fire. Another generation, and it will never go out. We will give them that generation. We will give them their future.”
There was silence on the bridge as Charan stopped and looked to each of them in turn.
Finally Joanna spoke. “Ryuka and Sialkot have been in space for more than thirty years. Their bodies are changed, weakened. And they are both in their sixties. They could well not survive what you’re demanding of them.”
“Judge me now and you will be too gentle. There is more.”
There was an odd look on Rankin’s face, a look of dawning understanding admixed with dismay. “Our disappearance—your message is to make sure they don’t quit—don’t pull back—you tease them. It doesn’t work unless we don’t—” He stopped, unable to give voice to his revelation.
“Yes. I’m sorry. For you especially, Albert.”
“We’re not going back,” Rankin said hoarsely.
Charan bowed his head slightly in assent, meeting Rankin’s accusatory gaze squarely. “That is correct. Pride of Earth is going on to Journa. Ryuka and Sialkot will be aboard it. Those were their effects which you no doubt watched me bring aboard.”
“But why did they agree—they’re so close to their goal—”
“Their objective is to secure the approval of the Founders, not to reach Earth. I have explained to them that Jiadur is inadequate proof of their stewardship, that we must see Journa itself. I have calculated it to be a fifteen-year journey, subjectively, well within the limits set by ship’s stores. And the ship is quite capable. As all of you know, it takes no more energy to travel a long distance than a short one, merely more time.”
“So we go back to Earth in Jiadur,” Joanna said hopefully.
“You can, if you choose. I said you would have a decision to make. Jiadur’s communications systems have been disabled, and your presence aboard will not add appreciably to the consternation its arrival will create, even in 2045.
“You must make your decision now. The Joumans will be coming aboard very shortly. It is crucial that Jiadur begin its braking maneuver as soon as possible.”
They were listening in stunned silence, faces slack with disbelief and the growing realization that Charan had made certain that there was no third alternative.
“If you are wavering, let me share why I have decided to continue on to Journa. What waits for us on Earth? Personal glory? The existence of Jiadur was once a secret for the eyes of the powerful few only. Now that it and we have effectively disappeared, when it reaches Earth it will be such a secret again. And when the powerful few are through with us, we will face the task of making the rest of our lives live up to these years on Pride of Earth—what the pilots call the Aldrin syndrome.
“Our time is finished. Our task is gone, to be replaced by opportunity. We can go and learn from and about our strange new brothers and sisters, and live out the rest of our lives in the company of our kin on Journa. And we can prepare the way for those who will follow us.”
Charan’s voice broke unexpectedly. “They will follow us. I know they will follow us.”
No one moved to leave, and he knew that he had correctly shaped the choice he offered. No one argued with his decision, and he understood that they needed to believe that what he had said was true. And he understood, too, that they would never forget nor likely forgive him for what he was doing to them.
I am my father’s son after all, Charan thought with some sadness as he studied their faces.
But he knew in his heart that for all the wrong he did them, it was the right decision for Chandliss and Eddington and Driscoll and Devaraja Rashuri, the right decision for the standard that they had passed to his unwilling hands.
For the moment, that was enough.
Epilog
* * *
Journa
“She is upstairs,” the house servant said, squinting suspiciously at the messenger.
“Yes. I saw her as I came up the walk.”
“We do not disturb her at such times.” She gave the gesture of refusal. “How long will she be like this?”
�
�It is often hours.” The messenger waved his hand in the gesture of apology.
“Then I must disturb her.”
He climbed the stairs and found her as he had seen her: a silver-haired woman, almost paralyzed by her own frailty, sitting staring out the window down at the three solemn markers of wailwood which stood on the facing hillside.
“Most Honored Founder, Mistress of the Journan People, your indulgence—”
Joanna looked up slowly, fixing her gaze first on his face, then on the badge of service on the breast of his jerkin. “Have they come at last?” she asked haltingly, a tremor of hope coloring her now-thin voice.
The messenger bowed slightly. “Yes, Founder Joanna. Three great ships, I am told. My division waits first call for you.”
“I will go at once. Come, I will need your help.”
Honored, the messenger hastened to her side. “It is yours.”
In silent precision a thousand kilometres above them, the survey ships Hugin, Munin, and Dove slipped into orbit around Journa. From ships spaced one hundred twenty degrees apart, three crews looked down on a good green world and called to its inhabitants with the pure voice of mathematics.
Before long, they were hailed in return by a human female voice speaking English. “Commander of the Hugin. Tell me what these names mean to you. Devaraja Rashuri—the Pangaean Consortium.”
“Who are you—”
“I am old and tired,” she said crossly. “My questions come first.”
Flight Commander Kellen Brighamton exchanged a wondering glance with his First Pilot, then tongued the mike. “A great statesman—now dead—and a noble experiment—now disbanded.”
“The Consortium failed?” she asked, dismayed.
“More correct to say that it evolved—into the World Council of Earth, to which I have sworn service. Now—who are you that you can ask such questions?”
Joanna lifted a hand toward a technician, and a picture flashed onto the televisors of all three ships: a human face, prematurely aged by years of space radiation, unmistakably touched by the emotion of joy. Brighamton stared with disbelief at the black ellipse pinned to the collar of her blouse.
They followed, Tilak, she whispered to herself as tears spilled down her cheeks. They followed. Brighamton saw her lips move but heard no sound from his earphone. “Please repeat that.”
“I am Founder Joanna Wesley, last surviving member of the crew of Pride of Earth,” she said with quiet dignity. “Please come and meet with me.” She closed her eyes briefly as if to hide emotion. “Forgive me. I have been waiting thirty-three years to say that.”
“I understand.”
“I have reports for you. From Major Wenyuan, and Albert, and Tilak Charan—my husband Tilak, dead just a year. They will answer your questions—and give you a new question to wrestle with.”
And after we have met, she thought silently, then with God’s blessing my Journan friends can raise the final wailwood marker on that lovely hillside.
She sat track with peace in her heart to await the commander’s reply.
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