When the display finally stopped, Katherine stepped down and the light turned off. Nearly silent, the machine could not cover up their labored breathing, a product of the emotional impact of what they just saw. No one spoke at first. Some looked around at their companions, as if searching for someone who had an answer, or at least comfort. Others stared at something only they could see. The sergeant coughed, a tentative prelude to a speech, but did not go through with it. The two robots, having finished their jobs, closed a lid, sealed it shut and left, bound for some other duty in some other part of the ship. After the silence of the team grew uncomfortable, it was Alistair who finally spoke.
“Let’s go home,” was his cheerless suggestion.
Chapter 92
The species displays had a universal interface, a cord with a gelatinous end that shaped itself around any plug and filled any outlet. Through this cord they downloaded the contents of the Comlat, essentially the entirety of human knowledge, and thereafter Homo sapiens had its own display in that two billion year old museum. Millions of years in the future, another intrepid boarding party would stand before it and discover the human race.
The ancient vessel’s lights turned off while they were en route to their ship in the transport pod. Illuminated now only by The Spirit, it moved for the first time in cycles. It accelerated at a rate far in excess of one g and, in the interstellar darkness, disappeared in seconds.
Back on The Spirit, a weighty despondence seized the passengers who remained behind as much as the team on the alien ship. Nothing seemed worth saying. There was no good news, no bright side and no reason to dally. If the Captain needed time to collect his thoughts, explore his feelings or somehow mull over the experience, he found enough of it while the team made their way back. Directly the marines and scientists docked, the Captain cut the artificial gravity, rotated The Spirit so its roof pointed towards Aldra, and took off.
Alistair sank into a black humor. His spleen was in harmony with his customary taciturnity, but had nothing of its usual aloofness. Never devoutly opposed to companionship, he nevertheless often preferred some measure of solitude. Now, though he did not much interact, he sought company, or at least its periphery. He might have locked himself in his quarters; instead, he lingered in the cafeteria, usually seated alone at a table but near where others sat, or where one might expect them to show up.
One day, he came alive again. Walking into the cafeteria, he spotted Katherine and Louise sitting together. They eyed him with the sort of uncertainty with which a husband views his wife when he knows she is angry about something. He managed a weak smile and gripped Katherine’s shoulder. When she stood up, he embraced her, and then he embraced Louise as well. All the tension and resentment drained out of her; she accepted his hug and returned it. When they sat down, it was with a sense of relief.
“We should spend our lives being happy, spend the only lives we’ll ever have making each other happy. Why do we do… what we do to each other?” he wondered aloud.
The women could only shake their heads at first, but Katherine finally spoke.
“When a ball of gas collapses into itself, the pressure ignites the hydrogen, and for a long time equilibrium is reached. Gravity wants to destroy the star, the ignited hydrogen saves it. Eventually, the hydrogen runs out, and gravity makes the star collapse further until only the neutrons stop it. If there is enough matter, if the star was massive enough, even the neutrons are overwhelmed and the star collapses into a single metron. In its place is a black hole.
“Why does every star have to collapse?” She shrugged her shoulders. “It lived and then it died. It’s the nature of things. The same nature that allowed it to live had another side.”
Alistair slowly shook his head, in disappointment more than disagreement. “A molecule can’t learn to disobey a physical law. A star will collapse, but why must a civilization? Humans can learn. So why don’t we?” He directed his gaze out a window, into space, as if the answer he sought might be among the stars. “We have among us those who act to destroy society, but there are also some who act to save it. Maybe neither is fully aware of the larger picture, but that’s what their actions add up to. Society dies when the destroyers aren’t held in check, when those who know better are too few, too weak, or just don’t fight hard enough.” With a firm resolve and a delicate agony, he gave them his conclusion. “I must return to Srillium. All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
The acceleration was eventually completed, three weeks were spent in hyperspace and The Spirit decelerated. Upon returning to spacetime, they sent to traffic control a signal of their return. After nine hours, which should have been enough time for their signal to reach Aldra and an acknowledgement to be sent back, their radio was still quiet. Many days of silence later they were in orbit. On the night side they saw a dishearteningly sparse display of city lights. Only a fraction of yestercycle’s electricity was being generated.
No orbiting space station replied to their incessant queries, and two that should have been visible to them were gone. They detected some sparse chatter on radio waves, nothing like the full, robust noise of a vibrant civilization, but rather infrequent whispers. None of the more powerful radios, designed to communicate over distances of lighthours, seemed to be operating. On the bridge of The Spirit, there was a brief deliberation over what to do.
It was Katherine who made the decision. With the cavalier shrug of one who fears no further consequence, she said, “We are free to go where we want. As a girl I always wanted to see Istaria.” Alistair and the Captain gave her queer looks, and she shrugged again. “Why not? We’re not going to miss anything.”
The Captain, suddenly seized by a fit of humor, belted out a desperate guffaw at the incongruity of her suggestion, but also discovered he, too, feared no further consequence.
“We’ll set down next to Istaria,” he promised.
Istaria was Aldra’s grandest park of attractions, boasting the greatest roller coasters, displays, restaurants, theaters and anything else one could imagine. A short while after their discussion on the bridge, The Spirit of the Revolution touched down just outside the famous gates where evening was setting in on the heels of the departing sun.
The park was deserted, a mausoleum for once great rides, where the skeletons of roller coasters and the empty husks of theaters waited to decay, where nothing breathed and nothing moved. Having taken, as its sustenance, the leisure time and spending power of a society that produces, however fitfully, it had long since starved to death. Sidewalks sported cracks through which weeds would soon sprout. The roller coasters, though resistant to rust, were yet coated with grime, and one theater’s partially collapsed roof gave testimony to the vulnerability of even the most advanced materials. Rain spouts clogged, water pooled on roofs, a million particles carried by wind lashed at structures, wearing them down like waves wear down a rock. Nothing was permanent, and without upkeep it would decompose.
Most of the passengers lingered around the ship. Many remained on board. Confused, they scratched their heads and awaited the outcome of the excursion, indifferent to it.
Louise, Katherine and Alistair wandered for a time through the silent park. On Katherine’s face Alistair could read the play of her thoughts as she imagined thrills and delights she would never experience. Eventually the autumn air grew chill and Katherine asked Alistair to build them a fire. He left to collect wood and grab a tool from The Spirit. When he returned, Louise and Katherine were sitting in one of the carriages of a Ferris Wheel.
“I brought some food,” he said, but neither woman responded.
He arranged his logs and kindling and, with a laser garnered from The Spirit, set fire to the doomed pieces of wood. As the flames consumed them, the leaves limply hanging from the twigs began to wither. The wood turned black and popped. One of the logs toppled over and the resultant crash sent sparks into the air where a chill, dry breeze carried them away. The tiny flaming specks eventu
ally burned out, became invisible, and thereafter it was impossible to say whither they flew.
THE END
Table of Contents
PART I
PART II
PART III
Table of Contents
PART I
PART II
PART III
Withûr We Page 99