The Next Continent

by Issui Ogawa

  Cui’s grip was firm. He beamed. “Well, we’d better see what’s for dinner. The buffet looks impressive.” The two astronauts started making their way toward the food.

  “I’m not surprised. All they get at Kunlun is Chinese,” said Tae. Sohya burst out laughing.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see a woman in a gold dress flashy enough to show up even the bride. With her was a heavyset, bearded man in jeans and a print T-shirt.

  “That’s an amazing dress,” said Tae. “The design is wonderful.”

  “Made it myself.” Caroline Cadbury plucked a glass of champagne from a tray skillfully maneuvered around the room by Mikimoto. She took a sip. “I didn’t have a thing to wear at Liberty Island. I made this out of micrometeoroid film. I feel a little like Sputnik.”

  “I didn’t know you were a seamstress.”

  “I’d be glad to make one for you. What’re your measurements?” Caroline started eyeing her.

  “Oh, um, I’m fine with this dress…”

  “Relax and enjoy yourselves,” said Sohya. “There’s plenty of food.” As if on cue, Kashiwabara emerged from the kitchen, followed close behind by Kiwa, who was carrying a tureen.

  “Careful, now—that soup’s a lot hotter at the bottom!” he shouted.

  “I can handle the soup, thanks,” said Kiwa, rolling his eyes and pushing the chef back into the kitchen.

  Sohya shook his head sadly. “This is our tenth reception. He’s got to start trusting the service people.”

  “Maybe he’s used to doing everything himself,” said Caroline. “Listen, we have to get back to the Island. Hope to see you over there soon.” She put her glass down and strode away.

  “What’s the hurry?” called Sohya

  “Star Road. I’m not much for partying. I can’t hang out here while the rest of my people are working.”

  Lambach laughed. “After all the time you spent working on that dress?”

  “Now, now. Watch your manners. Come on!” She disappeared into the crowd.

  Lambach shrugged. “Sorry about that. I think she’s jealous.”

  “Then we’re honored,” said Sohya.

  “I’d better go. Oh, I almost forgot. This is for you. Just our way of saying thanks for inviting us.” He held out his wearcom and smiled.

  “Hm?” Sohya did the same. Lambach transferred the file and left them. Tae peered at Sohya’s wearcom.

  “What is it?”

  “Some kind of report. I’ll take a look at it later.”

  They walked slowly around the room. Along with Sixth Continent staff and space agency people like Jiang and Caroline, several female friends of the bride as well as her parents mingled. Reika’s friends and family were the only “civilian” guests, but they seemed very much at home, laughing and chatting as they strolled lightly around in the low gravity.

  The oldest guest of all sat near the wall, wearing a string tie with a jade clasp and warming a wine glass in his hands. Sohya and Tae went over to greet him. “Are you tired, Mr. Sando?” asked Tae.

  “Oh no, I’m fine. I’m having a wonderful time, thanks to Gotoba. And Mr. Toenji gave me his seat on Apple.” He smiled peacefully.

  Gotoba and Sennosuke had yet to visit the moon. Both of them should be here, thought Sohya, but each had his own reason for refusing. The last time Sohya and Tae had seen him, Sennosuke had only recently begun using a wheelchair. “Twenty years ago I took Tae all over the world. Now that she has someone else to take care of her, I can relax.”

  “Grandfather, why don’t you let me take you to the moon?” Tae had asked.

  “I don’t need you to take me anywhere. I can still walk anytime I want.” He was almost out of the chair before Sohya and Tae hurriedly restrained him.

  Gotoba had offered his seat on Apple in a company raffle; it went to someone from the Sapporo office. “The boss keeps saying he’ll only come here if he pays for it himself,” said Sohya. “Well, it’s going to get a lot cheaper soon.”

  “I doubt he’ll come,” said Sando. “He wants our younger engineers to get hands-on experience. Developing the moon is going to take a lot of work. He says it’s time for the next generation to take over. Oldsters on the verge of retirement shouldn’t be taking up space on Apple. That means I shouldn’t be here either. You know, I’ve got a pacemaker.” He pointed to his string tie. “I thought it would be a good way to demonstrate the reliability of our launch vehicles, to show that an old man with a heart condition can go to the moon. I’m here as a guinea pig.”

  “Mr. Sando, you’re not a guinea pig.”

  “Someone has to do it. Besides, old people like to travel.” He winked. “Don’t worry, I’m not exerting myself. Now go have some fun, you two.”

  The bride was throwing frequent glances in their direction from the head table, but Tae steered Sohya over to Aaron. With an appropriately solemn expression, the old priest was methodically tucking into a plate of cheese with a pair of chopsticks.

  “Thanks for such a lovely ceremony, Aaron.”

  “Hello, Tae. You choreographed things beautifully.”

  “I think those vestments look better on you than the Shinto robes did.”

  “It was Ryuichi’s request. Reika wanted a Shinto ceremony.”

  “Sorry about that last-minute change.”

  “Don’t worry. My wish for the couple’s happiness is the same in either religion. But I can only conduct Catholic weddings for non-Catholics. When I go home on the next rotation, you should get some real priests.”

  “But you are a real priest,” said Sohya.

  Tae laughed. “We’re looking for people from other religions to officiate. Couples of other faiths will have to wait till there’s someone up here who can marry them. Still, I’d like you to conduct the Catholic weddings.”

  “It’ll be difficult to get devout Catholics to come here for a few years. The Vatican still doesn’t approve.”

  Tae looked disappointed. “A few years? Will they approve someday?”

  “A friend in Rome says Star Road has the Vatican tied up in knots. There’s nothing in the Bible about God creating aliens.” He smiled mischievously. “The archbishops and cardinals are racking their brains trying to square the existence of life on other planets with the Church’s teachings. But I’m sure they’ll find a way to integrate it into doctrine, just as they did with evolution. And if they can do that, they can accept people living on the moon. Then Catholics can marry here without any conflict.”

  “Will it take a long time?”

  “It took the Church 350 years to apologize for Galileo’s persecution. I wouldn’t hold your breath. But once they sanction marriage on the moon, they won’t rescind the decision.” Aaron nodded toward the head table. “That’s enough theology for now. Go say hello to the bride. She’s waiting.”

  Sohya and Tae approached the head table. Reika was bare shouldered in a snow-white dress and appeared to be on the verge of tears.

  “Congratulations, Reika,” said Tae.

  “Do I look strange? I think I’m too old for this dress. It’s so embarrassing—”

  “Don’t be silly. You look beautiful. You must be very happy.” Tae wasted no time handing her a handkerchief. Reika daubed at her eyes.

  Sohya raised his glass. “Ryuichi, congratulations. Now I understand—this is why you decided to come on board with Sixth Continent, right?”

  “Come on. Meeting Reika was a stroke of luck, pure and simple. We registered our marriage a while ago. I wasn’t going to let her get away. I’ve paid my respects to Shinji as well, so I’m a happy man.”

  Forceful as ever, Ryuichi was also flushed. Evidently he’d been enjoying the wine. He leaned forward. “Listen, Aomine, you should be sitting here too. Isn’t it about time?”

  “What? Um, well, I don’t know…” He stammered and looked at Tae, who returned his gaze thoughtfully.

  Someone else was at the head table: Kiichiro Toenji. “Ryuichi’s right. If Tae were
getting married too, it would save me a trip.”

  “Father! Please, it’s our decision to make.”

  “Really? After all that pressure you put on me?” he said, unruffled. Tae had extracted his promise to hold a proper wedding ceremony in honor of her mother, but later she’d realized it was unfair. Surely her mother would have wanted Kiichiro to remarry if at all possible.

  “As your father, I have a right to say this. Don’t think you can keep putting it off forever. Being busy is no excuse. Ryuichi and I are busy too, preparing for the next phase of construction.”

  “He’s right, Tae,” said Reika. “Don’t wait. The time goes so quickly!”

  “You couldn’t be more convincing,” laughed Sohya.

  “Sohya, you’re terrible!”

  Everyone chuckled. A strobe flashed; Sumoto was covering the event with a trio of cameras around his neck and a camcorder. “Smile, everyone. Sixth Continent’s founders in one place. This will make great publicity!”

  Tae tugged Sohya’s sleeve. “Publicity is not what I’m in the mood for,” she whispered.

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  “Hey, I’m the man of the hour here!” said Ryuichi, stepping in front of the camera. He winked at Sohya. “You should get going.”

  They left the hall as the other guests looked on.

  THE GREENHOUSE ON the roof of the SELS module was now large enough to allow the cultivation of trees. Sohya and Tae stole inside and sat down under a kenaf tree. Tae took off her heels.

  “Do your feet hurt?”

  “Not in this gravity. But its feels better barefoot.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t dressed up. Yaenami was ready to turn us into sacrificial lambs.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I was ready to be sacrificed.” She looked at him and smiled.

  They gazed through the glass walls of the greenhouse toward Eden Crater. The ceiling and walls toward the sun were leaded glass to attenuate the radiation flux, but the glass on the crater side was transparent. Through it they could see a structure of such titanic scale that it might have been a hallucination. Rising up out of the crater and extending for ninety kilometers directly west was an enormous golden ramp. The end of the ramp was lost in the distance. Cargo containers of different sizes moved ceaselessly up it, rapidly shrinking to the size of poppy seeds and accelerating before being lost to sight.

  A year ago—six months before Sixth Continent opened—ENG had emerged from the ice and built the kernel of Star Road. After a detailed investigation, its function was clear. Embedded in the surface of the nascent ramp were tens of thousands of small, coiled structures, regularly distributed on their long axis.

  The discovery provoked astonishment. This was exactly the structure needed to accelerate a magnetized object. The ramp pointed west, in the direction of the moon’s rotation.

  ENG was poised to grow into a mass driver on a titanic scale. Such a structure could accelerate objects to escape velocity and beyond without the use of fuel. The seed sown in Eden Crater was ready to complete its growth.

  It was human nature to want to finish the structure and see if it could be put to use. Naturally this aroused fierce opposition on Earth. The intelligence behind ENG and its mechanism of growth was a complete enigma. Meddling with it would be like inviting a chimpanzee to play with a nuclear warhead. Star Road was not something ephemeral like a radio transmission. It was a real object, perhaps a terrible weapon designed to send a destructive device toward Earth.

  That possibility could not be ruled out. But after further consideration, opposition faded. Heat and light provided the energy for ENG’s growth, but only on the moon. Further tests showed that the fibers grew in as little as 1 percent Earth gravity, but not in true weightlessness. Furthermore, there was no growth above one-third G. This meant ENG was designed for minor planets, moons, or asteroids, but not for Earth.

  If they were hostile—even if they had only planned to utilize the earth for some benign purpose—the Architects who had started it all could easily have modified ENG for Earth’s environment. With its extreme efficiency in converting energy into growth, an Earth-based ENG could have shaped its surroundings in any way the Architects desired. But they had sown their seed on the moon.

  There were questions about that as well. ENG was planted not in the full light of the sun, but in the eternal darkness of the shadow zone. That meant it required something else: water. Yet the earth offered far more water than the moon, water without limit. The only conclusion that could be drawn was that ENG had been deliberately sown where it would not encounter life. The message from the southern skies reinforced this conclusion. ENG’s creators had deliberately chosen a frequency that would not penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, though they could easily have determined that Earth’s atmosphere contained oxygen if they’d wanted to communicate with Earth. Clearly they did not want their message overheard.

  Such actions suggested an intention to preserve Earth from harm. Gradually, fewer people worried that tampering with this creation of a mysterious intelligence might trigger some sort of retribution. Common sense dictated that where there was food, there would be an eater—that was the definition of life. Refraining from doing so when presented with the opportunity was a hallmark of benevolent intelligence. This was the ultimate reason to trust the Architects.

  Just before Sixth Continent formally opened, scientists at Liberty Island once more exposed the structure to sunlight. At that point it was still within the shadow zone; Caroline’s team cautiously used only 1 percent as much solar energy as before. The structure immediately resumed its growth. In less than a month, it was complete.

  As ENG emerged into the sunlight, it had all the energy it needed to grow. But when the ramp reached ninety kilometers, growth suddenly ceased, and electricity from solar energy immediately began flowing through the coils in the ramp. When a storage container studded with magnets was placed on the ramp, it accelerated past the moon’s escape velocity and was hurled into interplanetary space. The ramp had no other function and displayed no further growth, though it now had access to unlimited solar energy. Whoever the Architects were, they were not ENG itself. ENG was a tool.

  The two bases immediately put this useful implement to good use. Still, the debate continued: Why this structure? Why on the moon? Two things were clear: the Architects did not possess ultra-advanced technology, otherwise they would not have chosen a mass driver to escape from the moon’s gravity; and they had not yet been to the moon, otherwise they would have left a complete structure behind instead of merely its seed.

  This suggested that the Architects might not be so very different from humankind. The mass driver accelerated objects at a constant three gravities. If the Architects were planning to use it, that meant their physical structure was roughly similar to that of humans in terms of structural strength. If they were capable of withstanding greater stress, Star Road would have been shorter, with higher acceleration. This was likely an intelligent species with reasoning processes analogous to humans and bodies at least somewhat similar. Would they return to visit their creation? Because of humanity’s actions, Star Road had emerged earlier than planned. Would this prove to be a mistake?

  Tae rested quietly, her head on Sohya’s shoulders. Idly, he called up Lambach’s report and began glancing through it. Suddenly he stood up.

  “What’s wrong?” Tae saw he was looking not toward the crater, but at his wearcom.

  “I don’t believe it. This report is an analysis of signals between Star Road and the Architects over the last few months. They’ve been communicating quite a bit.”

  “Did Liberty crack the code?” Tae was now looking excitedly at the wearcom.

  “No, but the interval between exchanges indicates the distance to the Architects: only five trillion kilometers, about half a light year. Not only that, their transmissions are Doppler shifted. This says that when the first message was sent, they were moving toward us at about two thousand kilo
meters a second. That would get them here eighty years from now. But the Doppler shift of the last transmission was much greater. Now they’re moving close to ten thousand kilometers per second, about 3 percent light speed. They’ll be here in fifteen years, give or take. They’ll need time to decelerate when they get closer, of course. But we’ll be around when they arrive.”

  “Star Road must’ve told them it’s ready and waiting. They moved up their schedule.”

  “Yes, but why bother?”

  “Because now they know about us too. So that means they’re coming to meet us…”

  “There’s no other reason for them to hurry,” Sohya said. “It’s what you or I would do if we were late for a meeting. Without our intervention, ENG would have grown anyway, just far more slowly, in time for the Architects’ arrival. And extrapolating growth rates back from before Liberty Island’s first experiment, it looks like ENG was only planted 150 years ago. It’s too much of a coincidence—the Architects acted because they were aware of human activities on Earth.”

  “But why take the trouble to physically come here? Are we sure they just want to communicate? We can’t decode their signals, and they didn’t exactly make it easy for us to notice them. They haven’t acknowledged the signals we’ve sent in the same direction. Maybe we’re like fish in an aquarium, and they’re just stopping by to check up on us? In any case, once they get here, what do we do?”

  “Maybe we should get ready to welcome them.”

  Tae looked suddenly somber. “I hope we can do it peacefully. Some people will say we should arm ourselves to the teeth. And Star Road just makes it easier.”

  “We can’t be certain they’ll come in peace, you know.”

  Tae looked toward the ramp. “I have to admit I’m a little scared. Maybe we should at least think about preparing some sort of defense.”

  “What happens if there’s a misunderstanding? You know how easily a minor falling-out can poison a relationship.”

  Tae blushed. She’d been needlessly estranged from her father for years. The same thing had almost happened with Sohya.

  He put his arm around her. “Don’t worry. The Architects know they’re dealing with an intelligent species. They know we were capable of waking up Star Road. Now they’re hurrying to meet us. Maybe they’re worried that we’ve hijacked their creation, but if they have the power to build something like that, they could’ve designed ENG to defend itself as soon as we started messing with it. So far their technology has been used only to create, not destroy. I think they’ll be worthy of our respect.”