Echo

by Jack McDevitt

  Alex looked delighted. They’d been here so long they’d lost track of who they really were. “I wonder if there’s a possibility,” I asked Alex, “that they really are aliens?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That they did originate here. Is there any reason there couldn’t be a second human race? Independent of us?”

  “Probably not.” And he lit up at the suggestion. “What a discovery that would be.”

  Alex asked how far back their history went.

  “Several thousand years,” Turam said.

  “What kind of world do the earliest records describe?”

  “It’s hard to be certain. To separate myth from history. The ancient accounts talk about a golden age. People living for centuries. Living in palaces. Food was plentiful. Some of it seems to be true. There are still ruins nobody can explain.”

  “So what happened?”

  “There really is no reliable historical account. The world fell apart. Some of the religious groups will tell you that we offended God. People got away from Him and He simply shut us down. See then how well you survive without Me.”

  “Is that a quote?”

  “From the Vanova.” He saw that we had no idea what the Vanova was. “The sacred scriptures. And I can see the doubt in your eyes. A lot of people think we had a higher level of technology in ancient times. Who knows what the truth was? But, however that might have been, whatever the level of technology we might have possessed in earlier eras, we had a good life until recently. I don’t think we appreciated how well off we were until the Dark Times came. Now—” Turam sighed. “Today we are only an echo of what we were.”

  Alex told me that Seepah came by the room while I was out. “He wanted to take my temperature again.”

  “Why?”

  “He says I was running a fever when they brought me in. And that my pulse was too high.”

  “Okay.”

  “He checked everything again. Says I’m still warm. And my pulse is still out of whack.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. The equipment here’s a bit primitive.”

  Later, in the dining hall, with seven or eight sitting at the table or standing by watching, Alex broke the news: “This will come as something of a shock,” we told them through Belle’s translations, “but you should know anyhow. You’re not native to this world.”

  “That’s crazy,” one of them said. An attractive young mother with two kids. “Are you one of those crazy Horgans?”

  “Of course not,” Alex said. “But where do you think you came from?”

  “The first men and women,” the woman said, “were brought here from Mornava.”

  I looked at Turam. “Paradise,” he explained. “God’s home.”

  “Why were they brought here?”

  “According to the Vanova, it was to give them a chance to demonstrate their virtue. To show they were worthy to keep company with the Almighty.”

  “What kind of civilization,” Seepah asked, evidently hoping to change the tone, “is on Rimway? How did you get there?”

  We explained about Earth, and the technological breakthroughs, the explorations, and ultimately the deployment of human societies in a great many places along the Orion Arm.

  They weren’t sure what the Orion Arm was, but they got the idea, although many of those present denied the possibility, some laughed, and one or two walked out. “Humans originated here,” one of the older spectators said. “I don’t want to offend anybody, but these other ideas are lunacy.”

  Alex looked my way. We seldom spoke in Standard anymore. It wasn’t especially polite. But we made exceptions, and this was one. “So much for Allyra and the open mind.” Then, after a pause, “It’s funny how we named the system.”

  “What are we talking about, Alex?”

  “Echo. It’s all that’s left.”

  They had a library, of sorts. It was located in a small room at the rear of the building. They’d furnished it with two tables and four or five chairs. Seventeen books lined the shelf. We couldn’t make anything of them, of course. But Turam went through them with us, looking at each one and explaining its contents. This one was a history of Kalaan, which had been an organized nation three thousand years before and had left stone monuments of breathtaking grandeur. That one was a novel, about a man who never learned his limitations and blamed all his problems on others. Another was a book of poetry. Then there was an analysis of one of the religions. And another novel, about “people traveling to places in outer space.” Belle struggled to translate Turam’s term for the category, finally settling on grandioso. There were two collections of plays, several histories, and three books “about scientific inquiry.”

  “I suspect,” Turam said, “there will be a book written one day about your visit. If everything really is as you say, your arrival will constitute one of the historic moments.”

  In the evenings, we had constant visitors. Curiosity seekers. People who wanted us to talk to their kids. Some who wanted us to accept their worldview and stop being such ninnies. And some who just wanted to say hello.

  Alex sat through the conversations, propped up on the sofa, at first fascinated, but gradually, as he realized that our hosts didn’t know much about the history of their own world, disappointed. He had trouble concealing his feelings, at least to me. The exchanges, even with those who simply wanted to wish us well, tended to be, as you would expect, superficial. Glad to meet you. No, it doesn’t hurt that much. We’re very grateful to Turam and Seepah. Sometimes we were asked whether we had children. Were we spouses? A few, after learning we had been traveling alone, were shocked that we were not married.

  A woman who might have been a grandmother asked where Rimway was. Later, Viscenda showed up with what she described as a star chart. She gave it to Alex. He looked at it and passed it to me.

  She came over and stood beside me as I spread the chart out on a tabletop. It was hand-drawn.

  I needed time to figure out what was represented, because the chart was trying to reproduce a section of sky on a piece of paper, so Viscenda had lost a dimension. But she had most of the local stars within about eight light-years.

  She was expecting me to circle one of the stars. Instead, I drew a line out from their sun, continued it through the depicted stars to the edge of the paper, and placed the paper so the line was aimed toward a window. I went over, simulated opening the window, and pointed toward some distant trees. Alex, speaking in Standard, commented that yes, Rimway was certainly in the trees.

  But Viscenda understood what I was trying to say, and her eyes got very wide. She raised both hands over her head, said something so quickly and with so much emotion that neither I nor Belle could pick it up. I should explain that, by that point, Alex and I had both learned to handle the language on a basic scale. It was enough. We were using Belle by then simply to step in where needed.

  Of all the people present, it was Viscenda who seemed most interested in who we were, where we’d come from, and why we were there. “Be careful,” Turam warned us, “she’ll never stop asking about your travels.”

  I spent hours with her during those few days. And much of what I learned of their language and their history came from her.

  Turam and Viscenda took us into the school and let us talk with the students. Most of them knew us already, but they seemed excited to have us more or less to themselves.

  We began the day with an assembly in the auditorium, timing it for when Belle was overhead, so she could talk to everyone. They loved hearing her voice coming out of the jewelry, they were excited to talk with her, and it was there that she finally found an audience willing to credit her explanation of who and what she was.

  Turam remained skeptical. He clung to the notion that two arcane spirits lived within the bracelet and the chain. Though he confessed that it was hard to understand how it was that the same spirit seemed to speak from both pieces.
>
  “I can accept long-distance speaking,” he told us later, away from the students. “There are myths that we once possessed that kind of capability. But a machine that can think like you or me? That’s just asking too much.” And he laughed. “But I’m willing to play along.”

  The students were entranced. We’d come from the stars, we explained, from a place so far that if we placed a giant lantern out there and turned it on, everyone in the room would be older than their grandparents before they’d be able to see the light. (In fact, of course, none would live long enough, but we didn’t want to get morbid.) Moreover, we told them, the ship we’d come in was circling the world and would do so three or four more times before they completed their school day.

  At the end, we returned to the auditorium, where the principal presented us with a book that he said consisted of the speculations of generations of scientists over one of the most compelling questions they faced: Were they alone in the universe?

  “It has been the dream of generations,” he told us, “to have breakfast with the Other. We’d expected someone with a beak and green skin and possibly wings. But it turns out you look just like us. Who would have thought?” The kids applauded, and there was some talk about how silly it had been to think that aliens would look, well, alien.

  Alex was not having an easy time on his crutches, so we were glad to get back to our room. Viscenda met us there to thank us for our contribution to the school day, which she said, “Judging from what I’ve heard, went pretty well. How fast does light travel anyway?”

  It turned out they thought it moved at an infinite velocity.

  “Very fast,” Alex said. “Around the world ten times in a second. And there’s something else you should be aware of, Viscenda. Another ship will be coming for us. In several days.”

  “Good. I was going to ask about that. Your friends know then that you are in difficulty?”

  “Yes. They know.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “We were able to send them a message.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “But you said you were very far from home. How could you send such a message? When it takes so many years even to see a beam of light?”

  That led to another complicated conversation.

  On her next pass, Belle forwarded more transmissions from Audree and Robin. Robin explained how it had been raining all day along the Melony. And he’d tried out for a part with the Seaside Players’ production of All Aboard! If he got it, he’d be the main character’s goofy buddy.

  FORTY

  Forget not that God has given you a mind. It may well be that the greatest sin is a failure to use it. Take time to look above the rooftops. To question that which everyone else holds as incorruptible truth, and live so that your actions are more than a mere echo of all that has gone before.

  —The Vanova

  Alex showed everyone a picture of the tablet that had been found at Sunset Tuttle’s former home. “Anybody have any idea what it is?”

  No one did.

  “Does anyone recognize the language?”

  More headshaking.

  “It might be Arinok,” said Seepah. “It looks a little bit as if it might be.”

  Turam studied the picture. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “What’s Arinok?”

  “Ancient language. From the Bagadeish. They used to carve stuff like this on their tombs.”

  “But you can’t read it?”

  “No. I’m not even sure that’s what it is.”

  “Is there anyone here we could ask?”

  They looked at one another.

  Most evenings, there was a party going on in the dining hall. People who’d spent the day constructing irrigation ditches and planting seeds for the coming season picked up wind and string instruments. They had drums, and they even produced a couple of singers with some talent. But the energy was missing. I got a sense of people trying hard to be happy.

  The conversations roamed near and far. “You had electricity at one time,” we told them. Actually, they had no word for electricity, so we resorted to the Standard term. “But the places we’ve been to had only candles and gas lamps for light. What happened?”

  Seepah smiled. Painfully. “What is electricity?”

  Alex tried to explain. Seepah smiled tolerantly and shook his head. “I’m reluctant to say this, but it sounds as if you’re making it up. Lightning, you say?”

  A young woman who’d served as one of Seepah’s aides wanted to know how the vehicle we’d been riding floated in air. “Well,” she corrected herself, “it didn’t exactly float, but it wasn’t really falling, either.”

  Alex asked me if I wanted to explain about antigravity.

  But I had no idea how the system worked. “Push a button,” I said, “and you lift off.”

  Then there was the material from which our clothes were made. I was wearing my own blouse that day, and one resident fingered the sleeve. “It’s so soft.”

  We had drawn a crowd, as usual, and they ooohed and aaahed with every revelation.

  “Are you aware,” Alex asked, “that you’ve been off-world? Sometime in the past?”

  They laughed. “You mean to the moons?”

  “Better than that,” Alex said.

  “Never happened.” An older man who always walked with a cane shook his head. “I’ve read every history book there is,” he said. “Nobody says anything about it. It’s just superstition. It can’t be done.”

  I was tempted to point out there were only five or six histories at the compound. But there was no point starting an argument.

  Someone else, a middle-aged woman, credited us with marvelous imaginations. “When we went off-world,” she asked, “where exactly did we go?”

  That generated laughter.

  When it had subsided, Alex’s reply created another skeptical reaction: “You, your forebears, have been to the second world in your system.”

  “We’ve traveled to Zhedar?”

  “If that’s the second world.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “It’s true.”

  “How do you know?” The questions were coming from all sides.

  “We’ve been there.”

  More laughter. Then, maybe, something else. The mockery drained out of the room. “What’s it like?” The question was asked by a teenage boy.

  “It’s a lot like here. Except you’d weigh a little less.”

  That got still more laughter.

  A young man had been sitting listening, taking it all in. His beard was just starting to grow. “Well,” he said, “I’m not going to say there’s a mistake somewhere, but next time you go back, Alex, I’d love to go along.”

  Viscenda was there at the time. She smiled politely at Alex’s claim. “I’ve heard that story,” she said. “It appears in everybody’s mythology. They rode winged steeds.” She smiled at us. “But even you and your partner would have to admit it’s a little hard to believe.”

  Sestor was an oversized male with a gray beard and a polished skull. He’d been wearing a superior smile throughout, as if listening to nonsense. Now he broke in: “Even if we had the means,” he said, “there’s no reason to go anywhere else. We’re unique. The universe is empty.”

  “What about our guests?” asked a man seated beside him who looked ancient.

  “Look,” Sestor said patiently, “I don’t want to offend anybody, but you can see they’re just like us. They’re from here. I don’t understand that thing they were running around in, but there’s no difference between them and the rest of us. For God’s sake, people, use your eyes.”

  “I agree,” said a woman with a serene expression. “Nobody really exists out there.” She looked apologetically at Alex, and at me. “I’m sorry. But your claims just don’t make sense. They fly in the face of everything we know to be true. But even if there were some truth to your story, I’d suggest we let it go. Our job is to repair the damage here. If we can. This is the on
ly world that matters.”

  And then there was Kayla, a resident member of the staff. “We’ve blundered away the gift of the Almighty,” he said. “I’ve never been one of those who was forever saying that God had grown to find us despicable. But one thing is certain: We’re being tested.”

  “There is no God,” said one of the others, a young man with fire in his eyes. “If there were, where was He when we needed Him?”

  Turam, beside me, whispered his name. “Hakim. He’s an atheist.”

  “Mind,” said Hakim, “is the only thing that’s sacred.”

  “Well.” Alex reached for his crutches. “Time to head for the salad bar.”

  “I think it’s silly,” said Turam, “to deny what Alex tells us. He has no reason to lie. And ask yourself whether anyone in this world could devise a vehicle that floats.” He looked at the others, defying anyone to argue the point. Then he turned to us: “We always believed, most of us did, that we were alone. Yet here you are. You look like us, but you’re alien.”

  “I don’t feel like an alien,” I said. Belle had drifted out of range, but it almost didn’t matter anymore. “We don’t really know what the truth is. But I’ll bet we’re from the same line.” (I didn’t know how to say species, but I thought line worked better anyhow.)

  Some witticisms went back and forth. And a young man, about nineteen, who’d stopped to listen, leered at me, and said, “I hope so.”

  Then Turam asked an unexpected question: “Is there purpose to the universe?”

  “I think that’s a bit above our competency level,” said Alex.

  A couple of people rolled their eyes. “That is the short answer,” said Hakim. “But surely an advanced culture has thought about these things, Chase.” (They all tended to pronounce my name “Cheese.”) “There must, for example, be an advantage in being alive. A reason for it, wouldn’t you say?”