by Ben Bova
His phone buzzed. Yanking it from his shirt pocket, he saw Adri’s lined face on its tiny screen. The old man was beaming brightly.
“Aditi tells me that Dr. Thornberry’s download went very well,” he said.
“It did indeed,” Jordan said cheerfully, without breaking stride.
“I am pleased.”
“I’m overjoyed.”
“Apparently Dr. Rudaki is finding what she came for among the astronomers.”
“That’s where I’m heading now,” Jordan said.
“Yes, I know.”
Of course you know, Jordan said silently. You know every move we make.
Aloud, he replied to Adri, “Will you join us for dinner this evening?”
Adri chuckled softly. “Your affinity for mixing sociability with meals is putting weight on me.”
Jordan laughed. “A couple of kilos won’t hurt you.”
“Perhaps not,” Adri agreed, smiling back at Jordan. “This evening, then, in the dining hall.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“Seven will be fine.”
Jordan snapped the phone shut and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. He saw the observatory no more than two blocks ahead.
Entering the observatory was like entering a cathedral. Even though the telescopes were not working in the daytime, once he stepped into the main section of the building, with its domed roof and skyward-pointing instruments, Jordan felt an almost religious kind of awe and majesty.
He remembered a line of Galileo’s: Astronomers seek to investigate the true constitution of the universe, the most important and the most admirable problem that there is.
As he stood there gaping, a young man in a comfortably loose white tunic and dark blue slacks hurried across the observatory’s stone floor toward him.
“Mr. Kell! Welcome.”
Jordan dipped his chin a notch. “Thank you. May I ask what your name is?”
The young astronomer hesitated a moment, looking blank, puzzled, but at last answered, “In your language, my name is Mitra.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mitra.”
He was a pleasant-faced young man, a shade taller than Jordan yet somehow softer-looking, as if he had not yet outgrown his baby fat. His hair was a light brown color, sandy, so wispy that the slightest waft of air sent it flying.
“You’re here to see Dr. Rudaki, I presume,” Mitra said, smiling brightly at Jordan.
“Yes. Can you take me to her?”
“With pleasure. She’s in the conference room with the top staff.”
Mitra led Jordan across the hushed observatory, past the slanting gridwork of the resting telescopes, and up a steel stairway that clanged echoingly with every step they took. He stopped at a closed door, tapped on it with a knuckle, then slid it open.
There were ten people seated around a long table, with Elyse at its foot, Brandon sitting beside her. They both looked grim. Five other men and three women, Jordan saw. One of the men, chunky and barrel-chested, with short-cropped dark brown hair, was on his feet at the head of the table. The wall screens displayed astronomical images from ceiling to floor, swirling clouds of stars, vast glowing streams of gas, dark veils of obscuring dust.
“Mr. Kell,” said the standing man. “Welcome to our little colloquium.” He gestured to an empty chair at the foot of the table, next to Elyse and Brandon. They’ve been expecting me, Jordan realized.
The astronomer introduced the men and women seated around the table, then ended with, “I am Hari, chief astronomer.”
Jordan nodded a hello to each of them in turn as he went to the chair and sat in it.
“We have been showing Dr. Rudaki and Dr. Kell images and data concerning the gamma ray eruption at the galactic core.”
As Hari spoke, the images on the walls changed. Like a slide show, Jordan thought.
“Most of these images are more than twelve thousand years old,” the astronomer went on, just the slightest bit pompous. “I’m afraid their quality has degraded a bit over time, but they are still useful.”
Hari explained that the images looked inward, toward the heart of the galaxy, where the stars were so thickly clustered that they showed as one bright continuous glow. The images shifted, and Jordan guessed that they were showing the same field of view in different wavelengths: optical, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and finally—
“And this is the gamma-ray view,” Hari intoned.
The background of the galaxy’s heart disappeared in the final view, smothered by a blazing wave of gamma radiation. The images flicked every few seconds; the wave grew bigger with each change, like a menacing tsunami growing, surging, coming closer.
“That’s the most recent image we have,” said Hari, as the pictures froze on the walls. Jordan felt surrounded by an almost palpable menace.
Elyse said, “All these images were taken from Hari’s homeworld, before the Predecessors sent out the mission that arrived here.”
“Before Hari and Adri and all these people were created,” Brandon added.
“Yes,” Hari answered, from the front of the room.
“And what happened to your homeworld when the gamma burst engulfed it? What happened to your ancestors?”
Hari looked slightly uncomfortable, but he answered, “They had already gone extinct. Our homeworld was occupied by inorganic entities. Had been for many thousands of years. Your years.”
“Inorganic—you mean, like the Predecessor.”
One of the women across the table replied, “Not precisely. More like our predecessors.”
Jordan blinked and shook his head. “Your history goes back a long way.”
“More than thirty million of your years,” said Hari.
“And this gamma burst?”
“It’s real, Jordy,” said Brandon. “Elyse has been going over the evidence with these people all morning. Not merely imagery, but measurements of the energy intensity in the eruption.” His face was somber. “It’s like a wave of death hurtling toward us.”
“Toward you, and dozens of other intelligent species in your section of the Orion arm,” said Hari. “Most of those species have not yet reached the level of high technology. Most of them have no way of knowing about the coming disaster—unless you reach them and save them.”
Fixing his gaze on Elyse and Brandon, Jordan asked them, “Are you certain?”
Brandon nodded, his lips a tight, rigid line. Elyse said, “There’s no denying it.”
Jordan thought about how many apparent truths had been denied in the past. How many human beings had died because some men made up their minds to ignore the truth, to overlook the data, to denigrate those who warned of impending problems. Wars that could have been stopped before they started. Diseases that spread because people denied their reality. The greenhouse warming that was changing Earth’s climate: it could have been averted, or at least mitigated.
He shook his head, trying to focus on the here and now.
“Absolutely certain?” he repeated to Elyse.
Very solemnly she replied, “Absolutely.”
Jordan pulled in a deep breath. “Then we’ve got to decide what to do about it.”
Brandon said, “Right. And the first step is to convince Meek.”
FACTIONS
They were a subdued group as they rode the buggy back to the camp the following morning. Longyear drove, as usual, with Jordan sitting beside him. Thornberry and de Falla occupied the second row, Elyse and Brandon the third.
“You should have let them pump their biology program into your brain, Paul,” Thornberry said as they went along the trail.
“Maybe,” Longyear replied guardedly.
From the rear, Brandon quipped, “We’re still waiting to see if you turn into an alien clone or something, Mitch.”
“A leprechaun, more likely,” Thornberry rejoined.
De Falla turned in his seat to face Elyse. “You’re absolutely certain that what they’re telling us is true?”
Looking as if she were tired of answering the same question over and again, she answered, “Absolutely certain. Yes.”
“Data can be faked.”
“I know,” said Elyse. “But they have such a massive amount of data. Visual imagery, radio telescope returns, gamma ray measurements. I looked for inconsistencies, for flaws … it all appears to be true.”
“Appears,” de Falla said.
Elyse stared at him for several silent moments, then said, “I suppose at the heart of everything is the fact that I trust them. They’re astronomers and astrophysicists, not politicians. They deal with observations and measurements, not rhetoric.”
Jordan said over his shoulder, “Have you shown their data to Zadar?”
“Yes. Demetrios agrees, the data are conclusive.”
Brandon said, “The only question now is, what are we going to do about it?”
Jordan replied, “We try to convince Harmon. He’s our test case. If we can’t convince him, we won’t have the ghost of a chance of convincing the movers and shakers back on Earth.”
Without taking his eyes off the trail twisting through the trees, Longyear said, “Well, you’ve just about got me convinced.”
Surprised, Jordan asked, “You’re not totally sure?”
“Adri and his people wouldn’t be the first to speak with forked tongues.”
“Oh, for god’s sake!”
“Think about it,” Longyear insisted. “We know they’ve got terrific technologies. I’m itching to learn about their biotech. But suppose they’re using technological tricks to convince us about this gamma eruption?”
That silenced the rest of them.
Until Jordan said, “If they are, and there’s no gamma wave threatening Earth, then why did they invent such a story?”
“How should I know?” Longyear said.
“But on the other hand,” Jordan went on, “if the gamma burst truly is real, we’d be consigning the entire human race to extinction if we did nothing.”
“We’d be consigning the whole human race to falling for some alien scheme if we swallow their story,” Longyear countered.
Thornberry piped up, “By their fruits you shall know them.”
“What?”
“From the Bible. You can determine what’s good and what’s bad by looking at the consequences of the way people behave.”
“But we don’t know the consequences,” de Falla pointed out. “We won’t know the consequences for another two thousand years.”
Jordan said, “I think I see what Mitch is driving at. If we fail to act and the threat is real, the human race dies. If we do act and the threat is a fake, then … what?”
“Are we willing to take the chance?” Thornberry asked.
“Do we have the right to take that chance?” Jordan replied.
“Certain death versus some unknown motive of the aliens,” said de Falla.
“Some choice,” Brandon said.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jordan insisted.
“Try telling that to Meek,” said Brandon.
RESOLUTION
As soon as they reached the camp, Brandon called a meeting of the entire group. Jordan watched with a mixture of amusement and anxiety as they filed into the dining area. He, his brother, Elyse, and Thornberry sat on one side of the long table. Meek, Longyear, and de Falla chose the other, facing them. Jordan was surprised and a little disheartened when Yamaguchi came in, looked at the lineup, and chose Meek’s side. Verishkova sat beside Thornberry.
Hazzard, Zadar, and Trish Wanamaker were on the screen at the foot of the table. No telling which side they’d be on if they were here, Jordan thought.
Once everyone was settled in their chairs, Brandon slowly got to his feet. Reluctantly, Jordan thought.
“Mitchell has taken the brain boost,” he began, “and he seems no worse for it.”
From the screen, Hazzard quipped, “He’s become a nuisance, pestering me to build an energy shield for the ship.”
Most of the people around the table chuckled.
“It’s astounding, it is,” Thornberry enthused. “I got a university education in physics, I did—inside of a few hours.”
“And what else did they pump into your brain?” Meek asked, his long face scowling.
Thornberry shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Nothing, far as I can tell.”
“As far as you can tell.”
Jordan started to reply to the astrobiologist, but hesitated, looking to his brother. Bran’s in charge, let him handle this.
But Brandon turned to Elyse and said, “Tell them about the gamma burst.”
Looking straight at Meek, Elyse said in a measured tone, “All the evidence I have seen convinces me that the danger is real. The core of the galaxy gave off an enormous burst of gamma energy some twenty-eight thousand years ago. The death wave will reach Earth’s vicinity in two thousand years.”
“And wipe out all life in its path,” Brandon added.
Good for you, Bran! Jordan exulted silently.
Meek looked unconvinced. “How do we know that the ‘evidence’ they showed isn’t faked?”
“Why would they do that?” Jordan blurted.
“To get us to go along with them,” Longyear replied.
“For what purpose?”
“How should we know?” Meek answered. “They’re up to something, and they’re certainly not going to tell us what it is until it suits them.”
Brandon planted his fists on his hips and asked Meek, “What do you think we ought to do?”
“Leave here immediately and go back home.”
“And the gamma burst?”
“It’s a trick. I’m sure it’s a trick.”
“And if it’s not?” Jordan asked.
Meek blinked at him several times, said nothing.
“If it’s not a trick,” Brandon said, his voice iron hard, “then we’re consigning the human race to extinction.”
Waving a long-fingered hand in the air, Meek said, “We have two thousand years to deal with that possibility.”
“And other intelligent races, they’ll be wiped out also,” Brandon went on.
“I don’t believe it!” Meek fairly shouted. “I can’t believe it!”
Jordan asked his brother, “May I have the floor?”
With a surprised grin, Brandon spread his arms and said grandly, “The floor is yours.”
Getting to his feet as Brandon sat down, Jordan began, “Harmon, Paul … we hold the fate of the human race in our hands. The twelve of us. What we decide can mean life or death for the entire human race. There’s no one we can turn to, no higher-ups that we can buck the problem to. There’s only we twelve. It’s up to us. Entirely up to us.”
Meek shook his head stubbornly. Longyear stared at Jordan, his face a frozen mask.
Jordan went on, “What this boils down to is a matter of faith. Some of us believe what the aliens have told us, some of us don’t. Those who believe point to palpable evidence, those who don’t worry that the evidence may have been faked.”
“My education isn’t a fake,” Thornberry muttered.
“But it could be a tactic,” Meek immediately countered. “They boost your brain to convince us that the rest of what they’re telling us is true.”
“That’s a possibility,” Jordan admitted. “How do we decide whether it’s true or not?”
Silence fell across the table. Longyear opened his mouth, then thought better of it and said nothing.
“This is a fundamental problem of science, isn’t it?” Jordan asked. “How do we know that what our human senses are telling us is real, or if we’re fooling ourselves?”
“You test the information,” Brandon answered. “All knowledge is testable. What you can’t test is nothing more than belief, opinion.”
“How do we test the information that Adri’s astronomers have given Elyse?”
“I’ve gone over it as carefully as I can,” Elyse said, looking up at Jordan
. “I’m convinced it’s real.”
“But you’re not one hundred percent certain, are you?” Meek challenged.
Before Jordan could say anything, Brandon replied, “Harmon, nothing is one hundred percent certain. Newton gave us a scientific worldview that held up for damned near three hundred years. Then Einstein came along and showed there was more to it. And string theory eventually enlarged on Einstein’s work. Nothing is one hundred percent certain. Not forever.”
Meek started to reply, but Brandon overrode him. “In your own field, Harmon, in astrobiology it’s happened. The field exploded in the late twentieth century with the discovery of extremophiles, didn’t it? When Tommy Gold proposed a deep, hot biosphere of bacteria living miles underground, the biologists laughed at him, didn’t they?”
“But evidence proved he was right,” Meek admitted. “Eventually.”
“Nothing is one hundred percent certain,” Brandon repeated. “It can’t be. You never have the ultimate truth. There’s always more to be learned.”
“So what do we do?” de Falla asked.
Without hesitation, Brandon said, “We act on the information we have. We message Earth all the information we’ve discovered here, and warn them about the gamma burst. We keep on working with Adri’s people and plan out how we can help Earth and the other worlds that are in danger.”
Thornberry piped up. “We can build energy shields that’ll protect Earth from the gamma burst, b’god.”
“Right,” said Brandon. “That’s what we’ve got to do. Who says no to that?”
No one stirred, not even Meek. No one lifted a hand in objection or raised a voice.
Jordan, still on his feet, looked down at Brandon. You took charge at last, he said silently. You’ve become a man, baby brother.
But then he looked across the table at Harmon Meek, who was sitting rigidly, his long face crumbling into a mask of despair.
EXOPLANET
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
EDGAR ALLAN POE,
“The Raven”
HOMEWORLD
Two thousand light-years closer to the core of the Milky Way galaxy than Earth, a small, rocky planet orbited tightly around a tiny, faint red dwarf star. The planet hugged its parent star so closely that its year was only five Earth-days long. Its locked rotation kept one side always facing the meager warmth of its dim parent star, one side perpetually dark and cold.