Alien Earth

by Megan Lindholm

  “Being well adjusted is of very great importance to you, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t it to everyone?” Connie got up and took her tray to the recycler to clear it.

  “No.” Tug didn’t notice that she had not answered his question. “When John had friends, they took pride in being borderline unadjusted. I used to listen to their conversations. They spoke their unharmonious thoughts proudly. ‘I’m a Human being, not algae. I have a right to self-determination, even if it means I’m not totally harmonious with every leaf and root on Castor.’ So one said and another laughed aloud at his words.”

  Connie racked her tray. “Oh?” she said a moment later, hoping she sounded no more than politely interested. The food in her stomach was sodden and heavy. Tug listened in on John’s private transmissions. That shocked her.

  “I confronted John with it,” Tug went on blithely. “He maintained it was a cultivated attitude that did not necessarily mirror their true feelings. They aspired to a rebellion they could not truly feel, and expressed it as an infantile posturing, a pretense, an assuming of character for their own amusement.”

  “Is that last part another poetry quote?” Connie asked.

  “No, it’s from John. Did you really think it good enough to have been a poet’s quote?” Tug sounded mildly offended.

  “Well—I’m not really the best person to ask, Tug. Poetry always mystified me. My teachers always said it made things clearer, but to me it seemed to deliberately obscure the message. I have no interest in poetry,” she told him firmly.

  “I see.” Disappointment. “Then you would not enjoy discussing an old poem with me, to try to find the heart of it. I understand. But perhaps you could do me a small favor. John has refused to share any of his new acquisitions with me. Do you have access to them? I would love to scan them.”

  “I don’t,” Connie said frankly. The avidity in Tug’s voice was disconcerting. Obviously Tug wanted her to go into John’s quarters and “borrow” the recordings for him. She refused to recognize the hint.

  He sensed her sudden retreat. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. Let’s not discuss poetry, then. Let’s talk about your Adjustment. I admit, malleability of the Human mind fascinates me. Did it take long for you to be returned to normal? I wonder that it didn’t show up on any of John’s résumé information about you.”

  Connie went cold. Was it a threat? She didn’t want to find out. Better to just play it his way. “Actually, I am rather curious as to which poems you find so interesting, Tug. Perhaps we could discuss one.”

  “Well”—Tug paused deliberately—“if it would please you, perhaps we could. Tell me, how do you interpret this: ‘Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsy, and Bess went on a walk and found …’”

  Toning cycle. Again. John awoke almost enough to stretch. He’d been dreaming of an Earth he’d never known, of green rounded hills and hairy animals frolicking on them and feathered animals flapping through the sky over his head.

  He could feel the warm membranous push of the womb against his curled back. Dammit, he wasn’t supposed to be this much awake. All the manuals said too much aware womb time could be damaging. It awakened too many memories the conscious mind had deliberately buried. Rumor had it you could go screaming crazy if you managed to consciously remember being separated from the Human womb and put into the mechanical one. Another stupid myth, he was sure. Tug was probably doing it to him on purpose. None of his other levers had worked to turn John into his errand boy.

  “Go ahead and turn me in,” John had replied to his last threat. “Tell them you scanned my private recordings, listened in on my conversations. They’ll take my license away, maybe terminate me when they decide Adjustment won’t do it. But the Conservancy will decide you’re contaminated, Tug. They can’t do much to you personally, of course. Only prohibit all Humans from shipping aboard the Evangeline or communicating with you in any way. And then what happens to your Great Study? Pretty difficult to complete without any contact with your subjects.”

  John tried to will himself back into deeper Waitsleep, but couldn’t. He’d just have to wait out the toning cycle and then fall back into Waitsleep naturally.

  So. John dangled between dream and consciousness. His ever-tidying mind drifted over to their present enterprise. It was a very good business risk, even if he’d have sooner eaten rocks than voluntarily accepted it. On paper, it all looked routine. Flight plans filed and approved. Nominally, he had hired out to gather raw data about Terra. Earth Affirmed had a very expensive permit from the Conservancy to use probes and observation satellites to gather the information, said information to be evaluated and interpreted by the Conservancy, of course. And of course the Conservancy would find Earth dead and/or hostile. A stupid bet, to John’s way of thinking. Earth Affirmed was playing with the Conservancy’s deck. Except that Earth Affirmed had a few cards of its own up its sleeves. Like an “emergency” manned landing that no one had given permission for, but which the new (and very expensive) shuttle, emergency gear, and supplies that Earth Affirmed had provided would suit perfectly. The on-board computers were loaded up with “emergency plans” about what to do if forced down onto the planet’s surface. There were even suggested landing sites, based on the Conservancy’s last flyby of the planet. John would have given a lot to know how Earth Affirmed had tapped those records. Not that they were likely to be of any real use. They were centuries old and so heavily censored they scarcely made sense. That last had given John pause; the Conservancy censored within itself, obscured documents that were to be viewed only by the most discreet of eyes? So who did that censoring, and what were they afraid would become known, and by whom? Interesting little maze.

  Earth Affirmed actually had little interest in the long-distance data they’d gather for the Conservancy to evaluate. What they wanted were physical samples—soil, water, atmosphere, flora and fauna—and his own firsthand observations. They had loaded him with technical manuals on just how they wanted the samples taken and transported. All of it as illegal as plowing, of course, and thus incredibly valuable on the black market.

  John allowed himself a cautious optimism. Really, he didn’t see how he could lose. The landing itself might be a bit tricky, but he had no intention of taking any risks. If the computers couldn’t coordinate their stored information with the satellite-observed information, he wasn’t going to attempt it. If the toxicity levels of Terra came anywhere near the shuttle’s tolerance levels, he wasn’t going in. It was all set up to allow him plenty of time to evaluate the situation before taking action. Accomplishing his mission didn’t look too bad to him.

  And profiting from it?

  Well, even if Earth Affirmed went out of business before they returned, or, as more likely, got every person involved with it readjusted or terminated, such information would be prime stuff, unobtainable anywhere else. Black market, true, but John knew how to handle things like that.

  This mission offered him the ultimate financial security. For their on-paper mission, they were guaranteed payment. His retainer was already in the ship’s account and accruing interest. Nothing could go wrong. Unless the Conservancy stepped in and confiscated it all and scheduled them for mandatory Adjustment. He turned his mind from that possibility. Think positive. He hadn’t chosen this errand, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t have, if it hadn’t had its illegal side. Their client was an established Human corporation, one that had already survived far longer than any other. It met all John’s criteria for stability. Barring a total economic collapse, the crew and Beast Evangeline were guaranteed at least that much of their commission.

  His mind darted back to Earth Affirmed’s briefing.

  “The information requested is not complicated.” Back at Earth Affirmed headquarters, John had felt like some sort of trophy Deckenson had won. He’d stood on a carpet in front of a large, old-fashioned desk, while Deckenson smirked from a corner. The girl behind the desk, Janna, had insisted on reexplaining everything Deckenson had already
covered. By this he knew that Deckenson had been only the expendable lure used to pull him in. This Janna was the barest edge of the real powers behind Earth Affirmed. They weren’t showing him anyone they couldn’t do without. She’d tapped the desk to be sure he was listening.

  “A few soil analyses, atmospheric samplings, and temperature and radiation readings, a brief summation of surviving life-forms, if any. No more than what you might do in a survey of an unknown planet. The reasoning is very simple. If a dirty-tech station like Delta could be established and survive on what was once no more than a large rock orbiting Pollux, why not a Human settlement on what was once a living planet?”

  She sounded so logical, but John felt her calm words cloaked fanaticism. He nodded briefly.

  On the surface, it presented a feasible, even a noble goal: the reclamation of Humanity’s homeworld. But under the surface bubbled tensions John knew he would be wiser to avoid. He had sensed the restlessness at Delta when they docked, the squirming of a people under too much control. He’d seen the pattern too often before to mistake it. The people would take control gradually, or so they thought. There would be plants in the corridor this time, and music in the air, and bright swirling garments that utilized more fabric than was actually necessary to cover the body. There would be new styles in food, and laxness in duties, and the black market would thrive.

  For a while.

  By the time he returned to Delta, all that would have changed. Clothing would have become sedate again, food basic, the corridors aesthetic and practical. Good citizenship would be the fashion of the day.

  He’d see the cycle completed again, just as he had so many times before. He suspected it was calculated. The Conservancy let the people have their era of freedom, and then replaced it with an age of austerity. Keep the pressure from building too high. Give them a brief illusion of self-determination, and then unfold events in such a way that most folks would believe the common people had risen up and demanded a return to simplicity and sound ecological values.

  He wondered if this would be the cycle in which the Conservancy finally managed to eradicate Earth Affirmed; if he would return with his contraband data to find that the purveyors of it no longer existed.

  No problem. There would always be buyers for information.

  He thought again of Janna’s face as she briefed John about the mission. Janna was short and dark-skinned, with fine features like a doll. At forty-three, her chin was still round and her soft tunic lay flat on her chest. Ironic, that Janna, like Deckenson, personified the ideal Human for Castor, but would rant and rave against the system that had created them. She probably required less than half the nutrients one of her hulking ancestors would have consumed each day; her light tread minimized even the impact of her step on the planet’s face. She would have the maximum intellectual life span that Human biologists had worked for, with a minimum chance that she would ever procreate. She looked to be one of the lucky few who would never reach any kind of sexual metamorphosis. She sat behind her big desk, but John could see that her dainty feet just reached the carpeted floor of the office. John felt like some kind of giant as he tried to settle in one of the undersize chairs. Obsolescent. So stand, and look down on the list of sleep-learning tapes they were demanding he use. “Why don’t you just pay me more instead of trying to convert me?” he asked sarcastically.

  Janna looked up to him. “In our experience, money can buy competence, but not dedication. What would it take to convince you?” she demanded. “If you don’t care, you won’t do the kind of job we need done. Wake up, John, before it’s too late for all of us. Look what we’ve done to ourselves. We’ve totally lost the ability to reproduce naturally. Many of us aren’t even capable of the complete sex act. Now we’ve been informed that our population has reached maximum. Seventy-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-three. That’s the magic number, John. No more, but possibly less.”

  “Why less?” John asked, more out of politeness than curiosity. He wished she’d just cover the business end of the mission. She had him in a vise, and she knew he’d do it. So why was she wasting her time trying to swing him to her views? He didn’t care. The total Human situation affected John not at all. As soon as possible, he planned to be leaving on Evangeline. Whenever he got back to Castor or Pollux, the entire situation would have changed. It was like asking him to care about the current crops of algae in the station tanks.

  “Less, because we are choosing death at a higher rate than ever before. The average age is dropping, John. Substantially. Those of us who reach puberty are seeking self-termination at an alarming rate. Conservancy psychologists refuse to discuss it, or to admit the trend is real. But our psychologists have studied it and are calling it a biological despair. A questioning of purpose. If your only function is to be a cooperative part of the planet ecology, why not do it as compost?”

  “I see,” John contributed. He didn’t, but he’d humor her.

  “Look at the big picture, John,” Janna lectured on. “Many of us who reach sexual maturity kill ourselves. There goes the sperm supply. Frozen reserves can’t last forever. The harvested ova is already of a demonstrably poorer quality than fifty years ago. Ovarian tissue harvested from prepubescent women in their twenties is, more and more often, failing to reach the maturity necessary for it to produce viable eggs, despite all the growth stimulants used on it. Embryos are spending as little as three months inside a Human mother. Implantation of fertilized eggs is almost totally unsuccessful now; month-old embryos slip more and more often. Fetuses are being ‘harvested,’ yes, that’s the word they use, at six to seven months because women cannot deliver a fully gestated child. The Conservancy keeps promising a breakthrough in vat technology, but it’s a long time coming.

  “John, if these trends continue, you may return to a world where Humans are totally incapable of reproducing, by any means.”

  Janna had paused dramatically, a gesture lost on John.

  “We’re offering you the chance to save the world, John.”

  “‘For pay,’” John suggested, and saw his allusion go to waste as Janna merely looked confused. In the corner, Deckenson’s face hardened. John was being trivial over a serious matter.

  “Of course. We expect to pay, and pay well. It would have helped if your heart were in it, but I see that’s not to be. John, basically we’re looking for a place where Humans can be Human again … reproducing naturally, growing to full size: being residents of an ecology rather than careful guests who have to be sure they never leave a bathtub ring or eat all the crackers. We’re alien to the ecologies of Castor and Pollux. No matter how much we alter ourselves, we’ll always be foreigners here. John, it’s time we went home.”

  “To Earth.”

  “Correct.” Janna looked briefly pleased with him. Couldn’t have that, he decided perversely.

  “Earth is dead, Janna. Not only dead, but deadly. Poisoned.”

  She was unruffled. “That’s what they’d have you believe, John. But Earth Affirmed believes otherwise. Our corporation has existed from Humanity’s exodus days. When we left Earth, we left vowing to return. And those of us who remained behind did so in the hopes of salvaging enough that Earth could purify herself.” She had leaned forward and caressed a small globe of swirling blue and white that decorated her desk. “We think it’s there, waiting for us to come and claim it.”

  “So you think it’s the Garden of Eden there now?” John asked sarcastically.

  “Beg pardon?”

  John sighed. No common basis of reference. “You think Earth has returned to some pristine state of balance and is just awaiting the first batch of colonists?”

  Janna set down her ball with a sharp crack against its stand. “I’m not that stupid, John. Whatever balance Earth has regained is going to be very different from what was there when it was Humanity’s home. It may prove inhospitable, even hostile. It may prove to be so delicate a balance that Humanity can never hope to become part of it again. Not unless
we establish a new balance. A new balance. That’s what we’re hoping to find. We left vowing to return, yes. And those of us who shared that goal, but stayed behind, vowed with us to do all they could to make it possible. We think they left things for us. Records, information: we can’t know what. But we believe they would have left us something, and some sort of beacon to guide us to it. We don’t know where on Terra it will be, but we trust that they will have been as farsighted as we have.”

  “You believe. You trust. You ask one hell of a lot of people left behind to die on a planet that was cataclysmically destroying itself. Seems to me the least you could have done was to agree on the location for such a cache of information.”

  Janna folded her lips. “There was an agreed-upon location. We have hints that it was a very special place. The location was known to one of the final evacuees of Earth. Security demanded that the location be jealously guarded, and it was. It was not entrusted to any hard media. Three, and only three Humans at a time knew of its precise location. Each of the three chose a successor to carry the secret when they felt they were getting close to death.”

  “And the location is …?”

  Janna looked exceedingly uncomfortable. “The information was lost. Unfortunately, all three carriers were present when Epsilon Station was destroyed.”

  “Epsilon Station!” John didn’t bother to conceal his amusement. “Epsilon was a myth!” He laughed aloud to cover a vague disappointment. The sparks of sympathy he’d felt had been doused by the mere mention of the old Epsilon story. If Janna believed in it, who knew what ridiculous information the rest of her beliefs were founded on?

  “No. It was real. And the Conservancy’s destruction of it was their effort to deal with Earth Affirmed once and for all.”