Echoes of an Alien Sky

by James P. Hogan

  "I've come across a fascinating snippet that I wanted to share," Emur Frazin said on the screen in Sherven's office aboard Explorer 6. "Terran astronomy seems to have originated as a science of ordered, predictable phenomena at around the time of the Greek Thales—the middle of the seventh century 600 B.C. What it could mean is that the Solar System before then was too chaotic for them to put together a coherent picture. So that would be when its catastrophic period ended, and it settled into its present stable condition. It fits nicely with our other findings."

  "Hm." Sherven sat back in his chair and stared at the image distantly, while Frazin waited. At length he pronounced, "Very interesting. Let me think some more about it."

  "It might help explain the dichotomy of their hyper-materialistic science and irrational religions," Frazin said. "It was an over-reaction. After the period of chaos and terror, when nothing was safe or certain, here was the first indication of stability and predictability in the heavens. Obviously a gift from the deities. The relief and security that it brought were so profound that they sought to impose it on all that made up the world around them, for all time."

  "From one extreme to the other," Sherven commented. "It sounds like Terrans, doesn't it?"

  "Yes," Frazin agreed. "It became a dogma that they adopted as part of their reaction against dogma, and seemed oblivious of the contradiction."

  "Well, as I said, interesting. It might be a good point to bring up at the meeting to hear Reen and Zeestran's new ideas about Providence. I take it you'll be there?"

  "Absolutely. I like the sound of it. It would answer a lot of questions."

  "So many of us seem to think. Very well, we'll see you there, then. Was there anything else at this stage?"

  "No, I just thought you'd like to hear about Thales. It fitted right in with what you were saying the other day. Good day for now."

  Sherven carried on thinking to himself after Frazin had cleared down. While the rigidity of Terran science that Frazin had referred to, rooted solidly in intellectualism, materialism and naturalism, might have been effective—indeed, maybe necessary—for eliminating the flights of fancy and self-delusion to which the Terran mind seemed to have been peculiarly prone, it resulted in a system that by Venusian standards was narrow and restricted. Although the general Venusian system of acquiring knowledge included the methods of induction and experiment that the Terran essentially confined themselves to, it also embraced facets of philosophy, tradition, and what Terrans would have regarded as "metaphysics" as respectable sources to draw on—or at least, sources not to be dismissed out of hand. From the Terran scientific extremist way of viewing things, Venusians would have been regarded as more tolerant toward the "intuitive" and "spiritual"—aspects of existence that were not only dismissed as unreliable by many Terrans, even prominent ones, but denied any reality. No doubt, that went a long way toward explaining their attempts to construct a materialist explanation for life. Well, if Lorili Hilivar thought she could find anything that argued for such a case, he'd certainly be willing to listen. But it didn't seem to Sherven to be a good way to bet.

  The call tone of from desk panel interrupted. "Provost Marshal Huiano from Rhombus," Emitte's voice said.

  "Yes, of course. Put him through." Huiano's features appeared on the screen that had framed Frazin's. "Not necessary," Sherven said before Huiano could voice formalities. "What can I do?"

  "It's concerning Jenyn Thorgan."

  "Oh, yes." Sherven felt a twinge of discomfort. He had intended getting on with the business as soon as Thorgan and the Yiag girl were brought up from the surface, but all these other developments had distracted him from taking it any further. "Is he complaining? I can't honestly say I'd blame him. We have been somewhat tardy over this."

  "More a case of defiance and not a little ill-concealed anger," Huiano replied. "The provost captain up on Explorer is asking when we'll get something moving. He's having a hard time of it. Thorgan is demanding to know who is saying what about him, and where the evidence is. I've talked to him and explained that this isn't a trial but simply an inquiry that we'd rather not turn into a public spectacle. But that just makes things worse. He insists he should be under no restriction and allowed to move freely about. I just wanted to check with you first, Director."

  Sherven pulled a glum face. "Well, as I said, after all the fuss, we have been a bit slow over the whole thing, haven't we? What's your opinion on it?"

  "He hasn't been charged with anything, and technically he is not under arrest."

  "What do the regulations say?"

  "Nothing that really anticipates this kind of situation. They're open to interpretation."

  "Hm." Sherven rubbed his chin. "I don't see any reason not to comply, really. Do you? Refusing would serve no purpose except get us some bad press in the long run. Let's go along with it but make sure he knows that he will be expected to present himself at the appointed time."

  "I agree," Huiano said. "We've got better things to do that be guarding people."

  Sherven snorted. " In any case, it's not as if he can get lost in many places up here, is it? Just make sure that his name can't get on any boarding lists for flights out."

  "Right away," Huiano promised. He looked relieved. "It will make things pleasantly quieter for my people up there for a while, too."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  On disembarking from Luna, Kyal and Yorim were taken straight from the docking ports to Sherven's office in the Directorate, which was where the meeting, was being held. Around a dozen of the mission's scientific figures were assembled in the conference space adjoining the windowed area where Sherven had his desk, when Emitte ushered the two arrivals in. They included Sherven and Casselo; Lorili's departmental head, Garki Nostreny, who had come up from Rhombus to represent the microbiologists; and Emur Frazin. Kyal sat at one end of the long table, facing Sherven at the other. Yorim took the empty seat across a corner. Frazin, whom they had last seen aboard the Melther Jorg at the end of the voyage out from Venus, raised his balding head with its short beard from some papers that he was arranging, and nodded at them cheerfully.

  "Good to see you again, Emur," Kyal said. "Your name keeps coming up. You seem to have gone straight into the thick of things here."

  "There's enough to be done," Frazin agreed. "You haven't exactly been idle yourselves. Why else are we here?"

  "Fascinating ideas about Terran mythology," Yorim said, referring to Frazin's recent work.

  A bespectacled, wispy-haired figure was looking at Kyal from Frazin's far side. "Have you said hello to Lorili yet?" he asked. "I'm the person she worked with down in Rhombus up until a few days ago."

  "Garki Nostreny?"

  "Yes. A privilege to meet you."

  "Oh. No, mine entirely. She's mentioned you many times. No, we came here directly after docking. That's the first thing on the list later."

  "I'll have to stop by her new lab myself before we go back, to see it's looking," Nostreny said. He'd just had time to introduce a fair-haired woman next to him as Acilla Jyt, a translator, also up from Rhombus, when Sherven called the meeting to order.

  In keeping with is characteristically terse style, he went through the formal introductions, reiterated the subject matter from a summary note that he had circulated in advance, and handed the proceedings over. Since Yorim had been the first to suggest the idea, Kyal had conceded that his was the first right to present it. Yorim, however, was happy to defer to the senior partner. Addressing prestigious groups wasn't really his style, he said. He'd let Kyal do it. With the pace of events, Kyal had been able to provide only a few sheets of background information to supplement Sherven's note, instead of a more comprehensive overview as he would have preferred. Since not everyone present would have had reason to follow them events in detail, he began by outlining the order of events so far.

  "We have established that the code word 'Providence' is associated with a large inventory of supplies and equipment. It showed up first in the Ter
ran records recovered at Triagon, and later in related references found in various places down on Earth. Our first thought was that it referred to a stockpile of materials accumulated at Triagon as part of the 'Terminus' evacuation program. But then it became evident that many of the items contained in the lists wouldn't have been any use there." Kyal turned up his palms and looked around the table. "Combustion-driven agricultural tractors. . . . Seed stocks. . . . What good would they be on an airless moon? Weapons. . . . For use against whom?"

  Nobody had any comment at that point. He continued, "The lunar constructions that Yorim here and I came from Venus to investigate indicated that the Terrans were developing an electrical form of space propulsion technology—something they had previously been thought not to possess. This led to the suggestion that Terminus had perhaps meant more than just an evacuation program—that it was the staging operation for a migration elsewhere. Then the linguistics people began finding instances of 'Providence' carrying a geographical connotation—as if it were associated with a particular place. The pieces seemed to fit. We had Triagon on Luna as the departure point for a migration; a stockpile of materials that wouldn't have been suitable for Luna; and those materials being talked about in connection with a specific place." Kyal looked around, inviting the obvious completion.

  Casselo voiced it. "The place where the migration was heading." Heads here and there around the table nodded, intrigued.

  "These weapons." The speaker was a young exo-historian called Lewen, whom Sherven had introduced as working closely with Frazin. "Couldn't they have been just a provision for their own internal security? I mean . . ." he looked around with a wry expression, "we are talking about Terrans, after all."

  "Not really, if you look at the kinds of things it lists," Kyal replied. "There was practically enough there to start one of their wars. It had to be a contingency against possible external threats."

  "Was it going to be a migration, or an invasion?" somebody quipped.

  There were no further points. Kyal resumed, "But as more was discovered, the idea of Providence being supplies for a migration started to look less credible. The amounts were too vast—more than they could believably have transported to Luna."

  "More than Triagon could have held," Sherven murmured. He had been one of the first to express doubts.

  Mellios Chown, a geographer based on Explorer 6, who was cataloging Terran place names, asked, "Why would they have to take all of it? Maybe in a situation like that you'd hoard large stocks of everything yu could get while it was available, and be selective later about what you actually wanted to take with you."

  "Why ship all of it to Luna?" Yorim queried. "It would make more sense to do the selecting first."

  Casselo added, "And if they did do the selecting at Triagon, where's all the stuff they didn't take? It's not there."

  Chown bunched his mouth and nodded in a way that said there was no arguing with that.

  "It's funny how often the obvious is the last thing to occur to us, isn't it?" Kyal said to the table.

  "Oh, not really," Sherven remarked breezily. "It's for the same reason that something you've lost always turn up in the last place you look: Who's going to carry on looking after they've found it?" It produced a few smiles.

  "Well, it was Yorim who finally saw the obvious," Kyal said.

  "Only because of something Mirine said," Yorim put in.

  "Mirine? You mean Lorili Hilivar's assistant?" Nostreny looked astonished.

  "Yes," Yorim confirmed.

  "Well, who would have thought it?" Nostreny waved vaguely to take in the table. "Is she aware that this is all her doing?"

  "You know, I don't think she is," Kyal said.

  "Oh dear. We'll have to put that right," Sherven told them.

  Kyal came to the point by motioning with the copy of Sherven's summary note that he had been toying with while he spoke. "What we're proposing now, instead, is that Providence was not an exotic supply program for beginning a new life somewhere else at all, but a survival cache that had been left back on Earth. That does away with the problem posed by the sheer volume of it. And when you put yourself in the position of the Terrans, it makes perfect sense. If the reason for the Terminus program in the first place was to escape the consequences of a war that threatened to be globally devastating, what kind of prospect would they have faced coming back to? Wouldn't one of the first provisions of any competent planner be to make sure they would have the means to survive and get started again?" Kyal glanced at Lewen, the exo-historian. "And there's your reason for including some heavy-grade weaponry. You wouldn't know what to expect from the survivors." Lewen nodded without comment.

  A planetary physicist called Hiok observed, "So the possibility of migration isn't ruled out." He sounded as if he hoped not. "A survival cache set up back on Earth could just as easily have been to provide for a forced return from anywhere, not just a planned return from Luna."

  "It's not ruled out," Casselo agreed. "There's just no reason for introducing it."

  Nostreny shifted in his chair, rubbed the back of his neck dubiously, and looked at Sherven. "To be honest, I was never really keen on that starship idea, Fil. Even if they did have a more advanced propulsion technology than we thought, as Fellow Reen said, at best it seems they were still developing it. Why in secret, and why on the back of their moon, I don't know—but that's Terrans. Would they have entrusted themselves to something like that? I don't think I would have. It just sounded too farfetched."

  "We have records of several star-probe studies," Sherven replied. "And there is some evidence that they were engaged in active development." It was one of his pet ideas, and he wasn't going to let go of it lightly. But his tone was resigned.

  Hiok took up Nostreny's point. "Unmanned probes, yes. But that's a very different matter from supporting a viable human colony. And as far as I'm aware, we don't have any proof that they ever actually launched anything."

  "That's true," Sherven had to admit.

  Hiok gestured apologetically. "And even if they did, there wouldn't have been enough time for them to receive any reconnaissance information back. They would have been going blind into something completely unknown. Is that really credible?"

  "Not for us, probably," Sherven said, and left it at that.

  Yorim came in again. "Nothing specifically connects the star-probe studies with the electromagnetic work at Triagon," he reminded everyone. "They could have been coincidental. If Terminus was a migration program, it could still have been to somewhere in the Solar System that has changed radically. We think the Solar System has remained essentially unchanged since the time of the Terrans, but it's not certain."

  "Right," Hiok said. "We know they made a couple of manned visits to Mars. Maybe there was more going on there than we've realized. Perhaps we should be thinking about looking at Mars more closely." He sent Sherven an inquiring look.

  "Perhaps," Sherven agreed neutrally.

  "The Terrans' records show it as being not very different from the way it is now," Casselo pointed out.

  "I'm still not convinced about the idea of them migrating anywhere," Nostreny said. "I mean, why take all the risks associated with going out somewhere totally unknown, when all they had to do was wait it out and go back to Earth? It doesn't make any sense to me—especially if, as we're now hearing, this whole Providence thing was a survival cache waiting back there for them anyway."

  "We're only saying that its being a survival cache on Earth doesn't rule migration out, Garki," Casselo reminded him.

  "I know, I know. I was just making the point," Nostreny said.

  Kyal waited until they had settled down again. "All of those possibilities are valid. But the crucial point is this. If any Terrans did in fact return to Earth, they would have formed a colony that existed somewhere—for a while at least— after the final war, which is where all the records that we have at the moment cease. So, if we can locate where Providence was, the chances are that it will give us a
source of invaluable information on the last days of the Terrans—maybe far more complete and of better quality than the fragments we've been forced to work with up until now." He paused to let them take that in.

  "It might give us some clues on what exactly did wipe the Terrans out, finally," Lewen mused, half to himself.