Voyagers IV - The Return

by Ben Bova

  He sat on the rearward-facing seat; Overmire and Angelique sat side by side, both of them looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  Without preamble, Stoner said to the Archbishop, “I can cure you.”

  “Cure me? What do you mean?”

  “You’re heading for a stroke that will either incapacitate you or kill you outright. I can clean up your cardiovascular system, get your endocrine balance back where it should be—”

  “By using nanomachines,” Sister Angelique interjected.

  “Nano . . .” The Archbishop’s eyes widened. “But they’re forbidden. Sinful.”

  “They can be dangerous in the hands of ruthless men,” Stoner admitted easily. “They can be turned into weapons, used to kill people.”

  “You see?”

  “But so can a rock. I could use a rock to crush your skull. Or I could use it to help build a cathedral. It’s not the tool that’s sinful; it’s the sinner using it.”

  “Sophistry,” said Angelique.

  But the Archbishop asked, “Am I really dying?”

  “Don’t you feel it?” Stoner asked back.

  Overmire touched a finger to his fleshy lips, then replied, “I know my doctors are always after me to diet and exercise. They want me to lose fifty kilos. That’s more than a hundred pounds!”

  “That would only delay the inevitable,” Stoner said.

  “I tire very easily. I seem to be perspiring all the time.”

  “You’re dying. You don’t have long to go.”

  “God’s will, I suppose,” the Archbishop said with a sigh. “I will not interfere with the will of my Lord.”

  Stoner laughed bitterly. “The first time a caveman chewed a root to get some relief from pain, he was interfering with God’s will. God gave us brains, man; he gave us brains so we could use them.”

  “And the devil sends us temptations to drag us down to hell.”

  “Bullshit!” Hunching forward, Stoner asked, “Why can’t you believe that God is offering you a chance to survive?”

  “Through nanotechnology?”

  Stoner nodded. “It’s a gift from the stars.”

  The Archbishop shook his head ponderously. “I can’t. It would fly in the face of everything I believe, everything I’ve worked for all my life.”

  Leaning back in the leather-covered seat, Stoner spread his hands and said, “So be it.”

  Angelique looked from Stoner to the Archbishop and back again to Stoner. “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’ll address tomorrow’s closing session of the meeting. I have a lot to tell the scientists, a lot to tell you all.”

  APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA

  BY YOLANDA VASQUEZ

  It’s different up here on the Moon.

  For one thing, I can write this on a real honest-to-god notebook, dictating my thoughts while the computer types them so’s I can read them on its screen. I don’t have to worry about some government agency reading my files and then swooping down on me for subversive, irreligious thoughts.

  Everything’s lighter! It’s not just the lower gravity; it’s the attitude of the people here. They talk out loud in public places. They smile and say hello to you on the walkways even if they don’t know you from Adam. Or Eve. They’re free.

  It’s a strange dichotomy. Yes, the people of Selene (and the other lunar settlements) live underground in tunnels and hollowed-out caverns that have been turned into living and working spaces. Yes, we are all absolutely dependent on the machines that extract oxygen from the rocks for us to breathe, that mine water out of the ice deposits at the poles, that convert sunlight into the electricity that powers our community.

  But dependent as we are on technology (including nanotechnology), we are socially, individually, politically as free as the old pioneers who settled the American West a couple of centuries ago. I mean, somebody brought up a set of paintings from back Earthside by some early twentieth-century artist named Rockwell. The Four Freedoms, they’re called. Freedom of speech. Freedom of religion. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear.

  It’s that last one that gets me. Freedom from fear. All my life on Earth, just about, there was always that nagging fear pecking away at the back of my mind. Don’t get them upset with you. Don’t make a fuss. Do what you’re told or else you’ll get in trouble.

  Not here! People expect you to speak your mind. People don’t mind which church you go to, or if you go to none at all. That’s your business, nobody else’s.

  Freedom from want. That’s another funny thing. Food’s good here. I expected processed algae and maybe gengineered pseudomeat, but we actually have lots of seafood and shellfish, because they produce more protein per kilowatt of energy input than meat animals do. And they have farms underground. Takes a lot of electrical energy to light them adequately, but the electricity comes from solar farms up on the surface: practically free, once the solar cells are working, and Selene has automated rolling factories that chug across the ground turning lunar silicon into solar cells. Neat!

  And I’m teaching again. That’s the best part. I’m not a withered old hag waiting for her bum heart to give out. Here I’m pretty healthy and certainly more vigorous than I was for my last couple of decades on Earth. Low gravity helps a lot. So do the nanomachines the star man put into me.

  To be fair, I can understand why nanotechnology was banned on Earth. Twelve billion people includes a lot of sickos and out-and-out nutcases. Let them get their hands on nanotechnology and they’ll wipe out whole cities. Here in Selene the population is more self-selecting, more educated, and certainly aware every hour of every day how dependent we are on each other.

  And the news is uncensored. Apparently there was a big nuclear explosion in New Mexico yesterday. The U.S. government claims it was an accident and only one person got killed, but I wonder. The commentators here in Selene are all talking about the possibility of a nuclear war back on Earth.

  I’m not worried about it, though. The star man won’t let it come to that. The people of Earth don’t realize it, not yet, but they’ve got a guardian angel watching over them. The star man. Stoner.

  It’s going to be fun watching how the world changes over the next hundred years or so. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bertram Feingold almost laughed at the irony of it. Here’s the top political leaders of the world sitting in the same room with the top scientists. And I’ve been tapped to chair the final session of the meeting. Me.

  The hotel ballroom was filled to capacity. News camera teams lined the side aisles, focusing on Feingold’s short, slight figure as he slowly climbed the three steps of the makeshift stage and walked to the podium set up at its center. An even dozen scientific bigwigs sat on folding chairs arrayed behind the podium, men and women from every part of the world. Feingold recognized each of them; many he had known most of his life.

  Blinking in the unaccustomed glare of the cameras’ attention, Feingold thought he should have worn something more dignified than his old rumpled denims and this brightly colored island shirt hanging loosely over his slim frame. But they didn’t tell me I’d be chairing this session until half an hour ago, he explained to—who? Who’m I talking to? he asked himself silently. God? With a mental shrug he admitted that yes, he was talking to God again. As usual, God didn’t answer. Not in words.

  Feingold looked out on the jam-packed auditorium. Politicians in front, scientists in the rear. So what else is new? he asked himself. Everyone was talking at once, most of them abuzz with the news reports that a nuclear explosion had taken place in New Mexico the previous day. No details. The American government had clamped down on the story almost the instant it appeared on the nets. They said the radioactive fallout from the blast was minimal, not enough to harm anybody. Maybe so, Feingold thought. Wait a few decades and see what happens to the cancer rate.

  One of the audio guys had clipped a small microphone to the open collar of his shirt. Feingold leaned both hi
s skinny arms on the podium and said to the chattering, fidgeting crowd, “Good morning.”

  His voice boomed through the ballroom, surprising him enough to make him flinch. The several hundred people in the audience quickly hushed and turned their attention to him.

  My fifteen seconds of fame, Feingold said to himself.

  “I’ve been asked to introduce the speaker for this morning’s plenary session,” Feingold began, “but he hasn’t shown up as yet. So I don’t quite know what—”

  Keith Stoner appeared at his side, as abruptly as a light switched on. The crowd gasped. Feingold jerked with surprise.

  Quickly recovering, Feingold grinned as he said, “I stand corrected. Allow me to introduce Dr. Keith Stoner, who has returned to Earth after traveling to the stars.”

  No applause. Not a sound from the audience. They sat as if paralyzed. Curiosity, Feingold mused. Or maybe dread. He stepped back from the podium and found the empty seat waiting for him in the row at the rear of the stage.

  Stoner stood alone at the podium, tall and solid, dressed in a short-sleeved sky blue shirt and khaki denims.

  “Good morning,” he said somberly. He wore no microphone, yet his voice carried throughout the cavernous ballroom.

  “Yesterday there was a nuclear explosion in New Mexico. You probably saw it on the morning news. No official explanation has been given, as yet, by the United States government. Be that as it may, I want you to know that it was the last nuclear explosion that will ever take place on Earth.”

  The audience stirred, murmured.

  “At this moment, every computer on Earth is receiving downloads from the ship in which I traveled to the stars. Every byte of data about the ship, its propulsion and other systems, is being disseminated all across the world. To everyone. There will be no secrets, not from the stars.

  “Among the data is information on how to build energy screens that can protect entire cities against nuclear attack. And, of course, information on how to construct starships so that you can expand humankind’s habitat to the Earth-like planets of other stars.”

  Stoner looked down at his audience and saw disbelief, wonderment, hope, fear of the unknown.

  “The reason that I returned from the stars, however, was not to bring you these gifts. The reason I returned was to tell you a sad, sobering truth. To tell you of an opportunity for the human race that is also a warning.”

  They leaned forward in their chairs, like one great unified creature, to hear what Stoner was going to tell them.

  “The truth is that there are no other intelligent species in all the star systems that my family and I have visited, out to several hundred light-years. Life is abundant on the worlds we’ve seen, but intelligent life exists only here on Earth.

  “That doesn’t mean that intelligence has not arisen on other worlds. It has. But on each and every planet that once bore intelligent life, that species has destroyed itself. There are no intelligent species left, out to several hundred light-years from Earth. We are alone.”

  A sort of collective sigh issued from the crowd. Stoner couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or relief, sorrow or sudden anticipation.

  One of the women in the rear of the auditorium got to her feet. She was gray haired, lean, flinty eyed.

  “Are you telling us that intelligent races self-destruct? All of them?”

  “As I said,” Stoner replied, “life is abundant in the universe, as commonplace as stars and rocks. But intelligence is rare—and wherever it once existed it has extinguished itself, one way or the other. Overpopulation, war, environmental collapse—intelligence has been very clever at finding ways to commit suicide. Genocide, actually.”

  The woman sank back onto her chair. Not a sound from the audience now. It was getting to them. Good, thought Stoner.

  “There must be other intelligent races out among the more distant stars,” he continued. “The universe is very big and we’ve only explored a tiny sector of our local region of the Milky Way galaxy, out to a few hundred light-years.

  “But in that region, we are the only intelligent species in existence. The others have all died off.”

  Silence again. Staring, wondering, fearful silence.

  “So your challenge is the same as it’s always been: survival. Humankind has found ways to survive against beasts that once preyed on us, against Ice Age and greenhouse climate shifts, against disease and even nuclear weaponry. Now our challenge is to learn how to live within our means. We must stop overpopulating this planet; we must learn how to control our numbers.

  “Can we survive against our own success? Can we learn to live wisely and take advantage of the gifts from the stars, the capability of expanding beyond the solar system to the Earth-like worlds waiting for us?

  “We face no competitors out among the stars except ourselves. The only dangers ahead are the ancient enemies that have always threatened us: poverty, disease, ignorance, and death. The gifts from the stars that I bring you can help you to defeat those enemies, but only if you use them wisely.

  “The choice is yours. It always has been. It always will be.”

  Abruptly Stoner disappeared. The audience gasped, then broke into hundreds of urgent, questioning conversations.

  CHAPTER 9

  Angelique quickly found that, true to his word, Stoner was downloading incredible amounts of information to every computer on Earth.

  Sitting in her hotel room in Papeete, she watched the data scrolling by on the wall screen: equations, formulas, images of strange worlds, cutaway engineering drawings of a spherical vehicle that must have been a starship, detailed specifications of its propulsion and other systems.

  It was breathtaking. All this information! she thought. The world will never be the same.

  Her message light was blinking. Annoyed at the interruption, she tried to ignore its flashing yellow light. Until the data bar showed that it was the Archbishop calling her.

  She told the phone to answer the call. The data stream from the stars disappeared, and Archbishop Overmire’s fleshy, sweat-sheened face appeared on the wall screen in its place.

  “Do you know how to reach Stoner?” the Archbishop asked, with no preamble.

  “I think so,” Angelique replied, hoping that Stoner would reply if she called to him.

  Overmire seemed to sit up straighter in his chair as he said, “I have decided to take him up on his offer to correct my health problems.”

  “Your Eminence!” Angelique gasped. “Nanotechnology?”

  “We are facing a difficult time, Sister. The challenges to the New Morality will be enormous. It would be cowardly of me not to face them, not to lead my flock to the new world that this star voyager is offering us.”

  Angelique saw her own vision of power shriveling like a punctured balloon.

  Misunderstanding her silence, Overmire said, “I have spent most of the day praying over this question, meditating and asking the good Lord what I should do, which way I should go.”

  “And He answered you?”

  “Look out your window,” the Archbishop said.

  Angelique turned and saw a spectacular rainbow shimmering over the blue waters of the Pacific. There had been no rain, she was certain. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. Yet the rainbow arced gracefully, glowing, beckoning.

  Stoner, she thought. Stoner’s done this. And the Archbishop is allowing himself to believe it’s a sign from God.

  “I must be prepared to lead the people through the extraordinary times that lie ahead,” the Archbishop was saying in his usual slightly pompous manner. “I must be in the best of health to take on this challenging task.”

  “I see,” Angelique replied meekly.

  “God’s will be done.”

  She nodded, accepting the end of her own dreams. “I’ll try to contact Stoner and tell him of your decision, Your Eminence.”

  “Good,” said the Archbishop. His image disappeared, replaced by the data still streaming in from the stars.

/>   “So he’s made his decision.”

  Angelique whirled in her chair to see Stoner standing on the other side of the room.

  “You knew he would,” she said.

  “I thought he would,” Stoner corrected. “He’s no fool. He knows the world is going to change very rapidly now. So he’s decided to change with it, to adapt to the new world.”

  Angelique murmured, “Yes, I suppose he will.”

  “And you?” Stoner prodded. “Will you adapt, too?”

  “Me?” Angelique felt uncertain, confused. But then she heard herself say, “I should do something to atone for Raoul’s death, shouldn’t I?”

  “So should I,” Stoner said, utterly serious. “I’m just as responsible for his death as you are.”

  “You? But—”

  “There’s something we both need to do. Your Archbishop is right: there are difficult challenges ahead, difficult choices. You ought to stay at his side and help him.”

  “He won’t want me. He knows I plotted against him.”

  “But you’re the link to me,” Stoner said with a grim smile. “He’ll want you very close to him in the years to come.”

  Angelique thought about that for a few heartbeats. Then, “You’ve done this to destroy the New Morality, haven’t you?”

  He looked genuinely surprised. “Destroy . . . No, that’s not what I’m after. I’m not here to destroy anything. I’m here to help you build a new world.”

  “A world that has no room for the New Morality in it.”

  “The New Morality will have to adapt, too, have to change. So will everybody and everything else.”

  “I don’t see how. The Archbishop won’t give up his power willingly. He’s even decided to accept your nanotechnology in order to stay alive and stay in power.”

  Stoner stepped to the king-sized bed and sat on its edge. “He’s already changing. The whole world is going to change. The information now downloading from my starship is going to vastly increase the world’s knowledge. Increased knowledge leads to increased wealth, and increased wealth makes people more independent, more self-reliant.”