Lee felt slightly insulted. “Not good enough to share the meaning of the universe with us, huh?”
“No,” a voice answered in some superior mind-tongue that felt like actual speech. It was so convincing that they looked around for the source for a moment.
“You are a young species,” it continued.
“You are ancient, then,” Kam surmised.
“More than your words can describe.”
“Have the tall ones been around for millions of years?” Amanda asked.
“The tall ones are only a few generations removed from your own species, making the same mistakes you have, and still may.”
“Did they imprison you here?” Jill asked.
“Things are not so simple to us.”
“Us? There are more of you here?”
“I do not sense them, though there may be.”
“What are you?” asked Kam, knowing he spoke now with the God of his dreams. He wasn’t crazy. Was he the prophet his ego imagined when the visions began? Had all that transpired after the Event, or possibly before it, been a galactic transaction to put him before this being?
“Your vocabulary and the primitive pictography of the ‘tall ones’’ mind-tongue does little to describe us. Galactic, timeless entities born and cast to the stars. Survivors of the infinite cold between galaxies. Keepers of the knowledge of the universe and yet homeless for the trillions of worlds contained therein.”
“You should add Writer of Riddles to that impressive resume,” Lee stated.
Kam looked at her with a fury; how dare she speak to a God in such a questioning tone?
“Riddles are connections in the universe you struggle to comprehend.”
“So, how about sharing something we can understand,” Lee asked. “How does your knowledge of the universe get us home?”
“That much is a simple matter, for I know how you got here.”
“You can create a starship for us?”
“You misunderstand,” the mind said, with almost a chuckle. “I know how your planet got here.”
Chapter 6
Time slowed. No, not slowed: it flowed backwards. Not their last minutes in the alien bunker beneath a waterfall; whole epochs of galactic time rolled back. Jill, Kam, Lee, Amanda, and the soldiers were flies on a wall the size of a sun's orbit ‘round the galaxy, then became galaxies around each other.
Congruous visions, simultaneously and curiously out-of-body, coalesced all of them into one consciousness. The strange storyteller and the jejune listeners united with the story. They weren’t just watching the birth of stars-they were the stars.
Carl Sagan once created a calendar of the universe in which Columbus sailed for the new world on the penultimate second to midnight on December 31st. The strange being navigated the Santa Maria backwards, the hours reversed and entire days ripped off the calendar. Then weeks and months, leaving the Earth itself behind with the dog days of summer.
The Earth was a late bloomer in a universe filled with flowering solar systems. Each day of the year backwards sprouted a new crop of exoplanets in reverse, swirling back down to hot rocks around a bright baby star.
At first the humans wondered if the strange gray being put them in an immersive computer simulation of the tall ones’ version of the universe. They saw themselves, reflected in a slow-passing comet’s icy wall. Next to a mirror of a distant star, a gray rock the size of a school bus floated. Unmoving, drifting through the vacuum, the strange gray thing kept its eyes open.
As if understanding how far along the humans had come in their understanding of the display, the view shifted to wavelengths impossible for humans to perceive. Waves of radiation, too varied to occur naturally, emanated from several points on a planet crossing in front of the star.
They zoomed closer. A planet larger, but otherwise remarkably similar to the Earth, showed off quiet blue oceans and brown land masses as their view shifted back to the narrow band of Earth mammals. It was beautiful, this was obvious, but it was dangerous, too. They drifted on, determined to find somewhere more hospitable, in another fifty million years, perhaps.
Moving slowly by galactic standards, even planets held in a smooth orbit and slowed by a star outpaced the onlookers. Those orbits increased velocity and time surged forward again, but by years this time, not whole epochs. The strange consciousness in the chamber brought them to this place, in this time, but for what reason?
Then it happened.
Infrared signals pulsed in all directions, quickly fragmenting and separating, some moving farther away while others crashed into each other and ceased. Turning back to the simplistic human wavelength, the problem became plain to observe not by what could be seen, but by what could not.
This other Earth, one of millions their trip on the long timescape had passed, disappeared. No blinding flash, nuclear obliteration, or Douglas Adams Vogonesque destruction; only absence of substance.
Gravity, too, was perturbed. Moons, mechanical or otherwise, slushed closer to their star, and collided with other heavenly bodies. Destruction reigned through the system and their gray guide felt urgency, the first introduction of emotion into the presentation, causing also the first rift in truly identifying with it. The simulacrum fizzled.
“Wow!” Kam exclaimed.
“That was something,” Amanda agreed.
“Can we just go back to the question and answer format?” Lee asked, rubbing her forehead.
“Yes, you are not evolved enough to continue in this way for long.”
“We’re new kids on the block, relatively speaking,” Lee agreed. “So what was that? Did you just show us what happened to the Earth, but somewhere else, far away?”
“Yes. Your planet’s current peril is no more unique than your own sentient evolution. It has repeated millions of times in galactic history.”
“Millions!” Amanda asked, flabbergasted.
“It’s not so unbelievable,” Jill said. “In fact, it’s a leading hypothesis to explain the Fermi Paradox.”
“The what?” Amanda asked.
“Why we couldn’t find any aliens if there were so many out there,” Lee explained. “Right, Docs?”
“More or less,” Jill said. “One theory explained that we weren’t alone, just left alone by the rest of the universe.”
“The Prime Directive!” Lee said.
“Yes, but it appears now that it’s the opposite. There’s a force whose directive is to intervene and prevent intelligence from reaching out. The Great Filter.”
“Sounds like a Great Trap to me,” Lee said.
“Correct, Jill Tarmor and Lee Green,” the voice said. “The mechanism that brought you here was enacted as a filter by its makers, and would seem a trap to its affected species.”
“Well, it seems you know our names,” Lee answered. “And this planet, and our planet, and the history of the entire universe . . . but we don’t know much about you.”
“Other than immortality and a photographic memory,” Kam added.
“And the ability to survive in a vacuum,” Lee added.
“And that they didn’t move the Earth either.”
“That is correct, Jill. But Lee’s claim not to know us is indeed false, for by one evolutionary branch you do,” the voice said confidently.
“More riddles,” Lee groaned.
“Tardis!” Jill said, eyes wide.
“This is the oldest, ugliest incarnation of the doctor yet,” Lee said. “But a real fancy Tardis.”
“Huh?” Amanda said.
“Not the Dr. Who phone booth,” Jill explained. “Tardigrades. I knew there was something familiar about our friend here, but the fact that it’s a billion times larger threw me off.”
“Yes, you are correct. Your synaptic connections are functioning much higher than the others. I was surprised you didn’t make the connection sooner,” the voice said.
“Hey!” Lee reacted. “Who are you calling stupid? We’re not the ones trapped in a shoebox for
a million years.”
“No. You are trapped in a warehouse on an alien planet under a mile of rock. And I am not trapped!” the voice said with real emotion for the first time.
The tube encasing the gray fleshy mass stood still as stone, but the voice and sensation made all four of them jump back.
“But I am showing my age. This waiting is worse than passing through the intergalactic dead zones-at least there I had a beautiful view of the stars. Down here I’ve waited, though a short time for my lifespan, in absolute darkness and silence.”
“Guess a photographic memory of a million years comes in handy,” Lee said.
“Yes, it is why I didn’t reach out to you as soon as you entered this space; I was too absorbed in my own thoughts. Oh, I heard and saw your minds, but they were indeterminable from the other beings on this planet for a time, your species are so close. Then I heard you vibrate the air with your throats. An unpleasant experience at first, for sure.”
“For sure?” Kam asked. “Is this some joke? A test the tall ones cooked up before letting us have at their technology? It might run past the other three here, no offense, but since you entered our minds you’ve used common phrases. Not common to you or the tall ones, but common to us, not the Earth, or English, but Americans.”
“As arrogant members of your species might say: I’m just that good. I haven’t nursed my memory for a million years, but billions! That’s a lot of time to figure out how to be a quick learner of lessor things.”
“Well it’s clear you haven’t learned tact yet,” Amanda said.
“I’m giving as well as I get, as you say.”
Jill was suspicious. “So you learn American English at the drop of a hat from scanning our brains? I suppose from a neuroscience perspective that might work since some neurons might fire away constantly storing memories that contain words, not to mention our subconscious dialogue. However, I question that you’re even in here with us. You started with a dazzling display and claim to be the big brother of what we call tardigrades, microscopic creatures on Earth capable of space travel, but you lay dead for our external sensory observation.”
“I have a feeling if I listen to you too much, Doctor Tarmor, I will only be able to communicate with you. Your differences in variation of primitive vocalizations are another way to separate your species into social strata are they not?”
“Wanna translate that, Mr. Linguist?” Lee asked Kam.
“We’re not interested in your hobby of amateur alien social scientist!” Amanda protested. “For all your telekinetic talents, do any of them get us out of here?”
“Telekinesis is technically the ability to move objects with thoughts,” Jill corrected her.
“Good! If it can do that then we’d have something useful!” Lee said.
The voice was silent, observing their infighting.
“Well?” Amanda said, looking at the tube.
“We are deciding,” it finally said.
“You said ‘we’ before,” Jill noted. “How many of you are in there.”
“Our minds are not locked entirely within the physical body, I am surprised you have not realized this already.”
“There are other Tardis in this . . . space?”
“If you mean this storage cavern, no. If you mean this sector of the galaxy, yes.”
“Galaxy? We don’t have time to wait for you to hear back from another solar system. We’ll be dead of starvation by then.”
“We have decided.”
“Wait, what?” Lee protested. “That was like, two minutes, tops. Are your buddies on the Moon?”
“You know none of the planets in this system have moons, just as yours does no longer.”
“Right, and I’ve been meaning to follow up on that, too,” Jill said. “But first, Lee has a good point: unless your family is circling this planet in an invisible ship, I don’t know how you’ve talked to anyone yet. The closest solar system to Earth—or where it used to be, anyway—was Alpha Centauri, almost five light years away. You have faster than light communication?”
“Not faster than light. Instantaneous. Quantum entanglement provides many more benefits your species may discover in time. I believe one of your luminaries had a phrase for this, ‘sufficiently advanced technology—”
“—is indistinguishable from magic. Yes, you found my memories of Clarke.” Lee finished the quote. “So show us the parlor trick that gets us out of here.”
“If you’re hoping for a magic gun I’ll disappoint you.”
“Oh no,” Amanda moaned. “Not another alien pacifist.”
“Have any of you freed a fly from a spider web?”
“There’s that tact again,” Amanda said. “We meet God under an alien pyramid and all he’s been waiting for all this time is to belittle us.”
“We are not gods. We are patient observers of creation, managing to see beauty in every interaction of the energy that has existed since the universe began.”
“Are you saying you saw the Big Bang?” Kam asked.
“No. We came into being just as you did, evolving. Your tardigrades are merely a long, lost evolutionary branch. We all evolved to germinate through the stars, but our differing strains followed their . . . instincts, some seeking planets like yours and others seeking wholly different environments. My ancestors spent more time on planets with lower gravity and less pressure. Your tardigrades in higher gravity evolved to reproduce in the higher pressure of groundwater, forcing them to become smaller over time.”
“The galaxy’s bookworms,” Amanda said. “Lord help us.”
“Have some respect,” Kam sighed. “They have a few billion years of evolution on us. Why, the galactic secrets they can unveil alone are—”
“Interesting to you and Jill,” Amanda countered. “I want to go home, and it’s becoming clear that Mr. Potato Head here can only show us pretty pictures. I’ve had enough voices in my head to last a lifetime, Kam. I know Lee’s an Air Force officer, but she understands Semper Fi all the same. I’m still operating on a pledge to the Corps and my country.”
“This is beyond the Marines, the United States,” Jill pleaded. “It’s beyond the Earth. Speaking of which, they were about to tell us what happened to the Earth, to the country, and your Corps in the Event. So isn’t this part of your mission after all?”
“God isn’t a narcissist,” Amanda stated coldly. “This . . . tardigrade has only talked about itself. I imagine being trapped in the tall ones’ treasure chest for a millennia will do that. It’s probably gone stir crazy locked up here all alone.”
“But we are not alone. We are endless, at least from your perspective. Why do you choose to reject knowledge? Is this a tenant of your enslavement in the Corps?” the voice asked.
“That’s enlistment, asshole!” Amanda turned to the scientists. “You see? It’s talking down to us like pets, but it’s the one locked in a cage.”
Amanda motioned to Lee. “C’mon, I’m done being held captive down here. This thing can wait a million years for someone else to set it free, we’ll do it ourselves. Let’s see if we can find a ship in here somewhere, or at least some dynamite.”
“I can’t,” Lee said, unmoved. The other soldiers failed to join Amanda as well.
“What do you mean?” Amanda asked, frustrated. “Look, I know you’re something of a sci-fi geek on your time off and this is all a big thrill for you, being on another planet and all, but that doesn’t mean you can discard rank-I’m still a major, Lieutenant, and if you think—”
“No! I mean I can’t move, Major. At all. I can blink and move my mouth, but that’s it. I’m trying to turn toward you and I can’t even do that. I—” Lee stopped, her mouth frozen as well.
Amanda reached for the silver ring on her right hand, but stopped a few inches away. She questioned her reliance on that old ring, reverting to superstition in the face of what her grandfather would’ve considered a living deity with real supernatural abilities. She somehow believed that if
she could have just touched that ring again, maybe . . .”
“We are not your gods. We are not omnipotent,” the voice insisted, anger creeping in. “Your fear is misplaced, your role misunderstood, as you think only of yourselves.”
“Major!” the scientists screamed, but Amanda couldn’t even blink. The scientists turned to face the motionless gray hide in the peculiar gel tube. “Those in power always have better ideas for the roles of those without,” Jill said.
“You have such short lives, yet you spend your limited time waddling between apathy and contempt for each other and the world around you,” the tardigrade said. “Ego and self-destruction are positively correlated for lower species and yours apparently is not the exception we hoped for.”
“Oh no.” Jill said quietly, moving slowly toward Kam.
“We have waited eons for you, but we cannot be delayed by the curiosities and bickering of unevolved children.”
Kam reached for Jill, but found himself unable to move soon after. He regretted not telling anyone that this creature that seemed to have complete control over their motor functions had been in contact with him since the Event. Had they run from the threat of enslavement at the hands of the bearantulas only to become victims of overgrown water bears? After a short time with the tall ones he knew it hadn’t been them in his head at night. The feelings were so unfamiliar, not nuanced into human context. The tardigrade had known instantly how to relate.
In fact, Kam felt something as they came down the waterfall and a stronger recollection still as they came to the vault entrance. The bearantulas were simple beings of flesh, bound by the economics of their inhospitable planet. They could be bargained with, or at least fought off. By entering their minds, the tardigrades could control matter, any matter with a brain connected to a motor system.
“We have a purpose and a fate for you, one you cannot escape any more than you can escape this mountain.”
Escape. Kam thought of Natalie, wishing he could have escaped with her somewhere on the path that led to this moment. Surely getting on a boat to Korea would have been unbelievably simple compared to escaping the grip of three different aliens and returning to Earth. He let his curiosity pull him into a situation levels of magnitude more perilous than that sinking bank vault in the flood waters of Boston. The worst part was that she’d never know. Without the ability to cry tears of guilt that he so very wanted to make, Kam relied on his remaining senses. Until the tardigrade took over his visual cortex signals he could still see the others. Lieutenant Lee, eternally stuck with her mouth open, seemed to mock him, but must be thinking similar thoughts.
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