GOOD. LISTEN TO ME. ALL OUTCOMES ARE POSSIBLE. ALL EVENTUALITIES WILL, GIVEN ENOUGH TIME, COME TRUE.
“What he’s saying,” Hal chipped in, “is that even successfully stopping Julius doesn’t guarantee the perfect future.”
“Because,” Garlidan contributed, “there is no perfect future. Just the sum of what came before, whatever that might have been. You’ve given the Earth a better future, but who knows where humanity will drive itself?”
“Into another abyss?” Hal wondered aloud. “Or into a future of interstellar travel and peace?”
“They have a better chance now,” Garlidan said. “We’ve given them that much. The rest is up to them. Now, zoom out and take a look for yourself.”
Paul closed his eyes and allowed the Universe to fill him up. It was a wonderful practice he’d learned in his sixth and seventh years on Clarion. Becoming one with all things, he was able to take increasingly longer views of events. As his point of perception zoomed out, he could see not one, but several universes, all of them different. This became dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.
There were universes in which humanity never developed beyond the level of a caveman tribe. And others where a unified, peaceful Earth began spacefaring in the 18th century. There were Earths populated by dinosaurs, and entirely by birds, and those which were entirely lifeless. There were pasts in which a human colony on the moon had been abandoned before 1450AD, owing to disease and strife. Paul sifted through these possible worlds, observing the menagerie of outcomes, wondering which might have been best.
ALL OUTCOMES ARE EQUAL. JUST LIVE IN THE ONE THAT YOU’VE GOT.
“I see,” Paul said. And he knew that was true on many more levels than it had ever been.
***
Chapter 31 – First Contact
July 4th, 2051
Paul and Falik’s Apartment, Manhattan
Paul reached over for the remote and clicked on the wall TV in their bedroom. The blinds were mostly drawn and it was dim in the room. He considered letting Falik sleep for a little longer, especially after such a vigorous morning of sex, but he knew she wouldn’t want to miss this moment.
“Baby, wake up,” he said softly.
“Hmm?”
Paul brushed dark hair from her face and kissed her cheek. “Want to watch humanity take its next small step?”
Falik’s eyes opened at once. “Is it time already?”
“Yup. Nearly seven. The edited broadcast is about to start.” Four days of material had been sent back to Earth and then compiled into a digest of events so far.
“Do you think she’s going to be alive?” Falik asked. It was something they’d discussed endlessly in the previous days. “I mean, I really hope they don’t walk in there and find that’s she’s…”
“She’ll be in hypersleep, or happily pruning something in the farm when they show up. You’ll see,” Paul assured her. He clicked on the screen.
“… touchdown after their seven-month journey to the Neptune system. The mission commander, Evelyn Tanner, guided the lander Dyson to a pinpoint arrival just a hundred and fifty yards from the outpost after a journey of nearly four billion miles.” Paul recognized Casey Dietrich, the respected anchor and interviewer who had been humanity’s guide to the arrival of Daedalus, the moment of First Contact, and many of the extraordinary events that followed.
“Let’s remember that no one knew of the existence of this outpost until Hal provided NASA, the European Space Agency, and other bodies with data on its location in 2034. Quite how long it has been there, we just don’t know.”
“Well,” Paul smiled, “some of us kinda do.” Footage of Tanner descending the ladder of their conical, six-legged lander rolled on the screen. “You go, girl.”
“Other unknowns,” Dietrich continued, “include whether or not the sole occupant of the facility, an astro-botanist known only as ‘Anne’, will even be alive to welcome our intrepid team. Hal has told us that she may be in hypersleep, but speculation has been rife as to her mental and physical health after so long alone on a remote moon.”
“I’d have gone completely crazy,” Falik admitted. “She’s the bravest woman I’ve ever heard of.”
“So, without further ado, we present edited highlights of this extraordinary encounter. As you can see, Commander Tanner wasted no time in attempting to make contact.” The white-suited astronaut could be seen tapping on the airlock door, while Hal called through for the first time in months. “You might remember that Hal informed us, while the crew were en route, that he did not tell Anne anyone was inbound. He felt that Anne would become anxious at the impending arrival of strangers, and reiterated how important her routine had become. Apparently, Anne spends five or six hours of each day meditating in the farm modules. Hal claimed that disrupting this routine would have unpredictable effects.”
“Best way to spend your free time,” Paul said.
“Except sex,” Falik noted.
“OK. A close second.”
The airlock opened and Tanner made her way inside. Sending only a single representative of the crew was thought wisest at this early stage, and Hal had insisted that it should be a woman. “Commander Tanner had to wait for about ten minutes before there was any sign of movement inside the complex. But then…”
Dietrich let the images speak for themselves. Filmed from Tanner’s helmet camera, Anne approached the airlock and peered at the new arrival for a long moment before opening the door with a smile. “Tanner was able to remove her helmet, and exchange these words with Anne.”
“We’ve come from Earth. We are your friends,” Evelyn said. And then, “Paul and Hal send their warmest regards.” Anne said nothing quite yet, but smiled very warmly and reached for Tanner’s gloved hands with her own. Then she beckoned the astronaut into the complex and invited her to sit down on a bench in the farm.
“I’d have preferred her to do a Stanley and Livingstone,” Paul said.
“A what?”
“It doesn’t matter. We never knew Anne’s family name, anyway. Though, I guess ‘Dr. Anne, I presume?’ would have done nicely.”
“In the conversation that followed,” the commentator said, “it was revealed that Anne had been taking a full part in an interstellar community of scientists and researchers for the previous hundred and twenty years. Earth scientists were not to be included, Anne explained, until humanity had take the step of reaching out to Neptune and making personal contact with her.”
“Interesting idea,” Falik noted. “Forcing people to get it together and start deep space journeys.”
“Periods of hypersleep, occasional gene therapy, and a cocktail of drugs provided by her Replicators kept her in good health. This was all overseen by Hal, who called her the ‘bravest, most remarkable human being ever to put her hands in the soil’.”
“She’s alive, and she’s sane,” marveled Falik, sitting up in bed. “It’s barely believable.”
Paul never missed a chance to glance over at her naked breasts. “She’s one tough cookie,” he said. “She held that little family together, even after everything went wrong for them.”
“Amazing,” Falik agreed. “But, I mean, what now?”
Dietrich had a surprise for the world, one planned long ago, in orbit around a peaceful gas giant at the edge of the Milky Way. “Commander Tanner was soon told that a special object had been placed underneath the research station. Anne informed her that this was a ‘Red Cube’. The team wasted no time in sending a robot team to dig out the object and return it to the Dyson for analysis. And, ladies and gentlemen, the findings of that research are now becoming available for public viewing.”
Paul and Falik stared at the screen. “Did you do this?” Falik asked.
“No, this was Garlidan’s idea,” Paul explained. “But I’ve never known exactly what the Cube would reveal.”
“The Red Cube contains the plans for a spacecraft propulsion system which would appear to enable faster-than-light travel. It
also features a map of every nearby star system, including several which it claims are ‘inhabited’.”
“Oh, wow,” Falik breathed. “The Rosetta Stone of Red Cubes. I love it.” She put an arm around Paul as they watched.
“There are plans for upgraded Replicators which can produce absolutely any output, as opposed to the handful of possibilities we have now.”
“You’re welcome,” Paul quipped. “I could have given you guys the full version straight away,” he said, “but the world would have gone nuts, and its economy to hell in a hand cart.”
“And there are also plans for a transport device called a Relocator, which appears to be an enhanced version of technology gifted to humanity by Paul Lockman in 2015.”
“Again,” Paul smiled, “you’re welcome.”
Falik grinned at him. “Oh, savior of humanity, how should we praise thee?”
“Finally, as if this wasn’t enough, Anne had news, apparently through Hal, of a spacecraft which is being made available to humanity straight away. It is a long away even from Neptune, orbiting a Kuiper Belt Object which does not appear in our current catalog. Anne told Commander Tanner that a human crew is welcome to bring this ship to Earth and make it ready for mankind’s first interstellar journey.”
Falik squeezed Paul tightly. “They’re going to love you even more now,” she said. “The public didn’t understand why we refused to just hand over Daedalus and let them play with it.”
“Because they would have caused fucking chaos,” Paul said. “We’ll take a more measured road now. This way, humankind has to develop the means to get all the way out to the Kuiper Belt.”
“They might even find Julius, way out there in his hypersleep pod,” Falik speculated.
Paul shrugged. “I doubt it.”
The commentator continued. “Such a journey will require a major effort, perhaps even a collaboration between every country on Earth. It will be an opportunity to work together and pool the world’s knowledge and resources for a higher purpose.”
Falik slid on top of Paul and kissed him. “My hero,” she said. “All I’ve been doing is researching human sexuality and reporting back to the Institute. Whereas you,” she said, reaching down between them, “have been furthering the lot of humanity and ensuring its bright future.”
“Well, someone had to,” Paul said as they began to make love for the seventh time that day. “And besides,” he said, pushing deep inside her, “it’s been fun.”
***
Author’s Afterword
Thank you for reading. Seriously, I really appreciate it. I hope it was a fun ride.
At the end of most novels, there are people to thank – researchers, publicists, advisors, agents, editors and the like.
This book was essentially written, formatted and published by a team of one. All of its many flaws are my own responsibility. You’re more than welcome to comment upon one or more of them in an email, but I do not plan to publish a revised version of Clarion. Five years on one project with a likely readership in the low hundreds is quite enough.
Therefore, the only people I wish to thank are those who have read my novels, and especially those who have reached out through email to express their views, whatever they may be.
That means we can skip the ‘couldn’t have done it without’ part, and get straight to the nitty-gritty.
Clarion is the sequel to a giant, ridiculous novel called Voyage. It’s only fair to point out that Voyage began life as a two-thirds completed story on a website of rather dubious reputation which publishes exclusively pornographic literature. If you read Voyage before embarking on Clarion, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Some of you, therefore, may be more than a trifle disappointed at the comparative paucity of screwing in this book. I must apologize for thwarting what I’m sure were ardent and heartfelt expectations.
During the five years since Voyage was completed, I’ve done my best to grow as a writer. I quit my day job, in fact, and now make a living (or thereabouts) ghostwriting sci-fi and mystery novels for others. Eventually, of course, I do wish to publish under my own name (which isn’t C. Paul Lockman, by the way; I just happen to like it) and when I do, with all respect to the genre, it won’t be pornographic literature.
So, I wanted to write a book which took some ideas out for a spin, without having to pause every ten pages for some artfully expressed coitus. I wanted to play with notions of the Earth’s future, the importance of humanity’s initial expansion into the solar system and beyond, and issues relating to genetics, the environment, loneliness, artificial intelligence and, especially in the book’s latter stages, the benefits of meditation and the search for enlightenment. These are heady topics, and I think you might agree that lots of sex, while great fun in itself, would probably have gotten in the way.
If you’ve never tried meditating, incidentally, I encourage you to follow the advice of Garlidan and Brown Cloud, and GIVE IT A TRY. Rest assured that you need not aim for a thirty-four hour sit, as our hero did prior to his moment of Enlightenment. Ten minutes will do nicely.
The book is also a warning against the dangers of religious fanaticism and the narrow interpretation of texts. I write in the weeks following the horrendous terrorist attacks in Paris, and can only hope that the next time I pen an ‘afterword’, our world has healed and moved on from this present lunacy.
Now, after publishing Voyage, I got myself into some trouble with my readership for appearing to espouse socialism. That’s because I do. By ‘socialism’, I don’t mean Draconian, police state tactics like those of the Soviet Union or China. I mean the sharing of the means of production, and the equitable distribution of national wealth, in a way which narrows the inevitable gaps in income and the likelihood of achieving one’s potential. That’s all.
I believe that technology can play a major role in creating a more equal society, and that spacefaring in particular has the power to melt away barriers of class, race and gender. No one who sees the Earth from space returns home unchanged. As a writer far better than I once put it: Travel is fatal to prejudice. I would add: And interstellar travel is fatal to small-mindedness.
I appreciate with all my heart the time you’ve taken to read my work. I encourage you to get in touch ([email protected]), leave a review on Amazon, and/or tell your friends about these books, if you think they’d enjoy them. But mostly, I’d love it if you encouraged others to think about space travel not as a dangerous and expensive curiosity, but as an absolute human necessity.
Again, thank you for reading.
C. Paul Lockman
Florida, December 2015
Clarion: The Sequel to Voyage (Paul's Travels) Page 36