The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (12 page)

“I do not believe in such things, Observer.”

“And why not?”
 
Vorjos studied Grinek, narrowing his eyes with sincerity.

“The days of prophecies and visions are behind us. They made
our culture weak, as they do all cultures. Why should I put my faith in
imagined deities when I can have faith in my very real biology?”
 
Grinek flexed his hands and wrists,
letting the blood flow through his veins, to illustrate his point. Vorjos
laughed.

“Grinek, the Council has declared that
ghin
are no longer anathema.”

“Only because of a foolish official.”

Apparently, the cousin of the Dear Leader had been a closet
ghin
, as had his family clandestinely
during the eight hundred years such practice was banned. Not wanting to offend
this cousin—who ran the planetwide police force—the Dear Leader had
eased the ban on religious practice. It was still illegal to worship openly,
confining the specter to the private sphere, but Grinek had heard of increased
religious fervor in the population. He heard of citizens missing work to
worship, of hoarding religious icons in their homes. Apparently, this had been
going on for centuries, but only now did the topic appear in open conversation.

Vorjos continued as if Grinek had said nothing, the sling
gently swaying as he talked. “Anyway, it is part of a successful culture to be
diverse. You have to know this.”

Grinek walked over to Vorjos and stood over him. Grinek took
pleasure in imagining the political officer was cowering inside under his
mighty figure. For all he knew, the man really was scared witless.

“Observer, no one is going to save you from the truth. There
is no sky god, or his brother the ground god, or his sister the water goddess.
I have to admit I am rather taken aback that you believe such things. Most
children are not foolish enough to fall for such delusions.”
 
Vorjos gave a miniscule look of anger,
but in his position of subservience, and inebriation, he could do nothing.
“Listen. Science is the most powerful tool in our arsenal, not superstition.
Let’s say we get the information we need from that ship: the coordinates of
where that comet originated billions of years ago. We discover a planet there,
as Vertulfo believed, and
there
we
find some clue as to the beginnings of all life. Possibly a culture, too. What
do you suppose the reaction will be on all worlds?”

Vorjos swallowed. “They will want access to the planet, as
well.”
 

“Exactly! Sixteen emperors have reigned since Kotara made
first contact with the last of the Four Civilizations…this will be the greatest
discovery since then, perhaps of all recorded history. And you know what? We’ll
withhold as much as we can from the other races. Oh sure, we’ll release enough
so that the scientists on Nydaya and Earth will confirm the find—but when
their scientists ask to see it, we’ll deny them that privilege. We will be the
guardians of the most important secret in recorded history. They will bend to
our whim for a chance to study the planet. And we can make them believe
anything we say about it.”

“Some scientist. It sounds to me like you plan to forge the
facts.”

Grinek knelt down in front of Vorjos. “Let me tell you about
facts. To begin with, the Kotaran people’s ‘understanding’ of the facts won’t
matter. They know nothing of science—we protect them from it, in fact, so
they can’t make their own radios
or
, Fox’Lo
forbid, weapons. They’ll believe whatever the broadcasts say.

“As for the other races, Observer, maybe we will have to
manipulate the data a bit. Skew the numbers. But I don’t think we’ll have to.
When we get to this planet, I have full faith we’ll find a civilization a
million years more advanced than us. Maybe they will not look like us or act
like us, but they will know we are their kin. And they will welcome their
children home. If this new race is the oldest civilization yet discovered,
surely they will see we are on their level.”

“Why do you believe that?”

 
“Observer, why
do you think we build such fearsome ships? Why do you think we are so skilled
at combat? Because aggression is part of the Kotaran DNA. Forget about the
territory we hold, or the fleet we’ve constructed. Our genetic structure gives
us the will to fight. Makes us superior to all of the other species we’ve yet
encountered.”

Vorjos flared his nostrils and took a drawn-out sniff. “I
don’t necessarily disagree. But still, you have to admit that your belief
requires a bit of faith.”

“What I say is true, Observer. In nature, the weak die. They
whittle away to nothing. What are the Nydens, the Bauxens, the humans doing this
very second? Dying slowly. It takes a strong race to survive in the wild. Isn’t
it obvious? We are the only race to truly evolve as was intended.”

“Who intended that? The Gods?”

“No. Nature. We
are
perfection. When we come across the lost civilization, our living ancestors, I
believe they will recognize our superiority. I foresee them celebrating our
arrival, perhaps even coming to revere us. They’ll have advanced beyond
religion, I assure you. In time, perhaps in a generation, the Kotarans and this
civilization will have formed such a bond that we can go about conquering the
three lesser races.”

Grinek grew tired of kneeling and stretched his legs. He was
headed for the door when Vorjos shifted in his sling and spoke again. “What you
would love more than anything is to attain glory from this trip. Isn’t that
right, Grinek? You’ll want us to name a mountain after you, or something like
that?”

Grinek’s ears wiggled in thought. “I’d expect them to rename
a continent for me, at least. You see, the real afterlife is in glory, not in a
world beyond this one.”

“So you say,” Vorjos said, closing his eyes. “Answer me
this, Grinek, because I’ve been wondering it for a while. If this fifth
civilization is so advanced, why have they never contacted anyone else? Why
hasn’t so much as a radio wave ever come from this star system?”

Grinek curled his mouth into a wide grin, the fangy smile
offending Vorjos go greatly that he looked away. Grinek froze his mouth there, above
the political officer. “I can’t presume to know. I only want to find out. I
could ask why this doesn’t intrigue you, Observer, but I know it is because you
have replaced the tangibility of your own body with pathetic concepts like
politics and the divine.”
 

Vorjos peeked back at Grinek, who feinted a lunge forward,
startling the drunk officer enough that he flailed in his swing. Grinek snarled
and turned to the door. Work had to be done, and this discussion of philosophy
had grown tiresome. He opened the door and bolted past Misjrem, heading
straight to the lift.

In addition to Kel, Masao, David, and Roan, nine crewmen
survived the assault. In fact, a few managed to corner and kill one of the
Kotarans, who was about to detonate a grenade. But it was pretty clear that the
Colobus
was in terrible
shape—with more than half the crew dead and only a handful of competent
people to run the vessel, there was little hope of making it very far.
Communication to the outside had been mostly cut off by whatever was behind
them—almost certainly a Kotaran vessel.

The faster-than-light Alcubierre Drive had been switched onto
its maximum setting. Everyone prayed it wouldn’t falter.

With extreme caution, Kel and Roan managed to sedate the
unconscious Kotaran from the engine room and pile him onto a hovercart. He was
transported to the medical bay where the doctor, Moira Kazen (who’d survived by
hiding in her x-ray machine), restrained him and put him under more sedation.
The groggy alien had squirmed and growled along the way, but Roan was confident
they had him doped up enough to keep him calm while they decided his fate. The
mechanic Jasper (who’d survived by acting dead) was assigned to guard the
prisoner. A pistol was offered to the wily man, who said he could do just fine
with his wrench.

As evening approached, and thorough checks of the
Colobus
revealed absolutely no more
Kotarans, all crew except for Jasper met in the dining area. It had been
cleaned up from earlier in the day, where a crewman and a cook had been
butchered while going about their daily tasks. As each crewman assembled, they
made sure to step over a faint red streak of blood still staining the tiled
floor.

There were ten people gathered before Roan. With their
haggard faces and tattered clothes, they all resembled refugees more than
professional crew on an intersystem freighter. As with most of the other Type-B
crews, this lot consisted of people from the poorer regions of Earth: there
were two turbaned crewmen, possibly Muslims or Sikhs; two were from the Slavic
States and talking in Balkan English; the rest were from various other
devastated continents, with an American consoling an African friend over a bowl
of cold soup. Trauma hung over the tables.

Kel cleared her throat. “Listen up, everyone. Up here,
please.”
 
The disparate crewmen
stopped their conversations and directed their attention to the captain,
sitting on a stool at the head of the tables. The
new
captain.

“Captain Silverman is dead, as you probably know. So is most
of the crew—fourteen others in all. The Kotarans committed a massacre
here.”
 
Sniffles and nervous
shifting could be heard as the crew took in what Kel was saying—though
the mayhem was well known, the bare statistics were still shocking. “We’re in a
pretty bad situation, but we’re safe for now. To address one of the rumors I
heard earlier, yes, there is still a Kotaran alive on board. He’s going to be
locked in the medical suite until further notice.”

There were shouts of disapproval from the crew.

“Kill him!” someone said.

“Dump him out the airlock!” said another.

All these ideas sounded perfectly reasonable to Roan. But
the doctor, Moira, put up her hands to dismiss them and calm down the rabble.
Her older Levantine features radiated a stern, motherly aura. “We’re doing
nothing of the sort. We’re going to keep him alive and sedated on orders of the
captain.” Moira shot Kel a somewhat disparaging look, suggesting she wasn’t all
the way on board with this idea.

“That’s right,” Kel said. “We want to know who he’s working
for. What the Kotaran plan is here.”

More jeers. “Bullshit, he’ll never talk.”
 

“He’ll probably kill himself before he squeals.”

“Good.” Laughter.

One of the turbaned crewmen stood up. He reminded Roan
vaguely of the old holofilms of his ancestors in America—not in his garb,
but the way he acted, like a man who attended town hall meetings and stood up
to get his voice heard.

“Why
did
they
attack us?” the crewman asked. “What possible valuables could we have on board?
The
Colobus
is just on a routine trip
to Orion…or
was
on, I should say. We
only have industrial cargo on board. Right?”

Kel looked contemplative, with eyes down at the floor. Her
silence was suspicious, as Kel’s almost always was. Masao coughed, but to
Roan’s surprise didn’t interject anything.

“The Kotarans were after something on board,” Kel finally
said, eyeing Roan. Here we go. Roan shook his head and unfolded his arms. He
knew this was his cue.

“It’s me,” Roan admitted. “My name is Nick Roan, for those
who don’t know. I’m captain of the
Dunnock
,
or at least I used to be. Here’s the situation: I’ve got some valuable
scientific information on me right now. It’s important enough to the Kotarans
that they’re willing to kill over it.”

“And what is it?” the turbaned guy said. “What do the
Kotarans want so badly?”

Roan was quiet. “I’m not entirely sure. I only know the
basics,” he said.

“Why the hell are you letting other people get slaughtered
for something you aren’t
sure
about?”
the crewman raged, the veins in his forehead throbbing. “I know a way to solve
it. Let’s all take a look at the information in question.”

“No.”

They didn’t like that. Now much of the crew hopped to their
feet. Curses and threats flew in several languages. Roan realized that behind
the kitchen counters a few feet away were several drawers of cutlery that could
come in real handy if the crew decided to turn the senior officers into salami.
This was not the kind of fuss they needed right now.

“We need to get off this ship!” one of the Slavs said. “Take
us to Mars!”

“Not going to happen,” Kel said.

“Why the hell not?”

“There’s a Kotaran ship trailing us,” Masao put in. “A
military ship, from the readings it’s giving off. Not something we can go
head-to-head with. It’s matched our speed and for now we can stay just ahead of
it—we had a head start, after all. But we go to Mars, we’re going to have
to change course and pull back on the Alcubierre drive. Then they’ll catch us.
Board us again. Have their fun again.”
 
That settled the crew down somewhat.

Another voice: “The Martian forces will protect us.”

Roan laughed. “You’d give those Reds a fighting chance over
the Kotarans?”

“Then what should we do?”

“Obviously,” came a voice, “We have to assess the scientific
information.”
 

Heads turned as David walked in the room, an alien in a sea
of humans. The chatter evaporated. David marched over to the front of the hall
and stood beside Kel, who again moved her eyes to the floor, as if ashamed to
share space with someone so different. David eyed the crew and his feathers tousled
before he spoke again.

“It is clear that many of us want to leave the
Colobus
because of the massacre.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be an option in the near future. But
there is good news in all of this. If what my friend Aaron Vertulfo suggested
to me is true, then we are headed somewhere with unparalleled wonder.”

Some of the crew seemed to listen raptly. A few shook their
heads in disbelief. Roan sympathized with those nonbelievers, but now he was
curious as to what was on Aaron’s datapad.

David continued: “If we continue on our present course, with
a slight deviation, we may come across a safe point soon. I have checked the
charts. Bauxa is about one month away—and that’s the only world with
enough traffic, and friends, to keep us safe. You all expected a two-month
voyage, anyway, so this should not be a problem. I pray the information you
will soon hear about sways you into helping us on that voyage, because we
will
need as much help as possible. Mr.
Roan, will you please share this information with us?”

For what seemed like the hundredth time, Roan remembered the
pad in his jacket pocket. He reached in and pulled it out. All eyes were on
him. Roan waved the hexagon around, the crew responding with silence. Either
they were skeptical or filled with suspense. Roan walked it over to David, who
snatched the pad with his talon. Roan looked around for something to play the
datapad, such a computer or projector, but saw nothing. He wondered if the pad
wasn’t going to be sliding down David’s gullet and then projected through that
domed head of his. Now that would be something.

Instead, David merely set the pad down on the mess table in
front of him. “This was intended to be presented to the Science Committee of
the Planetary Assembly in a few weeks. Please forgive its rudimentary nature.”

David pressed two buttons on the side. There was a click.

“Presentation T-I70,” came Aaron’s voice, a jarring sound
from beyond the grave. It was as dispassionate as if he was delivering one of
his scientific lectures. After the command, a holographic portrait of Earth
shimmered above the device, humming and spinning. Aaron’s voice became much
more animated:

“The origin of life is a millennia-old question. Popular
opinion once held that a deity or deities created it, and all of the Four
Civilizations have similar views in each of their myriad religions. Christianity,
Islam, and Judaism on Earth speak of Adam and Eve as the beginning of all life.
The Trench Spirits on Bauxa claim that life was ejected from an undersea
volcano. And the Diviners of Kotara believe that life came from sunlight
millions of years ago, from the rays of Bar’Hail.

“Scientific evidence, however, points to life originating in
primordial pools billions of years ago. The right combination of chemistry and
physics stewed organic matter into something much more complex. Over the
millennia, this life evolved into the bipedal creatures that today define all
the Four Civilizations. More or less, we have four limbs, two eyes, and brains
of relatively the same size.”
 
Earth
shimmered away on the hologram, replaced by anatomy drawings of all the four
known species: the human, the bird-like Nyden, the corpulent green-skinned
Bauxen, the dangerous kangaroo-like Kotaran.

“But where did this organic matter come from? It could have
come from materials already present on the cooling Earth. Or it could have been
deposited here by an extraterrestrial body. But if life is extraterrestrial in
origin,
where
did it originate? To
me, this question brings to mind the age-old dilemma of what came first, the
chicken or the egg? Well, I’ve done the research. And I believe I can finally
answer that question.”

Only coughs and shifting could be heard from the assembled
crew. Everyone now paid attention, perhaps not convinced but definitely
curious.

“There is a theory called panspermia. It postulates that
life originated outside our solar system and that we, humans—and Nydens
and Kotarans and Bauxens—are not, in our earliest forms, native to our
home planets. Panspermia theorizes that a comet seeded Earth and all other
planets with life when they were nothing but molten balls of rock. Perhaps
pieces of the comet, embedded with key amino acids, collided with our infant
world. We know from experiments in Antarctica that bacteria encased in a
big-enough ball of ice can survive in hibernation for millions of years. Tests
have also shown that bacteria can survive tremendous impacts, such as a
collision with a celestial body.”

The hologram showed clips of inert bacteria writhing into
life.

“I’ve always been intrigued by panspermia, but had no
evidence for it. Such an event would’ve happened billions of years ago and no
trace of it would still exist, at least not physically. I have found no comet
fragments on Earth and no impact crater old enough to predate life. For
example, the Greenland crater, the oldest known on Earth, was formed about
three billion years ago. Life, however, originated on Earth as long ago as four
billion years ago.

“So, lacking hard, tangible traces, I’ve instead searched
for indirect evidence of this seeding.” The hologram image turned into the
familiar, slowly rotating shape of a DNA double helix.

“The first clue was in genetic material. I’ve analyzed the
DNA from members of all four galactic species. Until very recently, the genome
of the Kotarans was unknown to outside science. After traveling to Kotara, I
was able to obtain DNA that a Nyden colleague helped me decipher. This finally
allowed us to map the genetic code of each of the four species, and from those,
I have been able to find incontrovertible links.”
 
The swirling double helix lit up as
Aaron explained key details. “First, DNA base pairs, which code all information
for life forms, are identical across all species. This has been hinted at in
research before, but my experiments have finally proven the fact. Second, of
the twenty standard amino acids that make up proteins—amino acids being
integral parts of DNA—ten of them are identical. Lastly, we all share a
key element in our bodies. Though our chemical makeups are all different, owing
to the environments of our planets, all four species contain atoms composed of
point fourteen percent phosphorous. Phosphorous, you may know, twins with sugar
to make up the structural backbone of DNA. There are more detailed files in
this device.

“The second clue was in geography.”
 
The hologram shimmered to show a line of
planets. “Our four solar systems are more or less in a direct linear alignment,
or at least the first three are. Going from ‘West’ to ‘East’ we have Nydaya,
Bauxa, Kotara, and Earth. Panspermia has been dismissed before, however,
because Earth is just off this line. If a drifting comet seeded the planets,
the naysayers asked, how did far-away Earth get seeded? My research has shown
the Beehive Cluster between Earth and Kotara was home to several white dwarf
stars that went nova about four billion years ago. It is conceivable that such
a change in gravity in any solar system could have altered a comet’s trajectory
so that it veered near our own solar system. A fortunate detour, for us.”