Gift From The Stars (28 page)

“You are right, as usual,” Peter said. “There is a Purpose: to the conflict between the animate and the inanimate has been added the struggle between intelligence and the universe. The universe began in violence when no life was possible and will end in eternal darkness when no life is possible; between these two extremes, life emerges and develops intelligence. Intelligence has the power to contemplate, to understand, to imagine, to plan, and to act, and to frustrate the inexorable processes of matter. The Shadows created us as an alternative to chaos.”

Adrian was silent. Frances was silent. Jessica was silent. Even Peter was silent. The end of their long journey had arrived and the answers to their questions, and they could not look at one another.

“So,” Jessica said, “we finally have answers. If they are answers.” They were not answers she could appreciate.

“This is our choice, then?” Adrian said. “To stay and continue to gather information? Maybe the critical piece around which everything else pivots? The secret of life? The secret of the universe? Maybe how to manipulate dark energy, how to create and maintain our own wormholes and become masters of the universe? Or to return home while we can, with what we have?”

“Or to continue with the Enigmatics on into the Great Dark,” Frances said, “learning how to talk with the Shadows, learning their vast secrets in ways the superstitious Enigmatics could not?”

“If we can believe any of this fantastic story,” Jessica said. Incredibly, the others were acting as if Peter’s incredible tale was true.

“It is fantastic,” Frances said, “but maybe believable because it is fantastic. Could Peter have invented something like this?”

“Maybe the Enigmatics invented it,” Jessica said. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing to validate any of this. It’s all airy nothing.”

“That’s my line,” Frances said. “‘. . . imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.’”

“We do have validation: the scenes from parts of the galaxy that could only be viewed by something passing through them—” Adrian said.

“Easily faked,” Jessica said. “Especially by someone as clever as Peter or the Enigmatics.”

“The spaceship plans weren’t faked, nor the wormhole, nor this world, nor the alien ships in orbit around it, nor the ruins and the caverns we explored, or the pictures we saw there,” Adrian said.

“And yet there is no proof of the Shadows,” Jessica said. “And no proof possible. Even if we determined the existence here of dark matter, or shadow matter, we can never prove that it harbored living creatures and that they communicated with the Enigmatics. We have to take the word of an unreliable narrator.”

“Just like any kind of scientific hypothesis,” Adrian said. “The explanation may be fanciful but it answers all the questions. As scientists, we place our faith in things unseen as long as they explain the data and predict the future without refutation.”

“There is this great mystery,” Frances mused, “and maybe we can hang around and solve it. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“And maybe we hang around and spend the rest of our lives pursuing shadows,” Jessica said.

“I understand that you want to go home, Jessie,” Adrian said. “You have Bobby, and you and all the other mothers want a place to bring up children. That’s natural, and I understand it.”

“No you don’t,” Jessica said. “Being a mother doesn’t mean you’re any less a scientist or an explorer.” She was a mother, yes, and she would protect her child against any threat, and struggle to make it a home, but that didn’t mean that she would reject adventure.

“Yes it does,” Frances said.

“Well, neither of you are mothers,” Jessica said.

“But those feelings have to be part of our calculations,” Adrian said. “You, Frances, want to solve the mystery of the Shadows—”

“No I don’t,” Frances said. “I just don’t want to go home. If we went home we’d have to cope with all those people who didn’t want us to go in the first place, and the people who aren’t going to believe what we bring to them. And the people who called me fat and ugly all my life.”

“You’re not fat and ugly,” Jessica said, putting her arm around Frances.

“I was,” Frances said, “until I acquired character. But there’s a third way. We could keep exploring on our own, maybe find a habitable planet and settle down to build our own world.”

“That’s true,” Jessica said. “Going home has all sorts of drawbacks. Do you realize what kinds of people are waiting back there, the dolts, the stick-in-the-muds, the stay-at-homes, the let’s-not-change-anythings, the Makepeaces.”

The view on the screen changed to one of a blue planet fringed with white clouds, and nearby an oversized satellite.

“That’s Earth,” Frances said. “Are you trying to influence us, Peter.”

“Presenting the alternatives,” Peter said.

“And what about you, Peter?” Adrian asked.

“I’m staying, of course,” Peter said. “This is what I came here to find, the puzzle, the greatness. I wouldn’t miss this for anything. I’m going to download myself to the memory of the Enigmatics and share in the mystery of the ages, maybe even inherit the intermediary role.”

“So, whether we stay or go, we’ll miss you,” Adrian said.

“Not at all,” Peter said. “The advantage I have over you material creatures is that I can go and remain behind. I’ll leave a perfect copy of myself.”

“You’re right,” Adrian said. “We can’t both stay and go. But, Peter, it may surprise you to learn that we are glad you will be with us, wherever we are.”

“If I were capable of being glad, I would be,” Peter said.

“If we leave,” Adrian said, “we’ll never know the truth of anything we’ve been told.”

Frances looked hopeful. Jessica felt upset and defiant.

“But if we stay, the chances are we won’t know either,” Adrian continued. “It is a mystery that took a billion years for the Enigmatics to accept, and even then it may have been a creation myth propagated by isolation, impending peril, and priests.”

Frances looked quizzical. Jessica felt relieved.

“Our downloaded data is incomplete,” Adrian continued, “but it contains marvels such as the data on the galactic center—”

“And longevity and inexhaustible power sources and insights into the condition of existence from a thousand perspectives,” Peter added. “The wisdom not just of the ages but of a thousand ages.”

“Do we have the right to deprive humanity of that?” Adrian asked.

“What has humanity done for us?” Frances asked.

“We are part of it,” Adrian said. “And although it may be only a pretty story, the concept of intelligence struggling against blind matter captures my imagination. We must offer humanity a chance to be part of it, to make a difference.”

“It’s only a story,” Frances said.

“It’s by stories we define ourselves,” Adrian said. “Humanity is a story, science is a story, all of us are stories, and we write new ones for ourselves every day. How will this story end?”

Jessica looked from Adrian to Frances and back again. Frances, she thought, whatever she said, wanted to return, and Adrian, whatever he said, wanted to stay. She loved him, and loved Frances, too; he was capable of drifting away into silent space, pursuing his own thoughts, but they were generous thoughts, great thoughts maybe, and capable, also, of being with her more than any man she had ever known, only occasionally, but they were special occasions. “Maybe there will be celebration when we return,” she said.

“And resentment and hatred and disbelief in anything we say,” Frances added.

“All of that,” Adrian agreed. “If we return, we will have to proceed cautiously, releasing our information slowly as humanity is capable of receiving it.”

“That might take millennia,” Frances said.

“If Peter is right and we can apply the Enigmatics’ longevity processes to ourselves, we may have that long,” Adrian said. “The struggle may be endless, true, but maybe we can prevail. Maybe intelligence can reshape the universe, can stop its long slide into oblivion. Or if not us, then maybe our descendants will succeed. Or if not our descendants, then the intelligences they might create.”

“Then you are determined to return?” Frances said.

“I’m only one,” Adrian said. “We will have to ask the rest of the crew.”

“They’re like me,” Jessica said. “They’ll want to return.”

“And if they didn’t,” Frances said, “Adrian would convince them. You’re a persuasive man, Adrian. You have persuaded me. I hate humanity, but I will learn to love it again for your sake.”

So, Jessica thought, they would return with their story, a sequel to Peter’s credulous account of alien contact, and the kind of story would depend upon the way they told it—a contemporary novel of existential despair, an epic that defines a people, a revelation that becomes sacred text, a fantasy that feeds ancient yearnings, an encyclopedia to implement almost every human aspiration, or a how-to volume for reshaping the universe. Or maybe all of them.

Six months later the
Ad Astra
broke loose from orbit and headed back toward the star-strewn galaxy to begin its long journey home.