New Earth (32 page)

Feeling slightly foolish, Jordan squatted on the metal deck.

“Now what?”

Adri didn’t answer. Instead, he called in a stronger voice, “I have brought the Earthman. He seeks knowledge and understanding.”

Suddenly all the tiny lights winked on, blinking
in wild succession in a cascade of reds, greens, blues, yellows. It made Jordan think of a Christmas display on amphetamines.

“Welcome, Jordan Kell,” said a calm, sweet tenor voice.

Surprised, Jordan had to swallow before he could say, “Thank you, sir.” Then he added, “To whom am I speaking?”

“I am the last of the Predecessors,” said the voice. “I have been waiting for this moment for many
thousands of Earth years.”

“You are a computer?” Jordan asked.

“I am a self-aware, sentient entity, just as you are.”

“But you’re a machine, not a person.”

A moment’s hesitation. Then, “Hath not a machine eyes? Hath not a machine organs, dimensions, senses?”

He’s quoting Shakespeare! Jordan realized. And very selectively.

He asked, “Have you affections, passions, as well? If we tickle you,
do you laugh? If we wrong you, will you not be revenged?”

The voice replied, “No. No laughter. No vengeance. My intelligence is not awash in hormones and chemical stimulants, as yours is.”

“I see.”

“You desire to know our history.”

“Very much,” said Jordan. “Where do you come from? What is your origin?”

“Our kind arose in a star cluster in what you call the Perseus arm of the galaxy, some
twelve thousand light-years from your solar system.”

“Twelve thou…” Jordan’s mind boggled. “You’ve covered that distance?”

“We are much older than you.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Originally we were organic creatures, although our form was nothing like yours. Over the eons, the organic entities went extinct. But they left us, their inorganic sentient descendents; we have survived.”

“And why
did you come here? Was it a purposeful mission or did you just happen along this way?”

“Our travels are purposeful. We seek intelligent civilizations, be they organic or otherwise.”

“And you created Adri and his people?”

“We built this planet and peopled it,” the voice replied, “to attract your attention.”

Jordan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, his mind churning, trying to add up what
he’d just been told. A machine. It’s a machine. It’s traveled twelve thousand light-years to come here and create New Earth and people it with humanlike creatures to attract our attention.

He asked, “But if your original biological form looked nothing like us, not human at all, how did you create Adri and the rest of these people to be so humanlike?”

“From samples of your cellular structure.”

“Samples of our…” Jordan gasped. “You’ve visited Earth?”

“Many times.”

Adri raised a hand. Looking slightly embarrassed, almost guilty, he said, “I’m afraid that many of your UFO stories stem from our visits to your planet.”

“They’re true?” Jordan gasped.

“Some of them,” said Adri. “Many have been highly embellished, of course.”

“I’ll be damned,” Jordan said. Then he realized, “You—Aditi
and all the rest of you—were created merely to attract our attention?”

The voice answered, “They were created so that your first contact with another intelligent civilization would be as easy for you as possible.”

“And now that we’ve made contact, what’s to become of these people?”

“They have served their function. They will live out their lives and then wither away, as all organic creatures
do.”

“That’s not right! Not fair. It’s … inhuman.”

“It is the nature of organic species to eventually pass into extinction. Neither fairness nor your concept of right can alter biological inevitability.”

“But—”

“Jordan,” said Adri, placing a calming hand on Jordan’s knee, “the Predecessor is speaking in terms of millennia, eons. Be content. The human race will also face extinction eventually,
perhaps not for many millennia … perhaps sooner.”

“No! We’re not dinosaurs, not trilobites. We’re intelligent! We can overcome biological dead ends.”

The voice countered, “Intelligence is rare in the galaxy. Sadly, most intelligent species destroy themselves, just as your species is doing now.”

Almost angrily, Jordan demanded, “Then what’s the reason for your going to all this trouble? Traveling
here. Building a planet to resemble Earth. Populating it with human beings. Why have you done all this?”

THE DANGER

For several moments the voice was silent. Jordan sat in the cramped compartment and watched the multicolored lights flickering across Adri’s weathered face, as the old man sat beside him, stroking his calming pet.

At last the voice said, “Intelligence is extremely rare in the galaxy. Most intelligent species destroy themselves.”

“You’ve said that,” Jordan replied impatiently.
“You’ve said that the human race is already in the process of destroying itself.”

“That is true.”

“Have you come to help us, then?”

“Yes, Jordan Kell. But, more important, we have also come to ask for your help.”

That stunned Jordan. “Our help? What do you mean?”

“Twenty-eight thousand Earth years ago the two black holes at the core of the galaxy merged into one. Their merger caused a massive
gamma-ray burst that is spreading across the galaxy, killing everything in its path.”

“Twenty-eight thousand years ago?”

“In slightly more than two thousand years your planet Earth will be bathed in lethal levels of gamma radiation. All life on your world will be erased.”

“But our astronomers haven’t seen any such discharge in the galaxy’s core,” Jordan objected.

“Your astronomers see the
core as it existed some thirty thousand years ago. The light of the gamma burst has not reached your telescopes yet. When it does, you will die.”

Jordan’s insides felt hollow, quavering. This can’t be, he told himself. It can’t be!

But he heard himself ask, “If this is true, why have you come here? To warn us? To help us? To watch us die?”

“To warn you, yes,” the voice intoned. “To help you,
yes. And to ask for your help.”

“Our help? To do what?”

“To help as many intelligent species as possible.”

“To help them do what?”

“To help them to survive.”

“Survive?” Jordan snapped. “But you said everything will be destroyed, we’ll all be killed.”

“It may be possible to survive the danger,” said the voice, as flat and calm as ever.

“Your energy shields!” Jordan fairly shouted. “Could
they be used to protect an entire planet?”

“It is possible.”

“Then … we can survive the danger.”

“If you believe it exists. If you accept our help. If you overcome your innate paranoia and xenophobia.”

“Of course we will,” Jordan snapped. “We’d be fools not to.”

“There are many fools among you,” the voice said, flatly, without accusation, without disapproval.

“If you mean Meek and the others—”

“Your group is a microcosm of Earth’s teeming billions. How many fools are there on your home world? How many fearful ones who would turn their backs on the truth? How many would-be dictators who would take this opportunity to seize power for themselves? How many who would say that a danger two thousand years in the future is no concern of their own? How many who would let their descendents face
the danger unprepared?”

Chastened, Jordan replied in a low voice, “I see. I think I understand the problem. It won’t be easy to convince my people of the need to act, to face a danger that’s two thousand years away.”

“There is more,” said the voice.

“More?”

“I am the last of the Predecessors here. Adri’s people are few. They can help you, but you must help them, as well.”

With a sidelong
glance at Adri, still fondling his pet, Jordan asked, “Help them? How?”

“There are several other intelligent species scattered among the stars in your section of the galaxy. There may be others who have not reached the stage where their civilization becomes detectable. All must be contacted. All must be warned. All must be helped.”

“And you expect us…?”

“To join us in the search for intelligence.
To work with us to save as many as possible from destruction.”

“I see,” Jordan said. “I understand.”

“Will you do it?”

Almost, Jordan smiled. “I’m only one man, sir. I can’t speak for the entire human race.”

“Someone must. Someone must lead. Will you take that responsibility?”

Jordan hesitated. “Let me understand you. You warn that a wave of gamma radiation will sterilize our solar system.”

“Yours is one of many intelligent species that faces destruction.”

“But on the other hand, you tell me that all species—intelligent or not—eventually become extinct.”

“This is true.”

“Then why bother? Why not accept the fate that’s approaching us? Why prolong our agony?”

The voice went silent. Adri looked at Jordan with infinite sadness in his eyes. “Friend Jordan,” he began, “don’t you understand?”

Jordan looked back at the old man.

The voice intoned, “To live is to struggle against entropy.”

And then Jordan remembered, “Dinosaurs and birds!”

Adri smiled.

To the voice, Jordan said, “The dinosaurs went extinct, but not before they gave rise to the birds. The human race may go extinct someday, but not before we give rise to our successors.”

“Organic or inorganic,” said the voice. Jordan
thought that it somehow sounded pleased.

“If we let the gamma wave wash over us,” Jordan went on, “all life in the solar system will be snuffed out. Dead end. But if we can survive the danger, even though we might become extinct someday, our successors will live.”

“Organic or inorganic,” the voice repeated.

Jordan nodded. “I see. I think I understand now.”

Adri patted him on the shoulder,
pleased.

“We have a tremendous job ahead of us,” said Jordan.

“The first step,” Adri said, “is to win the understanding of your group back at your camp.”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed. “If I can’t get Meek to understand, I won’t have much of a chance back on Earth, will I?”

REACTION

Aditi was sitting on the floor of the circular chamber, apprehensively stroking the purring Sleen, when Jordan clambered out of the starship, behind Adri. He felt just as stiff and hurting as the old man: physically and mentally weary, his mind awhirl with all he’d just discovered. The weight of responsibility had never felt heavier. He had the fate of the entire human race on his
shoulders. And the fate of other intelligent species as well.

Aditi jumped to her feet at the sight of him. Sleen scampered off with a complaining yowl.

Placing her hands on Jordan’s shoulders, she looked up into his eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“A bit shaken by it all,” he replied.

“The Predecessor explained it all to you?”

“Everything.”

“And you’ve accepted it all?”

“Everything,”
he repeated.

She smiled happily. “I knew you would. Adri had some doubts, but I knew you’d accept it all.”

“Yes,” he said. “Now to get Meek and the others to accept it.”

*   *   *

As soon as he returned to the camp, Jordan asked his brother to call a meeting of the entire group. Late in the afternoon they assembled in the dining area, with Hazzard, Trish, and Zadar on-screen from the ship
in orbit, as usual. Eleven faces focused on Jordan, intent to hear what he had to say. Slowly, carefully, he told them what the Predecessor had told him. As he spoke, he saw their facial expressions change: astonishment, at first, then apprehension, and—on several faces—stony, stubborn disbelief.

“They visited Earth to get samples of our DNA?” Paul Longyear looked almost pleased at the confirmation
of his suspicions.

Jordan nodded at the biologist. “Many times, from what the machine told me.”

“And you believed him?” Meek asked. Then he corrected, “It, I mean.”

“Yes, I believe it,” said Jordan. “Every word of it. Why else would they go to all this trouble?”

“They actually built this planet?” de Falla marveled. “This whole planet?”

“It’s hollow, remember,” Jordan said, with a wry smile.

Thornberry rubbed his stubbled chin. “They’ve got the technology to do it, they do.”

“It’s bullshit!” Brandon burst. “Jordy, they fed you a fairy tale and you fell for it.”

“Fairy tale?”

“I agree,” said Meek, almost accusingly. “They fed you a cock-and-bull story to hide their real motives.”

“We’re no closer to finding out what they’re really up to than we were the day we landed,” Brandon
growled.

“Bran, it’s the truth. I’m convinced of it.”

“How convinced would you be if you weren’t sleeping with one of them?” his brother snapped.

Jordan stared at his brother. He felt as if Brandon had just kicked him below the belt. Coldly furious, he said in a deadly calm voice, “This is the kind of reaction I should have expected. Maybe the machine is right, maybe the human race is speeding
toward extinction.”

Elyse Rudaki spoke up. “Jordan, how can you expect us to accept such a story, without evidence, without proof?”

“You’ve been working with their astronomers, Elyse. Haven’t they shown you anything about the gamma burst?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s all a lie,” Meek insisted. “A story they invented to get us to accept whatever they want to do.”

“And what do you think they want to do,
Harmon?”

“Invade Earth. Wipe us out or absorb us.”

“And you’re helping them, Jordy,” Brandon added.

Jordan stood at the head of the table, looking down at the eight of them, and the three others on the screen against the wall. Their faces were angry, fearful. Next thing, he thought, they’ll burn me for being a witch.

From the display screen, Trish Wanamaker said, “Do you have any proof to
back up what you’re saying, Jordan? Any evidence at all?”