Prophets (2 page)

For the past five years, the mind has struggled with its first dilemma. It has observed spectral anomalies around the star Xi Virginis that it cannot classify, and since first detecting it, the mind has returned to consider it every one to five seconds.

Each time, the datum refuses to fit into the mind's model of the universe.

Despite its lack of curiosity, after reviewing the same item for the two hundred millionth time without being able to arrive at any conclusion, the mind decides that it is unable to properly classify the event.

Xi Virginis is now too close in time and space to ignore. Without deceleration, the egg will pass within three light-years of the star. However, decelerating the egg enough to avoid it would radically alter the path of the egg and, therefore, its mission.

The mind of the egg concludes that it requires consultation with its passengers in order to proceed. With its decision, a quarter million minds held in stasis are freed.

There is chaos as the population of the egg wakes. A quarter million thinking individuals suddenly occupy the single body of the egg, each one seizing its share of its processing and sensory abilities. All have a last common memory of donating the contents of their mind to the egg. All have the common shock that they are the result of that copy, and the person they remember is centuries and light-years removed from them now. All suffer disappointment in not finding themselves at their destination. All look out in wonder with the sense array of the egg, once the sole province of the mind.

All hear the mind's message.

“There is something requiring your attention.”

The mind is surrounded by a sphere of attention as the population focuses on it. Emotionless, the mind does not flinch from stating that it is unable to decide how to respond to the anomaly. It offers the choice of proceeding as planned, or decelerating and radically altering either their ultimate destination, or near doubling their travel time. To the mind, velocity is too precious a commodity to dispense with without a communal decision.

Almost at once, the populace wonders, “Why?”

The mind shows them the anomaly around Xi Virginis.

Light speed thoughts ripple across the mental sphere inside the egg. Individuals cluster and debate the meaning of the mind's observations. Most of the population study the phenomenon with the egg's own eyes. Camps develop in the debate, first thousands, then hundreds, then a few dozen as points of view converge and communal differences are ironed out.

In the end, there are three camps of belief.

The first, smallest group maintains that the anomaly is non-threatening and should be ignored. The mind should not adjust the course of the egg.

The second group, almost five times the size of the first, preaches caution. Their mission to seed another world should not be endangered by a cavalier attitude. The mind should start maneuvering; decelerating the egg to ensure that the egg comes no closer than ten light-years of the phenomenon, whatever it is.

The last group, and a majority, urges a course of action that the mind hadn't even considered. They should maneuver slightly to take the egg even closer, within a light-year of Xi Virginis. Their mission should not just be a journey of space and time, but one of knowledge. They should, in fact, be studying this anomaly, not running away or ignoring it.

Consensus is long in coming, but the egg eventually maneuvers to come as close as possible to Xi Virginis.

The decision is a mistake, and when the egg is within two light-years of Xi Virginis, it is too late for the mind to correct it.

Everyone is vulnerable to their past.

—
The Cynic's Book of Wisdom

I would far rather be ignorant, than wise in the foreboding of evil.

—Aeschylus (525-456 Bce)

Father Mallory was two weeks into his xenoarchaeology class before one of his students finally asked him “the question.” The questioner was a kid, barely eighteen standard, with a complexion and height that tagged him as having come from off-planet. Most of Mallory's class were squat fair-skinned Occisian stock who had already done their tour in the Marines. Judging by age, many had put in more rotations than Mallory had.

“Master Gideon,” Mallory read the student's name off of the holo display and used his most scholarly voice, “That question is always asked when I give this class.” Mallory smiled and faced the ranks of almost-solid holos showing students scattered all over Occisis. Even the classroom was a projection, as Father Mallory actually stood in a small room in the administrative offices of St. Marbury University.

“Can anyone identify the flaw in Master Gideon's question?”

The question was in large part rhetorical. Rarely did anyone ever answer; rarer still did they answer correctly. Mallory paced the two square meters that represented actual floor. Behind him, a display that was virtual to a second level of abstraction showed digital models of artifacts on the Martian surface overlaid by wireframe models of what the original structures might have looked like.

“He is asking if we know why the race we have named the Dolbrians died out a hundred million years ago. As I said, it's a question I am always asked in this class in one form or another. Every person who has ever studied them asks why. A race that left artifacts on planets across of all of explored space, who terraformed planets in dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of systems, a race that spread so widely and evidenced technology and engineering skill barely on the cusp of our comprehension. Why would they die out so completely?”

He had their attention.

“Anyone see a flaw in my premise?”

One of the student holos raised his hand. A Master Bartholomew whose image showed digital pixilation and a slight jerkiness that indicated his signal was bouncing off a commsat or three.

“Master Bartholomew?”

There was a full second delay before Master Bartholomew answered. His skin was weathered, and he still wore his hair cut in military style. He had unit tattoos on his neck that left Mallory subliminally aware of his own, under his collar.
Someday I should have the tats removed,
he thought.
The implants, too.

“Do we know they died out?”

“Exactly.” Mallory pointed at the display behind them. “This is a ruin, Mars is a ruin. For all we know this entire part of the galaxy is a ruin. But the presence of a ruin no more proves the extinction of the Dolbrians than the ruins of Athens prove the extinction of the Greeks. Just because I cannot point to some being somewhere and say, ‘This, I know, is a Dolbrian,' does not mean they ceased to exist. Over a time-scale of millions of years we have very little certainty. It is quite possible that the race of Dolbrians evolved into something else, the Paralians, the Volerans, maybe even us . . .”

Bartholomew frowned. “Father, that seems an odd assertion from a priest.”

“How so?”

“Doesn't evolution contradict—”

Mallory held up his hand, “Stop right there.” Inside, he sighed. This was an undergraduate elective course and generally had an even split between humanities and science majors. Sometimes the students in the humanities had strange ideas about evolution. “So we don't get sidetracked here. Evolution is a scientific description of how species change over time, neither it, nor any other scientific theory, make assertions about faith, Church doctrine, or the nature of God.”

“But . . .”

“If you wish, after class I can direct you to Papal rulings on the matter, some of which are over five hundred years old.”

Bartholomew looked crestfallen, and Mallory opened his mouth to add something about how Church doctrine upheld the sacred nature of all intelligent life when his holographic classroom abruptly vanished.

He stared a moment at the blank white walls, frowning. After a moment, when his class didn't reappear, he picked up the small comm unit mounted next to the holo controls set in the wall.

“Maintenance,” Mallory told the interface as he looked at the small readout showing the status of his classroom.

Mallory didn't know why he looked at the display; he had no idea what the columns of numbers meant. Maintenance probably wouldn't even ask him about the display, assuming—in his case, correctly—the technical ineptitude of the faculty.

“Hello, I have a problem with my classroom.”

“One-oh-six-five.”

“Yes, my classroom disappeared in the middle of a lecture.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. O'Brien, I have thirty-five students that just vanished—”

“What? I'm in the middle of a lecture. It's two weeks into the term. This has to be some sort of mistake.”

“I can't help you there. You'll have to talk to the administration about it.
”

“Who authorized it?” Mallory felt a hot spark of anger.

“Thank you.”

Father Mallory slowly placed the comm unit back in its cradle.

Why would the administration, the president, cancel his class assignment? Anger was giving way to serious apprehension. This kind of thing was almost always followed by leave or dismissal. In his own university days, he remembered having a mathematics instructor, Father Reynolds, disappear in the middle of the semester. The day after a new instructor appeared to teach the class, Father Reynolds' name was dropped from the faculty directory. He never knew for certain what the gnomelike calculus professor had done, but he had read rumors of some financial indiscretions involving university funds and a gambling addiction.

But for the life of him, Father Mallory couldn't think of anything done on his part that merited that kind of sanction.

“Father Mallory?”

Mallory turned to face a dark-haired woman standing in the doorway of his classroom. She was Vice-Chancellor Marie Murphy, the highest-ranking member of the laity in the university administration.

“Dr. Murphy?”

“Forgive me for interrupting your class, there is a meeting you must attend.”

“This couldn't have waited?”

“No, I am afraid not.”

Dr. Murphy didn't lead him up to the administrative offices as he had expected. Mallory followed her into, of all things, a freight elevator.

“What's going on?” he asked, as he followed her into the brushed-metal cube of the elevator.

“It will be explained at the meeting.”

Mallory shook his head, more confused than anything else now. All the meeting rooms were in the upper floors of the building, above the classroom areas. However, Dr. Murphy keyed for the third sublevel. The only thing down there would be environmental controls for the building, maybe some storage. Mallory was surprised that the keypad accepted Dr. Murphy's input. The biometric systems in the elevator shouldn't allow either of them access to the systems areas; they weren't maintenance or security personnel.

Mallory became very aware of the fight-or-flight response happening in his own body. Stress and uncertainty were elevating his adrenaline levels and his old Marine implants were responding. He felt his reflexes quickening, and felt events around him slowing down.

He wiped his palms on the legs of his pants very deliberately. Habit and training, not implants, made him contemplate escape scenarios.

He closed his eyes and started running through the rosary in his mind to rein in the biological and technological panic impulses. He couldn't help but remember recent history, before the overthrow of the junta. Back when the Revolutionary Council was burning monasteries and assassinating priests and nuns in the basements of churches.

When the doors chimed and slid aside, Mallory chided himself for being surprised not to see a death squad.

She led him down a concrete corridor. The hall was unadorned, lit by a diffuse white light that seemed to erase any character from the cold gray walls. Something made him ask, “Where were you during the revolution?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you remember the purges?”

“My father told me stories, but I was only three when the junta fell . . .”

“Oh.” Mallory felt too old.

Their footsteps echoed as they passed ranks of large metal doors. Utilitarian plaques identified doors in some machine-readable code that looked more cryptic than any of the alien languages Mallory had studied.

Dr. Murphy stopped in front of one door that, to Mallory, didn't look any different than any of the others. She stood in front of the door, and it slid aside with a pneumatic hiss. She stepped aside and looked at Mallory.

“He's waiting for you.”

“Who?”

Dr. Murphy shook her head and started back toward the elevator, leaving Mallory standing in front of the open door. He called after her, “Who?”

She didn't respond.

Mallory turned back to the open door. It was a storeroom lined with ranks of free-standing shelves. He couldn't see too deeply into the room through the shelving, but he sensed the presence of people back there somewhere.

“Hello?”