Seeker (48 page)

It was Alex who made the decisive observation: “They’re not supposed to be out here. Leave them here, and they’ll remain isolated. They can’t see any other worlds. They probably do not know where they came from. Probably think they’re native to Balfour. Let them be, and they’re stuck here.”

There was a tall, angular woman who looked as if she worked out a lot. She was an archeologist, whose name I’ve forgotten, determined that we would go down. And that she would accompany the effort. What were we afraid of? For God’s sake, all you had to do, she said, was look at the images. Kids in parks, people walking the streets. These were clearly not barbarians.

I wondered if the various bloodthirsty governments down the ages had made it a point to keep everyone out of the parks and off the streets, but I let it ride.

She succeeded in making all the males feel as if they were cowardly, so they decided that sure, it was their clear duty to make our presence known. We’d take our chances, what the hell.

Even Alex, who’s usually shrewder than that, bought in to direct contact.

So we organized a mission. Brankov was literally drooling at the prospect of descending onto a capital lawn somewhere, getting out, and saying hello. The female archeologist talked as if there’d be a band and a cheering crowd.

The lander could accommodate seven, plus a pilot. Alex, of course, automatically could claim a seat. Did I wish to go?

I preferred to hear what they were talking about on the surface before I got into anything. I had this image of savages rushing Captain Cook. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’ll wait here. Let me know how it turns out.”

Shara said she’d be happy to take my place.

Brankov and four other archeologists, including the female, would fill out the mission. They were anxious to get started. There was even some talk of not waiting for the translation capability. But Alex took a stand on that. Let’s hear what they’re saying before we do anything rash, he insisted.

We estimated a population of about 20 million. The inhabitants didn’t have an extensive land surface at their disposal, of course. The night side of the planet was too cold, the side facing the dwarf, too hot. That wasn’t to say no one could live out there. But it took a pioneer.

We loaded the lander with supplies and settled back to wait for the AI.

I know this is inconsistent, but I was annoyed that they’d leave me behind. I’d expected Alex to put up an argument when I backed off. If he had, maybe I’d have caved. But I’d have liked to see the effort.

While they waited for the AI to get a handle on the language — “
I don’t have translation software
,” he’d explained, “
so I have to improvise”
— I went back to the
Lotus
, tied Kalu into the yacht’s base system, and said hello. He thanked me for the rescue and, at my request, produced Harry.

Harry wore an all-weather jacket and looked resigned. “I’ve got good news,” I told him.

Something very much like suspicion crept into his eyes. “
What
?” he asked.

“They’re here,” I said. “The colony survived.”

The relays from the
Gonzalez
’s telescopes were flickering across the monitor. Kids. Boats. Farms. Aircraft. Cities. Roadways.

“I’ve prayed for this, but did not dare hope.”
I wondered if the prayers of an avatar counted for anything.
“I would not have believed it possible.”

I described how they’d done it, and he nodded as if he’d known all the time they’d survive.

“Do they know who they are? Where they came from?”

“We don’t know yet. That may be expecting too much.”

“Okay. I don’t suppose you know anything about Samantha and the boys?”

“No,” I said. “Harry, it’s been so long.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe there’ll be a record somewhere.”

Alex called from the
Gonzalez. “We’ve got the translator
,” he said. “
We’re going down
.”

“Be careful,” I told him. “Tell them I said hello.”

I crossed back to the other ship because I didn’t want to be alone while it was happening. I got there a few minutes before launch and just in time to hear the AI stop the proceedings dead in their tracks.

“We are receiving a transmission from the ground,”
he said.
“It is directed at us and addressed to ‘Unidentified Vehicle.’ ”

“From whom?” asked Alex, who was struggling into a pressure suit.

“Do you wish me to ask?”
said the AI.

Brankov and Alex looked at each other, and simultaneous grins appeared. “Put him through,” said Brankov.

It was a woman. Gray hair, stern features, intense green eyes. She stood beside a cabinet with glass doors. The cabinet was filled with plates and goblets. She looked across the short space of the common room at Brankov and then at two or three of the others. She finally settled on Brankov. She asked a question in an unfamiliar language, and the AI, translating in a female voice, said, “
Who are you
?”

Brankov signaled for Alex to reply. He took a deep breath. “My name is Alex Benedict,” he said.

“No. I mean, who
are
you?”

“I’m sorry,”
said the AI.
“I do not think I’m getting the translation quite right.”

Alex laughed. It was okay. He kept his eyes on the woman. “We’ve come looking for you,” he said. “It’s a long story.”

Harry’s colonials had no idea who they were. The world on which they lived was simply
The World
. There was no other. The great migration across the stars had been lost, but the episode of the brown dwarf and their own descent onto Balfour was dimly remembered as part of a sacred text. The ancient writings maintained they had been brought into the world by a company of divine beings, across a shining bridge. That an earlier attempt had failed when the recipients proved ungrateful and proud. And that the divinities would return one day to lead a select few onward to paradise.

Only a few still believed any of that. Margolian science, thousands of years ago, discovered there were two mutually exclusive biosystems in the world, one embracing humans, a wide variety of edible fruits and vegetables, and certain animals and fish. Everything else was of a different order altogether. Food from one system did not nourish creatures from the other, nor could diseases generally strike across the boundary. Biologists explained it by concluding life had gotten started twice. But a few true believers maintained that the dual stream of life, as it was known, showed the original second-creation story to be valid.

Alex had told the woman at the other end of the comm link the entire story. She’d listened, gone pale and looked skeptical by turns. She’d brought in someone else, a tall, glowering man who behaved as if we were trying to push real estate, and Alex had told the story again.

And still again, to an even taller man in a blue robe.

Emil — we were by then on first-name terms — took over, and talked to someone else, short, dumpy, red-haired, dressed in white. The offices kept getting bigger, so we knew we were moving up the chain.

Between the redheaded guy and whatever was going to come next, we intercepted a video broadcast. And there was Alex’s conversation with the woman, explaining how everybody on the planet had come from a place called Earth, that they’d been missing for hundreds of generations, and that the visitors were delighted to have found their long-lost brothers and sisters.

Smile, Alex. You’re on Universal TV.

Despite the fears of some on board that there’d be rioting in the streets, the Margolians accepted the assertions with equanimity. Within the next hour we picked up televised debates and commentary on whether the story of the visitors was credible or preposterous. Within thirty hours we’d received an invitation to visit the community leaders.

The landing party were received as friends. The Margolians had a good laugh at our speech patterns and the way we dressed. We found their food impossible to get down. Prominent men and women were invited to say hello, and they had questions for us designed to elicit the truth. They also took tissue samples and, later that day, announced that we were indeed kin.

It never got dark along the terminator. The trees whispered in the westerly wind, the sun remained permanently affixed just over the horizon. It always felt like early evening.

The Margolians had sent ships into the icy waters of the dark side. They’d established bases, sometimes for military reasons, but usually for scientific purposes, at various points on the globe. They’d developed different languages, different religions, different political systems. That had resulted in wars during their early years, but they’d long since banished armed conflict. There were too few habitable places in the world. Common sense dictated peaceful societies. They’d developed manufacturing capabilities so early there was no record when it had happened.

Because there were no seasons, and no day-night cycle, they acquired some curious ideas about time. It existed only as a measurement of duration between events. It was purely a human contrivance. There had never been a second Einstein.

On the whole, they’ve done well for themselves. (None among them, I understand, would recognize the name
Margolian
.) They’ve prospered with limited natural resources. They’ve established democratic governments throughout the
Bakara
, the terminator, that happy zone where sunlight is indirect and it is always early evening.

Today, of course, you can see replicas of Margolian statuary and other art forms, and even a few originals, at major museums throughout the Confederacy. Some of their architectural designs have been adopted in places as far away as Toxicon and the Spinners. Last year’s number one best-selling novel was by a native of the Bakara. And I should add that their average life span is almost twelve years longer than ours.

They never got off-world. There was no moon, and they could see no targets for exploration. Knowledge of the outside universe appears to have been lost early, and the conviction that theirs was the only world remains hard even now for many of them to shake. To this day, there are Margolians who insist that the Visitation, as they call our arrival, never really happened. That it’s all a conspiracy of some sort.

Despite their advances in so many fields, astronomy remained in a dark age. The nature of the lights in the night sky (which were, of course, visible only to those who ventured out onto the dark side) was for them an enduring mystery, one whose solution defied generations of scientists.

The first translations of Margolian histories began to appear within a few months after we got home. They have a decent record of events going back almost five thousand years. Before that, their history becomes spotty and eventually vanishes into a welter of myth. The earliest city of which they know, Argol, was destroyed in the wars and is now the subject of a major archeological effort.

Their history, in its general outline, is not unlike that of humanity at home. There were invasions and massacres, dictators and dark ages and rebellions. And an occasional renaissance. Philosophies, some rational, others destructive, had their day. Religions seem to have been there from the beginning. They were tolerant of each other during their early years, oppressive and exclusive as the years passed and, I suppose, as memories of Earth faded.

There’s a fair amount of talk now that we’ll be able to learn a great deal about human nature by comparing the experience on Balfour with that of society at large.

As I write this, Alex is there. He got interested in some of their myths, which refer to a lost city. Sakata is said to have been an advanced civilization built, for reasons no one can imagine, on the night side. Alex thinks it might have been the original base, established before the catastrophe. He says he knows where to look.

I haven’t said anything to him about Harry because he would accuse me of being sentimental. But I hope he succeeds and that he finds evidence that Samantha, Harry Jr., and Tommy made the flight to Balfour. I know Harry himself wouldn’t have gone. Not if he’s the man he seems to be.

I’m happy to report that the Wescotts’ reputation has prospered. Their achievement in finding the
Seeker
has more than overshadowed any question of their using the discovery for selfish purposes.

Blink had several names. He turned out to be a renegade navy pilot who had already been convicted of murder for hire. He’d undergone personality reconstruction, but obviously his old tendencies resurfaced, and he sold his services to Windy. He remains the best known case during modern times of recidivism after a mind wipe.

Amy Kolmer got a lot of money out of the cup, but I understand she is broke again.

Hap Plotzky was convicted of two more assaults after my experience with him. After our return from Margolia, he asked me to be a character witness at his trial, one of the more brazen acts I’ve seen in my life. Currently, he does hedge trimming and general yard work in Kappamong, in the Kawalla Mountains. He has no memory of his years as a burglar and a thug, and he thinks his name is Jasperson. Last year, the townspeople named him one of their one hundred model citizens.

Next time you’re in Mute territory you might enjoy visiting the Museum of Alien Life-forms on Provno. They have an entire wing devoted to Margolia. And avatars of Alex and me. Counting the Neandertal, that makes three of us.

I’m indebted to Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History, to David DeGraff of Alfred University, and to Walter Cuirle, for advice and technical assistance. To Jerry Oltion, for reading and commenting on an early version of the manuscript. To Ginjer Buchanan, for editorial assistance. To Ralph Vicinanza, for his continuing support. And, as always, to my wife and inhouse editor, Maureen McDevitt.