Terra (3 page)

They looked into the car. They saw their bags. They saw their coats. They saw the highly expensive, and quite empty, baby seat.

For a second they stared at the baby seat, still and wordless. Then a sound came from inside Mrs Bradbury, a howl, a wail, a great animal bellow of horror and despair. Mr Bradbury stood motionless, his mouth moving silently, his eyes reddening. Then they fell like stringless puppets into each other’s arms and cried, and cried, and cried as if they would never stop. They cried for their own foolishness and for the baby they’d been too busy to name, who was now gone, they knew with a terrible, terrible certainty, somewhere they would never ever find her.

Mr and Mrs Bradbury never argued about anything ever again.

T
his is going to be complicated,
thought Lbbp as he studied the small pink wriggly creature in his arms. Rrth – and anyone who might have been able to offer him any practical Ymn child-care advice – had already faded from the little spaceship’s screens. The ship was equipped to transport live specimens; its internal scanners had immediately gone to work analysing the Ymn infant’s anatomy and nutritional systems, and its automated chemical lab was now busily synthesising a gloopy yellowish liquid which, it had determined, would best sustain the little newcomer.

Very complicated,
thought Lbbp.
Very complicated indeed.
Then the Ymn infant smiled up at Lbbp with such a trusting, innocent expression that Lbbp suddenly felt that maybe everything would be simple and easy after all. Then a sudden look of furious concentration passed across the little face, and, as a noxious smell drifted through the ship’s hitherto sterile internal atmosphere, Lbbp realised that everything had just become extremely complicated. He put it – or since the ship’s scanners had already determined the child to be female, rather he put HER – into a small clear tank he’d found under the console (it had been used to carry plant specimens back on his last visit; he’d been relieved to see that he’d remembered to clean it) and began rummaging through his ship’s first aid box for wiping and wrapping materials. Having found some sterilising cloths and bandages, he steeled himself, and set about unfastening the Ymn infant’s clothing.

Oh dear,
thought Lbbp.
Oh dear dear me.

The Ymn child smiled up at him. Lbbp held his breath and got on with the task at hand. He caught a glimpse of a readout on the forward wall of the spaceship giving an estimated time for the journey back to Fnrr, back to his home, back to the Preceptorate.

I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do,
thought Lbbp.

- You have a lot of explaining to do, Postulator Lbbp.

The voice was that of Preceptor Shm, head of Hrrng Preceptorate. It echoed around the shining quartz walls of the Preceptorate’s main conference chamber, to which Lbbp had been rather ominously summoned.

His return had, at first, gone unnoticed. Everyone at the Preceptorate knew about Lbbp’s fondness for Rrth and its various life-forms, so the news that he was coming back with a new live specimen didn’t raise much interest. It was only when – as was required – he brought the specimen to the Life Science Hub to have it catalogued and registered that alarm bells began ringing. Literally.

They weren’t bells so much as high-pitched pinging sounds, but they did start almost as soon as Lbbp entered the building carrying the strange pink creature in his long thin arms. The first of Lbbp’s colleagues to notice the bundle thought it was a Fnrrn baby, which caused a small ripple of intrigue, as everyone knew Lbbp lived alone and had no children. (Fnrrns, like humans, come in male and female varieties and they get together to have children much as humans do. It’s actually quite a common way of doing things in the universe.)

It was only when they came to get a closer look at the infant – and perhaps ask where it had come from – that they noticed the pink skin, the wisps of hair, the curious protrusion in the middle of the face and those odd little flaps on the side of the head. Lbbp never found out which of his ‘friends’ had been first to press the alarm button (it was more of a paddle than a button, but it did the trick) but soon the usually serenely peaceful building was resounding to the high-pitched pinging noise and the whooshing and clanking of metallic doors and crystal windows sealing shut. The Life Science Hub had quarantined itself.

Uniformed security guards, who had they been humans back on Earth would probably have been wearing black but were instead dressed all in orange (Fnrrns find orange a very intimidating colour, whereas black, being the colour of night, strikes them as restful and calming), appeared from all corners of the building and surrounded Lbbp and his bundle.

-
Don’t move!

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She’s harmless!
shouted Lbbp.

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What is?
said one guard.

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The thing he’s holding is, or so he says,
said another.
He called it a ‘she’.

-
Doesn’t look like a she to me,
said a third.
Definitely an ‘it’.

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She’s a Ymn infant! She’s under my care!
insisted Lbbp.

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Well, whatever it is, hand it over,
said the biggest of the guards.

There was a pause.

-
Who to?
asked Lbbp. None of the guards had attempted to take the baby, or even come close enough to try.

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You. Grab it,
said the big guard to one of the others.

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YOU grab it, I’m not touching it,
came the reply.

-
Or me,
said another.
It might be bitey or stingy or something.

The baby gurgled contentedly in Lbbp’s arms.

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We are not trained to handle dangerous alien specimens!
pointed out the littlest of the guards.

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Or paid enough,
observed the one next to him. The biggest guard decided to take charge.

-
RIGHT,
he said.
You
(pointing at Lbbp)
come with us and bring that whatever-it-is with you. And the rest of you, get behind me if you’re scared.

Lbbp did as he was told, and so did the other guards, much to the biggest guard’s disgust.

After a brief and, Lbbp thought, unnecessarily rough medical examination which established that neither he nor the baby were carrying any dangerous contaminating agents, they were locked in a small waiting room while, Lbbp imagined, various authorities were informed and consulted as to what to do next.

Lbbp reached into his bag for a bottle of the gloopy yellow liquid. He fixed a small flexible nozzle over the cap and began to feed the baby.

-
We’re in trouble now,
he said.
I only wonder how much
. . .

The baby sucked away happily.

-
You have a lot of explaining to do, Postulator Lbbp. Your actions have placed your academic future and possibly your liberty in jeopardy. Perhaps even the welfare of this whole institution.

Preceptor Shm’s voice was full of sadness and concern rather than anger. Lbbp had known and admired him since his days as a student at the Preceptorate. He was wise, fair, and utterly devoted both to the Preceptorate and to science and learning in general. The thought that Lbbp might have endangered the Preceptorate itself had not occurred to him before now; upon hearing the Preceptor’s words he lowered his eyes in shame.

Lbbp was seated on a small raised platform in the centre of the high-domed chamber; Shm, dressed in the long purple gown that many Preceptors had worn before him, was seated opposite him in the first rank of a raked bank of seats, arranged in semicircular rows. In these seats sat the Academic Council; the heads of all the various departments and Lycea of the Preceptorate. As Lbbp glanced up at them, they seemed to be having a frowning competition. He looked down at the floor once more as Shm went on:

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Still, you have always shown respect for the principles and tenets of science. It may be that you have your reasons for doing this. Whatever those reasons may be, it is time to share them with this council.

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Reasons!
snorted another voice, from behind Shm. This was Compositor Vstj, who now rose to his feet.

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Postulator Lbbp, the purpose of this extraordinary meeting of the council was to read a list of the many violations and infractions of the Academic Code you have incurred by bringing this . . . thing onto the premises, but frankly we got up to twenty-six and stopped counting. Have you quite lost your mind, Postulator Lbbp?

Compositor Vstj was also an old acquaintance of Lbbp’s. They had been students together at the Preceptorate many orbits previously. Lbbp had been something of a star pupil in his day; he’d won many prizes and awards and had graduated with one of the highest grades that the Science Lyceum had ever recorded. By contrast, Vstj’s academic career had been undistinguished, but he still succeeded in rising to the post of Compositor – a senior administrative position – after graduating. The fact that Vstj came from a well-connected family who had given many generous donations to the Preceptorate over the orbits – exceedingly generous in the time leading up to his appointment, in fact – had played no part whatsoever in his success in landing the job, and no one present in the council chamber would be so spiteful or petty as to claim otherwise. It hadn’t done him any harm, though. Vstj spoke on:

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Article 22.4 of the Academic Code explicitly prohibits contact with species number 676, otherwise known as ‘Ymns’. Now I’ll grant you that ‘contact’ is a rather vague and general term, Postulator, but I think most would understand it to include, say, abducting a Ymn infant and proposing to raise it as one’s own child, wouldn’t you agree?

Shm motioned to Vstj to be silent and then went on wearily:

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Postulator. This Preceptorate – this COUNCIL – is the most influential body in the whole nation of Mlml. Far more so than the government itself. The people understand that politicians will always be petty, shallow and emotional, but they look to us – the thinkers, the teachers – to be calm, rational, scientific. Time and time again, when elections are held, we see that the politicians that the people favour with their votes are precisely the ones they trust to follow our recommendations most faithfully and competently! Do you have any concept of the damage that could be done were it to be known that a senior member of this institution had done something so impetuous, so capricious, so – oh, what’s the word . . .?

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Stupid?

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Yes, stupid, thank you, Compositor – as to bring into this very building a member of a species with which not only has formal contact never been established but whose very presence on this planet is interdicted by academic AND civil law?

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She would have died,
objected Lbbp weakly. He was immediately annoyed by how whiny his voice sounded as it echoed around the chamber.

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Oh, well, that changes everything.
Vstj’s voice oozed sarcasm.
In that case, you should consider yourself at liberty to drag home every creature in the galaxy which you happen to find in a spot of trouble. That shouldn’t cause much disruption once we’ve converted half the country into your own private petting zoo and destroyed the ecosystem!

-
Silence, Vstj.
Shm closed his big black eyes and rubbed his temples with his long fingers. Fnrrn brains are nearly twice the size of human brains so when they get a headache, they really get a headache.

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Stand up, Postulator Lbbp.
Lbbp did so and swallowed. The baby made no sound.

The council members had been making notes all this time on small crystal slates. They now submitted individual judgements on Lbbp’s case which were compiled instantly by the Extrapolator, the Preceptorate’s main computer, producing an overall ‘verdict’ which was relayed to Shm’s own slate. He read from it in an expressionless voice.

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It is the decision of this council that Postulator Lbbp be stripped of the position of Postulator and re-designated Disseminator.

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Would have demoted him to Ponderer myself,
muttered Vstj.

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It is further decided that the Ymn specimen be placed into indefinite biostasis.

Lbbp gasped. Biostasis meant the baby would be biologically ‘frozen’ – all her vital systems locked and unchanging for ever. She would never die, but she would never truly live again. He clutched her tightly to his chest.

-
No! Please! I’ll take her back! I’ll take her back to her own people! I’ll find a way of getting her back! The Ymns needn’t know about us!
Lbbp looked around himself in panic. Orange-clad guards were entering the chamber and advancing towards him.

-
I’m sorry, Lbbp,
said Shm and sat back down.

Suddenly, there was a chiming sound, like that of a great glass bell. Not many in that chamber had heard the sound before. Those who had, the oldest members of the council, were struck silent for a moment, then turned to their companions and explained what was happening, and soon everyone understood, though few could believe it.

The Extrapolator was intervening. The Extrapolator had something to say.

T
he Extrapolator was the biggest and most powerful computer on the planet Fnrr. In fact, as far as it or anything else on Fnrr was aware, it was the most powerful computer anywhere in the galaxy, and had there been a more powerful computer elsewhere in the galaxy, the Extrapolator would have known about it.

The Extrapolator was almost as old as the Preceptorate itself; beginning life as a simple electronic data retrieval system, it had been expanded and developed, having been rebuilt and rehoused countless times (generally according to its own designs) until it was now the single biggest repository of information anywhere. It was connected to every system on the planet; all information that passed through any computer or other device on Fnrr also passed through the Extrapolator’s vast artificial brain. This information was collated, compiled and cross-referenced to give the Extrapolator the most complete picture of events, past, present – and even future. So total was its command of all known facts that it was capable of extrapolating (hence its name) all possible outcomes, predicting the future with almost total accuracy.