The Legend That Was Earth (31 page)

IN THE ROOM THAT HE had just about taken over as his permanent office in the Hyadean West Coast Trade and Cultural Mission in Los Angeles, Michael Blair hung up after taking a call from Krossig, now established in Australia, and pushed his chair back from the desk to stretch. The Hyadean scientific station was on the outskirts of Cairns, in the northeastern coastal highlands of Queensland, which over the last twenty years had grown into a sprawling, medium-size township of cosmopolitan flavor following "discovery" of the region by wealthy escapees from Asia, the U.S., and elsewhere, attracted by the region's combination of independence, rugged informality, and the chance of a quiet life. His previous experiences having been limited to the U.S., Krossig was rapturing about the racial variety and contrasts of lifestyle that he was finding here. Blair had assured him there was a lot more of Earth to be sampled yet.

The latest home news was that Texas had declared for the Federation. The Eastern part of the country was staking claim to legitimacy by resurrecting the Civil War term "Union" and threatening the use of armed force to suppress what it insisted was rebellion. Federation spokespersons, by contrast, referred to it as the "Globalist puppet regime" to emphasize its non-American underpinnings and backing. Already, the Union was challenging the Federation's hegemony by sending armored units forward between the Mississippi and Dallas, and flying provocative military demonstrations over the seceded territory. There were rumors that Mexico was already under Globalist diplomatic pressure to allow supporting operations from the south. To the north, Federation forces, for their part, were advancing eastward to secure a flank along Lake Superior. What Canada would do, nobody knew.

Although it had been threatened for some time, the secession when it finally happened had come with a suddenness that took everyone by surprise. And the Hyadean mission in Los Angeles, due to its being in unusual circumstances at the time, had played a big part in bringing it about.

Following disagreements with the Hyadean Office in Washington that Blair neither understood nor wanted to, the Hyadean head of the legation had been recalled east along with key members of his staff for "policy discussions." Orzin, the political official who was still visiting, had taken it upon himself to manage the day-to-day operation of things in Los Angeles until whatever was going on got sorted out. And while this was the state of things at the mission, an event occurred which some said was a key factor in bringing about the secession. The story was so bizarre that Blair hadn't, even yet, been able to construct in his mind the beginnings of an explanation.

Dee had appeared at the mission, asking to see Wyvex, and handed him a storage cartridge containing a file encrypted in Hyadean code. The file was from Vrel, who had last been heard of five days previously, when he left saying something vague about visiting a place near St. Louis. Somehow, he had ended up in South America. Dee had known no more than that. The cartridge had been given to her by the service manager of the dealership that took care of her car, who said the contents had come in over the phone. He'd suggested that next time she wanted her car checked, she should take it to the phone company. Why Vrel couldn't have used the regular communications to contact Wyvex was a good question. Presumably, he was in some kind of trouble and his access was blocked; or he didn't want to broadcast his whereabouts by using a system that would need his ID codes; or he was worried about general surveillance on mission traffic.

The reason became clear when Wyvex decoded the file and ran it. To his astonishment, it featured none other than Roland Cade and his former wife, Marie, giving an account of the truth behind the Farden-Meakes affair and the measures taken to suppress it. Along with their allegations was a portrayal, by other Hyadeans, that nobody at the mission knew what was happening in South America, including harrowing clips of the aftermath of air strikes, Hyadean-equipped ground units in action, with Cade and Marie again, relaying the narrative of a disillusioned Hyadean officer. Coming at a time when emotions were high everywhere following Sovereignty's release of the Reyvek documents, it was enough to finally demolish official denials and the entire government position. Vrel, in his message to Wyvex, asked for the recording to be sent to Chryse.

Blair didn't know what Wyvex would have done if the mission's official head were still in charge there. He doubted if Wyvex would have had the nerve to forward the recording on his own initiative as Vrel had requested, and had he sought higher approval, the legation head would surely have quashed it. Orzin, however, standing in temporarily, was more flexible. He had become a familiar face in Cade's social circle and mellowed to Terran ways, learning to enjoy the entertainments, turning a blind eye to staff dealings in illicit exotics, and some said not being beyond having a hand in a few himself. The important thing was that he had developed an affection for Earth that many Hyadeans seemed eventually to come to share. When Wyvex showed him the documentary, Orzin had been very disturbed. After much talk and deliberation that Blair had not been a party to, he had decided it
should
be forwarded to Chryse—which meant straight from the mission, since it would never get through Washington. Not only that: Orzin had authorized a version in Terran format to be released to the Western news media. Whether it had constituted a prime cause or not, the Federation had declared its secession within forty-eight hours of the broadcast's going out.

What Cade, who hadn't been heard of for days either, was doing in South America was anyone's guess. Nobody that Blair had talked to at the house had a clue. Even Julia had professed being at a loss, saying he'd gone to Atlanta on personal business and that was all she knew. Equally mystifying was what Marie was doing with him, since as far as they were all aware she had long been history in Cade's personal life. But it would all presumably be revealed in time, and until then there was nothing they could do, since Vrel had given no means of contacting him. They were in no position to devote a lot of thought to such matters, in any case. Right now, there was an impending war situation to contend with.

Blair propped his heels on the desk and clasped his hands behind his neck. He hoped that all this was not about to disrupt the progress he was making toward a better understanding of the way Hyadeans thought, and how those who spent any period of time on Earth began to be affected by it.

Earth had been dogmatizing itself into a virtual Dark Age for the best part of a century, discovering little that was fundamentally new, concentrating on technological improvements that it persuaded itself constituted science. The cause was a system of social dynamics that encouraged the pursuit of rewards in the form of accolades and funding, and then conferred them in recognition of what was "right" rather than what was true. The result was an Establishment that repeated the history of the medieval European Church by selling out to the political system as purveyors of the approved Truth in return for patronage, prestige, and protection. The irony, Blair was beginning to suspect, was that the solution might well lie in what all the great religions of the world, in essence, had been teaching all along: controlling passions and cultivating the ability honestly not to care what the answers to supposedly objective questions turn out to be. An even greater irony was that the Hyadeans, who seemed to possess this quality innately, seemed bent on imparting to their discoveries the significance and deeper meaning that generations of Terran scientists had been working diligently to expunge from theirs.

The Hyadean account of subatomic phenomena was close to what had become known on Earth as the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, and described a vast, fantastic, virtually infinite superposition of everything that had happened, would happen, or could happen. In making the decisions to follow one path rather than another through this ever-branching labyrinth of possibilities, the individual assembled together the sequence of perceptions and experiences that were interpreted as the universe and its flow of time. In fact, there were uncountably many universes, but isolated in such a way that at their normal, day-to-day level the inhabitants of any one had no knowledge of the others, or awareness that they even existed. Other "nearby" realities did, however, interfere at the quantum level, which was another way of saying that information could travel between them.

People had been insisting for centuries on the reality of things that science was unable to explain. Now, instead of dismissing such possibilities out of hand, it had become fashionable for scientists to grant that there might be something to some of the claims and to cite quantum "leakage" as the answer. Hence, there was still no case for invoking any "supernatural" phenomena beyond what science could account for. It was just that "science" covered more now, the world was a bigger place, and "natural" meant more than it used to.

The Hyadeans saw things the other way around. Whereas the Terran physicists found an ultimate mechanistic explanation that removed the illusion of purpose from all equations, the Hyadeans were beginning to see the whole, immense totality as a framework ideally suited to making morally meaningful choices possible. From there, having no preconceived notions to get in the way, they had followed their propensity to simply accept what the facts said and seemed to be arriving at the—to them, utterly new and revelational—conclusion that it had been designed that way, by an intelligence, for a reason.

At first, Blair had been taken aback. Since graduating, he had generally accepted uncritically the materialist doctrines that underlay his training, and their assumptions had become habit. But now, since meeting the Hyadeans—and particularly after having to forget so much of what he had believed before—he wasn't so sure. Even before the Hyadeans came, increasing numbers of Terran biologists had been astounded by the complexity that they were finding even in allegedly primitive organisms, and saying that such organization couldn't have come together of itself. Blair tried to fit this in with the Hyadean picture of the cosmos as initially hot, high-density entities spinning off progressively lower-energy objects from quasars down to stars and eventually planets. What else were planets but assembly stations for constructing living organisms and providing an environment for them to develop in? If it was purposeful, then the purpose of life was to evolve consciousness; and what other purpose could consciousness serve than to provide the means of undergoing experience? It was all so uncannily close to what Krossig was getting so excited about. What did Blair make of it? He really didn't know. Maybe he was becoming a lapsed atheist.

All the same, even if the Age of Materialism should turn out to have been overhasty and based on misplaced confidence, it would be wrong to conclude that no good had come of it. Blair had never understood what the horrors of the Inquisition, wars of extermination, and witch burnings had to do with a creed supposedly based on tolerance, kindness, and compassion. Perhaps a pause in social evolution to forget the old vengeful, spiteful god hadn't been such a bad idea.

Earth had invented religion, even to the extent of turning its science into one. The Hyadeans had produced a science free of unsupported beliefs and irrational convictions, and now they wanted to project religion into it. Maybe the future would see a merging of the two: the Hyadean form of science, restrained by the notions of modesty and humility that stemmed from an awareness of powers greater than oneself—what earlier ages had idealized but never been able to make a reality. There was so much that they could be working toward together, instead of the conflict that seemed to be relentlessly approaching.

An incoming call sounded. Blair swung his feet down and sat forward to take it. It was Wyvex, in the communications room on the floor above. "We've just heard from Vrel again," he announced. "A direct call this time."

"Okay! Are they still in South America?"

"Yes, but he wasn't specific about where. He said something about being in a village and trying to get a flight from Ecuador."

"You mean they're on their way back?"

"It sounds like it—soon, anyway. They've added more to the party. The journalist who made that documentary is there. Her name is Luodine. Her associate, Nyarl, was here a while ago."

"I remember him. Striking hair—kind of green and black."

"Yes. And there's another Hyadean woman, called Yassem. None of us knows her. Some kind of communications specialist."

"So when should they be here? Any idea?"

"As soon as they're sure there's no problem entering Federation territory. We can't think of any reason why there should be, but we don't really know. Orzin is checking with Sacramento now."

"Of course there won't be a problem. They're heroes. Roland and his ex are celebrities."

There was an unnaturally long pause. Then Wyvex said heavily, "She's there, but Roland isn't. Apparently, he was in a helicopter that got shot down over a combat zone. Yassem and Marie were there too. As far as they know, they were the only survivors."

Blair exhaled shakily, and then nodded. "I see." He had to swallow a lump in his throat

"I'm not sure how Terran social conventions work with regard to Julia," Wyvex said. "What's the way to handle her situation?"

"I'll take care of it," Blair told him.

CADE'S GRAY PRISON GARB was gone, and in its place he had acquired a pair of baggy white peasant-style trousers, a colorfully embroidered shirt something like a vest with sleeves, and a coarse woolen cloak that also doubled as a blanket at night. He even had a floppy, flat-topped hat with a brim. As his faculties slowly returned sufficiently for him to be able to follow, Hudro told him the story.

The helicopter had been downed by a proximity burst and crashed in a rocky ravine full of fallen trees, spilling bodies as it tumbled down the side. Rocco had found himself thrown out near Cade and dragged him clear. Hudro joined them, hauling another of the occupants, also unconscious. They found another stumbling around, dazed, and another impaled on a shattered tree limb—he died later that day. And that was it. There had not been time to search for any more. They had come down under fire in an area where MOPAN guerrillas were retreating before part of the government force that was endeavoring to encircle Segora, where the helicopter had been heading. A group of MOPAN had gotten to them before the regular soldiers and rushed them away.