The Songs of Distant Earth (11 page)

“I agree, but ship’s regs are very strict. If Captain Bey wanted me in a hurry and I didn’t answer
–
”

“Well – what would he do? Put you in irons?”

“I’d prefer that to the lecture I’d undoubtedly get. Anyway, I’ve switched to sleep mode. If Shipcom overrides
that,
it will be a real emergency – and I’d certainly want to be in touch.”

Like almost all Terrans for more than a thousand years, Loren would have been far happier without his clothes than without his comset. Earth’s history was replete with horror stories of careless or reckless individuals who had died – often within metres of safety – because they could not reach the red emergency button.

The cycle lane was clearly designed for economy, not heavy traffic. It was less than a metre wide, and at first the inexperienced Loren felt that he was riding along a tight-rope. He had to concentrate on Mirissa’s back (not an unwelcome task) to avoid falling off. But after the first few kilometres he gained confidence and was able to enjoy the other views, as well. If they met anyone coming in the opposite direction, all parties would have to dismount; the thought of a collision at fifty klicks or more was too horrible to contemplate. It would be a long walk home, carrying their smashed bicycles …

Most of the time they rode in perfect silence, broken only when Mirissa pointed out some unusual tree or exceptional beauty spot. The silence itself was something that Loren had never before experienced in his whole life; on Earth he had always been surrounded by sounds – and shipboard life was an entire symphony of reassuring mechanical noises, with occasional heart-stopping alarms.

Here the trees surrounded them with an invisible, anechoic blanket, so that every word seemed sucked into silence the moment it was uttered. At first the sheer novelty of the sensation made it enjoyable, but now Loren was beginning to yearn for something to fill the acoustic vacuum. He was even tempted to summon up a little background music from his comset but felt certain that Mirissa would not approve.

It was a great surprise, therefore, when he heard the beat of some now-familiar Thalassan dance music from the trees ahead. As the narrow road seldom proceeded in a straight line for more than two or three hundred metres, he could not see the source until they rounded a sharp curve and found themselves confronted by a melodious mechanical monster straddling the entire road surface and advancing towards them at a slow walking pace. It looked rather like a robot caterpillar. As they dismounted and let it trundle past, Loren realized that it was an automatic road repairer. He had noticed quite a few rough patches, and even pot-holes, and had been wondering when the South Island Department of Works would bestir itself to deal with them.

“Why the music?” he asked. “This hardly seems the kind of machine that would appreciate it.”

He had barely made his little joke when the robot addressed him severely: “Please do not ride on the road surface within one hundred metres of me, as it is still hardening. Please do not ride on the road surface within one hundred metres of me, as it is still hardening. Thank you.”

Mirissa laughed at his surprised expression.

“You’re right, of course – it isn’t very intelligent. The music is a warning to oncoming traffic.”

“Wouldn’t some kind of hooter be more effective?”

“Yes, but how –
unfriendly!”

They pushed their bicycles off the road and waited for the line of articulated tanks, control units, and road-laying mechanisms to move slowly past. Loren could not resist touching the freshly extruded surface; it was warm and slightly yielding, and looked moist even though it felt perfectly dry. Within seconds, however, it had become as hard as rock; Loren noted the faint impression of his fingerprint and thought wryly. I’ve made my mark on Thalassa – until the robot comes this way again.

Now the road was rising up into the hills, and Loren found that unfamiliar muscles in thigh and calf were beginning to call attention to themselves. A little auxiliary power would have been welcomed, but Mirissa had spurned the electric models as too effete. She had not slackened her speed in the least, so Loren had no alternative but to breathe deeply and keep up with her.

What was that faint roar from ahead? Surely no one could be testing rocket engines in the interior of South Island! The sound grew steadily louder as they pedalled onward; Loren identified it only seconds before the source came into view.

By Terran standards, the waterfall was not very impressive
–
perhaps one hundred metres high and twenty across. A small metal bridge glistening with spray spanned the pool of boiling foam in which it ended.

To Loren’s relief, Mirissa dismounted and looked at him rather mischievously.

“Do you notice anything…
peculiar?”
she asked, waving towards the scene ahead.

“In what way?” Loren answered, fishing for clues. All he saw was an unbroken vista of trees and vegetation, with the road winding away through it on the other side of the fall.

“The trees – the trees!”

“What about them? I’m not a – botanist.”

“Nor am I, but it should be obvious. Just look at them.”

He looked, still puzzled. And presently he understood, because a tree is a piece of natural engineering – and he was an engineer.

A different designer had been at work on the other side of the waterfall. Although he could not name any of the trees among which he was standing, they were vaguely familiar, and he was sure that they came from Earth … yes, that was certainly an oak, and somewhere, long ago, he had seen the beautiful yellow flowers on that low bush.

Beyond the bridge, it was a different world. The trees – were they really trees? – seemed crude and unfinished. Some had short, barrel-shaped trunks from which a few prickly branches extended; others resembled huge ferns; others looked like giant, skeletal fingers, with bristly haloes at the joints. And there were no flowers …

“Now
I understand. Thalassa’s own vegetation.”

“Yes – only a few million years out of the sea. We call this the Great Divide. But it’s more like a battlefront between two armies, and no one knows which side will win. Neither, if we can help it! The vegetation from Earth is more advanced; but the natives are better adapted to the chemistry. From time to time one side invades the other – and we move in with shovels before it can get a foothold.”

How strange, Loren thought as they pushed their bicycles across the slender bridge. For the first time since landing on Thalassa, I feel that I am indeed on an alien world …

These clumsy trees and crude ferns could have been the raw material of the coal beds that had powered the Industrial Revolution – barely in time to save the human race. He could easily believe that a dinosaur might come charging out of the undergrowth at any moment; then he recalled that the terrible lizards had still been a hundred million years in the future when such plants had flourished on Earth …

They were just remounting when Loren exclaimed, “Krakan and damnation!”

“What’s the matter?”

Loren collapsed on what, providentially, appeared to be a thick layer of wiry moss.

“Cramp,” he muttered through clenched teeth, grabbing at his knotted calf muscles.

“Let me,” Mirissa said in a concerned but confident voice.

Under her pleasant, though somewhat amateur, ministrations, the spasms slowly ebbed.

“Thanks,” Loren said after a while. “That’s much better. But please don’t stop.”

“Did you really think I would?” she whispered.

And presently, between two worlds, they became one.

IV – Krakan

21. Academy

T
he membership of the Thalassan Academy of Science was strictly limited to the nice round binary number 100000000 – or, for those who preferred to count on their fingers, 256.
Magellan’s
Science Officer approved of such exclusivity; it maintained standards. And the academy took its responsibilities very seriously; the president had confessed to her that at the moment there were only 241 members, as it had proved impossible to fill all the vacancies with qualified personnel.

Of those 241, no less than 105 were physically present in the academy’s auditorium, and 116 had logged in on their comsets. It was a record turnout, and Dr. Anne Varley felt extremely flattered – though she could not suppress a fleeting curiosity about the missing 20.

She also felt a mild discomfort at being introduced as one of Earth’s leading astronomers – even though, alas, by the date of
Magellan’s
departure, that had been all too true. Time and Chance had given the late director of the – late – Shklovskii Lunar Observatory this unique opportunity of survival. She knew perfectly well that she was no more than competent when judged by the standards of such giants as Ackerley or Chandrasekhar or Herschel – still less by those of Galileo or Copernicus or Ptolemy.

“Here it is,” she began. “I’m sure you’ve all seen this map of Sagan – the best reconstruction possible from fly-bys and radioholograms. The detail’s very poor, of course – ten kilometres at the best – but it’s enough to give us the basic facts.”

“Diameter – fifteen thousand kilometres, a little larger than Earth.A dense atmosphere – almost entirely nitrogen. And no oxygen –
fortunately.”

That “fortunately” was always an attention-getter; it made the audience sit up with a jolt.

“I understand your surprise; most human beings have a prejudice in favour of breathing. But in the decades before the Exodus, many things happened to change our outlook on the Universe.

“The absence of other living creatures – past or present – in the solar system and the failure of the SETI programs despite sixteen centuries of effort convinced virtually everyone that life must be very rare elsewhere in the universe, and therefore very precious.

“Hence it followed that all life forms were worthy of respect and should be cherished. Some argued that even virulent pathogens and disease vectors should not be exterminated, but should be preserved under strict safeguards. “Reverence for life” became a very popular phrase during the Last Days and few applied it exclusively to human life.

“Once the principle of biological non-interference was accepted, certain practical consequences followed. It had long been agreed that we should not attempt any settlement on a planet with intelligent life-forms; the human race had a bad enough record on its home world. Fortunately – or unfortunately! – this situation has never arisen.

“But the argument was taken further. Suppose we found a planet on which animal life had just begun. Should we stand aside and let evolution take its course on the chance that megayears hence intelligence might arise?

“Going still further back – suppose there was only plant life? Only single-cell microbes?

“You may find it surprising that, when the very existence of the human race was at stake, men bothered to debate such abstract moral and philosophical questions. But Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?

“The concept of “Metalaw” – I’m sure you’ve all heard the term – became very popular. Was it possible to develop legal and moral codes applicable to
all
intelligent creatures, and not merely to the bipedal, air-breathing mammals who had briefly dominated Planet Earth?

“Dr Kaldor, incidentally, was one of the leaders of the debate. It made him quite unpopular with those who argued that since H.
sapiens
was the only intelligent species known, its survival took precedence over all other considerations. Someone coined the effective slogan: ‘If it’s Man or Slime Moulds, I vote for Man!’

“Fortunately, there’s never been a direct confrontation – as far as we know. It may be centuries before we get reports from all the seedships that went out. And if some remain silent – well, the slime moulds may have won…

“In 3505, during the final session of the World Parliament, certain guidelines – the famous Geneva Directive – were laid down for future planetary colonization. Many thought that they were too idealistic, and there was certainly no way in which they could ever be enforced. But they were an expression of intent – a final gesture of goodwill towards a Universe which might never be able to appreciate it.

“Only one of the directive’s guidelines concern us here – but it was the most celebrated and aroused intense controversy, since it ruled out some of the most promising targets.

“The presence of more than a few percent oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere is definite proof that life exists there. The element is far too reactive to occur in the free state unless it is continually replenished by plants – or their equivalent. Of course, oxygen doesn’t necessarily mean
animal
life, but it sets the stage for it. And even if animal life only rarely leads to intelligence, no other plausible route to it has ever been theorized.

“So, according to the principles of Metalaw, oxygen-bearing planets were placed out of bounds. Frankly, I doubt so drastic a decision would have been made if the quantum drive hadn’t given us essentially unlimited range – and power.

“Now let me tell you our plan of operation, when we have reached Sagan 2. As you will see by the map, more than fifty per cent of the surface is ice-covered, to an estimated average depth of three kilometres. All the oxygen we shall ever need!

“When it’s established its final orbit,
Magellan
will use the quantum drive, at a small fraction of full-power, to act as a torch. It will burn off the ice and simultaneously crack the steam into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen will quickly leak away into space; we may help it with tuned lasers, if necessary.

“In only twenty years, Sagan 2 will have a ten per cent O
₂
atmosphere, though it will be too full of nitrogen oxides and other poisons to be breathable. About that time we’ll start dumping specially developed bacteria, and even plants, to accelerate the process. But the planet will still be far too cold; even allowing for the heat we’ve pumped into it, the temperature will be below freezing everywhere except for a few hours near noon at the Equator.