Lissa nodded. “It’s awesome. A whole section of the galaxy has lit up. We don’t know what they’re saying, but just to know there’s so much life out there, and that what are certainly very different civilizations are talking to each other, is a sign that one day we’ll also understand.”
He was looking at her admiringly. “You’ll have a lot of work ahead of you.”
She smiled and took his hand. “When will they let you out?” she asked eagerly.
“Tomorrow,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I’ll come see you.”
The next day was a Friday. Alek came up the road to Lissa’s barracks. She watched him from the window, admiring his stride, glad that he was alive and that they would be together.
I’m getting brainless about him again
, she thought distantly, but accepted her feelings. They were just as real as anything else important. There would never be another Alek. Together, they would just have to see how it would all work out, even if it didn’t.
She turned from the window and hurried from the room. He was halfway to the barracks when she reached him.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.
He smiled and took her hand, and they walked back the way he had come. They passed the kiosk and she led him across the grassy field to the alien drum. They sat down outside the fenced area.
“Dr. Shastri thinks it’s a warning,” she said.
“I know, he told me. What do you think?”
“I think it is.”
Alek gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Shastri says you’ve come up with a lot of ideas on your own.”
“Sure, but other people also had them.”
“But that’s just as good,” he insisted, “as long as you didn’t know what the others thought. Keep doing that and one day you’ll come up with stuff no one ever imagined.”
She looked at him and saw suddenly how much faith he placed in her abilities. “Thanks,” she said.
“What do you really think is going on?” he asked as she rested her head on his shoulder. “We know we’re not alone, but we can’t be sure of anything about the cultures out there.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking that it’s possible that the weeders and nurturers came to a compromise of some kind about up-and-coming civilizations. Advanced cultures may value the fresh viewpoints of new intelligences, but they don’t want the galaxies overcrowded and stripped of resources by a biological explosion, since that would destroy the very values of uniqueness and diversity that they prize. One species could colonize a whole galaxy and use its resources long before other new intelligences could evolve on those worlds where life is possible. That’s why the weeders decided to work on the prehistory of worlds where intelligence might develop, slowing development long before the actual appearance of mind and consciousness.”
“Like family planning and birth control.”
“Maybe even cosmic abortion at times,” she said, “if a species turns out to be psychotic. But I think that after intelligence establishes itself in a sunspace, it has a chance of outwitting the weeders. I think this was allowed for also. If a culture can rise to a certain point of sanity and knowledge, and doesn’t weed itself out, then it can overcome the outside weeding process.”
Alek shook his head impatiently. “I don’t like something about all this. What right have they to judge anyone?”
“Because they have to, Lissa replied. “Life is common, and the galaxy would fill up, denying others a chance. But civilizations get through the weeding sometimes.”
“We don’t know that.”
“True. But I can’t help feeling that we were drawn out to the edges of our Sunspace so that we could think of all these things for ourselves, gently, without major cultural dislocations. We’ve learned nothing except what we have to know to go on to the next step. It’ll be a long, reasonable time before we learn what the tachyons are saying to each other, but all the while we’ll know that advanced cultures are out there, very different from each other, waiting for us to earn the maturity to be able to talk to them.”
Alek sighed. “It’s serious business, and it may be very dangerous. Ours is not exactly a sane history.”
“We haven’t had a major war in nearly a century,” she said, “but the real danger may come from the comets. We don’t know how long we might have, or how we’ll divert so many when they come Sunward. It may take all the resources, planning, and cooperation we have.”
“Maybe it’ll never happen,” Alek said.
“That’s possible. Maybe how we react to the comets will be our final test.”
Alek was silent, holding her as they gazed at the alien object inside the fenced area. The ear from Earth was still pointed at the big drum, listening.
“Funny,” Alek said suddenly. “You came out here to find aliens and you found me.”
Lissa laughed. “At least I could understand what you were saying.”
He looked at her critically. “Not completely, not right away.”
She put her head back on his shoulder. “I wasn’t listening very carefully, I guess.”
He leaned over and kissed her gently. She heard his heart beating as she embraced him. She listened, feeling herself begin to sing inside.
“There’s Dr. Shastri,” Alek said.
She looked up and saw the scientist following the fence around the alien artifact.
“He doesn’t see us,” she said.
“Of course he does,” Alek replied. “He’s just too polite to show it.” Alek lifted his arm and waved. Dr. Shastri started toward them. “See, I told you.”
They started to get up as he drew near. “No, don’t get up,” he called. He came up to them and sat down next to Alek.
“Is there some kind of news?” Lissa asked.
“No, nothing. I needed a walk, so I came to contemplate our signal drum.” He chuckled. “It is in fact as sophisticated as a jungle drum sounding through the forest.” He became more thoughtful in his expression. “There will be a small service for Pandasala Gbeho tomorrow.”
“We’ll be there,” Lissa said.
“Did you know her well, Alek?” Shastri asked.
“Not very. She was the backup pilot.”
“She was from Kenya. A large family will miss her.”
“So what happens now?” Alek asked after a silence.
Dr. Shastri locked his arms around his knees and stared at the alien drum. “Well, some of us think we should go out into the cometary halo and see if we can locate the disturbance that would be likely to send objects toward the Sun. We think that the radio message also carries a suggestion of where such a disturbing influence might be. Do you think that’s a good idea?” Alek answered. “Yes, but only if you could be sure of the coordinates. What would we do if we saw the danger?”
“That depends on what kind of object it turned out to be. It could be something we might be able to divert or destroy. Better to prevent the cometary rain now than try to stop comets one at a time later. It would be a great service to the future of humanity if we could at least determine what we are dealing with.”
“We should go,” Lissa said determinedly.
“Of course, if the danger comes from our solar system’s passage through galactic dust clouds, then there won’t be much we could ever do to prevent disturbances of the Oort Cloud.”
“But we would know that it’s not being done on purpose, if we find nothing else,” Alek said.
“We would be gone for at least two more years,” Dr. Shastri added.
“Has the decision been made?” Lissa asked.
“I think it will be decided that we should go. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to seems to agree.”
“Anything new with the tachyons?” Lissa asked.
“No, and we won’t learn anything from them for a long time, I’m afraid.”
Alek shook his head in wonder. “It’s surprising how much we seem to have learned without deciphering all that much. Earth may be in danger, great civilizations exist out there that think enough of us to contact us gently, and perhaps they also disagree about our worth.”
“Some say that all our conjectures are made of scanty facts and coincidences,” Dr. Shastri said.
“I don’t think so,” Lissa said. “The Others
are
out there. We were
led
by circumstances to think all these things.”
Dr. Shastri sighed. They looked at the alien drum. It sat quietly on the grass. The ear from Earth seemed just as composed, listening, determined to understand across what seemed to be a bridge of silence.
“Perhaps civilizations also fall in love with each other,” Dr. Shastri said, “and the tachyons are singing love songs composed of knowledge and history. A music of information is passing between vast individuals, much in the same way that the genetic code passes between lovers and mingles to produce children.”
When we grow up as a species
, Lissa thought,
the Others will sing to us
,
and we’ll understand their songs.
“I’d better get back,” Dr. Shastri said as he stood up. “No, no, you two stay. You deserve some time together.” He turned and started across the field to ward the road.
Lissa felt a great affection for him as he marched away.
He was a great nurturer,
she thought
, despite a weeding streak
.
“He looked out for us,” she said as Alek put his arm around her.
“I know,” he replied, holding her close, “I know.”
Behind the Stars
What calm composure will defend
Your rock; when tides you’ve never seen
Assault the sands of what-has-been
And from your island’s tallest tree
You watch advance What-is-to-be?
The tidal wave devours the shore;
There are no islands anymore.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
Max treasured the afternoons that he had always had to himself until dinner time; but the extra hour of school set aside for discussing his habitat’s arrival in Earth’s Sunspace had cut short the best part of his days, making him more resentful of going back, even though he had known all his life that the return was inevitable.
In less than three months, the once distant future would become a new present that would change his life forever, probably for the worse. Maybe something was really wrong with him, since all his classmates seemed to be looking forward to the great event, apparently unaware that anything was going to be taken from them. Was it his problem, or everyone else’s? It was bad either way.
Elaine Jonney came into the room. Max blacked his holoscreen and looked up as the display frame retracted into his desk. A middle-aged woman with short black hair, Tutor Jonney had soft brown eyes that gave her a friendly look, but she was a demanding teacher.
“With arrival now only three months away,” she began, “all of us in the teaching unit are confident that we’ve been able to prepare you adequately for the return. We hope that our preparations of the last year will help make the return a rewarding experience for all of you.”
Max couldn’t imagine Elaine Jonney ever being anything but confident, but he did not dislike her. Most of the time he could forget about her and listen to what she was teaching.
“I want to emphasize again,” she continued, “that the tapes, films, and holos of Earth that you all grew up with cannot completely prepare you for the openness of a planet. The sky, oceans, deserts, rivers, mountains, canyons, and weather will be strange and wonderful, maybe even a bit distressing. Some of you might remember what the surface of a planet is like from our years of exploration in the Centauri system, but Earth is an inhabited world of cities and towns, with billions of people.”
Max found that part of it hard to take—that there were so many people. He glanced around at his classmates. Lucinda ten Eyck always looked attentive when the return was being discussed, even when she was playing with her long red hair. Emil LeStrange, her chubby younger brother, nodded to himself from time to time. The Sanger twins, Jane and Alice, just smiled. Muhammad Bekhter seemed to have a questioning look on his light brown face. Max was determined not to reveal his own feelings until he understood them better, and maybe not even then.
He raised his hand as the tutor finished speaking.
“Yes, Max?”
“Will it really be that distressing?”
“The surface of a planet is very open. Having grown up inside the hollow of this habitat, you’ll be getting used to living on the outside of a world, with only atmosphere above you.”
“Is that all you meant?” Max asked.
“Even though the surface of a planet curves the other way,” she continued, “it will seem flat and endless, and that might be disturbing.”
Max had stepped into enough virtual holos to know that the land on Earth would not rise up and around, and that there would be a distant horizon, and experiencing these sensations had not bothered him then.
“Max?”
He nodded. “I guess that was it.”
“Maybe Max has agoraphobia,” Lucinda murmured. Max tensed. Emil shook back his long, sandy hair and chuckled, obviously enjoying his sister’s comment.
“I’m sure he has nothing of the kind,” Elaine Jonney said. “He’s just naturally apprehensive and is willing to admit it. Fear of open places is very rare, but any kind of change can be disorienting at first.”
Maybe that was all it was,
Max thought, trying to stay calm.
Muhammad grinned at him. The twins stared at him as if he had suddenly become someone else. Lucinda crossed her long, bare legs. Her green eyes mocked him.
He looked back at the tutor. She seemed to be expecting him to respond.
“What is it, Max?” she asked finally.
“Nothing—I was just curious,” he said uncomfortably, avoiding her eyes. Everyone was probably convinced that he had
something.
“Earth will be great,” he said suddenly. “I can’t wait to get there.”
There was a long silence.
“Max, see me after school,” Elaine Jonney said with a look of concern.
“Now, Max,” Elaine Jonney said when the classroom was empty, “tell me what this is all about.”
He looked into her eyes and wondered if he should say anything.
“I know it’s not agoraphobia,” she said.