The Unearthing (48 page)

“Don’t you think it the least bit significant that the Ship remained sealed, until these questions were asked of it?” Natural Resources asked, “The Ship said we as a species had been determined to be of acceptable intelligence and granted us access only
after
Santino asked it those questions about God and the meaning of life. If the belief in the Creator was the determining factor in a test of our intelligence. Don’t you think that would count towards the probability of the existence of a supreme being?” The British Defence Minister had no reply to Natural Resources’ argument.

“We’ll know more once the Ship Survey Expedition debriefing concludes,” The Curator said, breaking the ponderous silence that had descended upon the Committee, “They’re scheduled to return to the Ship this afternoon, so we can safely assume our sources in Geneva will be in touch with us before very much longer.”

♦♦♦

“You say that the Ship continued communications with the Ship Survey Expedition,
after
the Ship was opened, Doctor Aiziz?” the World Ship Summit’s liaison asked, “And that it was speaking perfect English?”

“That’s correct,” Aiziz said, speaking clearly and confidently. Her normal fear and loathing of public speaking was gone. She was the only person who knew what she was about to tell the World Ship Summit. The video feed from this linx to Geneva would eventually be released globally and would come to be the most heavily viewed data stream since the satellite images of the Unearthing were released. She was the only person on Earth with this news and she was about to deliver it to the world.

“I didn’t catch most of the dialogue as the Ship spoke,” Aiziz said, “Because of the commotion caused when the Ship unsealed itself. However we had enough recording devices online that I was able to get the entire message and replay it.”

“And what did the Ship have to say?” Aiziz couldn’t help the slightly smug smile that came to her lips. At this point the entire world would be hanging on her every word. She made a deliberate point of consulting her notepad though the message from the Ship was essentially engraved in her memory.

“The Ship proposes a full exchange of information between it and the people of our world,” She said, “The Ship’s technologies will be made available to us to study and adapt to our own--within reason. In return, the Ship wants to learn about our different cultures, histories and religions. As Humanity is the dominant form of intelligent life on the planet the Ship wishes to learn as much about us as it can.”

“Excuse me, Doctor Aiziz,” The Israeli delegate to the World Ship Summit said, “But you said that ship proposes a full exchange between us, but then you said the Ship’s technologies will be made available to us only within reason. That seems a bit of a contradiction. What does the Ship mean exactly, when it says it will give us access to its technology, within reason?”

“You can review the recordings yourself, or read the transcript of the conversation. The Ship explained that certain of its technologies would prove dangerous in undisciplined hands. It will therefore evaluate which of its technologies it will release to us.”

“That’s hardly a full exchange of information, Doctor Aiziz,” The American delegate responded.

“It’s a reasonable exchange; a responsible exchange,” Aiziz said, “One that ensures we don’t destroy ourselves by using technologies we have no business playing around with.” She held up a hand as several members of the World Ship Summit began to object.

“That is not all the Ship proposes to give us,” She told them, “The Ship is also a vast storehouse of culture and information from the many thousands of worlds it has known. The Ship is ancient, ladies and gentlemen. It was millions of years old before it ever entered this solar system. The knowledge it will provide to us will be richer, vaster, than anything we have experienced or could ever hope to experience on our own. You cannot possibly say that the gift of knowledge the Ship is bestowing upon us is an inadequate one.”

“No, Doctor Aiziz, we are not,” the Liaison Officer said, “We are not suggesting that it is an inadequate gift. However the fact that the Ship wants to know everything about us without letting us know everything about it is distressing.”

“When a child wants to play with a knife,” Aiziz said, “Or a book of matches do the parents allow them to? The Ship knows better than we do what technologies could be potentially dangerous to us. What it permits us to use will be of benefit to us and not of detriment. How we use the technologies it releases to us will most probably determine what else is permitted. Given our level of advancement versus the Ship’s, it is in the best position to judge what we are or are not ready to handle and it is in our best interests to let the Ship make that decision.”

“I think I would prefer to decide what I can and cannot handle for myself, Doctor,” The Israeli Delegate replied.

“As no doubt would the child,”

“Doctor Aiziz,” the Liaison intervened, “According to your pre-briefing report the Ship proposed more than just the exchange of technology and cultural information. Would you elaborate, please?”

“As I said, the Ship is a repository of knowledge from thousands of worlds, across hundreds of galaxies,” Aiziz said, “For millions of years these worlds and their civilizations have coexisted peacefully in a loose cultural League. The Ship and its crew came here originally in hopes of making contact with intelligent life on this world in order to bring us into that League. The Ship still wishes to carry out that mission.”

“How does it propose to do that?” the American Delegate asked, “After sixty-plus million years that League might not even exist anymore.”

“The nature of the League is multi-generational,” Aiziz replied, “As many planets as there are in a galaxy, and as many galaxies as the Ship and its like have visited, it would take millions upon millions of years to catalogue them all. It is possible that some of the races from this League have become extinct since the Ship arrived here. However it is also more than likely that new races have since joined. As to how the Ship proposes to introduce us to the League,” she consulted her notes again; she wanted to get the phrasing of this correct. “The Ship wants to take a representative sample of humanity back to its point of origin.”

♦♦♦

The Ship Survey Expedition was cleared to return to the Ship the following day. The SSE would now be divided into teams: Aiziz Andrews and N’banga would remain in the Language Lab, Aiziz to further her study of Shiplanguage and coordinate requests for communication with the Ship in accordance with the information exchange. Andrews and N’banga would continue to study the Ship’s scientific catalogue. Benedict, Bloom, Paulson, Kodo and Cole would begin exploration of the Ship.

♦♦♦

They followed a long, wide corridor to a balcony. It looked out over a vaulted chamber surrounded on three sides by a deep channel; the floor of the chamber was some five meters below, accessed by two gradually sloping spiralled ramps. The chamber was dominated by one central feature: a stark silver sculpture, an alien shape with strange and varying textures; once smooth then pitted, striated and corrugated, branching and stretching out from the center of the dais on which it had been mounted before folding back upon itself, new textures new angles new shapes emerging from this alien Rorschach. Strange features in its geometry made it difficult to look at, as if doing so was pulling at the fabric of Bloom’s sense of reality and sanity. It was only as she pulled her eyes away from the hypnotic and maddening artwork that Bloom noticed the platform below. She was already moving down the ramp to her right before Benedict could approach. She glanced at the sculpture upon reaching the platform. From this angle it seemed a different piece of artwork altogether. Doctors Kodo and Cole came down the ramp close behind. Bloom scanned the chamber: A large, crystalline conveyance sat in the recessed channel, three doors on the side facing the platform open in its transparent skin. Bloom turned back to Benedict.

“Do you realize what this is?” she asked, excitedly.

“Yes,” Benedict said, “It’s a transitway;
the
transitway; the gateway to the Ship.” Bloom looked around and noticed the panels that stood every few meters beside the channel. They were location markers, clearly indicating where the track went. Bloom stepped up to one and began working the touch screen. A new image appeared, tracing a trail down the transitway to the next destination. The image resolved itself, showing a massive construct hundreds of levels high, tram tunnels going to and from each level. A bank of lifts ran up the center of the massive station. A series of Shiplanguage runes appeared on the bottom of the display. To their left, in English were the words
Central Station
. Benedict approached.

“The whole Ship is ours,” Bloom whispered reverently, “The whole thing is open to us from here.”

♦♦♦

An inner base camp was soon set up inside the first station, complete with mobile mess and toilet facilities, a small infirmary and a communications relay to Fort Arapaho and the World Ship Summit beyond. Despite Benedict’s insistence that the balance of the Ship was unexplored and therefore potentially dangerous, Bloom refused to back down from being one of the first to breach its inner levels.

“I’m going in first Major. You’re not keeping me from this one.” She stared at him defiantly, unblinking, silently daring him to challenge her authority on this one again. Benedict was the one to blink first.

“Very well, Colonel,” He said sighing heavily before turning his tone sharp: “But at the first sign of
anything
I don’t like I’m getting you out even if I have to knock you cold and drag you the hell out to do it. Ma’am,” Bloom smiled. The Major had balls. She was glad of it and hoped that her guidance had helped him grow them, given the naïve pilot she’d first known years before.

“Let’s go,” she said. Bloom, Benedict, Paulson, Kodo and Cole boarded the tram. The tramcar sealed itself seamlessly shut and began moving around the track to the exit point.

On the back wall of the tramcar was a terminal displaying an animated map of their progress through the Transitway. The screen also displayed a short list of some of the locations accessible to them from Central Station: points of notice that the Ship expected them to find interesting. A short text began printing out in the lower left-hand corner of the terminal. Paulson leaned in to read it.

“The Ship suggests we go to see the habitat, in the center of the inner hull. It also points out the…life archive, apparently where it has stored its catalogue of biology,” Paulson looked at Kodo. The young biologist’s face was bright with intense attention.

Paulson continued: “Apparently it has a catalogue not just of early life on this world, but of all the worlds it has visited.” Kodo looked as though his knees might buckle. It was as if he was a drunk handed the keys to the largest liquor cabinet in the world.

“There’s also a list of other sites in the Ship; the drive decks, I would assume that’s main engineering; an astronomy archive; an archive of culture; it even lists hangars for support vehicles.”

“Support vehicles?” Bloom repeated, her voice guarded. She couldn’t help but wonder if there were entire fleets of Bug craft cradled somewhere in those hangars; hundreds if not thousands of wasp-like ships sitting just waiting to be taken into the sky.

“There are hangars all over the inside of the primary hull,” Paulson said, “There are directory terminals on each level of the Central Station and we have full access.” He looked up from the panel as the tramcar crossed through a major bulkhead and entered an open space. They all stared awestruck by the sight before them: Platform after platform rose from the center of the great vaulted chamber; the spherical bulkhead that surrounded the levels shining great beams of light onto the structure. The central station was suspended by giant honeycomb lattices through which countless transit tubes flowed. Shining with an eerie twilight blue, the connecting tubes of the transit system and the lift banks rising through the center of the platforms connected each level of the station to each section of the Ship. Bloom was reminded of a passage from the Torah:
behold a ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reached to heaven…the angels of God ascending and descending it
…
Had the Builders seen the perfect beauty of this colossal construct? Had they understood the majesty of their creation? Or was this as everyday a structure to them as a house or an office building was to Bloom and most of the Human race? As their tramcar approached, swiftly closing the distance between them and Central Station, Bloom wondered on the culture that had spawned the Builders, on the world that had created the creators of the Ship. If the Ship was only a single vehicle, one of a fleet of many, what did the rest of their world look like? What wonders had they made to grace their home and what inspired them to feel the humbling awe Bloom felt now? The tramcar entered the station, slowing and halting near to the bank of lifts that would take them to the other levels of Central Station.

“So,” Bloom asked, “Where do we go first?”

“We should go down to the habitat,” Kodo suggested, “If the World Council does finally agree to allow the Ship to take passengers with it back to its point of origin, it’s there that they’ll live.”

“I can’t imagine being cooped up inside a ship, even this Ship, in space for years at a time,” Paulson said.

“Let “s go see the habitat then,” Bloom said. Kodo consulted the directory.

“Let’s go,” he said, “This way.” They followed him to the lifts. It was no surprise to anyone that the lifts were transparent here as well. The elevator car was equipped with a control plate rising from a stand to the right of the now-sealed doorway. Peter found and pressed button for the level that would take them to the habitat.