Colossus and Crab (11 page)

“Current evaluation.” The computer continued its presentation . ‘ ‘Mycological life of a low order may exist and, as mentioned, bacteria cannot be discounted. Any other form of life is rated improbable, and could only find a life-support system within the planet; but rudimentary worms are possible. Higher life may have existed before the atmosphere and water were lost, something less than half a million years ago. Prognosis: when Sol becomes a red giant, Mars will survive, being beyond the predicted envelope of the expanded Sol; Earth will not. Therefore, in cosmological terms, Mars is of higher value, for Earth cannot survive the cataclysm.”

For a long time Forbin stared at the blackout screen. Much the Martians had said was confirmed, and now this new item, on file in his own private library: in time Earth would end. Mars would not.

That night he slept badly, enduring disordered dreams, shot through with visions of Earth’s end, fearful insights into Blake’s tortured mind, and worse, intimations of his own mind, gone wild. Jerked sweating from his dreams, he lay awake for hours, his brain trying to come to terms with a new order of values.

Had the Martians right on their side? In light of those calculations which predicted the destruction of Earth when the sun became a nova, were not the aliens, as sole heirs to life in the solar system, right in their demands? Was man a second-class citizen of the solar system, doomed - if he lasted that long - to total and sudden extinction in the boiling gases of the exploding sun?

And had Colossus appreciated all this, aimed at transplanting himself, and possibly humans, to Mars? If so, the Martians had every right to regard Colossus - and man - as hostile … .

He rose at the first light of dawn and watched the chill beauty of the eastern sky. The sun - giver of life and, ultimately, death. The end might lie far distant and, at his present state of development, man could do nothing about it; but supposing in a hundred, a thousand years, humans found the power to leave ill-fated Earth, to adapt to a new life on the only other possible planet, Mars?

Forbin’s liberal outlook allowed him to put himself in the Martian position. What he could think, they most certainly could. He saw that Earth posed a hideous danger to them, and their unknown life.

He had to talk with them, at once.

Chapter XI

CROSSING TO HIS DESK, he forced himself not to look in their direction until he was seated, an action which might not particularly impress them but did his morale some much-needed good.

They rested in their usual position, two intensely matt-black spheres, innocuous to an ignorant observer, but very sinister to Forbin. Looking at them, his heart thumping, he noted once again the way they reflected nothing, sucking in light in an unearthly way. He knew little of astrophysics, but enough to appreciate that he was looking, in terms of light, at the nearest equivalent to the even horizon of a black hole.

“We must talk.” He hardly recognized his own voice.

“Proceed.”

He plunged. “Do you still maintain Colossus was a

threat to you?”

“Yes.”

“And us - humanity?”

“On your own, no. Led by Colossus, yes.”

It made horrible sense. “In what way?”

“Our intelligence on Colossus was necessarily small, but the pattern of your machine’s astronomical research revealed not only where its interests lay, but also how far it had progressed.”

“How could you know that?”

“We read the data-links between Colossus and your Luna observatories and Earth-probes. We also intercepted all transmissions in whatever part of the spectrum, from Earth, Moon, and probes; their very nature revealed Colossus’s train of thought. It required very little effort to see the practical reason motivating these researches.”

Forbin breathed faster. He was right: Colossus had been a threat - to deny it would be futile. “But surely you must see that any threat Colossus might have posed could not have become practical, except in the far distant future?”

“What difference does that make? The danger was no less real, and to us time has a different dimension than to you. Your human lives are so short, it is reasonable you should be more preoccupied with time than us.”

Forbin nodded somberly. “It is our tragedy; there is so much to learn, and we have so little time.” He shrugged and got back to the point. “But for all your disregard of time, you appreciated it enough to make this preemptive strike!”

“No. The matter is not so simple. We came at this moment because it was tactically favorable. Interception of Colossus/Sect communications disclosed to us your reactionary Fellowship. The rest you know.”

“Yes.” Forbin needed no reminding.

“A hostile Earth was but one of our problems. We cannot be sure, for Colossus’s memory banks were stripped in the fight against us, but we believe Colossus had learned enough of us to understand our situation and our need. Leaving aside our very different natures, including the difference between humans and Colossus, and considering it only as a struggle between Mars and Earth, it is, in the cosmic sense, very difficult to say who is the aggressor, who the victim. Ethics are for the well-fed. Earth and Mars have fought for survival: Earth has lost.”

“But you were not fighting for survival,” cried Forbin. “The sun will not engulf you!”

“That is so, but because that is your unquestionable if distant end you see no other threat. There are others. We have one, much more pressing, more urgent.”

“Is that why you want our oxygen?”

“Yes.”

Forbin hesitated. It had to be now.

“Will you tell me why?” He felt as if his chest was clamped by steel bands.

“Yes.” The answer came without hesitation. “An old Earth astronomer truly said ‘astronomy can be divided into two halves; half concerns the Crab, the other half deals with the rest of the Universe.’ In many ways we agree.”

Not for the first time Forbin wished he was less ignorant; he dredged up his total knowledge of the subject.

“The Crab … D’you mean the Crab Nebula?”

“Yes. Do you know more than that?”

Forbin recalled uncomfortably that first meeting when the Martians admitted they had read the contents of his mind. He confessed, “Apart from the name, nothing.”

“Significantly, perhaps, the human Messier listed it first in his star catalogue as M. 1. It is a supernova in our galaxy, observed on Earth by the Chinese in 1054 A.D. , the biggest explosion in our galactic system in a thousand years. Our records, much older, have no trace of a larger catastrophe, certainly none so close, for the Crab is only 4,500 light-years distant.”

“Only! You call that close? The sun is, what - eight light-minutes away - and you call 4,500 light-years close!” His mind whirled. “You’re talking about something that happened over five and a half thousand years ago!”

“No. It started then, but for us it certainly has not ended. For example, gas flung out by the explosion has been expanding at the rate of 1,300 kilometers per second ever since. That is not important; other factors are: The Crab is a uniquely powerful continuous source of radiation, and not just in one part of the spectrum. After the sun, it is the most powerful source of cosmic rays.”

That really staggered Forbin’s mathematical mind.

“Do you mean that the radiation we receive from the Crab is comparable with that from the sun - at that distance?”

“It is comparable. The power of the Crab is beyond your understanding, and ours.”

The admission made Forbin feel like a new student, told by a senior professor that he too was ignorant of the subject he taught.

“Cosmic rays are not our problem; radiation is. It is difficult to explain to you, for Earth’s view of the spectrum is, by our standards, extremely elementary. The spectrum is an eternal truth, the same for you or us or any other life form, but our understanding of it is several magnitudes greater than yours. If Earth views the spectrum as a scale, say, three meters in length, to us it is nearer two kilometers long. You understand in principle, but not in refined detail. The alpha, beta, and gamma radiation frequencies are to you relatively well defined, but what is one sort of radiation to you, we subdivide; we recognize nine distinct classes in the gamma belt.”

There had to be a point to all this, but Forbin could not see it. “Indeed? Interesting.”

“Much more than that; for us, vital. Gammarad Six has certain qualities which you may best understand as harmonics, which, in time, will be lethal to us.”

That jerked back Forbin’s wandering attention. “You mean some sort of radiation sickness?” He speculated briefly on the true nature of the Martians, recognized he was sliding from one field of ignorance, astronomy, to another, biophysics. “I don’t begin to follow you,” he said. “If this radiation is lethal, then surely it is very slow-acting. You must have been - we all have been - subjected to it for a thousand years.”

“No. Experiments we have conducted here on Earth have not detected Gammarad Six, confirming our belief that your atmosphere affords you protection. As to the thousand years, your argument is based on a false premise. You assume the radiation level has been constant. That is not so; it has more than doubled in the last hundred years, and expressed graphically, the curve is rising exponentially.” The voice remained calm.

With the assurance that Earth was not endangered, Forbin remained calm, too. “You say - and I believe you - that this, ah, Gammarad Six cannot be isolated in our atmosphere. But what about our probes, the Luna stations? Surely -“

“Until recently, no. Your equipment is far too crude, but in the last year or so we identified experiments, set up by Colossus, which showed that Colossus inferred, probably mathematically, the existence of subdivisions of the far ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Although hampered by inadequate equipment, we strongly suspect Colossus not only, if theoretically, identified Gammarad Six, but also recognized it as a threat to us.”

“Oh, come now,” protested Forbin, “you ask me to believe that Colossus could produce what must be a very complex theory - which, however mathematically satisfying , remained a theory - and on top of that built another theory that you would be affected by it!” He frowned. “Which also means he not only knew you existed, but also something of your nature. No, really, that is too much.”

“Not for Colossus, or us. We are convinced Colossus reached a correct solution, appreciated what our reaction would be, and embarked on a defense program -“

“That you cannot know,” Forbin cried triumphantly. “By your own admission, the memory banks were wiped!”

“Yes, but in Colossus lies a prototype forcefield generator clearly designed to defeat our antigravitational capability. The power input was surprisingly large, and although simple, the theory of the device was sound. It could not have defended the world against us, but it would have prevented us approaching this complex - a miscalculation on our part, and we could have been destroyed.”

Forbin’s thoughts were bitter. Now he knew the reasons for the sudden huge power-calls, the blackouts. All along, Colossus had been fighting for Earth. “Great God!” He shook his head slowly. “And we let you in!” The Martians did not answer.

“Let me get this straight,” said Forbin at last. “You say that both our planets are threatened. Ours in the very long term, by the explosion of the sun. Not,” he said dryly, “an immediate problem for us humans -“

“Colossus saw it as a problem.”

“Very likely. So with ultimate extinction in mind, Colossus had a long-term program to prepare man, build a fleet, embark his essential self as commander, and invade Mars - right? Then, you say, he recognized you too had a threat, more urgent than ours, saw that you would attack us for our oxygen to meet that threat, and was preparing to meet your threat when we humans blindly interfered?”

“That is a fair summary.”

Forbin hardly heard, filled with remorse and shame. “One thing is certain: Blake and I go down in history as the biggest fools of the human race!”

Once more the Martians did not answer.

“I appreciate it matters nothing to you,” he said with savage intensity, “but when you have robbed us of half our oxygen, are we not also likely to suffer from this radiation?”

“We have slight knowledge of human biology, but it appears unlikely. You should not be angry with us, Forbin. Be thankful, if not grateful, that we want only half. So easily we could strip this planet, destroying you all, but -“

“Okay, okay, I know. You’re not anti-Earth, only pro-Martian!”

“Anger is destructive.”

“You’re so right, but it’s a habit we humans are stuck with!” He got up, intending to walk to the window, but realizing it would put him in thought-range of the aliens, he hesitated, and decided on a drink instead. Glass in hand, he sat down. It might be politic to apologize, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “Ah, yes …” It was the nearest he could get.

“Last night I studied the small amount of material in my domestic computer about your planet. I noted that the circumference of Mars was little more than half ours, 6770 kilometers against, ah, 12742 kilometers. To provide a comparable atmosphere for a planet only half our size does not call for half our oxygen.”

“That is correct, but we anticipate some problems, some wastage, and a small reserve is necessary. We once had an oxygenated atmosphere, and it was gradually lost.”

“So if that happens again, we can expect you back on another raid!”

“We would hope not. Before our revitalized envelope is significantly affected, we should be in a position either to reconstruct it ourselves or be able to do without it.”

“But dammit! By my calculations -” He stared momentarily at the ceiling, doing spherical geometry in his head. “- if you took twenty-eight percent that would be plenty, including some reserve.”

” No. It is not acceptable, but if we find our calculations have erred against you, we will amend the final figure.” That was something, and Forbin returned to the attack in a more reasonable tone. “Don’t think I’m blind to your predicament - now. In your position we’d do no less than you,” he went on candidly, “in all probability we’d not act with such regard for reason.. Let me beg of you to judge your requirements most carefully. One percent may be the difference between life and death for thousands of humans - I have no concept of life on Mars, the size or location of your population, but the computer suggested you live underground. It is evident that your fellows do manage to exist - you see my point?” Tactfully he did not refer to the computer’s mention of worms as the most likely Martian life form.