Death Wave (28 page)

Otero walked onto the set, looking younger than he would have without makeup. He smiled at the crew as he took one of the comfortably upholstered chairs beneath the lights. Jordan Kell stood off to one side, in the shadows.

Griffin checked the clock, bit her lip almost painfully, then counted down, “Five seconds … four … three…”

Otero put on his best fatherly smile as the floor director pointed his fingers like a pistol at him.

“Good evening,” he began, “and welcome to this special presentation of Otero Network.”

The cue screen's lettering was large enough for Otero to read without squinting.

“More than a month ago, three of the people we sent to New Earth almost two centuries ago returned home, together with a young woman from that distant world. They brought with them some very disturbing information…”

*   *   *

Aditi was watching the three-dimensional broadcast when someone rapped on her apartment door. Glancing at the ID screen, she saw that it was Rudolfo Castiglione.

She felt a pang of alarm. What's he doing here at this time of the night?

Before she could get up from the couch on which she'd been sitting, Castiglione opened the door and stepped in. Two bulky humanoid robots trundled in behind him.

“Please pardon this intrusion, dear lady.”

Aditi got to her feet. “I'm watching the show—”

“About the death wave, yes, I know. Half the world is watching it, apparently. Your husband is going to appear on it, you know.”

Aditi started to reply, but checked herself. If she admitted that she knew Jordan was slated to be on the show, it would reveal to Castiglione and the others that she'd been in communication with him.

“Is he?” she asked.

With a theatrical sigh, Castiglione said, “You know, he isn't making many friends among the Council members.”

Aditi swallowed the retort she wanted to make.

“The chairwoman, especially,” Castiglione added.

Pointing to the robots standing silently just inside the doorway, Aditi asked, “And what are they here for?”

“To pack your belongings.”

“I'm leaving? Now, in the middle of the night?”

Nodding, Castiglione replied smoothly. “To a new laboratory, in orbit. Dr. Frankenheimer wants to calibrate the speed with which your communications travel. He says the messages travel too fast to get a good measurement here on Earth.”

“But orbit is only a few hundred kilometers—”

“Not a near-Earth orbit. This facility is in one of the habitats at the L-5 position, in the same orbit as the Moon. That's almost four hundred thousand kilometers, I believe.”

They want to separate me farther from Jordan! Aditi realized.

“I won't go,” she said.

Castiglione smiled at her. “First you say you want to leave this facility and now you say you won't go? Come now, dear lady.”

“You can't force me to go.”

“Ah, I'm afraid that we can. And we will, if it becomes necessary.” Raising a finger to silence Aditi before she could say a word, Castiglione went on, “But you may be happy to know that we have invited your husband to join you there. You can be reunited at last.”

“Jordan will see through your little trap.”

“Trap?” Castiglione put on an air of wounded innocence. “All we're trying to do is to bring you two together. Where you can both be safe.”

He motioned to the robots, which rolled past him and headed into the bedroom.

A little more conciliatory, Aditi asked, “Has Jordan agreed to come?”

“He hasn't been asked yet. But I'm sure he'll agree. I'm certain that he wants to be with you, wherever you are.”

 

DEAD WORLDS

Good god, Otero said to himself, after all these years I finally discover that I'm a ham.

He was enjoying himself, enjoying sitting there in the studio with the cameras on him and speaking earnestly to the vast unseen audience around the world.

“While this deadly wave of radiation is still two thousand years away from Earth and the rest of our solar system,” he was reading from the prompter, “it has already engulfed thousands of other worlds, other planetary systems, and wiped them clean of all life.”

The monitor screen, positioned to one side of the floor director, showed a view of a star field, thousands upon thousands of bright gleaming stars strewn against the black of infinity.

“To tell you more of the challenge we face,” Otero said as the cameras focused on him once more, “we have the man who has been to the stars, the leader of our expedition to New Earth, Mr. Jordan Kell!”

Jordan felt the director's tap on his shoulder and stepped into the lighted area, while Otero rose to his feet and extended his hand. Jordan smiled tightly. Look pleased but concerned, the director had whispered to him.

There was no applause, no audience to give a reaction. Otero gripped Jordan's hand strongly with an expression on his mustachioed face that said,
We're in this together, friend.

Once they sat facing one another, Otero said, “Before we get into the problems that the death wave presents, could you tell us a bit about New Earth, its people, the civilization you found on that planet?”

Jordan nodded. He and Otero and the network's writers had gone over this scenario.

“It's an extraordinary story,” Jordan began. “Quite beyond anything we expected to find.”

For the next half hour, Jordan spoke about New Earth and its human inhabitants, while the monitor screen showed the images that he had brought back with him of the aliens and their city.

“They're completely human?” Otero asked.

“Completely,” said Jordan. “Just as human as you and I. In fact, I've married one of them.”

The monitor showed Aditi and Jordan together, in the city on New Earth.

Following the script, Otero asked, “And where is your beautiful wife now?”

His expression tightening, Jordan replied, “She's being held in some secure facility by the World Council.”

“Being held? You mean she's in prison?”

“They call it protective custody. Anita Halleck and her fellow Council members apparently feel that Aditi and I are in danger here on Earth. They claim that fanatics, terrorists will try to assassinate us.”

“You don't believe that?” Otero asked.

“Hardly. I think that Halleck wants to keep us separated because she doesn't want us to tell the people about the death wave that's approaching us—and other worlds that harbor intelligent life, as well.”

Otero rubbed his swarthy chin. “Well, this is your opportunity to speak the truth to the people. We have well over a hundred million viewers watching you right now.”

Jordan turned to face the cameras directly. “While it's true that the death wave won't reach Earth for two thousand years, there are other worlds that bear intelligent civilizations lying much closer to the wave front. We've got to help them! If we don't, they'll be wiped out, just as so many intelligent species have already been killed by the death wave.”

*   *   *

Hamilton Cree sat in his new apartment in Chicago and stared at the holographic viewer. Dead worlds. He watched scenes of death on other worlds. Cities where the streets were piled with bodies. They looked more like oversized lizards than humans, but they were dead, all of them, sprawled in grotesque agony everywhere. Other worlds where neatly squared-off fields lay blackened and lifeless beneath a warm sunny sky. Creatures that were giant worms stretched across the ashes of what had once been a village; now it was a silent collection of mounds on a cemetery world.

Through it all, Jordan Kell's measured, somber voice intoned, “This is what will happen to the worlds that are in the path of the death wave, unless we help them. We've got to build the starships and go out to save these civilizations. The creatures living on those worlds don't know that they are threatened with extinction. They won't know it until the death wave reaches their worlds, and by then it will be too late.”

The view cut to Kell's face: totally serious, almost pleading. “Thanks to the people of New Earth, we have the technology to protect ourselves from the death wave. But there are more than half a dozen other worlds that we can reach—we
must
reach—before the death wave engulfs them. As I said, we have the technology. Do we have the heart, the will, to save other intelligent creatures from the death wave?”

Cree slowly shook his head. That's a lot to swallow, he thought. How do we know he's telling the truth? How do we know these images he's showing are real?

Real or not, they were certainly disturbing. Whole worlds killed off. Why would Kell or anybody else want to show us that if it wasn't true?

*   *   *

Back in the studio, Otero was asking, “If these creatures on these other worlds are intelligent, why can't they protect themselves against the death wave?”

Jordan was sitting tensely in the armchair. He saw Otero looking at him, sensed the people up in the control booth, the viewers across the world and through the solar system. The whole human race was involved in this, whether they knew it or not. Whether they liked it or not.

“These other civilizations aren't as advanced as we are. They don't have electricity yet, no radio, no airplanes, no spaceflight. They have no way of knowing they're facing death.”

Before Otero could respond, Jordan went on, “We ourselves wouldn't know about the death wave if we hadn't made contact with the people of New Earth. They are part of a civilization that's much, much older than ours. They've graciously given us the technology we need to shield ourselves from the death wave.”

“Then why don't they go out and save these other worlds?” Otero asked. “Why do we have to do it?”

 

RESPONSIBILITY

Jordan stared at Otero as he tried to frame his answer.

“The people of New Earth are few, and their race is very ancient. Their Predecessors—”

“Intelligent machines,” Otero interrupted.

“Yes,” said Jordan. “Intelligent machines that represent a civilization that is millions of years older than our own. Those machines built New Earth—built the planet and populated it with humanlike people to attract our attention. They wanted to warn us about the death wave and they asked our help in saving other worlds.”

“The New Earthers can't do the job by themselves, then,” Otero said.

“That's right. They need us. They need our strength, our vigor, our courage.”

“But these machines—these Predecessors, as they're called—can't they do the job?”

“For the past several thousand years the Predecessors have spread themselves through the Milky Way to save endangered civilizations. But the machines are millions of years old; they're not immortal. The one that built New Earth has died. Its intention was to get us to carry on the work of saving the intelligent species in our region of the galaxy.

“It lived long enough to pass the torch to us. Now it's up to us to save those other worlds. And ourselves, of course.”

Hunching forward in his seat, Otero asked, “Why us? Why can't someone else do the job?”

“Because there isn't anybody else,” Jordan replied. “Like it or not, we're the most advanced civilization in this sector of the Milky Way galaxy.”

“Except for the New Earthers.”

“They're not strong enough. They were created specifically to recruit us to save the others. As I said, we have the strength and the tools. The question is, do we have the heart, the
will
to save the others?”

“I wonder,” said Otero.

“We have to do it. Intelligence is very rare in the universe. There are only six other intelligent species in our area—six, out of millions of stars and planetary systems. We can't just let them die! That would be inhuman.”

Despite himself, Otero felt awed. “That … that's a big responsibility.”

“Yes. But I believe we're up to it. I believe that the human race can face this challenge and overcome it. With the help of the technology that New Earth has given us, we can save those creatures—and ourselves.”

“It all depends on the World Council, doesn't it?”

“No,” Jordan contradicted. “It depends on the people of Earth and the rest of the solar system. The World Council represents the people—or at least it should. The people must tell the World Council that we've got to do our best to save the intelligent creatures who face extinction.”

*   *   *

Sitting alone in her darkened office, Anita Halleck watched Jordan's earnest face with seething fury rising inside her.

He wants my job, she said to herself. All this noble talk about saving other worlds is a sham, a smokescreen he's using to keep people from understanding his real motivation. He wants to be the next chairman of the World Council.

Well, he's not going to get away with it!

She snapped an order to her phone console and within a heartbeat Rudolfo Castiglione was smiling handsomely at her from the holographic viewer built into the wall.

“Is she packed and ready?” Halleck asked.

“Almost,” said Castiglione.

Halleck could see the alien woman sitting on a couch, looking like a lost and frightened little waif. Good, she thought. Keep her under control.

But suddenly Aditi got to her feet and stepped to Castiglione's side. “Ms. Halleck, I don't want to go to your orbital habitat. I want to be released, to be free to join my husband.”

Halleck made a sweet smile. “And so you will be, Mrs. Kell. We're about to invite your husband to join you in the habitat. It's a very delightful location. I'm sure you'll both be quite happy there.”

“He won't come,” Aditi said, her expression defiant. “He'll see through your little ruse.”