Death Wave (4 page)

Jordan made a stiff little bow. Halleck sat down, but Jordan clutched Aditi's hand and kept her standing beside him. He scanned the long table. They know the facts, he told himself. Now to make them understand the realities.

“To begin with, I would like to introduce to you my wife, Aditi. She is a native of New Earth.”

That caused a stir up and down the table.

Aditi smiled politely and Jordan released her hand. She took her seat.

Jordan hesitated a moment, then went on, “Aditi is as human as you and I. She—and the other people of New Earth—were created from DNA samples taken from people of Earth.”

“Then it's true!” snapped a middle-aged Asian from halfway down the table. “We
have
been visited by aliens.”

Almost apologetically, Jordan replied, “Oh yes, the basis for all those UFO stories over the years is indeed true, although some of the stories have been exaggerated rather wildly. But the fact is that aliens have been visiting Earth for centuries and have taken tissue samples from humans, plants, and animals. That's how they created the biosphere of New Earth.”

“These aliens were machines, not people?”

With a nod, Jordan said, “The people of New Earth call them their Predecessors: machine intelligences that are millions of years old.”

“And they constructed the planet we call New Earth?”

“Yes. They have been studying Earth for ages, and decided to construct a world that was almost exactly like our own. Their reasoning was that once we attained spaceflight technology, we'd be curious enough to go to Sirius to see what the planet was all about.”

“Fantastic.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Incredible.”

Halleck cut through their astonished comments. “The question is:
Why
did they go to such trouble? Why not merely come to Earth and show themselves to us?”

With a glance at Aditi, Jordan answered, “As I said, they have studied us for centuries. They realized that we are rather paranoid and xenophobic, prone to violence.”

“That was all in the past,” said a woman in the saffron robes of a Buddhist monk. “We have learned to overcome such instincts.”

“Have we? Within our own lifetimes we've seen nuclear conflicts and biowars nearly depopulate whole continents. To say nothing of the fighting in the Asteroid Belt.”

“But that was more than two hundred years ago,” the woman argued. “We have found the way to peace.”

“And the World Council enforces it,” said Halleck.

“Yet those instincts for violence—especially against strangers—are still inside us,” said one of the Europeans. “Two centuries of relative peace have not changed us into angels.”

“That's why the inhabitants of New Earth were frightened of us,” said Jordan.

“
They
were frightened of
us
? That's hard to believe.”

“Believe it,” Jordan said. “They wanted to contact us—they felt they
had
to contact us. But they were very worried that our reaction to contact would be violent.”

Halleck objected. “With their superior technology, they feared we'd be violent? Why, they could wipe this planet clean of all life, if they chose to, couldn't they?”

“Perhaps,” Jordan conceded. “But their mission—their very reason for existence—is to save intelligent life wherever they find it, not to destroy it.”

“That's what they told you. But suppose it isn't true?” asked the woman in the sarong. “What if they've come here to conquer us? To overwhelm us?”

Jordan smiled sadly. “If they have, they're going about it in a strange way. They've given us new technology: the energy screens, biomedical advances beyond anything we have been able to do for ourselves—”

Halleck interrupted. “But they haven't told you how they can travel faster than light, have they?”

 

THE DEATH WAVE

Jordan stared down at Halleck, seated beside him.

“Faster than light? That's impossible. Nothing in the universe can travel faster than light.”

One of the Europeans, short, stocky, swarthy, with a thick shock of jet-black hair, wearing a dark, slightly rumpled business suit, lumbered to his feet.

“I am an astrophysicist … or, at least, I was an astrophysicist before I was appointed to membership in this council.”

A wave of rueful chuckles spread around the table. Most of the Council members had stepped away from careers in business or science or academia to take on the responsibilities of the World Council. While it was possible to run for Council membership in an open election, most Council members were selected by a computer-directed lottery; to refuse the honor was not permitted, except under the most exigent circumstances. Hardly any of the Council members had been professional politicians, although that is what they had inevitably become. And their staffs had plenty of lifetime politicians working behind the scenes.

Halleck said, “Professor Rudaki. Your daughter is still on New Earth, isn't she?”

With a blunt nod, Rudaki answered, “Yes. My Elyse is studying the white dwarf star, Sirius B.”

“The Pup,” Halleck murmured. Jordan thought she did it to show that she was not entirely ignorant of astronomical jargon.

Rudaki ignored it. To Jordan, he said, “While Einstein showed that no body containing mass can exceed the velocity of light, there is no such restriction for information.”

Jordan knew where he was heading.

Jabbing a stubby finger in Jordan's direction, the astrophysicist continued, “You tell us that these aliens of New Earth have warned that a wave of intense gamma radiation is heading toward us.”

“Yes, the result of a massive gamma burst in the core of the Milky Way nearly thirty thousand years ago.”

“The front of this wave is two thousand light-years away from us.”

“And heading toward us at the speed of light.”

“How do the aliens know of this?”

“They've observed it,” Jordan replied. “From planets closer to the core of the galaxy, where the explosion occurred.”

“Exactly. And if this wave destroys all life, who would be left alive to report on it?”

“The death wave destroys all
organic
life. But the aliens who observed it were not organic. They were intelligent machines.”

“Intelligent machines,” Halleck muttered.

Aditi spoke up. “Our Predecessors. They created New Earth and my people. They have visited your Earth many times.”

“I find that hard to believe,” one of the other Council members challenged. “Our best robots are hardly what I would call intelligent. They have no self-awareness, no … no divine spark.”

“We're not here to debate philosophy,” snapped the woman sitting beside him.

Aditi explained, “Organic life is finite. All organic species become extinct, sooner or later. But some intelligent organic species develop inorganic intelligence. Machine intelligence can be virtually immortal.”

Silence fell around the table.

“Machine intelligence has superseded organic intelligence in many parts of the universe,” Jordan explained. “One day, I suppose, intelligent, self-maintaining machines will become our descendants.”

For long moments no one spoke a word. Then Rudaki shook his head and said, “You don't understand. I don't care if they were intelligent machines or intellectual rocks.”

“Then what—”

Rudaki asked, “How can their observations of the gamma wave get here before the wave itself does? How can the
information
travel faster than the wave itself?”

Jordan saw perplexed looks on the faces of most of the Council members.

His brow furrowing, the astrophysicist explained, “Observers ten thousand light-years closer to the core of the Milky Way observe the gamma wave, yes? Their information of that phenomenon should take ten thousand years to reach us here, if their communications are limited to the speed of light, as ours are.”

Halleck understood. “You're saying that the aliens must have some form of communication that moves information faster than light.”

“Yes,” Rudaki said emphatically. Looking at Jordan, he asked, “What have they told you about their communications technology?”

“Not very much,” Jordan admitted.

“Not much?”

Feeling embarrassed, little short of dim-witted, Jordan said, “The question barely came up. Even your daughter didn't delve into it very deeply. There was so much else to do, to discover…”

Halleck looked at Aditi. “What can you tell us about your communications technology?”

Aditi shrugged. “Very little, I'm afraid. I'm not trained in that area. But I can ask our leaders back on New Earth about it.”

“And wait sixteen years to get their answer,” grumbled one of the councilmen from down the table.

“Oh no,” Aditi said. “It should only take an hour or so.”

That sent a shock wave through the conference room.

“Then you
do
have access to faster-than-light communications!” Halleck snapped.

Her facial expression somewhere between surprised and wounded, Aditi replied, “Yes, of course.”

“You can communicate with Adri, back on New Earth?” Jordan asked.

Nodding slowly, Aditi said, “When I have to.”

The holographic image of George Ambrose ran a hand through his shaggy red mane. “That means I can attend these bloody meetings from Ceres, 'stead of riding clear to the Moon for 'em.”

“We could link the entire solar system into a single human community!” marveled one of the Council members.

With a thin smile, Halleck mused, “We can turn this council into a truly effective government for the whole solar system.”

“Now wait,” warned Stavenger's hologram. “Selene is a free nation. We attend these Council meetings as an independent entity.”

Jordan saw the dreams of power and control in the eyes of most of the men and women around the table, especially Halleck's. And he realized that Aditi saw it, too. She looked shocked, crestfallen.

“Virtually instantaneous communications,” Halleck purred. “This could open an entirely new era for the human race.”

“Wait,” Jordan said, raising his voice to silence the buzz going around the table. “We still have to decide what to do about the death wave.”

“That's not going to be a problem for two thousand years, Jordan,” said Halleck. “We have more immediate priorities to deal with.”

“Damming up the meltwater flow from Greenland is our first priority,” said one of the councilmen.

“But there are planets that will be engulfed in the death wave much sooner,” Jordan urged. “We've got to help them. If we don't, whole civilizations will be annihilated.”

“All in good time,” Halleck said. “First things first.”

 

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Jordan felt terribly weary by the time he and Aditi returned to their hotel suite, across the public square from Barcelona's fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral.

“I hadn't expected that,” he admitted as he dropped onto the handsomely striped sofa in their sitting room.

Aditi stood uncertainly in the middle of the big, carpeted room. Late-afternoon sunshine was pouring through the windows, although the noise from the busy streets below was completely blocked by the acoustical oscillators mounted on every window in the hotel.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” she asked. “Should I have kept silent about our communications capability?”

Jordan smiled up at her and patted the cushion next to him. “No, you were perfectly correct,” he said as she sat down beside him. “Never lie or try to hide the truth. Rudaki had it figured out already. If you hadn't been completely open and honest it would have raised a lot of suspicions among the Council.”

“Chairwoman Halleck seemed to pounce on the idea.”

Jordan sighed. “She sees power in it.”

“How shortsighted,” said Aditi. “How sad.”

Jordan looked into her troubled eyes. “Can you really communicate with Adri in real time?”

“Almost real time.”

“The equipment…?”

Aditi tapped her curly auburn hair. “It's in here. Installed when I…” She hesitated. “Installed before birth.”

Jordan nodded. He understood what she meant. Aditi and the others of New Earth had been gestated in artificial wombs, like the biovats human agro-engineers used to cultivate meat.

“Have you been in contact with Adri?”

“Now and then.”

“Could you contact him now?”

“Yes, of course. It might take a few hours, though.”

He smiled wanly. “That's better than eight years, one way.”

Aditi smiled back at him, then sat primly on the sofa beside Jordan and closed her eyes. After a few moments, she opened them again and said, “I've sent Adri our entire meeting with the World Council.”

“Just like that?” he marveled.

A little apologetically, Aditi replied, “It's given me something of a headache, I'm afraid.”

Jordan reached for her hand. “Perhaps a little fresh air is what you need.”

They went for a stroll on Las Ramblas, a collection of streets lined with shops and restaurants and theaters where all of Barcelona seemed to be parading every hour of the day and long into the night. Along the broad median separating the two sides of the streets were stalls that vended everything from holographic digital dancers to ice-cream cups. Half the city seemed to be walking along, shopping, eyeing one another, the women in colorful sweaters or dresses, the men in smart jackets and slacks. Everyone was talking, laughing, even singing.

Walking silently, unsmilingly, near them were half a dozen security agents of the World Council. Bodyguards, Jordan thought. But he wondered how far they would allow him and Aditi to go from the hotel.