New Earth (14 page)

Brandon made a sour face at the image on the wall screen. “Paul, you know there are lies, damned lies,
and statistics. It doesn’t matter what the computer program says, the planet is here. It exists.”

“How can it be so much like Earth?”

“Maybe Earthlike planets are commonplace. For all we know—”

“Come on, Brandon,” Longyear interrupted. “Out of the thousands of exoplanets that have been discovered, this one individual planet is a duplicate of Earth. An exact duplicate!”

“Not entirely exact,”
Brandon said.

“With human beings living on it!”

Jordan had never seen the normally imperturbable, stolid Longyear so worked up. His hair, normally braided in a neat queue, looked frayed, hanging down over his shoulders in careless disarray. His dark eyes glittered with suspicion. Or is it fear? Jordan asked himself. Fear of the unknown. Fear that we’re finding ourselves pretty ignorant, compared
to Adri’s people.

“It exists,” Brandon repeated. “It’s real, no matter what the theories or the statistics may say.”

“Have you considered,” Longyear said slowly, as if trying to calm himself, “that everything you’re seeing is an illusion? A trick? Maybe they can manipulate your senses so that you see what they want you to see.”

Brandon rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Then, “Listen, Paul.
The food I ate last night wasn’t an illusion. It gave me a gas attack. I’ve been burping and farting all damned night.”

Jordan laughed aloud as his brother abruptly ended the link and Longyear’s image on the wall screen winked off.

“Really? The food gave you gas?”

Brandon grinned slyly. “A little. Not as bad as I made out to Paul.” He shook his head. “He thinks they’re manipulating our minds,
that all this is just an illusion.”

“It could be. Gas and all.”

“Get real, Jordy.”

“Is that possibility any less real than the idea that this planet is a natural duplicate of Earth? Down to an intelligent race that exactly resembles us?”

Before Brandon could reply, a fluting musical tone filled the room. Turning, Jordan saw that their front door was glowing with a pulsating light.

“Doorbell?”
he wondered as he rushed to the door.

It slid open at the touch of his finger. Aditi stood in the corridor, smiling at him. She wore chocolate brown shorts and a lighter short-sleeved blouse. Her hair, the color of autumn leaves, was nicely tousled.

“Welcome!” said Jordan, delighted. Then he noticed an orange-furred catlike creature slinking around Aditi’s ankles, looking up at him with big,
bright, saucer-shaped curious eyes.

“Welcome to both of you.”

Aditi glanced down at the animal. “Sleen is a pet. She’s very quiet. You don’t mind if she accompanies us?”

“Not at all. Come on in.”

“The robe fits you,” she said as she stepped into the sitting room. “I’m relieved. I wasn’t certain we had the right measurements for you. We only had an hour or so, and the remote measuring system
can be … well, less than exact.”

“The system worked beautifully. The robe is very comfortable,” Jordan said, ushering her in with a sweep of his arm.

Aditi said, “I thought we’d have some breakfast and then go to see the farms.”

“Fine,” he said, “although I should speak with the people on the ship first. Why don’t you and Brandon go to the restaurant and I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

She
looked slightly disappointed, but said, “Very well.”

Brandon offered his arm and gallantly led her out of the suite. The furry pet trailed after them, tail held high. Jordan stood in the middle of the sitting room, wondering if he’d just made a grievous mistake.

*   *   *

The wall screen was wide enough to show Thornberry, Hazzard, and Meek sitting side by side at one of the wardroom tables.
They looked grim, like three judges about to pronounce a death sentence.

“We’ve reviewed the mission protocol,” Hazzard said, without preamble. “There’s nothing in it that covers the situation we’re in.”

With an amused smile, Jordan said, “I should think not.”

“But we can’t all go down to the surface, Jordan. The protocol specifies that there has to be at least a skeleton crew aboard the ship
at all times.”

“That could be handled by robots, couldn’t it, Mitch?”

“It could,” said Thornberry.

But Hazzard said, “The protocol says crew members, not robots.”

“How many would constitute a skeleton crew?”

“Three, at least,” said Hazzard.

“So seven of you can come down and join Bran and me here.”

Meek spoke up. “Not there, where you are. Not in their city.”

“Why not?”

Thornberry said,
“We thrashed this out last night, Jordan. We’ve come to the conclusion that we should set up a base camp for ourselves, just as we planned to do before we knew that the aliens existed.”

Jordan felt slightly nettled. “But why go to the trouble of setting up a camp when you can live here in comfort? Even luxury.”

“Mission protocol,” said Hazzard, rigidly.

“But—”

Meek pointed a lean finger and
said, “We’ve decided it will be much safer for us to set up our own base and not be in the hands of these strangers.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little … well, overly cautious?” Jordan asked.

Thornberry smiled placatingly. “Look, Jordan. These folks may be grand and wonderful people. But we don’t know that for certain, now, do we?”

“They’ve certainly treated Bran and me very handsomely.”

“Yes,
surely they have. But there’s nothing wrong with being just a teeny bit careful, is there?”

Before Jordan could answer, Meek blurted, “Safety first! Fools rush in, but we’re not going to be foolish. No matter what you say!”

Good lord, Jordan thought. I have a rebellion on my hands!

Hazzard looked grimly adamant. “Look, Jordan, we’re on our own here. The messages we’re sending back to Earth
take more than eight years to get there. And another eight years for them to respond. We’ll get no help from home.”

“But we’re not under any threat. Adri and his people have been more than kind to us.”

“We have no idea of what their motivations are,” Meek said, almost vehemently. “Or their intentions. I, for one, have no desire to live among them. Not until we learn much more about them.
Much
more.”

“We’ve decided that’s our best course of action,” Hazzard said.

“I see,” said Jordan. Trying to buy time so he could think the situation through, he asked, “Have you decided where you’ll set up your camp?”

“In the clearing where the rocketplanes put down,” Hazzard replied. “It’s close enough to their city to be convenient and—”

“And far enough away to give us a measure of safety,” Meek
added.

Jordan saw that Thornberry wasn’t wearing his usual slight smile.

“Mitch, do you feel the same way?”

Looking uncomfortable, Thornberry spread his hands and said, “It’s for the best, Jordan.”

Is it? Jordan wondered. But aloud, he replied only, “Perhaps it is.”

And he thought, When faced with a rebellion, join it so that you can lead it.

THE FARMS

After breakfast, Brandon returned to their apartment, eager to talk with Elyse, back on the ship. Aditi, with her pet slinking alongside her, led Jordan along a street faced with low buildings to the edge of the city and the stone walkway that seemed to circle its perimeter.

Beyond them stood large cultivated fields, rows of green crops poking their heads above the neatly tilled
soil. The catlike Sleen bounded into the field and was quickly lost to sight in the greenery.

“Don’t worry about Sleen,” Aditi said. “She always finds her way home. She’s just out hunting for a while.”

Jordan nodded.

“You’re very quiet this morning,” said Aditi.

“I have a lot to think about,” Jordan said.

“Such as?”

“Well, this is all rather overwhelming. To find a planet so much like Earth,
peopled by creatures who look exactly like human beings—”

“We
are
human beings,” Aditi said, a smile dimpling her cheeks. “Just like you.”

“Really?”

Her smile faded. “Our studies showed that you are xenophobic. I was hoping you wouldn’t be. Adri told me you were carrying weapons when he first met you.”

“We were in a strange environment,” Jordan tried to explain. “Possibly hostile…”

She smiled
at him. “But now you know better?”

“It’s just that … well, as I said, it’s rather overwhelming. Please give me a little time to get accustomed to all this.”

Aditi looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “You can have all the time you need.”

Turning, she began to explain that the farms were outside the energy dome that protected the city from weather. Jordan saw heavy-looking deep
brown animals moving slowly along the rows of crops, with long snouts and flicking red tongues.

“Do those beasts tend the farms entirely on their own?” he asked.

“Mostly on their own,” said Aditi. “They behave almost entirely by hardwired instinct. They have a very low order of intelligence.”

“Like some of our politicians,” he muttered.

“Politicians?” Aditi asked. Then, before Jordan could
reply, she said, “Oh, you mean your leaders of government.”

“Yes,” Jordan said. Changing the subject, he asked, “The weather. Do you ever have serious storms? Storms strong enough to damage the crops?”

Aditi looked at him quizzically for a few heartbeats, as if she were searching her memory for the right answer. At last she replied, “Severe storms are very rare at this latitude. If one develops,
we extend the energy shield to protect the fields.”

“I see.”

Aditi led him out into the farm. Jordan felt a tingle flicker through him as they stepped from the paved walkway onto the bare ground.

“We’re outside the energy dome now, aren’t we?” he said.

Aditi nodded. “Yes. Out in the open.”

Squinting up at the sun, Jordan saw Sirius glowing a hot bluish white. And a smaller blaze of light
not far from it. The Pup, he realized. Sirius’s white dwarf companion.

“It must seem strange to you,” Aditi said, “to see two suns in the sky.”

“Everything here is strange,” said Jordan. “Yet somehow … familiar.”

They walked down the row of what looked to Jordan like newly sprouted cabbage. The sky was dotted with puffy white clouds. The earth at his feet looked soft, warm. He saw a beetle
scurrying between sprouts.

“How old are you?” Aditi asked.

Surprised, he replied, “Fifty-two, if you must know.”

“Oh! Was I impolite?”

“Only a little.”

“I became one year old sixty-seven days ago,” she said.

“One?”

Aditi laughed at his consternation. “Our orbit around Sirius takes thirty of your years.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Jordan looked in the direction they were walking. The cultivated
fields seemed to end well short of the wooded hills that rose before them. Beyond the hills, craggy mountains rose, green with trees almost to their rocky crests. Darker clouds were building up above them.

“Our calendar is different from yours,” Aditi said. “We have no moon, so we don’t count months the way you do.”

Jordan replied, “That’s a shame. No beautiful moonlit nights.”

“When the Pup
swings in its orbit farther away from Sirius we have practically no nights at all. Just a sort of dim twilight.”

“Moonlight can be very romantic,” said Jordan.

“‘The orbéd maiden, with white fire laden, whom mortals call the Moon,’” Aditi quoted.

“You know Shelley?”

“I love his poetry.”

“You know so much about us,” Jordan said, “and I know so little about you.”

“We’ve been studying your
world for a long time. More than nine years.” Then she added, “Our years.”

“Nearly three hundred Earth years. That goes back to before we invented radio.”

Aditi nodded.

“Did you know that we existed … the human race, I mean?”

“We saw that your world seemed to be a duplicate of ours,” she said.

“So naturally you studied it.”

“Naturally.”

“Yet you never developed space flight? No satellites,
no astronauts?”

Aditi seemed to think about his question for a few heartbeats. Then, “There are no other planets in our system. And the other stars are so far away.”

“So you were born here, on this planet?”

“I’ve lived here all my life,” she replied, looking directly into his eyes. “I’ve never been anywhere else.”

Jordan realized her eyes were very beautiful, a soft delightful brown.

“And
Adri and all the others,” Jordan heard himself asking, almost like a prosecutor questioning a witness, “they were born here too? They didn’t come from another planet, another star system?”

She shook her head. “No. How could they?”

“I … I was just curious,” he stammered.

She glanced up at the sky and Jordan looked up too. The clouds over the mountains were thickening.

“We’d better go back,”
Aditi said. “It looks like it’s going to rain.”

Jordan took her arm and pulled her to him and kissed her. Aditi looked surprised, startled even, her eyes wide and searching.

Then fat drops of rain began to spatter around them and, laughing like children, hand in hand, they ran back toward the shelter of the city’s energy dome.

GUILT AND FEAR

Jordan spent the next two days almost constantly with Aditi. For the first time that he could remember, he put aside his duties and left it to Brandon to deal with the people on the ship while he spent every waking moment with the woman he found to be so delightful, so fascinating.

Fully human, he found himself thinking. I wonder how fully human she really is.

And Aditi seemed
to enjoy his company. She showed him every corner of the city, and they took long walks out into the countryside.

He found himself unburdening his soul about Miriam.

“It was all my fault,” he confessed one afternoon, as they sat on the grass beneath a spreading shade tree. “I was burning to stop the fighting in Kashmir.”