New Earth (22 page)

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do your people regularly live such long lives?” Jordan asked.

Adri nodded solemnly. “Yes. So can you. Your biological sciences are steadily increasing your life spans, are they not?”

“Yes, but three hundred and sixty years,” Jordan marveled. “We haven’t reached that yet.”

“We can help you,” said Adri. Then he added, “Although, with your
enormous population, I wonder if extending your life spans would be a good thing.”

Meek recovered from his surprise. “How old is your race?”

“Our civilization goes back many millions of years.”

“And you’ve existed on this one planet all that time?”

Adri spread his hands. “My race has lived only on this planet. We have never lived elsewhere.”

Jordan said, “What we find remarkable—unbelievable,
almost—is that you’re so much like us. This entire planet is so Earthlike. It’s uncanny.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“It’s more than uncanny,” Meek grumbled. “It’s unbelievable. To find a planet exactly like Earth, and intelligent beings exactly like humans—”

“Not exactly,” Adri pointed out.

“Down to your DNA,” said Meek.

“Yes, biologically we are very similar,” Adri admitted. “But socially,
culturally, we have significant differences.”

“You control your numbers,” said Jordan.

“We live in harmony with our environment,” Adri responded. “We are not xenophobic. We are not competitive, not aggressive. We have welcomed you to our world, while you are distinctly suspicious of us.” Before Meek could reply, Adri amended, “Perhaps I should say, you are
instinctively
suspicious of us.”

Meek said, “You disapprove of our instincts?”

Smiling gently, Adri replied, “It’s not a matter of my approval or disapproval. Your instincts served you well, long ages ago. But now you must outgrow them.”

“Why? Because you say so?”

“Because they are destroying you. You have devastated your planet with overpopulation, with environmental degradation, with famines and wars and hatreds. You are
teetering on the brink of extinction, whether you realize it or not.”

“You sound like one of those overzealous eco-activists,” Meek said.

“Forgive me,” Adri immediately apologized. “I should not be telling you how to live your lives.”

“Someone should,” said Jordan.

“It’s just that…” Adri hesitated, seemingly gathering his thoughts. At last he said, with infinite sadness in his voice, “It’s
just that to witness the destruction of an intelligent race is a terrible, terrible thing.”

“Do you really feel that we’re so close to destroying ourselves?” Jordan asked.

“Indeed,” said Adri, his aged face showing grave concern. “You are heading for extinction. Racing toward it, I’m afraid.”

QUESTIONS

Meek seemed thoroughly chastened as Adri sat on the stool beside him, his expression bleak. Jordan himself felt unutterably sad at the thought of the human race’s extinction.

Rousing himself, Jordan said, “Well, we’re not dead yet. We can overcome our problems, if we want to.”

“If you want to,” Adri agreed. “That’s the question. Can you alter your modes of behavior, your ways of
thinking, soon enough and well enough to avert the catastrophe that’s facing you?”

“We can try,” said Jordan.

“We will help you all that we can, of course,” Adri said. “But your people will have to make some wrenching changes in their fundamental attitudes.”

Meek said nothing. He seemed lost in thought.

Adri got up from the stool. “I must return to the city now. Dr. Meek, I hope I have given
you the information you sought.”

Meek nodded wordlessly.

Jordan said, “I’ll go with you to the edge of the camp, Adri.”

“No need for that, friend Jordan. I can find my way.” He turned and headed for the lab’s door in his seemingly effortless gliding walk.

As soon as Adri was out of sight, Meek stirred to life. “I don’t trust him. Despite everything he says, I don’t trust the man.”

“Perhaps,”
Jordan said, “you don’t trust him
because
of everything he says.”

*   *   *

To Jordan’s surprise, Thornberry took up residence in the city. He spent his days in happy conference with young men and women who were fellow engineers.

“It’s unbelievable, the things they can do,” he said to Jordan and Aditi over dinner one evening. “I mean, they’ve developed quantum computers, for god’s sake. No
bigger than a grain of sand, yet more powerful than anything we’ve got. They implant ’em in their skulls at birth!”

“I know,” said Jordan, looking at Aditi.

“I mean, we’ve been talking about quantum computers for damned near a century now, and we’re nowhere near making one work. These people carry them around inside their heads! If I could bring one of ’em back home, I’d become a billionaire
overnight, I could.”

Aditi said, “We can show you how to build them.”

Thornberry nodded eagerly. “I’m talking to your bright young folks about just that, I am.”

“Good,” Jordan said.

The three of them were sitting at a small table in the dining area of the dormitory building. The place was filled with Aditi’s people, young and old, men and women. Conversations in their fluted musical language
and laughter drifted across the room. Human servants carried trays of food and drink to the tables.

But they’re not human, Jordan thought as he listened to Thornberry with half his attention. They’re human in form, but they belong to a different race, a different civilization. They’re aliens.

“And these energy shields,” the roboticist went on, “they take ’em for granted, they do. It’s ordinary
engineering, as far as they’re concerned.”

Aditi said to Thornberry, “The shield generators are ordinary engineering. After all, we’ve used them for many generations.”

“I know,” said Thornberry. “But what I can’t figure out is how they work.”

“The engineers haven’t explained it to you?” she asked.

“They explain to me for hours, they do,” Thornberry said, “but for the life of me, the more they
explain the less I understand.”

Jordan snapped his attention to the roboticist. “What do you mean, Mitch?”

“They’re talking about physics and principles that’re beyond me. Maybe a quantum physicist could understand them. More likely a string theoretician.”

“The closest we have to a physicist would be Elyse Rudaki,” said Jordan.

Thornberry nodded. “Maybe I should ask her to listen to ’em. Maybe
she could understand the math.”

Aditi looked troubled. “Do you mean that the engineers are not answering your questions?”

His beefy face contorting into a troubled frown, Thornberry said, “Oh, they answer my questions, they do. But their answers are beyond me.”

“Then we must find someone who can explain it to you more clearly,” said Aditi.

Jordan smiled slightly. “Mitch, perhaps you’ve got
to go to school and learn more physics.”

Thornberry conceded the point with a nod. “Maybe I should. Maybe what I need is a patient teacher.”

Jordan turned to Aditi. “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she said.

“Could you help Mitch? I realize that advanced physics is probably beyond you, but perhaps you could find one of your fellow teachers who could help.”

She looked thoughtful
for a moment, then smiled and said, “I’ll ask Adri about that in the morning.”

As they turned their attention back to the dinners before them, Jordan marveled all over again at how closely the New Earthers’ cuisine resembled Earth’s. The meat on his plate certainly looked and tasted like veal. Grown in a biovat, but cooked to perfection with a tangy sauce that was tantalizingly familiar yet slightly
different from anything Jordan could remember.

They were finishing their desserts when Jordan spotted Paul Longyear walking past their table.

“Paul,” he called, “join us for coffee?”

Longyear stopped, looked over their table, and pulled out the empty chair.

“It’s not coffee,” he said as he sat down. “Tastes almost the same, but it doesn’t have any caffeine at all.”

“You’ve tested it?” Jordan
asked.

“I’ve been analyzing all their foodstuffs,” said the biologist. Holding up a thumb and forefinger a mere millimeter apart, he went on, “They’re all this close to Earth normal. Nothing in them that’s harmful to us, but just a tinge different.”

Aditi said, “I’m pleased that you find our food satisfactory.”

“More than satisfactory,” Jordan said. “It’s delicious. And I find the slight differences
to be rather exotic.”

Thornberry pouted. “I haven’t found a decent potato here. I miss them, I do.”

Aditi looked troubled.

Then Thornberry added, “But we don’t have decent potatoes at our camp, either. Nor aboard the ship, by damn. The nearest honest potato is back on Earth, more’n eight light-years away.”

Jordan murmured, “The rigors of exploration.”

Thornberry broke into a hearty laugh.
Looking around at the busy dining area, he guffawed, “Right you are. It’s hell out here on the frontier.”

Longyear didn’t laugh. Jordan thought he looked uptight, preoccupied by something that was bothering him.

When the waiter brought their coffee the biologist sipped at his cup minimally.

“So what have you and Nara been up to?” Jordan asked him, trying to shake him out of his dour mood.

“Cataloging the various species of animals here,” Longyear replied. With a shake of his head, he added, “It’s amazing what these people can do with biological engineering.”

Jordan glanced at Aditi. The “these people” phrase didn’t seem to bother her a bit.

“I mean,” Longyear went on, “they use genetic engineering the way we use mechanical engineering. Instead of inventing machines for labor-saving
jobs, they gengineer animals.”

“And plants, too,” Aditi said. “Most of the fruits and vegetables we eat have been genetically modified.”

“We’ve done that on Earth,” Longyear said to her.

“We have?” Jordan asked.

“He means genetically engineered crops,” said Thornberry. “Frost-resistant wheat, grains that resist insect pests. It’s a big business.”

But Longyear said, “We’ve been doing genetic
engineering for a long time, Mitch. Centuries. Millennia.”

Aditi said, “I had no idea your biological sciences were that advanced so long ago.”

With a hint of a smile, Longyear said, “They weren’t. The genetic engineering we did back then was done the old-fashioned way.”

“What do you mean?” Jordan asked.

“Well, take corn for instance. When my ancestors first came to what we now call Mexico,
corn ears were no bigger than my thumb. But by consistently planting kernels from the biggest ears, over many generations we produced the kind of corn we eat today.”

“Selective breeding,” Jordan said.

“That’s right. The old-fashioned method of genetic engineering. We took wild cattle and pigs and bred them generation after generation to carry more meat. And to be docile. We fattened them up
and dumbed them down.”

“And then we figured out the double helix,” said Thornberry. “Now we can do inside of a year what it took centuries to achieve before.”

Longyear nodded tightly. Then he turned to Jordan. “I need to talk to you. In private.”

Something’s in the wind, Jordan thought. With a glance toward Aditi, he replied to the biologist, “Will tomorrow morning do?”

“Fine,” said Longyear,
tight-lipped. Then he repeated, “In private.”

CONUNDRUM

The following morning, Jordan left Aditi sleeping in his bed, showered, shaved, and dressed as quietly as he could, then went to Longyear’s quarters. To his surprise, Meek was there, standing uneasily by Longyear’s desk.

“Harmon! I didn’t know you had come to the city.”

“I came early this morning,” said the astrobiologist. “I was up at the crack of dawn, the very crack of dawn.”

Longyear’s apartment was a single room, partitioned into a bedroom area, kitchen, and a sitting room furnished with a small sofa, a pair of armchairs, and a sleekly curved desk. The walls were covered with display screens that glowed pearly gray.

“I hope you had a pleasant walk through the forest,” Jordan said as he went to the sofa.

“I drove a buggy,” Meek replied. He dropped his lanky frame
onto one of the armchairs.

“I see.” Turning to Longyear, who got up from his desk and went to the other armchair, Jordan said, “I gathered from the way you asked for this meeting that you didn’t want Aditi present.”

“That’s right,” the biologist said. Frowning slightly, he said, “It’s not that I don’t … um, trust her. It’s just that I think it’s better if we thrash this matter out among ourselves
before talking to Adri or any of the others about it.”

“All right,” Jordan said, leaning back on the sofa’s plush cushions. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s not a problem so much as a conundrum.”

“A conundrum?”

Meek said, “A puzzle. A riddle.”

“Thank you, Harmon,” said Jordan, dryly.

Longyear’s lean face was entirely serious. “I’ve been thinking about this planet’s ozone layer.”

Jordan felt
surprised.

“It’s much thicker than Earth’s,” Longyear said.

“Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? Sirius emits much more ultraviolet radiation than our Sun does. The ozone layer screens out the UV, protects life on the planet’s surface.”

“Exactly right,” said Meek.

Longyear leaned closer and asked, “But how did the ozone get there, in the first place?”

Jordan blinked at him. “As I understand it,
the ultraviolet light coming in creates a reaction that turns some of the oxygen molecules high in the atmosphere into ozone: oxygen-three, isn’t it, where regular oxygen is a two-atom molecule.”

“Right,” said Longyear. “But how did the oxygen get into the atmosphere?”

Feeling as if he were taking a high school science exam, Jordan answered, “From living plants that give off oxygen as a result
of photosynthesis.”

“Aha!” Meek pounced. “And how could plant life arise in the face of the heavy ultraviolet radiation reaching the planet’s surface?”