New Earth (29 page)

“You’ve contacted other intelligent species?” Brandon asked.

“Not I personally,” said Adri. “None of us has ever been beyond this planet. But our Predecessors, our progenitors, over the course of the millennia they have come into contact
with many civilizations.”

Jordan blurted, “There are lots of civilizations among the stars?”

Adri shook his head sorrowfully. “Intelligence is the rarest occurrence in the universe, I’m afraid. And even at that, in so many cases, an intelligent species destroys itself before it can attain true self-mastery.”

Brandon said, “But we’ve seen no evidence of any intelligent races in the galaxy, until
now. We’ve searched for almost two centuries, and our telescopes haven’t turned up anything.”

“As I said,” Adri replied, “intelligence is very rare. However, the universe is very large, and there are many intelligent civilizations scattered among the stars.”

“Intelligent species destroy themselves?” Jordan asked.

“Unfortunately, that seems to be the norm. It’s very rare for an intelligent species
to survive long enough to achieve true civilization.”

Thornberry pushed to Adri’s side. “So that’s why you’re here? To help us to survive our own shortcomings?”

Adri hesitated for several long moments, staring into Thornberry’s questioning eyes. At last he answered, “Yes, that is part of our purpose.”

Jordan caught the nuance. “But only part of it?”

“It’s as much as I can tell you for the
moment. Now you know something of who we are and why we are here. I think it best for you to absorb what you’ve just learned before we proceed any farther.”

“There’s more?” Meek asked.

“Oh, yes. Much, much more.”

“But you’re not going to tell us what it is,” Brandon said accusingly.

“In time,” said Adri. “For now, Aditi and I must return to the city. You’ll want to discuss what I’ve told you
among yourselves. Tomorrow is another day.”

The humans stood mutely as Adri and Aditi made their way to the entrance of the bubble tent and went outside into the silvery shadows of the night.

Jordan followed them, like a man in a dream. Aditi turned back toward him, extended her hand to him.

Suddenly Brandon gripped Jordan’s shoulder. “You can’t go with them, Jordy. Not now.”

He stood rooted
to the spot. Adri and Aditi both faced him. And his brother.

“Jordy, you’ve got to stay here. We’ve got to talk this over, digest what they’ve told us.”

“It’s all right,” said Aditi. “We understand.”

“We’ve been waiting for you for centuries,” Adri said. “We can wait another night.”

Jordan looked from Aditi to Adri to his brother. Brandon seemed gravely determined to keep him from going with
the aliens.

“I … I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to Aditi.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

Then she and Adri turned and walked slowly through the shadows cast by the Pup’s wan light, heading for the forest and their city.

Jordan turned reluctantly, and walked beside his brother back to the bubble tent where the others waited. They were a hushed, subdued group, still standing at the worktable, with the
geological profile of the planet glowing on the big display screen.

“Do you believe what he told us?” Meek asked, looking torn, troubled.

“This entire planet has been … built … to resemble Earth?” de Falla wondered aloud.

“By damn,” Thornberry exclaimed, “I’ll bet you that the planet really is hollow!”

Brandon scoffed, “How could we have the gravity—”

“Those energy screens,” Thornberry snapped.
“I’m willing to bet me underdrawers that this entire planet is a hollow shell, with a gravity-producing energy generator at its center.”

Verishkova agreed with a nod. “Until a few minutes ago I would say such an idea is nonsense. But now … maybe not.”

“But that’s not the really important point,” Jordan said.

Meek said, “The fact that he
admits
they’ve constructed this planet deliberately to
lure us here? You don’t find that important?”

“Not as important as the fact that Adri told us his people have been created by a race that has found many other intelligent species. His … Predecessors, as he calls them, apparently have been traveling across interstellar distances for god knows how long.”

“He said intelligence is very rare in the universe,” Yamaguchi said, her voice low, thoughtful.

Longyear added, “He also said most intelligent species wipe themselves out.”

“Poppycock,” Meek sniffed. “Do you really believe everything he tells us?”

“I believe that we’re well on our way to destroying ourselves back on Earth,” Jordan said.

“You can’t blame us for natural disasters like the global flooding.”

With a wan smile, Jordan replied, “Can’t I?”

Pointing to the display screen’s profile
of the planet, Thornberry said, “I believe what the facts tell us. This planet is an artificial construction.”

“A whole planet?” Jordan marveled. “They built this entire planet?”

“To lure us here,” Meek said.

Jordan shook his head. “Why would they go to so much effort? What’s the purpose behind all this?”

“Conquest?” Longyear suggested.

“Assimilation,” said Elyse. “Instead of destroying us,
they want to assimilate us, blend our genes with theirs, make us part of their empire.”

“They want to steal our women?” Yamaguchi almost laughed, despite herself.

Brandon glanced at Jordan. “It’s the other way around. One of us has stolen one of their women.”

“Be serious,” Jordan growled.

“Okay,” Brandon replied. “I’ll be serious. What Adri’s told us is that his people have been created by
a race that has a much higher technology than ours. Much higher.”

“Interstellar flight,” Verishkova murmured.

Brandon resumed, “And they’ve found other intelligent species among the stars. They’re rare, but they do exist.”

“If they don’t wipe themselves out,” said Thornberry.

“So why have they gone to all this trouble to make contact with us?” Yamaguchi asked.

“Yes,” said Meek. “What’s behind
all this? Why are they here? What do they want of us?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said Brandon. “We can’t plan our response to all this until we find out what Adri really wants of us.”

Jordan shook his head. “Bran, I don’t think you realize where we are. It doesn’t matter what our response is. With the superior technology they have, they can do whatever they want with us.”

Meek’s
face went white. “That’s right! We’re at their mercy!”

SECURITY

Jordan slept fitfully, his dreams filled with a kaleidoscope of shifting, blending visions: Miriam laughing with him as they rode a tandem bicycle through a winding trail along a sunny, sandy beach that suddenly turned into the tsunami they narrowly escaped in Singapore, smashing everything before it in a raging wall of water; Aditi looking over her shoulder at him as she walked away,
sorrowful, pained; the president of Argentina putting the pistol in his mouth and blowing his brains out rather than agree to a cease-fire with his rivals; Meek, terrified, hiding behind his bed, turning into four-year-old Brandon, the day their father died; and then it was Miriam dying in agony while he stood watching helplessly; thousands of staring, bone-thin African children in the refugee
camp slowly starving, too weak even to cry; millions of homeless, helpless families fleeing the implacable floods that were swallowing up their land; alien civilizations scattered among the stars destroying themselves in wars, population explosions, diseases created in laboratories; Miriam, Miriam, Miriam.

His eyes snapped open. It wasn’t dawn yet, the bubble tent was dark except for the tiny
numerals glowing on the face of his wristwatch. Jordan got up from his cot and trudged barefoot to the common lavatory.

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care, does it? he said to himself. Not always. Not every night.

It was an hour before Sirius rose above the horizon, but already the sky was turning milky white. Jordan listened to the sounds of his companions’ sleep: a gentle snore, a troubled
moan, something that might have been a throaty chuckle.

Sounds like Thornberry, he thought. At least Mitch is having a happy dream. Brandon’s with Elyse. He wanted to be with Aditi.

Returning to his cubicle to dress, Jordan thought briefly about tiptoeing out of the camp and walking to the city. But he shook his head. They’d wonder where I’ve gone, why I’ve left. Meek would think I’ve been kidnapped.

Instead he went to the dining area, floor lights turning on as he walked. A solitary robot stirred to life at the sight of him. The dining area filled with light.

“May I serve you?” the robot asked.

Sliding into the nearest chair, Jordan felt weary, deeply tired, down to his bones.

“Tea, please. With milk.”

The robot pivoted wordlessly and trundled into the kitchen.

Jordan sat there, thinking,
trying to decide what his next step should be. By the time the robot returned with a steaming mug and deposited it on the table, he had made up his mind.

He drank the tea slowly, weighing the pros and cons of his decision. After all, he told himself, it’s not as if I have any responsibilities here. They’ve relieved me of my duty. I’m just an unemployed bureaucrat now.

And he realized that more
than anything he wanted to be with Aditi. Needed her warmth, her understanding.

He drained the mug, then went to his cubicle and tapped out a message to Brandon on his phone:
Gone to the city to learn more from Adri.

That ought to do it, he thought. Then he went quietly through the bubble tent, stepped out into the pearly-gray predawn glow, and headed for the city.

He hadn’t counted on the
guards.

A pair of man-tall robots was standing at the edge of the glade, by the trail that led to the city.

“Good morning, Mr. Kell,” said one of them as he approached. Its voice somehow reminded Jordan of a policeman’s: calm, polite, inflexible.

“Good morning,” he answered.

“Where are you going, sir?”

“To the city.”

“I’m afraid that is prohibited, sir.”

“Prohibited? Why? By whom?”

“Dr.
Kell’s orders. For your own safety, sir.”

“I’m perfectly safe,” Jordan said, taking a step forward.

The robot doing the speaking put a silicone-skinned hand gently on Jordan’s chest. “It is for your own safety, sir. Dr. Kell’s orders.”

The other robot slid to Jordan’s side. Jordan got a flash of a mental impression of the two robots carrying him, struggling and squawking, to his brother’s cot.

Jordan admitted defeat. “Very well. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kell. Have a pleasant day.”

As he walked back toward the tents, Jordan thought that it would be easy enough to duck into the trees somewhere else along the camp’s perimeter and head for the city farther along the trail. I doubt that the robots have been programmed to track down fugitives, he thought.

But instead he headed dutifully
back to the barracks tent, straight to his brother’s cubicle. Elyse was not there, he saw. Almost smirking, Jordan thought, The cots aren’t wide enough for two people to sleep comfortably and the cubicles are too small to squeeze in a second cot. They might have sex together, but afterward they both want their rest.

“Wake up, Bran!” he called, clapping his hands together as loudly as he could.
“You have some explaining to do.”

Brandon sprang to a sitting position on his cot, his eyes popping. “Jordy! For god’s sake, that’s a lousy way to wake a guy.”

“The guards you set up stopped me from going to the city,” Jordan accused, staring down at his brother.

“What time is it?” Brandon muttered sleepily.

“Time for you to get up and do some explaining.”

Grumbling, Brandon pulled his legs
free of the bedsheet and got to his feet. He’s two and a half centimeters taller than I am, Jordan recalled, standing nose to chin with his brother.

“So?” he demanded. “What about those guards?”

“They’re supposed to stop anybody from the city from coming in here while we’re sleeping,” Brandon said, almost truculently.

“They stopped me from leaving.”

“We don’t want anybody wandering off by
themselves, Jordy. Not until we’ve figured out what we have to do.”

Jordan glared at his brother. “Well then, you’d better figure out what you have to do. In the meantime, I want to go to the city.”

Brandon almost smiled at him. “Not yet, Jordy. Not yet. Have some breakfast with us. We have a lot of thinking to do.”

GUESTS … OR PRISONERS?

Once they were all seated in the dining area, with their meals before them and the three still aboard the ship on the big display screen at the far end of the table, Brandon got to his feet.

“I hope you all had a good night’s sleep,” he began.

Hazzard’s image on the screen scowled slightly. “Cut the platitudes, Brandon. We have some major decisions to make.”

Nodding
tightly, Brandon said, “My brother, here,” he put a hand on Jordan’s shoulder, “wants to go to the city.”

Before anyone could object, Jordan explained, “We have a lot of questions that need to be answered. Adri knows the answers. I want to go to him and have a full and frank discussion.”

“B’god, Jordan,” Thornberry rumbled, “you sound like a stripey-pantsed diplomat.”

Jordan smiled at the Irishman.
“I am a diplomat, Mitch, despite my clothing. An ambassador, if you will.”

Meek said, “And you expect Adri to be truthful?”

“He always has been.”

“Up to a point.”

“It’s up to us … to me, actually, to get the entire truth from him. We get along well together and—”

“And you want to see your girlfriend,” Brandon snapped.

Jordan felt as if Bran had slapped his face. Holding back the angry retort
that he wanted to make, he answered carefully, “I want to clear up any doubts you have about Adri, and find out what’s behind all this.”

Longyear looked as if he wanted to say something, but he stayed silent. The rest of them glanced uneasily at one another.