Outward Borne (36 page)

LoNat had sent the robots to
search the People’s habitat. She was nervous about this unusual
operation from the start, and not much went as planned. The bots
could not even handle the dogs. The humans always controlled them
very well, but they had been let loose for some reason, and now the
People offered no help at all in locating the work crew. Lights
were turned off, stuff was left lying about, the search took
forever and found nothing.

MaxNi9 monitored the progress of
the recovery operation and was becoming increasingly upset. The
People, for all of their quirks, had never openly defied the
ObLaDas. Now what was he to do? The entire habitat ought to be shut
down to prevent contamination of the ship, but could he do it? He
turned to LoNat and asked her to call the other members of the
leadership council. YuLon Lim was lost, isolated in the Farside,
but he thought that Di JonSi had returned before the shutdown
started. Jon Geomon was just down the hall. MaxNi9 had acted as he
saw fit in the urgent situation but, uncharacteristically, he had
done so without consulting his leadership. MaxNi had sought no
one’s consent to seal off the Farside arm, or to entrap those who
were in that place. It was an emergency; his actions would be clear
to everyone, he thought. He was about to find out how much of a
mistake that had been.

MaxNi9 sat at the side of the mat
and relayed the events of the past fifteen hours. The entire ship
was threatened, he explained, and immediate measures must be taken
no matter how distasteful. The Farside arm must be isolated. YuLon
Lim, the others, and all the species in the Farside arm would be
sacrificed once that was completed. The escape of the work crew was
a serious breech, however. They may have been exposed to Replicide,
and now the People’s habitat may be infected. They must be isolated
and possibly terminated.

Jon GeoMon stood in the middle of
this speech. He violated the rule of politeness that governed the
ObLaDa council meetings. No, he and Di JonSi both objected to
taking any such precipitous action. The Farside Das may be safe.
The work crew may not have been exposed, they may not be ill. These
two were vigorously opposed.

It was hard for MaxNi9 to accept
that he lacked support. They must not fully understand the nature
of Replicide, its implications, and its threat. Surely the humans
had to be contained and the three survivors sent for termination,
that at least. He stood, and argued that to do any less would risk
the ship and our mission. “I must act as I believe I must,” he
claimed, but Jon GeoMon and JonSi stood and left the room without
further comment. LoNat went to the far corner, sitting upright with
her arms folded in front of her, an obvious sign of her concern.
She made no move the help MaxNi9. He was alone and isolated, but
still determined. He left the meeting and sent the message that he
felt necessary. It gave the People an hour to surrender the
fugitives, and then everyone was to submit to testing. He
threatened to cut off all services within the habitat, and all
contact with the ship, if they did not comply.

MaxNi9 turned and walked slowly
back to his room, head down. Had he acted rashly? He decided to
talk to LoNat, but before he could leave his All-1 beeped. The
People had responded already.

“
MuiMi, Tomat and Eric will not be
surrendered,” the People told the ObLaDas. They tried to make it
clear that they did not believe that the crew had been exposed to
any contagion; they were in full space suits, after all. Was there
any evidence that this Replicide was ever released from the
LabislassLee habitat, or present in the service areas? “Prove that
they had been infected,” they demanded. It was a decisive response,
but troubling. How much of a hit would the People take for defying
their masters? MaxNi9’s ultimatum was clear. They had an hour
before the entire habitat would be shut down and sealed off.
Without power, water, food, and air, the People could not survive
for more than a few days. They had no hope of escape or fighting
off the ObLaDas. Nevertheless, they made an immediate response
indicating, they hoped, how firm was their resolve. Nervously, they
waited. Their last hour came and went, surprisingly without any
further contact from the ObLaDas. A meager hope began to sprout.
Was MaxNi9 bluffing? No one had any idea of the conflict that raged
within the ObLaDa council.

MaxNi9 had his own reservations
about isolating this species that had played such an important role
on the Ship for so many generations, but he was caught in the flow
of obligations. Maybe he should explain the disease in more detail?
No, they understood. There had been no sign of illness, was there?
MaxNi9 did not know. It was unlikely that it would show up so soon,
tomorrow maybe.

The door opened and AlAnni, Buth,
LoNat, Jon GeoMon, everyone pushed into the narrow room. No
symptoms, no threats, no reprisals, they argued. CamBi and the
others may be well. We should wait and see. We must respect the
humans and all of the alien species on the Outward. That is our
mission now. MaxNi9 was still concerned, but he gave in. There was
a risk, a grave risk, but the ObLaDas were all willing to take it,
so would he. With a surprising feeling of relief, he offered to
break the impasse. If this were the end, it would be done with
dignity. He would contact the People again; perhaps examining the
escapees should happen first. If they were free of Replicide, we
could continue from there. Now have someone go and get those
dogs.

Tomat and MuiMi were fast asleep.
Eric had just gotten up, sitting on the edge of his bunk, only now
considering the implications of being cooped up in a small box for
days. The stress of their escape from the Farside arm had exhausted
them all, but now it hit him, with a cold flush that ran down the
back of his neck. The ObLaDas had intended to lock him up in the
Farside arm and probably kill him. None of the crew was able to
make sense of what had happened yesterday. It did not hold
together. They had not found anything, had they? There was no
crisis that required the arm to be sealed off as far as he could
fathom. Still deeply stunned by escaping death and the mystery of
why, Eric jumped at the sudden sound of his All-1.

Radnar patched a connection
through to the transmitter in the restbox. “Eric, is that you? We
have made an arrangement with the ObLaDas and they will let you
return home, but you will need to be tested. We are sure you are
all clean, but it is needed anyway,” he went on in a rush. “A
medic-bot is on the way to take samples.” Radnar had run from the
Council Chamber to the communication room and called the crew with
the news. It never occurred to him that they had no idea what he
was talking about.

“
Tested for what? What do you mean
clean? Why do we need an arrangement anyway?” Eric was stressed. He
gave MuiMi and Tot a poke with his toe. “Let me turn this up and
you explain what is going on.” So MuiMi, Eric, and Tomat had
something else to worry about as they waited for the test results.
They had convinced themselves that they could not have been
contaminated by anything while in the Farside, plus they did not
enter any habitat, and there were no leaks. Still, it was a nervous
three hours until the results came in. Clean.

Word spread quickly through the habitat and a
crowd ran to the portal to greet the crew. Verna opened the café
for drinks, the better to tell how MuiMi and Eric had teased Tomat
right here in her dinner before they left on their famous
journey.

Chapter 20 Fateful
Course

The ObLaDa interstellar
communications and the discoveries of the Outward Voyager had
established that the galaxy held many intelligent life forms,
almost to the predicted number. Some of these beings were able to
establish speech and even written forms of communication, formed
organized societies, and accumulated a detailed knowledge of their
surroundings, as well they might. Every sign indicated that a fair
number of these communities had made progress in controlling their
surroundings. They utilized power sources, processed metals,
organized manufacturing, and achieved some progress in the sciences
and advanced technology, but it was depressingly clear, that after
attaining that level, few of those societies survived for long.
Advanced civilizations seem to burst from the stars, and then wink
out, rarely surviving more than a few thousand years. It was as if
technological development held the seeds of its own
destruction.

The ObLaDas were one of the few
civilizations that had succeeded in sustaining an advanced culture,
and they had done so for almost one million years. Perhaps on ObLa,
their physical aversion to conflict allowed them to successfully
manage the self-limiting hazards that accrued from technological
advancement. However it may be for the ObLaDas on ObLa, the ObLaDas
on the Outward Voyager were profoundly shocked by the Kalekto
emergency. The crisis had exposed their vulnerability and the
precarious nature of their own survival. They realized that they
were subject to the same dangerous, destructive consequences that
came with the supposed mastery of power. The unexpected and
unlikely Kalekto disease had come within moments of annihilating
every being within the Outward Voyager. They were, it seemed, no
different from the numerous alien species that they had studied
over so long a time. Their own community’s existence would have
ended three thousand seven hundred years into their voyage. About
average!

The political differences that had
divided the ObLaDa crew did not survive the Kalekto mission and its
disastrous outcome. After that debacle had run its course, the
ObLaDas transformed their awareness of their own mortality into a
commitment, a determination to protect and nurture those few
developed civilizations that they had, thus far, discovered and to
preserve other intelligent beings wherever they existed.

The Outward Voyager left the
vicinity of Kalekto on a course to investigate the next promising
solar system, just as they had always done. They maintained that
course through the years that were spent repairing the ship and
rebuilding their population, but it would change along with their
intentions.

At first, the ObLaDas considered
returning to the planet Genimunda to determine if any in its
tenuous population still survived. Genimunda was a sorry story.
Relatively early in the voyage, the ObLaDas surveyed that planet
and found remnants of an ancient civilization. One that had fallen
low a thousand or more years before. Very few survivors of this
species continued to exist on the planet, and those few had lost
their culture and all of their technology. The remnants of their
civilization were smudges of dust that did not belong to the local
geology, and traces of earth moving that left an absence of hills
where hills should have been. A lander was sent to the surface to
perform detailed explorations of the remains. Drones and land-based
rovers examined the surface features.

An intensive search was required
to find a group of twelve individuals that were living in tents and
caves at the confluence of two rivers, very near an ocean. They
were a poor sort, being both small and thin, surviving primarily on
a small soft, shapeless things that lived in the river mud and
smelly green creatures that climbed out of the water during the
night. While communications were difficult, it did not appear that
this group was aware of any others of their kind. Certainly, none
were found. These were clearly descendants of the lost
civilization. Their small caves contained carved stone statues,
molded glass, and some metal implements of considerable age. While
poor in all meaningful respects, the creatures wore jewels and cut
diamonds as well as beaten gold and copper ornaments. It turned out
that these durable remnants were found around the old cities,
gradually brought to the surface by wind and erosion. The creatures
might have been smaller by half than their ancestors if the found
artifacts matched the stature of the former inhabitants. The
survivors did not retain any of their ancestor’s skills or
knowledge.

There may have been other pockets
of survivors, but the drones were unable to find them. The ObLaDas
did not choose to bring the few survivors on board the Outward
Voyager, however, there were too few. All of that took place almost
three thousand years ago. If any of these beings still survived,
the Outward might be able to help them build a better more
satisfactory existence.

In the almost four thousand year
history of the Outward Voyager, the ObLaDas had captured and
brought aboard twelve alien species, not counting dogs, which some
might choose to debate. Sustaining an unknown alien life form is a
difficult and challenging endeavor, but the fact is that only four
remained. The ObLaDas were none too proud of their stewardship.
They should have done better. They now considered returning these
aliens to their home planets. The knowledge and experience they
carried from their life among the ObLaDas might enable them to make
positive contributions to their worlds.

What were the options? The mission
to Genimunda might be delayed. Were any of these home planets
nearby? Earth, some one hundred and seventy years distant, was the
nearest developed planet. That would be somehow appropriate, the
ObLaDas thought, for the People had been the most helpful of the
aliens, and now something might be done for them. So the decision
was made. The Outward Voyager’s course was changed. It would return
to Earth.