Calculating God

32

“Hollus has offered me a chance to go with her to her next destination,” I said to Susan when I got home that night. We were sitting on the living-room couch.

“To Alpha Centauri?” she replied. That had indeed been the next, and last, planned stop on the Merelcas’s grand tour before it headed back home to Delta Pavonis and then Beta Hydri.

“No, they’ve changed their minds. They’re going to go to Betelgeuse instead. They’re going to go see whatever it is that’s out there.”

Susan was quiet for a time. “Didn’t I read in the Globe that Betelgeuse is 400 light-years away?”

I nodded.

“So you couldn’t be back for over a thousand years?”

“From Earth’s point of view, yes.”

She was silent some more. After a time, I decided to fill the void. “See, their ship will have to turn around at the halfpoint and face its fusion exhaust toward Betelgeuse. So in just 250 years, the — the entity will see that bright light, and will know that someone is coming. Hollus hopes that he — that it — will wait for us to arrive, or else will come back to meet us.”

“The entity?”

I couldn’t bring myself to use the other word with her. “The being that interposed itself between us and Betelgeuse.”

“You think it’s God,” said Susan simply. She was the one who went to church. She was the one who knew the Bible. And she’d been listening to me for weeks now, talking over dinner about ultimate origins, first causes, fundamental constants, intelligent design. I hadn’t often said the G-word — not around her, at any rate. It had always meant so much more to her than it had to me, and so I’d kept some distance from it, some scientific detachment. But she knew. She knew.

I shrugged a little. “Maybe,” I said.

“God,” repeated Susan, placing the concept firmly on the table. “And you’ve got a chance to go see him.” She looked at me, her head tilted to one side. “Are they taking anyone else from Earth?”

“A few, ah, individuals, yes.” I tried to remember the list. “A severely schizophrenic woman from West Virginia. A silverback gorilla from Burundi. A very old man from China.” I shrugged. “They’re some of the people the other aliens have bonded with. All of them immediately agreed to go.”

Susan looked at me, her expression carefully neutral. “Do you want to go?”

Yes, I thought. Yes, with every fiber of my being. Although I longed for more time with Ricky, I’d rather he remembered me as still somewhat healthy, still able to get around on my own, still able to pick him up. I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“You’ve got a son,” Susan said.

“I know,” I said softly.

“And a wife.”

“I know,” I said again.

“We — we don’t want to lose you.”

I said it gently. “But you will. All too soon, you will.”

“But not yet,” said Susan. “Not yet.”

We sat silently. My mind roiled.

Susan and I had known each other at university, back in the 1960s. We’d dated, but I’d left, to go to the States, to pursue my dream. She hadn’t stood in my way then.

And now here was another dream.

But things were different, incalculably so.

We were married now. We had a child.

If that was all there were to the equation, it would be a no-brainer. If I were healthy, if I were well, there was no way I’d have contemplated leaving them — not even as an idle speculation.

But I wasn’t healthy.

I wasn’t well. Surely she understood that.

We’d been married in a church, because that’s what Susan had wanted, and we’d said the traditional vows, including “Till death do us part.” Of course, no one standing there, in a church, affirming those words, ever contemplates cancer; people don’t expect the damned crab to scuttle into their lives, dragging torture and calamity behind it.

“Let’s think about it some more,” I said. “The Merelcas isn’t leaving for three days.”

Susan moved her head slightly, in a tight nod.

“Hollus,” I said, the next day, in my office. “I know you and your shipmates must be terribly busy, but—”

“Indeed we are. There is much preparation to be done before leaving for Betelgeuse. And we are involved in considerable moral debate.”

“About what?”

“We believe you are correct: the beings of Groombridge 1618 III did try to sterilize all of local space. It is not a thought that would have occurred to either a Forhilnor or a Wreed; forgive me for so saying, but it is something so barbarous, only a human — or, apparently, a Groombridge native — would think of it. We are debating whether to send messages to our homeworlds, advising them of what the beings of Groombridge tried to do.”

“That seems like a reasonable thing to do,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you tell them?”

“The Wreeds are a generally nonviolent race, but, as I have told you, my species is — well, passionate would be the kind word. Many Forhilnors would doubtless wish to seek retribution for what was attempted. Groombridge 1618 is thirty-nine light-years from Beta Hydri; we could easily send ships there. Regrettably, the natives left no warning landscape marking their current location — so if we wish to be sure they are exterminated, we might have to destroy their entire world, not just a segment of it. The people of Groombridge never developed the ultra-high-energy fusion technology my race possess; if they had, they surely would have used it to send their bomb to Betelgeuse more quickly. That technology does give us strength enough to destroy a planet.”

“Wow,” I said. “That is a moral dilemma. Are you going to tell your homeworld?”

“We have not decided.”

“The Wreeds are the great ethicists. What do they think you should do?”

Hollus was quiet for a time. “They suggest we should use the Merelcas’s fusion exhaust to wipe out all life on Beta Hydri III.”

“On the Forhilnor homeworld?”

“Yes.”

“Good God. Why?”

“They have not made that clear, but I suspect they are being — what is that word again? Ironic. If we are willing to destroy those who have been, or might be, a threat to ourselves, then we are no better than the Groombridge natives.” Hollus paused. “But I did not mean to burden you with this. You wanted something from me?”

“Well, next to what you’ve just said, it seems pretty small potatoes.”

“Small potatoes?”

“Inconsequential. But, well, I’d like to talk to a Wreed. I’ve got a moral quandary, and I can’t solve it.”

Hollus’s crystal-covered eyes regarded me. “About whether you will come with us to Betelgeuse?”

I nodded.

“Our friend T’kna is currently involved with his daily attempt to contact God, but he should be available in about an hour. If you can take the holoform projector to a larger room then, I will ask him to join us.”

Others, of course, had reached the same conclusion I had: what Donald Chen had neutrally referred to as an “anomaly,” and Peter Mansbridge had discreetly dismissed as simple “luck,” was being heralded as proof of divine intervention by people all over the world. And of course those people put their own spin on it: what I’d called a smoking gun many were referring to as a miracle.

Still, that was a minority opinion: most people knew nothing about supernovae, and many, including a large contingent in the Muslim world, didn’t trust the images supposedly produced by the Merelcas’s telescopes. Others claimed that what we’d seen was the devil’s work: a fiery glimpse of hell, and then an all-encompassing darkness; some Satanists were now claiming vindication.

Meanwhile, Christian fundamentalists were scouring the Bible, looking for bits of scripture that could be bent to this occasion. Others were invoking predictions by Nostradamus. A Jewish mathematician at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem pointed out that the six-limbed entity was topologically equivalent to a six-pointed Star of David and suggested that what had been seen heralded the arrival of the Messiah. An organization called the Church of Betelgeuse had already set up an elaborate web site. And every bit of pseudoscientific crap about ancient Egyptians and Orion — the constellation in which the supernova happened to have occurred — was being given sensationalist play in the media.

But all that those other people could do was guess.

I had an opportunity to go and see — to find out for sure.

We were back in the conference room on the fifth floor of the Curatorial Centre, but there were no video cameras present this time. It was just me and a tiny alien dodecahedron — and the projections of two extraterrestrial beings.

Hollus stood quietly at one side of the room. T’kna was standing at the other side, the conference table between them. T’kna’s utility belt was green today, rather than yellow, but it still sported the same galaxy-of-blood icon.

“Greetings,” I said, once the Wreed’s projection had stabilized.

The sound of tumbling rocks, then the mechanical voice: “Greetings reciprocated. Of this one you desire something?”

I nodded. “Advice,” I said, tipping my head slightly. “Your counsel.”

The Wreed was motionless, listening.

“Hollus told you I have terminal cancer,” I said.

T’kna touched his belt buckle. “Sorrow expressed again.”

“Thanks. But, look, you guys have offered me a chance to go with you to Betelgeuse to meet whatever is out there.”

A pebble hitting the ground. “Yes.”

“I will be dead soon. I’m not certain precisely when, but — but surely within a couple of months. Now, should I spend those last few months with my family, or should I go with you? On the one hand, my family wants every minute they can have with me — and, well, I guess I understand that being with me when I . . . when I pass on is part of bringing closure to our relationships. And, of course, I love them greatly, and wish to be with them. But, on the other hand, my condition will deteriorate, becoming an increasing burden on them.” I paused. “If we lived in the States, maybe there would be a monetary issue — the last few weeks of one’s life, spent in a hospital, can run up enormous bills down there. But here, in Canada, that doesn’t figure into the equation; the only factors are the emotional toll, on me and on my family.”

I was conscious that I was expressing my problem in mathematical terms — factors, equations, monetary issues but that’s the way the words had come tumbling out, without any preplanning by me. I hoped I wasn’t completely baffling the Wreed.

“And of me you ask which choice you should make?” said the translator’s voice.

“Yes,” I said.

There was the sound of rocks grinding, followed by a brief silence, and then: “The moral choice is obvious,” said the Wreed. “It always is.”

“And?” I said. “What is the moral choice?”

More sounds of rocks, then: “Morality cannot be handed down from an external source.” And here all four of the Wreed’s hands touched the inverted pear that was its chest. “It must come from within.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

The Wreed wavered and vanished.

That night, while Ricky watched TV in the basement, Susan and I sat again on the couch.

And I told her what I’d decided.

“I’ll always love you,” I said to Susan.

She closed her eyes. “And I will always love you, too.”

No wonder I liked Casablanca so much. Would Ilsa Lund go with Victor Laszlo? Or would she stay with Rick Blaine? Would she follow her husband? Or would she follow her heart?

And were there things bigger than her? Bigger than Rick? Bigger than both of them? Were there other factors to consider, other terms in the equation?

But — let’s be honest — was there anything bigger involved in my case? Sure, God might be at the heart of the matter — but if I went, it wouldn’t change anything, I’m sure . . . whereas Victor’s continued resistance to the Nazis helped save the world.

Still, I’d made my decision.

As difficult as it was, I’d made my decision.

But I’d never know if it was the right one.

I leaned over and kissed Susan, kissed her as if it were the last time.