Echo

THIRTY

Gabe would be out of action until we got home. The pup had also broken some lamps, cracked a couple of gauges, dislodged a seat, and disconnected a circuit. He was lucky he hadn’t been electrocuted. Outside, his mother had taken out two sets of sensors. We’d cut a hole in the outer hatch, thereby depriving the airlock of its utility. We had replacements aboard the Belle-Marie for everything except Gabe and the hatch, so there was nothing we couldn’t live with.

Alex, pretending to be tough-minded now that the crisis was over, commented that he hoped we’d remember to close the outer hatch next time, and if anything like that happened again, we’d juice the animal. We were in the air again, circling the polygon at about three hundred meters, while Alex studied the building, and I set about patching things as best I could before we lifted into orbit. “I wonder who they were?” I said.

He produced a bottle of wine, cracked it open, and filled two glasses. He handed me one and raised his. “To the little green men.”

“Who weren’t there.” I touched his glass with mine and drained it. I felt as if I needed it. Endless forest spread out on all sides. “You think this was the source of the tablet?”

“I don’t know. It might have been part of a marker down there.”

“Isn’t it worth the effort to look?”

“If there was a reasonable chance of success. And if we actually had the tablet. As the situation stands, I don’t think we’re going to find the answers we want on the ground. But whatever happened, I think we know now why Tuttle didn’t get excited.”

“I guess.”

We ran into turbulent weather during the ascent. “I can understand why nobody ever put a colony here,” I said.

“You talking about the ape, Chase?”

“No. Big predators are unavoidable, I guess. But this place has no moon. The climate would be unpredictable. Unstable.”

“I guess so. I was thinking that it’s too close to the sun. We were almost at the pole, and it was cold, but not frigid. Imagine what it must be like near the equator.”

We broke out of the clouds but were still being tossed around by heavy wind gusts. “Alex, I’ve a question for you.”

“Okay.”

“When people ask whether you believe there’s anyone else in the Milky Way, other than us and the Mutes, you always say you don’t know. That there are probably a few others. That, since there are at least two in the Orion Arm, there should be others somewhere, but that they will be extremely rare. But you usually go on to admit that maybe you’re wrong, and the place, except for us and the Mutes, is empty. When you say that, people always get annoyed.”

“I know.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Alex smiled. “Why do they want so desperately to find somebody else?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well, as the politicians say when they don’t know how to respond, that’s an interesting question. I mean, we’d be a lot safer if we were alone.”

“Do you have a theory?”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I’m not sure. Given my preferences, I don’t think I’d want to live in a galaxy where we were the only ones.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. I just think I’d rather take my chances that somebody else might be unfriendly rather than he not be there at all.”

“Yeah.” Alex fished another link out of his seat pouch and inserted it into his neck chain. Then he dropped the chain into a pocket. “We seem to be social critters, Chase. I don’t think we like being alone, either as individuals or as a species.”

I put the glass down and went back to calibrating the relays that the cub had scrambled. “I guess,” I said.

“You have another idea?”

“The universe is too big.”

“How do you mean?”

“We seem to have a spiritual dimension. And don’t ask me what that means because I’m not sure. Maybe a need to believe in a higher power, that the universe is made for us in some indefinable way. But to have a universe like this, so big that light from some places won’t reach us in the lifetime of the species—Well, that just makes it seem as if we’re of no consequence. We’re just an accident. A by-product. Maybe even a waste product.”

Alex asked whether I wanted more wine. I’d already violated my code, which required abstinence during operations, but it had been a tough landing. In several ways. Still, enough was enough. So I passed.

“I’ve never thought of you as being religious, Chase.”

“I’m not, really. I don’t think about it much. Except sometimes out here. But I suspect that’s what’s behind the desire to find others. Maybe we’re really looking for God. For somebody who knows we’re here. Does that make any kind of sense?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. It’s a bit metaphysical for me.”

“I just don’t know. But I do know that, whatever the reason, the thought of a universe with just us and the Mutes is depressing.”

“Alex,” said Belle, “I can confirm the existence of another world in the biozone.”

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Range from the sun is two hundred five million klicks. It appears to be slightly larger than Echo II. I haven’t been able to get a good look at it, but there’s no question it’s there, and there’s a high probability it’s a terrestrial.”

“Are we picking up any electronic signals?”

“Negative, Alex. It’s silent.”

“Damn.” His head dropped back, and he glared at the overhead. “We’re just not going to get a break, are we?”

Echo III was on the far side of the sun. To save fuel, we took our time getting over there. Meanwhile, I worked on the lander. I replaced the damaged parts but couldn’t lock the chair down properly. If we used the vehicle again, Alex would have to sit in back. And there was nothing I could do about the outer hatch. So getting in and out would be a battle. But we’d manage.

It was indeed terrestrial, and it had a big moon, broad green continents, and sparkling blue oceans. A second living world. It was unusual to find two of them in a single system.

We were coming in on the daylight side. The polar regions were snow-bound. Mountain chains cut across the face of the world. There were inland seas. An enormous canyon, almost continentwide, cut through one landmass. High in the northern latitudes, a volcano was erupting. “Anything in orbit?” asked Alex.

“I do not see anything.”

Belle was putting everything on the displays. We were watching them, watching forests and plains slide past. And suddenly Alex stiffened. “Look,” he said.

A city!

I wasn’t positive until we kicked the magnification up a couple of notches. But there it was, towers and rectangles glittering in broad sunlight along one of the shores. Piers stretching out into the ocean. Streets crisscrossing each other.

Yes!

It might not be aliens, but we had something. “Not supposed to be anybody out here,” I said.

We might or might not have found an alien civilization, but we had at the very least located one that had gotten lost to history. I was about to congratulate him, but he didn’t look receptive. “Why isn’t there any electronic activity?” he asked.

“Maybe they have a more advanced technology.”

“Okay. Why is nothing moving down there?”

I looked again. At the streets. At a broad walkway that bordered the ocean for the entire length of the city.

At the beach itself.

There was nothing. The waves swept in on an empty shore. Nothing moved anywhere. I saw a couple of animals in one of the streets. Other than that—

“It’s empty,” said Alex.

We were coming in off the ocean, passing over the city. It was implacably still. A bridge lay just ahead, crossing what appeared to be marsh-land. It was narrow, rickety, supported by timbers. One end had collapsed and been partially washed away.

The buildings at the center of the city weren’t as tall as they’d appeared during our approach. The highest was maybe five or six stories. Thousands of smaller structures, mostly houses, spread out toward an encroaching forest, which seemed to overwhelm them at the fringes.

“The streets aren’t paved,” Alex said. The only visible vehicles were carts. They littered the sides of the roads. One was in the middle of a bridge.

The buildings, close-up, had a dilapidated appearance. “It’s pre-industrial,” I said.

Alex nodded. “Where is everybody?”

“I’d assumed the polygon was built by someone from this world. But that can’t be.”

“Hard to say, Chase. A planet’s a big place. The fact that there’s a low-tech city here doesn’t mean—” He looked at me. Shrugged. “It’s too early to make judgments.”

A large open enclosure lay ahead. Maybe a stadium. It, too, was empty. If the field within had once been grass, it was now mostly just tall brown bushes and weeds.

We kept going, leaving the city. Headed west, with the sun behind us.

We passed over a road. Or a trail.

Nothing moved on it.

“Another town ahead.”

Smaller this time, a few hundred houses. Some relatively large buildings that might have been municipal structures or churches. We passed over a lake, lined with houses. Boats were still tied up in some places. Several had sunk.

We were outrunning the sun, fleeing into a gathering darkness. Alex remained silent and simply watched, alternately looking out the wraparound and studying the images Belle put on-screen.

We rode through the night. Hoping to see lights somewhere. But none were visible. And eventually, under the glow of a full moon, we reached the western edge of the continent and passed out over the ocean.

There were no lights at sea, either. Then we were over land again. But it didn’t matter. The ground was dark. After a while, clouds blocked off our view. Lightning bolts flickered.

“Still nobody home,” said Alex.

It was unsettling.

Belle must have sensed the disquiet in the cockpit. Whatever it was, she began giving us details: “Equatorial diameter is twenty-one thousand kilometers. Temperatures are moderate, an average of two degrees cooler than Rimway’s. Gravity is one point one five standard. And there is a second moon, not visible at the moment.”

“Belle,” I said, “I don’t think any of that matters just now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to be helpful.”

“Let’s try a change of orbit,” said Alex.

“Have you any specifications?”

“Just angle it by about twenty degrees above and below the equator. Let’s get a good look at the areas where the temperature is most conducive—” He didn’t finish.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, Chase. I don’t know what I’m thinking. Did that city, those towns, look old to you?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, nobody’s been taking care of them, but they didn’t look ancient.”

Belle broke into the gloom: “We’re picking up a radio signal.”