Mission to Minerva

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Gregg Caldwell was in trouble on the home front again. His wife, Maeve, said she had told him two weeks before that Sharon Theakston's wedding would be on May 15, before he'd arranged his getaway golfing weekend in Pennsylvania. He was certain he had heard nothing about it. Maeve insisted that he had assured her he wouldn't forget (again). He had no recollection of any such fact. The battle lines at breakfast had been unyielding. She'd said that he must have been in one of these other realities that everyone was talking about. And suddenly Caldwell grasped what Hunt had been getting at in these reports about "lensing" and time lines coming together instead of branching apart.

He was still turning it over in his mind when he came out of the elevator at the top of the Advanced Sciences building after having lunch with some visiting Brazilians, and ambled back to his office. Mitzi was watering the plants in the miniature Thurien rock garden that Sandy Holmes had sent back on behalf of Danchekker. Apparently, Danchekker didn't trust Ms. Mulling to tend it with the requisite love and care until they returned. "Well, at least they haven't turned into monsters that run around the building eating people," Caldwell commented, inspecting the colorful array of fronds, flowers, and cactuslike lobes.

"They seem to thrive here. Francis says it's because Earth has more carbon dioxide. Plant food."

"Thirty years ago they were panicking about it."

"Well, life wouldn't be normal if they weren't panicking us about something… Oh, and you have a visitor." Mitzi indicated the direction of the inner office with a nod. Caldwell took a pace, then stopped.

"It isn't that FBI guy, is it?"

"No, nothing like that. It's Chris's cousin Mildred, on a quick trip back. I took her to lunch. She's got some fascinating stories. I can't wait to see the book."

Caldwell went on through. Mildred was sitting at the meeting table that formed a T with his desk, clad in a long, rust-colored dress and reading some papers in a folder. Her hat, a bag crammed with more folders and what looked like items of shopping, and an equally laden purse were parked on chairs on either side. "Well!" Caldwell exclaimed as he came in. "The surprise of the day. Sorry you had to wait. But I gather Mitzi has been taking good care of you."

"She's wonderful. I hope it's all right… my just dropping by like this, unannounced. I've been dashing all over the place and really had no idea what time I'd be this way. I know that someone like you must be always incredibly busy."

"Don't even think about it. You're family around here." Caldwell moved behind his desk and sat down. As luck would have it, she had chosen a good day. "I didn't even know you were in this part of the Galaxy. You, ah, sure get around. Mitzi says it's just a quick visit."

"For a few days. There was a ship leaving to bring some Thuriens for some kind of cultural mission or something, that they want to set up here, and I hitched a ride. They really are so obliging. It's not that much different than hopping on a plane from Europe."

"Yes, I know. In South America. The mission. I just had lunch with some people who are connected with it." Caldwell inclined his gaze toward the bag on the chair next to her. "So is it someone's birthday?"

"Oh, no. Just some things I'd made a list of, that I thought I'd pick up while I had the chance. I could probably have arranged for them to be sent somehow, but sometimes the way that you're used to ends up being quicker. These computer procedures can be so confusing-especially when they're automatic, and they think they know what you want better than you do. It seems that every time they assume anything, that's when it all goes wrong. I'm particularly wary of anything that calls itself 'smart.' They're always the first things I deactivate if I can. You know that the first thing they do will be absolutely stupid. And there's never any way to tell them to just shut up, don't assume anything, and do exactly what I tell you. Although, having said all that, I suppose we're on our way to getting something of our own like VISAR; or maybe having VISAR extended to manage things here too. It could only be an improvement on a lot of the things we've got."

Caldwell was already hearing again some of Danchekker's lamentations. Maybe it was just as well that she was back for only a few days. Otherwise this could go until the dawn of the next ice age.

"Oh dear," Mildred said, either reading something from his face or body language, or else there was some kind of telepathy at work. "I know. Christian tells me. I do tend to prattle on at times."

"Not at all. It's probably part of a feeling that comes with being back home. Although you seem to be making the best of things there. I'm told you're getting along just fine with Frenua Showm."

"Yes…" Mildred's manner became more serious. "In fact, it's in that connection that I was hoping to talk to you, Mr. Caldwell. Kind of in that connection, anyway…"

"'Gregg' is fine. I said you're family here."

"Oh, thank you…" She seemed to hesitate. Caldwell waited. "As a matter of fact, it was the main reason I came back. Yes, I know you have some of those Thurien neurocoupler things at Goddard that can make you as-good-as be there in an instant. But everything that goes through them is handled by VISAR, you see. And even calling on the phone involves VISAR to connect it through… oh, I don't know, h-, M-physical, virtual… whichever of all those spaces it is. It is an alien intelligence, after all, built to serve alien purposes. How do you know where something you say might end up? And what I wanted to talk about is very confidential."

Caldwell raised his eyebrows and did his best to look appropriately solemn. It was a slow afternoon, anyway. In fact, the Thuriens had always given assurances that all communications traffic handled by VISAR enjoyed scrupulous privacy, and from his experience of them he was inclined to believe it. But he wasn't about to get into a pointless debate about it now. "I'm listening," he said, spreading his palms.

Mildred took a deep breath and frowned, as if not sure which of several threads to pursue. "I know it's only been a matter of months, but I've found out a lot about the Thuriens. It's the reason I went there, after all…" She looked up. "But I don't want to go off on another tangent, telling you things you already know. You were involved with them from the beginning. Just to be sure we're talking the same language, what would be the most salient adjectives that come to mind to describe them?"

Caldwell scratched his brow and had to consider. This wasn't an approach he was used to dealing with. Mildred had her own way of cutting through the chaff when it suited her, he had to grant. "Oh, I guess… 'advanced'; 'benevolent'; 'nonviolent'; 'honest,'" he offered. "And, I suppose you could say, 'resolute,' when the need arises; 'rational'; 'realistic.'"

"Yes, it's the last ones that are significant. One of the things I've been learning a lot more about has been their history, all the way back since the time of the early Ganymeans. As you say, they're totally nonaggressive in their dealings with each other and with every other kind of race that they've encountered since their migration. Their very nature makes them incapable of anything else. But they've also shown on more than one occasion that when their existence or their way of life is threatened, they can be ruthlessly efficient in protecting themselves. And I use the word 'ruthless' quite deliberately."

She was no doubt referring to such episodes as the program to cleanse Earth of predators in preparation for colonization, which had been aborted and still gave the Thuriens feelings of guilt, and more recently their mind-blowing plan to seal off the Solar System. "I'm familiar with the cases in point," Caldwell said, nodding to head her off from any feeling of needing to explain.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. Mildred stared at them for a second or two, and then said, "When you put those two qualities together, I find it drives one to a rather sobering but inescapable conclusion. Earth's history of warfare and every other kind of violence is totally abhorrent to them. Yet they've seen how rapidly this aggressiveness enables us to advance what we think are our interests. They can have no doubt that with the situation that exists at the present juncture-Earth spreading across the Solar System despite all the attempts of the Jevlenese to prevent it, and now absorbing Thurien technology-a possibility exists that we might carry everything they abhor out among their own system of worlds, but equipped with a destructiveness unlike anything imaginable before." Now she had gotten Caldwell's interest. This wasn't new. He had gone over the same ground many times in his own mind and discussed it with Hunt, Danchekker, and others. It was a regular topic of debate among UNSA executives.

"Go on," he said.

She sighed. "The Thuriens might be benevolent, patient, compassionate, and all those other saintly things, but they are also political realists. They would never expose themselves to such a risk. If it ever started looking like developing into a real threat, there's no way they'd just sit there and let it happen."

Caldwell was beginning to revise his impressions of Mildred rapidly. He had been trying to get this point across to some career diplomats and so-called professionals in international affairs ever since the Pseudowar with the Jevlenese and the events that had led up to it-and that had been with the insights of people like Hunt and Danchekker, who had been involved with the Ganymeans from the beginning. Mildred had worked it out for herself in something like four months. "Do you have any idea what they'd do?" he asked. Naturally enough, that was the first hope that came to mind. But she shook her head.

"I don't know. But from the way things have happened before, once they decide a course of action is necessary, they go all-out. There wouldn't be anything half baked about it."

Again, Caldwell could only agree. He waited for some kind of conclusion to emerge, but that seemed to be it. He reminded himself again that this was something he had been living with every day. For Mildred, it was a new revelation. He sought for a way to acknowledge that the message warranted her coming twenty light-years to deliver. "This is all very interesting," he told her. "You've obviously given it a lot of thought. So I'm curious. Do you have some specific ideas as to what we should do?"

Mildred seemed mildly surprised, as if such a question shouldn't need to be asked. "Well…" She turned up a hand, seemingly at a loss for a moment. "I mean, a person like you talks to people in governments everywhere, don't you, and things like that? I'd sort of assumed that if they were sufficiently informed as to the Thurien nature and probable disposition in the event of developments they perceived as threatening, then…" she made tiny circular motions in the air, "well, then they'd be able to decide their policies or whatever else they do in an appropriately prudent manner."

Caldwell had to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling. Oh, that the world could be that simple! All it would have taken to avert the procession of disasters called history would have been for someone to tell leaders mesmerized by delusions of their own genius and conquerors drunk on power to behave themselves and think of others first before doing anything rash. "They seem to have been doing better in more recent years," was the best he could find to offer. "It's like anything that involves lots of people and big changes. It can only move at its own speed. We can only be patient and persevere. The way you walk a mile is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. A city is bricks laid one at a time." It didn't really say a lot, but sounded as if it did. Caldwell could be good with things like that. "But the things you've pointed out are important. You're right. They have to be treated very seriously."

Mildred seemed relieved. "Can I take it, then, that you'll make sure they're conveyed to the places where it will do the most good?" she said. "I'd hate to see us get into some kind of dreadful trouble with the Thuriens, and have to think that it might have been because I'd been there and learned what I have, and then not brought it to the attention of those in a position to put it to the best use."

"You can rest assured of it," Caldwell replied solemnly.

And yet, Caldwell was unable to dismiss their conversation lightly from his mind. It had forced him to bring out into the light and examine things that he knew but had been pushing to the back. Maybe he had been allowing himself to go soft in these latter years of acclaim and seniority. Too much golf, weddings, and black-tie dinners.

He had never been convinced that all of Earth's troubles could be blamed on the Jevlenese. Too many people had seized on the revelations of Jevlenese meddling in human affairs as an excuse to absolve themselves, or their nations, or their creeds, or their ideologies from guilt and responsibility, as if they had never had a part in the crimes that cried out for atonement from every page of history; or if there could be no atonement now, at least for some lessons to be learned that the future might be saved from seeing them repeated. There had been no shortage of native talent willing to share in the work and eager for its share of the spoils. The sure way to seeing those instincts taking charge again would be for Earth to lull itself into assuming the role of innocent victim and believing there was nothing for it to learn, and hence nothing that needed changing.

Owen, before his retirement, had voiced apprehension on more than one occasion about some of the things that came to his attention in the course of his dealings with responsible people in all quarters of the globe. While the world at large gluttonized on self-congratulation and the media reveled in its orgy of alien-centered sensationalism, the familiar rumblings of old hatreds that continued to fester, undercurrents of unrest, and ambitions to domination were still very much alive in the world. The official story, of course, fueling a spirit of public optimism and buoyancy toward the future, was one of leadership reborn, burying hatchets and about to bring the Golden Age in a new light of understanding that external forces had obstructed before. But the heady tone had always struck Caldwell as somehow unreal. What kind of forces might be biding their time at the back of it all, conspicuously on their best behavior while they assessed the redrawn game board and immensely raised stakes that the chance of access to a whole new regime of alien technology represented? Already, items were appearing openly in more outspoken areas of the partisan press and global net likening Terrans to the tiny but ferocious bands that had subjugated the Americas, and claiming that Earth's "moment" was approaching and that its destiny was "out there."

The old quotation ran through his mind again, that the only thing needed for evil to triumph was that good men do nothing. Apart from table talk and agreeing with a lot of people who felt likewise, what had he been doing? he asked himself. The short answer was, "not a lot." Like everyone else, when he examined the facts honestly, he had looked to other things to busy himself with, all the time assuming in a vague kind of way that never quite crystallized consciously that "something" would happen.

In the past this had never been his way. He hadn't taken over Navcomms and built it into the largest and most dynamic division of the UN Space Arm by waiting for "things" to "happen." Things didn't just happen. People made them happen. A colleague had asked him once, back in the early UNSA days, if he really thought that a few dedicated people who believed in what they were doing could change the world. Caldwell had replied, "They're the only ones who ever have." Actually, it wasn't his own line; he had come across it as a quote by a woman anthropologist, or something, from way back. But it was a good one, and he didn't think she would have minded his stealing it. His former self was still around, speaking in his head now, asking him what he was going to do about it.

He was still tussling with the question at home that evening, missing half the things that Maeve was saying and bringing a new precipitation of frost on the domestic scene just when things had begun to thaw. About the only thing he'd done by the end of the evening, to make amends and assuage his conscience, was cancel his golfing fixture.

The next morning, a bottle of brandy arrived for him and a bunch of roses for Maeve, from Mildred. It reverted breakfast to its normal warm and sunny condition, and gave his confidence in human nature a boost after his negative musings. But Mildred had never belonged to that part of humanity whose nature he had ever doubted in the first place.

By the next day, after repeated metaphorical walks around the subject in his head to explore all possibilities and angles, he had satisfied himself that, quaint though it was, Mildred's simple suggestion didn't contain any hidden key that he should have recognized. Embarking on some kind of moral lecture tour through the world's corridors of power was unlikely to achieve anything of note except feed it into the gossip mill that the strain had gotten to Caldwell finally, and possibly-done with all due civility, of course, and the requisite honors for him to cosset in his doting years-cost him his job.

And even if he did get some serious and sympathetic attention here and there, the conflicts of interests were so tangled and the true motivations behind them so guarded that any initiative he might manage to spark would be diluted away by countermands and bureaucratic obstruction long before it cold grow into anything coordinated and effective on an global scale. He should know, having played a significant part in coordinating one of the biggest international ventures of modern times. But the Space Arm had come into being and been able to function as it had precisely because all the financial and political forces aligned behind it had stood to gain. They were unlikely to show the same capacity for concerted action when they saw themselves as being asked to renounce the very opportunities for expanding and diversifying and generally outperforming their rivals that had spurred them before.

Caldwell wasn't going to change human nature or the way it shaped the world; at least, not anytime soon. The only other factor in the equation was the Thurien disposition that viewed humans as violently disposed aliens-to be accommodated generously if their inclinations could be curbed and redirected; but if not… who knew what? On the face of it, Caldwell didn't see that he could do much to change that either. It would need something that lessened the distance between them emotionally and psychologically, so that the "alienness" was reduced; that made humans "family," the way he accepted Mildred within his Division of UNSA.

After Minerva's destruction, the Thuriens had shown their capability and potential willingness to form such close ties in the way they had taken the Lambian element of the Lunarians back and tried to integrate them into their civilization-later to become the Jevlenese. But that attempt had been marred by the intrusion of the Ents from the surreal world of computing symbology that came into being inside JEVEX. The Cerians, at their own request, had remained in their own Solar System after being transported to Earth and become the ancestral Terrans. The separation since then had produced the sense of alienism underlying the superficially cordial relations that existed now.

What was needed was some unifying event or experience that would overwhelm all other considerations, something momentous enough in the minds of Thuriens-and humans too-to weld their two races into one with a common future with the kind of affinity the Thuriens had been able to show for the Jevlenese. But what?

Then news came in from Hunt saying that Eesyan's group of Thurien scientists thought they had cracked the time line convergence problem. If so, it meant they were on the verge of getting coherent information back from other parts of the Multiverse. Caldwell spent several hours in his office, studying the report that followed and pondering on its implications. Slowly, a vision formed in his mind of a time when the gulf that divided them now hadn't existed; a time when the divergent histories of Ganymeans, Terrans, Lunarians, Jevlenese, all came together at a world that had existed long ago.

Enough thinking, he decided then. It was time to give rein to his instincts and circumvent the system. The old Irish adage that "contrition is easier than permission" came to mind. A warm, invigorating feeling of the old Gregg Caldwell moving into action again surged through him. He reached out to his deskside console and entered the code to access Advanced Sciences Division's channel into the Thurien net. VISAR's voice spoke a few seconds later.

"Gregg Caldwell. Hello, it's been a while."

"Yeah, well, you don't have a building full of people and a family at home to run."

"Try a couple of dozen star systems."

"Okay, you've got me. But it's nice to talk again."

"Likewise. What can I do for you?"

"Can you tell me how Calazar is fixed? I need to talk with him. And I'd like it to be face-to-face through the virtual system, not just a call."

"When did you have in mind?"

"Whenever it suits him. I'm free right now."

"Just a second."

Caldwell tapped his fingers absently, imagining a computer out at the other star interrupting an alien in the middle of something right now. It still seemed uncanny. Boy, had the church of Einstein gotten that one wrong.

Then, "Calazar says 'hi and great to hear from you.' He's coupled into the system now, as it turns out. If it's business, how about making it the Government Center in Thurios?"

"Fine. Give me two minutes."

Cadwell got up and walked through to the outer office. Mitzi was away on some errand. He carried on through to the corridor and along to the room where the neurocouplers were installed. He had thoughts on and off of putting one in his office but hadn't made his mind up yet. Gimmicks to impress visitors wasn't his style, and it would have better use out where it was, available for anyone. He lay back with the feeling it always gave him of being at the dentist's. Moments later he was standing in a brightly decorated room of marble walls, rich furnishings, floor coverings, and draperies, with a window looking out at towers and soaring arches. Calazar was sitting on a couch before a low table with several other seats positioned around it.

"Your timing was excellent. I was just catching up on some reading." The alien stood and gestured at one of the seats. "Join me, please."

No, he was supposed to stop thinking "alien," Caldwell reminded himself. That was what this whole visit was about.