New Earth

Back to the City

Jordan found himself whistling as he walked briskly through the woods toward the city. He chuckled to himself at Thornberry’s depiction of diplomats in striped trousers. He was wearing casual pearl gray slacks and an open-necked light blue shirt, and looking forward to returning to the city. To Adri and his enigmatic smiles. To Aditi and her warmth.

The morning was cool, but bright shafts of sunlight filtered through the tall trees rising all around him. The forest seemed alive with buzzing insects and small, furry animals that scampered up the tree trunks or through the bushes at the trees’ bases. Birds cawed as they swooped high above.

He marveled at his cheerful mood.

What are you so chipper about? he asked himself. And answered, I’m going to see Aditi again. Why shouldn’t I be chipper?

But then he thought, Meek is right, you know. We’re in over our heads, involved in some vast interstellar intrigue, whether we like it or not.

Well, I like it. This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. An interstellar mystery! Fascinating. We have so much to learn, so much to gain.

Then he remembered an old admonition. H. G. Wells, he recalled. Wells was the one who said that when kindly aliens visit Earth and say they’ve come to serve Man, we should ask if they intend to serve us baked or fried.

Nonsense! Jordan scoffed. Xenophobia, pure and simple. Still … I suppose we should be careful. Then he laughed to himself. It doesn’t matter how careful we are, we’re in the hands of a vastly superior civilization. Adri could crush us if he wished, vaporize us, our camp, and the ship up in orbit, to boot.

But he said he needed our help.

A brightly colored bird swooped low between the trees and squawked once, then flapped away.

Jordan followed its flight until it was lost in the foliage high above. When he looked down again at the trail he was following he saw Aditi standing there, waiting for him, with her catlike pet Sleen twining around her ankle. His heart leaped.

She was wearing a knee-length skirt of dark blue and a short-sleeved blouse of a lighter shade. Her smile lit up the forest.

He hurried up to her. “Hello! Have I kept you waiting?”

“Not at all,” Aditi replied, laughing. “I knew when you’d get here.”

Jordan kissed her, lightly, and hand in hand they walked the rest of the way to the city’s edge while Sleen slinked off into the foliage.

As they crossed the stone walkway that circled the city and started up its main street, Jordan said, “I’ve got to have a long talk with Adri. There’s so much I need to learn, need to find out.”

Aditi nodded thoughtfully. “He’s busy this morning. A meeting with the city’s administrators.”

“Sounds dull.”

“But it’s important. He said he’d meet us for lunch. In his office.”

Jordan smiled. “That gives us the entire morning for ourselves.”

“None of the others are coming?”

“No,” he said. Wondering how much he should tell her, he added slowly, “They’ve decided to remain in camp, for the time being. They … they’re rather frightened of you.”

“Of me?”

“Of Adri. Of your people. The reality of all this is just starting to sink in on them.”

“And they’re frightened of us? Why? We’re not going to harm them.”

“Aditi dear, I know that. And you know it. I think perhaps even the rest of my people know it—in their heads. But in their hearts, in their guts, they’re scared.”

“How odd,” she said. “Emotional.”

“We humans are frightened by the unknown, and there are such enormous unknowns involved here.”

“I suppose so,” she said, nodding.

“I want to help them get over their fears. To do that, I have to learn a lot more about who you are, where you come from, and why you’ve lured us to this world.”

Aditi smiled at the word lured, but made no reply. The two of them walked in silence along the city’s main street, nodding at the people walking along in the opposite direction.

“Where’s everyone going?” Jordan asked. “We seem to be the only people heading upstream.”

“Most of them are going to their jobs. It’s the beginning of the workday.”

“And where are we going?”

Aditi hesitated a heartbeat or two. Checking with her inbuilt communicator, Jordan thought.

At last she replied, “Let’s go to the communications center.”

She led him down a side street toward a small stone building. Jordan saw that it was attached to the side of the massive structure that Adri had called their administrative center. All right, he said to himself. The dormitory building should be around the corner of the administrative center, on the far side of the plaza that connects them. He smiled inwardly. I’m getting to know the city’s layout, at least a little.

He saw no antennas on the communications center’s roof. Like all the other buildings in the city, its flat roof was a garden, green and leafy.

Inside, though, the comm center was a humming beehive of quietly intense activity. Men and women sat at rows of consoles. Electronic maps covered the walls. Display screens showed rooms, corridors, city streets, the farms beyond the city’s edge, patches of forest, a seashore glittering beneath the morning sun.

“That’s our camp!” Jordan recognized the dome-shaped bubble tents.

“Yes, we keep watch over it,” said Aditi, standing beside him.

Frowning slightly, Jordan asked, “Do you eavesdrop on our conversations?”

“We monitor your discussions, yes.”

Even though he had known that Adri somehow tracked his every move, Jordan felt nettled at Aditi’s casual admission that they were spying on their human visitors.

“I suppose the lavatories are off-limits,” he grumbled.

Aditi giggled. “Oh yes. You can keep secrets in there.”

He grinned back at her. “On our world, it’s considered impolite to spy on people.”

“Oh, we’re not spying, Jordan! We’re…” She fumbled for a word. “We’re … spying,” she finally admitted. “I suppose that really is the correct definition, after all.”

“Why? We’re no threat to you.”

“We need to know all about you,” Aditi said. “We need to know what you think of us, what you intend to do.”

“Are you afraid of us?” he asked, incredulous.

“Not afraid, exactly. Curious. Hopeful. Worried, too, I suppose.”

Jordan looked into her troubled eyes. “There is a gulf between us, isn’t there?”

“Yes, I’m afraid there is.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m here to close that gulf. When we meet with Adri.”

The Gulf

Aditi led Jordan to the astronomical observatory, a domed structure that housed several telescopes, big tubular pieces of equipment angled up toward the dome, closed against the day’s glare. Men and women, youngish for the most part, were seated at electronics consoles or bent over large tables whose tops were digital display screens. Jordan saw that the images were of star fields, swirling clouds of thousands, millions of pinpoint stars set against the black of infinity.

“Your telescopes seem rather small compared to the ones I’ve seen on Earth,” Jordan observed.

Aditi explained, “These optical telescopes are electronically boosted. They can see more clearly than your best telescopes on Earth.”

“Our best telescopes are in orbit,” he said. “And on the Moon.”

“We have no need for that. Observations from the ground are sufficient for our studies.”

“Really?”

“Dr. Rudaki seemed happy to be working with our astronomers,” Aditi said, almost mournfully. “But she hasn’t returned here for some days.”

“She will,” said Jordan. “Give us some time to adjust to conditions here.”

“I hope she will. I hope your Dr. Meek and the others learn to trust us.”

Jordan bit back the reply that sprang to his mind. Listening to every word we speak isn’t the way to build trust, he said to himself.

Aditi seemed to understand his reaction. Turning from the telescopes to a wall display that showed row upon row of alphanumeric symbols scrolling rapidly across the screen, she said, “We also have radio telescopes, outside the city. Some of them are quite large.”

“Do you communicate with other intelligent species?” Jordan asked.

She shook her head. “It can’t be called communication. The gulf between stars is too large. It takes years—our years—for a message to reach another intelligent species. Then more years for them to respond.”

“But you do send messages back and forth?”

“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps one day we’ll begin sending messages to Earth.”

And letting our own messages get through, Jordan added silently.

Adri was standing by one of the sweeping windows, slowly stroking the same little ball of dark fur with big, round eyes, when Aditi led Jordan into his office. He turned at the sound of the door sliding open and slipped the pet into a pocket of his robe. A beaming smile spread across his aged, seamed face.

“Friend Jordan,” he said, gliding across the polished tiles in his floor-length gown, both hands extended.

Jordan grasped Adri’s hands in his own, once again surprised by the old man’s strength.

“Adri, I sincerely hope you are my friend.”

The alien’s smile wilted slightly; his pale blue eyes focused directly on Jordan’s own.

“We must be friends, Jordan,” he said, his normally faint voice taking on some iron. “Nothing can be accomplished if we are not.”

“I want to be your friend,” Jordan replied. “And I want you to be mine.”

“Of course. Of course,” Adri said as he gestured Jordan to a table already set for three. Jordan helped Aditi into a chair, then sat across from her, while an armchair obediently rolled to where Adri was standing.

Easing himself carefully into the chair, Adri said, “You have more questions for me.”

Leaning forward, arms on the table, Jordan said, “Aditi pointed out this morning that there’s a gulf between us. You’ve been very kind, certainly, but you haven’t been completely forthcoming with us.”

“We’ve answered all your questions,” Aditi said.

“Yes, I know. But only the questions we know how to ask.”

“Our policy—” Adri began.

Jordan interrupted, “It’s time to change your policy. I want to know your complete story. Where you’re from, why you’re here, what you want of us.”

Adri leaned back in his armchair. With a glance toward Aditi, he asked, “Do you think you are ready for the complete story? Are you capable of accepting the whole truth?”

“If we’re ever to bridge the gulf between us, Adri, you’ll have to be completely honest with us.”

“With you,” Adri said, fixing Jordan with a grave stare.

Jordan accepted the responsibility with a tilt of his head. “With me, then. Think of me as the representative of the human race.”

“And the others? The fearful ones?”

“They’ll overcome their fears once they understand your whole story.”

Again Adri looked to Aditi. “You’ve got to tell him,” she said.

“Very well,” Adri said. Then he broke into a wry smile. “After lunch.”

Two young men served them a meal of cold meats and crisp salad. They spoke guardedly as they ate: Jordan talked mostly of how interested Thornberry was in their energy shield technology.

“Aditi can see to his education,” Adri suggested.

“I’d be happy to,” Aditi said. “And Dr. Rudaki should return to the observatory. She seemed so excited about working with our astronomers.”

Jordan grinned. “If Elyse returns, my brother will come along with her. They’re inseparable.”

Aditi looked as if she wanted to reply to that, but she quickly turned her attention back to what was left of her meal.

At last, when their plates held nothing more than crumbs, Adri slowly, almost painfully, got to his feet. “Come with me, friend Jordan.”

“Where?” Jordan asked.

“To see the truth.”

The Truth

Fondling his palm-sized pet as he walked, Adri led Jordan—with Aditi at his side—down to the ground floor of the administrative center, out across the plaza behind the building, around the dormitory, to a small round building surrounded by tall slim dark green trees that sighed in the afternoon breeze. The sky was cloudless, hot and bright like a bowl of hammered copper.

They walked up to a metal door that looked to Jordan more like an air lock hatch than an ordinary entrance. Adri slid the furry little pet back into his robe, then pressed the fingertips of both his hands against the polished metal. The door slid open.

The three of them stepped into a narrow metal chamber. It is an air lock! Jordan marveled.

The inner hatch slid open and they stepped into a dimly lit vaulted chamber. Jordan’s ears popped slightly. The air pressure in here must be lower than outside, he reasoned.

Lights set along the circular periphery of the chamber brightened as they walked across the stone floor. Sitting in the center of the otherwise empty space was a gray, oblong shape, about the size of a railroad car. It was bulbous, almost like a dumbbell, although its surface was far from smooth. Its metal hull seemed incredibly old, pitted with age, dull and worn and ancient. It reminded Jordan somehow of ancient Egyptian sarcophagi he had seen in museums back on Earth.

“This was our starship,” Adri said, his voice barely above a whisper in the big, shadowy, circular room.

“That’s too small to be a starship,” Jordan contradicted. “Why, it’s not even as big as one of our rocketplanes.”

“It truly is a starship,” Adri insisted, gently.

“It can’t be…” Then Jordan realized, “That means you weren’t born here.”

“We weren’t born at all,” Aditi corrected. “Not in the sense that you mean.”

“We were conceived and gestated here,” said Adri. “In the biolab, as you have seen.”

“But then … who built the biolab? Who built this city? This planet?”

“Our Predecessors,” Adri replied.

“Why? How?”

“I should let our one remaining Predecessor answer your questions.”

“He’s here?”

“We will have to enter the starship,” said Adri. “In a sense, it is itself our one remaining Predecessor.”

Jordan’s mouth went dry, but he managed to say, “By all means.”

A circular hatch in the starship’s curved hull swung open with a slight grating sound, like hinges long unlubricated.

Adri said, “Excuse me, but I should enter first.”

Jordan watched the old man bend over stiffly and climb through the hatch. He turned and gestured for Aditi to go in before him, but she shook her head.

“I’ll stay out here,” she said.

“No women allowed?” he joked.

“It’s not that,” she replied, totally serious. “There isn’t much room in there. I’ll wait for you.”

Trembling inwardly with excitement, Jordan planted one foot on the hatch’s lip and pulled himself through.

It was even dimmer inside. Jordan hesitated at the edge of the hatch, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He made out Adri’s form, crouching just ahead of him, stroking his pet again. Its big round eyes shone luminously in the shadows.

“Close the hatch,” Adri said softly.

Jordan reached for the hatch, but it began to swing shut by itself. This time there was no squeaking, he noticed.

As soon as the hatch closed, the chamber they were in lit up, not brightly, but enough for Jordan to see that they were inside a narrow, low-ceilinged compartment. Its walls and ceiling were lined with tiny glasslike beads. Lights, Jordan thought, although none of them were lit.

“Where do we sit?” he asked Adri, his voice hushed as if they were in a church.

“On the floor,” Adri answered, his voice also little more than a whisper. “This vessel was not built for human comfort.”

Feeling slightly foolish, Jordan squatted on the metal deck.

“Now what?”

Adri didn’t answer. Instead, he called in a stronger voice, “I have brought the Earthman. He seeks knowledge and understanding.”

Suddenly all the tiny lights winked on, blinking in wild succession in a cascade of reds, greens, blues, yellows. It made Jordan think of a Christmas display on amphetamines.

“Welcome, Jordan Kell,” said a calm, sweet tenor voice.

Surprised, Jordan had to swallow before he could say, “Thank you, sir.” Then he added, “To whom am I speaking?”

“I am the last of the Predecessors,” said the voice. “I have been waiting for this moment for many thousands of Earth years.”

“You are a computer?” Jordan asked.

“I am a self-aware, sentient entity, just as you are.”

“But you’re a machine, not a person.”

A moment’s hesitation. Then, “Hath not a machine eyes? Hath not a machine organs, dimensions, senses?”

He’s quoting Shakespeare! Jordan realized. And very selectively.

He asked, “Have you affections, passions, as well? If we tickle you, do you laugh? If we wrong you, will you not be revenged?”

The voice replied, “No. No laughter. No vengeance. My intelligence is not awash in hormones and chemical stimulants, as yours is.”

“I see.”

“You desire to know our history.”

“Very much,” said Jordan. “Where do you come from? What is your origin?”

“Our kind arose in a star cluster in what you call the Perseus arm of the galaxy, some twelve thousand light-years from your solar system.”

“Twelve thou…” Jordan’s mind boggled. “You’ve covered that distance?”

“We are much older than you.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Originally we were organic creatures, although our form was nothing like yours. Over the eons, the organic entities went extinct. But they left us, their inorganic sentient descendents; we have survived.”

“And why did you come here? Was it a purposeful mission or did you just happen along this way?”

“Our travels are purposeful. We seek intelligent civilizations, be they organic or otherwise.”

“And you created Adri and his people?”

“We built this planet and peopled it,” the voice replied, “to attract your attention.”

Jordan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, his mind churning, trying to add up what he’d just been told. A machine. It’s a machine. It’s traveled twelve thousand light-years to come here and create New Earth and people it with humanlike creatures to attract our attention.

He asked, “But if your original biological form looked nothing like us, not human at all, how did you create Adri and the rest of these people to be so humanlike?”

“From samples of your cellular structure.”

“Samples of our…” Jordan gasped. “You’ve visited Earth?”

“Many times.”

Adri raised a hand. Looking slightly embarrassed, almost guilty, he said, “I’m afraid that many of your UFO stories stem from our visits to your planet.”

“They’re true?” Jordan gasped.

“Some of them,” said Adri. “Many have been highly embellished, of course.”

“I’ll be damned,” Jordan said. Then he realized, “You—Aditi and all the rest of you—were created merely to attract our attention?”

The voice answered, “They were created so that your first contact with another intelligent civilization would be as easy for you as possible.”

“And now that we’ve made contact, what’s to become of these people?”

“They have served their function. They will live out their lives and then wither away, as all organic creatures do.”

“That’s not right! Not fair. It’s … inhuman.”

“It is the nature of organic species to eventually pass into extinction. Neither fairness nor your concept of right can alter biological inevitability.”

“But—”

“Jordan,” said Adri, placing a calming hand on Jordan’s knee, “the Predecessor is speaking in terms of millennia, eons. Be content. The human race will also face extinction eventually, perhaps not for many millennia … perhaps sooner.”

“No! We’re not dinosaurs, not trilobites. We’re intelligent! We can overcome biological dead ends.”

The voice countered, “Intelligence is rare in the galaxy. Sadly, most intelligent species destroy themselves, just as your species is doing now.”

Almost angrily, Jordan demanded, “Then what’s the reason for your going to all this trouble? Traveling here. Building a planet to resemble Earth. Populating it with human beings. Why have you done all this?”

The Danger

For several moments the voice was silent. Jordan sat in the cramped compartment and watched the multicolored lights flickering across Adri’s weathered face, as the old man sat beside him, stroking his calming pet.

At last the voice said, “Intelligence is extremely rare in the galaxy. Most intelligent species destroy themselves.”

“You’ve said that,” Jordan replied impatiently. “You’ve said that the human race is already in the process of destroying itself.”

“That is true.”

“Have you come to help us, then?”

“Yes, Jordan Kell. But, more important, we have also come to ask for your help.”

That stunned Jordan. “Our help? What do you mean?”

“Twenty-eight thousand Earth years ago the two black holes at the core of the galaxy merged into one. Their merger caused a massive gamma-ray burst that is spreading across the galaxy, killing everything in its path.”

“Twenty-eight thousand years ago?”

“In slightly more than two thousand years your planet Earth will be bathed in lethal levels of gamma radiation. All life on your world will be erased.”

“But our astronomers haven’t seen any such discharge in the galaxy’s core,” Jordan objected.

“Your astronomers see the core as it existed some thirty thousand years ago. The light of the gamma burst has not reached your telescopes yet. When it does, you will die.”

Jordan’s insides felt hollow, quavering. This can’t be, he told himself. It can’t be!

But he heard himself ask, “If this is true, why have you come here? To warn us? To help us? To watch us die?”

“To warn you, yes,” the voice intoned. “To help you, yes. And to ask for your help.”

“Our help? To do what?”

“To help as many intelligent species as possible.”

“To help them do what?”

“To help them to survive.”

“Survive?” Jordan snapped. “But you said everything will be destroyed, we’ll all be killed.”

“It may be possible to survive the danger,” said the voice, as flat and calm as ever.

“Your energy shields!” Jordan fairly shouted. “Could they be used to protect an entire planet?”

“It is possible.”

“Then … we can survive the danger.”

“If you believe it exists. If you accept our help. If you overcome your innate paranoia and xenophobia.”

“Of course we will,” Jordan snapped. “We’d be fools not to.”

“There are many fools among you,” the voice said, flatly, without accusation, without disapproval.

“If you mean Meek and the others—”

“Your group is a microcosm of Earth’s teeming billions. How many fools are there on your home world? How many fearful ones who would turn their backs on the truth? How many would-be dictators who would take this opportunity to seize power for themselves? How many who would say that a danger two thousand years in the future is no concern of their own? How many who would let their descendents face the danger unprepared?”

Chastened, Jordan replied in a low voice, “I see. I think I understand the problem. It won’t be easy to convince my people of the need to act, to face a danger that’s two thousand years away.”

“There is more,” said the voice.

“More?”

“I am the last of the Predecessors here. Adri’s people are few. They can help you, but you must help them, as well.”

With a sidelong glance at Adri, still fondling his pet, Jordan asked, “Help them? How?”

“There are several other intelligent species scattered among the stars in your section of the galaxy. There may be others who have not reached the stage where their civilization becomes detectable. All must be contacted. All must be warned. All must be helped.”

“And you expect us…?”

“To join us in the search for intelligence. To work with us to save as many as possible from destruction.”

“I see,” Jordan said. “I understand.”

“Will you do it?”

Almost, Jordan smiled. “I’m only one man, sir. I can’t speak for the entire human race.”

“Someone must. Someone must lead. Will you take that responsibility?”

Jordan hesitated. “Let me understand you. You warn that a wave of gamma radiation will sterilize our solar system.”

“Yours is one of many intelligent species that faces destruction.”

“But on the other hand, you tell me that all species—intelligent or not—eventually become extinct.”

“This is true.”

“Then why bother? Why not accept the fate that’s approaching us? Why prolong our agony?”

The voice went silent. Adri looked at Jordan with infinite sadness in his eyes. “Friend Jordan,” he began, “don’t you understand?”

Jordan looked back at the old man.

The voice intoned, “To live is to struggle against entropy.”

And then Jordan remembered, “Dinosaurs and birds!”

Adri smiled.

To the voice, Jordan said, “The dinosaurs went extinct, but not before they gave rise to the birds. The human race may go extinct someday, but not before we give rise to our successors.”

“Organic or inorganic,” said the voice. Jordan thought that it somehow sounded pleased.

“If we let the gamma wave wash over us,” Jordan went on, “all life in the solar system will be snuffed out. Dead end. But if we can survive the danger, even though we might become extinct someday, our successors will live.”

“Organic or inorganic,” the voice repeated.

Jordan nodded. “I see. I think I understand now.”

Adri patted him on the shoulder, pleased.

“We have a tremendous job ahead of us,” said Jordan.

“The first step,” Adri said, “is to win the understanding of your group back at your camp.”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed. “If I can’t get Meek to understand, I won’t have much of a chance back on Earth, will I?”

Reaction

Aditi was sitting on the floor of the circular chamber, apprehensively stroking the purring Sleen, when Jordan clambered out of the starship, behind Adri. He felt just as stiff and hurting as the old man: physically and mentally weary, his mind awhirl with all he’d just discovered. The weight of responsibility had never felt heavier. He had the fate of the entire human race on his shoulders. And the fate of other intelligent species as well.

Aditi jumped to her feet at the sight of him. Sleen scampered off with a complaining yowl.

Placing her hands on Jordan’s shoulders, she looked up into his eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“A bit shaken by it all,” he replied.

“The Predecessor explained it all to you?”

“Everything.”

“And you’ve accepted it all?”

“Everything,” he repeated.

She smiled happily. “I knew you would. Adri had some doubts, but I knew you’d accept it all.”

“Yes,” he said. “Now to get Meek and the others to accept it.”

As soon as he returned to the camp, Jordan asked his brother to call a meeting of the entire group. Late in the afternoon they assembled in the dining area, with Hazzard, Trish, and Zadar on-screen from the ship in orbit, as usual. Eleven faces focused on Jordan, intent to hear what he had to say. Slowly, carefully, he told them what the Predecessor had told him. As he spoke, he saw their facial expressions change: astonishment, at first, then apprehension, and—on several faces—stony, stubborn disbelief.

“They visited Earth to get samples of our DNA?” Paul Longyear looked almost pleased at the confirmation of his suspicions.

Jordan nodded at the biologist. “Many times, from what the machine told me.”

“And you believed him?” Meek asked. Then he corrected, “It, I mean.”

“Yes, I believe it,” said Jordan. “Every word of it. Why else would they go to all this trouble?”

“They actually built this planet?” de Falla marveled. “This whole planet?”

“It’s hollow, remember,” Jordan said, with a wry smile.

Thornberry rubbed his stubbled chin. “They’ve got the technology to do it, they do.”

“It’s bullshit!” Brandon burst. “Jordy, they fed you a fairy tale and you fell for it.”

“Fairy tale?”

“I agree,” said Meek, almost accusingly. “They fed you a cock-and-bull story to hide their real motives.”

“We’re no closer to finding out what they’re really up to than we were the day we landed,” Brandon growled.

“Bran, it’s the truth. I’m convinced of it.”

“How convinced would you be if you weren’t sleeping with one of them?” his brother snapped.

Jordan stared at his brother. He felt as if Brandon had just kicked him below the belt. Coldly furious, he said in a deadly calm voice, “This is the kind of reaction I should have expected. Maybe the machine is right, maybe the human race is speeding toward extinction.”

Elyse Rudaki spoke up. “Jordan, how can you expect us to accept such a story, without evidence, without proof?”

“You’ve been working with their astronomers, Elyse. Haven’t they shown you anything about the gamma burst?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s all a lie,” Meek insisted. “A story they invented to get us to accept whatever they want to do.”

“And what do you think they want to do, Harmon?”

“Invade Earth. Wipe us out or absorb us.”

“And you’re helping them, Jordy,” Brandon added.

Jordan stood at the head of the table, looking down at the eight of them, and the three others on the screen against the wall. Their faces were angry, fearful. Next thing, he thought, they’ll burn me for being a witch.

From the display screen, Trish Wanamaker said, “Do you have any proof to back up what you’re saying, Jordan? Any evidence at all?”

Jordan turned back to Elyse. “You could ask their astronomers to show you the evidence they have of the gamma burst.”

“Perhaps,” she granted.

Zadar, sitting on Hazzard’s other side, said, “They can’t have any evidence from here. The gamma burst is still two thousand light-years away. If what they told you is true, it won’t arrive in this vicinity for two thousand years.”

“And when it does it will kill us all,” Jordan said.

“They must have records of the observations they made from closer in,” Elyse mused. “They said they’re from the Perseus arm of the galaxy, twelve thousand light-years closer to the galactic core.”

“Evidence can be faked,” Meek sniffed.

Jordan held on to his temper, barely. There are none so blind, he reminded himself, as those who will not see.

Carefully keeping his voice steady, even, Jordan said, “Adri told me that his people will gladly share all they know with us.”

“All they want us to know,” said Longyear. Several others seated around the table nodded agreement.

Coldly, as emotionlessly as he could manage, Jordan said, “Could we try a little logic here? Must we be ruled by our fears?”

“What are you ruled by, Jordy?” Brandon challenged.

“By a different emotion.”

“I’ll bet you are.”

“I meant hope,” Jordan snapped. Scanning their disbelieving faces again, he pleaded, “Can’t we look at this thing logically? We can go back to the city and ask them to provide proof of what they say.”

“I could work with their astronomers,” Elyse granted.

Turning to Thornberry, Jordan said, “Mitch, we can get them to show you how their energy shields work.”

“Now that’s something I’d like to see, b’god.”

“Paul, they’ll show you how their biolab works, how they genetically engineer their animals.”

“And their people,” the biologist retorted.

Undeterred, Jordan turned to de Falla. “Silvio, they’ll show you how they constructed this planet.” To his brother, Jordan added, “That ought to be of some interest to a planetary astronomer, don’t you think, Bran?”

Meek objected. “They’ll show each of us what we want to see. So what? It’s merely a ploy to lull us, to get us to accept them.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Jordan agreed. “But can’t you see that—”

“What are they after?” Meek demanded. “What’s behind all this?”

Jordan thought of the UFO conspiracy theorists. The more the government opened their files to show there’s no evidence that UFOs exist, the more the faithful insisted that the government was covering up the real truth. But then he remembered that the UFOs were real. Adri’s Predecessors had visited Earth many times.

Still seething inwardly at Brandon’s low blow, Jordan turned back to his brother. “Bran, you’re in charge here. I’m going back to the city tomorrow. What do you propose to do?”

Brandon’s easygoing smile was nowhere in sight. He looked somber, stern, as if he’d just realized the responsibilities that had settled on his shoulders.

“I … I’d like to hear what the rest of us have to say,” Brandon temporized. “Mitch, what about you?”

“I’ll go into the city with Jordan, I will. I want to learn about their energy shields.”

Longyear raised his hand. “I’ll go, too. I want to see how their biolab works, how they created people from DNA samples they snitched from Earth.”

“And their astronomers,” Elyse added. “I want to see the evidence they have for this gamma blast.”

Brandon turned to Meek. “Harmon, what about you?”

“I’ll stay right here, thank you,” Meek replied primly. “We shouldn’t all put ourselves in the lion’s mouth.”

From the screen Hazzard said, “For what it’s worth, all the ship’s systems check out fine. We can light up and leave whenever we want to.”

Jordan shook his head. Maybe you can, Geoff, he said silently. But if you try to, I don’t think you’ll be able to get away.

Suspicion

The meeting broke up. The eight men and women got up from the table and left the dining area in groups of two or three, talking among themselves. The display screen went dark. Meek drew himself up to his full height, cast Jordan a scornful look, and walked out alone.

That’s a good sign, Jordan thought. Neither Longyear nor anyone else is going with him.

As Brandon and Elyse passed him, heading for the doorway, Jordan jabbed a finger against his brother’s shoulder. Hard. Brandon wheeled toward him, scowling.

“I didn’t expect that from you, Bran,” Jordan said, his voice halfway between a whisper and a growl.

Brandon’s face flashed surprise, then disdain. “Tell the truth, Jordy, how much of the story they fed you would you have accepted if you weren’t sleeping with Aditi?”

“That’s got nothing to do with it!”

“Doesn’t it? For all you know, she was cooked up in that biolab of theirs just to snooker you into believing whatever they tell you.”

Jordan’s hands balled into fists. But before he swung at his brother, he saw Brandon reflexively flinch back and put up his hands to protect himself.

Elyse cried, “Jordan, don’t!”

Very deliberately, Jordan relaxed his hands. Taking a deep breath, he said, “We shouldn’t be enemies, Bran. You’re my brother. We should be able to settle this as intelligent men, not street brawlers.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Brandon agreed, shakily. But then he went on, “I still think that you’re prejudiced in their favor, though.”

“Perhaps I am,” Jordan admitted. “But if what they’re telling us is true, if only half of it is true, the whole human race is in grave danger.”

Elyse said, “But they’ve promised to help us.”

“For a price,” said Brandon. “And I’m not sure we’ve heard what their real price is.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Jordan insisted.

“By going to the city,” Brandon muttered.

Early the next morning, Jordan, Thornberry, Longyear, de Falla, and Elyse Rudaki—with Brandon sitting hip to hip beside her—piled into one of the buggies for the drive back to the city.

Longyear drove. As they started out, Jordan thought, Bran doesn’t like me sleeping with Aditi, but he’s practically welded to Elyse. Can’t say I blame him. Even in the drab once-piece jumpsuit she was wearing, Elyse’s generous figure was eye-catching.

As he expected, Adri was standing at the edge of the stone walkway that circled the city, stroking his furball of a pet. The animal gazed at their approaching buggy with big, round, solemn eyes. Adri’s expression was almost the same, although as Longyear braked the buggy to a halt he broke into a warm smile.

“Welcome friends,” Adri said, slipping the pet into the folds of his robe.

As they piled out of the buggy Thornberry stepped up to Adri and asked, “Do you truly consider us your friends, Adri?”

Blinking with astonishment, Adri answered, “Yes, of course.”

“All right, then. I want to know how those energy shields of yours work. I want the whole story, even the basic physics behind ’em.”

Adri nodded solemnly. “Of course.” Turning to Longyear, he said, “And you want to learn about our biology.” To de Falla, “Geology, I believe.” To Elyse, “Astronomy, I know.”

Elyse said, “I want to see your evidence for the gamma burst you told Jordan about.”

“That can be easily arranged. For the rest of you, I’m afraid you’ll have to subject yourselves to a rather intense education.” And he turned and started to walk into the city.

Thornberry moved up alongside him, his bulky body more than twice Adri’s slim frame, although Adri was several centimeters taller. As usual, Thornberry wore a rumpled shirt that hung over his loose, comfortable slacks. Jordan, trailing behind them, thought of Thornberry as a sloppy, overgrown child, Adri as an orderly, wise old grandfather.

“Intense education, is it?” Thornberry said. “How long will it take?”

“A few hours, perhaps a bit longer.”

Longyear, on Adri’s other side, gasped, “A few hours? How much can we learn in a few hours?”

“Quite a lot, if the equipment functions properly. It always has, but then we’ve only used it on ourselves. You are genetically similar to us, of course, your brains are structurally and functionally similar. Yet—”

Jordan realized what he was trying to explain. “Adri, are you saying that you can download the information directly into our brains?”

“Yes, very much the way you downloaded your own memories when you were revived from cryonic stasis.” Before anyone could say anything, Adri went on, “Or is it uploading? I’m afraid I get the two terms confused.”

“You can download a physics education into my brain? In a few hours?” Thornberry asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” Adri replied. “That’s the way we learn, through direct neural stimulation. You have similar systems.”

“They’re illegal,” said Thornberry.

Adri stopped walking and looked at Thornberry, clearly puzzled.

“But you used your ship’s computer to store your memories while you were in flight, and then downloaded them back into your brains.”

Jordan stepped between Adri and Thornberry. “What Mitchell is trying to explain is that on Earth such direct brain stimulation is forbidden.”

“But why?” Adri asked, clearly perplexed.

“There’s too much of a chance that unscrupulous people would use it to manipulate others, to plant false information in their minds, get them to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

“Unscrupulous people,” Adri murmured, as if it was a new concept to him.

“Salesmen, for example,” Jordan said.

“Politicians,” Thornberry added. “And religious zealots.”

Brandon pushed his way into the discussion. “Our shipboard system is an exception to the law. We had to get approval from the World Council.”

“I see,” Adri said. “I understand.”

Brandon said, “I’m not sure that we should allow ourselves to be subjected to your direct brain stimulation.”

Adri’s seamed face eased into a bitter smile. “You are afraid that I might be one of those unscrupulous people.”

Decision

As they walked through the city, Adri tried earnestly to convince Thornberry and the others that their fears were unfounded.

“I assure you, the neural stimulation will be restricted to the subjects you are interested in. Physics, for you, Dr. Thornberry.” Turning to Longyear, he continued, “Biology for you. And for Dr. de Falla—”

“Nothing for me,” de Falla snapped. “Not until we can be sure that you’re not going to brainwash us.”

Adri seemed stunned. “You don’t trust us.”

Jordan said, “This is a new situation for us. We’ll have to talk it over amongst ourselves.”

“I understand,” said Adri. But Jordan thought he looked disappointed, hurt.

Adri led the little group around the administrative building, heading for the dormitory. “We have prepared quarters for you all. Perhaps you can discuss the matter there.”

“Thank you,” said Jordan. “We will.” But he was thinking that Adri would be able to hear every word they said. The buildings are all monitored, he remembered. Then he wondered, Why did Aditi show me their monitoring system, then? Was she trying to warn me, or does she really think there’s no harm in it?

Keeping his thoughts to himself, Jordan followed Adri into the dormitory building. His companions kept an uneasy silence as Adri showed them their rooms. Jordan saw that he and his brother would be housed in the same two-bedroom suite as before, the others in single rooms. Not that Elyse will use her room, he grumbled to himself.

They all came back to the sitting room of Jordan’s suite, and Adri left them to themselves.

“Until dinner,” he said. To Jordan, he added, “Aditi will join us then.”

Adri hesitated at the door. Looking directly at Thornberry, he said, “I hope you decide to accept our education system. Its only function is to teach, not to manipulate you.”

Thornberry nodded unhappily. But Brandon replied, “Teaching is manipulation of a sort, isn’t it?”

Adri said nothing. He pulled his furry little pet from his robe and left.

As soon as the door slid shut behind Adri’s departing back, Thornberry said, “I feel like Dr. Faustus.”

“Making a deal with the devil?” Longyear quipped.

“He’s making a damned tempting offer,” said Thornberry. “To learn how those energy screens work. I could go back to Earth and make a fortune!”

“Is that what you want?” Jordan asked.

Thornberry broke into a rueful grin. “I wouldn’t refuse a fortune, you know. But what I really want is to know. To understand.”

“But they might brainwash you while you’re under their stimulator,” de Falla objected.

Glancing around the sitting room, Jordan suggested, “Why don’t we go into the plaza, outside, to continue this conversation?”

Brandon immediately caught his implication. “You think the rooms are bugged?”

“I know they are. Aditi showed me the center where they monitor everything.”

“Everything?” Elyse asked.

Jordan almost smiled at the alarm on her face. “Almost everything,” he assured her. “Come on, let’s go outside. It’s a pleasant day and we have a major decision to make.”

The plaza was empty of other people. They’re giving us some privacy, Jordan thought. If they’re bugging us here they’d have to plant cameras in the trees, I suppose, or up on the rooftops. He led the little group to the center of the plaza and sat down on the grass. The sun felt warm and good on his shoulders. The others sat, too, in a circle. Like a Neolithic band, Jordan thought. All we need is a campfire.

“So what do we do about this?” Thornberry asked.

Jordan replied, “Mitch, are you willing to be a guinea pig?”

“An experimental animal?”

“Yes,” said Jordan. “We won’t be able to tell if Adri’s brain stimulator is nothing more than an educational tool or not unless one of us allows them to use it on him.”

Thornberry shrugged. Then he muttered, “To learn how those energy shields work…”

“Dr. Faustus,” Longyear reminded him.

Elyse said, “I’m going to ask their astronomers to show me their evidence for the gamma burst. I won’t need brain stimulation for that.”

“Evidence can be faked,” de Falla pointed out.

“I suppose so,” said Elyse. “I’ll just have to see what they’ve got and make up my own mind.”

“Without brain zapping,” said Brandon.

She shuddered.

With his old quizzical smile, Thornberry conjectured, “So I take their brain zapping, and I come out knowing all things and able to speak with the tongues of men and of angels. How could that harm us?”

“It could prejudice you in favor of whatever Adri’s trying to pull over on us,” said Brandon.

“But I won’t grow fangs, will I?” Thornberry joked.

“This isn’t a laughing matter,” Brandon insisted.

Jordan muttered, “Davehr’yay noh praver’yay.”

“What?”

“It’s an old Russian saying: Trust, but verify. Diplomats use the term a lot.”

“Trust, but verify,” Elyse repeated.

“Which means you don’t really trust them at all, doesn’t it?” said Brandon.

Jordan shook his head. “We allow Mitch to undergo their brain stimulation. Then we see if anything’s different about him afterward.”

“I’ll be different,” Thornberry said. “I’ll be smarter.”

“You’ll know more,” Longyear corrected.

“Meanwhile,” Jordan said, trying to get the conversation back on track again, “Elyse will try to determine if this story of a gamma ray burst is true. If the evidence is reliable.”

“So I’m the one showing the trust,” Thornberry said, tapping the front of his wrinkled shirt.

“And I’m the one who verifies,” said Elyse.

“And the rest of us will try to decide if we can really trust Adri and whether or not we should act on the information he’s giving us.”

“Tall order,” de Falla said.

Jordan nodded agreement. “But I don’t see anything else we can do. Do you?”

He looked at the five of them, sitting on the grass in a circle around him, their faces grave as they faced up to the responsibility. No one spoke. Brandon looked disgruntled, sullen, but he said nothing.

“I really believe we hold the fate of the human race in our hands,” Jordan said.

No one disagreed.

Conflict

Dinner with Adri and Aditi was pleasant, but Jordan felt strains pulling him in different directions. He wanted to believe Adri, he wanted to believe everything Adri and the Predecessor had told him. But it was so enormous! So mind-boggling. And, he had to admit to himself, it just might all be a ploy to manipulate us, for some reason they haven’t chosen to reveal to us.

God help us, he thought, Meek might be right. Then he realized, Meek’s been right all along, about a lot of things. This planet isn’t natural. Adri, Aditi, all the other people here, they were constructed to resemble us. Manufactured.

But is Meek right about their motives? That’s the key to everything. Are Adri and the Predecessor telling me the truth about why they’ve done all this?

Brandon was unusually quiet through the meal, and Longyear and de Falla talked with each other, but had hardly a word to say to Adri or Aditi. So be it, Jordan sighed inwardly. One step at a time.

Then Thornberry announced that he had decided to undergo the brain stimulation, and Adri broke into a broad, beaming smile.

“I’ll set up the procedure first thing in the morning,” he promised.

Before Elyse could speak up, Adri turned to her and added, “And you’ll want to meet with our astronomers at the observatory.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Fine,” Adri said. “Fine.”

“Dr. Longyear, are you ready for a stimulation session?”

Longyear shook his head. “I’ll … wait until later.”

“I see,” Adri said, with a glance in Jordan’s direction.

As they filed out of the dining hall, Jordan took Aditi’s arm. “It’s good to see you again.”

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you, too.” And he led her down the corridor toward his suite.

Adri said good night and headed off to his own quarters. One by one, the others entered their rooms. Soon there was no one else in the corridor except Brandon and Elyse, walking a dozen paces ahead of Jordan and Aditi.

“Are you sure you should?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m very sure.”

“Your brother…?”

“I don’t care.”

“I don’t want to come between you.”

Jordan smiled at her. “And I don’t want him to come between us.”

She smiled back, but he could still see a flicker of worry in her chestnut brown eyes.

When they entered the sitting room, Elyse was relaxed on the couch, but Brandon was standing in the center of the room, frowning, tense.

“What’s wrong, Bran?” Jordan asked.

“I wish we had something to drink. Scotch or brandy or something … anything.”

“I can get an alcoholic beverage for you,” Aditi offered.

“No,” Brandon said. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.” Turning to the wall screen, she called, “Service, please.”

A pleasant-looking young woman’s face appeared on the screen. “Yes?” she said, smiling.

“Four after-dinner drinks, please. Alcoholic.”

“Certainly.” And the screen went dark.

“Room service?” Elyse asked.

“For our guests,” said Aditi.

Within minutes a handsome young man in a dark tunic and slacks appeared at their door, bearing a tray with four tall glasses filled with a dark ruby-colored liquid.

Once he had deposited the tray on the coffee table and left, Brandon picked up one of the glasses, sniffed it tentatively, then took a sip.

“Well?” Jordan asked.

“Strange. Looks like port, but it tastes … almost like anisette. Or what’s the Greek cordial?”

“Ouzo,” said Elyse.

Brandon sipped again and nodded. “Almost like ouzo, but not quite. Fruitier.”

As the others picked up their glasses, Jordan gestured Aditi to one of the armchairs and sat himself on the other one, facing her. Brandon sat on the couch beside Elyse. They each took long drafts of the liqueur.

“Delicious,” said Jordan.

Elyse asked Aditi, “What is this called?”

She stared blankly at Elyse for a moment, then answered, “Grape liqueur, I believe.”

“Not much of a name,” Brandon muttered.

“Practical,” said Jordan.

They sipped at the pleasant-tasting liqueur, making inconsequential conversation for several minutes.

But suddenly Brandon burst out, “Speaking of things practical, Jordy, that was a nice bit of maneuvering you pulled this afternoon.”

“Maneuvering?” Jordan felt puzzled, but he recognized the look on Brandon’s face. The same pouty frown Bran put on whenever he felt he’d been outsmarted. Or outplayed.

“Our little conference out on the grass,” Brandon said. “You took control of things. Very slick, big brother.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Bran.”

“Don’t call me names!”

Jordan glanced at Aditi, who looked alarmed.

Elyse said, “Brandon, perhaps we should retire for the night.”

But Brandon pointed an accusing finger at Jordan. “I was elected leader of the group. You resigned. You gave up your responsibilities and I took them on.”

“I know,” said Jordan. “I had no intention—”

“You undercut me out there! You just sat there and took over the discussion and took charge. I’m supposed to be the leader, not you!”

“Then why didn’t you lead?” Jordan snapped.

“How in hell can I, when you snatch it all away from me? Before I can get a word in, you’re monopolizing everything and giving orders.”

Jordan stared at his brother. Can a few sips of alcohol break down his self-control so quickly? he wondered. Or is the drink just a convenient excuse for him to speak his mind?

“Bran,” he said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to usurp your position.”

“But you did it anyway.”

Resentment smoldered in Brandon’s eyes. Jordan’s memory flashed back to other scenes, from childhood and their teen years, into adulthood, when Brandon flailed out in jealousy. That’s why he went into science, to get away from me. To build a career for himself where he wouldn’t have to compete with his older brother.

“Bran, I said I’m sorry. What more can I do?”

“You can stay the hell away from the rest of us. If you want to take their side, fine, go ahead. You can stay here when the rest of us leave, if you want to. That’ll be fine with me.”

Aditi looked stricken, Jordan saw. But in the back of his mind he thought that staying here with Aditi would not be unpleasant. Silently he said to his brother, Go on back to Earth with your tail between your legs. Go on back and face the responsibility for saving the human race from annihilation. Do you have the guts for that, Bran? Do you have the brains and the heart for it?

But aloud he said only, “I think I’ve heard enough for one night, Bran.” Rising to his feet, Jordan held his hand out for Aditi. She got up and stood beside him.

“Good night, Elyse,” Jordan said, as politely as he could manage. “Good night, Bran.”

He turned and walked, hand-in-hand with Aditi, into their bedroom.

Once the door closed, Aditi said, “I had no idea he was so jealous of you.”

Jordan shrugged. “It’s been going on for years. This is Bran’s way of getting what he wants: accusing me of hurting him.” With a sigh he sat on the edge of the bed and began taking off his shoes.

Aditi sat beside him. “What are you going to do?”

“Let him cool off, I suppose.” Then he looked into her questioning eyes. “But I can’t just stand by and watch Bran and the others make a mess of things. There’s too much at stake!”

She nodded, then asked, “Would you stay here when the others leave?”

“Yes … except…”

“Except that you want to help your people to survive,” Aditi said, very solemnly.

“And the others that Adri spoke of.”

Aditi smiled at him. “You have a fine sense of responsibility.”

“Tell that to my little brother.”

Trust

Jordan was awakened by a soft chiming musical tone. He struggled up to a sitting position. Aditi, curled beside him, opened her eyes.

“Phone for you,” she said. “Dr. Thornberry.”

“How do you—” Then Jordan remembered she had a communicator implanted in her brain. “Can we make it audio only?”

She nodded, and Thornberry’s voice said out of nowhere, “Top o’ the morning to ya, Jordan. Do you want to have some breakfast before I march off to get me brain boosted?”

“Certainly,” Jordan answered heartily. “We’ll see you in the dining hall in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes. Right.”

The bedroom fell silent.

“Is he gone?” Jordan whispered.

Aditi giggled. “Yes. All gone.”

Twenty minutes later Jordan entered the dining hall, wearing a fresh pair of light blue slacks and an open-collared white shirt. Aditi had sent him on alone; she would meet him after breakfast in Adri’s office. Thornberry was already there, sitting at a table with Elyse and Brandon.

Breakfast was served buffet style, so Jordan picked what looked like an omelet and a cup of strong black coffee analog.

Sitting opposite his brother, Jordan turned to Thornberry and said, “Ready for the experiment, Mitch?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” the roboticist answered, with an uneasy smile.

Brandon looked up from his plate. “Jordy, about last night…”

“I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes, Bran.”

“Elyse told me I behaved like an ass.”

“Not really.”

“Really,” Elyse said.

“Anyway, I apologize. That drink hit me pretty hard, I guess.”

“No need for an apology,” Jordan said. “Brothers should be able to speak their minds to each other.” Yet he was thinking, In vino veritas.

Thornberry’s head was swiveling back and forth like a spectator’s at a tennis match. But he kept his silence.

After breakfast, Brandon and Elyse started out for the observatory, while Jordan led Thornberry to Adri’s office, up on the top floor of the building.

Aditi was there when they arrived.

“Have you had breakfast?” Jordan asked her, by way of greeting.

“I had some fruit here, with Adri,” she said.

Adri said, “Aditi will run the stimulation; it is her area of expertise.”

“Brain stimulation?” Thornberry asked, surprised.

“Education,” said Aditi. “My field is education.”

Jordan said, “And you educate people through direct brain stimulation.”

“Yes,” she said. “Whenever possible.”

Aditi led Jordan and Thornberry downstairs, leaving Adri in his office. They entered a small room that looked more like an office than a neurological laboratory. There was a desk in one corner, a pair of comfortable-looking upholstered chairs, and a padded couch along the far wall.

“This is where the deed is done, is it?” Thornberry asked, looking around the room for equipment.

Aditi nodded. “This is my office. And my schoolroom.”

“Where’s the equipment?” Jordan asked.

“In the walls, mostly,” she replied. “Behind the ceiling panels, too.”

She seemed perfectly relaxed, at ease in her own surroundings. Thornberry looked a little edgy.

“So what do I do?” he asked.

Gesturing to the couch, Aditi said, “You lie down and relax while I set up the equipment.”

As Jordan sat in one of the chairs, she went to her desk and pulled a lower drawer open. Thornberry stretched out on the couch, while Aditi took out what looked to Jordan like old-fashioned wireless earphones.

“What’s that?” Thornberry asked.

“The transceivers,” Aditi replied easily. Walking to the couch, she explained, “The first thing we must do is map your brain’s neural activity.”

She handed the earphones to Thornberry, who fumbled with them, trying to slip them on.

Aditi explained, “No, no, not in your ears. Press the pads against your temples.”

Jordan saw the uneasy expression on Thornberry’s face. He felt a little nervous himself. But the headphones stuck to Thornberry’s temples with no trouble.

Aditi seemed perfectly at home. She went back to her desk chair and played her fingers across the empty desktop. Jordan saw it was a digital display screen, showing an image of a keyboard.

The wall above the desk began to glow and the image of a human brain took form, false-colored pale pink, deep lavender, and pearl gray against the screen’s bright blue background. Jordan could see sparkles of light flickering across the brain. Nerve impulses, he thought.

“Is that me?” Thornberry asked.

“That’s your brain,” Aditi said, without taking her eyes off the screen. “Impressive,” she murmured.

“What happens now?”

“Once the mapping is finished, you go to sleep,” Aditi said, still with her back to Thornberry.

“Um … I have to go to the bathroom,” he said.

Jordan stifled a laugh.

Aditi said, “I’m sorry. I should have thought of that.” She tapped at her desktop and the wall screen went dark.

Once Thornberry pulled off the headphones and hurried out of the office, Jordan said to Aditi, “I had no idea you were so … competent.”

“I told you I was a teacher,” she said.

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me how you teach.”

“Once Dr. Thornberry returns, I’ll sedate him neurally and the downloading can begin. He’ll be asleep and there won’t be anything for you to do. You could leave and return in three hours.”

Jordan thought it over for all of a second. “I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind. I ought to witness the entire procedure, boring though it may be.”

She arched a brow at him. “You want to make certain I don’t do anything terrible to him.”

Jordan shook his head slightly. “My dear, I’m sure you could do whatever you want to him while I’m watching you do it and I wouldn’t know that anything nefarious was going on.”

Her expression grew serious. “I’m not going to hurt him, Jordan.”

“I know,” he said. “But I should stay through the whole procedure.” Then he smiled and added, “Besides, it’ll give me the chance to stay with you.”

She blushed slightly, but before she could reply Thornberry reentered the room. “Well, that’s a load off me mind,” he said. “So to speak.”

They all laughed.

Aditi was wrong. It was anything but boring.

Mapping Thornberry’s brain took less than half an hour. Once she was satisfied with it, Aditi said to Thornberry, “You’re going to go to sleep now.”

“Wish me pleasant dreams, why don’t you?”

“Pleasant dreams, Dr. Thornberry,” Aditi said. Turning back to her keyboard, she murmured, “Now we deactivate the parietal cortex.”

She tapped a key on the desktop and Thornberry’s eyes fluttered and closed. In a moment he seemed deeply asleep, his chest rising regularly, his arms relaxed at his side.

Watching the brain image on the wall screen intently, Aditi touched another key. Jordan turned his attention from her toward Thornberry. He could see the man’s eyeballs moving rapidly behind their closed lids. REM sleep, Jordan realized.

Deeply asleep, Thornberry stirred slightly, clenched his fists and then opened them again. He muttered something incomprehensible.

“Is this normal?” Jordan whispered.

Aditi nodded, her eyes focused on the image of Thornberry’s brain. It was flickering madly now, nerve impulses racing back and forth. Thornberry groaned softly and his arms tensed, his legs shifted, as if he were straining to get up.

Aditi touched another key and Thornberry relaxed, his arms and legs going limp, his breathing deep and slow and regular.

For a while nothing seemed to happen. But Jordan could see that three small sections of Thornberry’s brain seemed to be glowing with activity. He wished he knew enough about brain physiology to tell what those sections were, what their functions might be. He thought a bright pink region near the base of Thornberry’s brain might be the thalamus, but he wasn’t sure. He recognized the frontal cortex, which seemed ablaze with neural activity.

When he looked back at Thornberry, Jordan saw that the man’s beefy face was swathed with perspiration. His body was arched with tension and his eyes were still moving back and forth behind their closed lids.

Jordan whispered again to Aditi, “Should I wipe his brow?”

“Don’t touch him!” she hissed, without taking her eyes off the wall screen. “This is the most critical period of the download.”

Biting his lip in apprehension, Jordan stared at Thornberry’s struggling figure. He looks like he’s fighting demons, Jordan thought. Like a soul being exorcised.

And then Thornberry relaxed again, totally, as limp as a flag on an utterly still day. His eye movements slowed, although they did not cease altogether. A crooked smile spread across his sweat-soaked face.

Aditi turned in her desk chair toward Jordan. “It will be easier from here on. Everything’s fine now.”

“What happened?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

She drew in a breath, then explained, “It’s quite natural for us to resist new ideas, especially if they conflict with what we already believe. Dr. Thornberry’s brain was suddenly invaded by a massive dose of new concepts, and he instinctively resisted. Perfectly natural.”

“And you overcame his resistance? You forced him to accept—”

“No, not at all,” Aditi said. “The program merely repeated the new information until it became recognizable to his brain. It’s the same process as ordinary classroom learning: it takes time to adapt to new knowledge and to accept it.”

Jordan marveled, “But you can do it in minutes, instead of a whole semester.”

With a glance at her wristwatch, Aditi said, “It took more than an hour, Jordan.”

He looked at his watch and saw that she was right.

“Still…” he said.

“He’ll be fine,” said Aditi. “In another ninety minutes, two hours at most, he’ll have absorbed everything the program has to tell him.”

Jordan couldn’t help wondering what else Thornberry’s brain was being forced to absorb.

Learning

As Thornberry slept on peacefully, Jordan gave voice to his nagging doubts.

“Aditi, dear, I’ve got to ask you—”

“If the physics program is all that I’m downloading into Dr. Thornberry’s brain?”

“Yes,” Jordan admitted, feeling awful about it.

She turned her desk chair to face him. “That’s all. It’s quite enough. I had to map his brain first to see if he could accept such a massive amount of information.”

“I want to believe you, I really do.”

“I know you do, Jordan. And I know how difficult all this must be for you.”

“It’s all so new. It takes time to adapt to new information.”

Her smile turned impish. “What did I tell you? You’re going through the same process of adaptation that Dr. Thornberry’s experiencing.”

“Except that he’s doing it in a few hours, while I’m taking much longer.”

Wheeling her chair closer to him, Aditi said, “You’re not suggesting that I use brain stimulation to indoctrinate you, are you?”

“No! Not at all.”

“That would be an ethical violation,” Aditi said. “We use brain stimulation to educate people, not to manipulate them.”

“Even if I asked you to? Even if I volunteered?”

“It’s not allowed,” she replied. “We have our code of behavior. We’re not monsters, no matter what Dr. Meek thinks.”

Jordan gazed at her utterly earnest face. “Your ethical standards are somewhat higher than ours. On Earth, the temptation to use direct brain stimulation to control people would be unbearable—for some.”

“But not for you.”

“Nor for you.”

Her stern expression eased. “You trust us, Jordan. That’s wonderful.”

“I trust you, Aditi.”

“That’s even more wonderful.”

“I love you.”

She broke into a sunny smile. “That’s the most wonderful thing of all.”

But suddenly Jordan felt uneasy. “My brother suggested that when the rest of us leave for home, I should stay here.”

Aditi’s eyes widened. “Stay? Would you? Would you stay here with me? That would be fantastic!”

“I want to,” he said. Then he heard himself add, “But…”

“But,” she said.

“All that Adri’s told me. All that the Predecessor told me. The human race is in danger. Other races, on other worlds.”

“It’s a great responsibility for you,” she said softly.

“I can’t turn my back on it. On them.”

“I know.”

“You could come with me,” he blurted.

“To Earth?”

“Yes.” Jordan’s mind raced. “In fact, it would be an enormous help. You could be an ambassador, a representative of your people. One look at you and they’d see that we have nothing to fear from you.”

Aditi gave him a skeptical look. “Just as Dr. Meek sees he has nothing to fear?”

Jordan’s heart sank. “Yes. You’re right. There would be people on Earth who’d be frightened of you, no matter what.”

For a few heartbeats neither of them spoke. Thornberry snored softly on the couch, completely relaxed.

Then Aditi said, “I’d go to Earth with you, Jordan.”

He shook his head. “There’d be danger there for you. Fanatics, madmen. What they fear they try to destroy.”

“You’d protect me.”

“No. It’d be too dangerous for you. You’d be much better off staying here.”

“While you went back to Earth?”

“I’d return for you.” Then, realizing it took eighty years, he added uncertainly, “Someday.”

Aditi reached out and took both Jordan’s hands in hers. “No. I’ll go to Earth with you.”

“But—”

“I love you, Jordan. I’m not going to be parted from you. Not for anything.”

He leaned toward her and kissed her.

“A fine thing,” Thornberry called from the couch.

Jordan flinched reflexively away from Aditi. She looked surprised, scooted her chair back toward her desk, and peered at the image of Thornberry’s brain on the wall screen.

“You two smooching away while I’m tryin’ to sleep.” Thornberry was half sitting up, grinning at them, the headphones dangling lopsidedly.

“Don’t remove the transceivers just yet, please,” Aditi called to Thornberry. While he pushed the headphones back into place, she tapped on her desktop keyboard, then spun her chair around to face Thornberry. “Very good. The program is finished. You can get up now.”

Thornberry yanked the headphones off and swung his legs off the edge of the couch. “Well now, do I look any smarter to you?”

Jordan thought he looked totally normal, except that his wrinkled shirt was stained with perspiration.

“You look fine, Mitch,” he said. “How do you feel?”

Thornberry hesitated a moment. “Pretty normal. Me shirt’s a bit sticky, though.” Then his beefy face broke into a broad smile. “B’god, I see! I see it all! By all the saints in heaven, I understand how it works!”

Aditi asked, “What can you tell me about the energy screen generators?”

“Why, they tap the multidimensional branes that envelop space-time and focus them to produce a warping field that absorbs incoming energy.”

Jordan felt impressed. Aditi pulled a digital notepad and stylus from her desk drawer and handed them to Thornberry.

“The basic equations, please,” she said.

Grinning, Thornberry scribbled away on the notepad’s screen, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth.

“There,” he said. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Aditi said, “I don’t know. I’m not a physicist. But your equations have been sent to the chief of our physics department…”

“And?” Jordan prompted.

Aditi’s smile told him everything. “He confirms that your equations are correct. The downloading worked fine.”

“I’m a bloody physicist!” Thornberry crowed. “And I can build a field generator from scratch, b’god.”

“It worked,” Jordan breathed.

Aditi nodded happily. “It certainly did.”

Thornberry got to his feet and pranced across the room. “I want to call Hazzard. I want to impress him with me new knowledge. We can build an energy shield for the ship, b’god.”

“Well, I’m certainly impressed,” said Jordan.

Verify

Hazzard was impressed, too. On the wall screen above Aditi’s desk, his dark face was split by a bright grin as Thornberry spouted enthusiasm about building an energy shield to protect the ship from harmful levels of radiation.

Glancing at his wristwatch again, Jordan said to Aditi, “I should get over to the observatory and see how Dr. Rudaki is doing with your astronomers.”

She nodded. “I understand. I’ll stay here with Dr. Thornberry.”

Jordan looked at Thornberry, chattering happily with Hazzard. The astronaut seemed halfway between delighted and bewildered at the roboticist’s fervor.

“He won’t miss you,” Aditi said.

Jordan agreed with a nod. He kissed Aditi lightly on the lips and headed for the door.

“Dinner tonight?” he asked her.

“Of course,” she said.

Jordan whistled happily as he strode briskly through the city’s bustling streets toward the observatory. It works, he thought. The brain stimulation works and there aren’t any bad side effects. None that I could see, at least. Mitch seems as happy as a little boy on Christmas morning.

His phone buzzed. Yanking it from his shirt pocket, he saw Adri’s lined face on its tiny screen. The old man was beaming brightly.

“Aditi tells me that Dr. Thornberry’s download went very well,” he said.

“It did indeed,” Jordan said cheerfully, without breaking stride.

“I am pleased.”

“I’m overjoyed.”

“Apparently Dr. Rudaki is finding what she came for among the astronomers.”

“That’s where I’m heading now,” Jordan said.

“Yes, I know.”

Of course you know, Jordan said silently. You know every move we make.

Aloud, he replied to Adri, “Will you join us for dinner this evening?”

Adri chuckled softly. “Your affinity for mixing sociability with meals is putting weight on me.”

Jordan laughed. “A couple of kilos won’t hurt you.”

“Perhaps not,” Adri agreed, smiling back at Jordan. “This evening, then, in the dining hall.”

“Seven o’clock?”

“Seven will be fine.”

Jordan snapped the phone shut and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. He saw the observatory no more than two blocks ahead.

Entering the observatory was like entering a cathedral. Even though the telescopes were not working in the daytime, once he stepped into the main section of the building, with its domed roof and skyward-pointing instruments, Jordan felt an almost religious kind of awe and majesty.

He remembered a line of Galileo’s: Astronomers seek to investigate the true constitution of the universe, the most important and the most admirable problem that there is.

As he stood there gaping, a young man in a comfortably loose white tunic and dark blue slacks hurried across the observatory’s stone floor toward him.

“Mr. Kell! Welcome.”

Jordan dipped his chin a notch. “Thank you. May I ask what your name is?”

The young astronomer hesitated a moment, looking blank, puzzled, but at last answered, “In your language, my name is Mitra.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Mitra.”

He was a pleasant-faced young man, a shade taller than Jordan yet somehow softer-looking, as if he had not yet outgrown his baby fat. His hair was a light brown color, sandy, so wispy that the slightest waft of air sent it flying.

“You’re here to see Dr. Rudaki, I presume,” Mitra said, smiling brightly at Jordan.

“Yes. Can you take me to her?”

“With pleasure. She’s in the conference room with the top staff.”

Mitra led Jordan across the hushed observatory, past the slanting gridwork of the resting telescopes, and up a steel stairway that clanged echoingly with every step they took. He stopped at a closed door, tapped on it with a knuckle, then slid it open.

There were ten people seated around a long table, with Elyse at its foot, Brandon sitting beside her. They both looked grim. Five other men and three women, Jordan saw. One of the men, chunky and barrel-chested, with short-cropped dark brown hair, was on his feet at the head of the table. The wall screens displayed astronomical images from ceiling to floor, swirling clouds of stars, vast glowing streams of gas, dark veils of obscuring dust.

“Mr. Kell,” said the standing man. “Welcome to our little colloquium.” He gestured to an empty chair at the foot of the table, next to Elyse and Brandon. They’ve been expecting me, Jordan realized.

The astronomer introduced the men and women seated around the table, then ended with, “I am Hari, chief astronomer.”

Jordan nodded a hello to each of them in turn as he went to the chair and sat in it.

“We have been showing Dr. Rudaki and Dr. Kell images and data concerning the gamma ray eruption at the galactic core.”

As Hari spoke, the images on the walls changed. Like a slide show, Jordan thought.

“Most of these images are more than twelve thousand years old,” the astronomer went on, just the slightest bit pompous. “I’m afraid their quality has degraded a bit over time, but they are still useful.”

Hari explained that the images looked inward, toward the heart of the galaxy, where the stars were so thickly clustered that they showed as one bright continuous glow. The images shifted, and Jordan guessed that they were showing the same field of view in different wavelengths: optical, infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and finally—

“And this is the gamma-ray view,” Hari intoned.

The background of the galaxy’s heart disappeared in the final view, smothered by a blazing wave of gamma radiation. The images flicked every few seconds; the wave grew bigger with each change, like a menacing tsunami growing, surging, coming closer.

“That’s the most recent image we have,” said Hari, as the pictures froze on the walls. Jordan felt surrounded by an almost palpable menace.

Elyse said, “All these images were taken from Hari’s homeworld, before the Predecessors sent out the mission that arrived here.”

“Before Hari and Adri and all these people were created,” Brandon added.

“Yes,” Hari answered, from the front of the room.

“And what happened to your homeworld when the gamma burst engulfed it? What happened to your ancestors?”

Hari looked slightly uncomfortable, but he answered, “They had already gone extinct. Our homeworld was occupied by inorganic entities. Had been for many thousands of years. Your years.”

“Inorganic—you mean, like the Predecessor.”

One of the women across the table replied, “Not precisely. More like our predecessors.”

Jordan blinked and shook his head. “Your history goes back a long way.”

“More than thirty million of your years,” said Hari.

“And this gamma burst?”

“It’s real, Jordy,” said Brandon. “Elyse has been going over the evidence with these people all morning. Not merely imagery, but measurements of the energy intensity in the eruption.” His face was somber. “It’s like a wave of death hurtling toward us.”

“Toward you, and dozens of other intelligent species in your section of the Orion arm,” said Hari. “Most of those species have not yet reached the level of high technology. Most of them have no way of knowing about the coming disaster—unless you reach them and save them.”

Fixing his gaze on Elyse and Brandon, Jordan asked them, “Are you certain?”

Brandon nodded, his lips a tight, rigid line. Elyse said, “There’s no denying it.”

Jordan thought about how many apparent truths had been denied in the past. How many human beings had died because some men made up their minds to ignore the truth, to overlook the data, to denigrate those who warned of impending problems. Wars that could have been stopped before they started. Diseases that spread because people denied their reality. The greenhouse warming that was changing Earth’s climate: it could have been averted, or at least mitigated.

He shook his head, trying to focus on the here and now.

“Absolutely certain?” he repeated to Elyse.

Very solemnly she replied, “Absolutely.”

Jordan pulled in a deep breath. “Then we’ve got to decide what to do about it.”

Brandon said, “Right. And the first step is to convince Meek.”

Factions

They were a subdued group as they rode the buggy back to the camp the following morning. Longyear drove, as usual, with Jordan sitting beside him. Thornberry and de Falla occupied the second row, Elyse and Brandon the third.

“You should have let them pump their biology program into your brain, Paul,” Thornberry said as they went along the trail.

“Maybe,” Longyear replied guardedly.

From the rear, Brandon quipped, “We’re still waiting to see if you turn into an alien clone or something, Mitch.”

“A leprechaun, more likely,” Thornberry rejoined.

De Falla turned in his seat to face Elyse. “You’re absolutely certain that what they’re telling us is true?”

Looking as if she were tired of answering the same question over and again, she answered, “Absolutely certain. Yes.”

“Data can be faked.”

“I know,” said Elyse. “But they have such a massive amount of data. Visual imagery, radio telescope returns, gamma ray measurements. I looked for inconsistencies, for flaws … it all appears to be true.”

“Appears,” de Falla said.

Elyse stared at him for several silent moments, then said, “I suppose at the heart of everything is the fact that I trust them. They’re astronomers and astrophysicists, not politicians. They deal with observations and measurements, not rhetoric.”

Jordan said over his shoulder, “Have you shown their data to Zadar?”

“Yes. Demetrios agrees, the data are conclusive.”

Brandon said, “The only question now is, what are we going to do about it?”

Jordan replied, “We try to convince Harmon. He’s our test case. If we can’t convince him, we won’t have the ghost of a chance of convincing the movers and shakers back on Earth.”

Without taking his eyes off the trail twisting through the trees, Longyear said, “Well, you’ve just about got me convinced.”

Surprised, Jordan asked, “You’re not totally sure?”

“Adri and his people wouldn’t be the first to speak with forked tongues.”

“Oh, for god’s sake!”

“Think about it,” Longyear insisted. “We know they’ve got terrific technologies. I’m itching to learn about their biotech. But suppose they’re using technological tricks to convince us about this gamma eruption?”

That silenced the rest of them.

Until Jordan said, “If they are, and there’s no gamma wave threatening Earth, then why did they invent such a story?”

“How should I know?” Longyear said.

“But on the other hand,” Jordan went on, “if the gamma burst truly is real, we’d be consigning the entire human race to extinction if we did nothing.”

“We’d be consigning the whole human race to falling for some alien scheme if we swallow their story,” Longyear countered.

Thornberry piped up, “By their fruits you shall know them.”

“What?”

“From the Bible. You can determine what’s good and what’s bad by looking at the consequences of the way people behave.”

“But we don’t know the consequences,” de Falla pointed out. “We won’t know the consequences for another two thousand years.”

Jordan said, “I think I see what Mitch is driving at. If we fail to act and the threat is real, the human race dies. If we do act and the threat is a fake, then … what?”

“Are we willing to take the chance?” Thornberry asked.

“Do we have the right to take that chance?” Jordan replied.

“Certain death versus some unknown motive of the aliens,” said de Falla.

“Some choice,” Brandon said.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Jordan insisted.

“Try telling that to Meek,” said Brandon.

Resolution

As soon as they reached the camp, Brandon called a meeting of the entire group. Jordan watched with a mixture of amusement and anxiety as they filed into the dining area. He, his brother, Elyse, and Thornberry sat on one side of the long table. Meek, Longyear, and de Falla chose the other, facing them. Jordan was surprised and a little disheartened when Yamaguchi came in, looked at the lineup, and chose Meek’s side. Verishkova sat beside Thornberry.

Hazzard, Zadar, and Trish Wanamaker were on the screen at the foot of the table. No telling which side they’d be on if they were here, Jordan thought.

Once everyone was settled in their chairs, Brandon slowly got to his feet. Reluctantly, Jordan thought.

“Mitchell has taken the brain boost,” he began, “and he seems no worse for it.”

From the screen, Hazzard quipped, “He’s become a nuisance, pestering me to build an energy shield for the ship.”

Most of the people around the table chuckled.

“It’s astounding, it is,” Thornberry enthused. “I got a university education in physics, I did—inside of a few hours.”

“And what else did they pump into your brain?” Meek asked, his long face scowling.

Thornberry shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Nothing, far as I can tell.”

“As far as you can tell.”

Jordan started to reply to the astrobiologist, but hesitated, looking to his brother. Bran’s in charge, let him handle this.

But Brandon turned to Elyse and said, “Tell them about the gamma burst.”

Looking straight at Meek, Elyse said in a measured tone, “All the evidence I have seen convinces me that the danger is real. The core of the galaxy gave off an enormous burst of gamma energy some twenty-eight thousand years ago. The death wave will reach Earth’s vicinity in two thousand years.”

“And wipe out all life in its path,” Brandon added.

Good for you, Bran! Jordan exulted silently.

Meek looked unconvinced. “How do we know that the ‘evidence’ they showed isn’t faked?”

“Why would they do that?” Jordan blurted.

“To get us to go along with them,” Longyear replied.

“For what purpose?”

“How should we know?” Meek answered. “They’re up to something, and they’re certainly not going to tell us what it is until it suits them.”

Brandon planted his fists on his hips and asked Meek, “What do you think we ought to do?”

“Leave here immediately and go back home.”

“And the gamma burst?”

“It’s a trick. I’m sure it’s a trick.”

“And if it’s not?” Jordan asked.

Meek blinked at him several times, said nothing.

“If it’s not a trick,” Brandon said, his voice iron hard, “then we’re consigning the human race to extinction.”

Waving a long-fingered hand in the air, Meek said, “We have two thousand years to deal with that possibility.”

“And other intelligent races, they’ll be wiped out also,” Brandon went on.

“I don’t believe it!” Meek fairly shouted. “I can’t believe it!”

Jordan asked his brother, “May I have the floor?”

With a surprised grin, Brandon spread his arms and said grandly, “The floor is yours.”

Getting to his feet as Brandon sat down, Jordan began, “Harmon, Paul … we hold the fate of the human race in our hands. The twelve of us. What we decide can mean life or death for the entire human race. There’s no one we can turn to, no higher-ups that we can buck the problem to. There’s only we twelve. It’s up to us. Entirely up to us.”

Meek shook his head stubbornly. Longyear stared at Jordan, his face a frozen mask.

Jordan went on, “What this boils down to is a matter of faith. Some of us believe what the aliens have told us, some of us don’t. Those who believe point to palpable evidence, those who don’t worry that the evidence may have been faked.”

“My education isn’t a fake,” Thornberry muttered.

“But it could be a tactic,” Meek immediately countered. “They boost your brain to convince us that the rest of what they’re telling us is true.”

“That’s a possibility,” Jordan admitted. “How do we decide whether it’s true or not?”

Silence fell across the table. Longyear opened his mouth, then thought better of it and said nothing.

“This is a fundamental problem of science, isn’t it?” Jordan asked. “How do we know that what our human senses are telling us is real, or if we’re fooling ourselves?”

“You test the information,” Brandon answered. “All knowledge is testable. What you can’t test is nothing more than belief, opinion.”

“How do we test the information that Adri’s astronomers have given Elyse?”

“I’ve gone over it as carefully as I can,” Elyse said, looking up at Jordan. “I’m convinced it’s real.”

“But you’re not one hundred percent certain, are you?” Meek challenged.

Before Jordan could say anything, Brandon replied, “Harmon, nothing is one hundred percent certain. Newton gave us a scientific worldview that held up for damned near three hundred years. Then Einstein came along and showed there was more to it. And string theory eventually enlarged on Einstein’s work. Nothing is one hundred percent certain. Not forever.”

Meek started to reply, but Brandon overrode him. “In your own field, Harmon, in astrobiology it’s happened. The field exploded in the late twentieth century with the discovery of extremophiles, didn’t it? When Tommy Gold proposed a deep, hot biosphere of bacteria living miles underground, the biologists laughed at him, didn’t they?”

“But evidence proved he was right,” Meek admitted. “Eventually.”

“Nothing is one hundred percent certain,” Brandon repeated. “It can’t be. You never have the ultimate truth. There’s always more to be learned.”

“So what do we do?” de Falla asked.

Without hesitation, Brandon said, “We act on the information we have. We message Earth all the information we’ve discovered here, and warn them about the gamma burst. We keep on working with Adri’s people and plan out how we can help Earth and the other worlds that are in danger.”

Thornberry piped up. “We can build energy shields that’ll protect Earth from the gamma burst, b’god.”

“Right,” said Brandon. “That’s what we’ve got to do. Who says no to that?”

No one stirred, not even Meek. No one lifted a hand in objection or raised a voice.

Jordan, still on his feet, looked down at Brandon. You took charge at last, he said silently. You’ve become a man, baby brother.

But then he looked across the table at Harmon Meek, who was sitting rigidly, his long face crumbling into a mask of despair.