New Earth

The Biolab

Jordan stood dumbfounded, staring at Aditi, thinking, She wasn’t born naturally. She was created, built out of cell samples, gestated in an artificial womb, a machine. She’s not natural, not real …

Yet she was sitting beside him on the stone bench, her beautiful face looking concerned, worried that his innate fears and prejudices would destroy their loving relationship.

Jordan squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. She is real, he told himself. She’s as real as I am. She’s warm and loving and—alien.

He opened his eyes and Aditi was still there, beside him, close enough to touch, close enough to catch the delicate floral scent she wore, close enough to see that her eyes were troubled.

“Have I shocked you?” she asked, her voice low.

He had to pull in a breath before he could answer, “It’s … a surprise. I never thought…”

“Would you like to see the facility where we were created?”

“I’m not so sure,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

Aditi got to her feet and reached a hand out to Jordan. He rose, took her hand, and numbly followed her as together they walked into the city.

People were strolling along the streets, together with the pony-sized animals they used as beasts of burden. Smaller pets scampered among them, unhampered by leashes. Many of the people smiled and said hello.

He asked her, “All of these people were…?”

“Created in the biolab, yes,” Aditi answered easily. “So were the ponies and all the other animals you have seen here in the city.”

“And the animals in the forest?”

She shook her head. “They procreate among themselves, of course.”

“Of course,” he said weakly.

As she walked purposefully along the street, Aditi said, “Jordan, it’s merely another way for a species to reproduce. We use our technology. We can control every aspect of gestation. It allows us to produce babies that are healthy, intelligent, and empathetic.”

He said nothing, but his mind pictured hordes of identical clones being mass-produced like automobiles or robots. He knew it was nonsense, that Aditi was not a mindless zombie, that every one of Adri’s people was as individual as humans. Yet the picture remained in his mind. Things that looked like human beings being stamped out in a factory assembly line.

Aditi sensed his inner turmoil. “Jordan, dearest, the end product of our way is the same as the end product of your way: a baby. A squalling, gurgling, dribbling baby. Just the same as your babies. Just as human.”

They were at the entrance to a smallish building. Its door opened at Aditi’s touch and they went into the biolab.

Jordan followed Aditi through rows of equipment, all silent and still. She pointed out the microscopes and specimen containers, the glassware for cell cultures, the reactors where egg and sperm cells were united.

Like our biovats for meat, Jordan thought. Smaller, though. Much smaller.

“And here are the gestation chambers,” Aditi said, gesturing to a line of small spheres that looked to Jordan like gourds made of plastic with half a dozen flexible pipes connected to them.

“They enlarge as the fetus grows, of course,” Aditi said.

“I see,” he murmured. Then he realized, “None of the equipment seems to be functioning.”

“Not now. We don’t need any more people for the time being. When the need arises, we can gestate newborns.”

“And where do the eggs and sperm come from?” he asked.

“From us,” she replied. “We donate ova and sperm cells when they are needed.”

Rather cold-blooded, Jordan thought. But he said nothing.

Going down the line of artificial wombs, Aditi stopped at one. “This is where I was gestated,” she said. “Number six.”

The writing on the bench’s top was indecipherable to Jordan, but he looked from it to her face, smiling hopefully.

“It did a good job,” he said, smiling back at her.

Aditi broke into tears. Leaning her head against his chest, she sobbed, “You don’t think I’m a monster?”

“I know you’re not.”

“You can accept me, knowing how I was created? How different I am?”

Folding his arms about her, Jordan said, “I love you, Aditi. I don’t care how you were created; that doesn’t matter.”

He wasn’t being entirely truthful. Jordan felt a slight shiver of apprehension as he looked past her tousled head to the row of artificial wombs standing silently on the bench, waiting to be used again to create new aliens.

Return to Camp

“I’ve got to go back to the camp, tell the others about this,” Jordan said, as they walked back toward the entrance of the biolab.

“I understand,” Aditi said.

The door opened again at her touch and they stepped out into the sunshine and bustle of the late-afternoon street. The slanting rays of sunlight felt warm, soothing, on Jordan’s shoulders. Squinting against the brightness, he felt a cooling breeze that rustled the trees planted along the sidewalk.

“Will you come back tonight?” she asked.

As they walked along the street, back toward the city’s perimeter, Jordan shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. This will be a lot for Meek and the others to digest. I’ll have to stay with them, I’m afraid.”

“I understand,” she repeated. Reluctantly, Jordan thought.

“Will you come with me?” he asked. “Spend the night in my cubicle?”

Without hesitation, Aditi replied, “I’d like to, Jordan, but I don’t think it would be best. I don’t want them staring at me as if I’m a freak.”

“I understand,” he said. “I should have known.”

They walked to the city’s edge in silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts. Jordan knew that Aditi was right. Let Meek and Longyear and the others absorb this new information. It’ll stun them, I’m sure. I don’t want Aditi to be there when they find out about it. I don’t want them staring at her, whispering about her. Let her stay here in the city, where she’ll be safe.

Safe? He wondered why he thought about it that way. Surely she’d be safe in our camp. No one’s going to harm her. Not Longyear and certainly not Meek. They’re frightened of her, but they wouldn’t harm her. Yet he had instinctively felt concern for her safety.

And he realized that what men are frightened of, they often lash out against. It was a very human reaction.

By the time Jordan reached the camp, Sirius was setting, turning the sky into a blazing bold vermillion and painting the low-lying clouds deep violet. Higher above he saw the pinpoint of the Pup, bright as a laser, riding above the horizon-hugging cloud deck.

To his surprise, Brandon and de Falla had returned. They were at the rocketplane they had traveled in, out at the edge of the camp, while a pair of robots unloaded their gear. De Falla was watching the robot; Brandon stood nearby, all smiles, with Elyse clutching his arm happily. Jordan thought that she must have come in from the observatory once she learned that Bran was returning.

“Finished your survey so soon?” he asked de Falla, as one of the robots drove their tractor down the plane’s cargo bay ramp and out onto the grass.

“That sector, yes,” the geologist replied. “We’ve mapped it down to a centimeter scale and sampled its rocks and soil.”

“We ran out of clean clothes,” Brandon joked.

Jordan said, “Bran, I want you and all the others to gather at the dining area at seventeen hundred hours. I have some important new information to share with you. Tell the others, will you?”

Brandon nodded. “Okay, Jordy, I’ll spread the word.” He started off toward the cluster of bubble tents, Elyse at his side, leaving de Falla and the robots to finish unloading the rocketplane.

Jordan personally told Meek about the meeting, then went looking for Longyear and Thornberry.

Precisely at seventeen hundred hours Jordan stepped into the bubble tent that housed the camp’s kitchen and dining area. All eight of the others were there, sitting at the longest table in the place, heads together in buzzing conversations. On the wall-sized display screen at the end of the table, Hazzard, Trish Wanamaker, and Demetrios Zadar looked on from the wardroom of the orbiting Gaia.

Jordan went to the head of the table. The talk stopped and they looked at him expectantly.

“I’ve learned something about our aliens that’s both very interesting and … well, frankly, rather unsettling,” he began.

“They’re evangelists and they want to convert us to their religion,” Brandon wisecracked.

A few titters ran along the table. Meek shot Brandon an annoyed glare.

With a tolerant smile, Jordan said, “No, it’s not that bad.”

“Then what is it?” asked Yamaguchi.

Jordan hesitated a heartbeat, then plunged, “They aren’t born naturally. They aren’t conceived and carried in a woman’s womb. They’re gestated in apparatuses in a laboratory.”

Absolute silence for almost half a minute. Then Meek said, “I knew it! They’re not real. They’re constructs. Biological constructs.”

“They’re as real as you and I, Harmon,” Jordan countered. “They simply were created in a different way.”

Brandon asked, “Adri, too? All of them?”

“All of them.”

Yamaguchi said, “But they’re fully human. For all intents and purposes, they’re identical to us.”

“Down to their DNA,” Longyear added.

“They were constructed,” Meek insisted. “By whom? And for what purpose?”

“Yes,” said Elyse. “If they were constructed in a laboratory, who built the laboratory?”

“Earlier generations, I suppose,” Jordan answered.

“No, no, no,” said Meek. “This is all part of a plan. A consistent plan of deception. Those people, their city, this entire planet … they’re all part of a gigantic scheme.”

“A scheme to do what?” asked Hazzard, from the screen. “What’s the point behind all this? What are they after?”

“There’s no deception,” Jordan said firmly. “They’ve been completely honest with us.”

“You’ll pardon my saying so,” Meek retorted, “but it seems to me that you’ve been sleeping with the enemy.”

Jordan felt his innards turn to ice. He smiled coldly at the astrobiologist. “They’re not our enemy, Harmon. And I can tell you that, no matter how they’re created, they’re as human as you or I.”

Meek looked as if he were going to retort, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. Jordan looked to his brother for a word of support, some sign of understanding, but Brandon was silent, and he avoided Jordan’s eyes.

“Contrary to any conspiracy theory,” Jordan went on, trying to sound more certain than he felt, “Adri and his people have answered all our questions.”

Thornberry spoke up. “Without telling us much at all. I’ve never had such lovely runarounds as their engineers have been giving me.”

“Adri’s policy,” Jordan tried to explain, “is to answer our questions with absolute honesty, but not to go any further than our questions require.”

“Now what kind of mischief is that?” Meek complained.

“He feels that contact between two alien races is a very delicate matter. He wants to be open and aboveboard with us, but he won’t feed us more information than we’re ready to accept.”

“So how in blazes do those energy shields work?” Thornberry demanded.

Almost grinning at the roboticist, Jordan answered, “When you know enough to ask the right questions, they’ll give you the right answers.”

“Ahh, it’s all malarkey, that’s all.”

“No, it’s not, Mitch. You should be seeking out their physicists and learning the basics on which their technology is built.”

“I’d have to be a PhD physicist to understand ’em!” Thornberry bleated.

“Then you’ll have to learn physics from them,” said Jordan.

“Back to school, then. Is that it?”

“I think it is,” said Jordan. “For all of us. We have a lot to learn, and the first thing we must learn is how to ask the proper questions.”

Turning to Meek, he added, “That goes for you, too, Harmon. Instead of being afraid of these people, you should be trying to learn from them.”

Meek grumbled, “They won’t like the questions I ask.”

“But they’ll answer them,” Jordan replied.

Unanswered Questions

With obvious misgivings, Meek and Thornberry agreed to accompany Jordan back to the city the next morning. To Jordan’s mild surprise, Brandon and Elyse asked to go, too.

Jordan felt briefly uncomfortable, until Brandon said, “I’m the planetary astronomer, remember, Jordy? I’ve got a lot of questions to ask about this planet’s formation and composition.”

“And there’s a lot of astrophysics for me to learn,” Elyse added. “No human being has seen a white dwarf this close. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for me!”

Jordan agreed with a good-natured shrug, then looked down the table toward Longyear. “What about you, Paul? Do you want to come with us? There are still lots of biology questions to be answered.”

Before the biologist could reply, Meek said, “I’ll ask the biology questions. It would be best if Paul remains here in camp. I’ll stay in touch with him.”

Longyear tried to hide his frown of disappointment, without success.

“And you, Silvio?”

De Falla answered, “I’ve got plenty to do, sorting out all the samples we took and integrating our detail map into the general planetary map we put together from orbit.”

Yamaguchi said, “I’d certainly like to see their medical facilities.”

“Later,” said Jordan. “There’ll be time for that later.”

Tanya Verishkova sat in silence, her pale blue eyes on Thornberry. The roboticist felt her stare and said to her, “Tanya, my dear, you stay here and mind the robots. I’ll check in with you regularly.”

She nodded glumly.

Five of us go to the city, Jordan said to himself, and four remain here in camp. In time, we’ll all move into the city. But we have to build trust first.

He glanced at Meek, sitting next to Longyear. Funny fellow, Jordan thought. He’s suspicious of Adri, filled with fears of a conspiracy against us, yet he won’t let Paul go with us. He wants to tackle the biology questions himself. Is it curiosity that’s driving him, or the old academic cutthroat competition?

As the meeting broke up and Jordan started back toward the barracks tent, Brandon grabbed his arm.

“Jordy, we need to talk.”

Elyse was leaving the dining area with all the others. The two brothers were alone. Brandon looked utterly serious, almost solemn.

“What is it, Bran?”

Resting his rump on the corner of the nearest table, Brandon said, “Meek and the others are worried about your fitness to lead.”

“My fitness?”

Looking unhappy, Brandon said, “About your judgment. You know, with you sleeping with Aditi…” He left the rest of the thought unsaid.

Jordan felt his innards turn cold once again. “My sleeping with the enemy, as Harmon put it?”

“Well … yeah.”

“She’s not our enemy. None of them are.”

“How do you know, Jordy?”

“What harm have they done to us?”

“What are they planning to do?” Brandon countered.

“Go to the city and ask them. They’ll answer you truthfully.”

“But not with the whole truth.”

“They will, in time.”

Brandon shook his head. “Jordy, I think you should step down. Let Hazzard or one of the others be in charge.”

My own brother! Jordan thought. He’s against me!

“Jordy, if you don’t step down voluntarily, Meek’s going to call for a vote and you’ll be forced out.”

“And once Meek’s in charge he’ll pack us all up and head back to Earth with his tail between his legs,” Jordan said. “Is that what you want?”

“No, of course not. But…”

“But what?”

“Don’t let them humiliate you, Jordy. Step down voluntarily.”

Jordan held his temper, barely. With deliberate calm he replied, “Very well, Bran. I’ll step down. On one condition.”

“One condition?”

“That you take my place as leader of this Neolithic band.”

Brandon’s jaw dropped open.

A New Regime

Jordan marched off to his own cubicle, steaming inside. Brandon’s gone over to Meek’s side, he growled to himself. My own brother has helped Meek and the others kick me aside.

He was too angry, too hurt, to even think of having dinner. Not in the dining area. Not with all those others. Instead, he stripped off his clothes and flung himself on the bunk. Briefly he thought of returning to the city to be with Aditi, but he realized that would only confirm the asinine fears of Meek and his ilk.

As he lay on his cot, staring up at the shadowed dome of the tent, he wondered if he should let it come to a vote. Instead of obediently stepping down, why not have it out in the open? Who’s for me and who’s against?

Then he realized that such a move would be foolish. Divisive. It would tear their little team into two antagonistic groups. Unless they all vote against me, he thought. The idea almost made him laugh. Yes, it could be a unanimous vote against me. Even Brandon.

Well, he told himself, at least I’ll be free to be with Aditi and Adri and leave the rest of these noble explorers to their own devices.

But that’s just what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it? he asked himself. You’ve been staying with Aditi and living in the city and ignoring the people you were supposed to be leading. No wonder they want you out! It was inevitable.

Strangely, he smiled to himself. I can’t blame them, he thought. They’re actually doing the right thing.

His last thought before falling asleep was, And now I can be with Aditi full time.

Jordan woke early and went to the communal lavatory to shower and shave. Thornberry was already there, standing by one of the sinks, washing his hands. He looked sheepish.

“Jordan,” he began, “I’m sorry about last night.”

“What did you decide?”

The roboticist’s guilty expression morphed into a puzzled little frown. “Your brother took over, by god. He told us you would step down and he would step up. Just like that.” Thornberry snapped his fingers.

“And Meek accepted that?”

“He did. He didn’t like it much, but he accepted it when the rest of us started congratulating Brandon.”

With an almost pleased smile, Jordan said, “Harmon expected to be elected the new leader.”

“That he did,” said Thornberry. “But your brother saved us from that, thank the saints.”

“Good.”

Almost reluctantly, Thornberry asked, “Are you still planning to go with us to the city this morning?”

“Why not?” Jordan asked. “What else do I have to do?”

After breakfast the five of them clambered aboard one of the buggies and headed for the city. Brandon drove, with Elyse sitting beside him. Meek and Thornberry sat together and Jordan contented himself with the last row. They rode in an awkward silence through the cool, bright morning.

Jordan sat back and admired the stately trees of the forest, for a while.

Then Meek turned toward him and asked, “Do you plan to stay in the city?”

“For the time being,” Jordan replied easily. “I have a lot of questions to ask Adri and the others.”

With obvious discomfort, Meek said, “What we did last night isn’t a reflection on how we feel personally about you, Jordan. I hope you understand that. It’s not a personal reflection at all.”

“Of course, Harmon,” Jordan said cordially. “I understand completely.”

Meek looked puzzled as he turned back and stared straight ahead for the rest of the ride.

Adri stood waiting for them at the city’s edge, looking like a modernist statue, tall and willowy slim, in his ankle-length blue-gray robe. Jordan wondered what Meek would do if he knew that Adri could track their movements. Run back to the ship and flee back to Earth, most likely. Brandon’s going to have his hands full controlling him.

Aditi was not there. Jordan felt disheartened. Have I hurt her? Disappointed her with my reaction to her revelation about the biolab?

Brandon pulled the buggy over to a stop and they all piled out.

“Greetings, friends,” said Adri, his spiderwebbed face creasing into a warm smile. “Welcome.”

“And the top o’ the day to you, sir,” said Thornberry, smiling genially. “We’ve come to attend school with your people.”

“School?”

Meek, almost as tall and lean as Adri, said, “We’re here to learn, sir. We’ve come to find the answers to many, many questions.”

“Good!” said Adri. “We are here to answer your questions, whatever they may be.”

Jordan let out a sigh of relief. We begin well, he thought.

“Won’t you get into our vehicle, Adri?” he said. “You can ride into the city with us.”

“With pleasure,” said Adri. Brandon slid behind the wheel again and the others resumed their seats. Jordan extended a hand to Adri, who looked bemused as he climbed into the buggy’s last row.

“Aditi asked you to forgive her for not coming out to greet you. She’s busy arranging for our best scientific and technical experts to meet with you.”

“That’s good,” said Jordan, as his pulse thumped happily. Then he realized that Adri already knew why they had come to the city, and was making preparations before they had told him of their intentions. None of the others seemed to notice this, not even Meek.

They drove to the administrative center, where Aditi was waiting at the foot of the stairs with a handful of young men and women. Several of them wore robes of various colors, although most of them were dressed as Aditi was, in comfortable shorts and blouses. Within minutes, Meek, Thornberry, Brandon, and Elyse were all engaged in deep conversations with their tutors—that’s how Jordan thought of them. Soon enough, they each strolled off to separate parts of the city, humans and aliens, talking animatedly. Even Meek looked pleased with the two biologists Aditi had gotten for him: a young man and a slightly older-looking woman.

Adri excused himself and headed up the stairs by himself. Jordan stood at the base of the stairs, alone with Aditi.

There were too many people strolling along the plaza for him to take her in his arms as he wanted to. Instead he asked an innocuous, “How are you?”

“Better,” she said, with a pert smile, “now that you’re here.”

He smiled back at her. “Did you sleep well?”

“Undisturbed.”

Jordan felt his cheeks redden. “I … uh … I’ve been relieved of my duties as leader of our group.”

Aditi looked stricken. “Because of me?”

He shook his head. “Not really. It was my own fault.”

“It was because of me,” she said. Jordan realized that it was true, at least in part. And he didn’t give a damn.

“We’ll both sleep better tonight,” he said.

Aditi laughed, like the ringing of a little silver bell. “Perhaps. Or perhaps we won’t sleep at all.”

DINNER

Jordan and Aditi had dinner that evening with Brandon and Elyse. Thornberry and Meek were each eating with their respective tutors. Adri begged off when Jordan asked him to join them.

“I have much to do,” he said. “Besides, I eat very little, and it’s difficult to maintain my diet when I dine with you hearty youngsters.”

Jordan felt mildly surprised to be considered a youngster, but then he remembered that Adri was nearly four centuries old.

Over dinner, Brandon was strangely silent. His new responsibilities are weighing on him, Jordan thought. Handling Meek and his cohorts isn’t going to be easy. Then he said to himself, Good! It’s about time Brandon grew up.

Elyse bubbled with enthusiasm over her chance to study the Pup. “To observe a white dwarf star close up,” she said. “To watch its flares, measure the fusion reactions still simmering along its photosphere. I’ll be the most envied astrophysicist in the world!”

Brandon teased, “Until the next batch arrives here.”

Jordan asked, “How’s the planetary astronomer faring, Bran?”

“Plenty to do, plenty to find out. De Falla and I are working up a geological history of this planet. It’s a lot younger than Earth, if what we’ve sampled so far is typical of the whole planet.”

They chatted as they ate, until abruptly Brandon said to Aditi, “Jordy told us about your way of reproduction.”

Jordan felt a flash of anger.

Aditi began, “I know it must seem strange to you, but we—”

“Not strange,” said Jordan. “Different.”

Brandon said, “There’s something to be said about not having to get pregnant, I suppose.”

“Or not worrying about becoming pregnant,” Jordan heard himself say.

“I don’t know,” Elyse murmured, looking straight at Aditi. “For many women, pregnancy is a very special thing.”

“All I’ve ever heard is complaints,” Brandon said. “Backaches and morning sickness and all that.”

“How many women have you gotten pregnant?” Aditi asked.

Brandon’s eyes went wide. “Me?” he squeaked. “None!”

Smiling at his brother, Jordan corrected, “None that you know of, Bran.”

“None,” said Brandon, firmly. “Zero.”

“So far,” said Elyse.

They all burst into hearty laughter, except Brandon.

Reddening slightly, Brandon tried to change the subject. “You know, Aditi, your method of reproducing yourselves reminds me of an old, old joke.”

Oh no, Jordan thought. He’s not going to try to make a joke out of this.

“The only jokes you know are old ones,” Elyse teased.

Ignoring her, Brandon explained, “Back in the early days of space flight, astronauts from Earth landed on this planet that was populated by a race of intelligent robots.”

Elyse rolled her eyes toward the ceiling as she took a forkful of the cakelike dessert before her. Aditi’s attention was riveted on Brandon.

“The robots understand that their visitors are from another planet,” he went on, “and they show the astronauts all through their city.”

“Just as we’re doing for you,” Aditi said.

“Well, yeah, that’s right. But at the end of the day the robots throw a big dinner party for the astronauts. A thousand robots fill the hall.”

“They knew how to make human food?” Jordan asked. “Or did they feed the astronauts machine oil?”

Brandon frowned at his brother. “So, during the dinner, one of the robots gets up and says, ‘We’ve shown you the factory where we make more robots. How do you make more humans?’”

“Oh-oh,” said Elyse.

Brandon plowed on. “Well, the astronauts are embarrassed. They’re rocket jockeys, not scientists. So they try to explain, stammering a lot, how humans make more humans.”

“And?”

“And all the robots bust into uproarious laughter! The astronauts are stunned. They didn’t expect laughter.”

Brandon waited for a suspenseful moment, then went on, “One of the robots apologizes to the astronauts. ‘I’m sorry. We shouldn’t be laughing. But you see, what you just described—that’s the way we make automobiles.’”

The table fell silent. All eyes turned to Aditi. Brandon’s expression morphed from expectant to troubled. Jordan seethed. Of all the insensitive oafs …

And then Aditi broke into laughter. Delighted, tinkling laughter, like wind chimes at a mountaintop monastery Jordan had once visited.

“You make automobiles in factories,” Aditi giggled, “the way the robots make robots.”

“It’s an old joke,” Brandon said weakly.

“But it’s still funny,” said Elyse. “A little.”

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” Brandon said to Aditi.

“No, no,” she replied. “I’m not offended.”

Jordan thought that if she was hurt by Brandon’s joke, she was being very gracious about it. More gracious than I’d be.

Hollow Progress

The days rolled by. Brandon shuttled back and forth from the city to the base camp. Elyse spent most of her time at the astronomical observatory. Thornberry and Meek seemed quite contented with what they were learning. Delighted, even.

“The way they can manipulate force fields,” Thornberry enthused one morning, as Jordan visited the laboratory where he spent most of his time, “it’s incredible, it is. Simply incredible.”

Half a dozen young physicists and engineers were in the lab, looking happy that the human roboticist was so impressed with their work.

Pointing to the disassembled components of an energy shield generator scattered across a lab table, Thornberry said, “They tap into dark energy as easily as you or I plug in an electrical appliance, they do.”

“What you call dark energy,” said one of the young men, “is merely another fundamental force, like the strong nuclear force.”

Thornberry nodded impatiently. “Yes, so it is. But the energy shield you create with it absorbs not only charged particles, but neutral electromagnetic energy, as well. Hit it with a burst of gamma rays powerful enough to fry a rhinoceros and it merely soaks ’em up. It actually uses the incoming radiation to power itself!”

“It’s pretty fundamental,” said the physicist.

“To you it’s fundamental,” Thornberry said. “To me, it’s a bit of black magic.”

Jordan felt impressed, although he didn’t fully understand the principles Thornberry was talking about.

Even Meek seemed pleased with what he was learning. His suspicions were melting away—slowly—in the light of newfound knowledge.

“The things they can do with biology,” he said over lunch one afternoon. “Not only do they manipulate DNA to produce new species, they can control genetic expression and suppress aging!”

Longyear, de Falla, Yamaguchi, and Verishkova visited the city in turn, each of them brimming with enthusiasm about what they were learning. Hazzard and the others aboard Gaia came down from time to time and got swept up in the new knowledge Adri’s people were sharing so freely.

Jordan was pleased, very pleased. Especially since he and Aditi were living together now. He spent his days checking with the others, strictly informally, and talking with Adri about how well everyone was getting along. He spent his nights with Aditi.

“It’s uncanny,” Longyear told Jordan one afternoon. “Parallel evolution was just a far-out concept that nobody really expected to be real, but here’s a whole planet full of parallel species.”

The biologist’s earlier suspicions seemed to be washed away by the new discoveries he was making.

Only de Falla remained puzzled. “Either my basic geology program is screwed up, or this planet doesn’t make sense.”

He was having dinner with Jordan, Brandon, Elyse, and Aditi, in the city’s main dining hall. The spacious, high-ceilinged room was filled with whistling conversations and clattering dinnerware. Jordan heard laughter drifting from several tables. He saw Thornberry and Verishkova sitting at a long table with a dozen alien scientists. And Meek sitting amiably with Adri and a pair of other aliens. Meek! Jordan shook his head in wonder.

“What’s wrong with your program?” Brandon asked the geologist.

De Falla’s round, beard-trimmed face looked troubled. “It’s giving me ridiculous results.”

Brandon prompted, “Such as?”

“Well, you know that Adri’s people have been feeding me all the geological data I’ve asked for. And Hazzard’s been dropping seismological probes all across the planet.”

Jordan nodded.

“When I feed the data to the computer for a geological profile I get impossible results,” de Falla complained.

“What do you mean?” Elyse asked.

Looking almost embarrassed, de Falla said, “The model of the planet’s interior that the program draws up shows that this planet is hollow.”

Jordan blurted, “Hollow?”

De Falla nodded morosely. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“How could a planet be hollow?” Jordan asked.

Brandon laughed. “Maybe your computer was programmed by one of the Hollow Earth kooks back home.”

“It’s not funny,” said de Falla. “I’ve gone over the damned program six ways from Sunday and I can’t find the glitch in it.”

“The planet can’t be hollow,” Jordan said. But he turned to his brother and added, “Could it?”

“No way,” said Brandon, wagging his head. “If it were hollow it wouldn’t have the mass to produce the gravity we experience.”

“But the computer keeps saying it’s hollow,” de Falla insisted.

“Your program’s got to be wrong,” said Brandon. “Why don’t you get Thornberry to take a look at it?”

“I already have. He and Tanya went over everything. They couldn’t find the glitch either.”

Brandon made a sour face. “Well, something’s screwed up someplace. Hollow planets don’t exist.”

“Trouble is,” de Falla went on, “the computer’s model is so damned specific. It shows a shell a couple of hundred kilometers thick, and inside it—nothing. It’s hollow.”

“Can’t be,” said Brandon.

“I know,” de Falla agreed. “But there it is.”

Jordan said, “What can you do about it?”

De Falla broke into a sheepish grin. “What would any geologist do in a situation like this? Dig.”

“Dig?”

“Get more evidence. Dig some deep cores and sample what they bring up.”

“That sounds difficult,” said Jordan.

With a shrug, de Falla replied, “It beats staring at a computer screen and wondering why the program’s gone crazy.”

“How many cores?” Jordan asked. “Where?”

“I’ve mapped out six locations, spread around the planet. I can show you, in my lab.”

Brandon said, “Let’s adjourn to your lab, then.”

Field Trip

The five of them stood before the display screen that covered one entire wall of the room de Falla was using as his geology laboratory. It was a fair-sized room, with a floor-to-ceiling window that opened onto one of the city’s gracious, tree-lined plazas. Although it was well past sunset, the scene outside was clearly lit by the glow of the Pup, riding high above the silvery clouds.

Shelves filled with rocks, pebbles, containers of dirt lined the two other walls. The room had two long worktables covered with a spectrograph, microscopes, and other equipment, plus a sizeable desk that bore a humming computer. The ceiling lights were off, the lab was lit only by the wall screen, which showed a map of the planet, slowly rotating, garishly daubed in false colors and marked with a scattering of bright blue dots.

“The colors indicate different types of terrain,” de Falla was explaining, “and the dots show where we’ve taken soil and rock samples.”

“We?” Jordan asked.

“Robots, mostly. I’ve done a few quick field trips, but most of the work’s being done by robots.”

Jordan pulled up one of the stools lining the nearer worktable and rested his rear on it.

Brandon said, “So now you want to dig deep cores?”

De Falla nodded. “Six of them.” To the computer he commanded, “Display deep core sites.”

Three bright red dots began to flash on the sphere. Another one appeared over its northern rim as the image slowly rotated.

“I intend to drill these cores myself,” de Falla said. “The robots can do the heavy work, but I’ll have to be on-site to direct them.”

Brandon said, “Suppose I help you? We could cut down the time it’d take.”

After a moment’s hesitation, de Falla agreed with an easy smile. “Sure. I could use all the help I can get.”

Turning to Jordan, Brandon asked, “You want to come along, Jordy? See how science really gets done?”

He glanced at Aditi, then said, “All right. Providing it doesn’t take too long.”

“A few days,” said de Falla. “Maybe a week.”

“You can be away that long,” Brandon coaxed. Looking straight at Aditi, he added, “You’ve got nothing else to do.”

Jordan seethed inwardly, but said nothing.

Elyse spoke up. “I can’t leave my work at the observatory. The Pup is entering an active cycle, from what the astronomers tell me.”

Grinning at her, Brandon said, “You wouldn’t like it out in the field, anyway. Jordy and I will have to rough it. Tents. Latrines. That sort of thing.”

“I’ll stay here in the city, thank you,” Elyse said.

Aditi said, “We could provide you with energy shields. You wouldn’t need tents.”

Jordan could see that Aditi wasn’t happy about being separated from him for a week.

Later, as they prepared for bed, he asked her, “You don’t want to come out with us, do you?”

She countered, “You don’t want me to come with you, do you?”

Stretching out on the bed, Jordan answered, “It might be a bit awkward, your being with me while Elyse stays here in the city.”

She slipped into bed beside him. “You go with your brother, Jordan. I’ll miss you, though.”

“I’ll miss you, too, darling.”

“But not tonight. Tonight we’re together.”

“Together,” he murmured, reaching for her. But in the back of his mind he realized that one day he would have to return to Earth. Will Aditi go with me? he wondered.

“I’ve got to learn how to fly one of these birds,” Brandon muttered as they soared high above a mountain range in one of the rocketplanes.

“Hazzard seems to do the job quite well,” said Jordan, sitting in the right-hand seat beside his brother. Hazzard’s image filled the main screen on the control panel. He appeared to be quite happy controlling the plane from the bridge of Gaia.

Brandon shook his head. “It still kind of bothers me, letting Geoff pilot us remotely. No reflection on you, Geoff,” he said to the screen.

“Any time you want to fly one of the birds yourself, just let me know,” Hazzard said, with a malevolent grin. “Just tell me where you want the bodies sent.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Brandon.

Jordan watched the jagged peaks go past. There were patches of snow huddled in hollows that were sheltered from sunlight; otherwise the rocks were bare. Jordan thought he saw what looked like a herd of mountain goats peacefully negotiating the steep slopes.

Suddenly Brandon sat up straighter and pointed. “There’s the sea!”

Jordan saw a broad expanse of water glittering beneath the afternoon sun. A rim of white beach ran along its edge, and the swells appeared to run up smoothly onto the sand without breaking. A gentle, peaceful sea, Jordan thought. No surfing, but the sparkling water looked warm, inviting.

De Falla had chosen this spot for drilling because his geology profile indicated the planet’s crust was thinner here.

“If the damned planet really is hollow,” he had told Brandon and Jordan, “then you might be able to break through the crust and prove it.”

Brandon had laughed at the geologist. “It’s not hollow, Silvio. You know that and I know that.”

De Falla had nodded grudgingly. “But nobody’s told the damned computer program.”

Jordan couldn’t help picturing in his mind what would happen if the planet really was hollow and they punctured its thin shell. He saw a balloon collapsing, whizzing every which way as the air inside it escaped.

Not very likely, he told himself. Still, he couldn’t shake the image.

With Hazzard piloting remotely, the plane made a long, swooping turn out over the water, then glided in for a smooth landing on the hard-packed beach sand. Even before the engines had completely shut down, Brandon unbuckled his seat harness and headed for the hatch.

“Looks like a tropical paradise out there,” he said over his shoulder. “We should have brought the women.”

Fine time to think of that, Jordan grumbled silently as he got up from his seat.

He followed Brandon to the hatch. His brother swung it open and Jordan heard the murmur of surf. Looking past Brandon’s shoulder, he saw that the waves lapping up on the beach were only a few centimeters high. Babies could play here, he thought. Then he remembered that Aditi’s people had no babies, not at present.

The beach was as lovely as a video scene, with graceful palmlike trees fringing it, swaying gently in the warm breeze blowing in off the sea. Sirius was high in the brazen sky, bright and hot. Jordan welcomed its warmth on his shoulders, although he had to put on a pair of dark glasses to cut down the glare.

Turning, he saw a pair of humanform robots already at work, unloading equipment from the plane’s cargo hatch. The crates looked big, heavy.

“What’s that?” he asked as they walked toward the hardworking robots.

Brandon peered at the nearest crate. “Laser drilling equipment. For de Falla’s deep core.”

“How far down will it drill?”

“Tens of kilometers, unless there’s a hitch.”

“You mean, unless the beam strikes especially hard rock?”

Brandon shook his head vigorously. “No, Jordy. The beam’s powerful enough to vaporize any kind of rock. The only problems we might encounter will be equipment breakdowns. Once we’ve got the laser running, it’ll cut through anything like butter.”

Jordan felt impressed.

With a wicked grin, Brandon punned, “Now we’re going to get down to the core of the matter.”

“Can we go deep enough to disprove that the planet’s hollow?”

“Yes indeed, Jordy.” Brandon couldn’t suppress another pun. “We’re going to knock the stuffing out of the hollow planet idea.”

It’s going to be a long week, Jordan told himself.

Sooner or Later

It took two days to wipe the confident grin off Brandon’s face.

The afternoon that they landed was spent in setting up the laser drill. Brandon picked a spot away from the beach, up amidst the trees and ground foliage. With Jordan’s help, he set up a pair of seismometers and a miniature radio transmitter that allowed the GPS satellites in orbit overhead to fix their position with nanometer precision.

While they were doing that, the robots erected their tent. Brandon had politely refused Aditi’s offer of an energy shield.

“We won’t need it,” he said.

Jordan thought it might have been interesting to sleep out in the open, without a tent hemming in their view, but he went along with his brother’s decision. Bran’s been on field trips a lot more than I have, he told himself.

Once the tent was up and filled with their two cots and footlockers, Brandon led one of the robots, carrying a power shovel, to dig a latrine back in the brush and trees that fringed the beach. Adri and the city’s biologists had assured them that there would be no environmental problem from the latrines. Same DNA, Jordan thought. We won’t contaminate anything here.

They slept on side-by-side cots in the tent, but Jordan awoke in the middle of the night. Restless, he got up quietly from his cot and tiptoed out into the night. It was cool in nothing but his T-shirt and briefs; the breeze coming in off the sea chilled him.

Yet the sea itself was magnificently beautiful and he regretted not bringing Aditi with him to share it. No moon, but the Pup, low on the horizon, sent a stream of glittering silver across the softly murmuring sea. Stars twinkled in the sky. Jordan tried to make sense out of their configurations, but he couldn’t recognize any of the constellations he knew from Earth.

Except—he peered into the dark sky and, yes, there was Orion, leaning lopsidedly above the sea horizon. Good old Orion! Jordan’s heart leaped at the familiarity of it. Rigel, Betelgeuse, the Belt, and the Sword. Eight point six light-years from home, and there was Orion, friendly and familiar.

On an impulse, he ducked back into the tent and rummaged in the dark until he found his pocketphone. Then he went back outside and called Aditi. She was thickheaded with sleep at first, but as Jordan showed her the beach and the soft glow of the Pup she revived.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“I wish you were here,” said Jordan.

“Well, we can share the view, at least.”

He sat on the sand, his back against one of the gracefully bent trees, and held the phone so that Aditi could see the silvery waves running gently up the beach. They talked until he grew drowsy.

At last Aditi said, “You’d better get back to your bed, Jordan. You’re half asleep.”

“Good night, love,” he said.

“Good night, darling,” she replied.

“I wish you were here.”

“So do I.”

He went back to his cot and slept soundly until sunrise.

Drilling began with the morning. Brandon spent much of his time on the phone with de Falla, making certain that everything was just right, before turning on the laser. It rumbled to life, and a plume of smoke burst up from the ground.

“Won’t the smoke block the laser’s beam?” Jordan asked.

Standing with his fists on his hips like some old-time plantation overseer, Brandon replied, “De Falla says it won’t. The beam is intense enough to burn right through the smoke. It just recondenses as the gases rise above the laser’s output head. What you’re seeing won’t affect the laser at all.”

And it certainly appeared so. All day long, Jordan watched the control console that the robots had set up next to their tent. It was linked to the laser equipment by a tangle of snaking cables. The laser growled away and the graph on the console’s central screen showed a single bright green line heading straight down, deeper and deeper into the planet’s crust. By sunset it had passed the eight-kilometer mark and was still blazing away, without stopping.

“Should we leave it running overnight?” Jordan asked.

“Why not? The robots can tend to it. If there’s any problem they can wake us.”

Over their prepackaged dinners, Jordan said, “So this is what field work is all about. The robots do the work and you take the credit.”

Brandon frowned at his brother. “I gather the data. I make sense out of what the equipment is doing. I’m the brains of this operation.”

“And the robots supply the muscle.”

“Used to be grad students that provided the muscle. I put in my time as slave labor, believe me.”

“I suppose you did,” said Jordan.

They finished eating, did their ablutions, and got ready for sleep. Jordan could hear the laser growling away out in the darkness. It ruined the romantic aura of the place, he thought.

As he stretched out on his cot, hands cradling the back of his head, Brandon reminisced, “Grad students included women, of course. Field trips were a lot more interesting then.”

“Perhaps Thornberry could rig one of the robots for you,” Jordan suggested, grinning into the shadows.

“That’s a filthy idea, Jordy. I like it.”

“Ask Thornberry about it,” Jordan joked.

“You think Mitch is making out with Tanya?” Brandon asked.

“Yes,” Jordan answered without hesitation. “It’s Longyear and de Falla I wonder about. They’re both young and unattached.”

“Maybe Yamaguchi’s giving them something to dampen their sex drive.”

“Then there’s Yamaguchi herself. What about her sex drive?”

“She’s Japanese. Terrific self-discipline.”

“And Hazzard?”

“Trish.”

“That’s what I thought,” Jordan said. “What do you make of Zadar?”

Brandon didn’t answer for a moment. Then, “He’s Greek, of course…”

“Don’t be a lout!”

With a chuckle, Brandon said, “I don’t know. Demetrios is a pretty quiet guy.”

Jordan surprised himself by asking, “How serious are you about Elyse?”

“Pretty damned serious,” Brandon replied without hesitation. “She means a lot to me, and I think I mean a lot to her.”

“Good,” said Jordan. “It’s time you found someone.”

“Approval from my big brother! That’s a first.”

Surprised, almost hurt, Jordan said, “I want you to be happy, Bran.”

“Works both ways, Jordy. What about you and Aditi?”

Jordan sighed. “I didn’t think that, after Miriam, I could ever fall in love again. But I have.”

“It’s a little tricky, her not being really human.”

“She’s as human as you or I, Bran. As human as Elyse.”

Brandon didn’t reply for several moments. Then, “But when it comes time for us to leave, Jordy, what then?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t discussed it. Neither one of us wants to look that far ahead.”

“But you’ll have to, sooner or later.”

“Sooner or later,” Jordan agreed. “Sooner or later.”

Surprise

Jordan woke with sunlight glowing on the wall of the tent. Brandon’s cot was already empty, though rumpled, unmade. Jordan could see him sitting outside on the folding chair in front of the console that was monitoring the laser’s progress, wearing nothing but his skivvies. He dressed quickly, then went out to the latrine. He could hear the laser thrumming steadily.

God’s in his heaven, he thought, and the equipment’s working fine. All’s right with the world.

But then he heard Brandon call, “Jordy, take a look at this.”

Jordan walked to where Brandon was sitting and, peering over his brother’s shoulder, saw that the bright green line depicting the depth of the borehole had flattened out.

“That can’t be right,” he said to his brother. “Can it?”

Brandon hunched forward in the rickety folding chair, scowling and muttering as he tapped keys on the console’s control board.

“Damned thing hasn’t gone a centimeter deeper since just after midnight.”

“But the laser’s still running,” Jordan said.

“It is, but it’s not going anywhere.”

“How can that be?”

Shaking his head, Brandon muttered, “Damned if I know.”

“It’s hit something that it can’t vaporize,” Jordan mused. “Some particularly hard form of rock.”

“Jordy, that laser is powerful enough to vaporize any kind of rock. Construction crews used lasers like that to dig the Moho shaft in Siberia, for chrissakes.”

“Well, something has stopped it.”

Brandon bolted out of the flimsy chair, knocking it over, and hurried to the generator that powered the laser. He looked more than a little ridiculous, Jordan thought, in nothing but his briefs and T-shirt, standing between the two silent and unmoving robots.

“Power output’s at maximum,” he called to Jordan as he scanned the generator’s dials. “That beam’s powerful enough to melt the Rock of Gibraltar.”

“How long can the generator go on running?”

“Weeks. It’s nuclear.”

“And the laser is working?”

“Christ, Jordy, you can hear it running!”

Jordan realized how upset Brandon was; he only used language like that when he was distraught. There was no smoke blowing out of the borehole. The laser is running, but it’s not vaporizing any of the rock down there.

How deep has it gone? he wondered. A glance at the console’s screen showed him. The depth line flattened out at fourteen kilometers.

Brandon came back to the console, carefully picked up the chair, then leaned a thumb on a square red button on the control board. The laser abruptly turned off. The world went quiet. Then Jordan heard the sighing of the trees in the soft breeze, the murmur of the surf. A bird trilled, somewhere.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

“I’m going to get dressed,” Brandon said, “after I instruct the robots to pull up the laser head.”

“And then?”

With a grim shrug, Brandon replied, “Then we send a camera down the hole and see what the hell’s stopped the goddamned laser.”

They picked at their breakfasts while the robots methodically hauled the laser head back up to the surface.

Brandon said, “Well, it sure isn’t hollow.”

“Apparently not.”

“Might be some weird form of matter. Some super condensate.”

Jordan dipped his chin slightly. “Apparently this planet isn’t an exact duplicate of Earth.”

“Not below its crust, anyway.”

“It only looks like Earth on the surface.”

“Yeah.”

Jordan could see that Brandon was despondent, deeply disappointed that the laser had run into a problem he couldn’t understand.

“Well,” he said, as brightly as he could manage, “perhaps you’ve run into a new kind of planetary structure. You might become just as famous as that fellow who discovered continental drift.”

“Wegener,” Brandon answered dully.

“You ought to call de Falla and see if any of the other drills have run into the same problem,” Jordan suggested.

Cheering up a bit, Brandon said, “Good idea.”

Jordan walked toward the borehole, where the two robots were working the equipment that was slowly hauling the laser head up to the surface. Fourteen kilometers, he recalled. It’ll take several hours to get the laser up here and then a camera down again.

Brandon came over beside him. “De Falla says none of the other drills have gone as deep as we have yet.”

“The perils of the pioneer,” Jordan said, trying to lighten his brother’s mood. “Being first and all that.”

Brandon huffed. “Somebody once said that pioneering is just finding new ways to get yourself killed.”

“Oh, come on now, Bran. You’ve run into something new, something unprecedented, perhaps. You should be elated. It’s a chance to learn new things about planetary structures.”

His brother nodded bleakly. “Maybe.”

It was late afternoon by the time the robots got the camera down to the level where the laser had stopped. De Falla phoned to tell them that two of the other drilling rigs had stopped, as well.

“At what depth?” Brandon asked.

“Fourteen klicks,” answered the geologist. “Give or take a dozen meters.”

“Something’s down there,” Brandon said tightly. He was sitting at the console again. Its central screen showed a murky view from the still-descending camera. Jordan saw from the data bar alongside the screen that the camera had almost reached the depth where the laser had been stopped.

In the phone’s screen, de Falla looked more puzzled than dejected. “Something’s down there, all right,” he agreed. “But what?”

“I’ll call you back,” Brandon said. “We’re starting to get a camera view.” He clicked the phone shut and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

Jordan looked over his brother’s shoulder at the console’s main screen. The two robots stood behind him, silent and still. Yet Jordan couldn’t help feeling that they were peering over his shoulder, straining to see what was down there, just as he was.

The lights that accompanied the camera brightened to full intensity. Jordan blinked at what he saw. He heard Brandon grunt.

“It looks like metal,” Brandon muttered.

“Smooth,” said Jordan. “As if it were polished.”

“It is polished,” Brandon said. “And there isn’t even a scorch mark from where the laser beam hit it.”

“Polished metal?” Jordan wondered aloud.

“It’s artificial,” said Brandon, with absolute certainty.

Confirmation

They sent the camera’s view back to de Falla, at his digging site, and the geologist excitedly reported running into the same metallic barrier at the same depth.

Brandon looked sulky, almost angry. Jordan had seen that expression on his brother’s face many times before: when Brandon couldn’t get what he wanted, he pouted.

“A layer of polished metal at a depth of fourteen kilometers below the surface,” Jordan mused. “That’s…” He struggled to find a word.

“All across the planet,” Brandon said, almost growling.

“Only six points,” Jordan pointed out.

“Jordy, we could dig six hundred boreholes. Or six thousand, six million. We’ll find the same thing in every one, guaranteed.”

Jordan thought that nothing they had yet found on New Earth could be guaranteed.

“Come on,” Brandon said. “Let’s pack it all in and get back to the base camp. I want to talk to Adri about this.”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed. “He has some explaining to do.”

It was twilight when their rocketplane touched down at the base camp. De Falla was already there, waiting impatiently as they came down the metal ladder from the plane’s hatch.

“I left the robots to pack up,” the geologist said. “Hazzard’ll fly them all back here tomorrow.”

“Why the rush?” Brandon asked.

Leading them straight to the bubble tent that housed the geology lab, de Falla said, “I wanted to run the data about this metal layer through the profile program, see what comes up.”

Brandon nodded. “Makes sense.”

Meek, Thornberry, and Elyse joined them as they practically trotted toward the tent.

Brandon reached out his hand to Elyse as he asked her, “You came back from the city?”

“Once Adri told me you were returning from your field excursion, yes,” she said, smiling happily at him.

“What do you make of this latest finding?” Meek asked Jordan.

“Harmon, I’m merely an unemployed administrator. I don’t make scientific judgments. That’s your department.”

“It can’t be natural,” Brandon said.

De Falla, leading their little parade, said over his shoulder, “That’s my conclusion, too. A sheet of polished metal fourteen kilometers deep isn’t natural.”

Jordan expected Meek to be glowing with triumph. Instead, he looked worried, frightened. “How could there be a layer of polished metal fourteen kilometers below the surface?”

“We’ll have to ask Adri,” said Jordan.

“And if he doesn’t know?”

“He knows,” de Falla said, with grim certainty. “The question is, will he tell us?”

Jordan phoned Adri, who immediately agreed to come to the camp to answer their questions. Jordan wondered if Aditi would come with him, but hesitated to ask in front of all the others.

They ate dinner together while they waited for the alien, all nine of them, bouncing unanswerable questions around the table, making guesses, suppositions. Jordan listened to them in silence. Scientists, he thought; they can’t simply sit and admit they don’t know what’s going on. They have to try to find an answer. Or invent one.

A scrap of poetry came to his mind. Robert Frost, he remembered: We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

It was full night by the time Adri reached the camp, walking briskly in his usual befigured robe. Jordan’s pulse quickened when he saw that Aditi walked beside him, looking fresh and happy in a knee-length skirt of dark green and a short-sleeved white blouse.

The night was lit by the Pup, casting a silvery moon glow over the tall, silent trees and the round white domes of the camp.

“Good evening, my friends,” said Adri, his thin voice carrying through the shadows. “It’s good to see you all once more.”

As his brother had done with Elyse, Jordan held out a hand to Aditi. She came to him and clasped it warmly.

But Brandon said sharply, “We need some answers from you, Adri.”

“Of course. I will be glad to tell you anything I can.”

De Falla said, “Let’s go over to the geology lab. The computer should be finished with the profile by now.”

“By all means,” said Adri.

As they started toward the tent, Jordan whispered to Aditi, “I missed you.”

Her smile lit up the landscape. “I missed you, too.”

De Falla led the little procession through the camp’s bubble tents to the geology lab. Jordan noticed that Meek walked several paces behind Adri, with Longyear beside him. Both men wore tight-lipped expressions, taut with hostility. Brandon walked alongside Elyse, of course, chatting happily with her, nearly oblivious of the others.

Once in the geology tent, de Falla called up his computer’s profile of the planet’s structure while Adri sat on one of the stools lining the worktable. The others clustered around the table, looking expectantly at the computer’s big flat display screen.

“As you know,” de Falla said, his round, beard-fringed face utterly serious, “we’ve been digging boreholes at several locations.”

“To determine the structure of this planet, I presume,” Adri said.

De Falla went on, “And we’ve hit an anomaly.”

A wisp of a smile appeared on Adri’s age-creased face. “An anomaly?”

The display screen lit up, showing a graph that depicted a cross section of the planet’s structure. The metal layer appeared in blazing red at the fourteen-kilometer depth. Below it was nothing but a dull gray, indicating that the deeper structure of the planet was unknown.

De Falla began, “There seems to be a layer of polished metal—”

“At a depth of fourteen kilometers,” Adri interrupted. “Yes, that is correct.”

“It can’t be natural.”

“It’s not.”

Jordan felt his breath catch in his throat. Meek looked like a prosecutor who’s just heard his suspect confess. Longyear looked angry, almost, de Falla stunned, despite his previous attitude. Even Thornberry’s usual quizzical smile was gone, replaced by a suspicious scowl.

Brandon snapped, “You know about this?”

“Yes, of course,” said Adri.

They clustered around him, as taut and stressed as a lynch mob. All they need is a rope, Jordan thought.

Brandon asked, “There’s a shell of metal fourteen klicks deep?”

“Yes.”

“All around the planet?”

“Yes,” said Adri, as if it was the most natural thing in the universe. “Of course. It’s the structural base for New Earth’s crust and biosphere.”

Meek found his voice. “Look here, are you telling us that the upper layers of this planet have been … landscaped? You’ve deliberately shaped this upper section of the planet, this entire biosphere?”

In a placatingly calm voice, Adri replied, “New Earth has been constructed to resemble your world as closely as possible.”

“Constructed?” Longyear squeaked.

Adri’s smile turned slightly rueful. “We had no intention of deceiving you, my friends. Our policy has been to allow you to discover the truth at your own pace.”

Jordan said, “Are you telling us that this entire planet has been built, deliberately constructed to resemble Earth?”

With a nod, Adri said, “And placed close enough to your world so that you would find us, and come to examine us.”

Elyse gasped, “Red Sirius!”

“What?”

“Naked-eye observations of Sirius made more than two thousand years ago, around the time of Christ,” she said, almost breathless. “They reported that the star had turned red.”

Adri said, shamefaced, “I’m afraid that was due to the construction operation,” he admitted. “I’m sorry if it confused your astronomers.”

“You constructed this planet?” Meek asked, in obvious disbelief. “This entire planet? You built it?”

“Not I,” said Adri. “Our Predecessors did.”

Meek said, “But why? How?”

Adri glanced at Aditi, then turned back to Meek and explained, “Our race is much older than yours. Our technology, as you’ve seen for yourselves, is considerably in advance of yours.”

“Then you do have spaceflight,” Thornberry said. “You’re not from this planet, you came from somewhere else.”

“Our civilization does have the capability for spaceflight, yes,” Adri said. “But we—myself, Aditi, all the others you have seen here on this world—we have lived on this planet since our conception. We have never been anywhere else.”

“But to build an entire planet,” Jordan objected. “It’s fantastic!”

“Who built it?” Brandon demanded. “If you and your people have been born here, then who the hell built this planet?”

“Our Predecessors,” said Adri.

“Your ancestors?”

“Our Predecessors,” Adri repeated.

“Why would they do such a thing?” Meek demanded again. “What’s the purpose of it all?”

“Why, to bring you here. To encourage you to make contact with us.”

Frowning, Brandon said, “Wouldn’t it have been easier for you to come to Earth and announce your presence?”

“And what would your reaction be if suddenly a starship appeared in your skies? Even if we beamed messages to you, instead of sending a starship, your world would be in turmoil, wouldn’t it?”

Jordan almost chuckled. Glancing at Meek, he said, “There are plenty of people on Earth who’d be terrified, true enough.”

“What would you do?” Adri repeated.

Meek answered, “Why, we … we’d try to ascertain who you are, of course. And what you want.”

With a sad shake of his head, Adri replied, “The shock of such a meeting would be traumatic for you. Why, even now, on Earth there are people who claim there can be no other intelligent races in the universe!”

“So we have a few benighted fanatics,” Thornberry said.

“They deny the possibility that the indigenous life in Jupiter’s ocean could be intelligent,” Adri pointed out.

“The leviathans,” Elyse murmured.

Adri went on, “We have studied your history very thoroughly. We have seen the dreadful consequences of sudden contact between two of your own cultures.”

Longyear muttered, “Wounded Knee.”

“And a hundred other tragedies,” said Aditi. “The Aztecs and Incas. The Polynesians. Even the Chinese went through centuries of exploitation and humiliation.”

“That is why,” Adri resumed, “we decided to make our contact with you as gentle as possible. We did not go to your planet and announce ourselves. Instead, we encouraged you to come here, to us.”

“You lured us here,” said Meek.

“If you wish to use that term,” Adri replied gently. “The point is that only a small group of you has come here, as we expected. And we have allowed you to discover the truth about us in your own time, at your own pace.” Turning once again to Meek, he added, “And even so, we face suspicion, hostility, and outright fear.”

Jordan said, “You’re telling us that we have nothing to be afraid of.”

“Oh no,” said Adri. “You have much to be afraid of. And so do we.”

Culture Shock

“What do you mean by that?” Meek demanded.

Adri hesitated, then replied, “Contact between two intelligent cultures is fraught with dangers.”

“You’ve contacted other intelligent species?” Brandon asked.

“Not I personally,” said Adri. “None of us has ever been beyond this planet. But our Predecessors, our progenitors, over the course of the millennia they have come into contact with many civilizations.”

Jordan blurted, “There are lots of civilizations among the stars?”

Adri shook his head sorrowfully. “Intelligence is the rarest occurrence in the universe, I’m afraid. And even at that, in so many cases, an intelligent species destroys itself before it can attain true self-mastery.”

Brandon said, “But we’ve seen no evidence of any intelligent races in the galaxy, until now. We’ve searched for almost two centuries, and our telescopes haven’t turned up anything.”

“As I said,” Adri replied, “intelligence is very rare. However, the universe is very large, and there are many intelligent civilizations scattered among the stars.”

“Intelligent species destroy themselves?” Jordan asked.

“Unfortunately, that seems to be the norm. It’s very rare for an intelligent species to survive long enough to achieve true civilization.”

Thornberry pushed to Adri’s side. “So that’s why you’re here? To help us to survive our own shortcomings?”

Adri hesitated for several long moments, staring into Thornberry’s questioning eyes. At last he answered, “Yes, that is part of our purpose.”

Jordan caught the nuance. “But only part of it?”

“It’s as much as I can tell you for the moment. Now you know something of who we are and why we are here. I think it best for you to absorb what you’ve just learned before we proceed any farther.”

“There’s more?” Meek asked.

“Oh, yes. Much, much more.”

“But you’re not going to tell us what it is,” Brandon said accusingly.

“In time,” said Adri. “For now, Aditi and I must return to the city. You’ll want to discuss what I’ve told you among yourselves. Tomorrow is another day.”

The humans stood mutely as Adri and Aditi made their way to the entrance of the bubble tent and went outside into the silvery shadows of the night.

Jordan followed them, like a man in a dream. Aditi turned back toward him, extended her hand to him.

Suddenly Brandon gripped Jordan’s shoulder. “You can’t go with them, Jordy. Not now.”

He stood rooted to the spot. Adri and Aditi both faced him. And his brother.

“Jordy, you’ve got to stay here. We’ve got to talk this over, digest what they’ve told us.”

“It’s all right,” said Aditi. “We understand.”

“We’ve been waiting for you for centuries,” Adri said. “We can wait another night.”

Jordan looked from Aditi to Adri to his brother. Brandon seemed gravely determined to keep him from going with the aliens.

“I … I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to Aditi.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

Then she and Adri turned and walked slowly through the shadows cast by the Pup’s wan light, heading for the forest and their city.

Jordan turned reluctantly, and walked beside his brother back to the bubble tent where the others waited. They were a hushed, subdued group, still standing at the worktable, with the geological profile of the planet glowing on the big display screen.

“Do you believe what he told us?” Meek asked, looking torn, troubled.

“This entire planet has been … built … to resemble Earth?” de Falla wondered aloud.

“By damn,” Thornberry exclaimed, “I’ll bet you that the planet really is hollow!”

Brandon scoffed, “How could we have the gravity—”

“Those energy screens,” Thornberry snapped. “I’m willing to bet me underdrawers that this entire planet is a hollow shell, with a gravity-producing energy generator at its center.”

Verishkova agreed with a nod. “Until a few minutes ago I would say such an idea is nonsense. But now … maybe not.”

“But that’s not the really important point,” Jordan said.

Meek said, “The fact that he admits they’ve constructed this planet deliberately to lure us here? You don’t find that important?”

“Not as important as the fact that Adri told us his people have been created by a race that has found many other intelligent species. His … Predecessors, as he calls them, apparently have been traveling across interstellar distances for god knows how long.”

“He said intelligence is very rare in the universe,” Yamaguchi said, her voice low, thoughtful.

Longyear added, “He also said most intelligent species wipe themselves out.”

“Poppycock,” Meek sniffed. “Do you really believe everything he tells us?”

“I believe that we’re well on our way to destroying ourselves back on Earth,” Jordan said.

“You can’t blame us for natural disasters like the global flooding.”

With a wan smile, Jordan replied, “Can’t I?”

Pointing to the display screen’s profile of the planet, Thornberry said, “I believe what the facts tell us. This planet is an artificial construction.”

“A whole planet?” Jordan marveled. “They built this entire planet?”

“To lure us here,” Meek said.

Jordan shook his head. “Why would they go to so much effort? What’s the purpose behind all this?”

“Conquest?” Longyear suggested.

“Assimilation,” said Elyse. “Instead of destroying us, they want to assimilate us, blend our genes with theirs, make us part of their empire.”

“They want to steal our women?” Yamaguchi almost laughed, despite herself.

Brandon glanced at Jordan. “It’s the other way around. One of us has stolen one of their women.”

“Be serious,” Jordan growled.

“Okay,” Brandon replied. “I’ll be serious. What Adri’s told us is that his people have been created by a race that has a much higher technology than ours. Much higher.”

“Interstellar flight,” Verishkova murmured.

Brandon resumed, “And they’ve found other intelligent species among the stars. They’re rare, but they do exist.”

“If they don’t wipe themselves out,” said Thornberry.

“So why have they gone to all this trouble to make contact with us?” Yamaguchi asked.

“Yes,” said Meek. “What’s behind all this? Why are they here? What do they want of us?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said Brandon. “We can’t plan our response to all this until we find out what Adri really wants of us.”

Jordan shook his head. “Bran, I don’t think you realize where we are. It doesn’t matter what our response is. With the superior technology they have, they can do whatever they want with us.”

Meek’s face went white. “That’s right! We’re at their mercy!”

Security

Jordan slept fitfully, his dreams filled with a kaleidoscope of shifting, blending visions: Miriam laughing with him as they rode a tandem bicycle through a winding trail along a sunny, sandy beach that suddenly turned into the tsunami they narrowly escaped in Singapore, smashing everything before it in a raging wall of water; Aditi looking over her shoulder at him as she walked away, sorrowful, pained; the president of Argentina putting the pistol in his mouth and blowing his brains out rather than agree to a cease-fire with his rivals; Meek, terrified, hiding behind his bed, turning into four-year-old Brandon, the day their father died; and then it was Miriam dying in agony while he stood watching helplessly; thousands of staring, bone-thin African children in the refugee camp slowly starving, too weak even to cry; millions of homeless, helpless families fleeing the implacable floods that were swallowing up their land; alien civilizations scattered among the stars destroying themselves in wars, population explosions, diseases created in laboratories; Miriam, Miriam, Miriam.

His eyes snapped open. It wasn’t dawn yet, the bubble tent was dark except for the tiny numerals glowing on the face of his wristwatch. Jordan got up from his cot and trudged barefoot to the common lavatory.

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care, does it? he said to himself. Not always. Not every night.

It was an hour before Sirius rose above the horizon, but already the sky was turning milky white. Jordan listened to the sounds of his companions’ sleep: a gentle snore, a troubled moan, something that might have been a throaty chuckle.

Sounds like Thornberry, he thought. At least Mitch is having a happy dream. Brandon’s with Elyse. He wanted to be with Aditi.

Returning to his cubicle to dress, Jordan thought briefly about tiptoeing out of the camp and walking to the city. But he shook his head. They’d wonder where I’ve gone, why I’ve left. Meek would think I’ve been kidnapped.

Instead he went to the dining area, floor lights turning on as he walked. A solitary robot stirred to life at the sight of him. The dining area filled with light.

“May I serve you?” the robot asked.

Sliding into the nearest chair, Jordan felt weary, deeply tired, down to his bones.

“Tea, please. With milk.”

The robot pivoted wordlessly and trundled into the kitchen.

Jordan sat there, thinking, trying to decide what his next step should be. By the time the robot returned with a steaming mug and deposited it on the table, he had made up his mind.

He drank the tea slowly, weighing the pros and cons of his decision. After all, he told himself, it’s not as if I have any responsibilities here. They’ve relieved me of my duty. I’m just an unemployed bureaucrat now.

And he realized that more than anything he wanted to be with Aditi. Needed her warmth, her understanding.

He drained the mug, then went to his cubicle and tapped out a message to Brandon on his phone: Gone to the city to learn more from Adri.

That ought to do it, he thought. Then he went quietly through the bubble tent, stepped out into the pearly-gray predawn glow, and headed for the city.

He hadn’t counted on the guards.

A pair of man-tall robots was standing at the edge of the glade, by the trail that led to the city.

“Good morning, Mr. Kell,” said one of them as he approached. Its voice somehow reminded Jordan of a policeman’s: calm, polite, inflexible.

“Good morning,” he answered.

“Where are you going, sir?”

“To the city.”

“I’m afraid that is prohibited, sir.”

“Prohibited? Why? By whom?”

“Dr. Kell’s orders. For your own safety, sir.”

“I’m perfectly safe,” Jordan said, taking a step forward.

The robot doing the speaking put a silicone-skinned hand gently on Jordan’s chest. “It is for your own safety, sir. Dr. Kell’s orders.”

The other robot slid to Jordan’s side. Jordan got a flash of a mental impression of the two robots carrying him, struggling and squawking, to his brother’s cot.

Jordan admitted defeat. “Very well. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kell. Have a pleasant day.”

As he walked back toward the tents, Jordan thought that it would be easy enough to duck into the trees somewhere else along the camp’s perimeter and head for the city farther along the trail. I doubt that the robots have been programmed to track down fugitives, he thought.

But instead he headed dutifully back to the barracks tent, straight to his brother’s cubicle. Elyse was not there, he saw. Almost smirking, Jordan thought, The cots aren’t wide enough for two people to sleep comfortably and the cubicles are too small to squeeze in a second cot. They might have sex together, but afterward they both want their rest.

“Wake up, Bran!” he called, clapping his hands together as loudly as he could. “You have some explaining to do.”

Brandon sprang to a sitting position on his cot, his eyes popping. “Jordy! For god’s sake, that’s a lousy way to wake a guy.”

“The guards you set up stopped me from going to the city,” Jordan accused, staring down at his brother.

“What time is it?” Brandon muttered sleepily.

“Time for you to get up and do some explaining.”

Grumbling, Brandon pulled his legs free of the bedsheet and got to his feet. He’s two and a half centimeters taller than I am, Jordan recalled, standing nose to chin with his brother.

“So?” he demanded. “What about those guards?”

“They’re supposed to stop anybody from the city from coming in here while we’re sleeping,” Brandon said, almost truculently.

“They stopped me from leaving.”

“We don’t want anybody wandering off by themselves, Jordy. Not until we’ve figured out what we have to do.”

Jordan glared at his brother. “Well then, you’d better figure out what you have to do. In the meantime, I want to go to the city.”

Brandon almost smiled at him. “Not yet, Jordy. Not yet. Have some breakfast with us. We have a lot of thinking to do.”

Guests … or Prisoners?

Once they were all seated in the dining area, with their meals before them and the three still aboard the ship on the big display screen at the far end of the table, Brandon got to his feet.

“I hope you all had a good night’s sleep,” he began.

Hazzard’s image on the screen scowled slightly. “Cut the platitudes, Brandon. We have some major decisions to make.”

Nodding tightly, Brandon said, “My brother, here,” he put a hand on Jordan’s shoulder, “wants to go to the city.”

Before anyone could object, Jordan explained, “We have a lot of questions that need to be answered. Adri knows the answers. I want to go to him and have a full and frank discussion.”

“B’god, Jordan,” Thornberry rumbled, “you sound like a stripey-pantsed diplomat.”

Jordan smiled at the Irishman. “I am a diplomat, Mitch, despite my clothing. An ambassador, if you will.”

Meek said, “And you expect Adri to be truthful?”

“He always has been.”

“Up to a point.”

“It’s up to us … to me, actually, to get the entire truth from him. We get along well together and—”

“And you want to see your girlfriend,” Brandon snapped.

Jordan felt as if Bran had slapped his face. Holding back the angry retort that he wanted to make, he answered carefully, “I want to clear up any doubts you have about Adri, and find out what’s behind all this.”

Longyear looked as if he wanted to say something, but he stayed silent. The rest of them glanced uneasily at one another.

“Well,” Jordan challenged, “you want to wring the whole truth out of Adri. Here’s your chance.”

Thornberry said, “I want to know how those energy shield generators work. That’s the biggest invention since the wheel, by damn.”

De Falla wondered, “Did they actually build this whole planet? I mean, from scratch? Or did they just terraform the top layers of the crust?”

“Just?” Yamaguchi asked. “Just terraform the top layers? That’s a helluva ‘just.’”

“You’re all missing the point,” said Meek. “Their technology is interesting, of course—”

“How pale a word, interesting,” murmured Elyse.

“I don’t need vocabulary lessons, Dr. Rudaki,” Meek snapped.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just that … we have so much to learn from these people. To study a white dwarf close up. To learn how they shield the entire planet from radiation bursts, how they built an entire planet. We have the opportunity of a lifetime here, the opportunity of a thousand lifetimes.”

“But why have they done all this?” Meek demanded, getting to his feet, his lanky body unfolding like a carpenter’s ruler. “If what Adri’s told us so far is the truth, there’s a presence—a purpose—behind everything they’ve done. Who are these Predecessors Adri spoke of? What about the other intelligent races they claim they’ve met? Where are they? Why haven’t we met any of their representatives?”

Tanya Verishkova tried to answer. “Because they are not human, and they could not survive on a planet built for humans?”

“Because it’s all a tissue of lies,” Meek insisted. “Because Adri’s telling us what we want to hear, while hiding his real purpose from us.”

“And what might that purpose be, Harmon?” Jordan asked dryly.

“To absorb us. What was the term you used, Dr. Rudaki? Assimilate us. Just as the Europeans assimilated the Native Americans. And they’re getting us—some of us—to help them.”

Brandon asked, “If that’s true, then what should we do about it?”

Meek didn’t hesitate an eyeblink. “Get back aboard our ship and leave. Go back to Earth and warn them. Tell them we’ve got to prepare to defend ourselves against these … these aliens. These invaders.”

Jordan felt a growing anger simmering inside him. Anger at stupidity. Anger at unreasoning fear. If Meek has his way, he thought, we’d greet any visitors from other civilizations with nuclear bombs. And they’d retaliate with technologies so superior to ours that we’d be crushed.

Brandon seemed equally incredulous. “Leave?” he asked Meek. “Just pack up and run away?”

“That’s the best thing we can do,” Meek insisted. “The survival of the human race depends on us.”

“Let me point out something to you all,” said Jordan, feeling like a stern schoolmaster facing a room full of fractious students. “We can’t leave.”

“You mean you don’t want to,” said Meek. “Very well, you can stay behind if you want. The rest of us—”

“You don’t understand, Harmon. We cannot leave. Adri won’t permit us to go.”

“He can’t stop us,” Hazzard growled.

“Can’t he?” Jordan asked.

Thornberry got Jordan’s point. “He can disable the ship’s engines? Like he disabled my rovers?”

“If he wants to,” Jordan said. “If he feels he has to.”

Meek gasped. “You mean we’re his prisoners?”

Almost smiling at the astrobiologist, Jordan replied, “We’re his guests. For the time being.”

“Prisoners,” Meek insisted. Several of the people around the table nodded somberly. On the display screen, Hazzard looked grim, Trish Wanamaker shocked, the astronomer Zadar troubled.

“Whatever you want to call it,” Jordan continued, “I want to go to the city and face Adri with what we know. I’d appreciate it if you’d instruct the robots to let me through.”