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“Never mind,” Mikhail Vasloff thought as he turned away from the prideful display dedicated to the latest in a long list of human arrogances. Everyone knew the list of worlds only slightly less deadly than most.

So why couldn’t they see the waste of resources inherent in planting colonies on these slagheaps? What was the quirk in human beings that made them glamorize scratching out a living under conditions that would not be allowed in the most hellish prison? Whatever it was, Mikhail Vasloff had long ago set himself the task of combating this odd enthusiasm that resulted in Earth’s best and brightest risking their lives so far from home and to no good purpose.

History, in Vasloff’s opinion, was a long contest between the despoilers and those who would conserve humanity’s limited resources, they who saw a wilderness as something to be tamed and others who enjoyed wildness for its intrinsic beauty. Mikhail Vasloff was satisfied with the world that God had given man and saw no reason to go looking for a replacement. To his mind, there was something obscene about the risks the Stellar Survey was taking in their quest to find another Earth. Even the most rabid champion of interstellar expansion would admit (if pushed) that they did not know what they would find Out There. What if one of the starships brought home a plague, or worse? The survival of the race was too important to be risked for something as trivial as idle curiosity.

He had begun his career as a political gadfly, one who lobbied parliament to end the huge subsidy given to explore the stars. Often his struggles had been in vain, although there had been an occasional small victory. Eventually, his efforts had brought him to the notice of a small coterie of wealthy people who thought as he did. With their aid, he had formed a grassroots political organization that he named
Terra
Nostra
. It had grown into the largest and most influential of the anti-interstellar organizations.

Terra Nostra
was not affiliated with any particular religion, though it garnered much of its strength from the most fundamentalist denominations. Nor was it officially affiliated with the socially progressive political parties, though its views often found fertile ground among those who believed that resources spent exploring the stars could better be invested on Earth. Even people who were on opposite sides of most other issues found common ground in Vasloff’s organization when it came to opposing the huge drain on resources that was starflight.

One place Mikhail Vasloff lacked supporters was the building in which he now found himself, this arrogant pyramid thrown up on the banks of Swan Lake. It felt strange to be striding across the vast expanse of marble with which these latter-day conquistadors had floored their monument to themselves.

He was here at the invitation of the enemies that he had fought for so long, invited to give his views at a conference concerning the troubles encountered in implanting human beings on alien planets. In Vasloff’s opinion, the invitation was a grave tactical error on the part of his antagonists. Not only were they conferring the boon of legitimacy, they were giving him a platform from which to shout his heresies. A news media that would normally yawn at the latest
Terra Nostra
press release would take notice when the high priest of isolationist philosophy spoke in the very temple of expansionist power. That he had been invited at all was a testament to the growing influence of
Terra Nostra
.

“Mr. Vasloff!”

Vasloff turned to see a well-dressed young man striding across the marble floor in his direction. The man had light brown hair and a determined expression on his face. There were worry lines around his eyes and the way his mouth turned down at the corners told Vasloff that he was not happy.

“Yes?”

“Hello,” the young man said, “my name is Mark Rykand. I am a friend of Gunter Perlman. He suggested that you might be able to help me.”

“How is Gunter?” Vasloff asked. “Still wasting his fortune on those expensive toys of his?”

“You mean his yachts? Yeah, he is having a new 3-micron light sail built in time for the fall regatta.”

“How did you find me, Mr. Rykand?”

“Your office said that you were coming here today. I have been staying at a small villa on Lake Geneva, so I took a chance on intercepting you. I almost didn’t. I was in one of the side galleries looking at alien rocks.

“What is your interest in me, Mr. Rykand?”

Vasloff watched a hesitant look turn to one of determination. “I am afraid my problem can’t be put into a few words. Perhaps we can get together for dinner to discuss it.”

“I am not in the habit of allowing myself to be picked up by strangers, even ones who claim a mutual friend, Mr. Rykand. A man in my position has to be careful. I am sure you understand. Perhaps if you come to my office when I am there next week? ”

The answering smile was inappropriate on Rykand’s sad countenance and out of place for the situation.

Normally when Vasloff brushed someone off, they stayed that way. “Would a substantial donation to
Terra Nostra
change your mind?”

“How substantial?”

“Fifty thousand credits.”

Years of fund raising had honed Vasloff’s reflexes. His frown slipped effortlessly into a closed-lip smile as he extended his right hand to Rykand. “Why didn’t you say so? Where would you like to eat?”

“Meersburg Yacht Club? It’s only five kilometers down the lake.”

“Very well. My session ends with a reception at 18:00. It will be some time before I can break away.

Shall we say 20:00 hours for dinner?”

“Fine. I’ll be there.”

#

The Meersburg yacht club had served the sailors of Lake Constance for three centuries. Though its menu was international, its decor was local, with the waitresses just rude enough to maintain the Bavarian ambiance. Mikhail Vasloff exited the autocab and strolled into the low building nestled among the vineyards just coming to ripeness. He found Mark Rykand in the bar, sipping a large stein of Beck's Dark Bitburger Premium Pilsner.

Mark hopped off his barstool as he spotted his guest and came striding across the dimly lit room. “Good evening, Mr. Vasloff!”

Vasloff smiled. With his thin face and shock of white hair, he knew that the expression made him look less formidable. That was one of the reasons why his official portraits showed him in somber pose.

“Large contributors call me Mischa, Mr. Rykand.”

“And I’m Mark.”

“Very well, Mark. Which shall we do first? Eat or talk business?”

“I imagine you’ve had a tiring day. Why don’t we eat first?”

“An excellent suggestion!”

The
maitre’ de
convoyed them to an out-of-the-way table as far from the small polka band as possible.

After initial drinks and while they shared a plate of knackwurst as an appetizer, Mark asked, “How was the session?”

Vasloff finished off his beer and leaned back. “Tiring, as you surmised. It is very difficult to maintain one’s equilibrium when confronted with a solid phalanx of nearsighted fools. Like most people, I think that if I could just state my position more clearly, others will see the logic of my arguments. Alas, such a result is far too utopian to ever be possible in the real world. May I inquire, Mark, whether you are a true believer?”

“Are you asking my religion?”

Vasloff smiled again. “Not in the formal sense. How a man worships God is his own business. In another sense, however, I suppose I am. Are you expansionist or conservator in your outlook?

“I haven’t thought about it all that much, Mikhail. I suppose that I favor the idea of going out to explore the stars. That is where our destiny lies, isn’t it?”

“How do you know that?” Vasloff asked nonchalantly as he speared the last knackwurst.

"I have ... that is, I had someone close to me who was part of the effort. Her enthusiasm infected me, I suppose.”

Vasloff watched the storm of emotion reflected in the younger man’s face. He did not pry. “I am a much older man than you. Would you grant that I may have learned something during my time on this battered old world?”

“Granted.”

“When I was growing up in my home city of Perm in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, I used to fish with my friends in the Kama River. There are some of the largest fish you have ever seen in that river, and ferocious! You would not believe how they fight. I’ve often wondered what they taste like.”

“You never ate one?”

Vasloff turned around to signal the waitress for another beer, then turned back to Mark. “No, I never ate one. The Kama is a large river, about the size of your Ohio, in fact. However, it has been contaminated with heavy metals and industrial poisons since Soviet times. No matter what we do we can never seem to find all of the old waste dumps left lying around by our ancestors. Fishing on that river, knowing that I could never partake of its bounty, that more than anything is what convinced me that I was a conservator at heart.”

“What has that to do with exploring the stars?”

“We have a beautiful river and fine game fish, yet because of contamination caused by people 300 years dead, I cannot eat of the river’s bounty. The lesson I draw from that fact is that life is very precariously balanced on this world. We tend to forget that because we ourselves are so precisely matched to our own particular ecological niche. Yet, how could it be otherwise? We evolved to fit this world more precisely than a surgeon’s micron glove fits his hand. We are matched to this, our environment, and no other. My poor Kama proves that. A few heavy metals loose in the environment, some old toxins, and our food supply is no longer fit to eat.

“With such a precise balance between life and its environment, what are the odds that we will ever find a world as closely suited to our kind of life as the Earth? So close to zero as to be nonexistent! That belief leads me to the obvious conclusion: If there are no other ‘Earths’ out there, why spend our precious resources looking for them?”

“I had a professor in college who taught us that the formation of terrestrial type worlds is almost inevitable given the correct planet size and distance from the system primary.”

“Your professor was wrong.”

“We’ve discovered dozens of worlds with life on them and even have colonies on some of them.”

“The life we discover is poisonous to us, or lacks the proper nutrients, or has too many things which will make us sick. As for our colonies, they are little more than outposts and never will be anything else. Each of them is clinging precariously to the surface of worlds inherently inimical to our sort. The colonists survive only by artificial environments and the infusion of billions of credits of subsidies each year. Take away their subsidies and those worlds will soon be abandoned. That, my young friend, is the strategy of
Terra Nostra
. Eliminate the subsidies and you eliminate the colonies! We need that money to clean up the Kama River, among many other needs.”

“You seem sure of yourself, Mikhail. But what if you are wrong?”

Vasloff took another sip of beer and said, “Then I am wrong and no one will listen to me. However, I am not wrong. The Holy Grail that the survey seeks does not exist, yet they subject us to danger merely by looking for it.”

“What danger?”

“You know that the survey takes very great care with the biological specimens it brings back, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“To date there has never been an extraterrestrial microorganism that could live in Earth’s biosphere. This fact alone proves my point that the planets of the universe are no less individualistic than snowflakes. We cannot live on their worlds and they cannot live on ours. Yet, if we discover a world where we can live, then it also follows that the pathogens of that world can migrate to Earth. What if the survey brings back a plague, Mark? How will we all feel about exploring the stars then?”

“You are a persuasive advocate, Mischa.”

“You haven’t yet heard my most persuasive argument about why we should not go out to the stars. Let us assume that your professor was correct and that a terrestrial world circles every star we can see in the sky. Think the scenario through. What would be the primary characteristic of a universe filled with terrestrial worlds?”

“You tell me.”

“We know our environment eventually breeds intelligent life. Obviously, so would other terrestrial worlds.

So where are they?”

“Where are who?”

“The other species who have progressed far enough up the scale of intelligence to build starships. If we can do it, anyone can. Why haven’t they visited us, or at least, sent a radio signal in our direction? That question was first asked by the physicist who was primarily responsible for the invention of the atomic bomb. It is called Fermi’s Paradox. It is the final proof that other Earths do not exist. If they did, their inhabitants would have found us long ago. That they have not done so indicates that they do not exist.”

“I can see why you have chosen to spend your life crusading against the starships,” Mark said cautiously.

Gunter Perlman had warned him that Vasloff was a fanatic on the subject.

“But you don’t believe me, do you?” Vasloff asked, suddenly all affable again. “Not to worry. The inoculation seldom takes on its first application. Give it time and the truth of what I am telling you will begin to sink in. Now then, shall we order? Afterwards, we can discuss whatever problem you feel is worth giving me
CR
50,000.”

The food matched its high cost and both men ate heartily. Vasloff turned out to be a skilled raconteur and enlivened the meal with endless stories of the antics he had seen during his ten years as a public irritant.

When both men had full bellies and were lingering over their coffees and aperitifs, the white-haired Russian asked, “Now then, what can
Terra Nostra
do for you?”

Mark found himself pouring out his story. He spoke of the death of his parents and that terrible call from the survey telling him that Jani was dead. He recounted his meeting with Amalthea Palan and his feeling that she had not been telling him the entire truth. He ended up by explaining his determination to find out the details of Jani’s death and to hold someone responsible if there was even a hint of negligence.