New Earth (17 page)

“Of course,” Adri said.

They spent the afternoon in more examinations, more tests.
Dr. Yamaguchi gave Adri a standard physical exam, testing his reflexes, muscular coordination, even his eyesight. Adri accepted it all with an accommodating smile. Through it all his little pet sat in a corner of Yamaguchi’s cubicle, silent and still, its bright eyes watching.

At last, late in the day, they had gone through every test they could think of.

“If there’s nothing more,” Adri told
Jordan, “I should return to the city now.”

Jordan walked with him partway along the trail through the forest.

“You must come to the city tomorrow,” Adri said, once Jordan stopped. “Aditi would like to see you again.”

“I would very much like to see her,” Jordan heard himself admit.

With a smiling nod, Adri said, “Tomorrow, then. Perhaps you would be good enough to let our people examine you.”

Surprised, Jordan burst into laughter. “Certainly! Turnabout is fair play.”

Adri laughed too. Then he turned and started along the trail once more. “Until tomorrow, then,” he called to Jordan.

Once Jordan got back to the base he found Meek, Longyear, and Thornberry waiting for him at the entrance to the main shelter. They looked grim.

“Well,” said Jordan, “Adri’s as human as you or I, isn’t
he?”

Meek said, “More than you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come with us,” said Meek.

They led Jordan to Longyear’s biology lab. The biologist called up the scans he had done on Adri’s DNA.

Jordan peered at the screen’s display. “It looks perfectly normal to me. Of course, I’m no expert—”

“It is perfectly normal,” said Longyear, almost in a growl. “That’s human DNA. From Earth.”

EARTH

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

F
RIEDRICH
W
ILHELM
N
IETZSCHE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The president of the United States turned to the sweeping painting that covered one wall of the Oval Office and angrily called out: “Show Honolulu!”

The painting—portraits of all the presidents of the twentieth century, from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton—dissolved into an aerial camera’s view of a city devastated by an immense typhoon. Streets were flooded, roofs torn
away, windows smashed, the line of luxury hotels along Waikiki Beach empty and dark while waves surged up the broad beach to smash through shattered glass partitions and into their lobbies.

The television’s sound was muted, but the president and his visitor both winced as if they could hear the roar of the waves, the howl of the wind, the crashing, ripping sounds of destruction.

“That’s my home,”
said Kaholo Newton, from behind his gleaming broad desk. His voice choked with a mix of misery and anger, he added, “I grew up there, right there, in Waikiki. Now it’s all gone. All gone.”

“Mr. President,” said Felicia Ionescu, in a hushed voice, “I know there are many demands on you—”

“But you’re here to add one more, aren’t you?” Newton said, practically sneering at the woman.

The two of
them were alone in the Oval Office: no aides, no secretaries, no one to record what they said. Kaholo Newton was a native Hawaiian, a small brown-skinned man with luxuriant thick dark hair and iron-hard eyes of ebony. He seldom got up from behind his desk when visitors arrived in the Oval Office: to do so would have revealed his diminutive stature. He was especially wary of standing in the presence
of Ionescu, who towered over him.

“Mr. President,” Ionescu began again, “there are twelve men and women on the exploration team at New Earth. They are alone, farther from Earth than any human being has yet gone. They expect a backup mission to be sent to help them.”

President Newton scowled disdainfully. “Don’t try to con me, Felicia. We both know that those twelve people don’t expect any help
from us. They volunteered for their mission, knowing they’d be completely on their own.”

“But we owe it to them—”

“Owe? We
owe
them?” the president fairly shouted. “What about the people of Honolulu? What about the people of Hawaii? What about my family, my mother and three sisters? They’re all missing!”

“I didn’t know,” Ionescu admitted, her voice low.

President Newton closed his eyes and
pulled in a deep, calming breath. It was a technique he had used many times: give a visitor the impression that you are struggling masterfully to control yourself.

“What do the Chinese say about this backup mission?” he asked.

Ionescu squirmed slightly in her chair in front of the president’s desk. “They … they haven’t committed themselves, as yet. I believe they are waiting to see what the
United States will do.”

“And Chiang? As head of the World Council he must have considerable influence on the people in Beijing. They wouldn’t hang him out to dry; it would be a terrible loss of face for one of their own.”

“Chairman Chiang is … reluctant to commit himself.”

“Ah! So there you are.”

“I thought,” Ionescu said haltingly. “I thought … that if America announces it will support the
mission … if America would lead the way…” Her voice trailed off.

The president shook his head. “Impossible. We can’t take money away from reconstruction and recovery projects to send another gaggle of scientists out there.”

“But—”

“Maybe when the people already there send in their reports about what they’ve found,” the president offered.

“We won’t receive any word from them for eight years,”
Ionescu said.

The president spread his hands and almost smiled. “All right, eight years. Maybe by then the climate situation will have calmed down somewhat. Maybe by then we can think about sending out another mission. Especially if the news from New Earth is interesting enough.”

What the president did not say was that by then, eight years into the unguessable future, he would be safely retired
and some other person would have to face the responsibility of paying for another mission to New Earth.

DISCOVERIES

Whatever nature has in store for mankind, unpleasant as it may be, men must accept, for ignorance is never better than knowledge.

E
NRICO
F
ERMI

TURNABOUT

The following morning, as Jordan left his cubicle and headed for the camp’s dining hall, Brandon fell in step beside him.

“Good morning, Jordy.”

“Morning, Bran.”

“Going to the city this morning?”

“That’s my intention.”

Brandon said, “I was talking with Thornberry and Meek last night. They think it would be a good idea if you kept your phone on, so we can record what Adri and
the others say to you.”

Jordan felt his brows knit. “Record…?”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

“Do you?”

Brandon broke into one of his boyish smiles. “Oh, you can turn it off when you’re alone with Aditi.”

Jordan did not smile back at him.

*   *   *

As he walked the trail through the forest toward the city, Jordan felt the phone in his shirt pocket weighing like a guilty conscience.

Bran’s
right, he told himself. We should be recording everything. Still, he felt it was somehow a sneaky thing to do, a betrayal of trust.

Then he saw Aditi standing on the stone walkway that circled the city, smiling warmly at him, and he forgot about the phone.

“Good morning,” he called, hurrying his steps toward her.

“Good morning to you,” she called back. And all Jordan’s doubts and fears about
these aliens and their intentions melted away in the warmth of her greeting.

He resisted the urge to take her in his arms. Instead he simply extended his hand. She took it in her own.

“Adri told me about his physical examination,” she said as they began to walk down the city’s broad central avenue. The street was busy with men and women, some strolling idly, others striding purposefully, as
if on some important business. Aditi’s pet feline was nowhere in sight.

“Today it’s my turn to be poked and prodded,” Jordan said, trying to make it sound light, pleasant.

Very seriously, Aditi replied, “No one is going to touch you. All the tests are noninvasive.”

“Of course,” he said. The irony in his voice was lost on her.

“I will be in charge of your examination,” Aditi said, rather proudly.

Somewhat surprised, Jordan asked, “You’re a medical technician, as well as a teacher?”

She hesitated, then replied, “I’ve had the training. All of us are capable of many tasks.”

They were heading for the main building, Jordan saw. Behind it was the dormitory where he and Brandon had been housed.

As if she could read his mind, Aditi asked, “Will you be staying here tonight?”

“I’d like to,”
he admitted. “I’ll have to call back and tell the others first.”

“Of course,” she said.

As they neared the main building’s stately flight of entrance steps, Jordan asked, “And Adri, what tasks is he trained for?”

Again that little hesitation, as if she were checking through her memory for the correct answer. Or waiting for instructions. At last Aditi said, “Adri is our … historian. I think
that is the best way to describe his duties.”

“Historian?”

“He deals with the past,” she said. Then she added, “And the future.”

“I don’t understand.”

Her lovely face puckered into an almost troubled frown, as if she were struggling to find the right words to explain it to him.

“I think that’s the best way to describe it,” Aditi said. “Adri studies the past of our people, and yours, and makes
projections of what the future might be like.”

“The future of my people?”

“Yes. Naturally.”

“I’d like to see what he has to say about that,” Jordan said.

“I’m sure he’d be happy to discuss it with you.”

They walked the rest of the way in thoughtful silence. As they started up the stairs of the main building, Jordan asked, “How far back does your history go?”

“Millions of years,” Aditi answered.
“Our years. We have existed for a very long time.”

“Back on Earth we wonder how long the human race can survive. You give me hope.”

“An intelligent race can survive almost indefinitely. Especially if it is intelligent enough to adapt to changing environments.”

“Ah,” said Jordan. “That’s the key, then, isn’t it? How intelligent are we?”

Very seriously, Aditi said, “The key is the ability to
give up outworn concepts, modes of behavior that no longer work for survival.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Your people back on Earth have survived ice ages and pandemic plagues and your own aggressive, xenophobic nature. The question before you now is whether the strengths that have helped you to survive have become countersurvival in the face of new dangers.”

“You mean the greenhouse climate
shift?”

“That’s part of the problem you face. You seem to have overcome the move toward authoritative governments—dictatorships. But there are new challenges that face you.”

“New challenges? Beyond the climate shift?”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

Aditi did not answer for several heartbeats. At last she said, “You should speak to Adri about that. He’s the expert in that field, not I.”

They had
reached the top of the stairs, and Aditi led him through the building’s central corridor to a set of rooms that looked to Jordan like a clinic. The area smelled faintly of antiseptics. People spoke in whispers.

She led him confidently through the warren of hallways to a room that looked to Jordan like a laboratory: the walls were lined with consoles that hummed softly. In the middle of the room
stood a tall glass-walled booth. No one else was in the room; they were alone.

Pointing to the booth, Aditi said, “If you’ll step in there, I can scan your body.”

With a slightly mischievous grin, Jordan asked, “Should I take off my clothes?”

She actually blushed. “No, not at all. That won’t be necessary.”

Jordan stepped into the booth.

“Close the door, please,” Aditi said as she walked to
the equipment set along the wall.

Jordan pulled the glass door shut.

“Please stand still for a moment.”

He did. He even held his breath. He heard a brief buzz, felt nothing. Aditi had her back to him, studying the gauges and display screens.

“Good,” she said. “You can come out now.”

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” she said, still intently peering at the readouts. “We have a complete
picture of you, down to the molecular level.”

“That was easy.”

But Aditi said, “The scans show you had a virus in your lower intestinal tract that could potentially be dangerous—even fatal.”

“It’s dormant,” Jordan said. Still, he couldn’t suppress the shudder of fear that went through him.

Then he realized that she’d said “had.”

Before he could ask her, Aditi said, “I eliminated it.”

His
knees went weak. Jordan squeaked, “Eliminated it?”

“Actually, the equipment automatically destroyed the virus,” Aditi said. “I should have asked your permission first, I know. I hope you don’t mind.”

Jordan laughed shakily. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”

HISTORY LESSON

She eliminated the virus, Jordan said to himself over and over. Just like that, a tap of the finger and the virus is gone. The idea whirled through his thoughts as Aditi led him up a winding stairway, toward Adri’s office.

“Your technology is quite impressive,” he said, walking alongside her. “Far ahead of ours.”

“In some ways, yes,” Aditi murmured.

“Yet you’ve never developed
space flight. I find that rather odd.”

With a sidelong glance, she said, “We develop technology to solve problems. Disease has been a problem for both our peoples. It’s that simple.”