Echoes of an Alien Sky (17 page)

Kyal looked back over the moonscape and up at the starfield again. He had never thought about it that way before.

"Well, I guess they must have lived in one of the unstable periods," Yorim said. He meant of the Solar System, which Venusians accepted occurring irregularly but the Terrans hadn't appreciated. "Disruptions happen. We've only just found out Froile wasn't there when the Terrans were around."

"You're on the right track, Yorim," Casselo said.

Kyal thought back to the evening that he and Lorili had spent talking to the archeologists and geologists at Moscow. They had spoken then about enormous cataclysms in Earth's past, unleashing death, destruction, and violence on a scale beyond anything Venusians had ever experienced. The most recent had occurred during Earth's early historic period, they had said, and the survivors had left records in their myths and legends of the things they had seen. The strange thing was that the symbolism was obvious to Venusians, even from the fragments they had found aeons afterward. But Terrans, who lived in the aftermath, with not only the records in abundance but the physical evidence all around them, couldn't see it. Lorili had commented that their ability to see only what they wanted to see went all the way back to their beginnings, and wondered if it was a genetic trait.

"You're saying the planets came closer to Earth and to each other at one time," Kyal said. "Close enough to interact. The Terrans could seem them clearly."

Casselo's beard bobbed up and down behind his helmet visor. "Yes."

"Some people that Lorili and I met at Moscow talked about that. They said Venus could have been one of them—when it was a white-hot protoplanet."

Casselo straightened up from resting. Kyal climbed into the buggy's open cab and slid onto the bench seat spanning it. Yorim got in from the other side, as on the outward trip taking the driver's position, which was in the center. "The early Terrans lived under a different sky. They saw the planets as apparitions in the heavens, bringing death and terror and devastation," Casselo said as he followed Yorim. "With arc discharges going on between them, and all kinds of plasma effects. Volcanoes, earthquakes, storms of meteorites coming down. The whole climate in chaos. But being at a pre-technical stage, they were unable to understand what they were witnessing. They interpreted it as wars between celestial gods. The devastations on Earth itself became retribution on the inhabitants for transgressions of their laws." The buggy moved away, throwing up a small shower of dust which fell back promptly with no lingering cloud. Casselo went on, "The terrors handed down from those times were ritualized into religions fixated on obeying and appeasing wrathful deities. Later, when the planets receded and sorted themselves out into remote, nonthreatening orbits, the memories of what had started it all were repressed."

Yorim was looking more thoughtful now as he navigated them back across the gray wilderness of dust and rubble. "So what are you saying? That the same thing happened that you get with individuals sometimes after something traumatic? A kind of collective amnesia. The literal meanings were forgotten."

"Something like that," Casselo agreed. "Although I'm not so sure there's any collective mechanism that could produce actual amnesia. More an unconscious cultural consensus would be my guess. You know the kind of thing. If you all don't talk and don't think about something that's too painful, it ceases to exist."

"Somebody who was on the
Melther Jorg
with us was into all this," Kyal said. "Emur Frazin. He's done a lot of work on Terran mythology."

"I know," Casselo said. "He was the one I got all this from."

Kyal smiled faintly and nodded. "And so the ancient accounts were dismissed as myth and fable. Which would make sense of why they would be obvious to us. We'd never been through it."

"Exactly," Casselo said. .

"What about Froile?" Yorim queried.

"Yes, our own miniature version, maybe," Casselo agreed. "But from what I've been able to make out, it would have been a pretty tame affair compared to what happened on Earth. Sherven has a theory that it might help explain this big difference in time scales—why the Terrans appear to have fabricated huge epochs that never existed."

"How?" Kyal asked, turning his head to look across. "What's the connection?"

"The evidence for massive catastrophes in their past was there all around them. But seeing it would be to accept what had happened, which would mean acknowledging that it could happen again. That was something that the shocked Terran unconsciousness was unable to face. So they persuaded themselves that slow, gradual change, working over immense spans of time, could account for everything that they saw in the world. They created an illusion of a safe, secure place in the universe, where everything was stable and predictable, always had been, and always would be. All that was violent and threatening was banished to remoteness, either light-years away from them in space, or billions of years back in time."

They arrived at the main base area, and Yorim parked by the other vehicles in front of the huts. The entry lock to the hut they used as the mess room could only take two suited figures at a time. Casselo and Yorim went ahead. While Kyal was waiting for the pumps to complete the cycle, he turned and stared out again across the stillness, replaying in his mind the scenes of conflict that had taken place here on this very landscape long ago.

Finally, maybe, he was beginning to understand the strange inner conflicts that had made the Terrans what they were. As often happens with an individual who is in denial, the trauma and terrors they had experienced found release in other ways. The brutality and carnage of Terran wars re-enacted mass-extinctions they had suffered, and represented symbolic human sacrifice to their bloodthirsty gods. Their obsessive pursuit of ever-more-powerful weapons echoed the violence on a cosmic scale that they had seen in their sky. And what else were their entire political and economic systems but expressions of the craving for the dominance that would bring security? All were manifestations of a bewildered psyche struggling to face a future that it feared and distrusted. For the first time, Kyal found himself moved by something akin to compassion for them.

He thought back to the side of the Terrans that Lorili had seen, and he looked up again at the stars. The Terrans had talked about going to there. Some Venusians were of the opinion that they could have done it. Yes, it was true: Much that was disturbed and had gone wrong was eradicated from the universe when the last Terran eyes gazed sightlessly up at the skies they would never conquer.

But something extraordinary that had come into being, and tried for a while against hopeless odds to grow and become what it could and flourish, was lost too.

It was springtime in Maryland. In a walled estate situated twenty miles from New Washington, crocuses were coming into bloom on the grassy slope leading down to willows by the lake. Sandra Perrin-McLeod sat at a wicker table on the patio outside the open French windows from the summer house, watching a pair of mocking birds hopping among the branches of the large elm and chattering noisily as they teased a squirrel. The peaceful hours that she had spent here alone on fine days, confiding her thoughts to her journal, were among her most pleasant memories. Soon now, she would be seeing it all for the last time.

It was an island of tranquility among the storm clouds that were gathering to engulf the world. The American-led western alignment had emerged victorious but battered from the war with China that had culminated from beginnings around Taiwan and in the Middle East. Schooled and bred to the tradition of loyalty to her social class, she would utter no aspersions regarding her country's publicly stated position: Having saved its friends and been betrayed by them, America would defend its honor. But she knew enough to despise it inwardly and deplore the fraudulent history that was being taught in the schools and presented through the popular culture. There was no honor nor virtue nor glory to any of it. By definition, war was the business of mass-killing, destruction, lies, and deception. All the victors proved was that they were the more ruthless and better at it.

The Euro-Russian monolith that had consolidated while America recovered had aligned with the Muslim bloc to expel American influence from the Asian continent. Ironically, the new China, rebuilding itself from the ruins, was turning now to America for security and defense. All the familiar mechanisms for manipulating public perceptions, from the demonizing of the future enemies by means of stereotyped images in the mass entertainments, to slanted news reporting, silencing of dissent, and the hand-picking of approved appointments in academia, were in evidence again. As always, the weapons had grown more fearsome, with near-space dominated by the military and outposts on the Moon. Alexander said it would be much worse this time. And he should have known, if anyone did. Universally hailed scientific genius, master-level chess player at high school, an architect of the alliance's defense strategy, with a seat on the Inner Security Council; and she the daughter of one of the leading financier families. Their position should have gained them the world. Instead, its only tangible worth would be to get them out of it.

She shook the thought away and returned her attention to the journal. After reading over the last paragraph she had written, she appended:

Humanity has invented much and learned nothing
.
There seems to be something deep in the subconscious of our kind that compels nations to orgies of violence and mutual annihilation
. . . .

The sounds of scampering mixed with children's voices came through the open windows from the house. Moments later, Allan, who was ten, and Marie, eight, appeared on their way to the stable, dressed for riding. Sandra rested her pen on the book and forced a smile. "All ready to go, I see. You have a perfect day for it."

"What are you doing out here all by yourself?" Marie asked.

"Oh, writing down my thoughts. It's better to be alone when you want to do things like that. The quiet helps."

"Why do you have to write them down? You already know what they are."

Sandra smiled again, wider and this time genuinely. "To remind me a long time from now what they were. When I'm older and probably won't remember what I was thinking today."

"I didn't think grown-ups forgot things. You always have to remind us when we forget. How can you, if you forget them too?"

"There's Maggie," Allan said. "She's waiting for us."

Their riding instructor came out from the stable below and called up toward the house. "
Marie
.
Allan
. We're ready to go. You can come down and bring them out yourselves. I'm not the groom here, you know."

"There." Sandra nodded at them. "Quite right too."

"We've got to go," Allan said. "Can you come too?"

"Not today. I need to finish this. Anyway, I'm not dressed for it. I'll see you both at dinner. Run along, and have fun."

"Will our dad be here for dinner?" Marie asked plaintively as Allan went on ahead. "Is he back yet?"

"No, I'm afraid not, Flower."

"When will he be back?"

"It will be a while yet. Go on now. Don't get Maggie cross."

Sandra watched them mount up an depart at a slow canter toward the trail leading to the wood. Then she lifted her pen again and resumed.

The children miss their father already
.
I dread to think how much we will miss our home
,
our whole way of life
,
possibly forever
.
In his last letter
,
Alex talked about getting us out via a launch base somewhere on the West Coast in the next week or two
.
I'm not really sure why I bother to write this and keep the journal up to date
.
I won't be taking it with us to Terminus
.
Oxstead
,
before he left to follow after Alex
,
warned me that it wouldn't be wise to bring any evidence of our discussing things that are this sensitive
.
I really would have preferred not knowing that Robert and Vera are not on the list
.
The thought of never seeing them again is harrowing
 . . . 
and of what might become of them
.

I know now how foolish I was to have talked about any of this to Gorman
.
But the man is so persistent
.
I will leave this account with family
things
,
where it belongs
.
More foolishness
,
perhaps? But it gives a certain sense of completeness to life
,
knowing one's affairs were left finished and in order
.
I wonder if anyone
 . . . 

. . . 
will ever read it
.

Casselo set down the copy of the translation. The image of the original document, fragile and faded, restored by a delicate treatment with infra-red and dyes, showed on the screen next to him. It had been discovered among a carefully packed and preserved collection of picture albums, letters, and cards in a family burial vault in the eastern part of northern America. The search being run for references to Terminus had pulled it up, and the details transmitted up from Earth via
Explorer 6
.

"
Launch base somewhere on the West Coast
," Casselo read again to Kyal and Brysek, who were with him in one of the lab huts. "Which we've seen mention of before. And it's a 'sensitive' subject. People being moved out to a secret location. Sounds like this place, doesn't it? It all fits."

"The whole planet would have had to have been threatened," Brysek muttered.

"Who are these other people that it talks about?" Kyal asked, leaning forward to peer at the translation again. "This Oxtead. . . . And then there's Robert & Vera . . . and Gorman. Do we have any idea who they were?

"I've put all the names through for another search," Casselo replied. "But don't hold out too high hopes of much turning up. The linguists tell me that Robert and Vera were both popular given names that could have referred to just about anyone. And Gorman was a fairly common family name. They're giving it a try. But as I said, don't expect too much to come out of it."