Emprise (32 page)

But we saw that you were as we were and called you kin. We saw that your world held the father-stock of the fatherless species and we called you Founder. We studied your tongue and took it for our own to honor you. And you told us how to call to you and come to you and these things we did.

For the metals to build
Jiadur
and the fuel to power her we opened many wounds on Journa’s face, wounds that time and care can mend but not remove. For the archives that fill her we opened our collective hearts and memories. It is a thing-done-once. We offer it to you, to honor you, in gratitude for the gift of life, and in fulfillment of the Purpose given us long ago.

When Ryuka was finished and had returned to his shuttle, Charan quietly lifted
lockout
and made
Pride of Earth
whole again. He did it without fanfare or explanation, and the others accepted it in that vein. En route to a long-overdue shower he encountered Rankin sitting in the mod B lab, hands folded before him. The older man’s eyes were hooded and puffy, as though he had been crying.

“The tests—”

Rankin nodded. “As you said they would.”

“Are you all right?”

“No,” Rankin said. His voice broke, like a strangled moan. “You know, evolution is a forgiving discipline. There are few rules that say ‘thou shalt not.’ An explanation could have been readily found for any size or shape or niche of creature that could have come down that tunnel. People don’t realize how strange and wonderful life on Earth is. The sulfur tube-worms of the deep trenches—the seven-mouthed Hallucinogenia—the platypus, an outrageous parody—” His voice broke again, and he looked away and swallowed hard.

He went on quietly. “We could have handled almost anything. Except that.” He stabbed an accusing finger in the direction of the microscope.

“Human.”

“As much as any of us.” He sighed. “This will mean so much rewriting of what we said was true that no one will ever trust us again.”

“Perhaps it’s history that needs to be rewritten. Opinion, Doctor. Could they be right? Could we be the Founders?”

Rankin shook his head despairingly. “I just don’t know. How could we have forgotten?” He raised his head and his eyes burned into Charan’s heart. “But if we aren’t, then we must be another Journa. Because no set of natural laws I can imagine would allow two species so identical to have arisen independently.”

Tears of anger and frustration were welling in Rankin’s eyes, but he would not acknowledge them by wiping them away. Instead he forced a laugh. “Do you know how I really feel? I feel as if I’m in a low-budget movie where they got to the end and couldn’t afford the monster costume.” His laughter had an ugly edge to it. “What now, Commander? What in the hell do we do now?”

Charan chose to answer the question on the most superficial of the several levels on which Rankin had intended it.

“Rest,” Charan said. “Rest for everyone. And prepare yourself for more surprises. Tomorrow we go aboard
Jiadur
.”

Jiadur
loomed up impossibly large as the shuttle bearing Ryuka and the four visitors bore down on it. With gentle bursts of gas from maneuvering jets and a not-so-gentle
thwong
as the two ships touched, Ryuka nestled the shuttle into its recessed docking cradle. Still betraying the anxiety that he had begun to evince when they had left
Pride of Earth
parked a hundred klicks abeam, Ryuka led them through a series of long cylindrical corridors to his quarters and Sialkot.

She was a small woman with cool hands and a warm smile. Charan judged her to be—like Ryuka and, for that matter, Rankin—in her fifties. But he realized with a start that, unlike Rankin, the Joumans had left their homeworld young.
We have grown old with waiting
, they had said—more than thirty years’ worth. The real meaning of that commitment impressed itself on Charan as he saw them together and the eagerness in their expressions.

“Let there be an end to waiting,” he said. “Show us the trust of Journa.”

Two went with each Journan, both as a nod to the size of the trust and a concession to the divided expertise of their guides. Each pair would be shown half of the holdings, Sialkot explained; later, they could change guides and see the remainder. Charan and Wenyuan went with Sialkot, while Joanna and Rankin followed Ryuka. The split suited Charan—he did not trust Wenyuan and did not know Sialkot, both good reasons to accompany them.

Charan had drummed into the others that they were to look, to learn as much as they could, to ask questions for understanding, but to keep their judgments and speculations to themselves for later. He was quickly glad he had done so. If the sacrifice of its crew in making the voyage had not made it clear, the first few chambers of the keep did: compared to the effort mounted to produce
Jiadur
and its contents, the creation of
Pride of Earth
had been an afternoon’s idle play. There were undercurrents to the encounter which demanded that the Terrans’ every step be a measured one and their every comment well-considered.

One spherical chamber was occupied only by a presumably life-size representation—whether corpse or immaculate model Charan could not say, though he suspected the latter—of the disc-shaped translucent aquatic creature called the caravasu. Fully five metres across, the caravasu dominated the room. The walls of the chamber depicted the creature’s life cycle and evolution: from a small hard-shelled scavenger with flotation cells to a motile fresh-water sun-feeder, an animate version of the giant Brazilian water lily.

A great gallery contained uncountable works of art, the most popular subjects Journan lifeforms and landscapes. The styles ranged from technically breathtaking ultrarealism to emotionally charged impressionism. Charan asked for explanations of the media and techniques he could not immediately connect to anything familiar. The most memorable went by the name of prakell, after its first practitioner: it required the artist to work while being systematically starved of oxygen, which though risky brought a distinctive kind of reckless vigor to the finished product.

In what Charan thought of as the Hall of Machines, he took pleasure in a glittering toy that tumbled, hopped, shrieked merrily, then began to tumble again. Sialkot told him to his surprise that the glittering material was once living.

“It is not unlike wood in its origin,” she said. She went on to explain that population was strictly regulated by tradition grown out of ecological principles; few Journan families had more than one child, and virtually none more than two.

“As a consequence, much thought goes into the creation of stimulating companions for the young,” she told them. “Of course, nearly every family has its tell.”

Remembering that the tell was one of the “fatherless” species Ryuka had mentioned, on encountering one in the Hall of Animals Charan was not surprised to find it something he could comfortably call a dog—not one of the prissy domesticated varieties, but a leaner, feral creature much like the wild dog of Australia. Inexplicably, the tell seemed to make Wenyuan uncomfortable, as though it reminded him of something he preferred to forget.

His senses overwhelmed, one chamber flowed unbuffered into the next in Charan’s memory. There was too much to see and they moved on much too quickly to absorb even the tenth part of it. But there was no slowing Sialkot short of brute force; she had tended and studied and waited too long. So they went with her, only the most outrageous sights staying with them vividly, the more ordinary swept out of memory, each by the next.

Forgotten: a panoramic landscape that filled one huge curving wall, made wholly of the colored bristles of sepi and the downy silk of molnok. Forgotten: eight hundred carvings in a soft bonelike rock of the air-creatures of Journa, on the wing, alighting, poised for flight. Remembered: an improbable orrery in a huge central chamber, where a massive relief globe of Journa accompanied by its eccentrically orbiting moon faced a blazing sun, a field of stars.

When at the end of six hours he was at last led back to the Journans’ quarters, his sensory weariness and the knowledge that he had seen but half the collection conspired to sap his remaining physical energies. He saw by their postures and expressions that the others felt similarly, and asked that they be taken back to
Pride of Earth
—taken home, in the terminology they were surprised to find themselves using.

En route, they made no effort to write down their impressions and remembrances—the task was too great and the need for surcease too pressing.

Secure in their own ship again, their tongues were loosened. “It was as if they had emptied the Art Museum and the Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Technology and threw in the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress for good measure,” Joanna said softly.

Though most of the specific references were meaningless to the others, they understood.

“No one thing I saw overwhelmed me,” Rankin said. “But room after room, hour after hour, the endless parade of the treasures of an entire planetary civilization—”

“Little enough about the Joumans themselves,” Wenyuan noted. “They were as ghosts. They stood behind each work of art, every invention. But it was as though they were not a worthy subject themselves.”

“Didn’t you understand what they told us? Couldn’t you tell by the way they watched us?” Charan asked. “They’re looking to us to give them their sense of worth. And I don’t know what we’re going to tell them.”

A night spent in reflection brought Charan no closer to that answer, and in the morning he took each of the others in turn to mod E for a private talk.

“Do you still think the Joumans are a threat?” he asked Wenyuan bluntly when they were alone.

“No. But that does not mean they are not a problem,” Wenyuan said with equal candor. “I find that I am grateful you terminated communications with Earth.”

“Why is that? No—I think I know. Tai Chen agreed to the open communications policy because she was perfectly willing to see us publicize a failure. Now things have changed.”

“The knowledge we have won belongs to those with the vision to act on it, not to the masses,” Wenyuan said firmly. “It is our duty to bring that information to our superiors as rapidly as possible. The only secure means by which that can be done is to return to Earth immediately.”

Charan’s fingers prowled through the stubble on his chin. He said nothing. Sensing weakness of will, Wenyuan pressed his point.

“Events here have rendered my instructions irrelevant, as I am certain they have yours,” he said convivially, spreading his hands wide. “The only duty remaining is to report—not blindly and recklessly, with a transmission that could create public havoc, but privately and prudently.”

Some resistance stirred at last in Charan, more reflex than real. “My instructions presumed the Senders were real. The Consortium has worked to prepare the people of Earth for this moment.”

“They have prepared them for
aliens
. They expect Eddington’s MuMans, or their kin. Not
our
kin. What will they make of that news? You know as I do there is no predicting, and what cannot be predicted cannot be controlled.” Wenyuan smiled engagingly, an expression which suited his face poorly. “And there is a personal dimension. You can hardly be less eager than I am to be free of this ship, to put this burden behind you.”

“What happens to the Journans in your scheme?”

“They continue on as they are, toward their arrival in 2027. By then we will be ready. Tilak—comrade—
it is not our problem anymore
.”

Ready to do what?
Charan wondered. But the specifics did not matter. Once she knew enough, Tai Chen could play the outcome of
Pride of Earth
’s mission as a trump against Rashuri at a time of her choosing. Or hold it in reserve indefinitely and use it to extract an endless string of concessions. The end result of either would likely be the destruction or exploitation of the keep of Journa itself.

“Those are not our problems either,” Wenyuan said presciently. “Home, Commander, and the final discharge of our duty. That is the course for us now.”

With Joanna, Charan’s tone was gentler, but his opening question just as direct. “You came here prepared to worship them, but found out that they worship us,” he said. “Where does that leave you?”

“I believe that this is meant a lesson for us, a great lesson in humility,” she answered. She spoke deliberately, as though sight-reading a speech she had not yet taken to heart. “I see now that we were presumptuous and self-centered. It’s been an article of faith from the beginning for Christians that the infinite Universe was created for us alone. But it seems we’ve read our Scriptures too narrowly. I believe God is telling us that He has blessed many worlds with life in His image. Earth and Journa are just two of that number.”

“You reject the Journans’ explanation, then.”

“Of course. It’s a pagan myth, nothing more.”

“So what now? What do you hope to do?”

“I must carry the good news back to Earth.”

“What good news is there in a rebuke for hubris?”

“But it’s also a wonderful affirmation that God exists. I’ve talked with Dr. Rankin at length. This revelation will blow away forever the false science of evolution. We owe our existence to God’s divine hand, not blind chance. No one can doubt that now. The Church will have to change, but it will become stronger in doing so. Much stronger. It will sweep away the unbelievers, and usher in a new Age of Faith.”

“The Joumans doubt it. In fact, they don’t seem to believe in your God at all. I saw no reference to such a being in the entire keep. If the Joumans are God’s children, why don’t they seem to know it?”

Joanna bit at her lower lip as she thought about her answer. “Their revelation is yet to come,” she said finally. “They’re as the Jews were before Abraham. He hasn’t shared with them His Holy Word, His plan of salvation. That may be why they were chosen for this encounter. This may be meant as the beginning of their salvation.”

“Or perhaps they don’t need salvation,” Charan said lightiy. “You see life in too narrow terms, Scion. I suspect that the Joumans might see your god as nothing more than our own Founder myth.”

Uncharacteristically, anger flashed across Joanna’s face. “What, then? Do their myths falsify our truths? Do you expect me to forget my faith because they haven’t any? Because two disagree, are both wrong?”

“They don’t have to be—but they could be. I’m just wondering what happened to the approaching host you were so certain were coming, Joanna. What happened to the voices of revelation and the messages they were sending you? Did they send one saying the Second Coming’s on hold?”

“Why do you want to tear down my faith?” Joanna asked, her anger turning to tears.

Charan sighed, regretting the tone he had taken. “I’m looking for answers, Joanna,” he said tiredly. “Everybody but me seems to have one to offer. I’d like to know that the one I pick is a good one. A faith that can’t stand up to questioning and a theology that can’t bear close examination don’t give me much comfort.”

“I have no doubts that what I’ve said is true,” she said with stiff pride.

“That’s unfortunate,” Charan said with sincere regret. “Because my instinct is to be suspicious of anyone who’s too certain of anything just now.”

But Rankin, who had doubts aplenty, was no more help. “I’ve been around the block several times on this one,”

Rankin admitted. “It keeps getting harder to figure.” His breath smelled of port wine. “Those additional tests you did with the samples from Sialkot—what did they tell you?”

“The cytochrome C studies. You understand the principle? Mutations provide a kind of clock that keeps track of how long it’s been since two lines split from the same stock. You’d like to have more than two specimens before you go draw conclusions—”

—“but there aren’t any more Journans handy. So how long has it been?”

“Based on those two samples, the lines haven’t split, as far as a population biologist is concerned. I mean by that an upper limit of 100,000 years.”

“Is there no way around their having been one with us at sometime?”

“There’s lots of ways around it, just none that will hold water. But for audacity, I like the captured-by-flying-saucers-and-used-as-fronts-for-an-evil-purpose idea best myself. You can also have fun with passed-into-an-altemate-universe—”

“I have heard of such a tiling as convergent evolution—”

“Probability zero. It applies only to grosser physical characteristics where the same solution is produced in response to the same problem, not to the fine points of biochemistry.”

“And Joanna’s explanation?”

“I prefer the Journans’.”

“Can you offer any support for it?”

Rankin shook his head. “I’m no archaeologist. But I have trouble imagining that we could fail to miss the signs of a space-going technological civilization preexistent on Earth. If we are the Pounders—and, mind you, it’s a wonderfully attractive idea if you’re a human chauvinist like I am—what could have happened to make us forget that era so completely? This is really a better puzzle by far than if the Senders had turned out to be something with two brains and slimy tentacles, or those silly moth-eared MuMans.”