The Administrator (14 page)

That was yesterday, she thought, but she wasn’t sure. She closed her eyes. She dreamed.

She was young again.

Vibrant and full of juice, she was running. Chasing the wild beast that would feed the whole tribe. The other hunters were far behind. She laughed as she ran. She delighted in the feel of the wind on her face and the thickness of the strong spear she carried in her broad, muscular hand. The others caught up to her just as she launched the weapon. It stuck into the giant voomo’s front leg. “First strike,” she grunted. She would get the heart. The others swiftly attacked the creature, stabbing and thrusting as it bellowed and fought. Finally, it lay still. They were lucky that day. No one was killed by the beast.

The dream faded into consciousness. Pain demanded that she open her eyes again. The dark sky still hovered over her like a giant sloth’s wings. The sand beneath her sucked at her body as if it was trying to pull her into it.

She was old. It was time. She had seen twenty-seven winters and had born six young ones. Most of her tribe did not live that long. When they began to lose their teeth and could no longer hunt or keep the fire, they were sent into the forest to be hunted by the young ones as practice. She had survived as long as she had by drinking the blood of the hunt that poured out during the cutting and by sucking the juice from cast-off bones.
 

She closed her eyes again. She had fooled them. When they sent her out, she had doubled back and headed for the desert instead of the forest to be the prey. The son of her first son had led the pack. She had heard them howling the hunt long into the night as she trudged through the thick sand that clutched at her feet.

Shining Eyes didn’t know why she had turned to the desert. It was The Way for the old to become the hunted, and later, the clan would gnaw on their bones and fight over their carcass. It was The Way, but something drove her toward the desert instead.

Again, she slept and dreamed.

She held her firstborn in her arms. She would have killed anyone else who hurt her as much as he had being born, but this was different. She didn’t question why. In her dream she watched him grow, watched herself grow old. When her teeth started falling out, she had tried to cram them back into her mouth. Her growling screams had echoed through the camp as she jammed the teeth back into her tender gums, but they soon fell out again.

Her son was different from the others. He didn’t hit her much and hardly growled at her at all. When her last baby was born, it died, and she had bled for days. She couldn’t stand up. Some of the tribe tried to kill her, but her son fought them off. He brought her water and bones to suck on. When she was better, he gave her a strong, short spear he had made. She used it every time a male came for her. Soon, they stopped coming and left her alone.

She didn’t know why he protected her. Neither did he. They didn’t think about it. Her race was too young to wonder about anything but hunger and survival.

Neither of them could know that he had taken a giant step in evolution. He was developing empathy—the first sign of conscience.

She awoke again. Weakness flooded her. The pain was gone. The sky was still black, but the small fires above her were fading. Blackness folded itself around her.

She couldn’t know that days later, her son would find her body in the desert. She didn’t see him fall to his haunches and howl at the night sky. She couldn’t know that instead of taking her body back to feed the tribe, he dug a small pit in the sand and gently laid her withered body into it. He marked the spot with the same dried up thorn plant she had tried to eat.

Neither of them knew that he would go back to the tribe to become a leader, to make laws and teach love. They did not yet know what those things were.

After awhile, the thirsty sand she lay in soaked her up and made her part of itself. Small roots from the desert scrub reached deep into her bosom and grew strong. Modest green sprouts pushed through the golden sand and stretched toward the sun. Within years, a well had sprung and a small oasis adorned her grave.

* * *

Centuries later, the oasis covered miles of desert. Her descendants built a great city on that spot. On the birth-site of love and grief.

More centuries passed. Visitors from a distant solar system came and marveled at a civilization that had no crime and no war. A civilization that revered its elders so much they had built a magnificent, glowing city with graceful, spiraling buildings and garden terraces for their cherished ones.

The native inhabitants welcomed the newcomers with kindness and hospitality. And when the alien visitors left, the inhabitants conferred great gifts and good wishes upon them for their long journey home.

After the initial take off, the visitors had little to do in their computer operated craft. Except for occasional systems checks and routine emergency drills, they had nothing to do with the actual operation of the ship. Since they were scientists first and astronauts second, they didn’t mind and passed the first half of the two year trip discussing their discovery.
 

“I knew we couldn’t be the only sentient life in the universe. I told you, didn’t I? Didn’t I?” Jonas shook his thin forefinger in front of Gordon’s broad face.

Gordon’s forehead furrowed thoughtfully as he absentmindedly leaned back from the stabbing finger. He was used to Jonas’ expansive gestures, and his eyes had suffered on more than one occasion from intimate contact with his friend’s flailing digits. “Watch the eyes, you skinny, old monkey. I’ll bet that if I tied your hands, you would be mute,” he growled for the thousandth time, “Yeah, we did it, but what now?”
 

Jonas crammed his hands into his pockets where they jiggled in confinement as he continued excitedly, “What do you mean, what now? First contact! We did it! Us! Two misfit scientists who have outlived our usefulness. They only sent us because they didn’t think this hunk of metal and wires would really work, and we are expendable. But we did it, by God, we did! Just wait ‘till we show them what we’ve got. We’ll be heroes. They’ll all be wanting to see for themselves.”

Gordon frowned again. His thick, gray brows hovered over his pale blue eyes like two exclamation points. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. People will come back to see the planet, Voric, for themselves.”

“So? It will prove that we are right. There is life beyond Earth. What’s your problem, you dithering old fool?” Jonas’ blue-veined hands had freed themselves from his pockets and taken flight again, emphasizing his question.

“Well, you said it yourself. Why did the committee send us on this mission? Because we are old. Dispensable. They didn’t expect us to live through it. They had an untried, space drive in an untried, long distance ship. They sent us out into the wilderness, expecting us to die.”

“But we didn’t die,” Jonas gestured emphatically, narrowly missing the plate of uneaten ship’s rations on the table in front of him, “In fact, we made the greatest discovery in history! Life in another system, and not just life, but intelligent life. In thirteen months, we’ll be home. Then we’ll show them who’s indispensable.”

Gordon pushed his plate of unappetizing nutrient chunks away, “And if we do, what then?”

Jonas screwed up his skinny lips like he tasted a lemon and said, “Why, we’ll be respected again. We’ll have shown them that men our age can still do something. We’ll probably even get a medal.”

“Maybe. More likely, they’ll pat us on the back, say good work, men, and pack us off to some old folks home for displaced scientists.”

“No. They wouldn’t do that,” Jonas squinted his dark brown eyes into little slits and looked at Gordon. “Would they?”

“Maybe. And then the committee would send younger, stronger men to negotiate with the natives of the planet. Do you remember what the committee does when they negotiate? Remember Hiroshima? Remember Southeast Asia? Remember the Middle East?”

Jonas’ jaw went slack. He stared at his friends lined face, “They wouldn’t ... they couldn’t ... these people don’t even have a word for crime or ... or war, let alone know how to go about defending themselves.”

“Exactly.”

Both men fell silent.

For three days, they said nothing to each other. They were both scientists. They retreated into their individual intellects to try to reason through the paradox. There seemed no acceptable solution.

Finally, Gordon broke the silence. “Jonas?”

His voice cracked the silence that had reigned with only the eternal, mesmerizing hum of the ship’s engines behind it for 36 hours.

Jonas jumped like a comet had roared over his head, spilling the cup of coffee in his hand onto the reports in his lap. “Shit! You scared the hell out of me,” he shouted, waving the wet papers in the air.

“Sorry, but I think I have a solution.”

“What is it?”

“We could not go back home.”

“Not go ... are you crazy? What do we do? Float around the universe until we run out of fuel?”

“No. We could go back to the new planet.”

“Why? Gordon, you senile, old fool, if we go back, we would be out of fuel. We would never be able to go home.”

“I know, but hear me out.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No. Now listen. Why did we come on this suicide mission?”

“To prove we weren’t useless, old men.”

“Exactly. And why did they let us?”

“Because they thought the ship wouldn’t work, and they wouldn’t lose anybody important.”

“What happens if we don’t return?”

“I don’t know. I guess they scrub the project.”

“Right. And if they do that, they won’t find the planet and destroy it like they have done with everything else. Look what has happened to Earth. She’s choking on her own exhaust. Famine, war, AIDS and every other kind of pollution you can name runs rampant. And how many people died in the territorial wars on Mars? Just because nobody could decide who owned what, we darn near blew up the whole damn planet. Do you want to see that happen to Voric?”

“Well, no. Of course not, but if we do what you say, we will have to spend the rest of our lives on that planet.”

“You got anybody waiting for you on Earth?”

“Well, no, but....”

“But what, Jonas? I don’t have anyone there either. We have both spent our lives in research. Neither of us ever made time for any lasting relationships. We were too busy. Jonas, all we really have—ever did have—is each other.”

“But, Gordon, these people, they aren’t like us.”

“You just made my point, Jonas. They aren’t like us. They are civilized. So they look a little funny. So what? They have two arms, two legs, two eyes and everything is in the right place. Sure their faces are a little flat, and they are that funny green color, and they don’t have any hair, but, Jonas, neither do you.” Gordon laughed and reached over to vigorously rub his friend’s bald head.

“Cut it out!” Jonas slapped at the larger man’s hands. “There is more to it than that. How do we find our way back? The ship is programmed for the trip out and the trip back to Earth. It’s all laid out. How do we change it?”

“I did some calculations. We simply program the flight system to retrace our path back to the planet.”

“Simply? Do you know how complicated that program is? How difficult it is to change it?”

“No, but you do. It’s your field. You can do it.”

“Me? I can’t ... well, maybe if I....” Jonas stroked his sparse, gray beard, a habit he had developed when he was in deep thought.

Gordon laughed huskily, “I knew if I challenged you, you would start thinking.”

“Now hold on, you old con-man. I didn’t say I could or would do it. I’m not sure about the whole thing.”

Gordon’s craggy face became serious, “Do you remember how the people actually cried when we boarded to leave? And how they gave us gifts and begged us to stay?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And remember how they called us Vorcheves all the time like they couldn’t remember our names?”

“Yeah, but we don’t know what that means. Probably stranger or visitor or something.”

“Nope. I spent the last few days translating some more of their language. Vorcheves means venerable, aged ones.”

“Venerable? You mean...?”

“Yeah. You saw how they treat their old people. Like they’re special. Like they can still do something. Good grief, Jonas, think about it. They built an entire city in the middle of an oasis just for the old codgers to visit and relax a little. The young ones go there to learn from the older ones. Remember when we asked them about it, they looked at us like they couldn’t believe we didn’t know because it was so obvious to them, and they only said, ‘It is The Way?”’

Jonas sighed, “Okay, say we do it, and the council doesn’t scrub the project. Say they find the planet anyway. What then?”

“I thought about that too. Right now, Earth is busy fighting over who owns the planets in our own solar system. Even if they don’t scrub this project, it will be a while before they get around to building another ship. The Vorics are on the verge of space travel. In another hundred years or so, they’ll be exploring their own solar system. Then they’ll move on to the next, which is ours.”