Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

There was nothing orderly, however, in what had become of Natasha Subramanian. Her disappearance, in the circumstances in which it had occurred, was simply impossible. And all of that was very bad for everyone concerned, and then it got worse.

For the next thirty-six hours the whole remaining Subramanian family was gathered in their kitchen, maid and cook as well. When Robert woke up from his nap, the crying spell was over, though he didn’t seem able to tell his parents what it had been about—until they asked him if it had something to do with his sister and he replied, “’Atasha ’appy asleep.”

When dinner arrived, he ate with a good appetite, although no one else did. They didn’t sleep much, either, drowsing in their chairs or stretching out for half an hour or so on the couch under the kitchen’s windows. But none of the adults dared walk away from the news screens for more than a couple of minutes, lest some explanation of what had happened might suddenly be announced.

None was.

Oh, there was news, all right. One worrying bulletin came from the searchers in low earth orbit to say that now they were being escorted by several dozen of those little copper-colored flying things that had given the world its first solid indication that flying saucers, or something like flying saucers, were real. Why were they there? What did they want? Speculation was intense, but no explanation emerged, and so the world’s attention turned to other matters. Attention turned to that spot in the Oort where astronomers had seen something that looked a little like, but wasn’t, a supernova. Now the longer photographic exposures, with more powerful clusters of telescopes hooked together, showed that there was indeed some low-level radiation going on that positively had not been there in earlier studies of the same area. Attention turned to the tugs that were gradually herding all seven of the racing yachts into safe orbits—the six that were unharmed as well as the ball of crumpled fabric that had been Natasha’s Diana. Attention turned to all the world’s capitals and major cities, not one of which lacked a collection of “experts” capable of endlessly discussing what was going on—without ever increasing anyone’s understanding of it.

And then the phone started ringing. It got no better the next day, nor the day after that.

The last thing Myra Subramanian wanted to do was let her one remaining child out of her sight, but when she and Ranjit talked it over, they agreed that it would be even worse to upset Robert any more than he had been upset already. That next day was a Sunday. On Sundays, Robert went to Sunday school. This Sunday was no different—though Myra sat in an empty room nearby during the whole time that Robert, like the other handicapped children in the church’s special group, listened politely as the woman who was the assistant pastor read them Bible stories and they colored the line drawings of what the little girl next to Robert called “Jesus Christ on a crisscross.” And on Monday there was the workshop that one of their advisers had thought Robert would enjoy. There, Robert Subramanian—the boy who had discovered hexominoes for himself!—patiently and apparently pleasurably learned how to fill a decorative pencil box with one of each color of crayon, for sale in the workshop’s little gift store.

At least Robert’s crying was over. The worry, the puzzlement, the terrible pain of loss, however—they weren’t over for either Myra or Ranjit. The calls never stopped coming in, either, from everyone they knew, and from an unbelievable number of people they didn’t know at all. Some were actual pests. Ronaldinho Olsos, for instance, begging their forgiveness in case they felt he was in any way responsible; T. Orion Bledsoe, from Pasadena, to offer cursory sympathy but mostly to ask if Ranjit had any idea, any idea at all that for any reason he hadn’t already communicated to the authorities, of what might have happened to his daughter.

Then there were the reporters.

Ranjit had believed that the absolute maximum invasion of his privacy had taken place after Nature had published his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. He was wrong about that. What happened now was much worse. Although President-Elect Bandara had arranged for police to guard the approaches to the Subramanian home, they were effective only there and nowhere else. Once Ranjit got onto his bike to leave, he was fair game. So he didn’t go into his university any more often than was unavoidable. After dinner he left Myra studying her journal reports and Robert stacking marbles on the floor beside her and retreated to the master bedroom to plan his next seminar.

That was when it happened.

Myra looked up from her screen, frowning. She had heard something—a distant electronic squeal, perhaps—and at the same moment had seen a flash of golden light coming under the door.

The next thing she heard was her husband’s voice, his tone a mixture of joy and terror. “My God!” he cried. “Tashy, is that really you?”

After that there was nothing that could have kept Myra de Soyza Subramanian out of that room. When she flung the door open, she saw her husband staring at someone standing by the window. It was a young woman. What she wore was the bare minimum that any girl might wear who knew perfectly well that no outside party was going to see her.

It was a costume Myra had often enough seen her daughter wear around the house. She echoed her husband’s cry—“Tashy!”—and did what any mother might have done in these preposterous circumstances, threw herself at the girl, trying to wrap her arms around her.

That, it turned out, was impossible.

A meter from the figure of the girl something slowed Myra down, a dozen centimeters later it stopped her cold. It wasn’t anything like a wall. It wasn’t anything tangible at all. Perhaps one could say that it was something like a warm and irresistible breeze.

Whatever it was, Myra was stopped cold, right there, at arm’s length from any part of this figure that wore the face of the child she had borne, and raised, and loved.

And who now did not even look at her. Its eyes were fixed on Ranjit. When it spoke, it said, “It is not of interest to discuss who I am, Dr. Subramanian. What is important is that I must ask you many questions, all of which you must answer.”

And then, without waiting for a response from Ranjit, without any explanations or even simple courtesy, the questioning began.

“Many” questions?

Yes, that was definitely the right word. They went on forever—for, by actual clock time, nearly four hours—and they covered, well, everything. “Why are many of your tribes destroying their weapons?” “Has your species ever lived at peace?” “What is the meaning of ‘proof’ as applied to your earlier researches on the Fermat theorem?” And even stranger ones: “Why do your males and females often copulate even when the female cannot conceive?” And “Have you not calculated an optimal population for your planet?” And “Why do your actual numbers so greatly exceed it?” And, “There are areas of many square kilometers on your planet that have very small human populations. Why have you not resettled some of your people there from crowded urban areas?”

Through it all, Myra stood there, frozen. She could see everything. She couldn’t move. She saw, and yearned to help, her husband’s struggles to deal with the interrogation in spite of his own helpless bafflement.

And such questions! “Sometimes,” she—or it—was asking, in that uninflected voice that might have come from a reanimated corpse, “the word you use for an assemblage of humans is ‘country’ and sometimes ‘nation.’ Are the two concepts differentiated by, perhaps, size?”