Arthur Clarke: The Songs of Distant Earth

Few governments had ever looked more than an election ahead, few individuals beyond the lifetimes of their grandchildren. And anyway, the astronomers might be wrong. Even if humanity was under sentence of death, the date of execution was still indefinite. The Sun would not blow up for at least a thousand years, and who could weep for the fortieth generation?

Neither of the two moons had risen when the car set off along Tarna’s most famous road, carrying Brant, Mayor Waldron, Councillor Simmons, and two senior villagers. Though he was driving with his usual effortless skill, Brant was still smouldering slightly from the mayor’s reprimand. The fact that her plump arm was accidentally draped over his bare shoulders did little to improve matters.

But the peaceful beauty of the night and the hypnotic rhythm of the palm trees as they swept steadily through the car’s moving fan of light quickly restored his normal good humour. And how could such petty personal feelings be allowed to intrude, at such an historic moment as this?

In ten minutes, they would be at First Landing and the beginning of their history. What was waiting for them there? Only one thing was certain; the visitor had homed on the still-operating beacon of the ancient seedship. It knew where to look, so it must be from some other human colony in this sector of space.

On the other hand — Brant was suddenly struck by a disturbing thought. Anyone — anything — could have detected that beacon, signalling to all the universe that Intelligence had once passed this way. He recalled that, a few years ago, there had been a move to switch off the transmission on the grounds that it served no useful purpose and might conceivably do harm. The motion had been rejected by a narrow margin, for reasons that were sentimental and emotional rather than logical. Thalassa might soon regret that decision, but it was certainly much too late to do anything about it.

Councillor Simmons, leaning across from the back seat, was talking quietly to the mayor.

“Helga,” he said — and it was the first time Brant had ever heard him use the mayor’s first name — “do you think we’ll still be able to communicate? Robot languages evolve very rapidly, you know.”

Mayor Waldron didn’t know, but she was very good at concealing ignorance.

“That’s the least of our problems; let’s wait until it arises. Brant — could you drive a little more slowly? I’d like to get there alive.”

Their present speed was perfectly safe on this familiar road, but Brant dutifully slowed to forty klicks. He wondered if the mayor was trying to postpone the confrontation; it was an awesome responsibility, facing only the second outworld spacecraft in the history of the planet. The whole of Thalassa would be watching.

“Krakan!” swore one of the passengers in the back seat. “Did anybody bring a camera?”

“Too late to go back,” Councillor Simmons answered. “Anyway, there will be plenty of time for photographs. I don’t suppose they’ll take off again right after saying “hello!”“

There was a certain mild hysteria in his voice, and Brant could hardly blame him. Who could tell what was waiting for them just over the brow of the next hill?

“I’ll report just as soon as there’s anything to tell you, Mr. President,” said Mayor Waldron to the car radio. Brant had never even noticed the call; he had been too lost in a reverie of his own. For the first time in his life, he wished he had learned a little more history.

Of course, he was familiar enough with the basic facts; every child on Thalassa grew up with them. He knew how, as the centuries ticked remorselessly by, the astronomers’ diagnosis became ever more confident, the date of their prediction steadily more precise. In the year 3600, plus or minus 75, the Sun would become a nova. Not a very spectacular one — but big enough…

An old philosopher had once remarked that it settles a man’s mind wonderfully to know that he will be hanged in the morning. Something of the same kind occurred with the entire human race, during the closing years of the Fourth Millennium. If there was a single moment when humanity at last faced the truth with both resignation and determination, it was at the December midnight when the year 2999 changed to 3000. No one who saw that first 3 appear could forget that there would never be a 4.

Yet more than half a millennium remained; much could be done by the thirty generations that would still live and die on Earth as had their ancestors before them. At the very least, they could preserve the knowledge of the race, and the greatest creations of human art.

Even at the dawn of the space age, the first robot probes to leave the solar system had carried recordings of music, messages, and pictures in case they were ever encountered by other explorers of the cosmos. And though no sign of alien civilizations had ever been detected in the home galaxy, even the most pessimistic believed that intelligence must occur somewhere in the billions of other island universes that stretched as far as the most powerful telescope could see.

For centuries, terabyte upon terabyte of human knowledge and culture were beamed towards the Andromeda Nebula and its more distant neighbours. No one, of course, would ever know if the signals were received — or, if received, could be interpreted. But the motivation was one that most men could share; it was the impulse to leave some last message — some signal saying, “Look — I, too, was once alive!”

By the year 3000, astronomers believed that their giant orbiting telescopes had detected all planetary systems within five hundred light-years of the Sun. Dozens of approximately Earth-size worlds had been discovered, and some of the closer ones had been crudely mapped. Several had atmospheres bearing that unmistakable signature of life, an abnormally high percentage of oxygen. There was a reasonable chance that men could survive there — if they could reach them.

Men could not, but Man could.

The first seedships were primitive, yet even so they stretched technology to the limit. With the propulsion systems available by 2500, they could reach the nearest planetary system in two hundred years, carrying their precious burden of frozen embryos.

But that was the least of their tasks. They also had to carry the automatic equipment that would revive and rear these potential humans, and teach them how to survive in an unknown but probably hostile environment. It would be useless — indeed, cruel — to decant naked, ignorant children on to worlds as unfriendly as the Sahara or the Antarctic. They had to be educated, given tools, shown how to locate and use local resources. After it had landed and the seedship became a Mother Ship, it might have to cherish its brood for generations.

Not only humans had to be carried, but a complete biota. Plants (even though no one knew if there would be soil for them), farm animals, and a surprising variety of essential insects and microorganisms also had to be included in case normal food-production systems broke down and it was necessary to revert to basic agricultural techniques.

There was one advantage in such a new beginning. All the diseases and parasites that had plagued humanity since the beginning of time would be left behind, to perish in the sterilizing fire of Nova Solis.

Data banks, “expert systems’ able to handle any conceivable situation, robots, repair and backup mechanisms — all these had to be designed and built. And they had to function over a timespan at least as long as that between the Declaration of Independence and the first landing on the Moon.

Though the task seemed barely possible, it was so inspiring that almost the whole of mankind united to achieve it. Here was a long-term goal — the last long-term goal — that could now give some meaning to life, even after Earth had been destroyed.