James Hogan: Mission to Minerva

With most of the more immediate questions at least partly answered, the company had broken up into talking in low voices with its own kind-Cerian and Cerian; Ganymean and Ganymean; Thurien and Thurien. Maybe it was because struggling to understand and make oneself understood was fatiguing. In Hunt's case, it meant he was limited to Danchekker, who just at that moment was polishing his spectacles. It was usually a prelude to speaking when he had been reflecting on something.

"It occurs to me, Vic, what an extraordinary book cousin Mildred would have been able to produce if she had returned for the mission. It would have had much more going for it than all those statistics and sociological observations, I would have thought… But then again, she wouldn't have had access to her market for it, I suppose. Unfortunate in many ways. You know, I would never have believed I'd ever hear myself saying this on the day you talked me into this antic, but I rather think I'm going to miss her."

"What do you mean, I talked you into? Wild horses wouldn't have held you back. And as I recall, Gregg Caldwell had more than a little to do with it as well."

"Yes, Gregg. And there's another one." Danchekker sighed and placed his spectacles back on his nose. "A lot to get used to. I think, given the alternative, I would willingly accept Ms. Mulling as part of the package if it meant returning. Is it really so beyond the bounds of possibility?"

"With no beacon for VISAR to home on, there's no way to locate us. Think of a needle in Jupiter made of hay."

"Um." Danchekker lapsed into a resigned silence. Hunt hoped Danchekker wasn't about to go off into a protracted nostalgia trip. He was still far from being up to confronting the implications fully in his own mind yet. After a minute or so, Danchekker said, "It's an intriguing thought. Right now, as we sit here, there is a Thurien out there at a Gistar, twenty light-years away, with Ganymeans on it descended from the ones who migrated from here long ago. Also, we have the Shapieron in orbit above us here. Back in our own universe, it was the Shapieron that enabled us to establish contact between Earth and Thurien. So why shouldn't it perform the same function here? You see my point. With contact to the Thurien that exists in this universe, we might be able to furnish them with enough information to create the means necessary to get us out of this situation and back where we belong."

Hunt looked at him sharply. It was a intriguing thought. Hunt had been too preoccupied with Freskel-Gar to give any thought to longer-term issues. But then, as he followed it through, he realized that there was a flaw. "But we're fifty thousand years in the past," he pointed out. "I'm not sure that the necessary know-how existed on Thurien then. In fact, I think they were still going through their period of stagnation. We could always try, of course, but I'm not sure there would even be anyone listening there."

"Um."

But Danchekker had a point nevertheless. If the means existed to make contact with Thurien, it meant that the potential was there for a joint Ganymean-human culture to come about as soon as the circumstances were propitious, without suffering the setback of Minerva's destruction and all the consequences it would engender. So, after everything, the mission was back on track, for precisely that result had been its whole purpose. The only problem was that as far as Hunt could see, it wasn't likely to happen while he was still around to see it.

A Lambian came in and informed them haltingly that the lander from the Shapieron was down in an open area not far away, and the Giants who had come with it would be arriving shortly. As the Lambian was about to leave, Eesyan and Showm were ushered back into the room, accompanied by Laisha. Eesyan nodded to Hunt in a way that conveyed it had been a worthwhile gesture, and then went with Showm to join Monchar and the two Shapieron officers. Laisha came over to Hunt and Danchekker, chuckling in the way of one who had just pulled off an enormous practical joke. "Wonderful!" she told them. "Kles was just too… how would you say?"

"Amazed?" Hunt offered the Jevlenese word.

"More than amazed. Was like his face is going to fall off. Wish you had been there. You see, all his life he has had… Interest? Fascination?"

"Okay."

"For the Giants of old. Then, to see them real… It was like in his dream. You understand?"

"I think so. " Ganymeans had been causing more than their fair share of astonishment all-round in the space of the last few years, Hunt thought. One of the other Cerians said something that Hunt didn't catch. Laisha turned away and began talking with them.

Hunt got up from the chair, yawned, stretched his arms, and moved over to one of the windows. Below was a paved court bounded by a wall of narrow stone columns like an enormous balustrade, through which two gates guarded by sentries gave access to a larger outer area. A railed fence on the far side ran in sections between square pillars surmounted by statues. Beyond was a wide street lined with stubby gray trees and buildings of massively square line and proportion, echoing the style of the furniture in the room. A twin-rotored helicopter type of machine was moving slowly above the rooftops. Everything seemed solid and gray. The type of city, Hunt thought, that a designer of early twentieth century battleships might have conceived. He wondered how typical this might be of what was looking like becoming the future home that he was going to have to get used to.

Just about everything else that his former life had been built around and toward which it had seemed to be heading was suddenly irrelevant. That was the fact, he told himself. Get used to it. At least he didn't have relatives who were all that close, or dependents to burden his conscience.

What alternatives were likely to present themselves in place of all those things now? Obviously they could look forward to a permanent special status here, with a reasonable expectation of enjoying just about anything that it was within the power of Minerva's rulers to grant. Hunt could certainly think of worse ways to start a relationship with a new world. "Never say, it can't be done because," was another thing his dad used to tell him. "Always say, it could be done if…"

With the Cerian-Lambian rivalry seemingly defused, the Shapieron here as a scouting ship, and a little Ganymean know-how thrown in, the program to move Minerva's population to Earth should move ahead rapidly. Helping to develop the physics needed for the requisite technologies would make an ideal role for Hunt-that alone could keep him usefully occupied for the rest of a lifetime. Seeing Earth as it had been would be a fascination in itself. Pioneered by a race that was already spacegoing, it would avoid the perils of being buried in people before they developed the means of expanding outward, giving it the kind of head-start that had benefitted Thurien. Definitely not all bad, he decided. Which was just as well, considering.

A movement nearby caused him to turn his head. Danchekker had collected a cup of the Lambian brew and come over. Hunt eyed it undecidedly. "What's it like?" He had been too strung-out by the effort of trying to keep up with events to have an appetite for anything himself yet.

"Quite agreeable, I have to say. Reminiscent of strong, sticky tea with honey. Also, an undertaste of what I recall vaguely as being not dissimilar to Irish whiskey, which should be to your liking." Danchekker took another sip and joined Hunt in his contemplation of the world. "All very solid and imposing," he commented. "Immutability in stone."

"It reminds me of some of those old black-and-white newsreel clips of winters in Russia," Hunt said. The difference was that Melthis wasn't far from Minerva's equator.

"Little concept, it would appear, of throwing up trashy piles of work pens purely for the purpose of maximizing short-term rentals. It seems somewhat odd. One would have thought that with migration to Earth being the race's single-minded objective, expressions of permanence would be low among their traits. An unconscious collective desire for security and a long-term future manifesting itself, do you think?"