Robert Sawyer - Calculating God

“And the other mass extinctions?” asked Hollus.

“More fine tuning along the way. The one in the Triassic, for instance, allowed the dinosaurs, or their counterparts, to come into ascendancy on the three worlds. Without dinosaurs dominating the ecosystem, mammals — or the endothermic octopeds on Beta Hydri III, and the live-birthers like T’kna on Delta Pavonis II — would never have been forced into the crepuscular existence that fostered the development of bigger brains. It takes wits to eke out a living when you’re not the dominant form.”

It was strange to hear the giant spider play devil’s advocate. “But the only direct evidence,” he said, “for the creator having manipulated the evolution of life once it got started is the coincidences in the dates of the mass extinctions on Beta Hydri III, Delta Pavonis II, and Sol III. Yes, possibly, the creator did similarly manipulate the development of life on the six abandoned worlds we visited, but we could find no unequivocal evidence of that.”

“Well, perhaps intelligence can develop in this universe through happenstance,” I said. “Even by random chance, asteroids do crash into planets every ten million years or so. But you’ll never get multiple intelligent species existing simultaneously unless you jigger the timetable — and not just once, but several times. To invoke the cooking metaphor, sure, maybe a salad could appear on its own by random chance — wind blowing enough vegetable matter together, say. And maybe a steak might appear on its own — lightning hitting a cow just the right way. And you might end up with wine — grapes that had accumulated in one place and had fermented. But there’s just no way to get it all to come together simultaneously — a glass of wine, a salad, and a steak — without lots of intervention. The same might be true of getting multiple sentient lifeforms to appear simultaneously.”

“But that raises the question of why God wants multiple sapients at the same time,” said the alien.

I scratched my chin. “That is a good question.”

“It is indeed,” said Hollus.

We contemplated this for a time, but neither of us had a good answer. It was almost 5:00 P.M.“Hollus?” I said.

“Yes?”

“I have a favor to ask.”

His eyestalks stopped moving. “Yes?”

“I would like you to come home with me. I mean, let me take the holoform projector back to my house and have you appear there.”

“To what purpose?”

“It’s . . . it’s what humans do. We have friends over for dinner. You could meet my family.”

“Friends . . . ,” said Hollus.

Suddenly I felt like an idiot. I was a primitive being next to Hollus; even if his psychology permitted him to feel affection for others, surely he had no warm feelings toward me. I was just a means to an end.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to impose.”

“You are not imposing,” Hollus said. “I am pleased that you feel for me what I feel for you.” His eyestalks danced. “I would very much like to meet your family and visit your home.”

I was surprised to find my eyes misting over. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much.” I paused. “Of course, I could have them come here, if you prefer. We don’t have to go to my house.”

“No,” said Hollus. “I would like to do that. Your family consists of your mate Susan, correct?” He’d heard me talk to her on the phone several times now.

“Yes. And my son Ricky.” I turned the little picture frame on my desk around so that Hollus could see him.

The eyestalks converged on the frame. “His countenance is not similar to yours.”

“He’s adopted,” I said with a little shrug. “He’s not my biological child.”

“Ah,” said Hollus. “I would enjoy meeting them both. Is tonight too soon?”

I smiled. Ricky would love this. “Tonight is just perfect,” I said.

Cooter Falsey’s eyebrows knit in confusion as he looked at J. D. Ewell. “What do you mean, what we’re going after is already dead?”

Ewell was still sitting on the edge of the motel bed. “They’ve got a museum here in Toronto, and it’s got some special fossils on display. Those fossils are a lie, says Reverend Millet. A blasphemy. And they’ll be showing those fossils to that great big spider alien.”

“Yeah?” said Falsey.

“This world is a testament to God’s handiwork. And those fossils, they either are fakes or the work of the devil. Creatures with five eyes! Creatures with spikes sticking out everywhere! You’ve never seen the like. And scientists are telling the aliens that those things are real.”

“All fossils are fake,” said Falsey. “Created by God to test the faith of the weak.”

“You and I know that. And it’s bad enough the atheists are able to teach our kids about fossils in schools, but now they are showing them to aliens, making those aliens think we believe the lie of evolution. The aliens are being led to believe that we humans don’t believe in God. We’ve got to make it clear that those godless scientists aren’t speaking for the majority.”

“So . . . ,” said Falsey, inviting Ewell to continue.

“So, Reverend Millett, he wants us to destroy those fossils. The Bogus Shale, he calls them. They’re on special display here, and then they’re supposed to travel down to Washington, but that won’t happen. We’re going to put an end to the Bogus Shale once and for all, so those aliens will know that we don’t care about such things.”

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” said Falsey.

“No one will.”

“What about the alien? Doesn’t one of them spend a lot of time at the museum. We’ll be in a powerful lot of trouble if we hurt him.”

“Don’t you read the papers? He’s not really there; that’s just a projection.”

“But what about the people who go to the museum? They may be misguided, looking on all them fossils, but they aren’t evil like those abortion docs.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ewell. “We’ll do it on a Sunday night, after the museum has closed.”

I called Susan and Ricky and told them to prepare for a very special guest; Susan could do miracles with three hours’ notice. I worked on my journal for a time, then left the museum. I’d taken to wearing a floppy Tilley hat and sunglasses to disguise my appearance for the short walk from the staff entrance to the subway station; the UFO nuts still seemed to mostly congregate out in front of the ROM’s main entrance, quite some distance away. So far, none of them had intercepted me — and by the time I came out this evening, they all seemed to have gone home, anyway. I went down into the subway station and boarded a silver train.

When we pulled into Dundas station, a young man with a wispy blond beard entered the train. He was the right age to be a student at Ryerson; that university’s campus was just north of Dundas. The young man was wearing a green sweatshirt covered with white lettering that said:

I smiled; the provincial parliament buildings were at Queen’s Park, of course. Everyone, it seemed, was taking shots at Premier Harris these days.

When I finally arrived at the house on Ellerslie, I gathered my wife and son, and we went into the living room. I opened my briefcase and put the dodecahedron that was the holoform projector on the coffee table. Then I sat on the couch. Ricky scrambled up next to me. Susan perched herself on the arm of the love seat. I looked at the blue clock on the VCR. It was 7:59 P.M.;Hollus had agreed to join us at 8:00.

We waited, with Ricky fidgeting. The projector always made a two-toned bleep when turning on, but so far, it was dead silent.