Robert Sawyer - Calculating God

“I don’t have two years.”

“Well, no,” said Hollus. “Not if you stay awake for the trip. But I believe I told you that the Wreeds travel in suspended animation; we could do the same thing for you, and not take you out of cyrofreeze until we had reached our destination.”

My vision blurred. The offer was incredibly tempting, an amazing proposition, an unimaginable gift.

In fact —

In fact, maybe Hollus could freeze me until — “Could you freeze me indefinitely?” I asked. “Eventually, surely there will be a cure for cancer, and—”

“Sorry, no,” said Hollus. “There is degradation with the process; although the technique is as safe as a general anesthetic over periods of up to four years, we have never successfully revived anyone after more than ten years in cyrofreeze. It is a convenience for traveling, not a way of moving into the future.”

Ah, well; I never quite saw myself following in Walt Disney’s frosty footsteps, anyway. But, still, to get to take this journey with Hollus, to fly aboard the Merelcas out to see what might really, actually be God . . . it was an incredible notion, an astounding thought.

And, I suddenly realized, it might even be the best thing for Susan and Ricky, sparing them the agony of the last few months of my life.

I told Hollus I’d have to think about it, have to discuss it with my family. Such a tantalizing possibility, such an enticing offer . . . but there were many factors to consider.

I’d said that Cooter had gone to meet his maker — but I didn’t really believe that. He had simply died.

But perhaps I would meet my maker . . . and while I was still alive.

“Hollus has offered me a chance to go with her to her next destination,” I said to Susan when I got home that night. We were sitting on the living-room couch.

“To Alpha Centauri?” she replied. That had indeed been the next, and last, planned stop on the Merelcas’s grand tour before it headed back home to Delta Pavonis and then Beta Hydri.

“No, they’ve changed their minds. They’re going to go to Betelgeuse instead. They’re going to go see whatever it is that’s out there.”

Susan was quiet for a time. “Didn’t I read in the Globe that Betelgeuse is 400 light-years away?”

I nodded.

“So you couldn’t be back for over a thousand years?”

“From Earth’s point of view, yes.”

She was silent some more. After a time, I decided to fill the void. “See, their ship will have to turn around at the halfpoint and face its fusion exhaust toward Betelgeuse. So in just 250 years, the — the entity will see that bright light, and will know that someone is coming. Hollus hopes that he — that it — will wait for us to arrive, or else will come back to meet us.”

“The entity?”

I couldn’t bring myself to use the other word with her. “The being that interposed itself between us and Betelgeuse.”

“You think it’s God,” said Susan simply. She was the one who went to church. She was the one who knew the Bible. And she’d been listening to me for weeks now, talking over dinner about ultimate origins, first causes, fundamental constants, intelligent design. I hadn’t often said the G-word — not around her, at any rate. It had always meant so much more to her than it had to me, and so I’d kept some distance from it, some scientific detachment. But she knew. She knew.

I shrugged a little. “Maybe,” I said.

“God,” repeated Susan, placing the concept firmly on the table. “And you’ve got a chance to go see him.” She looked at me, her head tilted to one side. “Are they taking anyone else from Earth?”

“A few, ah, individuals, yes.” I tried to remember the list. “A severely schizophrenic woman from West Virginia. A silverback gorilla from Burundi. A very old man from China.” I shrugged. “They’re some of the people the other aliens have bonded with. All of them immediately agreed to go.”

Susan looked at me, her expression carefully neutral. “Do you want to go?”

Yes, I thought. Yes, with every fiber of my being. Although I longed for more time with Ricky, I’d rather he remembered me as still somewhat healthy, still able to get around on my own, still able to pick him up. I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“You’ve got a son,” Susan said.

“I know,” I said softly.

“And a wife.”

“I know,” I said again.

“We — we don’t want to lose you.”

I said it gently. “But you will. All too soon, you will.”

“But not yet,” said Susan. “Not yet.”

We sat silently. My mind roiled.

Susan and I had known each other at university, back in the 1960s. We’d dated, but I’d left, to go to the States, to pursue my dream. She hadn’t stood in my way then.

And now here was another dream.

But things were different, incalculably so.

We were married now. We had a child.

If that was all there were to the equation, it would be a no-brainer. If I were healthy, if I were well, there was no way I’d have contemplated leaving them — not even as an idle speculation.

But I wasn’t healthy.

I wasn’t well. Surely she understood that.

We’d been married in a church, because that’s what Susan had wanted, and we’d said the traditional vows, including “Till death do us part.” Of course, no one standing there, in a church, affirming those words, ever contemplates cancer; people don’t expect the damned crab to scuttle into their lives, dragging torture and calamity behind it.

“Let’s think about it some more,” I said. “The Merelcas isn’t leaving for three days.”

Susan moved her head slightly, in a tight nod.

“Hollus,” I said, the next day, in my office. “I know you and your shipmates must be terribly busy, but—”

“Indeed we are. There is much preparation to be done before leaving for Betelgeuse. And we are involved in considerable moral debate.”

“About what?”

“We believe you are correct: the beings of Groombridge 1618 III did try to sterilize all of local space. It is not a thought that would have occurred to either a Forhilnor or a Wreed; forgive me for so saying, but it is something so barbarous, only a human — or, apparently, a Groombridge native — would think of it. We are debating whether to send messages to our homeworlds, advising them of what the beings of Groombridge tried to do.”

“That seems like a reasonable thing to do,” I said. “Why wouldn’t you tell them?”

“The Wreeds are a generally nonviolent race, but, as I have told you, my species is — well, passionate would be the kind word. Many Forhilnors would doubtless wish to seek retribution for what was attempted. Groombridge 1618 is thirty-nine light-years from Beta Hydri; we could easily send ships there. Regrettably, the natives left no warning landscape marking their current location — so if we wish to be sure they are exterminated, we might have to destroy their entire world, not just a segment of it. The people of Groombridge never developed the ultra-high-energy fusion technology my race possess; if they had, they surely would have used it to send their bomb to Betelgeuse more quickly. That technology does give us strength enough to destroy a planet.”

“Wow,” I said. “That is a moral dilemma. Are you going to tell your homeworld?”

“We have not decided.”

“The Wreeds are the great ethicists. What do they think you should do?”

Hollus was quiet for a time. “They suggest we should use the Merelcas’s fusion exhaust to wipe out all life on Beta Hydri III.”

“On the Forhilnor homeworld?”

“Yes.”