Joe Haldeman: Earthbound

“Thanks.” It was some kind of candy bar. I unwrapped it and was grateful for the creamy chocolate and unidentifiable nuts. “How are you doing?”

“I’m in a complex state, which is also simple. Preparing to die.”

“In Mars, I suppose it would be much different.” I knew a little about their death customs. “With your family.”

She shuffled in the dark. “Newsies called it telepathy, but it’s nothing so strange. More like a data transfer. We don’t quite understand how it works, but the result is clear. Experiences that are unique to the dying individual are transferred to a sort of family memory. Like adding to a scrapbook in a human family, but all in the head.”

“You would have a lot of those. Unique experiences.”

She made a two-click sound of agreement. “I don’t think anything will be transferred without physical contact, though.”

“The more reason for you not to give up.”

There was a long pause. “You really think the Others will turn the power back on?”

“Anybody’s guess. I don’t suppose it’s likely. Do you?”

“My instinct says no. They aren’t kindly.” That was an understatement. “But it’s hard to predict where their logic may have taken them.”

The Others think very fast, superconducting neurocircuits, but they live and move with glacial slowness, slithering through liquid nitrogen. Their dealings with species like ours are planned out years ahead of time, or even centuries or millennia. Their automata, who perceive and react at our speed or faster, observe us and decide which branch of the logic tree to follow. The decision to turn off the free power doomed a billion or more humans, but as far as we know it was just remorseless logic, a chain of events that started tens of thousands of years ago. If humans do this, then we will do this , in self-defense.

Many races on earthlike planets have been evaluated this way. They say that many were not destroyed.

As we weren’t, quite. Yet.

“They haven’t been unkind to you. To Martians.”

“No, but we aren’t competitors. It bothers me to think that we’re not particularly useful to them anymore. We were created for a purpose and have fulfilled it.”

The Others created the Martians, biological machines, and put them in an Earth-like bubble in Mars, to serve as an advance warning, in case the unpleasant denizens of Earth evolved into space flight.

It was illustrative of the Others’ slow, tortuous, logical method. When we finally were sophisticated enough to leave Earth, one of our first targets would be Mars. When we found the Martian underground city, that would trigger a signal to Neptune’s moon Triton, where an individual Other was resting in frigid nitrogen slush. It would evaluate the situation and choose among various pre-ordained courses of action.

It chose a scenario where humans and Martians had to work together to defuse a bomb that would destroy all advanced life on Earth. Then it went back to its home planet, almost twenty-five light-years away, to report.

One assumes that the Others were ready and waiting, when it came back with news of what it had done and learned. The one best course of action was chosen, and the tools for it sent back almost twenty-five light-years to the waiting Earth.

In the intervening fifty years, though, the Earth had built an interplanetary defense fleet, which was obviously not unexpected.

Those thousand defensive ships posed no real threat to the Others; their home was a million times farther away. But the ships represented a dangerous attitude, as many had feared, and the Others had a plan for that.

The Others didn’t destroy us all, though that would’ve been simple, but just pulverized the moon, scattering its material more or less evenly inside the former satellite’s orbit, which destroyed the fleet and sent an unambiguous message: stay on Earth. Our glorious leaders opted to ignore that, or defy it, which triggered another pre-ordained response, taking away not only their gift of free energy, but somehow all electrical power as well. Suddenly marooning us in the nineteenth century, surrounded by useless sophisticated hardware. Like flashlights.

“Someone’s coming,” Snowbird whispered. I couldn’t see anyone.

“Halt!” Paul shouted from the roof. “Put your hands up.” The binoculars would help him see.

“I’m not armed,” a scared voice said. A young woman or younger boy.

“I see her,” Namir said. “Carmen, she’s directly in front of you, maybe thirty feet away. Please leave your weapon and go search her. I have you covered.”

That does a lot of good, I thought. If something goes wrong, you can shoot in our general direction.

“I’m over here,” she said. “Over here, over here, over here. I don’t mean anybody any harm.” About halfway there, I could see her, a dark ghost in the dim sky light, dressed in black, her hands pale smudges over her head.

“Excuse me,” I said idiotically, and patted her the way they did in cop shows fifty and a hundred years ago. She was about my size, but muscular. If she had a weapon on her, it was stuck in a place I was reluctant to touch.

Her clothing was like satin, and it was a strangely strong erotic experience, caressing a person I’d never seen. Maybe with proper study I could become a lesbian.

“Okay. So who are you, and what are you doing here? All dressed in black.” Her skin was evidently dark, except for her palms.

“I’m Alba Larimer. Security officer here at Armstrong. I came to warn you—some people plan to ambush you and take the Martian.”

“What do they plan to do with her?” Namir asked. He was still behind the truck.

“They think the Other must be watching us, the one that was on the cube?” The one we knew as Spy. “They think if they threaten to kill her, the Other will show up and make a deal.”

“That is stupid on so many levels,” Namir said. “But thank you. My name is Namir. Do you know where the ambush would be?”

“Somewhere between here and the turnoff to Route 17. Probably a building. There are a couple of dozen, unfortunately. You’d probably be better off staying here, if you have guns. Let them approach a defended position.”

She was talking his language.

“Hm. How many of them?”

“Only two were talking. There might have been more outside.”

“And what is your stake in this?”

“My job ,” she said, her voice shaking. “No one has relieved me of my responsibilities.”

I could almost see him nodding, assessing her. “Security. Do you have access to weapons and ammunition?”

“An assault rifle, a shotgun, and riot gear. In my car’s trunk, I’m afraid. Electronic lock.”

“We have an electronic crowbar,” Paul said from above. “How far away?”

“Less than a half mile; I was watching the launch.”

“What do you think?” Paul said.

I was not sure what to say, and then Namir answered. “I’ll go with her. Alba, can you find your car in this darkness?”

“Yes; it’s white. It’s exposed, though, by the side of the road.”

“Let’s move quickly, then. I’ll get the crowbar.”

Paul offered to come along as backup, and Namir said no, period. He didn’t have to explain. If she turned out to be a bad guy, we were only risking one man and one weapon. And she didn’t yet know how few people and weapons we had.

“Is there a central security building,” I asked, “where they keep all the guns and all?”

“I walked there first. It was a mess. At least three officers dead inside. I let myself in through the kitchen, and nobody saw me. That’s when I overheard the plot to kidnap the Martian.”

“So they’re armed to the teeth.”