Ben Bova - New Earth

“I’m proud of you, Bran,” said Jordan. “You’ve become a leader.”

Brandon smiled shyly. “With your help, Jordy. With your help.”

The two brothers were walking alone through the white mounds of their camp’s bubble tents, beneath a darkening sky. The first few stars were appearing in the gathering twilight. Jordan knew that Earth’s Sun would be visible once the night became fully dark. It would appear as a faint yellowish star, undistinguished and terribly far away.

“I wish there were some way we could convince Harmon that Adri’s people mean us no harm,” Jordan said.

Brandon huffed. “Meek’s a lost cause. He’s scared out of his wits. He’ll never be able to adapt to this situation.”

They walked along slowly, out toward the periphery of their camp. The forest trees sighed in the soft night breeze. Jordan thought of Aditi, back in the city, waiting for him, waiting for the people from Earth to make up their minds.

Turning toward his brother, Jordan said, “Bran, we’ve got to present a united front back home. We can’t have a divided team, we can’t have Harmon giving them a dissenting minority report.”

Brandon nodded. “That’d give the naysayers a reason to deny everything we have to tell them.”

Jordan thought of other times, earlier crises that had been worsened by inaction. World War II. The American Civil War. We might have avoided the greenhouse floods if we’d acted early enough, strongly enough, he said to himself.

Strangely, Brandon began to chuckle softly.

“Something funny?”

“I was just thinking about the Neanderthals.”

“What in the—”

“I was picturing a council of Neanderthals sitting in their cave around a fire, debating what they should do about global warming.”

“You have a weird sense of humor, Bran.”

“No, Jordy. Imagine it. Here they are, beautifully adapted to the Ice Age. But the climate’s warming up. The glaciers are melting away. And they’re squatting around their fire, wondering what to do.”

“There wasn’t much they could do,” said Jordan.

“They could have adapted. They could have changed their ways and adapted to the warmer climate.”

“Could they?” Jordan wondered. “As you say, they were physically adapted for the Ice Age climate.”

“They were intelligent, Jordy. As intelligent as we are. They had larger brains than we do, actually.”

“But—”

“Some of them lived in the Middle East, you know. They could have adapted to a warmer climate.”

Jordan pointed out, “Some of them interbred with our ancestors, actually. We carry a few Neanderthal genes in our DNA.”

“We absorbed them.”

“Which is what Harmon fears that Adri’s people want to do to us.”

Brandon snorted a bitter laugh. “Yeah, their few thousand are going to absorb our twenty billion.”

“He’s still afraid of the possibility.”

With a dismissive shake of his head, Brandon continued, “Most of the Neanderthals didn’t get absorbed. They didn’t adapt. They must’ve had a guy like Meek telling them that the warming is all a fake, a temporary anomaly, nothing to worry about.”

Jordan got the point. “So they didn’t change.”

“And they went extinct.”

“Just as we will.”

“If we don’t change our ways, Jordy. If we don’t change our ways.”

“Can we?” Jordan asked. “Will we?”

“There’ll be plenty of people back on Earth who won’t want to believe what we have to tell them. People who’ll deny it all, claim we’ve been hoodwinked by scheming aliens.”

“Just like Harmon.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do about him, Bran?”

In the lengthening shadows, Jordan couldn’t make out the expression on his brother’s face. But he heard the undertone of anger in Brandon’s voice. “Personally, I’d like to stuff him back in a cryosleep capsule and keep him there permanently.”

“Not an altogether bad idea,” Jordan said lightly, “but it’s rather impractical, don’t you think?”

“I just don’t understand him, Jordy. He’s supposed to be a scientist, but he’s not thinking logically at all. He hasn’t done a lick of work since we arrived here.”

“He’s frightened.”

They had reached the edge of the camp. Brandon stood in silence for several long moments, fists on his hips, head turned skyward.

“You’re right, Jordy,” he said at last. “If we can’t convince Meek that Adri’s people are being honest with us, we won’t have a chance in hell of convincing the powers-that-be back on Earth.”

“So what do you propose to do?” Jordan repeated.

“I’m supposed to be our fearless leader, right?”

“You are the team’s leader,” Jordan agreed.

“So I’m going to do what a leader’s supposed to do,” Brandon said. “When facing a really tough job, fob it off on somebody else.”

“What do you mean?”

Stepping closer to Jordan, Brandon placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and said, “Jordy, I’m giving you the task of bringing Meek around. I just don’t get along with the pompous ass, but you get along with everybody. The job is yours … if you’ll accept it.”

Surprised, Jordan actually staggered back a step. “You want me…?”

“To get Meek to see the light. You’re a trained diplomat. If I try to convince him I’ll wind up socking him in the nose.”

“But—”

“No buts, Jordy. I need you to do this. We all need it. If you can bring Meek around, Longyear and the others will fall in line.”

Jordan stared at his brother. His first thought was, Bran’s evading his responsibilities again, just as he’s done since we were children. He wants to be recognized as our leader but he can’t face up to doing the work.

But then he realized, Wait. Maybe Bran’s really taking his job of leadership seriously. Maybe he’s thought this out, after all. A real leader delegates authority. A good leader picks the best people for the tasks that have to be done.

He gazed into his brother’s questioning eyes with new respect. Placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, in imitation of his brother’s gesture, Jordan replied, “I’ll do it, Bran. I don’t know if I’ll be successful, but I’ll talk to Harmon, one on one.”

Brandon nodded. “I knew I could count on you, Jordy.”

“I don’t know if I can bring him around,” Jordan warned again.

“If you can’t, nobody can,” Brandon said, with absolute certainty.

Jordan went to his cubicle, sat on the springy cot, and phoned Aditi. He always felt a little awkward speaking to her from the cubicle; its two-meter-high partitions didn’t allow much privacy. He kept his voice low, but his eyes focused on Aditi’s alert, vivacious features.

He couldn’t tell her about Brandon’s request; he might be overheard. Instead he asked her about her day, and they chatted about inconsequential matters.

Until he said, “I’d really like to get back to the city as soon as I can.”

“Tomorrow?” she chirped.

With an unhappy smile, Jordan answered, “I don’t think so. I have a lot to do here.”

“I’ll come there, then.”

Jordan shook his head. “No. That would be … a problem. Let me work out what I have to do here and then I’ll call you.”

“I miss you, Jordan.”

Almost whispering, he replied, “I miss you, too.”

They said reluctant good-byes, then Jordan clicked his phone shut. Maybe Bran has the right idea, he thought. Maybe stuffing Harmon into a cryosleep capsule is the answer to our problem.

He dreamt that night of Miriam: happy, laughing, in the healthy bloom of youth when he had first met her. And in his dream she morphed into Aditi, happy, laughing, young.