Ben Bova - New Earth

Adri asked, “To what do we owe this visit, Dr. Meek?”

Almost testily, Meek replied, “Ask Mr. Kell, here. This is his idea, not mine.”

Over his shoulder, Jordan said to Adri, “I thought that you and Dr. Meek might have a useful discussion of alien biospheres.”

Adri asked, “You mean the alien societies that our Predecessors have encountered?”

Jordon nodded.

“Alien societies?” Meek blurted. “You mean you’ve encountered other aliens?”

“Not we,” said Adri. “We have never been off this planet. But our Predecessors have found many intelligent civilizations scattered among the stars. And many more planets that bear life, but not intelligence.”

Meek swallowed hard before asking, “And you have records of these encounters?”

“Of course. All sorts of data: biological, geological, social … complete and detailed files.”

“Can I … may I see them? Inspect them?”

“To your heart’s content, sir.”

Meek broke into an ear-to-ear grin. Jordan had never seen him look so happy.

Once they parked in the heart of the city, Meek went off with Adri, leaving Jordan alone with Aditi.

“You’ll stay here tonight?” she asked, as they climbed the stairs of the administrative building.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away—not even Meek could.” And he pulled her to him and kissed her. A pair of young men coming down the steps grinned at them, but Jordan paid them scant attention.

Once they resumed climbing the stairs, Aditi asked, “Didn’t Dr. Meek know that our Predecessors have found many life-bearing planets?”

“He heard it, I’m sure, but it never really registered in his mind. His attention was focused on … personal problems,” Jordan explained.

“Strange,” Aditi murmured.

“The strange thing is that I didn’t realize what was making Harmon so bitter. I should have tumbled to his problem much earlier.”

She smiled at him. “You tend to take responsibility for other people’s problems, you know.”

“That’s my job,” he answered.

They walked through the administration building and out to the tree-lined courtyard behind it, heading for the dormitory.

“I presume the suite I’ve used before is still there for me,” Jordan said.

“For us,” Aditi corrected.

“For us, of course. Yes, certainly, for us.”

She smiled naughtily. “You’ve never seen my room, Jordan. Suppose we go there, instead.”

“Now?”

With an elfin shrug, Aditi said, “We have plenty of time before dinner.”

As he lay in Aditi’s bed, with her warm and lovely body curled next to his, Jordan watched a tiny green lizard hanging upside down from the ceiling. It seemed asleep. Good idea, he said to himself, yawning. A nap would be—

His phone chirped. Frowning, Jordan disengaged from Aditi and slipped out of the bed. She stirred and murmured something drowsily.

He reached his shirt, slung over the back of an elaborately carved chair, and yanked out the damned phone.

Meek’s scowling face filled the tiny screen. “Jordan, where on earth are you? I’ve been pounding on your door for at least ten minutes.”

“I’ve been busy,” Jordan replied in a hushed voice. “What do you want?”

“Want? Why, it’s nearly dinner time and Adri and I thought you’d like to see some of his files about exoplanet biospheres before we went to the dining hall.”

Jordan glanced at Aditi. She was half sitting up in bed, nodding at him.

To Meek, he said, “Give me fifteen minutes or so. Where are you?”

“Where am I?” Meek looked surprised at the question, almost insulted. “Why, I’m in Adri’s office, up on the top floor of the administration building. Jordan, you simply have to see what they’ve got here! Dozens of exoplanets. A handful of intelligent civilizations! None of them have reached a stage of high technology, of course, but they’re intelligent, with languages and writing and even the beginnings of cities! I tell you, it’s a treasure trove, an absolute treasure trove. Why, I could—”

“Give me fifteen minutes, Harmon,” Jordan interrupted. “I’ll see you there.” And he clicked the phone shut.

Aditi giggled from the bed. “You’d better shower by yourself, love. You don’t have time for wet games.”

When Jordan got to Adri’s office, the walls were covered with images, graphs, star charts, alphanumerical data files.

It was like stepping into a kaleidoscope; the displays shifted and changed as Jordan walked from the door to the couch where Meek and Adri were sitting side by side.

“The next set is depressing, very sad,” Adri said, while gesturing Jordan to sit with them. “When the Predecessors reached this planet, their civilization had been dead for only a few centuries. The Predecessors got there too late to help them.”

Jordan sat next to Meek, who was staring transfixed at the images of an empty, decaying city, collapsed buildings, monuments coated with dust and guano. One camera view zoomed in dizzyingly until he saw a deserted city street lined with statues of strange shapes, windblown clumps of vegetation tumbling by, debris from the crumbling structures littering everywhere. And in the middle of it all, a slithering snakelike creature, clearly stalking some prey that Jordan could not see.

“Of course, not all life on the planet was destroyed,” said Adri. “Perhaps intelligence will arise there again, in time.”

Jordan stared, transfixed. The ruins looked so much like an ancient city of Earth. Pompeii, almost. He thought of Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, all the petrified remains of dead civilizations. But this was a whole world, an entire population of intelligent creatures—gone. Extinct.

“What happened to them?” Meek asked, his voice hushed, awed.

Adri shrugged. “We don’t know. Our Predecessors were focused on finding living intelligences, they had scant interest in extinct ones.”

“But that’s wrong,” Meek flared. “It’s stupid!”

Adri tilted his head. “You see, our Predecessors do not have human curiosity. They have a single goal, implanted in them by their organic progenitors. They are driven to find living intelligent species and help them to survive. The task is so huge that they have neither the time nor the energy to delve into the histories of extinct species.”

“But we do,” Meek said firmly. “We have the interest, and the time, and the energy.”

“Yes,” Jordan agreed.

“You would go to this dead world, to study its lost people?”

“Yes,” Meek and Jordan said simultaneously.

Adri smiled. “Very well. We will give you all the help we can.”

Meek looked like a man who had just seen a vision of paradise.

The wall screens darkened and then went blank. Jordan saw through the room’s windows that it was fully night outside.

Adri got to his feet. “You must be hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”

Standing up, Jordan said, “I’ll get Aditi.”

“Oh, she’ll meet us at the dining hall,” said Adri.

And Jordan thought, I’ve got to get one of their communicators implanted into my head. It’s much better than a phone.

Meek stood up also, a thoughtful expression on his face. “You know, there’s a lifetime of work for me to do. A long, long lifetime of work.”

Adri nodded and said, “We can help you to live a long and productive life, Dr. Meek.”

“Harmon. Call me Harmon, please.”

Jordan said, “Adri, you’re right. I’m rather famished. Let’s get to dinner.”

But Adri held up a slender-fingered hand. “I’ve taken the liberty of inviting the rest of your team to join us at dinner. Including the three persons from your orbiting spaceship.”