“It’s getting late,” she said. “You have your meeting tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t want this night to end.”
“But it must,” Aditi said. She picked up her forgotten dinner tray and climbed to her feet.
Jordan got up beside her, slowly, reluctantly. “The aurora seems to be fading away.”
“The storm must be ending.”
“And our storm?” he asked.
She smiled gently at him. “It’s just beginning.”
“Will you come to my cubicle?”
“I can’t. It wouldn’t look right to the others.”
“I don’t care about the others! Let’s—”
Aditi silenced him with a fingertip on his lips. “Do you want Dr. Meek and the others who are frightened of us to think you’ve been seduced by an alien Madame Butterfly?”
He burst into laughter. “I think you mean Mata Hari.”
“She was the spy?”
“Not a very good one, I’m afraid. She got caught. And executed.”
“Oh.” Aditi’s face, half hidden in shadows, broke into a contrite smile. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he said. Reluctantly. Very reluctantly.
They all met the next morning in the dining area for breakfast. After a pair of robots served the prepackaged food trays, Jordan got to his feet and said, “You’re probably wondering why I asked you all here this morning.”
No one laughed.
“Seriously,” he continued, “we seem to have a difference of opinion about what our course of action should be.”
Everyone turned to Meek, who was bringing a forkful of scrambled faux eggs to his mouth. He froze for an instant, put the fork down, and looked squarely at Jordan.
“I think we’re in over our heads here, and we should leave immediately and head back to Earth.”
“But we’ve made the greatest discovery in the history of the human race,” Jordan said. “Should we run away from it?”
“As fast as we can,” said Meek.
“But why? What are you afraid of?”
Meek glanced at Aditi, who was seated at Jordan’s side. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “What I have to say may offend you, Aditi. But I’ve got to say it.”
“Please go ahead,” Aditi replied. “Speak your mind.”
“Very well. This planet shouldn’t be here. These people shouldn’t be here. Everything we’ve learned about Adri and his people leads to colossal contradictions.”
“Such as?”
“Adri’s DNA is identical to ours,” said Longyear. “That’s not possible, not natural.”
De Falla spoke up. “The planet’s geological structure is much younger than it should be.”
Meek resumed, “They have technology that’s far superior to ours.”
“But they don’t have spacecraft, not even satellites,” Hazzard added.
“Now wait,” said Jordan. “Adri and his people have treated us quite well. They’ve welcomed us—”
“Like the spider to the fly,” Tanya Verishkova muttered.
“He’s not being honest with us,” Meek went on. “He isn’t telling us the truth.”
Turning to Aditi, Jordan asked, “Is Adri being honest with us?”
Aditi said in a clear, calm voice, “Everything Adri has said to you has been the truth. He has never lied to you.”
“Ah, you see?” Meek said, waggling a finger at her. “They speak like lawyers.”
“What do you want to know?” Aditi asked.
“Why are you here? Why did you lure us to you?”
She looked genuinely perplexed. “We have lived here all our lives, just as you have lived on Earth. And we didn’t lure you, you came here to us.”
Longyear said, “Our ship’s sensors couldn’t detect your city.”
“Because of its energy shield.”
“But you sent out a laser beacon to attract us.”
“We observed your ship in orbit, just as we observed the earlier ships that had no people aboard them.”
“How did you know the earlier ships were uncrewed?” Meek demanded.
She shrugged. “No one came down to the ground, as you did.”
“Why’d you shine that laser beacon?” Thornberry asked.
“To attract your attention.”
“Aha!” Meek snapped.
Jordan said, “Harmon, turn the situation around. If an alien spaceship arrived in orbit around Earth, what would your reaction be?”
“Blow it out of the sky,” Thornberry said, without an instant’s hesitation.
“Be serious.”
“Well…” Meek hesitated, then answered, “I suppose I’d want to meet whoever was aboard it.”
“And ascertain if they were dangerous or not,” de Falla said.
“And examine them medically,” Yamaguchi added.
Longyear asked, “But what would be the chances that they were human? Down to their DNA?”
“We don’t know,” Jordan said. “This is our first experience with alien life.” Before anyone could reply, he added, “Intelligent alien life.”
“What about those whales in Jupiter’s ocean?” Verishkova asked. “The leviathans?”
“They’re not intelligent,” said Longyear.
“Aren’t they? I’ve read papers that say they are.”
“Whether they are or not,” Jordan said, “Adri and the people here on New Earth are fully intelligent.”
Meek insisted, “I say we go back to Earth and report what we’ve found.”
“And leave all these questions unanswered?” Jordan challenged. “The biggest discovery in human history, and you want to run away from it?”
Meek slowly sank back onto his chair. “I think they’re dangerous,” he grumbled. “I can’t help feeling that we’re in danger here.”
“Have they done anything harmful to us?” Jordan asked. “Have they been anything but helpful, generous?”
“They’re not telling us the whole truth about themselves. They know a lot more than they’re telling us.”
“Then we should dig into the matter and learn more about them,” Jordan said.
A stubborn silence filled the tent.
“We’re here to discover, to learn,” Jordan pleaded. “You’re all scientists and engineers. You’ve dedicated your lives to exploring, to uncovering new knowledge. Why run away from the opportunity of a lifetime?”
“To save our lives,” Meek answered.
Jordan looked around the table. “How many of you feel we’re in real danger here?”
Meek’s hand shot up. After a moment’s hesitation, Longyear, Wanamaker, and de Falla raised theirs also. Hazzard looked uncertain, uncomfortable, but his hands remained in his lap.
Suppressing a satisfied smile, Jordan said, “The nays have it. We’re staying.”
Meek shook his head. “This is a mistake, I tell you. A fatal mistake.”
“The mistake, Harmon,” said Jordan, with some steam behind it, “would be to pull up stakes. Instead of running away, we’ve got to learn all we can about this world and its people. We have a whole new world to explore! Let’s get on with it!”
But even as he spoke so positively, Jordan wondered how much he was being influenced by Aditi, sitting there and beaming prettily at him.
Transition
Jordan looked at his team, their faces all turned toward him. You’re their leader, he reminded himself. Show some leadership.
“Very well,” he told them, “I’m going back to the city. I’ll talk to Adri and try to get some of our questions answered. Who wants to come with me?”
Not a hand went up.
“Mitch, don’t you want to talk to their engineers? Find out how these energy shield generators work?”
“I do,” said Thornberry, “but … maybe later. Not just now.”