Hazzard said, “I’d better get back to the ship, check out all the systems.”
“Make certain the propulsion engines are working,” Meek muttered.
Turning to his brother, Jordan asked, “Bran, you want to come to the city, don’t you?”
“When Elyse is finished with their astronomers,” Brandon replied, looking uneasy. “Right now she wouldn’t have time for me.” Before Jordan could object, he added, “Besides, I’ve got plenty to do here.”
Jordan shook his head. “I see. All right, then, I’ll go alone and have a talk with Adri.”
“He’ll tell you anything you want to know,” said Aditi. “Or he’ll put you in contact with specialists who have the information you want.”
Nodding, Jordan said, “Good. Then my task will be to set up a series of conferences for each of you with specialists in your different fields.”
“That’ll be grand,” Thornberry said, without enthusiasm.
“Fine by me,” said Brandon.
Meek said nothing.
Walking back toward the city with Aditi, Jordan couldn’t keep his mind on Meek and the growing fears that all the others seemed to have. His mind refused to dwell on it. Instead, he marveled that the forest seemed more alive than he’d ever found it before. Birds twittered above, little animals scampered across the ground, butterflies fluttered among the colorful flowers.
I’ve never noticed all this before, he said to himself. I never saw how beautiful and vibrant it all is.
And then he understood. It’s because I’m with Aditi. She makes the world wonderful. She makes me alive again.
He recognized that he had at last let go of the past. Not forgotten it. Not dismissed it. But he had stopped clinging to it, stopped going over it, again and again, endlessly. He had let go. He had opened his heart to life again.
A miracle has occurred, he told himself. This beautiful, intelligent, warm, and loving woman truly cares for me.
It wasn’t that he forgot Miriam. For a moment he felt almost guilty about Aditi. But he finally understood that love is not finite, not a zero-sum game. The love you feel for one person does not lessen the love you feel for someone else. Love can expand to encompass the whole world. A man can fall in love all over again, marveling at his good fortune, and this doesn’t diminish his love for the woman he had lost.
Eight point six light-years, he kept telling himself. I had to travel eight point six light-years to find her. I’m not going to let her go.
Once they reached the city, Jordan went through the day almost in a trance. He and Aditi met with Adri, who promised to help the team members meet specialists in their fields. He had dinner with Adri and Aditi.
Then he walked Aditi to his suite, grateful that Brandon had stayed at the camp.
As he ushered her into the sitting room, he stammered, “Ah … would you care for something? Is it possible to get an after-dinner drink?”
Aditi stepped close enough to brush against him. “We don’t need an alcoholic beverage, do we?”
He felt flustered, almost embarrassed. “Sometimes it helps … that is…”
“Jordan, darling,” Aditi said, twining her arms about his neck, “I love you. You love me, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Then let’s go to bed.”
He gulped, but managed to say, “By all means!”
Racing Toward Extinction
The days seemed to fly by. Jordan split his time between the base camp and the city.
Activities at the camp settled into a busy, productive routine. Brandon and de Falla, accompanied by two robots, took off on a geological expedition, flying halfway across the planet in a rocketplane piloted remotely by Hazzard, who had returned to the orbiting Gaia.
“I might as well go out in the field,” Brandon groused. “Elyse has practically taken up residence at the observatory. She spends more time talking with Zadar than me.”
Jordan suppressed a grin. He said, “It’s a good thing Demetrios is up on the ship. Otherwise, I think you might get jealous of her fellow astronomer.”
Brandon’s answer was a sour grimace.
Jordan made a point of having lunch with Elyse in the city the next day.
“Bran misses you terribly,” he told her.
“I miss him, too,” she said. “But no one’s seen a white dwarf this close! We’re breaking new ground here.”
“What about this planetary energy shield?” Jordan asked her. “Have you discussed that with the observatory’s astronomers?”
Elyse frowned slightly, as if annoyed by a question from a layman, team leader or not. “I’ll get to that, Jordan. But we’ve got all these observations of the Pup to make!”
Jordan nodded. She’s deeply into her studies and she doesn’t want to be sidetracked, he knew. I wonder how much she misses Brandon, out in the woods halfway across the planet?
“One day our Sun will become a white dwarf,” Elyse pointed out. “We’re looking at the future of our own star.”
There’s no sidetracking her, Jordan realized.
After several days of hesitation, Longyear and Yamaguchi accompanied Jordan into the city and began examining not only the people, but their beasts of burden and their pets. Yet they returned each night to the camp.
The biologist grew more and more mistrustful. “It’s terrestrial DNA, all of it. Every species we’ve examined carries an almost exact duplicate of Earth-type DNA.”
Yamaguchi seemed happy enough about it. She began to write a research paper titled, “Convergent Evolution: Earth and Sirius C.” Longyear grudgingly helped her with it.
Jordan worried about Meek, who seemed to be lost in his fears, accomplishing nothing as the days wore on, staying in the camp and never setting foot in the city.
Adri came to visit the camp, and Jordan showed him through the labs and workshops. When they came to the biology laboratory, Meek was sitting at the workbench on a stool, his heels hooked on one of its rungs, the knees of his long legs almost reaching his squared-off chin.
“Hello, Harmon,” Jordan called. “We have a visitor.”
Meek nodded warily.
“Dr. Meek,” said Adri, smiling amicably. “How can I convince you that we are not dangerous to you?”
Meek’s brow furrowed. At last he said, “You could answer my questions truthfully.”
Adri nodded. “Of course.” Jordan saw his brow arch slyly as he added, “Would you like to test me with a lie detector?”
Looking annoyed, Meek said, “I wish I had one.”
“Perhaps you could construct one.”
Hiding his amusement, Jordan said, “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Will it, Harmon?”
Meek didn’t answer.
Without being invited, Adri pulled up one of the stools lining the workbench and sat next to Meek. “Ask me anything you wish, sir.”
Jordan stood off to one side, scrutinizing the expression on Meek’s face. He saw fear, and sullen resentment. Yet something more, as welclass="underline" there was human curiosity tucked in among his apprehensions.
“Where do you come from?” Meek started.
“Why, from here. This planet. New Earth.”
“You were born here?”
“I’ve lived here all my life.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
Meek’s eyes went wide.
Jordan chuckled and said, “Twelve New Earth years. Each orbit of this planet around Sirius takes thirty Earth years.”
“Which means,” Meek said, “that you’re … three hundred and sixty years old?” His eyes went even wider.
Adri smiled modestly. “Yes, your arithmetic is correct.”