“Three hundred and sixty years old?” Meek yelped.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do your people regularly live such long lives?” Jordan asked.
Adri nodded solemnly. “Yes. So can you. Your biological sciences are steadily increasing your life spans, are they not?”
“Yes, but three hundred and sixty years,” Jordan marveled. “We haven’t reached that yet.”
“We can help you,” said Adri. Then he added, “Although, with your enormous population, I wonder if extending your life spans would be a good thing.”
Meek recovered from his surprise. “How old is your race?”
“Our civilization goes back many millions of years.”
“And you’ve existed on this one planet all that time?”
Adri spread his hands. “My race has lived only on this planet. We have never lived elsewhere.”
Jordan said, “What we find remarkable—unbelievable, almost—is that you’re so much like us. This entire planet is so Earthlike. It’s uncanny.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“It’s more than uncanny,” Meek grumbled. “It’s unbelievable. To find a planet exactly like Earth, and intelligent beings exactly like humans—”
“Not exactly,” Adri pointed out.
“Down to your DNA,” said Meek.
“Yes, biologically we are very similar,” Adri admitted. “But socially, culturally, we have significant differences.”
“You control your numbers,” said Jordan.
“We live in harmony with our environment,” Adri responded. “We are not xenophobic. We are not competitive, not aggressive. We have welcomed you to our world, while you are distinctly suspicious of us.” Before Meek could reply, Adri amended, “Perhaps I should say, you are instinctively suspicious of us.”
Meek said, “You disapprove of our instincts?”
Smiling gently, Adri replied, “It’s not a matter of my approval or disapproval. Your instincts served you well, long ages ago. But now you must outgrow them.”
“Why? Because you say so?”
“Because they are destroying you. You have devastated your planet with overpopulation, with environmental degradation, with famines and wars and hatreds. You are teetering on the brink of extinction, whether you realize it or not.”
“You sound like one of those overzealous eco-activists,” Meek said.
“Forgive me,” Adri immediately apologized. “I should not be telling you how to live your lives.”
“Someone should,” said Jordan.
“It’s just that…” Adri hesitated, seemingly gathering his thoughts. At last he said, with infinite sadness in his voice, “It’s just that to witness the destruction of an intelligent race is a terrible, terrible thing.”
“Do you really feel that we’re so close to destroying ourselves?” Jordan asked.
“Indeed,” said Adri, his aged face showing grave concern. “You are heading for extinction. Racing toward it, I’m afraid.”
Questions
Meek seemed thoroughly chastened as Adri sat on the stool beside him, his expression bleak. Jordan himself felt unutterably sad at the thought of the human race’s extinction.
Rousing himself, Jordan said, “Well, we’re not dead yet. We can overcome our problems, if we want to.”
“If you want to,” Adri agreed. “That’s the question. Can you alter your modes of behavior, your ways of thinking, soon enough and well enough to avert the catastrophe that’s facing you?”
“We can try,” said Jordan.
“We will help you all that we can, of course,” Adri said. “But your people will have to make some wrenching changes in their fundamental attitudes.”
Meek said nothing. He seemed lost in thought.
Adri got up from the stool. “I must return to the city now. Dr. Meek, I hope I have given you the information you sought.”
Meek nodded wordlessly.
Jordan said, “I’ll go with you to the edge of the camp, Adri.”
“No need for that, friend Jordan. I can find my way.” He turned and headed for the lab’s door in his seemingly effortless gliding walk.
As soon as Adri was out of sight, Meek stirred to life. “I don’t trust him. Despite everything he says, I don’t trust the man.”
“Perhaps,” Jordan said, “you don’t trust him because of everything he says.”
To Jordan’s surprise, Thornberry took up residence in the city. He spent his days in happy conference with young men and women who were fellow engineers.
“It’s unbelievable, the things they can do,” he said to Jordan and Aditi over dinner one evening. “I mean, they’ve developed quantum computers, for god’s sake. No bigger than a grain of sand, yet more powerful than anything we’ve got. They implant ’em in their skulls at birth!”
“I know,” said Jordan, looking at Aditi.
“I mean, we’ve been talking about quantum computers for damned near a century now, and we’re nowhere near making one work. These people carry them around inside their heads! If I could bring one of ’em back home, I’d become a billionaire overnight, I could.”
Aditi said, “We can show you how to build them.”
Thornberry nodded eagerly. “I’m talking to your bright young folks about just that, I am.”
“Good,” Jordan said.
The three of them were sitting at a small table in the dining area of the dormitory building. The place was filled with Aditi’s people, young and old, men and women. Conversations in their fluted musical language and laughter drifted across the room. Human servants carried trays of food and drink to the tables.
But they’re not human, Jordan thought as he listened to Thornberry with half his attention. They’re human in form, but they belong to a different race, a different civilization. They’re aliens.
“And these energy shields,” the roboticist went on, “they take ’em for granted, they do. It’s ordinary engineering, as far as they’re concerned.”
Aditi said to Thornberry, “The shield generators are ordinary engineering. After all, we’ve used them for many generations.”
“I know,” said Thornberry. “But what I can’t figure out is how they work.”
“The engineers haven’t explained it to you?” she asked.
“They explain to me for hours, they do,” Thornberry said, “but for the life of me, the more they explain the less I understand.”
Jordan snapped his attention to the roboticist. “What do you mean, Mitch?”
“They’re talking about physics and principles that’re beyond me. Maybe a quantum physicist could understand them. More likely a string theoretician.”
“The closest we have to a physicist would be Elyse Rudaki,” said Jordan.
Thornberry nodded. “Maybe I should ask her to listen to ’em. Maybe she could understand the math.”
Aditi looked troubled. “Do you mean that the engineers are not answering your questions?”
His beefy face contorting into a troubled frown, Thornberry said, “Oh, they answer my questions, they do. But their answers are beyond me.”
“Then we must find someone who can explain it to you more clearly,” said Aditi.
Jordan smiled slightly. “Mitch, perhaps you’ve got to go to school and learn more physics.”
Thornberry conceded the point with a nod. “Maybe I should. Maybe what I need is a patient teacher.”
Jordan turned to Aditi. “You’re a teacher, aren’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right,” she said.
“Could you help Mitch? I realize that advanced physics is probably beyond you, but perhaps you could find one of your fellow teachers who could help.”