“Friend Jordan,” he said, gliding across the polished tiles in his floor-length gown, both hands extended.
Jordan grasped Adri’s hands in his own, once again surprised by the old man’s strength.
“Adri, I sincerely hope you are my friend.”
The alien’s smile wilted slightly; his pale blue eyes focused directly on Jordan’s own.
“We must be friends, Jordan,” he said, his normally faint voice taking on some iron. “Nothing can be accomplished if we are not.”
“I want to be your friend,” Jordan replied. “And I want you to be mine.”
“Of course. Of course,” Adri said as he gestured Jordan to a table already set for three. Jordan helped Aditi into a chair, then sat across from her, while an armchair obediently rolled to where Adri was standing.
Easing himself carefully into the chair, Adri said, “You have more questions for me.”
Leaning forward, arms on the table, Jordan said, “Aditi pointed out this morning that there’s a gulf between us. You’ve been very kind, certainly, but you haven’t been completely forthcoming with us.”
“We’ve answered all your questions,” Aditi said.
“Yes, I know. But only the questions we know how to ask.”
“Our policy—” Adri began.
Jordan interrupted, “It’s time to change your policy. I want to know your complete story. Where you’re from, why you’re here, what you want of us.”
Adri leaned back in his armchair. With a glance toward Aditi, he asked, “Do you think you are ready for the complete story? Are you capable of accepting the whole truth?”
“If we’re ever to bridge the gulf between us, Adri, you’ll have to be completely honest with us.”
“With you,” Adri said, fixing Jordan with a grave stare.
Jordan accepted the responsibility with a tilt of his head. “With me, then. Think of me as the representative of the human race.”
“And the others? The fearful ones?”
“They’ll overcome their fears once they understand your whole story.”
Again Adri looked to Aditi. “You’ve got to tell him,” she said.
“Very well,” Adri said. Then he broke into a wry smile. “After lunch.”
Two young men served them a meal of cold meats and crisp salad. They spoke guardedly as they ate: Jordan talked mostly of how interested Thornberry was in their energy shield technology.
“Aditi can see to his education,” Adri suggested.
“I’d be happy to,” Aditi said. “And Dr. Rudaki should return to the observatory. She seemed so excited about working with our astronomers.”
Jordan grinned. “If Elyse returns, my brother will come along with her. They’re inseparable.”
Aditi looked as if she wanted to reply to that, but she quickly turned her attention back to what was left of her meal.
At last, when their plates held nothing more than crumbs, Adri slowly, almost painfully, got to his feet. “Come with me, friend Jordan.”
“Where?” Jordan asked.
“To see the truth.”
The Truth
Fondling his palm-sized pet as he walked, Adri led Jordan—with Aditi at his side—down to the ground floor of the administrative center, out across the plaza behind the building, around the dormitory, to a small round building surrounded by tall slim dark green trees that sighed in the afternoon breeze. The sky was cloudless, hot and bright like a bowl of hammered copper.
They walked up to a metal door that looked to Jordan more like an air lock hatch than an ordinary entrance. Adri slid the furry little pet back into his robe, then pressed the fingertips of both his hands against the polished metal. The door slid open.
The three of them stepped into a narrow metal chamber. It is an air lock! Jordan marveled.
The inner hatch slid open and they stepped into a dimly lit vaulted chamber. Jordan’s ears popped slightly. The air pressure in here must be lower than outside, he reasoned.
Lights set along the circular periphery of the chamber brightened as they walked across the stone floor. Sitting in the center of the otherwise empty space was a gray, oblong shape, about the size of a railroad car. It was bulbous, almost like a dumbbell, although its surface was far from smooth. Its metal hull seemed incredibly old, pitted with age, dull and worn and ancient. It reminded Jordan somehow of ancient Egyptian sarcophagi he had seen in museums back on Earth.
“This was our starship,” Adri said, his voice barely above a whisper in the big, shadowy, circular room.
“That’s too small to be a starship,” Jordan contradicted. “Why, it’s not even as big as one of our rocketplanes.”
“It truly is a starship,” Adri insisted, gently.
“It can’t be…” Then Jordan realized, “That means you weren’t born here.”
“We weren’t born at all,” Aditi corrected. “Not in the sense that you mean.”
“We were conceived and gestated here,” said Adri. “In the biolab, as you have seen.”
“But then … who built the biolab? Who built this city? This planet?”
“Our Predecessors,” Adri replied.
“Why? How?”
“I should let our one remaining Predecessor answer your questions.”
“He’s here?”
“We will have to enter the starship,” said Adri. “In a sense, it is itself our one remaining Predecessor.”
Jordan’s mouth went dry, but he managed to say, “By all means.”
A circular hatch in the starship’s curved hull swung open with a slight grating sound, like hinges long unlubricated.
Adri said, “Excuse me, but I should enter first.”
Jordan watched the old man bend over stiffly and climb through the hatch. He turned and gestured for Aditi to go in before him, but she shook her head.
“I’ll stay out here,” she said.
“No women allowed?” he joked.
“It’s not that,” she replied, totally serious. “There isn’t much room in there. I’ll wait for you.”
Trembling inwardly with excitement, Jordan planted one foot on the hatch’s lip and pulled himself through.
It was even dimmer inside. Jordan hesitated at the edge of the hatch, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He made out Adri’s form, crouching just ahead of him, stroking his pet again. Its big round eyes shone luminously in the shadows.
“Close the hatch,” Adri said softly.
Jordan reached for the hatch, but it began to swing shut by itself. This time there was no squeaking, he noticed.
As soon as the hatch closed, the chamber they were in lit up, not brightly, but enough for Jordan to see that they were inside a narrow, low-ceilinged compartment. Its walls and ceiling were lined with tiny glasslike beads. Lights, Jordan thought, although none of them were lit.
“Where do we sit?” he asked Adri, his voice hushed as if they were in a church.
“On the floor,” Adri answered, his voice also little more than a whisper. “This vessel was not built for human comfort.”
Feeling slightly foolish, Jordan squatted on the metal deck.
“Now what?”
Adri didn’t answer. Instead, he called in a stronger voice, “I have brought the Earthman. He seeks knowledge and understanding.”
Suddenly all the tiny lights winked on, blinking in wild succession in a cascade of reds, greens, blues, yellows. It made Jordan think of a Christmas display on amphetamines.
“Welcome, Jordan Kell,” said a calm, sweet tenor voice.