“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.”
Reconciliation
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.”
“You have?” Jordan replied, surprised. “And they all accepted?”
“Yes, of course.” Adri’s expression became slightly guilty. “I’m afraid I told them that we’re holding this dinner in Dr. Meek … er, in Harmon’s honor.”
Meek’s shaggy brows shot up. “My honor?”
“Why, yes,” Adri replied. “Today is your birthday, isn’t it?”
“No, my birth—” Meek’s face eased into a knowing grin. “Yes, it is my birthday, of a sort. I’ve come to life today, haven’t I?”
And the three of them headed down to the dining hall.
It was a long, boisterous dinner, with real wine and lots of laughter. Jordan looked over the faces of the team: Brandon, Hazzard, Longyear, and all the others. All the suspicions were gone. All the fears. Adri relaxed enough to dig heartily into a spicy roast. Aditi sat next to Jordan, beaming at him.
“It’s done,” she said into his ear. “You’re going to help us.”
“And you’re going to help us,” he said.
Then he got to his feet and tapped his wineglass with a spoon. All the conversations stopped. Every face along the table turned toward Jordan. Even people at other tables looked toward him, their faces filled with curiosity and hope.
“It was a countryman of mine,” Jordan began, “who said: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”
“Come on, Jordy,” Brandon groused.
Yamaguchi said, “We’re not going to war, are we?”
“In a sense,” Jordan said, “we will be going to war. War against the human race’s ancient enemies: ignorance, fear, and the ultimate enemy—death.”
The entire dining hall fell absolutely quiet.
“We’ve got to convince the people of Earth that they’re in mortal danger. And once we’ve done that—”
“Assuming we can,” Hazzard said.
“I assume that we can and we will. And once we do, we have to search out other intelligent species and protect them from the gamma burst that’s spreading across the galaxy.”
“We must help them to survive,” Elyse said.
“That is our task,” said Jordan. “That is our mission. Are we up to the challenge?”
“Damned right we are,” Brandon snapped.
Longyear broke into a crooked grin and said, “We few, we happy few.”
Adri, seated across the table from Jordan, slowly rose to his feet. “To continue in the vein that Jordan started with, let each of us therefore brace himself—and herself—to our duty.”
Jordan finished, “And so bear ourselves that if the human race lasts a billion years, our descendents will still say, This was their finest hour.”
Everyone in the dining hall broke into applause.
Jordan sat down, and Aditi squeezed his arm. “I’m proud of you, Jordan.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said.
“Of course you could have. And you would have. But I’m happy that I’m here beside you.”
“It’s a huge task that we have ahead of us,” said Jordan. “It won’t be easy to convince the people of Earth that they’re in danger.”
“And others are in danger, too,” Aditi said. “The people of Earth can help them to survive.”
Jordan nodded. “We struggle against the inevitable.”
“Nothing is inevitable, Jordan.”
He grasped her hand tightly. “Not as long as you’re with me.”
“I will be, wherever you go.”
Adri raised his voice to be heard over the laughter and talk of the others.
“Long life to you, Jordan Kell. Long life and happiness to you all.”
Jordan dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “Happiness is working hard at a task worth doing.” Then he turned to Aditi and added, “With the woman you love at your side.”