Father Mallory was two weeks into his xenoarchaeology class before one of his students finally asked him “the question.” The questioner was a kid, barely eighteen standard, with a complexion and height that tagged him as having come from off-planet. Most of Mallory’s class were squat fair-skinned Occisian stock who had already done their tour in the Marines. Judging by age, many had put in more rotations than Mallory had.
“Master Gideon,” Mallory read the student’s name off of the holo display and used his most scholarly voice, “That question is always asked when I give this class.” Mallory smiled and faced the ranks of almost-solid holos showing students scattered all over Occisis. Even the classroom was a projection, as Father Mallory actually stood in a small room in the administrative offices of St. Marbury University.
“Can anyone identify the flaw in Master Gideon’s question?”
The question was in large part rhetorical. Rarely did anyone ever answer; rarer still did they answer correctly. Mallory paced the two square meters that represented actual floor. Behind him, a display that was virtual to a second level of abstraction showed digital models of artifacts on the Martian surface overlaid by wireframe models of what the original structures might have looked like.
“He is asking if we know why the race we have named the Dolbrians died out a hundred million years ago. As I said, it’s a question I am always asked in this class in one form or another. Every person who has ever studied them asks why. A race that left artifacts on planets across of all of explored space, who terraformed planets in dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of systems, a race that spread so widely and evidenced technology and engineering skill barely on the cusp of our comprehension. Why would they die out so completely?”
He had their attention.
“Anyone see a flaw in my premise?”
One of the student holos raised his hand. A Master Bartholomew whose image showed digital pixilation and a slight jerkiness that indicated his signal was bouncing off a commsat or three.
“Master Bartholomew?”
There was a full second delay before Master Bartholomew answered. His skin was weathered, and he still wore his hair cut in military style. He had unit tattoos on his neck that left Mallory subliminally aware of his own, under his collar. Someday I should have the tats removed, he thought. The implants, too.
“Do we know they died out?”
“Exactly.” Mallory pointed at the display behind them. “This is a ruin, Mars is a ruin. For all we know this entire part of the galaxy is a ruin. But the presence of a ruin no more proves the extinction of the Dolbrians than the ruins of Athens prove the extinction of the Greeks. Just because I cannot point to some being somewhere and say, ‘This, I know, is a Dolbrian,’ does not mean they ceased to exist. Over a time-scale of millions of years we have very little certainty. It is quite possible that the race of Dolbrians evolved into something else, the Paralians, the Volerans, maybe even us . . .”
Bartholomew frowned. “Father, that seems an odd assertion from a priest.”
“How so?”
“Doesn’t evolution contradict—”
Mallory held up his hand, “Stop right there.” Inside, he sighed. This was an undergraduate elective course and generally had an even split between humanities and science majors. Sometimes the students in the humanities had strange ideas about evolution. “So we don’t get sidetracked here. Evolution is a scientific description of how species change over time, neither it, nor any other scientific theory, make assertions about faith, Church doctrine, or the nature of God.”
“But . . .”
“If you wish, after class I can direct you to Papal rulings on the matter, some of which are over five hundred years old.”
Bartholomew looked crestfallen, and Mallory opened his mouth to add something about how Church doctrine upheld the sacred nature of all intelligent life when his holographic classroom abruptly vanished.
He stared a moment at the blank white walls, frowning. After a moment, when his class didn’t reappear, he picked up the small comm unit mounted next to the holo controls set in the wall.
“Maintenance,” Mallory told the interface as he looked at the small readout showing the status of his classroom.
Mallory didn’t know why he looked at the display; he had no idea what the columns of numbers meant. Maintenance probably wouldn’t even ask him about the display, assuming—in his case, correctly—the technical ineptitude of the faculty.
“University maintenance, O’Brien here.”
“Hello, I have a problem with my classroom.”
“Room number, please.”
“One-oh-six-five.”
“Father Mallory?”
“Yes, my classroom disappeared in the middle of a lecture.”
“I’m calling you up on my screen right now—hmm.”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t a technical issue.”
“Mr. O’Brien, I have thirty-five students that just vanished—”
“I can see that. Your class was subjected to an administrative reschedule.”
“What? I’m in the middle of a lecture. It’s two weeks into the term. This has to be some sort of mistake.”
“I can’t help you there. You’ll have to talk to the administration about it.”
“Who authorized it?” Mallory felt a hot spark of anger.
“Only the university president has that authority.”
“Thank you.”
Father Mallory slowly placed the comm unit back in its cradle.
Why would the administration, the president, cancel his class assignment? Anger was giving way to serious apprehension. This kind of thing was almost always followed by leave or dismissal. In his own university days, he remembered having a mathematics instructor, Father Reynolds, disappear in the middle of the semester. The day after a new instructor appeared to teach the class, Father Reynolds’ name was dropped from the faculty directory. He never knew for certain what the gnomelike calculus professor had done, but he had read rumors of some financial indiscretions involving university funds and a gambling addiction.
But for the life of him, Father Mallory couldn’t think of anything done on his part that merited that kind of sanction.
“Father Mallory?”
Mallory turned to face a dark-haired woman standing in the doorway of his classroom. She was Vice-Chancellor Marie Murphy, the highest-ranking member of the laity in the university administration.
“Dr. Murphy?”
“Forgive me for interrupting your class, there is a meeting you must attend.”
“This couldn’t have waited?”
“No, I am afraid not.”
Dr. Murphy didn’t lead him up to the administrative offices as he had expected. Mallory followed her into, of all things, a freight elevator.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as he followed her into the brushed-metal cube of the elevator.
“It will be explained at the meeting.”
Mallory shook his head, more confused than anything else now. All the meeting rooms were in the upper floors of the building, above the classroom areas. However, Dr. Murphy keyed for the third sublevel. The only thing down there would be environmental controls for the building, maybe some storage. Mallory was surprised that the keypad accepted Dr. Murphy’s input. The biometric systems in the elevator shouldn’t allow either of them access to the systems areas; they weren’t maintenance or security personnel.
That could be overridden by the administration, too.