5
Rip, Charley and Uncle Egg each suspected that Adam Solo had a very interesting story, but the thousand-year number left them stunned.
As usual, Rip recovered first. “What about the starship that delivered you?”
“It didn’t return either.”
“If that thousand-year number gets out,” Rip said to Solo, “your life won’t be worth a paper dollar.”
Solo nodded. “They won’t believe a word I say; they’ll kill me and do an autopsy.”
Charley groaned. “Surely not.”
“Oh, yes,” Egg said grimly.
Solo’s lips twisted into a grimace. “I’ve been in tighter spots. Three hundred and some odd years ago in Massachusetts, Samuel Parris decided I was a male witch. That was a close squeak.”
Egg seated himself on a stool at the kitchen counter, which he rarely did because the round seat was too small for his fundament. “Convince us you are telling the truth,” he said flatly. “Tell us why you are here on this planet.”
Solo glanced from face to face, then said, “I am a librarian. This planet is a giant DNA library. My colleagues and I came to check the library, to make deposits and withdrawals, as we do from time to time, and to take DNA samples from plants and animals.”
“Roswell, New Mexico, 1947. Were those your colleagues?”
“Yes. Here to look for us, probably. At least I have their ship. Unfortunately someone shot it up with an antimatter weapon and destroyed the communications equipment.”
“That would be me,” Charley Pine said modestly.
Solo smiled at her, then said, “I need your help. I must use the comm gear in the saucer you have sitting outside on the stone.”
“It’s a bit small.”
“That is a problem. I need it brought back to its full size so that I can get inside and talk to the computers. And talk to my controllers, ask them to send a rescue ship.”
“You people haven’t been doing so well on this planet,” Egg observed. “What makes you think they’ll send a rescue mission?”
Solo shrugged. “Who knows if they even can? At least I can report in. The galaxy is a large, hostile place. We are a few tiny blobs of protoplasm, wandering back and forth between the stars. Death could happen at any moment.”
“Or you could live for a thousand years.”
“Either way, one will eventually be dead forever, which is indeed a long, long time.” Solo smiled. “All that matters is the adventure along the way.”
“Do you really believe that?” Uncle Egg asked sharply.
Solo took in a bushel of air and exhaled through his nose. “Well, I used to.”
“Let me see if I understand you,” Charley Pine said with a toss of her head. “You people have introduced DNA samples into living creatures here on this planet? Is that correct?”
Solo shrugged. “That’s essentially correct, but—”
“You are using living creatures here on earth as hosts for alien DNA samples?”
“When you state it that way it sounds bad—”
“Don’t you damned aliens have any ethics at all?”
For the first time, Solo’s voice hardened. “A few strands of DNA introduced into a host may well be the only way to preserve the information it contains. If the DNA doesn’t interfere with the host’s life or ability to reproduce, what better way to preserve the information? Everything made by man decays, erodes, eventually returns to dust. Planets come and go, stars burn out, asteroids journey erratically through the solar systems … only living creatures have the ability to resist the ravages of time. The bottom line — if your species becomes extinct you’ve lost your race.”
Egg prepared dinner. A lifelong bachelor who appreciated good food, he was an excellent cook. Tonight his heart wasn’t in it. He kept glancing out the window into the evening darkness.
“They’ll be back,” Rip said, reading his uncle’s mood. “That’s what you are worried about, isn’t it?”
Egg whacked a spoon on the counter and glared fiercely. “At times the world is a miserable place. That maniac Douglas shot out my windows. He cares nothing of the consequences if he gets what he wants.”
Rip tried to think of something to say and couldn’t. John Sutter discovered gold at his mill in California in 1849 and died a pauper. Greedy people took every acre, everything he had. He had faced a human tsunami, and inevitably he lost.
“Sometimes the law breaks down,” Rip observed. “Civilization isn’t so civilized.” He glanced at Charley, who had poured a glass of wine for Solo and one for herself. They were sipping it and chatting.
He glanced at Uncle Egg, who was standing in front of the stove examining his spoon. It was bent double. Apparently Egg had bent it without realizing what he was doing.
They ate dinner in Egg’s living room with their plates on their laps as a wood fire in the fireplace threw off heat and cast a cheery glow.
As they ate, the Cantrells and Charley Pine gently questioned Adam Solo. “Tell us about your home, the planet and society in which you grew up,” Egg suggested. He had been mining the memories of the Sahara saucer’s crew and knew not only where they were from but their life histories and families as they remembered them. He was curious how Solo’s history differed.
Solo was reluctant. “It was a long time ago, and I have only fleeting memories. My parents, my brother and sister, the friends I grew up with, my classmates, all gone now. Have been dead for thousands of your years.” He shook his head slowly. “For many years I tried to keep their memories fresh, to warm me as I tried to cope with life upon this savage planet. Then I let them go, let them dribble away like sand through my fingers.” He paused, cleared his throat, then started playing with the food on his plate. “It is better that way, I think.”
The silence that followed was broken by Rip. “Tell us of your adventures here, on earth.”
“We landed upon an island. We knew it was an island when we landed. We didn’t know what to expect. We hadn’t explored much when my colleague stole the saucer, which still contained our portable comm gear, and flew away. We never saw him again.” Solo shrugged. “He wasn’t a pilot, but perhaps he knew enough to rendezvous with the starship. Probably he told them we were all dead.”
“He never returned?”
“Neither him nor anyone from the starship. One can only speculate, and of course we did. Whatever happened, the saucer never returned.”
“So you were marooned?”
“On an island on this green planet circling a modest star, on the edge of this humongous galaxy.”
They finished dinner as he talked of the natives, the warlords and their armed men, the knights, and the Vikings who raided occasionally. The fire burned low, but no one was willing to break the spell to throw more wood on. Solo’s voice was mesmerizing; the adventure came alive in his listeners’ imagination.
“It was a difficult time for everyone. The native people’s agriculture was barely adequate, they routinely starved in winter, the place was damp and rainy … My two companions and I were soon as cold, hungry and dirty as the people around us. To survive, we had to blend in, to become them. We quickly acquired the language while we waited for our saucer to return, or another from the starship. One of my colleagues was killed and the other died soon after.”
At last, when the hour was late and the fire sputtered out, Egg announced, “It is time for bed. We will talk more tomorrow. Adam, you will have my guest room.”
When Charley and Rip were in bed, Charley whispered, because Solo was in the next room, “Did you believe him tonight?”