“Perhaps nothing in the universe was uncertain to them,” suggested Professor deSilva.
A moment there, I thought he was serious.
Fitzhugh paused, then frowned. Finally spoke. “You meant that humorously, Tomas, even with great irony, but there is a possibility you are absolutely correct.”
“How could that be?” asked Alyendra. “There is uncertainty everywhere, even for us and our technology. The Danannians were not gods.”
“I will reply, if you will, by means of an analogy.” Fitzhugh inclined his head. “Ancient humans believed the weather to be capricious, or dictated by the whim of then-gods. Early technological humans discovered the mechanics of weather and achieved reasonably accurate predictions, Today, we are not perfect, but we are over ninety-eight percent accurate. Weather is the result of the interaction of multiple factors. A culture that could anticipate and predict such factors would operate with little uncertainty.”
“Then they could have predicted our arrival here.” Irony filled deSilva’s voice. “Could they not?”
“Quite possibly. At least, they could project the type of culture that would seek out Danann.”
At that, I had to wonder about the heating of the water under the ice. What sort of mechanism had the aliens set up? One that waited for visitors that might arrive millions or billions of years later? What else might be waiting down there? What might trigger it?
“If they could predict that, could they not also predict any other dangers to their civilization? And if they could predict all that, certainly they should still be around, shouldn’t they?”
“We only know that they are not on Danann,” Fitzhugh replied. “That does not mean that their civilization does not exist elsewhere. There are endless galaxies in the universe.”
The stewards arrived and set plates before us. Something covered in white sauce. Watched Fitzhugh motion to the steward. “Tea, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fitzhugh fingered the stem of the wineglass.
“I don’t suppose we’ll find the answer to that soon,” deSilva replied. “But, speaking of predictions, we’ve had one set of ships attack on the Magellan,” deSilva said, “Do you think another outside attack is likely?” Looked at Fitzhugh as he spoke.
“It’s possible.” Fitzhugh smiled politely. “In an infinite universe, the possibilities are also infinite.”
“Anything is possible, but what do you think?”
“I am not a military expert.”
Someone murmured, “You could have fooled me.”
Didn’t recognize the whisper.
“What about the other aliens?” asked Alyendra, as if to cover the comment.
“They were not on Danann recently. The team has dated their appearance at close to a million years back, give or take some tens of thousands.” Nalakov tried irony, just sounded ponderous.
“They found a gas-powered projectile weapon, with a grip, an odd grip,” deSilva said. “The similarity seems… unusual.”
Fitzhugh leaned back as the steward slipped his tea onto the table. “There are only so many possibilities for efficient use of energy.”
“I can see that with the Danannians. One can look at the megaplex and see that it is truly an alien culture. But a weapon so similar in design to something we might have used, doesn’t that suggest a similarity of evolution?”
“Their technological prowess approximated that of ours, I understand. Therefore, there should be a certain similarity.”
“Still…”
Fitzhugh turned to me. “I defer to an expert Lieutenant, space combat has been employing torps and screens for centuries. From what you have indicated, their efficiency leaves something to be desired. With the plethora of human cultures and the multiplicity of worlds, one would think that something more innovative should have arisen from the depths of human ingenuity and destructiveness, let alone among aliens. Yet it does not seem that such has occurred. Why might that be?”
Even asking a question, he sounded like a professor. Bet he knew the answer, but he knew Nalakov and de-Silva wouldn’t buy his words. Or he wanted me to support what he thought.
“Simple. Space is big. It’s also essentially a vacuum. Means that there’s no medium to conduct energy.”
DeSilva looked puzzled.
“Not explaining it as well as I should. You explode a simple bomb on a planet. There’s an atmosphere. The air carries a blast wave. That extends the force of the explosion. Doesn’t happen in space. Lasers… particle beams… they’re useless except close in. No ship can generate enough energy to hold a long beam; and then there’s the delay factor. Torps are designed to maneuver to deliver concentrated energy at the focal point. So far… nothing else does it that well. Doesn’t matter whether you’re human or alien. A gas-powered projectile thrower is the same idea. Concentrates the force in the projectile.”
“That answers my question about the visitors—”
“The aliens who built the structures that dominate Danann were more advanced than we are at present,” Fitzhugh said smoothly. “If… if we ever manage to escape the current morass of irrationality and the need for ideological dominance, I would wager that our technology, should it become sufficiently advanced, would converge, at least functionally, upon what we see demonstrated below.”
“Form follows function?”
“More like the laws of the universe,” I put in.
“Well said, Lieutenant.”
“What about the Danannians?” asked Alyendra.
“They, dear Professor,” Fitzhugh pointed out, “operated in the same universe as do we. Therefore, they were constrained by the same laws. I would suggest that they understood them better or in greater depth.”
“Or those laws have changed since then.” Nalakov had an odd smile.
Fitzhugh shrugged. “You are the scientist, Doctor. Is that possible?”
“We know certain aspects of the early universe were not quite as they are now. If there are… properties… we have not yet discovered, it is always possible that they might have changed. It is unlikely, but one cannot rule it out.”
“One can rule nothing out tonight, it seems,” said de-Silva dryly.
Fitzhugh looked at his platter. The formulated and sauced fowl still lay there. Untouched.
We looked at each other. Smiled. Briefly.
57
Barna
The images from my last trip planetside had helped, but I was still missing something. I couldn’t even draw a rough image of what it was. Not even a mental picture.
On oneday, I went back to Commander Morgan.
He looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “You want to go back down.” Those were his words before I could take a seat.
“Yes.” I didn’t bother to sit. Morgan didn’t dither about decisions.
“Why?”
“Because my work isn’t done.”
“There’s a place on the cargo shuttle this afternoon. I’ll let Dr. Henjsen know you’re coming down. She won’t be happy. Nothing I can say will make it easier. You understand that?”
“I do, Commander.”
He nodded. “You’d better go make sure there’s a set of armor that comes close to fitting.”
That was all there was to it. Morgan was absolutely correct. There was one passenger seat on the shuttle, and I was in it. The cargo space was empty. When we landed, I saw why. Crates and sliders were stacked up on the dark gray ice in the blackness waiting to be loaded. Lights glared on the shuttle. Droplets of refrozen atmosphere skittered across the cargo ramp I walked down.