I waited for Aiko to turn things over to Bryan and come back into the cabin. When she did, she sat down across from me and smiled. She knew exactly what I was thinking. “We’ll need about six weeks to get there,” she said.
“Okay.”
She leaned forward and sighed. “Does this kind of thing happen regularly, Ronda?”
I laughed. “Aliens? Sure. Every few thousand years.”
“I’m serious. Is this normal? To get sent out on an idiot mission?”
Everybody knew there were no aliens. “It happens sometimes,” I said.
“Harlow said it was a radio transmission.”
“That’s correct.”
“So if they’ve got the source right, the signal was sent seven thousand years ago.” The smile widened. “I hope they’re not still waiting for us to show up.”
We were on our way minutes after we got back to the Brinkmann. Aiko was as happy as I was to get clear of Harmony. It was a beautiful world, but it looked a lot like Marikim, except, of course, that there was no life, other than Abe and his crew. And sometimes I wondered about them. Despite the sterility, neither of us liked to think about its being sucked into the black hole. I’ll never understand why anyone would pay to go see that.
Aiko decided it was time to change the subject. “You know, I’ve never understood why we’re so hung up on looking for aliens. We’ve been at it now for what? About fifteen thousand years? They just ain’t out there, baby.”
No, they weren’t. We’d been through this experience before, the artificial transmission that turned out to have originated in a long forgotten space station somewhere or a local signal that had simply been bouncing around. There’d been a couple for which there’d been no explanation, but which had never repeated. Missions sent to track them down had found nothing. “I guess we don’t like being alone,” I said. “It can be depressing.”
“Yeah, Ronda. I guess it can. To be honest, it’s not something I think about much.” The message was clear enough: Aiko rarely spent time alone.
We’d come a long way from the home world. The places we occupied were beautiful now, covered with oak trees and evergreens, filled with animals. But every bird and shrub and dolphin that existed anywhere had come from Earth’s forests and oceans. We hadn’t found so much as a blade of grass or even a cell anywhere else.
I don’t know if people ever thought about it much. It’s simply the accepted reality. The universe is ours, to do with as we like.
We didn’t have a lot to occupy the time so I began reading about the early days on Earth, when scientists expected to find signs of ancient life buried in the sands of Mars. Mars had been the home for living creatures in much of the fiction written during that era, before we got offworld. But when we arrived there, of course, there’d been nothing.
Europa had oceans under its ice. It was one of the moons of a gas giant in the solar system. But they’d found nothing there, either. The most serious jolt, according to the histories, had come when, in the pre-FTL era, we made it out to Gliese 832 with an automated vehicle. An Earth-type world, orbiting in the Goldilocks Zone, had displayed oceans and land masses. But when the Ranger arrived, it found no indication of life. No trees, nothing moving anywhere. The report from the robot arrived home sixteen years later and disappointed everyone.
Aiko couldn’t help laughing. “They really thought we were going to find squirrels on Mars?”
“Not exactly. But I think they expected to find something.”
People began asking what kind of universe we lived in? The report from the Ranger set off a religious revival which continued to gain ground as evidence mounted that something special had happened on Earth.
Scientists figured out what it takes for life to begin. They realized that the odds of chemistry and climate and various other factors coming together to make it happen were so remote that it was unlikely life existed anywhere else. “Too much,” said Thaddeus Roundtree, whose name is one of the few to survive into the modern era, “has to be exactly right. We should consider ourselves fortunate beyond belief that we are here.”
“I never really thought about it that much, Ronda,” Aiko said. “The universe is empty. What else could it be? We’ve been to thousands of worlds that have water and sunlight and they’ve got nothing.”
“I know. Which is why I’d really enjoy meeting someone who came from a different place. You know, someone we could sit down with and talk to. Preferably over a beer.”
“Talk about what?”
“Probably it would be the same things you and I would talk about. How good’s the food? What are the politicians like on your world? Or maybe we’d get a handle on the secret of life.”
“You’re hoping we’ll actually find something, aren’t you, Ronda?”
“Well, sure. I’d love to find something. The problem is, if we do get lucky, we’re not supposed to let them know we’re there. That sort of takes all the fun out of it.”
Six weeks can be a long time cooped up in a Lexco. It’s designed for no more than four passengers, and for flights of relatively short duration, maybe two weeks maximum. We were traveling through hyperspace, of course, so there wasn’t even anything outside to look at. It was just a dark vacuum. Either of us would have given a lot to be able to look out a window and see some light.
Bryan created a few avatars for us, mostly from entertainment types, so we talked with romantic leads and comic actors. But they seemed puzzled when we asked how they’d respond if they met a real alien.
“What’s an alien?” asked Lenny Toliver, a singer Aiko admitted having fallen in love with during her teens.
“I’m not sure Lenny would have been somebody I’d have wanted around constantly,” she said. Her eyes sparkled. “He’d have made a decent one-night stand, I guess. But when he gets offstage he loses something.” She sat back and shook her head. “I hope you get what you want, Ronda. I suspect it would make Harlow pretty happy too.”
The days grew increasingly long. Aiko played virtual games with Bryan, rescuing people lost on strange worlds and investigating haunted houses and whatnot. We worked out each morning after breakfast. We watched shows. And when we sat down to talk, the conversations inevitably went back over the same old issue. What awaited us at the system we were now calling Iskar?
“I’m not sure,” Aiko said midway through the third week, “that we shouldn’t have ducked this assignment.”
It occurred to me that, had I not revealed my enthusiasm for this, she’d have called in sick.
It was a painfully long ride. Aiko remained negative, and there was no way to get away from her. But eventually it ended and we emerged twenty-eight light-years from Iskar. That meant a second jump, of course, but it only required slightly more than an hour. We came out of it 130 million kilometers from the star. “Bryan,” I said, “are we picking up anything that looks like artificial radiation?”
“I’m not reading anything,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s get a look at the planetary system. Concentrate on the Goldilocks Zone.”
“You understand that will require some time.”
“Yes. I had a feeling you wouldn’t be able to do it by lunch.”
“Ronda.” His tone became brittle. “You are being caustic.”
Aiko grinned at me.
“I didn’t mean to offend.” I tried to keep a straight face. Bryan tends to behave as if everybody else on board is an idiot. “Also, if you will, check for artificial radio signals. And send a message back to Harlow. Tell him we’ve arrived.”