“Oh?” He looked suspicious, as if she were about to hand him an assignment. “What’s that?”
She activated the projector and a Goompah appeared in the middle of the office. “Her name’s Tilly.”
“Really?”
“Well, no. Actually we don’t know what her name is.” She changed the picture, and they were in one of the streets of the city with the temple. Goompahs were everywhere. Behind shop counters, standing around talking, riding beasts that were simultaneously ugly and attractive (like a bulldog, or a rhino). Little Goompahs ran screaming after a bouncing ball.
“Marvelous,” he said.
“Aren’t they?”
“How much of this stuff do we have?”
She shut the sound off, extracted the disk, and held it out for him. “As much as your clients could possibly want.”
“Yes,” he said. “The networks’ll love it.”
More than that, she thought. If the public reacted the way Hutch knew they would, it would become politically very difficult for the government to decide the Goompahs were more trouble than they were worth and simply abandon them.
AT THE END of the day, she wandered down to the lab. Harold was in his office, getting ready to leave. “Anything more on the tewks?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “we do have another one.”
“Really?”
“In the Cowbell again.”
“Still no star it could have been?”
“This was already lit when the package went operational. And we don’t have a good picture of the area beforehand, so we really don’t know. But it’s a tewk. The spectrogram is right. Incidentally, one of the older ones shut down.”
“Okay.”
“The one that shut down: We don’t know how long it was active because we don’t know when it first began. Might have been a couple of weeks before the package started operating.” He tugged at his jacket, as though a piece of lint were hanging on. Finally, he gave up. “There’s something odd about that, too. About the way they switch off.
“Usually, a true nova will fade out. Maybe come back to life a couple times in any given cycle. Burn some more. But these things—” He looked for the right word. “When they’re done, they’re done. They go off, and nobody hears from them again.”
“Like a light going out?”
“Yes. Exactly like that.” He frowned. “Is it cold out?”
Hutch hadn’t been outside since morning. “Don’t know,” she said.
“There’s something else.” He looked pleased, puzzled, amused. “The clouds tend to run in waves.”
“Old news, Harold.”
“Sometimes they don’t, but the ones we’ve seen usually do. Now, what’s interesting, we’ve detected some clouds near the tewks. If we assume they are also running in waves, then at least four of the tewks, and maybe all of them, happened along wave fronts.”
She looked at him, trying to understand the implications. “You’re telling me these are all attacks? We’re watching worlds get blown up?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Nothing like that. There’s far too much energy being expended for that kind of scenario. All I’m saying is what I said: Wherever one of these explosions has happened, we’re pretty sure a cloud has been present.”
“No idea as to what’s going on?”
“Well, it’s always helpful when you can connect things. It eliminates possibilities.” He smiled at her, almost playfully. “I was wandering through the Georgetown Gallery last night.” He was checking his pockets for something. Gloves. Where were his gloves? “I got to thinking.” He found them in a desk drawer, frowned, wondering how they could have gotten there, and put them on. He seemed to have forgotten the Georgetown Gallery.
“And—?” prompted Hutch.
“What was I saying?”
“The Georgetown Gallery.”
“Oh, yes. I have an idea what the omegas might be.”
She caught her breath. Give it to me. Tell me.
“It’s only an idea,” he said. He glanced at the time and tried to push past her. “Hutch, I’m late for dinner. Let me think about it some more and I’ll get back to you.”
She seized his arm. “Whoa, Harold. You don’t drop a line like that and walk off. Have you really figured it out?”
“Give me a few days. I need to do some math. Get more data. If I can find what I’m looking for, I’ll show you what they might be.”
LIBRARY ENTRY
“Go, therefore, and teach all nations.” The requirement laid on us by the Gospels is no longer as clear as it once was. Do the creatures we call Goompahs constitute a nation in the biblical sense? Are they, like ourselves, spiritual beings? Can they be said to have souls?
For the third time in recent years, we are facing the issue of an extraterrestrial intelligence, beings that seem to have a moral sense, and might therefore qualify as children of God. To date, we have delayed, looked the other way, and avoided the question that is clearly being put to us: Was the crucifixion a unique event? Does it apply only to those born of terrestrial mothers? Or has it application on whatever worlds the children of Adam may visit?
What precisely is our responsibility? It is no easy question, and we must confess we find no ready answer in the scriptures. We are at a crossroad. And while we ourselves consider how to proceed, we would remind those ultimately tasked with the decision, who have delayed more than thirty years since the first discovery on Inakademeri, that failure to act is a decision. The cloud is bearing down on the Goompahs, while we bide our time. The entire Christian community is watching. And it is probable that whatever precedent is set in these next few months will determine the direction of missionary efforts well into the future. If indeed we determine that the Gospels are not applicable off Earth, we should so state, loudly and clearly, along with the reasons why. If, on the other hand, they do apply, then we should act. And quickly. The clock is running.
— Christianity Today
April 2234
chapter 8
Union Space Station.
Friday, March 14.
HUTCH SAT QUIETLY in the back of the briefing room while Collingdale talked to his people. There were twenty-five of them, xenologists, sociologists, mathematicians, and technicians. And, primarily, a team of twelve language specialists, whose job it would be to interpret the raw data sent back by the Jenkins crew, and to become proficient in basic Goompah.
The Khalifa al-Jahani was visible through the viewports. It was one of the Academy’s older ships, and she recalled the engineer’s cautions with misgivings. Probably be okay, but no guarantees. Collingdale had not been happy. But he’d accepted the reality of their position, and they’d passed the information on to the volunteers. None had opted out.
He was telling them that he planned to break new ground and he was pleased to have them with him.
“I’ve asked the Jenkins to get as many recordings as possible,” she’d told Collingdale earlier in the day. “They’re going to plant A/V pickups wherever they can. I’ve advised them to get the data and not worry too much about the Protocol unless the natives prove hostile. In which case they’re just going to hunker down until you get there.”
“If they turn out to be hostile,” Collingdale had said, “I doubt we’ll be able to do much for them.”
That had brought up the question of equipment. How many pickups did the Jenkins group have to work with? It couldn’t be many. They’d been doing routine survey work and, in the ordinary course of things, had little use for recording devices. They’d have to jury-rig some spare parts. In any case, there wouldn’t be more than a handful.