They are not ours, even now. This close-knit turf that is not grass, yonder squat trees and serpentine bushes, somber lues of everything that grows, sharp fragrances, the very taste of spring water, none came from the womb of Gaia. Nor can any of it ever truly become hers, nor should it.
The looks upon him were expectant. He cleared his throat and sat straighten The motion hurt, his injuries were not yet entirely healed, but he ignored that. “I won’t ask for a vote today,” he said. “We have years ahead before we must commit ourselves. But my news may change some minds,”
Unless that had already happened. Certainly it had done so as regarded him. He didn’t know whether his near death had been necessary to snuff out the last rancor. Maybe that would have faded away in time; but maybe it would have smoldered on and on, eating hearts hollow. No matter. The fellowship was whole again. Little had been spoken outright; everything had been felt. He had an intuition, moreover, that in typical irrational human fashion, this was in turn catalyzing another oneness.
We’ll see, he thought. All of us.
“As you know,” he went on, “Yukiko and I have been communicating a lot with the AUoi these past few days. They’ve reached a decision of their own.”
He raised a hand against anxiety. “Nothing radical, except in what it can mean for the long haul. They will stay on till the new ship arrives, and for several years afterward. There’ll be an unforeknowably great deal of information to exchange and, well, rapport to build and enjoy. In due course, though, the Alloi are going elsewhere.
“What’s new is—if we, at that time, leave for Phaeacia, they will come with us.”
He and his partner smiled into the amazement, savored it. “In God’s name, why?” exclaimed Patulcius. “What have they to gam there?”
“Knowledge, to start with,” Hanno answered. “A whole different set of planets.”
“But planetary systems are common enough,” Wanderer said. “I thought that what interests them most is intelligent life.”
“True,” Yukiko told them. “At Phaeacia, that will be us; and for us, they will be.”
“They want to know us better,” Hanno said. “They see tremendous potential in our race. Far more than in the Ithagene, much though they’ve gotten from them in the way of scientific discovery and artistic inspiration. We are spacefarers too. The odds are, the Ithagene never will be, none of diem; at best, in the remote future.”
“But the Alloi need only stay here, and they can observe both races, and interact with that other set of travelers to boot,” Patulcius argued.
Yukiko shook her head. “They do not expect we can or win remain. Certainly our numbers could only grow slowly, and never become large, on Xenogaia; and therefore what we, humans in space, were able to do, or at last cared to do, would be hopelessly limited.”
“You six—no, we eight have been like the English Puritans on Earth,” Hanno said. “Looking for a home, they meant to settle in Virginia, but weather drove them north and they ended in New England. It wasn’t what they’d hoped for, but they made the best of it, and that’s how the Yankees came to be. Suppose New England had been all there ever was for them. Think of such a country, stagnant, poor, narrow and narrow-minded. Do you want that for yourselves and your children?”
“The Yankees put down strong roots,” Tu Shan responded. “They did have America beyond.”
“We have nothing like that,” Macandal said. “Xenogaia belongs to its people. We have no right to anything but this Ktde patch they gave us. If we took more, God ought to strike us down.”
Wanderer nodded.
“So you have often said, dear,” Patulcius demurred, “and I have tried to point out that as a practical matter—”
“Yes, we have our investment here,” Svoboda interrupted, “sweat and tears and dreams. It will hurt to scrap that. But I always believed, myself, that someday we must.” Her voice clanged. “And now we’ve been given this opportunity!”
“That’s it,” Hanno chimed in. “Phaeacia has no natives for us to harm. It seems to be almost a reborn Earth. Seems. Maybe it’s a death trap. We can’t know till we’ve tried. We understood the risk of failure, extinction. Well, with the Altoi at our backs, that won’t happen. United, we can over-pHtpo anything. You see, they want us to live, to Sourish. They want humans among the stars.”
“Why us?” asked Macandal. “I realize—our psyches, our special talents, we and they doing more, becoming more, than either could alone, like a good marriage—but if they’d like human company, why not go on to Earth?”
“Have you forgotten why?” retorted Hanno grimly.
Her eyes widened. Fingers touched lips. “How can they be sure?”
“They aren’t, not absolutely; but from what we’ve described, they can guess with pretty high probability. Earth is going the selfeame way Pegasi did, and the rest that they know about. Ob, we’ll swap messages with it, no doubt. But it’s too far off”—a galactically minuscule four and a third light-centuries—“to make the voyage appear worthwhile. The Alloi would rather help us get established, come really to know us, and finally plan ventures together.”
Tu Shan gazed upward. “Phaeacia,” he breathed. “Like Earth. Not truly, but ... green leaves, rich soil, clear skies.” He closed his eyes against the sun and let its warmth lave his face. “Most nights we will see stars.”
Patulcius shifted about on the bench. “This does put quite a different complexion on matters,” he admitted. As much eagerness as his heavy features ever showed danced across them. “The survival of more than simpty us. Of humanity, true humanity.”
It blazed from Wanderer: “Not just a settlement or nation. A base, a frontier camp. We can be patient, we and the Alloi. We can make the planet ours, raise generations of young, till we’re many and strong. But then we’ll go to space again.”
“Those of you who wish,” said Tu Shan.
Macandal’s tone shook. “To learn and grow. To keep life alive.”
Aliyat spoke through sudden, brief tears. “Yes, take the universe back from the damned machines.”
“Where are they?”
The story is that Enrico Fermi first raised the question in the twentieth century, when scientists first dared wonder publicly about such things. If other thinking beings than us existed—how strange and sad if none did, in the entire vast-ness and diversity of creation—why had we on Earth found no trace or track of them? There we were, on the verge of making our own starward leap. Had nobody gone before us?
Perhaps it was impractical or impossible for flesh and Mood. It certainly was not for machines we knew in principle how to make. They could be our explorers, sending home their findings. Reaching far planets, they could build more like themselves, instilling the same imperative: Discover. (No menace to Me in their proliferation; at any given sun, a few tons of raw material from some barren asteroid or moon would suffice.) Under conservative assumptions, calculation showed that such robots would spread from end to end of the galaxy in about a million years. That was the merest eyeblink of cosmic time. Why, a million years ago our ancestors were approaching full humanness. Had no race anywhere even that much of a head start? All it would take was one.
Still easier to send were signals. We tried. We listened. Silence, until we thought to try in certain new directions; then, enigma.
Guesses teemed. The Others were transmitting, but not by means that we yet knew. They had come here, but in the prehistoric past. They were here, but concealed. They destroyed themselves, as we feared we might, before they could send or go. They had no high-technological civilizations among them; ours was unique. They did not exist; we were indeed alone. ...