Hawkins was frustrated. He had the answers to many of the questions they had been struggling with prior to going through the portal. But those questions were no longer important in the face of what the Speaker had presented. "You have shown us your three options. You have also indicated which option you are inclined to pursue. You say you want our perspective, yet you seem to know all you need to know about humans to make your decision. What true options do we have? What can we do to influence your decision? You must have brought us here for some reason other than simply to explain the situation to us."
"We felt we must apprise you of the situation out of respect for you as sentient beings. The Mediator also desired to hear from you should there be anything that might change the analysis of the situation."
There was a long silence and Hawkins was surprised when Debra was the one to break it. "You said you wanted our perspective, but you ask it only after presenting us with information we were not aware of, and which in itself would change our perspective. Our race is still very young as compared to yours. We need time to develop and we need time to adjust to this new information."
Tuskin stirred. "You chose us, but we are not the ones that make decisions for our species. We can bring your message back to those who do. That may change things on our planet enough so that your first or second option may be feasible. If our governments cooperate, we can make this planet a worthwhile place to defend."
"We will consider this. Wait." The room went totally dark and Hawkins was left with the image of the lights etched on his retinas, slowly fading away.
Hawkins was sweating despite the cool temperature. He directed his question in the general direction of Tuskin. "You were sent four names?"
Tuskin's voice sounded very far away. "Yes. A message to our space lab. Very directional. It came up from Tunguska. That, along with the message out of Ayers Rock, led us to dig. We have long known there was something strange about what happened at Tunguska so many years ago."
"Why didn't your government send the four people named in the message?" Levy asked.
"Why didn't yours?" Tuskin countered. "Why did you infiltrate our country to try and find out what we were doing? We can ask questions all day, but if they come back through that door and say they want nothing more to do with us, everything as we know it may be over!"
"The last time this Swarm attacked Earth was 1908," Hawkins observed. "It may be a long time before they do it again."
"The simple fact that they are out there is enough!" Tuskin spoke harshly. "You know as well as I do that the Coalition's most feasible military option is to pull back and shorten their defensive line."
"I take hope from the fact that they didn't simply do that," Debra said. "That they chose to speak to us is important."
Tuskin seemed not to have heard. "We have been groveling in the dirt fighting each other since the beginning of civilization, yet now suddenly we look up and realize that we have been so infantile!" His voice lashed out at Hawkins. "I kill you because you are American. You kill me because I am Russian. Yet we are all human." Hawkins heard him spit. "Stupidity. It is too late. It is all over."
Hawkins could understand where the other man's anger came from. Tuskin had spent his life dedicated to fighting for a government that had fallen apart at the seams just a few short years before. The carefully cultivated myth of duty, honor, and country in the Russian military had had the rug pulled out from under it. Now what had happened to Tuskin's country was happening to the planet. If a trained military man like Tuskin was affected this way, Hawkins wondered how others would react when they learned what he had just been told in this room.
He was still pondering that when the lights reappeared. "You will have twenty-four hours to return to us with both a proposal and actions completed to indicate that we may consider options other than number three."
"What?" Debra exclaimed. "This system has existed for hundreds of thousands of years and you give us only twenty-four hours to do something? We must have more time."
"The relay sites you came through will return you to where you started. In twenty-four hours the portals will shut down." The lights disappeared. With a rumble the elevator door slid open behind them and the light from it spilled out into the room. Hawkins again felt a flicker of pain on the back of his hand. He pulled and this time his hands came out without any resistance. The arm swung away and he stood and turned for the elevator.
RETURN
On the surface night had settled in, but it made no difference to Fran down in the chamber. She sat on the rock floor, her eyes staring at the Wall as if simply by looking long enough, she could see through and discover what had happened to Hawkins and Debra.
Tomkins had gone off shift an hour before, replaced by a young lieutenant whose presence was an irritating buzz to Fran as he worked on the remote gear that would be sent through as the next probe. Don Batson had stayed down here, joining her in the watch, his eyes reaching to hers every so often for encouragement in his own personal trial. A few feet away Dr. Pencak sat as still as the floor she was on.
"Debra seemed to know what she was doing." The words came out before Fran even realized what she was saying.
She looked over at Don, who was running his hand along the smooth stone wall, for perhaps the fiftieth time in the past hour, taking comfort from the rock itself, something he understood well. "For all we know she was crazy," he commented. "Maybe she's on her own form of medication," he added wryly, holding out his own hand, which shook slightly. He jerked a thumb up toward the surface. "Lamb's convinced Hawkins and Levy came out in Tunguska and the Russians have them."
"The Russians!" Fran said bitterly. "Always the Russians. Or the Iraqis. Or the Cubans. Or the Libyans. Or whoever our enemy of the week is."
Don shrugged, glad to be thinking about something other than his own problem. "You've been at the Hermes meetings. They spend most of their time trying to worst-case things and looking at everyone as an enemy." He looked at her. "Hell, Fran, that was your job-worst-case things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that a large spur for us even being at some of those meetings was your analysis of present trends and where they are likely to lead us."
Fran leaned forward. "Those were statistical projections based on what was happening. Those projections will come true if nothing is done to avert the disastrous course we are on."
"Yeah, I know," Don said. "Hell, the last tasking I got from Hermes-along with a hundred-and-sixty-thousand-dollar grant-was to work on finding natural underground shelters that could be developed by the military into bunkers for minimum cost. They even had me do up a study on how Mammoth Caves could be converted by the military in a crisis."
"Bomb shelters!" Fran exploded. "They want to handle the world's problems by building bomb shelters? That kind of thinking belongs back in the fifties."
"Then I guess I belong back there too," Don said quietly.
"Thinking like that is more concerned with surviving than living," Fran continued as if she hadn't heard.
"What's the difference?" Don asked.
"Animals survive," Fran replied. "Humans live."
"Animals don't build nuclear bombs and lose them," Don retorted. "What do you really think is going to happen if that second bomb is exploded?"
"It depends on where it goes off," Fran said.
"Regardless of where it goes off," Don persisted. "What do you think will happen?"
Fran looked at him. "I think we're going to be in even deeper shit than we know we are in now. There are a lot of variables and therefore a lot of outcomes, but over ninety percent of them are bad. And that's the only number I'm concerned with."