Knowing that he had to relocate the Phalanx to a safer spot so it would be clear of the attack, Igor watched the last few seconds of the countdown tick away.
“Time’s up. We have to leave now to guarantee that we’re clear of the blast zone.”
“And just leave them?” Aida asked. “I know it’s what we’re trained to do. Can we live with ourselves?”
“We don’t have a choice. If the ship isn’t destroyed by the graser, we can come back and attempt another rendezvous. Aki had to leave one behind and came back into space knowing the risk. Even if we didn’t have enough fuel to get back to Earth on our own, a gravitational assist from Mercury would get us there eventually as long as our supplies held out.” Igor began the thruster sequence required to take them a safe distance away from the Builders. Once the Phalanx was pointed away from the alien vessel, the NERVA III engines fired, carrying the Phalanx away from the Builders’ trajectory toward Mercury.
ACT VI: AUGUST 1, 2041
AKI WAS CERTAIN that the Phalanx had left. She could not confirm the departure from inside the alien vessel, but the deadline had passed. Remaining this close to the Builders’ ship with the graser looming would be pure suicide. It would have been wrong for the Phalanx to remain. Knowing they were on their own, Aki, Joseph, and Raul had a new sense of purpose. Because the graser would fire in less than forty minutes, they were determined to push for solutions until they ran out of time.
They returned to the first black pool. Alice and her three companions were still lounging on the shore. Aki had her crew make every attempt to get Alice to respond to their presence. They petted and rubbed the creature’s hands, face, and belly, and tried stimulating her with different permutations of light and sound. Eventually, Aki had even instructed Joseph to punch Alice several times, yet the Builder had shown no reaction whatsoever. Sometime after they had finished their attempts, Alice rose from the beach, soaked briefly in the dark liquid, then crawled back onto the shore. It was unclear whether their actions had registered with her at all.
“Anybody have ideas?” Aki asked.
“I’m tapped out,” Joseph said.
Aki looked at Raul. He was busy interacting with the computer and screen in his suit, distracted and lost in thought.
“This room is filled with a quiet noise. I thought it was static or white noise but it’s not. There’s information embedded in it. Without a quantum computer to use entanglement to crunch the data, there’s no hope of decoding it from here,” he muttered. “Spectral analysis shows sub-millimeter waves at a frequency of six gigahertz coming from these beasts’ bodies. There are filaments along the branches that act as booster antennae. The electromagnetic waves are everywhere. Similar signals came from Mercury and the Rings, but we could never make sense of them.” Aki wondered if Raul even knew that he was talking out loud.
“If they’re the ones flying this ship, this could be utopia to them, something even more comfortable and fulfilling than their home planet,” Joseph said.
“It is a dystopia for us,” Aki said.
“Maybe happiness for them is right here, lying in this meditative state, deep in thought, free from worry or doubt,” Joseph said.
“You would think they would have some music playing,” Aki said, frustration getting the best of her.
“Music creates a relationship between Mozart and Salieri,” Joseph said.
“Maybe their civilization reached its apex, and they realized that all they needed for true happiness was simply to exist and produce offspring…until something forced them to leave their home world, never able to return.” After speaking, Aki realized that he may have sounded naïve or idealistic, but Joseph’s ideas rang true for her. She had to slow down. She had to find a way to make the best she could of the situation.
“The Builders came to our solar system to build a Garden of Eden on Mercury?” Raul asked.
“Their nanotech takes care of their needs, even their interstellar migration. All they need is to live and reproduce. Maybe the purpose of their technology is to sustain their lives in our galaxy,” Joseph said.
“And the purpose of our tech is to destroy them before they succeed,” Aki said. She could not help but empathize with the vehemence in his voice, but she knew differently. “That is what we need to avoid. Being human does not mean we get to run the show,” she said.
“But it’s destructive. No matter how advanced they are, their indifference is causing us great harm in the end,” Joseph said.
“I prefer not to look at it that way.”
“With all due respect, I think you’ve lost your perspective. Frankly, all this time you’ve assumed they were benevolent and that our encounter with them would be nothing but shared joy and wonder. Do you think it was a coincidence that the Builders happened to be the first alien intelligence that humanity interacted with?”
“What do you mean, Joseph?” Aki asked.
“We know there are at least two intelligent civilizations in this tiny and forgotten corner of the galaxy. That means tens if not hundreds of thousands of other civilizations in our galaxy alone. Nonetheless, the first one we met killed well over a billion people. Isn’t it possible that the benevolent species are the ones staying at home minding their own business and the ones traveling from star to star are destructive and imperialistic, with no regard to whatever life they snuff out?”
Aki glared at Joseph, astonished.
“Is that what you’ve thought all along? Is that why you wanted to be part of the Contact Team?”
“I’m not an assassin; I’m also not a welcome wagon. I will, however, say that I’m skeptical of their intentions. Like you, I’m here because I want to know why they came, ma’am.”
“Oh,” Aki said. She wondered if she had lost perspective after all. Had she made judgments based on what she wanted instead of based on the facts? Embarrassed by the accusation that hung in the air, Aki realized that she had not lost touch with her objectivity. She had acted on intuitions about the Builders that only she had been privy to. After all, Aki Shiraishi had been the first person to set foot on the Island. She was the one whose intuition led to the discovery of how to destroy the Ring. She was the one who had realized that humanity needed to rebuild the Vert-Ring.
In her heart, Aki knew that since the moment she had squinted into the telescope and thought she saw a tower, a voice within her had guided her thoughts and actions, providing special insight into the Builders. If there was a way out, trusting that voice was what was going to get them through.
“The signals are too complicated to crack. But there’s too much data coming and going for these to be livestock in a pasture. I’m convinced these are the Builders,” Raul said, interrupting Aki’s thoughts.
“You’re sure now?” Aki asked.
“Positive. The downstream source from Alice’s implant is transmitting enough information to fill a library every few hours. That’s too excessive for the only thoughts in her head to be daydreams of grazing in grassy pastures. The same goes for the upstream—it’s millions of times greater than what would be necessary to just keep their minds blissed out or serene.”
“What are you saying?” Aki asked.
“These gals are running this Ferris wheel, no doubt about it. I bet each one could outthink a continent full of humans in their sleep. The question is: where is this information being sent?”