“Nature meant us to die, get out of the way, leave whatever we gahied to the new generations,” Tu Shan said heavily. “Yet nature brought forth our kind. Are we monsters, freaks? Today everybody is like us. Should that be? Will it in the end cost the race its soul?”
Hanno kept busy with his ropework. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t even know if your questions mean anything. We are unique, we Survivors. We were born into age and death. We grew up expecting them for ourselves. Then we endured them, over and over and over, hi everybody we loved, till we found each other; and that didn’t end the losing. The primitive world shaped us. Look at what we’re making here. Maybe that’s why it’s us going to the stars. We’re the oldest people alive, but maybe we’re also the last of the children.”
15
A STATEROOM had space for little more than a seat, a dresser that doubled as a desk with terminal, and a bunk; but the bunk had width for two. Patulcius had stuck printouts of pictures onto his walls, scenes that existed no longer in their cities. The sonic playout gave a muted background of early twentieth-century jazz. That was the single kind of music on which he and Aliyat could agree. Later styles were too abstract for her, older Near Eastern tunes roused bad memories.
They lay side by side, sharing warmth and sweat. His passions were always rather quickly slaked, though; he liked to laze for a while afterward, daydreaming or talking, before he either fell asleep or went in search of refreshment.
Presently she stirred, kicked, sat up, hugged her knees, yawned. “I wonder what’s happening now at home,” she said.
“As I understand it, ‘now’ means very little to us … now,” he answered in his plodding fashion. “It will mean less and less, the faster and farther we go.”
“Never mind. Why can’t they stay in touch?”
“You know. Our drive screens out their beams.”
She glanced at him. He lay hands behind head, look upon the ceiling. “Sure, but, uh, neutrinos.”
“Those facilities are tied up.”
“Yes,” she said bitterly. “We weren’t worth building new ones for. But aiming at some star a million light-years away—”
He smiled. “Not that far. Not quite. Although a rather daunting distance, true.”
“Who cares? I mean, all they ever get is stuff they can’t figure out. They don’t think it’s even meant for us, do they?”
“Yes and no. It’s a reasonable guess that those are messages addressed ‘to whom it may concern.’ To anyone who may be listening. But why should the senders think enough tike us that we can easily decipher their codes? Besides, they’re almost certainly robots. Very possibly, what we detect are nothing but beacons, meant to attract more robots—like those we have sent toward them.”
She shivered a bit. “Nothing really alive there?”
“Doubtful. Have you forgotten? Those are the strange places of the galaxy. Black holes, condensing nebulae, free matrices—is that the term I want? Modern cosmology baffles me too. But they’re bound to be dangerous, generally lethal environments. At the same time, each is unique. Surely all starfaring civilizations will dispatch robots to investigate them. They are where everybody’s machines will eventually meet. Therefore it makes sense that those already there will send messages they—or their builders— hope somebody new will catch. Those always were the likeliest places to find signs of intelligence, the best for us to focus our instruments on.”
“I know, I do know!” she snapped.
“As for why we have received nothing unambiguous from the mother civilizations—”
“Never mind! I wanted a breath of outside air, not a lecture!”
He did turn his face toward her. The heavy features drooped. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “I find the subject fascinating.”
“I might, if I hadn’t heard it all before, again and again. If something new could ever be said about it.”
“And if somebody new said it. Right?” he asked sadly. “I bore you, don’t I?”
She bit her lip. “I’m out of sorts.”
He avoided remarking that she had not answered his question. However, his tone sharpened a bit. “You knew you were leaving the social whirl behind.”