specialized in memory, and they swore that the memory of the Others was real. It was vague and patchy because it was tens of thousands of years old, but it wasn’t a myth.
“Then, in 2079, the Others proved it. A signal that triggered strange behavior in the yellow family. They started babbling weird nonsense—but they each said the same nonsense over and over. Turned out to be a binary code that basically told us who the Others were and what their body chemistry was, nitrogen and silicon. They lived in liquid nitrogen, and this one—there was only one in the solar system—lived in a liquid-nitrogen sea on Triton, Neptune’s moon. It had lived there for twenty-seven thousand years.
“Once we cracked the code and tried to communicate with it, we found out that it spoke English. And Chinese and German and whatever.”
“But they couldn’t just call and say hello?”
“No. It was like a series of tests, to see how sophisticated we could be. The first test was contact with the Martians, and in fact was why the Martians were there.”
“I understand that one. It was like a signal to the Others that we had gone to another planet. Which woke up the one on Triton. But it woke up knowing how to speak Chinese and all?”
“We don’t think so. We think it absorbed a huge amount of information from the yellow family as soon as it woke up. At least that’s what the Martians say.
“The last test was playing for keeps. We were in Earth orbit, and Red found out that he was essentially a time bomb. In a couple of days, he would explode, giving out more energy than the Sun. The seas underneath us would boil; the air would be blown away. I guess you know what happened then.”
She nodded gravely. “Paul took Red to the other side of the Moon, so when he blew up, the earth wasn’t hurt.”
“That’s right, and perhaps if we had left it at that, everything would be fine. The Other that had been on Triton blew it up and went home to Wolf 25, almost twenty-five light-years from here.”
“But we had to follow it.”
“There were various opinions. A lot of people wanted to build a war fleet and go after the bastards, which was not really possible, even with free energy.”
“It’s always been free for me,” Alba said. I hadn’t thought of that. “Go on?”
“Well, at the other extreme were people who just wanted to say ‘good riddance,’ and get on with life. I have a lot of sympathy for that idea.
“There was a lot of arguing that eventually wound up with the compromise that started, I guess, before your parents were born.”
“My mother was born in 2090.”
“Two years after we launched. Well, the bright idea was to build one starship, and send it off to Wolf 25 on a peace mission.”
“But then they also built a fleet here in orbit, supposedly to protect the earth.”
“Or at least to mollify the hawks,” I said, “the ones who demanded a military response. But it was gnats versus an elephant.”
“I know a lot of people who thought it was a bad idea,” Alba said. “Almost all my teachers in school.”
“I can imagine. We had a kind of meeting with one of the Others, who showed us evidence of what they could do, as if a further demonstration was necessary. Did you hear what they did to their own home planet?”
“Yeah, I saw that on the cube. How they used to be, well, not human but sort of. But they evolved themselves into these ice-cold monsters who lived on a frozen moon. So they came back and destroyed their own home planet?”
“In self-defense, they pointed out. They showed us the remains of the fleet that the home planet had been building to attack them. Sort of like our fleet here, but a thousand times closer.
“So we came back and, in essence, brought the eyes and ears of the Others with us. That was the human-looking avatar that was on the cube.
“And so they blew up the Moon to keep us out of space. We tried anyhow, and so they pulled the plug on civilization.”
She
“Then, in 2079, the Others proved it. A signal that triggered strange behavior in the yellow family. They started babbling weird nonsense—but they each said the same nonsense over and over. Turned out to be a binary code that basically told us who the Others were and what their body chemistry was, nitrogen and silicon. They lived in liquid nitrogen, and this one—there was only one in the solar system—lived in a liquid-nitrogen sea on Triton, Neptune’s moon. It had lived there for twenty-seven thousand years.
“Once we cracked the code and tried to communicate with it, we found out that it spoke English. And Chinese and German and whatever.”
“But they couldn’t just call and say hello?”
“No. It was like a series of tests, to see how sophisticated we could be. The first test was contact with the Martians, and in fact was why the Martians were there.”
“I understand that one. It was like a signal to the Others that we had gone to another planet. Which woke up the one on Triton. But it woke up knowing how to speak Chinese and all?”
“We don’t think so. We think it absorbed a huge amount of information from the yellow family as soon as it woke up. At least that’s what the Martians say.
“The last test was playing for keeps. We were in Earth orbit, and Red found out that he was essentially a time bomb. In a couple of days, he would explode, giving out more energy than the Sun. The seas underneath us would boil; the air would be blown away. I guess you know what happened then.”
She nodded gravely. “Paul took Red to the other side of the Moon, so when he blew up, the earth wasn’t hurt.”
“That’s right, and perhaps if we had left it at that, everything would be fine. The Other that had been on Triton blew it up and went home to Wolf 25, almost twenty-five light-years from here.”
“But we had to follow it.”
“There were various opinions. A lot of people wanted to build a war fleet and go after the bastards, which was not really possible, even with free energy.”
“It’s always been free for me,” Alba said. I hadn’t thought of that. “Go on?”
“Well, at the other extreme were people who just wanted to say ‘good riddance,’ and get on with life. I have a lot of sympathy for that idea.
“There was a lot of arguing that eventually wound up with the compromise that started, I guess, before your parents were born.”
“My mother was born in 2090.”
“Two years after we launched. Well, the bright idea was to build one starship, and send it off to Wolf 25 on a peace mission.”
“But then they also built a fleet here in orbit, supposedly to protect the earth.”
“Or at least to mollify the hawks,” I said, “the ones who demanded a military response. But it was gnats versus an elephant.”
“I know a lot of people who thought it was a bad idea,” Alba said. “Almost all my teachers in school.”
“I can imagine. We had a kind of meeting with one of the Others, who showed us evidence of what they could do, as if a further demonstration was necessary. Did you hear what they did to their own home planet?”
“Yeah, I saw that on the cube. How they used to be, well, not human but sort of. But they evolved themselves into these ice-cold monsters who lived on a frozen moon. So they came back and destroyed their own home planet?”
“In self-defense, they pointed out. They showed us the remains of the fleet that the home planet had been building to attack them. Sort of like our fleet here, but a thousand times closer.
“So we came back and, in essence, brought the eyes and ears of the Others with us. That was the human-looking avatar that was on the cube.
“And so they blew up the Moon to keep us out of space. We tried anyhow, and so they pulled the plug on civilization.”
She
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