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  Meek said nothing, clearly wondering what was behind Jordan’s request.

  “Of course,” Jordan said easily, “if you have something more important scheduled for this morning…”

  “No,” Meek confessed. “My schedule is rather clear.”

  “Then come along with me,” Jordan coaxed. “Please.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, Meek said, “Oh very well. If it will make you happy.”

  “It might make you happy, too, Harmon,” said Jordan.

  BY THEIR FRUITS

  Nara Yamaguchi looked surprised when Jordan and Meek entered her infirmary. It was in the same tent as the dining area and kitchen, a placement that seemed amusing to several of the team.

  Tanya Verishkova joked about the efficiency of having medical help so conveniently close to the robotic cooks in the kitchen. “Potential poisoners,” she called the robots.

  Yamaguchi was sitting at her desk, studying medical records, when Jordan and Meek came in. The infirmary was small: her desk was tucked into one corner. Most of the space was taken up by the examination table and the compact array of diagnostic sensors built into an arch over the table.

  Looking up from her display screen, she asked, “What can I do for you?”

  “I’d like a checkup,” said Jordan.

  Clearly puzzled, Yamaguchi said, “Now?”

  “Now,” Jordan answered. “And then I’d like you to show Harmon my medical record.”

  Her round face took on a troubled frown. “Medical records are private, Jordan. You know that.”

  “But you can allow Harmon to see my record if I request it.”

  “I suppose so.” Reluctantly.

  Nodding toward the examination table, Jordan said, “Let’s do a scan first.”

  Meek seemed totally baffled as Jordan removed his shoes, belt, and pocketphone, then lay back on the table for a full-body scan. The astrobiologist folded his arms across his narrow chest and watched, almost suspiciously, as the instruments arching above the table hummed and beeped.

  Yamaguchi gestured toward her display screen. “Clean as a whistle, same as the last two times.”

  Jordan nodded and said, “Now will you kindly show Harmon my earlier scans?”

  “Why do you want this?” Yamaguchi asked.

  With a wintry smile, Jordan replied, “To show Harmon the truth.”

  There was no other chair in Yamaguchi’s office, so she got up and offered Meek her own. He looked across at Jordan, then folded his lanky body into the little wheeled chair. It rolled slightly away from the desk and Meek reached out his long arms, grasped the edge of the desk, and pulled himself back.

  “What am I supposed to be looking for?” he asked Yamaguchi. “I’m an astrobiologist, not a physician.”

  “Tell him,” Jordan said, as the image of his first examination, the day they all were revived from cryosleep, appeared on the screen.

  Her brows knit in misgiving, Yamaguchi told Meek, “Jordan carried a genetically engineered virus in his lower abdominal tract.” Pointing to the image on the screen, “There it is, false-colored red.”

  Meek peered at the screen. “Genetically engineered?”

  “I picked it up in Kashmir,” Jordan explained. “During the biowar.”

  Startled, Meek exclaimed, “You mean this was one of their killer viruses?”

  “A man-made plague. They killed millions with it.” Including my wife, he added silently.

  “And you…”

  “It was dormant,” Jordan said. “It couldn’t be removed without chopping out half my intestines, it was so completely nestled inside me. The mission medical team decided it would remain dormant, so they cleared me for the trip. They thought that my time in cryosleep might even kill it.”

  “But it didn’t,” said Yamaguchi.

  “It’s still dormant?” Meek asked, clearly worried.

  “It’s dead,” Jordan said. “Dead and gone.”

  “How did that happen?”

  Jordan nodded to Yamaguchi. She smiled slowly, finally understanding. “The aliens killed it.”

  “Adri’s people?”

  “Aditi, to be specific,” said Jordan. “When I submitted to a physical exam in the city, she found the virus and destroyed it.”

  “Destroyed it? How?”

  Yamaguchi was beaming now. “I’ve been talking to their medical staff about that. Apparently they have instrumentation that can detect the molecular vibrational modes of individual strands of DNA. Once they pin down the frequency, they hit the virus with a narrow ultrasound beam of the same frequency. That breaks up the virus and the body’s natural waste removal system flushes it out.”

  Meek was gaping now. “An ultrasound beam of one particular frequency? Like a laser, but with sound waves?”

  “Exactly,” Yamaguchi said. “This could revolutionize medical practice. It could replace surgery!”

  “And it’s ordinary, everyday, routine practice for them,” Jordan added.

  Meek looked from Jordan to Yamaguchi and back again, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. Suddenly he shot up from the little chair and bolted out of the infirmary.

  Yamaguchi looked shocked. Without another word to her, Jordan dashed out of the infirmary and raced after Meek.

  The lanky astrobiologist was running past the camp’s tents, out across the open grassy glade, heading for the stately tall trees of the forest. Jordan ran after him. Meek’s long legs galloped across the grass. Jordan was puffing hard, trying to keep up with him. Nobody else seemed to be in sight; everyone else was indoors. Good thing, Jordan thought as he ran after the fleeing Meek. We must look like a pair of buffoons. Or lunatics.

  At last Meek reached the trees, slowed down, and finally stopped, gasping as he leaned against one of the tall, straight trunks.

  Jordan’s lungs were burning. I haven’t sweated this much in a long time, he realized. He slowed to a trot as he approached Meek.

  The astrobiologist looked awful: his face sheened with perspiration, gasping for breath, his eyes haunted.

  “Harmon,” Jordan puffed out as he came up to Meek. “What … why did you…”

  Meek sank down onto the grass, his back sliding down the tree’s bark. Jordan dropped to his knees beside him, then leaned back into a sitting position.

  “Are you … all right, Harmon?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The aliens simply destroyed your virus, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “That’s right.”

  Meek shook his head.

  “Don’t you see, Harmon? It’s like Thornberry said, by their fruits you shall know them. They’ve been nothing but helpful to us. They’re not scheming against us. They want to help us!”

  “I know,” said Meek, so low that Jordan barely heard him.

  “You do?”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Meek said, his voice stronger. “I can see what’s going on.”

  Jordan pulled out a tissue and mopped at his face. “Then you understand that they’re not a danger to us. That we—”

  “They’re a danger to me. To me!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Pulling up his long legs and dropping his head to his knees, Meek burst out, “Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?” He broke into racking sobs.

  “Harmon, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m an astrobiologist,” Meek choked out. “I’ve traveled eight light-years to be the first astrobiologist to study an exoplanet’s biosphere.”

  “Yes?”

  “And what do we find? Human beings! A completely Earthlike biosphere. There’s nothing for me to do here! Longyear’s doing all the biology work. De Falla’s mapping the planet. And what do I have? Nothing! I’ve come all this way for nothing! When we get back to Earth I’ll be laughed at! Forgotten! It’s all been for nothing.”

  Great god in heaven, Jordan thought. So it comes down to this. His ego. His prissy monumental ego
. But as he looked at the sobbing astrobiologist, Jordan thought, He’s disappointed. Crushed. To come all this way and find that your journey has been in vain. To sacrifice nearly two centuries over nothing. Who wouldn’t be crushed? Who wouldn’t be hurt and angered and furious at the aliens who’ve made a mockery of your hopes?

  As gently as he could, Jordan said, “Perhaps it hasn’t been for nothing, Harmon. Perhaps—”

  Meek’s head snapped up. “Don’t patronize me, diplomat!”

  Jordan smiled at him. “Why, yes, I’m a diplomat by training and experience. And perhaps I can see a way out of your dilemma. A way to make this mission worthwhile for you.”

  ALIENS

  “What do you mean?” asked Meek, his long bony face streaked with tears.

  “Come to the city with me,” Jordan said.

  “No.”

  “Yes. Come to the city. Just as the aliens took care of my virus, I think they can take care of your problem.”

  “If you think I’m going to let them manipulate my mind, use their so-called education machine to turn me into a happy zombie, think again.”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Jordan coaxed. “Just come with me. Come and talk with Adri.”

  “I don’t see what good it would do.”

  “It won’t do any harm. You’ll be no worse off than you are now if you simply talk with Adri a bit.”

  Clearly suspicious, but also wondering what Jordan was up to, Meek got shakily to his feet. Jordan stood up too and, grasping Meek’s arm by the elbow, they started walking back into the camp.

  “I ought to get cleaned up first,” Meek muttered.

  “Certainly,” said Jordan. “Me too. That was quite a run you led me on.”

  They returned to the barracks tent, washed up, and changed into clean clothes. Jordan never let Meek far out of his sight. Together they went to Brandon, who was in the geology lab with de Falla, and told him they were going to the city.

  “Really?” Brandon looked surprised. “May I ask why?”

  “An astrobiology conference,” Jordan replied. “With Adri.”

  * * *

  They took one of the buggies, Jordan driving with Meek sitting beside him, long legs poking up uncomfortably.

  Just as Jordan expected, Adri was waiting at the city’s perimeter walkway, in his usual blue-gray robe. No sign of his little pet. Aditi hurried up and stood beside him.

  “Welcome, friends,” said Adri.

  Jordan murmured a hello, his attention on Aditi. She was wearing a ruby red blouse, tan shorts, and a happy smile. He clasped both her hands; they felt warm as she gripped his hands tightly.

  Jordan helped Aditi into the second row of the buggy, as Adri went around the other side and climbed in unassisted. Jordan started the vehicle’s quiet electrical motor, and they drove up the city’s main thoroughfare.

  Adri asked, “To what do we owe this visit, Dr. Meek?”

  Almost testily, Meek replied, “Ask Mr. Kell, here. This is his idea, not mine.”

  Over his shoulder, Jordan said to Adri, “I thought that you and Dr. Meek might have a useful discussion of alien biospheres.”

  Adri asked, “You mean the alien societies that our Predecessors have encountered?”

  Jordon nodded.

  “Alien societies?” Meek blurted. “You mean you’ve encountered other aliens?”

  “Not we,” said Adri. “We have never been off this planet. But our Predecessors have found many intelligent civilizations scattered among the stars. And many more planets that bear life, but not intelligence.”

  Meek swallowed hard before asking, “And you have records of these encounters?”

  “Of course. All sorts of data: biological, geological, social … complete and detailed files.”

  “Can I … may I see them? Inspect them?”

  “To your heart’s content, sir.”

  Meek broke into an ear-to-ear grin. Jordan had never seen him look so happy.

  * * *

  Once they parked in the heart of the city, Meek went off with Adri, leaving Jordan alone with Aditi.

  “You’ll stay here tonight?” she asked, as they climbed the stairs of the administrative building.

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away—not even Meek could.” And he pulled her to him and kissed her. A pair of young men coming down the steps grinned at them, but Jordan paid them scant attention.

  Once they resumed climbing the stairs, Aditi asked, “Didn’t Dr. Meek know that our Predecessors have found many life-bearing planets?”

  “He heard it, I’m sure, but it never really registered in his mind. His attention was focused on … personal problems,” Jordan explained.

  “Strange,” Aditi murmured.

  “The strange thing is that I didn’t realize what was making Harmon so bitter. I should have tumbled to his problem much earlier.”

  She smiled at him. “You tend to take responsibility for other people’s problems, you know.”

  “That’s my job,” he answered.

  They walked through the administration building and out to the tree-lined courtyard behind it, heading for the dormitory.

  “I presume the suite I’ve used before is still there for me,” Jordan said.

  “For us,” Aditi corrected.

  “For us, of course. Yes, certainly, for us.”

  She smiled naughtily. “You’ve never seen my room, Jordan. Suppose we go there, instead.”

  “Now?”

  With an elfin shrug, Aditi said, “We have plenty of time before dinner.”

  * * *

  As he lay in Aditi’s bed, with her warm and lovely body curled next to his, Jordan watched a tiny green lizard hanging upside down from the ceiling. It seemed asleep. Good idea, he said to himself, yawning. A nap would be—

  His phone chirped. Frowning, Jordan disengaged from Aditi and slipped out of the bed. She stirred and murmured something drowsily.

  He reached his shirt, slung over the back of an elaborately carved chair, and yanked out the damned phone.

  Meek’s scowling face filled the tiny screen. “Jordan, where on earth are you? I’ve been pounding on your door for at least ten minutes.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Jordan replied in a hushed voice. “What do you want?”

  “Want? Why, it’s nearly dinner time and Adri and I thought you’d like to see some of his files about exoplanet biospheres before we went to the dining hall.”

  Jordan glanced at Aditi. She was half sitting up in bed, nodding at him.

  To Meek, he said, “Give me fifteen minutes or so. Where are you?”

  “Where am I?” Meek looked surprised at the question, almost insulted. “Why, I’m in Adri’s office, up on the top floor of the administration building. Jordan, you simply have to see what they’ve got here! Dozens of exoplanets. A handful of intelligent civilizations! None of them have reached a stage of high technology, of course, but they’re intelligent, with languages and writing and even the beginnings of cities! I tell you, it’s a treasure trove, an absolute treasure trove. Why, I could—”

  “Give me fifteen minutes, Harmon,” Jordan interrupted. “I’ll see you there.” And he clicked the phone shut.

  Aditi giggled from the bed. “You’d better shower by yourself, love. You don’t have time for wet games.”

  RECONCILIATION

  When Jordan got to Adri’s office, the walls were covered with images, graphs, star charts, alphanumerical data files.

  It was like stepping into a kaleidoscope; the displays shifted and changed as Jordan walked from the door to the couch where Meek and Adri were sitting side by side.

  “The next set is depressing, very sad,” Adri said, while gesturing Jordan to sit with them. “When the Predecessors reached this planet, their civilization had been dead for only a few centuries. The Predecessors got there too late to help them.”

  Jordan sat next to Meek, who was staring transfixed at the images of an empty, decaying city, collapsed buildings, mo
numents coated with dust and guano. One camera view zoomed in dizzyingly until he saw a deserted city street lined with statues of strange shapes, windblown clumps of vegetation tumbling by, debris from the crumbling structures littering everywhere. And in the middle of it all, a slithering snakelike creature, clearly stalking some prey that Jordan could not see.

  “Of course, not all life on the planet was destroyed,” said Adri. “Perhaps intelligence will arise there again, in time.”

  Jordan stared, transfixed. The ruins looked so much like an ancient city of Earth. Pompeii, almost. He thought of Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, all the petrified remains of dead civilizations. But this was a whole world, an entire population of intelligent creatures—gone. Extinct.

  “What happened to them?” Meek asked, his voice hushed, awed.

  Adri shrugged. “We don’t know. Our Predecessors were focused on finding living intelligences, they had scant interest in extinct ones.”

  “But that’s wrong,” Meek flared. “It’s stupid!”

  Adri tilted his head. “You see, our Predecessors do not have human curiosity. They have a single goal, implanted in them by their organic progenitors. They are driven to find living intelligent species and help them to survive. The task is so huge that they have neither the time nor the energy to delve into the histories of extinct species.”

  “But we do,” Meek said firmly. “We have the interest, and the time, and the energy.”

  “Yes,” Jordan agreed.

  “You would go to this dead world, to study its lost people?”

  “Yes,” Meek and Jordan said simultaneously.

  Adri smiled. “Very well. We will give you all the help we can.”

  Meek looked like a man who had just seen a vision of paradise.

  The wall screens darkened and then went blank. Jordan saw through the room’s windows that it was fully night outside.

  Adri got to his feet. “You must be hungry. Let’s go to dinner.”

  Standing up, Jordan said, “I’ll get Aditi.”

  “Oh, she’ll meet us at the dining hall,” said Adri.

  And Jordan thought, I’ve got to get one of their communicators implanted into my head. It’s much better than a phone.