Consensus is long in coming, but the egg eventually maneuvers to come as close as possible to Xi Virginis.
The decision is a mistake, and when the egg is within two light-years of Xi Virginis, it is too late for the mind to correct it.
CHAPTER TWO
Vocation
Everyone is vulnerable to their past.
I would far rather be ignorant, than wise in the foreboding of evil.
Father Mallory was two weeks into his xenoarchaeology class before one of his students finally asked him “the question.” The questioner was a kid, barely eighteen standard, with a complexion and height that tagged him as having come from off-planet. Most of Mallory’s class were squat fair-skinned Occisian stock who had already done their tour in the Marines. Judging by age, many had put in more rotations than Mallory had.
“Master Gideon,” Mallory read the student’s name off of the holo display and used his most scholarly voice, “That question is always asked when I give this class.” Mallory smiled and faced the ranks of almost-solid holos showing students scattered all over Occisis. Even the classroom was a projection, as Father Mallory actually stood in a small room in the administrative offices of St. Marbury University.
“Can anyone identify the flaw in Master Gideon’s question?”
The question was in large part rhetorical. Rarely did anyone ever answer; rarer still did they answer correctly. Mallory paced the two square meters that represented actual floor. Behind him, a display that was virtual to a second level of abstraction showed digital models of artifacts on the Martian surface overlaid by wireframe models of what the original structures might have looked like.
“He is asking if we know why the race we have named the Dolbrians died out a hundred million years ago. As I said, it’s a question I am always asked in this class in one form or another. Every person who has ever studied them asks why. A race that left artifacts on planets across of all of explored space, who terraformed planets in dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of systems, a race that spread so widely and evidenced technology and engineering skill barely on the cusp of our comprehension. Why would they die out so completely?”
He had their attention.
“Anyone see a flaw in my premise?”
One of the student holos raised his hand. A Master Bartholomew whose image showed digital pixilation and a slight jerkiness that indicated his signal was bouncing off a commsat or three.
“Master Bartholomew?”
There was a full second delay before Master Bartholomew answered. His skin was weathered, and he still wore his hair cut in military style. He had unit tattoos on his neck that left Mallory subliminally aware of his own, under his collar.
“Do we know they died out?”
“Exactly.” Mallory pointed at the display behind them. “This is a ruin, Mars is a ruin. For all we know this entire part of the galaxy is a ruin. But the presence of a ruin no more proves the extinction of the Dolbrians than the ruins of Athens prove the extinction of the Greeks. Just because I cannot point to some being somewhere and say, ‘This, I know, is a Dolbrian,’ does not mean they ceased to exist. Over a time-scale of millions of years we have very little certainty. It is quite possible that the race of Dolbrians evolved into something else, the Paralians, the Volerans, maybe even us . . .”
Bartholomew frowned. “Father, that seems an odd assertion from a priest.”
“How so?”
“Doesn’t evolution contradict—”
Mallory held up his hand, “Stop right there.” Inside, he sighed. This was an undergraduate elective course and generally had an even split between humanities and science majors. Sometimes the students in the humanities had strange ideas about evolution. “So we don’t get sidetracked here. Evolution is a scientific description of how species
