The Shoulders of Giants

Ling smiled at me. “Youre jumping the gun, partner.”

I was embarrassed. The Pioneer Spirit was decelerating toward Soror; the ships fusion exhaust was facing in the direction of travel. The optical scanners would be burned out by the glare if their shutters were opened. “Computer, turn off the fusion motors.”

“Powering down,” said the artificial voice.

“Visual as soon as youre able,” I said.

The gravity bled away as the ships engines stopped firing. Ling held on to one of the handles attached to the top of the console nearest her; I was still a little groggy from the suspended animation, and just floated freely in the room. After about two minutes, the screen came on. Tau Ceti was in the exact center, a baseball- sized yellow disk. And the four planets were clearly visible, ranging from pea-sized to as big as grape.

“Magnify on Soror,” I said.

One of the peas became a billiard ball, although Tau Ceti grew hardly at all.

“More,” said Ling.

The planet grew to softball size. It was showing as a wide crescent, perhaps a third of the disk illuminated from this angle. And — thankfully, fantastically — Soror was everything wed dreamed it would be: a giant polished marble, with swirls of white cloud, and a vast, blue ocean, and—

Part of a continent was visible, emerging out of the darkness. And it was green, apparently covered with vegetation.

We hugged again, squeezing each other tightly. No one had been sure when wed left Earth; Soror could have been barren. The Pioneer Spirit was ready regardless: in its cargo holds was everything we needed to survive even on an airless world. But wed hoped and prayed that Soror would be, well — just like this: a true sister, another Earth, another home.

“Its beautiful, isnt it?” said Ling.

I felt my eyes tearing. It was beautiful, breathtaking, stunning. The vast ocean, the cottony clouds, the verdant land, and—

“Oh, my God,” I said, softly. “Oh, my God.”

“What?” said Ling.

“Dont you see?” I asked. “Look!”

Ling narrowed her eyes and moved closer to the screen. “What?”

“On the dark side,” I said.

She looked again. “Oh…” she said. There were faint lights sprinkled across the darkness; hard to see, but definitely there. “Could it be volcanism?” asked Ling. Maybe Soror wasnt so perfect after all.

“Computer,” I said, “spectral analysis of the light sources on the planets dark side.”

“Predominantly incandescent lighting, color temperature 5600 kelvin.”

I exhaled and looked at Ling. They werent volcanoes. They were cities.

Soror, the world wed spent twelve centuries traveling to, the world wed intended to colonize, the world that had been dead silent when examined by radio telescopes, was already inhabited.

* * *

The Pioneer Spirit was a colonization ship; it wasnt intended as a diplomatic vessel. When it had left Earth, it had seemed important to get at least some humans off the mother world. Two small-scale nuclear wars — Nuke I and Nuke II, as the media had dubbed them — had already been fought, one in southern Asia, the other in South America. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Nuke III, and that one might be the big one.

SETI had detected nothing from Tau Ceti, at least not by 2051. But Earth itself had only been broadcasting for a century and a half at that point; Tau Ceti might have had a thriving civilization then that hadnt yet started using radio. But now it was twelve hundred years later. Who knew how advanced the Tau Cetians might be?

I looked at Ling, then back at the screen. “What should we do?”

Ling tilted her head to one side. “Im not sure. On the one hand, Id love to meet them, whoever they are. But…”

“But they might not want to meet us,” I said. “They might think were invaders, and—”

“And weve got forty-eight other colonists to think about,” said Ling. “For all we know, were the last surviving humans.”

I frowned. “Well, thats easy enough to determine. Computer, swing the radio telescope toward Sol system. See if you can pick anything up that might be artificial.”

“Just a sec,” said the female voice. A few moments later, a cacophony filled the room: static and snatches of voices and bits of music and sequences of tones, overlapping and jumbled, fading in and out.

I heard what sounded like English — although strangely inflected — and maybe Arabic and Mandarin and…

“Were not the last survivors,” I said, smiling. “Theres still life on Earth — or, at least, there was 11.9 years ago, when those signals started out.”

Ling exhaled. “Im glad we didnt blow ourselves up,” she said. “Now, I guess we should find out what were dealing with at Tau Ceti. Computer, swing the dish to face Soror, and again scan for artificial signals.”

“Doing so.” There was silence for most of a minute, then a blast of static, and a few bars of music, and clicks and bleeps, and voices, speaking in Mandarin and English and—

“No,” said Ling. “I said face the dish the other way. I want to hear whats coming from Soror.”

The computer actually sounded miffed. “The dish is facing toward Soror,” it said.

I looked at Ling, realization dawning. At the time wed left Earth, wed been so worried that humanity was about to snuff itself out, we hadnt really stopped to consider what would happen if that didnt occur.

But with twelve hundred years, faster spaceships would doubtless have been developed. While the colonists aboard the Pioneer Spirit had slept, some dreaming at an indolent pace, other ships had zipped past them, arriving at Tau Ceti decades, if not centuries, earlier — long enough ago that theyd already built human cities on Soror.

* * *

“Damn it,” I said. “God damn it.” I shook my head, staring at the screen. The tortoise was supposed to win, not the hare.

“What do we do now?” asked Ling.

I sighed. “I suppose we should contact them.”

“We — ah, we might be from the wrong side.”

I grinned. “Well, we cant both be from the wrong side. Besides, you heard the radio: Mandarin and English. Anyway, I cant imagine that anyone cares about a war more than a thousand years in the past, and—”

“Excuse me,” said the ships computer. “Incoming audio message.”

I looked at Ling. She frowned, surprised. “Put it on,” I said.

“Pioneer Spirit, welcome! This is Jod Bokket, manager of the Derluntin space station, in orbit around Soror. Is there anyone awake on board?” It was a mans voice, with an accent unlike anything Id ever heard before.

Ling looked at me, to see if I was going to object, then she spoke up. “Computer, send a reply.” The computer bleeped to signal that the channel was open. “This is Dr. Ling Woo, co-captain of the Pioneer Spirit. Two of us have revived; there are forty-eight more still in cryofreeze.”

“Well, look,” said Bokkets voice, “itll be days at the rate youre going before you get here. How about if we send a ship to bring you two to Derluntin? We can have someone there to pick you up in about an hour.”

“They really like to rub it in, dont they?” I grumbled.

“What was that?” said Bokket. “We couldnt quite make it out.”

Ling and I consulted with facial expressions, then agreed. “Sure,” said Ling. “Well be waiting.”

“Not for long,” said Bokket, and the speaker went dead.

* * *

Bokket himself came to collect us. His spherical ship was tiny compared with ours, but it seemed to have about the same amount of habitable interior space; would the ignominies ever cease? Docking adapters had changed a lot in a thousand years, and he wasnt able to get an airtight seal, so we had to transfer over to his ship in space suits. Once aboard, I was pleased to see we were still floating freely; it would have been too much if theyd had artificial gravity.

Bokket seemed a nice fellow — about my age, early thirties. Of course, maybe people looked youthful forever now; who knew how old he might actually be? I couldnt really identify his ethnicity, either; he seemed to be rather a blend of traits. But he certainly was taken with Ling — his eyes popped out when she took off her helmet, revealing her heart-shaped face and long, black hair.

“Hello,” he said, smiling broadly.

Ling smiled back. “Hello. Im Ling Woo, and this is Toby MacGregor, my co-captain.”

“Greetings,” I said, sticking out my hand.

Bokket looked at it, clearly not knowing precisely what to do. He extended his hand in a mirroring of my gesture, but didnt touch me. I closed the gap and clasped his hand. He seemed surprised, but pleased.

“Well take you back to the station first,” he said. “Forgive us, but, well — you cant go down to the planets surface yet; youll have to be quarantined. Weve eliminated a lot of diseases, of course, since your time, and so we dont vaccinate for them anymore. Im willing to take the risk, but…”

I nodded. “Thats fine.”

He tipped his head slightly, as if he were preoccupied for a moment, then: “Ive told the ship to take us back to Derluntin station. Its in a polar orbit, about 200 kilometers above Soror; youll get some beautiful views of the planet, anyway.” He was grinning from ear to ear. “Its wonderful to meet you people,” he said. “Like a page out of history.”

* * *

“If you knew about us,” I asked, after wed settled in for the journey to the station, “why didnt you pick us up earlier?”