“How many was that?”
“There was half a million people on board each ship.”
“In other words, a million people died in an instant.”
“Earth’s population was seventeen-point-two billion people at the time, so that wasn’t enough to solve the problem of overpopulation, but yes, a million people died simultaneously.” Bista paused. “Including Janus. He was on The Hera, which was destroyed.”
Alex nodded slightly, picturing it, feeling the irony.
“Still, he accomplished what he set out to do. Humanity was given another chance. As we left Earth’s orbit, we saw what we assumed was the end of civilization. One nation fired at us, another assumed they were firing at them, and each nation’s artificial intelligence took over, inflicting as much damage as possible on the other side. Our last view of Earth was it being ravaged by so many explosions and mushroom clouds that Janus II—who survived, even though its namesake did not—calculated there was an eighty-two percent chance that nothing would be able to survive on the planet.”
Alex glanced at what Emily was doing. She had completely enthralled Sanda-eh. The original hard block of material had grown in size until it was three feet tall. It was beginning to take shape, though Alex could not say exactly what that shape was going to be yet. “Is that the end of the story, then?”
“Not for us,” Bista said. “For us, it was just the beginning. I won’t bore you with the details, but eventually we found another planet. What scientists of your time would have called a Goldilocks planet. Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.”
Bista seemed pleased with himself for knowing this ancient reference.
“Janus may have been dead,” Bista said, “but he had known that was a possibility. He left us with a list of things to accomplish. First was to ensure survival of the species. But not far below it, he tasked us with returning to Earth and rescuing anyone still alive.”
Pandrick spoke up. “It took this long to return because even with the technology we had, finding and colonizing a planet is difficult. Distances between stars are great. Faster-than-light travel is impossible, but wormholes are not. Janus II created a new iteration of itself, Janus III, and it was able to do enough calculations that it could predict where those wormholes were. Still, just the distance between a wormhole and a habitable planet can take centuries.”
“It had been so long,” Bista explained, “that we expected to arrive back here and find a cold, dead planet. But, Janus told us we must, so we did as he said.”
“Following the orders of someone who had been dead for centuries by then, I would guess,” Alex said.
“Millennia. The passage of time did not distort Janus’s vision or the power of his ideas.”
For the first time, Marta spoke. “It was on the voyage here that I first heard Lanta-eh’s voice in my mind. I didn’t expect to hear from anyone, but I was surprised to find several people like myself were still here. That was when we knew that what had essentially been an archeological expedition and fulfillment of an ancient promise became a possible rescue mission. Communication was difficult at first, but as we drew closer, it became easier.” As she spoke, tears silently filled her eyes. “Your Lanta-eh was so special. If there had been any other way to do what we needed without her sacrificing herself, we would have done it.”
As interesting as the future history lesson had been, this was the crux of what Alex wanted to know.
“I still don’t understand that. You were already on your way. She didn’t draw you here, then. Why did she need to give her life?”
“When she reached out to me, it was as if she was casting a bottle into a deep ocean, hoping someone would find it. I did. When we first communicated, she told us that she was worried that everyone here would be dead very soon. That all mothers were dying in childbirth. She wanted to know if we could find a cure. We couldn’t work on a solution until we knew what the problem truly was. Lanta-eh conveyed the problem precisely so we could seek a cure.”
“How could she do that? She was special, she was The Chosen One, but she was no scientist. How did she tell you what you needed to know?”
“She and I were able to bond almost completely. It was so painful when I felt her presence leave me the final time.”
“I still don’t understand,” Alex said. “What did her bonding with you convey?”
“Oh, I assumed she had told you. Lanta-eh was pregnant.”
Chapter FortyAnswers
Alex was surprised by Lanta-eh’s pregnancy, but not shocked. He had stopped being shocked by human biology partway through his first deployment. Alex had seen things. Things that would never leave his mind completely.
Since Lanta-eh had only been a few years older than Alex’s daughter Amy when he had stepped through the door, he had always somewhat thought of her as a second daughter. But if Amy had come home at age seventeen and told him she was pregnant, would he be shocked? No.
Still. Lanta-eh never seemed to do anything without cause or reason. Alex was sure this pregnancy had been the same.
But why didn’t she tell me?
“What did Lanta-eh being pregnant have to do with anything?”
“That was the key to everything,” Bista said. “Once she was pregnant and bonded with Marta, we could see everything in her physiology. We could see her chemical makeup and find what
