Cradle. Part 19

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

And so G.o.d became blackness, a void, for Commander Winters. On those rare occasions afterward when he would pray, there was no longer any mental image of G.o.d, no picture of Him at all in his mind. There was just blackness, darkness, emptiness. Until this moment. As he knelt there outside the cylinder, heard the final phrase of the Doxology, and prayed to G.o.d to forgive him his doubts, his longings for Tiffani Thomas, and his general lack of direction, there was an explosion of light in Winters mind's eye. G.o.d was speaking to him! G.o.d had at last given him a sign!

It was not the sign that Winters had been seeking, not evidence that He had finally forgiven the commander and accepted his penance, but something much much better. The explosion of light in Winter's mind was a star, a solar furnace forging helium out of hydrogen. As his mental camera backed away rapidly, Winters could see planets around that star and signs of intelligence on a few of the planets. There were other stars and other planets in the distance. Billions of stars in this galaxy alone and, after the mammoth voids between the galaxies, more huge collections of stars and planets and living creatures stretching incomprehensible distances in all directions.

Winters' body shook with joy and his eyes flooded with tears when he realized how completely G.o.d had answered his prayers. It would not have been enough for Him to simply reveal to Winters that he was forgiven. No, this Lord of everything imaginable, whose domain embraced chemicals risen to consciousness on millions of worlds in a vast and uncountable universe, this G.o.d who was truly omnipotent and ubiquitous, had gone way beyond his prayers. He had shown Winters the unity in everything. He had not limited Himself just to the affairs of one individual on a small and insignificant blue planet orbiting an ordinary yellow sun in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy; he had also shown Winters how that species and its pool of intelligence and spirituality was connected to every part of every atom in His grand dominion.

As Nick walked across the room toward Commander Winters, the intermittent noises behind the walls increased in amplitude and frequency. Around on the far side of the cylinder, next to one of the larger support machines, a door opened and two carpets, moving inchworm style, came into the room. They were immediately followed by two wardens and four platforms on treads. The platforms were carrying stacks of building materials. Each of the wardens led two platforms to a corner of the room, where they started constructing secure anchor stanchions for the cylinder.

The two carpets confronted Nick in the center of the room. They stood up on end and leaned in the direction of the exit toward the ocean. "They're telling us it's time to go," Carol said as she and Troy came up beside Nick.

"I understand that," Nick replied. "But I'm not yet ready to leave." He turned to Troy. "Does this game have an X key at all?" he asked. "I could use a time out."

Troy laughed. "I don't think so, Professor. And there's no way we can save the game and try again."

Nick looked as if he were in deep thought. The carpets continued to beckon. "Come on, Nick," Carol grabbed him by the arm. "Let's go before they get angry."

Suddenly Nick advanced toward one of the carpets and extended the golden cradle. "Here," he said, "take this and put it with the rest of them, up there, in the cylinder where it belongs." The carpet recoiled and twisted its top from side to side. Then it pulled its two vertical sides together and pointed at Nick.

"I don't need a bracelet to interpret that gesture," Troy remarked. "The carpet is plainly telling you to take the trident back to your boat."

Nick nodded his head and was quiet for a moment. "Is this the only one?" he asked Troy. Troy didn't understand the question. "Is this the only seed package for Earth?"

"I think so," Troy answered after a moment's hesitation. He looked at Nick with a puzzled expression.

Meanwhile the activity level in the room had increased substantially. As Commander Winters ambled toward the trio in the middle of the hubbub, the wardens and platforms were actively building in the corners, moving equipment could be heard behind the walls, and the organ music was growing louder and slightly ominous. In addition, a giant sock or cover of some kind, lined with a soft, pliant material, had unfurled above them in the ceiling and was descending slowly over the cylinder. Commander Winters stared around the room with undisguised astonishment. Still serenely content in his heart from the beauty and intensity of his epiphany, he was not paying much attention to the conversation beside him.

"They must take this thing with them," Nick was saying earnestly to Carol and Troy. "Don't you see? It's even more important now that I know there are human seedlings inside. Our children won't have a chance."

"But they were so beautiful, so smart," Carol said. "You didn't see them like we did. I can't believe those children would ever hurt anybody or anything."

They wouldn't mean to destroy us," Nick argued. "It would just happen."

The carpets were starting to jump up and down. "I know, I know," Nick said as he again extended the cradle toward them. "You want us to go. But first, please listen to me. We've helped you, now I'm asking that you help us. I'm afraid of what might be in this package, afraid that it might upset the delicate stability of our planet. Our progress as a species has been slow, in fits and starts, with almost as many backward steps as forward. Whatever is here could threaten our future development. Or maybe even halt it altogether."

The activity in the room continued unabated. There was no noticeable reaction to Nick's speech from the impatient carpets, who were now taking turns walking over to the exit in case the dumb humans still did not understand their message. Nick looked entreatingly at Carol. She returned his gaze and smiled. After a few seconds she came over and took his hand. Their eyes met for a brief moment as she started talking and Nick saw a new expression, something approaching admiration, in her glance.

"He's right, you know," Carol said in the direction of the pair of carpets. "You haven't thought carefully enough about the outcome of this mission of yours. Sooner or later your special embryos and the humans already on this planet will interact and there will be a catastrophe. If the seed package is found early in the development of your superhumans, I am certain the Earthlings will feel compelled to destroy it. What possible other reaction could they have? The magnitude of the threat may not be fully known, but it is easy to recognize that creatures genetically engineered by superaliens could pose a gigantic problem for the native species of this planet."

Troy was standing just behind Nick and Carol, listening attentively to what she was saying. Around him the preparations for launch continued. The wardens and platforms had finished constructing and installing the two pairs of stanchions that would be connected to the cylinder during launch to minimize vibrations. The golden cradles in the cylinder could no longer be seen; the cover had descended almost to the floor.

". . . So unless you take this golden package back with you, perhaps to place it on another world which does not yet have intelligence, there will be unnecessary death. Either your seedlings will perish before maturity or the native humans like us will eventually be swallowed up, if not killed outright, by the more capable beings you have engineered. That hardly seems to be a fair reward for our effort on your behalf."

Carol stopped to watch four strange cords extend themselves from the top and near the bottom of the cylinder, wriggle through the air, and end up attached to the stanchions in the corners of the room. The carpets were becoming increasingly agitated. The two wardens finished supervising their prelaunch procedures. They turned abruptly toward the four human beings and moved in their direction.

Carol tightened her hold on Nick's hand. "Perhaps it's true that our natural development is a slow and not altogether satisfactory process, " she continued, fear creeping into her voice as the dreaded wardens quickly approached them, "and it's certainly true that we humans here make mistakes, both as individuals and as groups . However, you can't overlook the fact that this imperfect process produced us, and we had enough foresight or compa.s.sion or whatever you want to call it - "

"Hold it," shouted Troy. He seized the cradle from Nick's hand and jumped directly into the path of one of the menacing wardens. He was only inches away from two whirling, threatening rods with cutting implements on the end. "Hold it," he shouted again. Miraculously, all activity ceased. The carpets and wardens stood still, the noises in the wall stopped, even the organ music was silenced. "Of all of us," Troy said in a loud voice, his head tilted back and aimed at the ceiling, "I have the most knowledge of what your mission is all about. And the most to lose by recommending that you abandon this part of it. But I agree with my friends."

Troy removed his bracelet and then dramatically jammed both the bracelet and the cradle inside the warden. He felt as if he were plunging his hand into a bowl of hot bread dough. He released both objects and withdrew his hand. The warden didn't move. The bracelet and the cradle remained where Troy left them inside the warden's body.

"From the very beginning I realized that the bracelet you gave me enabled me to have special powers, talents that were not naturally mine. I understood, without knowing the specifics, that there would be a substantial and continuing reward for my helping you. And I thought that finally, finally, Troy Jefferson would be somebody special in this world."

Troy walked past the amazed Commander Winters, who was following the proceedings with a peaceful detachment, and came up beside Nick and Carol. It was absolutely quiet in the room. "When my brother, Jamie, was killed," he began again softly, "I swore that I would do whatever was necessary to leave my imprint on society. During those two years that I wandered all over the country, I spent most of my time daydreaming. My dreams all had the same conclusion. I would discover something new and earthshaking and become both rich and famous overnight."

Troy gave Carol a quick kiss and winked. "I love you, angel," he said. "And you too, Professor." Troy then turned around and faced the covered cylinder. "When I left here on Thursday afternoon, I was so excited I couldn't contain myself. I kept saymg, 's.h.i.t, Jefferson, here it is. You are going to be the most important man in the history of the f.u.c.king world.' "

Troy paused. "But I have learned something very important these last three days," he said, "something that most of us probably never consider. It is that the process is more important than the end result. It is what you learn while you're dreaming or scheming or working toward a goal that is essential and valuable, not the achievement of the goal itself. And that's why you guys must now do what my friends have asked.

"I know that you ETs have tried to explain to me in these last several minutes, through the bracelet that you offered me for life, that the new humans you are depositing here will lead us primitive beings into a bold and wonderful era. That may be true. And I agree that we could use some help, that our species is full of prejudice and selfishness and all kinds of other problems. But you cannot simply give us the answers. Without the benefit of the struggle to improve ourselves, without the process of overcoming our own weaknesses, there will be no fundamental change in us old humans. We will not become better. We will become second-cla.s.s citizens, acolytes in a future of your vision and design. So take your perfect humans away and let us make it on our own. We deserve the chance."

There was no movement in the room for several seconds after Troy finished. Then the warden in front of him jerked sideways and began to move. Troy braced for an attack. But the warden moved in the direction of the exit next to the cylinder. The bracelet and cradle could still be seen inside its body.

"All right, team," Troy shouted happily. Nick and Carol hugged. Troy took Commander Winters by the hand. As they were leaving, the four of them turned around one last time to look at the large chamber. In this final view, each one of them saw the room in terms of his own amazing experiences. The noises had begun again behind the walls. And the carpets, platforms, and wardens were filing out of the room through the door beside the covered cylinder.

They had only been onboard the boat for three or four minutes when the water underneath them suddenly became very turbulent. They were strangely quiet, all four of them. A frustrated Lieutenant Ramirez paced about the deck, trying to get someone to tell him what had happened under the water. Even Commander Winters virtually ignored the lieutenant and just shook his head or gave simple answers to all his questions.

They were certain that the s.p.a.ceship was about to launch. They didn't realize that it would glide gently away from their area first, so that it would not submerge them with a giant wave, before breaking the water and heading into the sky. The water stayed agitated for several minutes. All of them scanned the ocean for a sign of the vehicle.

"Look," yelled Commander Winters excitedly, pointing at a giant silver bird lifting into the sky about forty-five degrees away from the early morning sun. Its rise was initially slow, but as it rose it accelerated rapidly. Nick and Carol and Troy clasped hands tightly as they watched the awesome spectacle. Winters came over and stood beside the trio. After thirty seconds the craft had disappeared above the clouds. There was never any sound.

"Fantastic," said Commander Winters.