Grail - Elizabeth Bear [17]
Jesse tipped his head. “But didn’t they worship the same god?”
“More or less,” said Captain Amanda. “But they appear to have found plenty of things to fight over anyway. Today we believe that many of these people’s brains never matured—that they suffered from temporal lobe malfunctions causing fanaticism and ideopathy, and that their frontal lobes never fully myelinated. Think of them as—potentially—toddlers with nuclear weapons.”
Conversation was more interesting than one man droning on and on. It held the audience better. And Danilaw would have used puppets if he thought it would get his cabinet to pay attention.
“But it’s also important to remember,” he added, “that any potential for violence or memetic pathology is balanced by the other possibilities of what we may find. A society different from ours, with cultural and social riches of its own. Hybrid vigor, including species of animals and plants entirely lost to Earth during the Quilian mid-Holocene extinction event—the so-called Eschaton. Art, science, technology. An entire parallel track of human culture.”
Administrator Gain said, “If I remember my history correctly, we should also consider that, compared to our society, these people were remarkably homogenous, genetically speaking, and of a type no longer well represented in our genetic pool. Almost all of them were drawn from Western European stock. If they can be rightminded, it’s an opportunity to—well, to outcross.”
“It’s an opportunity for a lot of things,” Danilaw said. “The sort of profound, universe-changing opportunity that comes along once or twice in a hundred years.”
“I take it from your comments that they haven’t hailed us yet?” Jesse said.
“No.” Danilaw smoothed the scratchy material of his work coat over his arms. “We’re contemplating sending a scull out to greet them, which is why Captain Amanda is with us. That, and she was instrumental in decoding the signal.”
Gain offered Amanda a respectful nod. Amanda returned it. “Research is my primary. Driving spaceships is a tertiary, but I need it for my work.”
“Well done,” Gain said.
Amanda looked down. “There are risks to sending out a scull—and even bigger risks to boarding the ship, if that is the choice we make. Debris, antagonizing any residents, contagion. I would recommend drones before any manned mission, although we should limit those contacts. Drones can seem quite threatening.”
Gain turned from the waist to face Danilaw directly. “You mentioned that they are still using radio broadcast technology. You may not know that there is a culture of radio hobbyists here on Fortune who still play with primitive equipment. I know a few; I think they could be brought in as consultants. We could contact them in advance.”
Jesse made a noise of agreement. Gain, finished speaking, seemed to be taking notes on her infothing. Amanda lifted a jug of water from the surface of the table, leaving a ring of condensation.
As she poured, she resumed. “I speak the language, though—or I speak the language they used when they left Earth. But as you can imagine, it’s been centuries for them as well, and no doubt the language has diverged.”
Danilaw spoke the tongue, too, or had accrued a tolerable understanding over the years, given how he fulfilled the arts requirement of his Obligation. A significant fraction of the seminal twentieth- and twenty-first-century rock and roll was in English, and the people consigned to—or escaping in—the Jacob’s Ladder had spoken primarily that language.
He’d have to arrange backup childcare for his sister’s kids, but that was a minor inconvenience. He could go.
“The good news,” Gain said, “is they don’t seem to be sneaking. But that doesn’t explain why they haven’t hailed us. If they had, those radio operators I mentioned would be talking of nothing else.”
Danilaw pulled another glass over and pushed it toward Amanda with his fingertips. She finished with her own and filled it without looking up, then offered the pitcher