The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [151]
44
INTERNATIONAL DISAGREEMENTS
A day later and quite a distance from Qattara, the Subramanian family was finishing breakfast. Natasha and Robert were already in their swimsuits, just waiting out the statutory, and mother-enforced, period of thirty minutes of delay after a meal before they could head for the beach. Ranjit, a cooling cup of tea in his hand, was frowning at the screen. What it showed was the bustling One Point Five colony as seen from one of the few still-human-controlled satellites, and Ranjit had been frowning at it for some time.
When Myra thought about it at all, she did wonder what her husband found so absorbing on the screen, though her mind was mostly on the morning’s assortment of incoming texts. She held one up for a better look and called to Ranjit. “Harvard wants to know if you’re interested in doing their commencement address again. Oh, and here’s one from Joris. He says they keep getting threatening messages, but if there actually are any satanists planning to really attack Skyhook, they’re not within twenty kilometers of the base. And—Wait! What’s that?”
What stopped Myra right there was a startled “Huh!” from her husband, and when she looked up, she saw why. The aerial view was gone, the satellite had been preempted again by the aliens for their own purposes, and a familiar figure was taking shape on the screen. Behind Myra her daughter snapped, “Oh, hell! It’s me again!”
It was. Or at least it was that indestructible not-Natasha, little curl hanging over her left ear, that had been displayed so frequently since the world had begun to fall apart. Myra sighed. “I do wish you’d had a little more clothes on,” she offered, and was spared her daughter’s withering reply as the figure began to speak.
“I am bringing you a message from the persons identified as the One Point Fives, currently located in what is called the Qattara Depression on the planet you call Earth. The message is as follows:
“‘We are deeply regretting loss of human life in defense against attack. We will pay reparations up to one thousand metric tons of ninety-nine and five nines pure metallic gold, but require ninety days for processing metal from seawater. Please inform that offer is accepted.’ This ends their message.”
The figure disappeared, the shiny structures of the colony popped up, and Ranjit turned around to gaze at his wife and children. He said incredulously, “I guess they’ve really made a sort of stock copy of Tashy they can use to make their announcements.”
Myra was diffidently smiling. “I don’t know, but did you hear what they said? It almost sounds good. If they’re willing to try to make up for what happened, there’s some hope.”
Ranjit nodded thoughtfully. “You know,” he said in wonder, “it’s been so long since there was any good news that I don’t know how to celebrate it. A drink all around?”
“It’s too early,” Natasha said at once. “Anyway, Robert doesn’t drink and neither do I, much. You people do what you want. He and I are going to the beach.”
“And I think I’ll call the office. I wonder what Davoodbhoy thinks about it,” Ranjit said, kissing his wife’s hand.
“Go, then, all of you,” Myra said. She sat silently thoughtful for a moment. Then she sighed, poured herself some fresh tea, and allowed herself to relapse into what was beginning to look like a once-again normal world.
Thoughts of destruction and disaster had not entirely vanished from her mind. They were bearable now, though, no more distracting than the occasional twinge in a molar that reminds you to make an appointment with the dentist—oh, not for next month, necessarily, but maybe the month after. So Myra went back to the morning’s texts. There was one from her niece Ada Labrooy to say hopefully that this “machine-stored” state the alien creatures talked about sounded a lot like something resembling the artificial intelligence she herself had been working on for what seemed like her whole life, and did Natasha have any possible way, any way at all, of