Rollback

"I get it," said Don, watching now as the window autopolarized in response to the rising sun. "If all you care about are your own genes then, by definition, you don’t care about aliens."

"Right," said Sarah. "Notice they asked for a thousand survey replies. That means they knew we wouldn’t have just one set of views. Remember, you used to say that alien races either would become hive minds or totalitarian, because, after a certain level of technological sophistication is reached, they simply couldn’t survive any longer if they allowed the kind of discontent that gives rise to terrorism. But there must be some third alternative — something better than being Borg or having thought police. The aliens on Sigma Draconis apparently knew they would be dealing with complex, contradictory individuals. And they looked at the thousand responses and decided that they didn’t want anything to do with human beings in general — they only wanted to communicate with one oddball." She paused. "I guess I’m not surprised, since most of the sets of survey answers did suggest ethnocentrism, exclusive concern about one’s own genetic material, and so on."

"But knowing you, yours didn’t suggest those things. And that’s what makes you the one they want to be the foster mother, right?"

"Which surprises the heck out of me," Sarah said.

But Don shook his head. "It shouldn’t, you know. I told you this ages ago. You’re special. And you are. SETI, by its very nature, transcends species boundaries.

Remember that conference you attended in Paris, all those years ago? What was it called?"

"I don’t…"

Gunter spoke up. " ‘Encoding Altruism: The Art and Science of Interstellar Message Composition.’" Don looked at the Mozo, who did a mechanical shrug. "I’ve read Sarah’s CV, of course."

" ‘Encoding altruism,’" repeated Don. "Exactly. That’s the fundamental basis of SETI. And, well, you were the only SETI researcher whose answers were sent to Sigma Draconis. Is it any wonder that the recipients, who, by definition, are also in the SETI business, found your responses to be the closest to what they were looking for?"

"I suppose. But…"

"Yes?"

"My child-rearing days are way behind me. Not that that’s unusual, I suppose, in a cosmic sense."

Don frowned. "Huh?"

"Well, Cody McGavin was probably right. The Dracons, and just about every other race that survives technological adolescence, almost certainly is very long lived, if not out-and-out immortal. And unless you’re endlessly expansionist, moving out to conquer new worlds constantly, you’d soon run out of room if you kept breeding and lived forever. The Dracons have probably all but given up reproducing."

"I guess that makes sense."

Sarah’s eyebrows went up. "In fact, that might be the third alternative!"

"Huh?"

"Evolution is a blind process," said Sarah. "It has no goal in mind, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a logical outcome. It selects for aggression, for physical force, for being protective of one’s blood relations — for all the things that ultimately contribute to technological races destroying themselves. So maybe the Fermi paradox isn’t a paradox at all. Maybe it’s the natural result of evolution. Evolution eventually gives rise to technology, which has a survival value up to a point — but once technologies of mass destruction are readily available, the psychology that the Darwinian engine forces on lifeforms almost inevitably leads to their downfall."

"But if you stop breeding—"

"Exactly! If you voluntarily opt out of evolution, if you cease to struggle to get more copies of your own DNA out there, you probably give up a lot of aggression."

"I guess that does beat becoming a hive mind or totalitarian," said Don. "But — but, wait! They’re reproducing now, in a way, by sending their DNA here."

"But only two individuals."

"Maybe they breed like rabbits, though. Maybe it’s a way of launching an invasion."

"That’s not a concern," Gunter said. "The two individuals are both of the same sex."

"But you said the source Dracons were pair-bonded…" Don stopped himself.

"Right, of course. How provincial of me. Well, well, well…" He looked at Sarah.

"So what are you going to do?"

"I — I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like the artificial womb and incubator are things you and I could cobble together out in the garage."

Don frowned. "But if you tell the world, governments will try to control the process, and — forgive me, but they’ll probably try to squeeze you out."

"Exactly," said Sarah. "The Dracons surely understand that upbringing is a combination of nature and nurture. They wanted a specific sort of person to be responsible for the… the Draclings. Besides, if the genome gets out, who’s to say that others wouldn’t create Dracons just to dissect them, or put them in zoos?"

"But once the child is born, anyone could steal its DNA, no? Just by picking up some of its cells."

"They might be able to get that, but not the plans for the incubator or all the other things. Without actual access to the full message, it would be very hard to create a Dracon." She paused, considering. "No, we have to keep this secret. The Dracons entrusted the information to me, and I’ve got an obligation to protect it."

Don rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Maybe — but there’ll be those who’ll say you should release all the information. They’ll say your principal obligation is to your own kind."

But Sarah shook her head. "No," she said. "It isn’t. That’s the whole point."

Chapter 38

"It’s important," Sarah said a few hours later, "that you commit to memory the decryption key — not the whole thing, of course, but how to recover it."

Don nodded. They were sitting in their kitchen, eating a late breakfast. He was now dressed in a T-shirt and jeans; she was wearing a robe and slippers.

"My survey was number 312 out of the thousand sent," she said, "and I changed my answer to one of the questions at the very last minute. It was question forty-six, and the answer I actually sent was ‘no.’ Got that?"

"Three-twelve, forty-six, and no. Can I write that down somewhere?"

"As long as you don’t put any explanatory text with it, sure."

"So number forty-six was the magic question? The one the Dracons cared about the most?"

"What? No, no. It just happened to be the one I changed my answer to. The key consists of all eighty-four of my answers exactly as I actually transmitted them. Any time you need the key you can reproduce it by looking up the archival copies of what was supposedly sent to Sigma Draconis, and making that one change."

"Got it."

"Now, make sure you keep it secret!"

He looked across the table at his wife, who seemed visibly older, and not just because she’d gotten very little sleep. Over the last few weeks, she had aged noticeably. "I, ah, don’t think we can keep it secret from everybody," he said. "I really think you need to tell Cody McGavin."

Sarah was hugging a cup of coffee with both hands. "Why?"

"Because he’s one of the richest people on the planet. And a project like this is going to take deep pockets. Synthesizing the DNA, building the womb, building the incubator, synthesizing the food, and, I’m sure, lots of other things. You need somebody like him to come on board."

Sarah was quiet.

"You have to tell someone," Don said. "You’ll…"

He trailed off, but she nodded. "I’ll die soon. I know." She paused, considering, and Don knew enough to just let her do that. After a time she said, "Yeah, you’re right.

Let’s call him."

Don crossed the room, got the cordless handset, and told it who he wanted to speak to. After a few rings, a crisp, efficient voice came on. "McGavin Robotics. Office of the president."