Starfire

“When we knew that,” Wilmer went on, “we still didn’t see how it helped us to guard against them. We went ahead with a redesigned defense to divert particle bundles, but we didn’t seem any closer to real understanding. We didn’t know what was going on with the Alpha Centauri supernova, or why it happened.”

He paused and looked thoughtful.

“And we still don’t know why it happened,” Nick Lopez said softly behind Celine. “And at this rate we never will. Tell him to get a move on.”

Celine knew better. She sat and waited, and at last Wilmer went on. “Then we got newer Sniffer data, and knew we were really in trouble. The particle beam wasn’t just coming our way, it was converging, homing in on us. That’s when me and Star decided we — meaning humans — were really up shit creek. The way the beam was narrowing as it approached the solar system, we’d be hit with a whole load of particles, far more than we’d ever expected. Far more than the new defense system could cope with. Far too much for Earth to stand, or for Sky City.”

Nick Lopez, behind Celine, muttered, “So we all died.”

Celine said patiently, “But it wasn’t too much for Earth, or for Sky City. We’re still here. How did that happen?”

“Because me and Star, we took two correct facts, added an assumption, and drew a false conclusion.” Wilmer shook his head woefully. “Not Star’s fault, mine. I ought to be old enough to know better. Let’s do the facts. First fact: The Alpha Centauri supernova didn’t just happen. It was made to happen.”

“Something hardly anybody in the world believes,” Celine said.

“True. But that doesn’t make it any less a fact. And it’s not what caused our problem. Second fact: The particle beam was converging. The number of bundles per unit volume was increasing instead of decreasing as the beam came closer, and the devastation it could cause was that much greater. And now the assumption: Human beings are important.”

Everyone in the Oval Office jerked to attention. Celine said, “I hope that’s not what you mean by a false assumption. If so, you won’t find anybody here in the Oval Office who agrees with you.”

“Then I’m glad I’m not in the Oval Office.” Wilmer held up his hand. “Don’t get starchy on me; I’m going to explain. I had this thought when I was by myself and the particle storm was sluicing through Sky City. I thought, if I had the science and the technology to make a supernova happen, would I waste a whole star system just to wipe out a lot of silly buggers like me? Of course I wouldn’t. I’ve heard all the talk, that something tuned in on our radio signals over the past century and a half and decided to do away with us. I can’t buy that. I mean, the media programs are bad, but they’re not that bad.

“Once you decide the human race isn’t important enough to be worth killing, you stop saying, ’Something’s out to get me,’ and you draw a different conclusion. Not the wrong conclusion, the one that me and Star made, that the particle beam was converging on Earth. The right conclusion: Whatever made the supernova and the particle beam hasn’t the slightest interest in Earth. The beam was converging on Sol. The Sun was the target, and the only target. And what saved us — what made the difference between total extinction and a near miss — is Earth’s distance from the Sun. We’re alive because all but a tiny fraction of the particle bundles went to their intended destination: Sol. The convergence worked almost all the time. We got the failures, the misses.”

Celine said, a moment before her brain caught up with her tongue, “You mean the particle bundles were designed to destroy the Sun?”

“Of course they weren’t.” Wilmer stared at her in amazement. “Destroy the Sun? That’s barmy. Star, got that bottle with you? Show it off there, would you?”

Star rummaged in the bag hung over her shoulder and pulled out a glossy metal canister about eight inches long. She held it up so that everyone could get a view of it and said, “Ta-daa!”

“Particle bundles.” Wilmer took it from her. “In here. Quite stable, they’re kept away from ordinary matter using electromagnetic field suspension. Harmless. Harmless here, and on the Sun. They wouldn’t destroy it. Why would they want to, when they live inside stars?”

Bruno Colombo said, “You talk as though the things in there are alive!”

It was his turn to receive Wilmer’s withering stare.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not. Depends how you define alive. Me and Star, we’ve been wrong too often and too recently to stick our necks out. But let’s say we feel sure that the Alpha Centauri supernova was designed to spread these particle bundles to other stars. We don’t know how they’re aimed, or what they do when they get there. But I’d make a case for saying anything that propagates itself in an intentional way qualifies to be thought of as alive.”

“And sentient?” Bruno Colombo was out to restore his good name. “If they are, and they are able to produce a supernova, think what we might learn from them.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Wilmer peered at the bottle. “The bundles in here would be more like spores, or seeds. How much high-tech information would you get from a human sperm? I don’t think it’d produce the theory of relativity, or tell you how to send an expedition to Mars. And if one of these little beggars could tell us anything, I don’t know if I’d trust it. They’re a star form, we’re a planet form. We might not have much in common.”

Nick Lopez, behind Celine, said suddenly, “How long do we have, Wilmer?”

Celine turned to face him. “How long for what?”

“How long before the bundles develop to whatever they finally become, and do whatever they do? If they’re like seeds, eventually they’ll turn into something that produces more seeds. How long before they change the Sun, or decide it’s breeding time and they need another supernova?”

“No worries. Stellar processes are slo-o-o-w — a star like Sol can spend ten billion years and more on the main sequence.”

“It can. But does it have to? Remember, there was no way that Alpha Centauri could go supernova — until it did.”

“He’s right, Wilmer.” Star moved forward to peer at Nick Lopez with new interest. “I thought it the first time I met yer. Yer got a weird mind, mister. I like that.”

“And in fact we know very little about supernovas and how they work,” Wilmer added. “Maybe they proceed from star to star like a chain of firecrackers, one every ten million years. We’ve not been watching for long enough. In a whole galaxy you get only one or two supernovas a century, and mostly so far away we don’t learn much. Did you know we haven’t had a naked-eye supernova since—”

“Thank you, Wilmer, I’ve heard that before.” Celine cut him off. “No more speeches today. The wounded have to be looked after, the dead buried, Earth and the institutions of Earth rebuilt, and Sky City moved back to its old position. And then we must set new goals for humans, including everything we had before the supernova came along, and more.”

She thought, That sounded an awful lot like a speech. It must be catching.

“And while we’re doing all that,” Nick Lopez said quietly, “there’s one other thing that we’ll be doing.”

The others paused expectantly. Not Celine. When you were a world-class worrier, you didn’t have to. be told what else you needed to be nervous about. “I know. From now on we’ll have a new hobby — maybe we should say a new religion.”

“Maybe we should say, more like an old religion.”

“Whatever you call it, one thing’s for sure. We’ll all be watching the Sun.”