I stood up and gestured to the chair, taking my place behind it. Noema sat and looked at the monitor. Cloe’s face showed surprise, curiosity and a hint of amusement.
“I am happy to see you, to talk to you,” said Noema. “Jason, he tell me much about you, all good things.”
“I’m glad to see you too,” Cloe replied. “Jason’s told me much about you—also good.”
There was a pause.
“I wish,” said Noema, “That you can be down here with us. If I can do it I bring you to worm, but I cannot.”
“I know, Jason told me. Don’t trouble yourself. Nothing you can do.”
“Not easy to be alone.”
“I manage. I annoy Jason when I get bored which isn’t often. There’s plenty to do here now I’m the only crew. And then I get plenty from Earth: videos, reports, messages from all kinds of people. It’s actually too much. I would prefer to be left alone sometimes.
“Numquam minus solus quam cum solus,” I murmured.
“What’s that?” asked Cloe.
“Nothing. Just an old Latin quote that came to mind. It translates as ‘Never less alone than when alone.’ I think it means that it’s good to be left to one’s own thoughts sometimes.”
“If thoughts are good thoughts maybe,” said Noema, “But not always.”
“Jason showed me all the AV material he took on your ship,” said Cloe. “It’s remarkable how much your world is like ours. I can understand why you chose to visit Earth.”
Noema glanced at me in surprise. “He not tell you?”
I crouched down behind the chair so Cloe could see my face. “I didn’t tell anyone and, Cloe, you mustn’t either.”
“Tell what?”
I looked at Noema with a smile. “Meet the oldest living human being.”
Cloe’s expression was a picture: eyes wide, jaw hanging open. “What?”
“Noema the Fair, wife of Tubal the Mariner, otherwise known as Tubalcain, son of Lamech son of Methuselah.”
Noema gave me another brief glance.
“We have very old written records, and the Bible contains some of the oldest. We know your history.”
“The Flood....” murmured Cloe.
“Just an old fairy story,” I said, “Still believed by fundamentalists. That’s the official wisdom. But nearly every culture has a legend of a flood. The trouble with the Bible is that it’s ruled out of court along with Christianity. It’s difficult to look at it objectively as a collection of historical manuscripts. Something happened and it involved a lot of water. Your civilisation was the one that was on Earth then. Here, wait....” I went across to my bunk, grabbed my tablet and returned to the monitor. “Let’s see....Genesis, umm....chapter six. Here it is: ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.’ Were you the Nephilim? There doesn’t seem to be any reliable translation for the word.”
“Fallen ones,” said Noema. “Not us.”
“Who were the sons of God?”
“Sons of An. So some call us because we do not die as An does not die.”
“And the daughters of men?”
Noema shook her head. “Our law says Wise marry only Wise. But some of our people go against this law. Find wives among those who must die. They have power over them and their children are honoured by them. They do great things among them. Great things....and evil things. They know no law.”
“If you look at the genealogies, Tubal’s ancestry goes right back to Adam, the first man, but there’s no mention of his children. Were your sons born on the worm?”
“Yes. Tubal do this when we are away from Earth, when he is mariner and his power is great and Wise accept his words. Not before.”
Cloe leaned forward. “But why is there no mention of how advanced their civilisation was? What about the biotechnology?”
“Genesis doesn’t give any details about Noema’s civilisation,” I replied. “A lot of it wouldn’t have made sense to the writer in any case. He was interested in the Flood and what happened afterwards. The rest didn’t matter.”
“There would have been some traces of it. Monuments, archaeological remains. How can a civilisation like that vanish completely?”
“They didn’t go in for big monuments. Their buildings remained simple. Anything bioengineered would have died and decomposed. There might be something buried under the silt put down by the Flood, but you have to know where to look. Archaeologists only dig at sites of known human habitation. We’ve no idea where their settlements or towns were located. Geography would have changed completely afterwards—rivers following different courses, things like that.”
“Our machines not big,” said Noema. “Not as yours. Hard to find.”
Cloe sighed. “It’s incredible--bon, not impossible, but incredible. What about the pyramids? Did you build them?”
Noema laughed, a deep, rich sound. “I read your stories about them. No, not us. But people who come after us, they remember some of our ways. Build well.”
“Pity. That will disappoint the lunatic fringe.”
“Truth not always interesting,” said Noema.
“How old are you exactly?”
“I do not know. In beginning we count years in the worm. Then we stop. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, I do not know.”
“And you really can live forever?”
Noema shrugged. “If no illness, no accident, if there is food, air, water....”
“Reminds me” I said, “I’m going to prepare something to eat. Won’t be long.”
I had an instinct about it. Let the two women talk together in my absence for a while and have a proper chance to size each other up and decide they were going to get along. I took my time preparing the meal. There are some limitations on what an astronaut can eat in space—microgravity can make cleaning up the mess afterwards an unpleasant task. But on Mars one could eat pretty much anything that did not require a fridge. After some thinking I filled two compartmentalised food trays with cashew nuts, heated farfalle pasta in pesto sauce, granola and a chocolate bar for dessert. I then spent a little while in the Hab’s minuscule WC before finally bringing Noema her meal.
“....two boys and a girl. The eldest is very intelligent. She wants to enter the ESA and become an astronaut. I asked her if it’s just because her aunt was on the Mars mission but she said, no, it’s what she wants to do.”
“How old she now?”
“Fifteen. My sister’s older than me.”
“Here you go,” I said, putting the food tray and spoon on the console table before Noema.
She smiled. “Thank you.” Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Cloe’s interest.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” I said. “I’m eating at the table. Awkward holding a tray standing.”
I sat next to the porthole and turned my attention to my food. Cloe took her time exhausting her family as a topic, then—avoiding the subject of Noema’s own progeny—passed on to her career in the ESA and the people she worked with.
“d’Alembert was captain on my first flight in space. He was very good. Very professional. Never troubled by anything even when we lost two directional jets on the Skylon during that trip....those are the jets that make the ship perform manoeuvres in space. He was fatherly towards me. It was quite natural. He was twice my age and had done hundreds of hours in space.”
“What is ‘fatherly’?”
Cloe gestured with her hand. “Like a father, looking after his child. I felt like a child then. I was very nervous but trying to pretend I wasn’t.”
“I understand. He still go into space?”
“No, he retired two years ago. He’s an instructor now.”
Eating leisurely, I watched Noema. Seeing her in profile was like seeing her afresh, more so that for the first time I was able to observe her interact with someone else which—I don’t know—left me free to just love her. As I watched her I cherished her more and more. She must be protected. I must protect her. At the core of that protectiveness a sullen anger was born that gradually mutated into a fierceness. She must not die. If humanity could not guarantee her life then humanity could go to hell. Had the shrinks at NASA figured on that when they decided how they were going to tinker with Jason Montague’s brain?
Noema glanced across at me. I smiled. Whatever happens you will be well. She smiled back at me.
“You wish to speak to Cloe?”
“All right. Let me take over for a bit.”
We exchanged places.
“Any news?” I asked.
“Just Trinny looking as if he will have a heart attack. You were right saying he would lose sleep.”
“I’ll send him a report. Noema didn’t want to wait any longer to see a real world again with a real ground and sky, which,” I looked across at the table, “is not a lie.”
Noema smiled again.
“OK. And what then? What shall I tell him from my end?”
“I don’t know. We’ll spend a few days soaking up a good Martian tan then take it from there. It’s really up to Noema. One step at a time. Tell him I’ll keep him posted.”
“....OK Jason. Keep in touch.”
“Will do.”
Cloe’s face vanished from the screen. I rejoined Noema at the table.
“She is kind.”
“Told you so.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute. Then I broke the silence.
“I’ve just had a thought,” I said. “The pod will only stop when it reaches the surface of a world, is that right?”
Noema gave a nod of assent.
“Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Could the pod be made to land on one of them?”
She frowned. “I not know. It is possible. Pod must know it is moon and not Mars it go to. If we are near moon....moon between worm and Mars....maybe it can be done. But not easy.”
“Can you try it?”
“Yes....Cloe can go to moon? This why you ask?”
“Neither moon has any gravity to speak of. She can move the Terra Nova to within a few hundred meters of either of them and then go across with a space suit. If the pod is on the surface we can save her.”
“Good. Which moon?”
“Mmm....Deimos. Its orbit is further out than the Terra Nova’s. If for any reason we can’t bring her to the worm she’ll at least have the fuel to return to Earth. Phobos’ orbit is too close to Mars. If she goes there she won’t have enough fuel to escape Mars’ gravity and make it back home.”
“Nothing for her on Earth. We must bring her to worm.”
“She saved my life. I really, really want to save hers.”
Noema stretched out her hand to me. I took it.
“We save her.”
I decided not to tell Cloe of my plans until it was certain the worm’s pod could be made to land on Deimos. It would be cruel to get her hopes up and then dash them. NASA, well, I was going to tell NASA a lot of lies that they would believe this time round. My story had to be watertight. Noema and I were returning to the worm at her invitation (she found the Hab rather cramped). Once there I would master piloting the worm (the worm’s change of orbit and test-landing of the pod on Deimos would be part of my learning how to control the alien vessel). When I knew everything I needed to know I would persuade Noema to come back with me to Mars in order to say goodbye to Cloe with whom she had formed a friendship. Our return to Mars should allay any suspicions NASA might have about the trial landing on Deimos.
I would then tell Cloe of our real intentions. Noema and I would return to the worm, Cloe would move the Terra Nova to Deimos, and we would pick her up there, giving NASA the middle finger. Only with Cloe safely on board would we decide what to do about Ganymed. No more blackmail. Trinny could live on sleeping pills from then on.
You have to understand. Humanity is an abstraction. We love and cherish those we know. I was responsible for my last surviving crewmember and for the woman I loved. I was not responsible—nobody is responsible—for the entire human race. Well, yes, God is responsible for it, so he would have to take care of it. I had no guarantee that the worm could do anything against Ganymed, but I did know that if I left Noema on Mars and slammed the worm into Ganymed and that did not knock the asteroid away from impact with Earth then Noema was dead and Cloe was dead. On the worm we would live, Cloe and I our natural lifespans and Noema much longer.
As these thoughts settled down in my mind a sense of peace overlaid them. That evening whilst Noema slept on one of the bunks I sat at the table by the window looking out at the Martian sky. Against the backdrop of the Cosmos we humans are such insignificant creatures. We do the best we can with what we have. No more is expected from us. The thought stayed with me as I switched off the lights, lay down on my bunk bed, and drifted off to sleep.
24. The light was dim, two faint red suns on the horizon. The ground was strewn with rocks, reddish on the sunward side with deep black wells of shadow where the light did not fall. In the distance salmon tinted mountains framed the limits of the sky. Noema stood alone, her hair slightly stirred by the icy breeze.
We live in vain, she said.
It is not so, came the answer. You live for a purpose.
We have travelled from one end of the heavens to the other, she replied, and there is nowhere we can live.
Your purpose is not in the heavens. From the beginning they were closed to you. Tubal deceived you, bringing you here.
What shall we do?
In the end it will be revealed to you, when the time of Tubal is done.
Then I will know?
Then you will know. And I realised it was I who spoke.
Opening my eyes I looked across at Noema’s bunk. It was empty, she was already up. I let a moment pass whilst the tendrils of sleep cleared from my brain then propped myself up on my elbow and slid my feet to the floor. Raising myself to a sitting position I glanced down at the table. There she was, chin on hands, gaze abstracted. She glanced my way.
“You have good sleep?”
“Can’t complain. You?”
“I wake early. I think of you, of all that has passed. All years I live I am waiting, waiting. I think I wait for nothing. Now I wait no more.”
I sat beside her. “Are you happy?”
“Yes.” She took my hand in both of hers. “As never before.”
I raised her hands to my lips and kissed them. “Good. That is all I wish you to be.”
Her smile, so gentle, so deep. So many ages of slowly maturing goodness behind it, goodness enriched by the pain and love of a thousand lifetimes. Of all the Wise she alone truly deserved the name.
“Time for breakfast,” I said. “Do you want more granola? You said you liked it.”
“It is good. You have fruit?”
“Sorry, nothing fresh. No way of keeping it from going bad. I’ve got dried apricots and peaches. And there are raisins—dried grapes—in the granola.”
“Granola is enough.”
I stood and moved across to the kitchenette. “And you must at least try NASA coffee with cream and sugar. It’s Starbucks. They have a sense of humour. I’ll explain it some time. If you don’t like it you can give it to me.”
“I understand. Starbucks name of drink....’Star’, yes?”
“Smart.”
She touched the side of her head. “Big brain.”
I held the spoon posed over the jar of coffee and gave her a quizzical look. She nodded.
“Yes, I try.”
We ate in silence for a few moments, content with each other’s presence. She took a sip from the cup.
“Hot.”
“Let it cool for a few minutes. I also have grape juice and orange juice.”
“Stay. Eat. What I have is enough.”
I subsided back in my chair. As we finished our meal I told Noema of my plans for Cloe.
“....I need to be sure we can land on Deimos before I tell her what we’re going to do. The Terra Nova can be controlled from Earth. Cloe will have to disable that—break it—to be sure that Earth does not try to stop her coming onto the Worm. I know how to do it. I’ll tell her how when we return to Mars.”
“I not understand. Why Earth want to stop her?”
“Because,” I said slowly, “They want to use her against me.”
“Against you?”
“Yes. They don’t want Cloe coming to the worm. They want me to take the worm and crash it into Ganymed.”
Those great eyes, full of incomprehension, then disbelief, then horror.
“You die, I die....”
“No. Their plan is for me to leave you here. They rescue you later. They want to learn all about immortality and how to get it. I die, no-one else.”
Noema arose from the table and paced slowly towards the airlock. Then she turned around.
“Tubal speak truth. One here, one there, his heart is good. But together your people are cruel.”
“Then they are no longer my people. I’m not a fan of blackmail. They can go to the devil.”
Noema smiled sadly. “I wish them no evil. They fear death as Wise feared it. They think to lose life is to lose everything. Must do all they can to cling to life.”
I stood up and approached her. “They can find some other way. Nobody is going to put your life in danger, not if I can do anything about it.”
Noema said nothing, just came forward and leaned her head against my chest. I embraced her gently, my cheek against her head. Lord above, how I loved her. Silly fools, thinking you could turn my affection for Cloe against my love for Noema. Both are safe now and both stay safe in any future plans you cook up.
“Come,” said Noema, “we not finish breakfast.”
At the table she returned to the subject of disabling the remote control feature of the Terra Nova’s nav computer.
“Certain you can do this?”
“Yes I’m certain. I know about systems programming—writing the instructions we give to our machines. It’s easy enough.”
“Good. But they not ask why you take elevator to Deimos? You say to learn how to make worm do as you wish, nothing more. You think they believe this?”
I frowned. “I see your point. The moment we land the pod on Deimos they’ll connect it with Cloe. Yeah, they might just put two and two together.”
“They are not foolish. Dieter lie. You lie. They see lies.”
“Then what do we do?”
“You tell Cloe now.”
I hesitated. “If we can’t land on Deimos?”
“Then we have done all we can do. But I think I can guide mind of worm. Must get close to Deimos. Pod go at right time. I know worm now, it will understand me.”
I spent a few moments weighing the options. Finally I made my mind up.
“Right. Let’s do it.”
“Cloe you there? Any problems?”
“Sorry. I change a circuit board in the PriFly. Something shorted on it. I’m finished now. What’s happening?”
I spent a few minutes telling Cloe exactly what was happening.
“....overriding the remote control of the nav computer is a hack job. I’ll send you the coding. You’ll need to paste it into the operating system. I’ll talk you through it. It’s not difficult. After that you can do the course correction for Deimos without anyone being able to stop you. I’ll calculate a minimal fuel trajectory for you so you can get back to Earth if this doesn’t work out. And that’s it. Any questions?”
Cloe’s face did not change expression, except that her gaze seemed abstracted. She was silent for several moments.
“How sure are you Noema can do this?”
“Noema’s fairly sure, that’s the best I can say. Technically there’s no reason the pod can’t land on Deimos. Its leaves will hook into the surface regolith, holding it in place. It just seems to be a question of making the worm understand what it has to do. Noema knows its mind well enough to be confident it’ll get the idea. You’ll need to put the Terra Nova into a slow orbit around Deimos then move across in a spacesuit. Once you reach the pod Noema will open the inner leaves. I’ll be there. You get aboard and up you come.”
“Merci à Dieu.”
“Thank God? For what?”
“That they can’t use me against you anymore.”
I grinned. “Space is a democracy. Don’t piss off the people.”
“You still need to keep Mission happy. Have you done a report yet?”
“I’ll go one better. We’ll both give it, Noema and I. Tell them Noema’s big secret but otherwise keep it innocuous. It could hardly be anything else in the circumstances. I’ll promise another one when I return alone from the alien vessel—Noema is staying on it as she doesn’t like cramped spaces and has a thing about etiquette, being alone with a male in a confined space, etc., etc. But she promises to pay one more visit to the Hab later. That’ll keep them quiet.”
“It will.” Did I imagine the distance in her voice?
“All right. We’ll do the report over the next hour or two. I’ll write the coding to disable the remote override and take you through it. Then the manoeuvre for the Terra Nova to match Deimos’ orbit. The orbital plane is out by just under two degrees from the geostationary orbit you’re in now. You’ll have to angle your trajectory—there’s some maths involved. This should really have been Domingo’s job.”
“Let me do it. I have the nav computer which has better software than the one in the Hab. And yes, it should have been Domingo.”
We both fell silent.
“OK,” I said, “even without him we can make this work. Once you have the course results give me the exact time of your intercept with Deimos. I don’t want to keep you waiting.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
“Well if you don’t want to see me in the flesh again....”
“Oh, shut up Jason. Don’t forget to offer me your seat when I get there.”
“Yes’m.”
“And out.” And her face disappeared.
I turned away from the monitor thoughtfully, then mentally pulled myself together. There was a lot to do and not that much time to do it in. First an AV report that would convince Trinny and the NASA boffins we were planning nothing nefarious, or at least nothing that wasn’t NASA-approved nefariousness. The truth about Noema’s humanness would be a shock revelation, overturning all their conceptions about how to deal with her, and by the time they had finished digesting it and working out the implications we would have Cloe safely aboard the worm and secure from any further pressure. The last thing I needed was a desperate appeal to her from her mother or sister. I wasn’t going to let my last surviving crewmember get sucker punched.
Writing the code that would shut down the auto override feature of the nav computer on the Terra Nova was my next concern. There were in fact three computers on board, each capable of being used to pilot the ship. All three would have to be tampered with in turn, but since nobody had anticipated a crewmember turning into a hacker their operating systems had no antivirus protection. It had been a straightforward job for Dieter—who had also had programming experience—to set up the Trojan that took over the spin jets and killed Domingo and Tessa. All three computers were accessible from the main console, enabling me to guide Cloe through the process and deal with any potential complications.
The course correction was my last and least worry. Terra Nova was in a geostationary—or more accurately areostationary—orbit above my head, about 17 000km from the Martian surface. Deimos orbited slightly further out, about 20 000km from Mars, completing one orbit every 30 hours. Its orbit was nearly circular and inclined at 1.788 degrees, which meant that the disc traced by its path around Mars was tilted at an angle of just under 1.8 degrees to the disc drawn by Mars’ equator and Terra Nova’s orbit.
It wouldn’t take much fuel to transfer from one orbital path to the other, and since getting further away from Mars meant needing less fuel to escape Mars’ gravity altogether Cloe would have enough reserves to return to Earth if necessary. It was a fairly simple manoeuvre to calculate and I had no doubt Cloe was up to the job—steering the Terra Nova was something every crewmember had been trained for—but I would check her work anyway just to be sure. See you soon Cloe.
“Director Trinny, Let me introduce you to Noema.” I vacated my seat and gestured to her to take my place. “She has been looking forward to communicating with humanity for a very long time. She has a great deal of empathy for humans and particularly for our present situation, partly because of the loss of her own people and partly for other reasons. But, Noema, I’ll let you take over from here.”
Noema’s gaze at the console camera was unselfconscious. I had a sneaking suspicion she had prior experience of AV communication, in a distant age before biotechnology replaced machines. When she spoke her voice was entirely natural.
“I give you my greetings, you....Director....and all who see this message. Jason speak truth. My heart is with you in what is to come. I see passing of my people....I wish I never see such a thing again. I truly wish I can help, turn Ganymed away from Earth, but I cannot. I say this because Earth is my home as it is your home.”
She paused a moment.
“I am human.”
Another pause, or was it hesitation?
“My people live on Earth many thousands of years ago. We first build machines as you do, then we study Strand, you call it....” she glanced at me.
“DNA,” I prompted.
“Yes. We change DNA, make creatures to do our will, make worm. Then great trouble come on Earth. We leave in worm to find new home in stars. We go everywhere but find nothing. Then we come back.
“I listen to your voices many years. Learn about your people. Before Ganymed come there is much I wish to tell you. I think I give you wisdom of my people. But one thing I cannot tell you: secret of life that does not die. This is why An punish us. This is why he will not permit me to come to you. Our people make themselves immortal and An destroy our world. I return and now....before I give you my secret....he destroy your world again. He has one law for us, that we live our time then die. This law is even for Wise, for Immortals. They are all dead.
“This is hard for me to say. Truth is hard. Lies are easy. You think An is nothing. Death is end of everything. But it is not so. After death there is life. Different life, but life. I know this because I see it.”
I started back. My surprise had been growing for the last minute as Noema departed from the script we had agreed to. But this was totally unexpected.
“I cannot tell you what this life is. I can only show it. I will show Jason in worm. When he come again he will tell what he sees. Then perhaps you believe. This is best I can do for you.”
With that she rose from her seat and moved away from the monitor. I glanced at her curiously then sat in her place.
“Uh, there’s not much I can add to that. I’ll give another report when I get back from the vessel. Hopefully Noema herself will speak again. Umm....Jason out.” And I pressed the Record button, ending the message.
I rejoined Noema at the table.
“Well,” I said, “That will definitely work.”
“First time I speak to them. Maybe last time. What can I do? Soon they all go to An. They must have hope, nothing else for them.”
I kissed her hand. “You did good. And now you’ve got me curious. What are you going to show me?”
“I join you to worm. Then I give you memory.”
“Like the dreams?”
“No. Dreams are pictures, voices, places. This is not something you see with eye or hear with ear. I do not know how to say it.”
“What, some kind of vision?”
She shook her head, frowning. “No, not vision. Vision you also see and hear. This memory is just....to know. When you have it you will understand.”
“All right. But I doubt it’ll make any difference. If I come back from the worm and tell them I’ve seen signs and wonders they’ll classify me as a religious nut and discount anything I say. Any explanation of....the world....the universe, that has a hint of religion in it is out. That’s the way it is. They don’t know I pray. I never told them that. For them belief in God is the enemy of intelligence, progress, civilisation.”
“This I know.”
“Then why bother?”
Noema leaned forward. “Because there is no more time. One here, one there, has good heart. I speak to them, not to those who are proud and blind as Tubal.”
“Even then do you think an AV report from me is going to make any difference?”
“You tell them what you see. You tell truth. Some believe, some not. It is way of An.”
“How so?”
“He hide himself, enough so we can say ‘He is not’. But he show himself, enough so we can say ‘He is.’ We can believe or not believe. I not understand this until I know your people.”
“Free will.”
“Yes. He is not dictator. We are free to believe or not believe. But if we look with good heart we see he must be. The Strand, I tell you even Wise cannot make it, such that it give life. So how does it come to be?”
“Chance. Evolution.”
Noema laughed, her rich sound filling the Hab. “Even your wise do not think this, not they who truly understand it. But yes, they will let others say it. I say Strand is a thing of wisdom. You say it is a thing of chance. We are free.”
I had little hope of winning an argument with the greatest living geneticist, and anyhow I wasn’t inclined to argue.
“Fine. I’ll keep an open mind. Right now though we have work to do. I need to do some coding. Does your spacesuit”—I pointed to the green blob in the airlock—“need any kind of recharging in the pod? Is it OK to leave it there until this evening?”
“I am not in it long time. It is good for two days, three days. But I can take it to pod, give it food.”
“I think so. Everything needs to be in tip-top condition when we leave.”
Noema looked at me curiously.
“Ingrained habit,” I explained. “A commander worries about details.”