Missile Gap

"Because he's a member of the Federation of American Scientists and he won't believe anything we tell him without independent confirmation," Brundle mutters through one side of his mouth. "That's the trouble with using a government agency as our cover story."

They walk in silence for a minute. "I think it would be very dangerous to underestimate him," says Gregor. "He could be a real asset to us, but uncontrolled he's very dangerous. If we can't silence him we may have to resort to physical violence. And with the number of colonies they've already seeded, we can't be sure of getting them all."

"Itemize the state of their understanding," Brundle says abruptly. "I want a reality check. I'll tell you what's new after you run down the checklist."

"Okay." Gregor thinks for a minute. "Let us see. What everyone knows is that between zero three fifteen and twelve seconds and thirteen seconds Zulu time, on October second, sixty two, all the clocks stopped, the satellites went away, the star map changed, nineteen airliners and forty six ships in transit ended up in terminal trouble, and they found themselves transferred from a globe in the Milky Way galaxy to a disk which we figure is somewhere in the lesser Magellanic cloud. Meanwhile the Milky Way galaxy — we assume that's what it is — has changed visibly. Lots of metal-depleted stars, signs of macroscopic cosmic engineering, that sort of thing. The public explanation is that the visitors froze time, skinned the earth, and plated it over the disk. Luckily they're still bickering over whether the explanation is Minsky's copying, uh, hypothesis, or that guy Moravec with his digital simulation theory."

"Indeed." Brundle kicks at a paving stone idly. "Now. What is your forward analysis?"

"Well, sooner or later they're going to turn dangerous. They have the historic predisposition towards teleological errors, to belief in a giant omnipotent creator and a purpose to their existence. If they start speculating about the intentions of a transcendent intelligence, it's likely they'll eventually ask whether their presence here is symptomatic of God's desire to probe the circumstances of its own birth. After all, we have evidence of how many technological species on the disk, ten million, twelve? Replicated many times, in some cases. They might put it together with their concept of manifest destiny and conclude that they are, in fact, doomed to give birth to God. Which is an entirely undesirable conclusion for them to reach from our point of view. Teleologists being bad neighbors, so to speak."

"Yes indeed," Brundle says thoughtfully, then titters quietly to himself for a moment.

"This isn't the first time they've avoided throwing around H-bombs in bulk. That's unusual for primate civilizations. If they keep doing it, they could be dangerous."

"Dangerous is relative," says Brundle. He titters again. Things move inside his mouth.

"Don't do that!" Gregor snaps. He glances round instinctively, but nothing happens.

"You're jumpy." Brundle frowns. "Stop worrying so much. We don't have much longer here."

"Are we being ordered to move? Or to prepare a sterilization strike?"

"Not yet." Brundle shrugs. "We have further research to continue with before a decision is reached. The Soviets have made a discovery. Their crewed exploration program. The Korolev lucked out."

"They—" Gregor tenses. "What did they find?" He knows about the big nuclear-powered Ekranoplan, the dragon of the Caspian, searching the seven oceans for new worlds to conquer. He even knows about the small fleet they're trying to build at Archangelsk, the ruinous expense of it. But this is new. "What did they find?"

Brundle grins humorlessly. "They found ruins. Then they spent another eight weeks mapping the coastline. They've confirmed what they found, they sent the State Department photographs, survey details — the lot." Brundle gestures at the Cuban War monument, the huge granite column dominating the Mall, its shadow pointing towards the Capitol. "They found Washington DC, in ruins. One hundred and forty thousand miles that way." He points due north. "They're not total idiots, and it's the first time they've found one of their own species-transfer cognates. They might be well on their way to understanding the truth, but luckily our comrades in Moscow have that side of the affair under control. But they communicated their discovery to the CIA before it could be suppressed, which raises certain headaches.

"We must make sure that nobody here asks why. So I want you to start by dealing with Sagan."

Chapter Eleven: Collecting Jar