It?s A Miracle
By the grace of God Almighty,
And the pressures of the marketplace,
The human race has civilized itself,
It?s a Miracle!
- Roger Waters
My daughter has always questioned everything. Since she was able to talk, she would constantly ask questions, more often than not in a vain attempt to understand concepts far too subtle for her young mind to grasp.
That time was very long ago ? now she?s a woman, almost fully grown, and heart-achingly beautiful, but she is still a child. She might be taller than both her mother and I, but that doesn?t mean she knows anything about reality.
This is why I took her to see Earth.
During my life I have risen through the ranks, often working myself to the point of exhaustion, and now, after nearly eight decades, I have found my final resting place, where the stone of my life will begin to gather moss. This place is a system known to the inhabitants of Earth as Cygnus, and we, humanity, have a large base there. It?s one of the largest in the Lower Leaf Cluster. Of course, I?m using Earth-human terminology for the names of these systems and worlds. We don?t call this part of the Galaxy the Lower Leaf Cluster. We have another name for it, a name pronounceable in no language to be found on Earth.
My resting place is as Chief Controller for new converts, those extraordinary Fighters who are all that stands between humankind and the Invasion, not too far away from here. Our base orbits Cygnus, and it is here that we train the new Fighters, acclimatizing them to fight against the endless streams of invading organisms that batter humanity?s last Galaxy from all sides.
If it hadn?t been for my station in life and the people I know, I would never have been able to take my daughter to Earth. No amount of money can buy a person passage to that world, for there is no approach to it that is not held by the guardians of the Bubble, a vast military force who have been tasked with protecting the most precious thing humanity has.
But even Earth, precious as it is, is just another ordinary human-compatible world, with a blue, oxygen-rich sky, like so many millions to be found throughout the Galaxy ? this last Galaxy that humans will ever inhabit. It is what lives and thrives on Earth that makes it so vital to humanity, as my daughter was about to find out.
I booked us passage on a small Interloper destined to Translate to the very edge of the Bubble directly from Cygnus orbit to affect repairs to a slightly damaged hull plate. I didn?t tell anyone except the Interloper?s Commander about the trip. His name is Winsh Kirluk, and he?s a close friend of mine. He understood the reason for my trip, and why I was taking my daughter with me.
As the child of a Chief Controller, my daughter enjoys a privileged lifestyle, granted free passage across almost every square meter of space that is owned by the Keepers of the Wall, which adds up to virtually the entire Galaxy. She can go anywhere she likes, and she does. She?s a travel nut, and at least one out of every two times that I call her on her private telcom she?s on a Keeper ship of some variety, traveling under the name and influence of her father, Translating into some obscure system to taste the food or experience a pristine mountainside.
For years all she did was fly around, like the tumbleweed that can be found in some places on Earth, bouncing across the Galaxy in the company of a small pack of hedonistic friends tagging along for the ride.
It must?ve come as a big surprise to her when I summoned her to my quarters at Cygnus, even going so far as to divert the Crew Transport she had hitched a ride on all the way across the Galaxy.
The Secretary would later inform me that the cost of re-routing the soldiers on that Transport was astronomical, requiring a reshuffle of sixteen different Cruisers to compensate and get them to their destination on time. Another astronomical amount was needed to send all of my daughter?s tag-along friends back, some traveling almost the entire length of the polar axis to return to their home worlds.
Six days later, my daughter arrived, exhausted from the strain of one hundred and seventy four consecutive Translations, utterly alone on the automated Transport, which had flown a stupendous distance, refueling almost every thirty minutes. They say each Translation makes you five years older, but I don?t believe that. When you Translate, it feels like you?re getting turned inside out. The space around your vehicle is wildly distorted, and tangled formulae inside the vehicle?s Star Drive compute a way out of the Escherian maze that space becomes after those Distortion Lattices kick in.
It has no tangible physical effect, but a lot of people get very sick and puke their guts out the first few times, which is why Translations are usually scheduled at least four or five days apart on long trips. The further your vehicle jumps with each Translation, the more severe the effects.
My daughter looked ashen when she stepped off onto the deserted landing platform after her Transport docked with Cygnus Station.
?What?s going on? Did someone die? The ship wouldn?t tell me why I had to come,? she said, her face screwed up with a mixture of illness and concern.
?No, no. I needed to see you. Urgently,? I said, taking her arm. A tiny baggage bot trundled up the gangway and returned a moment later with her mauve travel gear, three suitcases containing an amount of clothes that would?ve last someone like me years.
?Why? Do you know how many times that Transport jumped? I counted ? more than a hundred and seventy times. In six days. Do you know what it?s like to jump when you?re asleep, Dad? Damnit! Couldn?t you have told it to go more slowly?? she shouted angrily, walking ahead of me, shunning me.
?It was important!? I said, my voice rising too.
She turned violently, stopped, and said: ?What the hell was so important that I had to spend six days feeding from an IV tube? You know I always puke when I jump, Dad!? I thought her glare was going to go straight through my head.
?I brought you here so I could take you see Earth,? I said. A veil seemed to fall from her face, and it lit up. She smiled.
?I don?t know whether I should slap you or kiss you, Dad.?
I began to smile too. This was more like it! ?Come, our ship is waiting. We?re going to translate twice more before we get to Earth, so I hope you haven?t eaten anything since that Transport docked?? I said.
?No, don?t worry. Earth! My friends are going to be so jealous!? she said, waving at the baggage bot to get it to move more quickly towards the only other ship in the dock, Commander Kirluk?s Interloper.
I simply stood there, watching her hassling that poor bot with it?s three small bug eyes all the way up the gangway and through the Interloper?s hatch, then I heard an animated conversation between her and the soldier who was guarding the ship?s entrance, and finally her voice disappeared completely into the cavernous military spacecraft.
She was so confident in herself, that daughter of mine, so independent that she made my heart swell with warmth and pride, but she was still a child, and would always be until she understood the Truth about Earth.
Commander Kirluk welcomed both of us inside, once I caught up with my daughter. As soon as he saw us, he pressed a small button on the Interloper?s huge tactical console. I felt airlocks sliding shut all around the ship as it prepared for the rigours of deep space, and then a gentle pulling motion began, starting at my feet. I looked out of the sprawling command deck windows and saw that we were gliding towards the exit of Cygnus Station.
My daughter was promptly strapped into an acceleration seat on the command deck by an anonymous crewmember with blonde hair and a soft voice. She?d never been on the flight deck of a military ship before, and her eyes grew huge as she took in the bustle of a real military ship preparing for Translation.
Commander Kirluk came up to me and pressed his left palm against mine in the ancient military way, then said: ?It?s good to see you again, Controller Chief Amarind. Your daughter has grown up since the last time I saw her! You must be proud!?
?Oh, I am, I am. How long will this journey take?? I replied.
?We?re going to Translate in about three minutes, then we have to fly through Bubble Gate 345, which should take about fifteen minutes. One more jump will leave us in orbit around Earth, and after that it should take about twenty minutes for you and your daughter to re-enter the atmosphere and land at your destination, depending on weather and other conditions.?
?Why can?t we just jump straight into Earth orbit?? my daughter asked, as precocious as ever, sitting up and fighting against the straps in her chair.
?Nobody can jump through the Bubble. That?s why it?s there. The circuits laid into the Bubble generate an immense discontinuity in space, isolating Earth system from any jump attempts. It is our only means of protecting it from rogue ships,? Commander Kirluk said, tapping the console again. The Interloper had already exited Cygnus Station, and the lights were dimming, indicating that it was time for us to strap down and prepare to jump.
I buckled myself into the seat next to Jeanine and held her wrist as we both endured the odd twisting sensation of Translation.
Then we saw the Bubble, stretching away from the windows, the largest object ever constructed by Mankind, a device that encased an entire solar system in a millimeter-thick indeterminacy field.
From the outside it appeared silvery black, reflecting the glaring lights of the Gate that intersected it. This was a small Gate ? there were hundreds of others scattered around the radius of the Bubble. Our ship was being gently guided into it?s central gatelock by tiny gusts of gas from a tug that had attached itself to us the moment we arrived. Things were going smoothly.
From the inside, there was no Bubble. As well as being the largest single object humans have ever made, the Bubble is also the single largest computer in existence. Through the application of mathematics and huge amounts of optical trickery, it projects a spherical image of pristine outer space throughout it?s inner volume. This prevents Earth from knowing about the true nature of the Galaxy, and also stops all incoming signals from reaching the people of that world, who must remain in darkness forever.
A great military writer once stated that we have pulled the wool over the eyes of an entire star system. I agree with him.
Jeanine groaned as we completed our final Translation, appearing in a high orbit above Earth. To a human from Earth, it would?ve looked like a badly spliced movie ? one moment there was only empty space, and the next moment that space was occupied by fifty-seven million tons of Interloper. I held her hand and made soothing noises, much to the amusement of Commander Kirluk, who grinned at me from his acceleration couch as the ship headed towards a slightly lower orbit with a palpable sensation of gravity. He was obviously one of those people that weren?t affected by Translation at all, damn him.
If any of my other Commanders had done a similar thing, it would?ve resulted in an instant court-martial, to use the Earth-human term, but Kirluk and I had been through a lot together, so he got away with it. All I could do was sit there and hope that I was doing the right thing.
Soon after that we were hustled inside a much smaller Scout vehicle, since there was no way the Interloper could deliver us to our destination without causing a massive disturbance on Earth. As the first mountains of ozone began their invisible abrasion of the surface of our Scout vehicle, a large gunmetal-blue disk the size of a Boeing 747, I looked at my daughter and said:
?Tell me everything you know about Earth.?
Her eyes widened slightly, reflecting the searing red and white glow of the atmosphere of a quiet blue world roaring up against the Scout?s windows, but she swallowed and said: ?It?s where the Fighters come from. The saviours. They?re trained here, aren?t they??
?Correct. But not entirely so,? I said, looking out of the window, where the thick windows were slowly beginning to cool down and allow bright sunlight through. ?I think you?re going to learn a lot in the next few hours. I?ve arranged for us to meet the director of Earth operations, Warden Balwitz. You?re going to see first-hand how we find the Fighters. But first, there?s something you need to know about this place, this world called Earth.?
?What? What is it?? she said, finally summoning the courage to look at me. As we sleeted through the center of a cloud formation, I said:
?This world has a population of eight billion.?
Aghast, she said: ?Eight billion??
?There is no CentCom presence here, apart from a few tiny zones of presence maintained by our bases on the surface. Earth is effectively a wild world, an untamed world. You need to know this before we get off this Scout. If you can?t handle it, tell me, and I?ll turn us around right now.?
She raised her index finger to her lips and began biting it, an annoying habit I?d tried vainly to rid her of during her childhood. Finally, after what seemed like half an hour, she said: ?So what do all those people do? Who?s in charge? Who protects them from the Invasion??
Even though I could not see it happening, I knew that our Scout had cloaked itself in the image of a light airplane as it zipped across the continent Earth people called Africa. ?We do,? I finally said. ?The Bubble is part of our defense of this system, but we also have vast battalions of fighters and bombers stationed on several planets of this system, and sweepers gathering solar energy near it?s sun. But Earth itself is a sacred zone, a reservation. No human being may set foot there, unless they are ordered to do so by High Command.?
?So all the people here just run around wild? How do they survive without CentCom??
?They make do. A lot of them are constantly dying from starvation and war, but most of them do just fine. Bear in mind that Earth has a self-contained ecosystem that runs all by itself, a wondrous thing. These are not normal humans that we?re dealing with here, Jeanine. Their culture is very different from ours. You need to know this so that you won?t be too shocked when we land.?
?And where in this landscape of savages are we to land??
?Don?t underestimate these wild humans, daughter. Never do that. You will soon understand that, even without the guiding influence of CentCom, they are a very successful species, sometimes too successful.?
My daughter paused, mulling over what I had told her, then said: ?So you?re telling me that you train Fighters here, on a wild world? Is it some kind of macho endurance trail??
I sighed. ?You still don?t understand. We don?t bring the Fighters here for training at all. They?re already here. All of the Fighters that have ever lived were natives of Earth. The humans who live here have chromosomes so similar to ours that interbreeding is possible, and yet they are very different, as you?ll soon find out. We discovered Earth thousands of years ago, at the beginning of the War. No other planet produces Fighters, which is why we kept it at this level of technology.?
?What does that mean?? she asked.
?Every few thousand years, they verge on developing an equivalent of CentCom, and we have to purge the world, culling the population to a few hundred in scattered locales. The more advanced their technology becomes, the fewer Fighters they produce. Projections indicate that they will cease breeding Fighters the moment they reach Singularity Point, when their own version of CentCom becomes conscious of itself. We can?t let that happen.?
?That?s?that?s monstrous!?
?Would you rather we allow the Invasion to penetrate to the core of the Galaxy? Without the Fighters you and I wouldn?t be here. Humanity would have perished long ago, consumed by the fires of the Invaders. It is a certainty. These wild humans on this planet have bred every single Fighter that has ever lived.?
I don?t think I would?ve believed it myself, unless shown absolutely incontrovertible evidence, which was why I had taken her down to the surface, to the most sacred place of all. To the cities and the suburbs, the breeding grounds of the Fighters.
Our Scout performed a simulated airplane landing, taking the illusion to it?s very hilt, even pretending to slide across the ground like a real Earth plane, eventually stopping inside a very large hangar that was part of a farm controlled by CentCom.
We had arrived.
My daughter seemed very blasé about Earth, even though I knew she must have been bursting with excitement. My clumsy explanation of what CentCom did here was probably to blame ? her every glance told me that her mind was chewing on what I had said, looking for a way to reject all of it in one go.
The farm was very far from anything, located in a dry, dusty corner of the African continent. We had chosen it for it?s isolation, although at the current level of Earth technology, nothing on their world was safe from the prying eyes of Earth-human spy cameras, which was why we went to such great pains to cloak the Scout. Earth was divided into lots of chunks called ?countries?, a concept entirely alien to everyone on this farm, but we abided by the eccentric ideas and precepts of the people here, purely so that we wouldn?t stand out. Apparently the province in which we had landed was called the Klein Karoo, a name my language extension found difficult to pronounce, even though it could speak three thousand other civilized, logical languages found across the disk of the Galaxy.
We stepped into the small wooden home standing next to the gargantuan hangar through a quaint doorway, handmade by Earth humans. Even such a simple thing as that door would?ve claimed a ludicrous price on the antiques market, as any artifact from Earth would.
Balwitz met us as we entered the enclosed balcony of the house, a place I?d visited many times before. Usually Balwitz was a straight-to-business man, but today he bent over and kissed my daughter?s wrist, much to her surprise. To her credit, she didn?t recoil from this unusual display of affection, and I laughed at her expression.
?Don?t worry, Jeanine. That?s a common human custom, although slightly outdated at this point, Balwitz. How long have you been here for??
?Five hundred years, Commander. When I first came here, any man who greeted a lady otherwise would have been deemed rude,? he said, his voice booming across the house. For a pentcentarian, Balwitz was in excellent health.
?What is a lady?? my daughter asked him, her eyes curiously eyeing the outlandishly primitive fittings and adornments of this Earth home.
?Lady is a word that means, roughly, ?esteemed female?. It is a term of respect in most cultures here,? Balwitz said, almost apologetically.
?Just take it easy on the ministrations, Balwitz,? I said, leading my daughter through the back of the house to the garage.
?The car is ready, Commander. We?ve placed refreshments on the rear seat, should you or your daughter desire something to nibble on. It?s reactor can keep it moving for about three hundred years, if you so desire, but it?s internal combustion motor will require refueling once in a while to maintain the illusion of petrochemical power,? Balwitz said, trailing behind us.
?Thank you, Balwitz. That will be all,? I said as we stepped into the garage. I opened the car?s door for my daughter, who immediately realized what it was for and climbed into the fragrant red leather of the front seat. I got into the driver?s seat, pressing a hidden button underneath the steering wheel.
?Is this a land-roving vehicle?? she asked.
?Yes. A privately owned one. These vehicles are called ?car?. I think this kind is called ?Lamborghini Testarossa.? This entire vehicle was made by hand, in a locality called ?Italy.? We?ve changed it so that CentCom can direct it?s motion using remote control and satellite observation, but I?m also fairly good at driving these things. There are many kinds of them, some old, some new. You?ll see what I mean once we reach the ?Highway?.?
The jet black Lamborghini?s engine rumbled into life, and we surged out of the garage door. It had been four years since I?d been in a car of any kind, and Balwitz had arranged us a fine one. During all my years here, I had come to relish my car trips. Driving around in something worth the price of an entire fleet of Star Cruisers was something to cherish.
My daughter?s hands grabbed a hold of her seat, her knuckles whitening and her fingers indenting deeply into the leather as we rolled across the farm?s driveway, little pebbles flying every which way underneath the car?s wheels.
?You?re not going to believe how this car?s drive works, Jeanine. It?s really quite amusing. They use a system of tiny controlled explosions to turn a metal shaft, which then transfers it?s rotational momentum to the wheels. By turning this wheel here,? I said, giving the steering wheel a tug and making us leer towards the side of the driveway, ?I can direct the motion of the car. There are pedals controlling it?s speed by my feet.?
?Amazing!? she said, her grip on the seat loosening slightly as we began to cruise smoothly down the tar road outside the farm.
?It?s not terribly safe, I?m afraid. Not even CentCom?s reinforcements to this car?s chassis will save us if we?re in a really bad accident. But risk is the price you pay for enlightenment, when it comes to Earth, as you will see.?
And there we sat, Jeanine letting me tell her all sorts of vagaries about the city we were heading towards ? Johannesburg, ten hours away.
By the time we reached the hazy outer confines of the city, my daughter knew more about Earth than she cared to. My narrative had almost reduced her to tears on occasion, when I told her about the wars and the famine that held this world tightly in their grip.
As my final act before we reached out intended destination, I transferred the Earth Language software to her own cranial language processor, so that she could speak the language of the natives. Every time we had stopped for fuel on our long trip, so as to maintain the illusion of humanity, I had gotten out of the car and requested the attendants to refill the car. My daughter had sat still, amazed to hear my tongue pronouncing the almost unspeakably contorted native words.
Just before we reached out destination, I began to speak to her in English, the chosen language of the group of people we would soon meet, so she could get used to hearing it.
?We?re going to go check out a Fighter training facility. Actually, training facility is the wrong way of putting it. It?s more like a?device for storing and nourishing young requiring constant temperature?incubator, ah, that?s right, an incubator. The Fighters don?t even know that they?re Fighters until we tell them about it. Weird, the way it works, isn?t it??
My daughter looked down as she practiced her new-found language, saying: ?What is this place known as??
?They call it Kingdom Hall, although our term is slightly different, but it?s close enough.?
?What does Kingdom and Hall mean??
?I don?t have enough time to describe it to you in English, so I?ll just??
Something clicked inside my head as I switched to my native tongue, the rolling syllables of Kreeeiane, ??call it a reverse-indoctrination facility. That?s correct, yes. We create an environment filled with certain stress factors, in which prospective Fighters may become entangled. The only way out of it for them is often to lose everything they have, including social bond-ties with family members. This is their test, the final indication of their strength. The ones who exit this web of deceit more often than not become great Fighters.?
The Lamborghini rumbled to a stop outside a low brick building. Dozens of neatly-dressed Earth people mulled around outside it, talking in low voices, staring in fascination at our car, and it was then that I realized that we had made a critical mistake.
None of the other cars here looked even remotely like the Lamborghini. They were all higher off the ground, and less streamlined. I hoped for my daughter?s sake that we hadn?t contravened some established social custom by arriving here in a car that was only four feet high off the ground.
In the sudden quiet following the cessation of the Lamborghini?s internal-combustion motor, I said, switching back to English as I did so: ?All you need to do is sit and listen. If anyone asks you anything, just follow my lead. Try to say as little as possible. In this building, this construct, there is a prospective Fighter. We have known about him for months now, and we think he may be ready to join us, even though he doesn?t know we exist. Got it??
?Yeah, I got it. Let?s do this,? my daughter said, her mind already wrapping itself around the ponderous monstrosity of Low-German accented English.
My memories of the events that followed are tenuous, even though I have all of it recorded via an optical nerve snoop. From time to time, I still review that shaky footage, trying to make sense of it all, but it doesn?t help.
Without knowing who the Fighter was, or even what he looked like, my daughter arrowed straight for the pair of open seats next to him. I recognized him from the surveillance information we had gathered, picking up on conversations whispered in secret to narrow down the chaff and discover the Fighter. Our agents reported that this Congregation, as the gathering was called, harboured one of the most promising Fighters they had ever seen, and had asked me to investigate him for worthiness personally.
My daughter could not have known it was him, and yet, at the same time, I never doubted that she did.
Within minutes, the Meeting had begun, and my daughter leaned over and whispered something in the prospect?s ear. He whispered something back, and ten minutes of intense whispering later, my daughter got up, and the prospect followed her. Helpless, I joined them, trying to avoid the curious gazes of the other people in the room.
Outside, my daughter grinned and raised her palm in a gesture of familial feeling.
?Roscho has been waiting for us. He said he knew we?d be coming eventually,? she said, guiding the stunned teenager towards the Lamborghini, which had automatically unlocked when it sensed us approaching.
?Hello, Roscho. My name is Commander Kirluk,? I said, shaking his hand and trying to get a grasp on the situation. I had expected to only let my daughter see the Prospect, but she had gone in and grabbed him and pulled him right out of the meeting.
?Are you the ones who?ve been watching me for so long? Are you going to help me escape?? he asked, his voice low and nervous.
?Yes, and yes. And yes. Get in the car, we?ve got work to do. I see my daughter has already established our purpose. Good. Time is not on our side,? I said, climbing into the driver?s seat, trying not to talk anymore because my voice was shaking so much.
Without bothering to hold onto the steering wheel, I waited as we slid out of the Kingdom Hall?s parking lot, the engine roaring with our speed, leaving twin neat trails of smoking rubber behind us.
As we drove away, I looked at the little brick building in the rear-view mirror, then glanced at my daughter. She was looking back at Roscho in the backseat, her face lit up like a fireworks display, and I remembered how her mother had smiled when she had rescued me from a similar building all those long years ago.
My little girl had grown up, and I hadn?t even noticed.