Gibraltar Sun Read online

  Dieter Pavel rose to his feet and shook Mark’s hand. He had first met Pavel aboard PoleStar. Pavel had been the Coordinator’s representative.

  “Hello, Mark,” Pavel replied.

  “How are things in Toronto?”

  “Getting interesting. There is a lot of lobbying going on behind the scenes. You would think we were having a general election, or something.”

  “What’s the consensus?” Lisa asked.

  “There isn’t one,” Pavel answered. “Opinion seems to be tracking ideology. The conservatives want to go kill them all as soon as we can gather enough ships. The progressives are for making it didn’t happen. The moderates are of both minds, as usual. I expect whatever comes out of this conference, plus the debate in the fall, to solidify support in all three camps… support for what they already believe, that is.”

  “Typical,” Mark snorted.

  Pavel shrugged. “Human beings are human beings, Mark. They’ve responded this way since long before Caesar’s critics had a few sharp things to say to him on the Ides of March. They will probably respond this way in One Million, A.D., if we get that far.”

  Mark nodded. “I love mankind, but can’t stand people!” he quoted.

  “Exactly,” Pavel said, recognizing the literary allusion.

  As they spoke, the principals for the conference filed out onto the stage. The arrangements were standard for this sort of event: A long table to one side for the participants to sit, an ornate wooden lectern for the presenters, and an oversize holocube that was already flickering with interior static.

  Mark and Dieter took their seats to Lisa’s right and left. It seemed almost like old times.

  Dr. Fernandez stepped to the lectern and after twiddling with the controls of the hidden holo projector, he pressed a switch.

  Instead of the sound of a gavel banging wood coming from the overhead speakers, a short refrain of the Harvard fight song wafted over the audience. Slowly, over a period of seconds, a myriad of individual conversations ceased and the audience turned their attention to the stage.

  “Good morning,” Fernandez said, his amplified words issuing from the same speakers. “I hereby call the Winter Plenipotentiary Session of the Broan Institutes to order. I hope all of you are seated comfortably and have taken care of necessities before sitting down. It is going to be a long day. We will break for half-an-hour at 12:00 for a quick lunch, and will then get back to it.”

  He paused for dramatic effect and then got to the meat of his remarks.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are here on a vital mission. Out among the stars is a threat greater than any we have previously faced. The facts are these: We know about the Broa, but they are unaware of our existence. What do we do? As assigned by the World Coordinator, we have two teams fleshing out two competing plans. The Colorado Springs team has been assigned the task of figuring out an offensive strategy. The Paris team is working on a defensive strategy. My own team is studying a single specimen of the enemy to obtain insights in support of both plans.

  “Over the next two days, we will hear reports from both groups. Keep in mind that these are constructive suggestions that those reporting have been ordered to evaluate. Whether you agree or disagree, it is your duty to give these speakers your undivided and polite attention. If you find that you must have a conversation with the people around you, then I request that you take it out into the foyer.

  “Since Colorado Springs led off the Spring Review, our first speaker this morning will be Jean-Pierre Landrieu, Director-General of the Institute in Paris. Director Landrieu will give you a rundown on what his team has accomplished since last we met.

  “Director Landrieu!”

  #

  A tall silver-haired man with an indefinable quality that labeled him “French” strode to the lectern and spent a few seconds adjusting the controls. Suddenly, a picture formed in the holocube. It showed the logo of the Paris Institute, a stylized white dove with an olive branch dangling from one closed claw.

  “Bonjour,” he said. “I would like to thank Director Fernandez for hosting this meeting. I think all of us will learn a great deal as this is to be our penultimate act before we submit our respective plans to parliament. Later, each working group will set up shop in the breakout rooms and invited guests will be able to ask detailed questions of the experts. My intention this morning is not to get into every specific of our plan to make humanity safe, but rather to give you an overview. As Director Fernandez said, it is our mission at the Paris Institute to come up with a method to avoid a direct confrontation with the Broa.

  “I have heard some refer to the mission of the Paris Institute as ‘figuring out how to hide from the monsters.’ The implication is that a defensive strategy is somehow dishonorable, even cowardly, too effeminate to be considered by the more macho among us.

  “Such a reaction is normal human behavior. For all of our history, at the sound of trouble, the women have grabbed up the children and run away, while the men have grabbed their spears and charged toward the sound of battle. It is our species’ natural fight or flight reflex, and it has served us well.

  “But giving in to an unthinking reflex can also get you killed. If the sound of battle consists of the chatter of machine guns, or the whine of an electromagnetic dart thrower, the men would do better to grab up their spears and follow the women and children. For there are situations when one finds himself hopelessly outmatched. Better to fight another day than to make a useless charge at an enemy you have no hope of defeating.

  “The first thing we at the Paris Institute considered was whether we have any hope of defeating the Broa. Here is what we found:

  “According to Sar-Say, and confirmed by the Crab Nebula expedition, the Broan Sovereignty consists of approximately one million stars spread across the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. Like all really large statistics, one million is a number that is difficult to comprehend. Oh, we speak blithely of millions and billions, but how many of us can truly visualize such a large number? In truth, we count much as our ancestors did: one, two, three, many.

  “Let us take some time to understand what it means that the Broa have conquered a million star systems. Sar-Say has told us that they prefer their worlds less populated than Earth, so assuming each subject world supports one billion beings – Sar-Say’s estimate – we face one thousand trillion sentient beings! To put that in perspective, ladies and gentlemen, that is a population one hundred thousand times our own!

  “Consider, the military power inherent in such a population. Even if each of our ships destroys one hundred Broan ships in battle, their fleet will still be a thousand times larger than ours. If they invade the Solar System, they could easily devote an entire battle fleet to each of our ships, and still have hundreds of other fleets available for the assault on Earth.

  “If that doesn’t frighten you, consider some additional statistics. Assuming that their worlds average the same surface area as Earth, their trillions of people live on 1.5 x 10 square kilometers of land. They sail 3.6 x 10 square kilometers of ocean. What of their industrial power? They mine enough iron in a century to construct a full scale model of the Earth. They generate enough power in the same period to vaporize our world. I am not speaking of merely scorching the surface as we once feared we would do ourselves during the nuclear era. I am speaking of boiling the whole thing down until there is not so much as a pebble remaining.

  “I hope these examples have given you some idea as to the size of our challenge, ladies and gentlemen. Speaking of going to war against the Broa is like declaring war on an earthquake. It is as though the people of Pompeii assembled their legions to march on Vesuvius.

  “In our arrogance, we human beings do not like to admit there are forces in this universe against which we are powerless. Unfortunately, such forces do exist. Sometimes the only defense is to get out of the way. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those times!”

  Director Landrieu paused for dramatic effect and to sip fro
m a glass of water. He put the water down and looked out over the audience, judging the effect his words were having, before he continued:

  “We cannot hope to defeat the Broa. Our only hope of survival is to get out of their way. It is the mission of the Paris Institute to figure out how to do that.

  “I am here today to tell you that we have succeeded in our mission!”

  #

  A low murmur flowed across the audience like a wave hitting a beach. Landrieu pressed a control on the lectern and a three dimensional flowchart appeared in the cube.

  “This, ladies and gentlemen, is our plan. To avoid the attention of the Broa, we must lower our profile in the universe. To do that, we will have to abandon our interstellar colonies and substantially reduce the electromagnetic noise we broadcast into space.”

  Fernandez went on to explain that each time humanity planted a colony in another star system, the probability that they would be discovered by the pseudo-simians doubled. Not only did multiple human occupied star systems increase the likelihood of a Broan ship or probe stumbling across them, but the colonies broadcast electronic noise to the heavens. He asked the audience to visualize human space as a white spot glowing in the blackness of space, a spot that had been expanding and brightening over the last couple of generations.

  Landrieu highlighted a different section of the flow chart.

  “We also must reduce our own electromagnetic signature here in the Solar System. This planet is the focus of a radio bubble that has now expanded to a thousand light-years in diameter, and which now encompasses several thousand stars. The bubble sweeps past more stars each year. Sooner or later, one of those stars will be ruled by the Broa.

  “Unfortunately, barring the invention of a time machine, we can do nothing about past sins. Somewhere out there, episodes of I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and The Howdy Doody Show are sweeping starward, ready to be picked up by a Broan eavesdropping station.” Landrieu halted and smiled at the audience. “I presume you North Americans know those names. Being French, I would have chosen different examples.

  “However, the original broadcasts were relatively low power and the strength of these signals is very weak after so many years. As you can see from the diagram…” The holocube flashed to reveal a different colored chart. “The power level of much of what was broadcast by our ancestors has dropped below the level of the cosmic background radiation or has been absorbed by interstellar gas and dust.

  “However, the radio noise we ourselves pump skyward is a different matter. We broadcast much more powerful beams at the stars and at frequencies that penetrate gas and dust. These signals are dangerous to us. While we cannot call back our own signals any more than we can call back those of our ancestors, we must strive to limit future emissions to the lowest level reasonably attainable. Therefore, our institute will propose a complete overhaul of our planet’s electromagnetic infrastructure to eliminate such emissions.”

  Landrieu reviewed the steps to reduce humankind’s footprint in the universe. They involved a return to the days when electronic signals traveled via copper wire and fiber optic cable. No signal exceeding 100 milliwatts would be allowed at any frequency able to penetrate the ionosphere. For space communications, only comm lasers would be used, and those carefully regulated to prevent beam dispersal.

  The timeline for completing the pullback from the stars would be set at twenty years, and when the evacuation ended, each of the 250 ships needed to accomplish the task would be destroyed.

  “So long as we are able to travel to other stars, some percentage of humankind will do just that. To prevent a foolish individual from striking out for the Deep Black, we will have to eliminate their capability to do so. That means we must forego starships.”

  There was much more to Director Landrieu’s talk. He spoke of new laws to be passed and basic rights to be sacrificed in the pursuit of safety. It was 12:15 hours when his presentation finally wound down.

  “That is what we of the Paris Institute will present to parliament in the fall,” Landrieu said in closing. Thank you for listening. I believe it is now time for lunch.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mark’s boss was next on the agenda. As is usual at such meetings, the moderator’s plea to limit the meal to half an hour meant that it took 45 minutes to reassemble a quorum. By the time the principals returned to the stage, three-eighths of the auditorium seats were filled.

  Noticeable among those missing was Dieter Pavel.

  “Where’s your friend?” Mark asked Lisa as the two of them resumed their seats. Lunch had been a hurried affair at the university’s main dining hall.

  “He had work to do,” she replied, “since you wouldn’t take him up on his offer.”

  At the break, Pavel had offered to host the two of them at one of Boston’s better restaurants. Mark refused, citing time constraints. He suggested that Pavel accompany them, but Dieter begged off.

  “Sorry, but it would have taken too long. I need to be here when my boss speaks.”

  “That’s okay,” Lisa replied. “I accepted his invitation to dinner. You’re invited, too, of course.”

  “I wonder,” Mark mused, reflecting on his past rivalry with Pavel.

  Mark unclipped the datacom from his belt while Lisa rooted around in the oversize handbag she carried. She extracted her comm unit after a few seconds. Both of them keyed for the briefing books the Gibraltar Institute had prepared for the conference. The classic view of the Rock of Gibraltar from the land side was instantly displayed on their screens. The identical logo shimmered in the holocube on the stage.

  After the audience settled down, Director Fernandez stepped to the lectern and introduced his colleague from Colorado Springs. Director Hamlin strode to the center of the stage.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to thank Alan Fernandez for his hospitality this week. He has kept us occupied and fed us well. I would also like to welcome the Members of Parliament and the representatives of the Coordinator. And I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge the hard work put forth by the members of my own team to get ready for this meeting.

  “Friends, I am here today to share with you the progress we have made in plotting a proactive strategy for ending the Broan threat. Jean-Pierre did me a favor this morning when he outlined the size of the Sovereignty for you. That means I do not have to plow the same ground.

  “Jean-Pierre was correct in his main point. We cannot fight them head on. If we had every army there ever was at our disposal, they would be woefully inadequate to launch a frontal assault against the Broa.

  “Therefore, let us stipulate that the Broan behemoth is so large that we are like the mouse who accidentally finds himself in the elephant’s cage. He is frightened to be there and spends all of his time trying to keep from being crushed by the elephant’s careless steps. However, being alert to danger is not the same as being so frightened that one loses one’s ability to think.

  “Thinking, ladies and gentlemen, is what we have been doing these many months in Colorado Springs. I am here today to brief you on some of our conclusions.

  “As Director Landrieu has stated, the most important thing we must safeguard is our anonymity. Should the Broa ever discover the location of Sol, we will lose the war before it has barely begun. Thus, safeguarding the location of Earth must be our first and overriding priority. All of our plans have taken this point into account. We have designed multiple layers of safeguards into our plans to prevent the Broa from discovering where we are to be found in the galaxy. In fact, we have established an entire section that does nothing else.

  “It is important that we treat the Broa with respect, but that we not let that respect grow into unreasoning fear. No matter how great their power, the pseudo-simians are not gods sitting atop Mt. Olympus, ready to launch lightning bolts down on any mortal who displeases them. They may be the elephant, and we the hapless mouse, but we are not helpless against them. In studying them, we have noted a number of frailt
ies — weaknesses we can exploit, if only we choose to do so.

  “I can hear the questions going through your heads even now. ‘What weaknesses?’ you ask. ‘They are lords and masters of more than a million suns!’

  “That very fact points to the first of their frailties. The Broa have built an empire that is impressive in its scope and duration. At first glance, their conquests make them appear so powerful that the only sensible thing for us to do is lie down and let someone throw dirt over us. However, first impressions are not necessarily accurate.

  Hamlin smiled. “I am put in mind of something one of my old professors once told me. ‘Dex, lad,’ he said. ‘When faced with an insurmountable problem, sometimes it helps to expand the scope until the solution becomes obvious.’

  “Think, ladies and gentlemen. We view the Broa as gigantic because we are seeing them from the vantage point of the mouse as we stare upward at the great gray mass towering above us. But size is relative. If one looks at the Broa from a different vantage point, say that of the galaxy as a whole, they do not seem very large at all. In fact, they become merely a bigger mouse.

  “Astronomers long argued over whether the probability of life among the stars was high or low, and whether or not the development of intelligence is routine. Our own early explorations answered the first part of that question when we discovered so many terrestrial-class worlds suitable for colonization.

  “We have Sar-Say to thank for answering the second part of the ancient SETI debate. Judging from the size of the Sovereignty, we now estimate the likelihood of an intelligent species arising on any world possessing an oxygen atmosphere to be approximately 10 percent.

  “When one considers the 200 billion stars in this galaxy alone, and 100 billion galaxies beyond our own, the number of intelligent races in the universe must be truly astronomical! In fact, some of my specialists have argued that intelligent life must arise on a terrestrial world, given sufficient time.

  “The fact that the Broa have conquered a million species is impressive, but think of all the races they have not conquered! Given the target rich environment in which they find themselves, one must question why they stopped at a mere million stars? Why leave a billion or so other races in the galaxy unmolested?