Gibraltar Earth Michael McCollum(1)

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far too utopian to ever be possible in the real world. May I inquire, Mark, whether you are a true
believer?
Are you asking my religion?
Vasloff smiled again. Not in the formal sense. How a man worships God is his own business. In another
sense, however, I suppose I am. Are you expansionist or conservator in your outlook?
I haven t thought about it all that much, Mikhail. I suppose that I favor the idea of going out to explore
the stars. That is where our destiny lies, isn t it?
How do you know that? Vasloff asked nonchalantly as he speared the last knackwurst.
"I have ... that is, I had someone close to me who was part of the effort. Her enthusiasm infected me, I
suppose.
Vasloff watched the storm of emotion reflected in the younger man s face. He did not pry. I am a much
older man than you. Would you grant that I may have learned something during my time on this battered
old world?
Granted.
When I was growing up in my home city of Perm in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, I used to fish
with my friends in the Kama River. There are some of the largest fish you have ever seen in that river, and
ferocious! You would not believe how they fight. I ve often wondered what they taste like.
You never ate one?
Vasloff turned around to signal the waitress for another beer, then turned back to Mark. No, I never ate
one. The Kama is a large river, about the size of your Ohio, in fact. However, it has been contaminated
with heavy metals and industrial poisons since Soviet times. No matter what we do we can never seem to
find all of the old waste dumps left lying around by our ancestors. Fishing on that river, knowing that I
could never partake of its bounty, that more than anything is what convinced me that I was a conservator
at heart.
What has that to do with exploring the stars?
We have a beautiful river and fine game fish, yet because of contamination caused by people 300 years
dead, I cannot eat of the river s bounty. The lesson I draw from that fact is that life is very precariously
balanced on this world. We tend to forget that because we ourselves are so precisely matched to our
own particular ecological niche. Yet, how could it be otherwise? We evolved to fit this world more
precisely than a surgeon s micron glove fits his hand. We are matched to this, our environment, and no
other. My poor Kama proves that. A few heavy metals loose in the environment, some old toxins, and
our food supply is no longer fit to eat.
With such a precise balance between life and its environment, what are the odds that we will ever find a
world as closely suited to our kind of life as the Earth? So close to zero as to be nonexistent! That belief
leads me to the obvious conclusion: If there are no other Earths out there, why spend our precious
resources looking for them?
I had a professor in college who taught us that the formation of terrestrial type worlds is almost
inevitable given the correct planet size and distance from the system primary.
Your professor was wrong.
We ve discovered dozens of worlds with life on them and even have colonies on some of them.
The life we discover is poisonous to us, or lacks the proper nutrients, or has too many things which will
make us sick. As for our colonies, they are little more than outposts and never will be anything else. Each
of them is clinging precariously to the surface of worlds inherently inimical to our sort. The colonists
survive only by artificial environments and the infusion of billions of credits of subsidies each year. Take
away their subsidies and those worlds will soon be abandoned. That, my young friend, is the strategy of
Terra Nostra . Eliminate the subsidies and you eliminate the colonies! We need that money to clean up
the Kama River, among many other needs.
You seem sure of yourself, Mikhail. But what if you are wrong?
Vasloff took another sip of beer and said, Then I am wrong and no one will listen to me. However, I am
not wrong. The Holy Grail that the survey seeks does not exist, yet they subject us to danger merely by
looking for it.
What danger?
You know that the survey takes very great care with the biological specimens it brings back, don t
you?
Yes.
To date there has never been an extraterrestrial microorganism that could live in Earth s biosphere. This
fact alone proves my point that the planets of the universe are no less individualistic than snowflakes. We
cannot live on their worlds and they cannot live on ours. Yet, if we discover a world where we can live,
then it also follows that the pathogens of that world can migrate to Earth. What if the survey brings back
a plague, Mark? How will we all feel about exploring the stars then?
You are a persuasive advocate, Mischa.
You haven t yet heard my most persuasive argument about why we should not go out to the stars. Let
us assume that your professor was correct and that a terrestrial world circles every star we can see in the
sky. Think the scenario through. What would be the primary characteristic of a universe filled with
terrestrial worlds?
You tell me.
We know our environment eventually breeds intelligent life. Obviously, so would other terrestrial worlds.
So where are they?
Where are who?
The other species who have progressed far enough up the scale of intelligence to build starships. If we
can do it, anyone can. Why haven t they visited us, or at least, sent a radio signal in our direction? That [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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