Alien Research

CHAPTER 33

ALGAR LAUGHING WAS PROBABLY a lot better than Algar threatening to space me again, so I tossed this into the win column.

Noted that for all of this, Adriana hadn’t moved or reacted, other than when Algar had put her into a sitting position. As I looked carefully, she wasn’t breathing, or moving, or blinking, but she didn’t look dead. “What have you done to her?”

“Nothing. She’s in stasis. She won’t remember any of this. You’ll have saved everyone and she’ll go on about your mission with no memory of me or this situation.”

White looked as if he’d like to leave, so took that as a sign we should get moving. But I wasn’t quite ready. “So, what will you do if Al Dejahl wins? If all the people, Alfred included, are mind-controlled or destroyed?”

“I’m not like the thing you call ACE. I’ll just leave. Find another group of interesting beings and hang out with them for a while.”

“Will those interesting beings allow you to hide as well as we do?”

“Can’t see why not.”

“Can’t see how. While about half of the Alpha Centauri system has humanoids on it, you probably can’t pass for any of them. But you could walk outside right now and pass for a human. Other than your eyes, which I’ll wager a really good pair of contacts could fix.”

“What’s your point?”

“You won’t do anything that can show you’re here to those hunting for you, I get it. But you’re going to be hard-pressed to find a planet so easy to hide on, especially since you’ll have to go closer to the galactic core. And I know you could tell us something, anything, that would help.”

Algar nodded. “I could. And then, the next time, you’d come to me again, and you’d harangue me some more, beg, plead, threaten, whatever. And maybe I’d do it again. And then, after a very short while, it becomes a habit. And instead of doing for yourselves, suddenly you’re hailing your great god Algar and your free will and my anonymity are things of the past.”

“We don’t do that with ACE.”

“Ah, but you do. By all rights, the Z’porrah invasion should have destroyed this world, certainly the main city under attack. And yet Washington, D.C. and all the rest of the world still stand. And the humans didn’t nuke each other in the process. You didn’t prevent any of that—ACE did. Because of you. It got involved, and it gave itself away.”

“Is ACE in trouble?”

“Not as you’d understand trouble, but yes. Because all stronger, immortal beings of all kinds have a form of Prime Directive.”

“That’s what you did, your crime. You interfered.”

He snapped his fingers again. Nothing changed. Other than, as I looked around, White and Gower seemed as immobile as Adriana. “No.” Algar reached up and patted my cheek. “No, that’s what I chose not to do.”

“So you’re a good guy?”

He shrugged. “Good is in the eyes of the beholders. Is it good that I’ve allowed not one or two but hundreds of planets and civilizations to destroy each other and themselves? Is that a moral choice?”

Algar wasn’t asking lightly or rhetorically, so I thought about my reply before I gave it. “I guess it depends on whether or not you value free will.”

“That’s one way of looking at it, yes.”

“Were you one of the race we call the Ancients?”

“No, but we knew of them. That’s why I wandered out this way. Followed their paths, in my own way, of course.”

“Of course. The Ancients interfered.”

“Yes, they did. And both good and bad came of it. But they weren’t immortals.”

“I don’t see the difference, honestly. Short life or a long one, why does that affect your moral code?”

He sighed. “Let me give you more perspective, and more food for thought. Most Black Hole People remain within the Black Hole Universe. Your science is eons away from determining that all the black holes are interconnected, particularly how they’re connected. We have a rich, full universe that provides us infinite work and entertainment. But some of us are chosen to leave.”

“Were you chosen or did you run away?”

“I was chosen. I was in charge of a solar system. My third, by the way. Billions and billions of souls in that system. I chose to let them have free will. All of them. And while there were many leaders, on one of the planets eventually one leader was more strong and charismatic and powerful than any before him. And he destroyed his world, sent a bomb more frightening than your worst nukes right into his own sun. Billions died, all at once, not just on that planet, but on the others in that system. There were eight planets teeming with life in that solar system, wiped out by one power-mad individual’s free will. Was my allowing that to happen a ‘good’ moral choice?”

“Um . . .”

“Let me make it more complicated. Or maybe easier. That took place in the system one over from the system the beings you call the Ancients came from. They chronicled the event as a warning to others, and did their best to spread their good word.”

“I knew they were missionaries!”

“Yes, and your ability to make those kinds of leaps is why we’re having this conversation right now.”

“I’m not the only one who can so leap.”

“No, but you’re the one who was at the right place at the right time and made that leap when it mattered. Timing and luck count much more than most humans want to believe. Anyway, the beings on the one world, the world responsible for the destruction of its entire solar system, survived. In a sense.”

That very bad feeling from earlier returned, sharing that I wasn’t going to like the next things Algar said.

“You call them parasitic superbeings. I was on Alpha Four when the man you called Ronald Yates was banished to Earth. I might have even suggested it.”

“Why?”

“Being helpful. It was clear he was a danger. Along the lines of that other leader, the one who destroyed his entire solar system. He was very like the one I’d allowed to destroy every living thing he could.”

“Why didn’t you kill Yates, then?”

“Because there is a chasm larger than the Grand Canyon between ‘might,’ ‘will,’ and ‘did.’”

“Ah, the Minority Report defense. I’ll allow it.”

“So glad.” Algar definitely had a sarcasm knob, and apparently it flipped to eleven easily. “Because of what I can do, I saw when the leader who’d destroyed his own solar system arrived and joined with Yates.”

He paused, presumably waiting for a reaction from me. I didn’t have one. Well, not one I could verbalize. Maybe that was Algar’s point.

“So, consider that I’m the reason Mephistopheles ever existed on your planet. And yet I did nothing then and still do nothing now to either stop or hinder either him or his offspring. Now what are your thoughts about free will and passive noninterference?”

Thought long and hard before I replied. And looked at White while so thinking. “Some of his offspring are good and some are bad. And one side will win. You are on the side of good, so to speak, because you help us, and I don’t think you’re doing Ronaldo Al Dejahl’s laundry, for example.”

He chuckled. “No, I’m not.”

“So you aligned with the good guys as an active choice. Because you could have chosen either side when you came here, couldn’t you? Or no side at all and just wandered off like you say you will should we annihilate ourselves.”

This I didn’t buy. Algar was attached to the A-Cs, more than he seemed willing to admit. Or maybe he told himself he wasn’t attached so that when he did nothing it didn’t bother him as much.

“Yes. Alfred is still unaware that I exist and I could have chosen to not let Richard know.”

“You said I couldn’t comprehend your crimes. But I can.”

Algar shook his head. “I’ve explained this in simplistic terms, as if, for my people, you were a little child. There’s always more going on than you see or are aware of, including the true nature, effect, and ramifications of choices. Layers and twists upon layers and twists. That’s how the universe works. Even when you win, somehow, you can still lose. You know that from experience.”

“True enough. So why tell me all this? Will I forget it the moment I’m away from you?”

“No, but your thoughts about me will be shielded. As for why?” He shrugged. “As I said, you’re my favorite.”

“Why?”

He smiled slowly. “You always say please and thank you. You’ve never taken what I do for granted. And I find your offers of gifts of milk or money in shoes to be somewhat . . . endearing.”

“So I not only actually called it, in that you’re more like the A-C Elves than a confusing scientific answer, but you also like me because I’m polite? Wow. Mom and Dad would be so proud. If I could tell them about this. And Christopher. I’d love to tell Christopher about this. I might even be able to do it without a lot of gloating.”

“Which you can’t. I’d say sorry but I’m not. You won’t be able to talk about me, not even with Richard or Paul, unless you’re with me and I allow it, such as I have now.”

“Or Gladys,” I added. “She knows about you, even if she can’t tell Al Dejahl about you. Which is good. But I can talk to her about you once she’s okay. I mean, we brought her back from under Ronaldo’s mind control before. We can do it again. You could do it, if you wanted to.”

Algar snapped his fingers. White and Gower were breathing again. Or we were back from whatever time hold Algar had put the two of us into. I wasn’t sure and doubted he’d give me a straight answer if I asked.

“Well, about Gladys. There’s more than a little problem with Gladys.”

“What problem is that?” Gower asked.

Algar shook his head. “You’ll get to find out.”

“But you’re not going to tell us?” Figured he wasn’t, but also figured I should ask.

“No.”

“You are just like the Q.” I’d never liked the Q, because they were pompous, capricious, all-powerful jerks. Algar had the potential to make the Q look good. And he knew it, too, and clearly wanted me not exactly liking him. Why was the question.

“In a way, I suppose. But your situation is much less like Star Trek and much more like The Mummy.” With that he snapped his fingers and the four of us weren’t in the water tank area anymore.