Guardian

Eighteen

“Charban! Tell the Dancers to avoid the Covenant formation!”

“They’re a few light-minutes distant!” Charban protested, “and if I read this space display properly, they’re going to encounter the other warships very quickly because they’re accelerating toward them!”

Geary stared at his display. Unfortunately, the former ground forces general was reading his display right. The Dancers had not simply reduced their velocity to allow the Covenant ships to close on them more quickly. Instead, the Dancers had come around and kept accelerating, killing their own velocity in one direction and building it in the direction facing the oncoming enemy. The vectors on the Dancer ships led straight into the heart of the Covenant formation. “Did they acknowledge your warning to stay clear of those ships?” he asked, feeling an agony of frustration.

“Yes. Very clearly. Understand. I don’t know what they’re doing.” Charban sounded very unhappy and upset as well.

Desjani didn’t say anything, her eyes fixed on her display, her expression bleak. Dauntless was accelerating as fast as her main propulsion units could manage. There was nothing more she could do, nothing more any of them could do, but watch.

“Captain,” Lieutenant Castries reported, her voice awed, “the acceleration on the Dancer ships is exceeding our estimates of what their hulls could sustain. If they continue at their current rate, it will have them going point one one light speed when they reach the Covenant formation.”

“Thank you—” Desjani began, then stared at Castries, then at Geary. “The Covenant ships are going point two four light. The combined velocity when they meet will be more than point three five light.”

Maybe there was a chance. “Unless those Covenant fire control systems are a lot better than ours, at point three five light they won’t have much chance of scoring any hits.”

“And the Dancers are small targets,” Desjani said. “And the Covies don’t have nearly as much firepower as we’d expected.” One of her hands had formed into a fist, which was slowly, softly, rhythmically, hitting one arm of her seat.

“One minute to contact between the Dancers and the Covenant formation,” Castries said.

Geary blinked as the two groups of ships swept through each other. At the last moment before contact, the Dancers had narrowed their own formation, sudden changes of vectors by the Dancer ships that would have rendered impossibly hard what had already been a very difficult fire control problem for the Covenant ships. The Dancers had torn by the central Covenant ship in the formation close enough to freeze Geary’s breathing for a moment even though the Dancers were there and past before he could grasp what they were doing.

“I know we can work with them,” Desjani said in an outraged voice, “but those Dancers are crazy.” She slapped her controls, throttling back Dauntless’s main propulsion units slightly.

Ahead of them, the Covenant ships had pivoted and were braking, trying to reverse course in place rather than maneuver the formation through a wide turn. “They’ve got too much momentum to shed,” Desjani complained. “And they’re wasting it all.”

“A turn-in-place maneuver looks sharper than a formation swing,” Geary commented.

“So a peacetime fleet got used to doing it that way? Idiots. All right, everyone, we’re going to intercept them a lot faster. Let’s see if we can knock off that bird’s other wing.”

With the Covenant ships reducing their velocity rapidly, the time to contact was shrinking very quickly as well. Desjani adjusted Dauntless’s vector to aim for the still-intact side of the Covenant formation.

“You’re giving them a lot of warning where you’re going to hit them,” Geary murmured.

She lowered her brow at him. “No, I’m giving them a lot of warning as to where I want them to think I’m going to hit them. I’ve been watching this guy Black Jack. He does that a lot.”

But he still doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. “Sorry.”

Desjani carefully designated targets for the ship’s fire control systems as the last minute before contact began running down. “Hang on,” she advised her crew, then whipped Dauntless onto a slightly different vector. The difference had been a tiny one, but given the distances involved and the relatively small size of the Covenant formation, that bob to one side meant Dauntless tore through the already whittled-down wing of the Covenant flotilla rather than hitting the opposite, untouched wing.

Geary barely caught the alerts as Covenant missiles aimed at where Dauntless had been going strove to compensate for the change in her track and failed, as Covenant particle beams and grapeshot tore through empty space.

The targets of Dauntless, though, hadn’t changed vectors, making them sitting ducks as the battle cruiser poured fire into them during the fraction of a second while they were in range before the Alliance warship was through the Covenant formation.

Desjani had ignored the corvettes this time. Most of her fire had hit one of the megacruisers, which was now rolling out of formation, all systems dead. The remaining shots from Dauntless, including the null-field generator, had hit a second megacruiser, which was still with the formation but was now riddled with damage. The hole eaten into the megacruiser by the null field made it look as if a giant had taken a large bite out of one side of its bow.

Under the push of her maneuvering thrusters, Dauntless was swinging up, to port, and around again, aiming once more for the undamaged wing of the Covenant formation. For their part, the Covenant ships had finally killed their velocity in the original direction and were now accelerating back toward the Dancers, who were engaging in a complex pattern of interweaving maneuvers among themselves as they headed back in the direction of the hypernet gate. But the Dancers had stopped accelerating, holding their velocity at a rate that would allow the Covenant ships to catch them again.

“They’re acting as bait,” Geary said in wonderment. “They’re dancing in front of the Covies, just out of reach, taunting them.” And the Covenant commander, enraged, unable to come to grips with the Alliance battle cruiser which had been his original target, was locked on trying to strike the mocking alien ships dancing just out of reach.

What had Charban complained about? He thought the Dancers were withholding something, were not admitting how well they could communicate with humans. It’s the same sort of thing, isn’t it? Dangle the objective just out of reach of whoever you’re dealing with. Is that what the Dancers are doing to us in a different way? But why? Because that’s how they do things, and they may not even realize they’re doing it when it comes to talking with us? Or are they doing it deliberately, to get us to pursue some goal they’ll keep just beyond our grasp?

“They’re just holding formation.” Lieutenant Yuon sounded baffled.

It took Geary a moment to realize that the lieutenant was talking about the Covenant ships. It was true. Even though the Covenant flotilla had lost nearly half of its ships, the remaining ships had stayed rigidly in formation, a now-lopsided bird with only one wing.

Desjani spoke with dawning realization. “This is the opposite of what we were like, isn’t it? We were fighting without regard for formation, just slugging it out, before you reminded us how good formation fighting could multiply our effectiveness. But these guys are acting like they can’t imagine breaking formation. They haven’t even adjusted the formation to compensate for their losses or form a more effective defense. It’s like there’s a spot they have to be in relative to the guide ship, and they aren’t going to move from that spot even if the living stars showed up and said go.”

Dauntless had swept through her turn and, instead of continuing on toward the undamaged wing of the Covenant formation, was lining up on the center of that formation. Desjani clearly intended to take out the flagship this time. Geary didn’t question that targeting decision.

The Covenant ships did not pivot to face the oncoming Alliance battle cruiser, instead continuing to accelerate at their best rate toward the Dancers. Still moving fairly slowly relative to Dauntless, they fired weapons that could bear aft and down, scoring several hits this time as Desjani bored in on her target.

Specter missiles leaped away from Dauntless, the entire volley aimed at one of the megacruisers, then the battle cruiser tore through the Covenant formation again, hammering the megacruiser from which Mister Medal’s transmissions had come.

As Dauntless began another wide turn, her thrusters pushing her down and to starboard this time, Geary watched the Covenant flagship explode. Near the site of the flagship’s destruction, the megacruiser targeted with specter missiles had taken multiple hits on its stern and was spinning wildly away from the formation.

“One more run ought to do it,” Desjani said.

“Captain!” Lieutenant Castries called. “Escape pods are launching!”

“From which ship?” Desjani asked sharply.

“Um… all of them.”

Once again, Geary found himself watching his display in disbelief. The megacruiser badly hurt on the second firing run was spitting out escape pods, as was the megacruiser that had lost propulsion on this attack run. But so was the so-far-untouched last-surviving megacruiser, as were the three remaining corvettes. “They’re panicking.”

“They’re…?” Desjani gave him the look that meant his words made no sense to her.

“Their commander is dead. They may not even have known why he attacked us. Most of their ships have been destroyed. They know they’re outmatched in firepower, maneuverability, and tactical skill. They’re panicking.”

“What?” Desjani repeated. “That— What? They’ve taken losses, so they’re giving up?” She sounded far more confused than Yuon had been earlier.

Looking around the bridge, Geary saw the same incomprehension on the faces of everyone else. “They’ve never fought a real battle,” he said, speaking slowly. “Just practice fights, against fake enemies who probably always lost. Because no commander wants to lose, and in practice battles senior commanders always place themselves in charge of the ships playing their own side. This is the first time they’ve faced an enemy who didn’t cooperate with them, an enemy who wouldn’t roll over and play dead because that’s what the plan called for, an enemy experienced in real combat who played for keeps. This is the first time they’ve seen ships destroyed in battle, the first time they’ve seen comrades die, the first time their training and their weapons haven’t worked the way they were supposed to. Everything they’ve been told was right has turned out wrong, their officers probably have no idea what to do when things don’t go exactly according to plan, and discipline has simply disintegrated on those ships as everyone tries to save themselves.”

Desjani shook her head. “The next time they want to fight, they’d better be ready for a real fight. We could walk over these guys, couldn’t we? An Alliance fleet could wipe them out while they were still fainting at the sight of blood.” She sounded angry as well as contemptuous.

“If we wanted to,” Geary said. “Do you want to?”

“Hell, no. People who bail out of perfectly good warships aren’t worth the energy needed to put a hell lance through their escape pod.”

He could understand how the crews of the Covenant ships felt, their escape pods spreading out and away from the abandoned warships that plowed onward and, unless boarded by crews from some of the Sol shipping farther out toward the edge of the star system, would keep traveling outward until they were lost in the deep dark between stars. He could also understand how Desjani and her crew felt, hardened veterans who had sailed with Death too long to be shocked or surprised at his appearance among them. They knew war. The Covenant crews had known only parades and drills and practices with foreordained results. Dauntless had been built for war. The Covenant ships had been built for peace even though they had the outer shape of warships. When the crews and ships of the Alliance and the Covenant had met, the result had been inevitable.

Geary looked away from his display, wondering if this was indeed the last fight between the Alliance and the Covenant. “Envoy Charban, please ask the Dancers to rejoin us. We will be proceeding toward Old Earth as originally planned. Senators Suva, Costa, and Sakai, Envoy Rione, the engagement is over. Sol Star System is no longer menaced by an occupying military force, and the threat to the Alliance governmental representatives has been eliminated.” He threw that in just to remind the senators that they had been targets, too. “We will continue en route Old Earth.”

The Dancers were already coming back toward Dauntless, their ships moving in a pattern that might have meaning to the aliens but remained incomprehensible to humans.

“They want to go to the surface,” Rione said. She was leaning back in her seat in the conference room as if she didn’t have the endurance left to stand.

“The surface,” Geary repeated. “The Dancers went to send someone down to the surface of Old Earth.”

“Yes. Sol Star System authorities say they’ll have to debate and discuss the issue and asked us to wait. The government controlling that portion of Old Earth where Kansas is located, though, has invited us to land. They’re eager for the prestige of being the site of the arrival of the Dancers.” Rione looked at the image of Old Earth slowly rotating above the conference table. Dauntless and the Dancer ships were in orbit about that fabled planet, looking down on white clouds, blue oceans, and large continents that every human had seen images of but relatively few alive had actually gazed upon in person. Few lights showed on the parts of the globe experiencing night, but that was normal. Light sent outward and upward served no purpose but waste. Of more importance were the full-spectrum images that showed cities and towns in a density that was shocking to those from worlds where the human presence had come much later.

But many of those cities were patched by dead sections. Areas destroyed in war and still not reclaimed, or areas once populated when the number of humans on Old Earth had peaked, then depopulated during the bad times that had followed. Old Earth still had an impressively large population, but one that it could now sustain over the long term.

In some places, ancient cities along the coasts were girdled by berms and barriers to keep out waters that must have risen about them. In other places, less fortunate cities were marked by leaning, decrepit towers rising from shallow waters that had submerged lower structures.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Senator Suva said. “They survived so much. The scars are there, but the people of Old Earth are slowly bringing her back.”

Geary nodded. “Someone recently told me that we had learned to live without hope for a better future. But I don’t think that was entirely true. Hope always lived here. Old Earth survived her trials and still managed to send out the first colonies to other stars. Those colonies gave birth to others, until humanity has spread across hundreds of star systems.”

“Old Earth,” Charban noted with a smile, “is invoked not just as Home, but as an example that where life remains and resolve does not fail, victory, or at least survival, may always be possible.”

“But possibly at great cost,” Rione added.

“Speaking of victory,” Senator Costa said acidly, “you will doubtless be happy to hear, Admiral, that the people of Sol Star System are of conflicting opinions about our liberating them from the occupying force from the Covenant.” Now that the battle was done, and the Covenant warships eliminated, Costa had embraced the engagement without any hint of her previous misgivings. “They’re glad enough to be free of the occupiers, but they aren’t thrilled with the fighting or our own continued presence.”

“What did they say about the threat to you and the other Alliance senators?” Geary asked.

Costa’s smile stretched wide and sardonic. “No reply on that. No curiosity or questions, either. None at all. It’s enough to make you wonder if someone at Sol wasn’t involved in the matter.”

“We will make what contacts we can and perhaps learn more about what happened,” Senator Sakai said. “Admiral, we have gained agreement under Sol Star System tourism regulations to allow every member of the ship’s crew to visit the surface, one-third of the crew each day for three days. Old Earth will send up shuttles and take groups to different cities. The ancestors of those on this ship came from many different spots on Old Earth, and the people here will try to accommodate the wishes of our people to visit the places that mean the most to them. The Alliance government will cover the cost of those shuttle runs.”

“Sol didn’t offer to cover the cost?” Geary asked.

“That would have required special debate and procedures,” Sakai said. “I assumed we did not have decades to wait while those matters were resolved. There is another issue we must discuss. The authorities on the portion of Old Earth containing the region called Kansas would like a much clearer indication of where the Dancers wish to go. Kansas is a large area on the surface.”

Charban tapped a control, causing an image of angular letters to appear. “The Dancers sent me this when we reached orbit. More of that ancient text that said Kansas. These letters spell a word that might be pronounced Lee-on or Lie-ons.”

“We will send that to the authorities below,” Sakai said. “Perhaps they will be able to tell us where that is.”

“Have they explained why humanity expanded so much farther inward along the galactic arm than we did outward?” Geary asked. That issue had been bothering him ever since it was pointed out.

Was Sakai’s small smile tinged by darkness? It was hard to tell. Even his voice only might have carried a cutting edge. “The first colonies outward made that happen. In the outward direction, the first colonies were obsessed with their own profit and security. Worried that even newer colonies beyond them might surround them with potential enemies, or compete with them economically, they clamped tight controls on movement through their star systems and created barriers to further exploration and colonization. Since jump technology required anyone going beyond them to pass through them, they successfully prevented any threats to their security, prevented anyone else from exploiting the star systems farther outward from them, and became an isolated, forgotten backwater relative to the rest of humanity.”

“So, they won?” Geary asked sarcastically.

“They thought so.”

Geary stepped off the shuttle ramp, feeling the soil of Old Earth itself under his feet. The last time I actually stood on a planet was when I was on Kosatka with Tanya. Before that… a century ago, though it feels much shorter to me. And now Tanya and I are here. Home. The place all ancestors of all humans came from.

He blinked against the bright sun overhead and the strong, cold wind blowing across this land, carrying fine particles of dust and grit with it. The parched dirt had formed ridges and small dunes sculpted by the breezes.

Nearby, a battered tower of dark stone rose from the remnants of a larger structure, broken window openings gazing out blankly. The shuttle had landed in an open area surrounding the remains. Watching the landing area on the way in, Geary had seen that the open area had formed a square about the large building. Here and there, flat segments of concrete, the remains of roadways, were visible beneath the drifting soil.

Around the open square were some other dark stone ruins or just low mounds that marked the buried remnants of smaller structures, the mounds set in straight lines that marked the boundaries of the ancient roads. Buildings had been here, but centuries of abandonment had led to their collapse, time and weather eating away at the works of humanity.

He took a few steps, seeing that here the concrete road had given way to brick. A small patch of brick lay beneath his feet, the paving still intact though badly cracked. This section must have been buried for some time and only recently exposed by the unrelenting winds.

A few stunted trees grew amid the scrub grass that formed patchy oases among the dusty dunes. Large old tree trunks lay partially buried, their crumbling remnants testament to how fertile this land had once been.

Tanya had come to stand beside him, looking around curiously. “This is where the Dancers wanted to go? I’ve seen bombarded worlds that were in better shape.”

“It must have been a nice town, once,” Geary commented. “I don’t see signs of destruction. It must have been abandoned.” He pointed to some of the buildings. “You can still see signs of repairs. Some people must have hung on here as long as they could, even when the area turned into a desert.”

An atmosphere flier had come to rest nearby, the occupants walking out to stand amid the desolation. “Earth once endured orbital bombardments, and many other ills,” one of them said, her face saddened. “This is the place where Lyons, Kansas, once stood. Like many such towns, it could not survive the great changes in climate, the wars, and the many other troubles Old Earth has endured. People stayed and tried to keep this place and many like it alive, but in time their efforts were not enough. Here you see what became of the dreams of many people because of the folly of many people.”

“Such places are not disturbed, except by natural processes,” a man from Earth added. “They are a reminder, and a monument.”

“Like living in a graveyard,” Desjani muttered in Geary’s ear.

Another woman smiled and knelt to touch sprigs of brighter grass that were springing from the side of a mound. “We’ve finally managed to reverse the climate processes that led to this area’s becoming so dry. It was hard, reaching agreement with everyone on this world, but the steps have been taken to slowly bring the planet back into balance, avoiding the sort of shocks inflicted upon us in the past. The rains are coming back. They will bring back the rivers and the creeks and the lakes, then the trees and the animals of the plains will return. In time, so will the people. Perhaps they will build new homes here and rebuild this town,” she added with a sharp look at the man who had spoken of not disturbing such places. “This is a living world, not a museum.”

“We shouldn’t argue this in front of others,” the man replied, looking cross.

“If they’re not going to repeat all of our mistakes, they need to know all about those mistakes and how we’re dealing with them.” The second woman straightened, brushing dust from her trousers. “Though from what I hear, there have been a lot of mistakes made among our world’s children. Has the never-ending war between the Alliance and the Syndicate Worlds indeed finally come to an end?”

“Yes,” Geary replied. Mostly, he added silently. “Seeing this, actually grasping how many people died on Old Earth, I wonder how we survived long enough to reach other stars.”

“Survived to repeat the same follies,” Senator Suva said, her eyes tragic as she scanned their surroundings.

“I am certain that we would recognize both the follies and those who pursued such policies,” Senator Costa added in a caustic voice as she gazed meaningfully at Suva.

“I am certain that we would,” Suva said, with a scathing glance at Costa.

“We may lack for answers,” Rione said, as if commenting to no one in particular, “but we have a great deal of certainty, don’t we?”

“Do we have to carry our quarrels to this place?” Dr. Nasr asked before either Suva or Costa could lash out at Rione or each other again. “Your ancestors, my ancestors, may have lived here, may have visited this very spot. Do not their memories deserve respect rather than discord?”

Geary looked around, seeing that Senator Sakai and Charban had also joined him outside. “What do you think?” he asked them.

“Home is the worse for wear, isn’t it?” Charban remarked.

“We were fortunate,” the woman from Earth who had first spoken said. “The lessons we learned and the technology we developed in making Mars habitable played a large role in helping this world recover from the damage we inflicted upon it. And what we learned about a functioning ecology in order to build crewed ships that could carry generations of people to other stars during voyages lasting more than a century in normal space has guided us in repairing the ecologies of the Earth.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” another of her companions added. “Only by leaving our Home could we find the means to save our Home. You should come to other places. See our forests, our cities. Not all of Home is like this, and even here the scars of the past will soon be covered by new life.”

“A living world,” the woman agreed pointedly, with another look at the man who had spoken of leaving all undisturbed. “A tired world, but still living, and not every person here is tired. The restless ones often go off world, though. The stars are an important safety valve for us.”

Nice for you, Geary thought. But that leaves us to deal with whatever those restless people want to do when they get out among the stars. He had noticed that none of the people from Earth had brought up the fight with the Covenant warships and those warships’ deliberate attack on an Alliance ship. They were deliberately avoiding any discussion of that matter.

Any further conversation was forestalled as one of the Dancer shuttles, a smooth ovoid similar in shape to their ships though much smaller, came to rest on the ancient roadway near the human shuttles. Everyone watched the gleaming Dancer craft, which balanced gently on the soil like a ballerina poised on one foot.

Geary’s skin prickled slightly. He looked around and saw Dr. Nasr nodding in approval.

“The people here set up an isolation screen around this whole area,” Nasr explained. “They have activated it as a precaution against contamination.”

“What is to happen?” one of the people from Earth asked.

“This is the Dancers’ show,” Rione replied. “We’ll have to see what they do.”

A circular opening appeared in the side of the Dancer craft, expanding from a tiny point to a large access. From the bottom of the opening, a short and broad ramp extended to touch the ground.

“Has this happened before?” another of those from Old Earth asked. “And how often? Or is this the first time an intelligence not our own has set foot to the soil of humanity’s Home?”

“They picked an odd place for it,” Senator Costa grumbled.

“Out of any place on Earth, they picked our land,” a woman from Earth declared proudly.

“But why would that matter to these aliens?” the first man asked pointedly.

“The Dancers always have their reasons,” Charban said, “even if those reasons don’t always make sense to us. I see something moving inside their shuttle.”

Two of the Dancers came out onto the ramp, wearing protective suits that helped mask their hideous-to-human-eyes appearance. Like a giant spider mated with a wolf was how most people described the Dancers. This was the first time Geary had seen one in person, and he was grateful for their wearing the protective gear even as he felt ashamed of that reaction.

The Dancers were carrying something between them, walking with a curious slowness.

It was an oblong container, made of some clear substance, about two meters long and perhaps a meter wide and deep.

Inside it…

“Ancestors preserve us,” Senator Suva gasped. “A human?”

Dr. Nasr walked up to the container as the Dancers lowered it to a level patch of ground with the same slow, careful movements. He looked down, then pulled an instrument from his belt and studied it. “A human who died a very long time ago. The body has been protected inside that container and thus preserved by natural mummification. The body is wearing some sort of protective suit. There is no sign of trauma. I cannot say how they died, but this person was not slain by violent means.”

Another Dancer came forward, holding out a much smaller container, this one opaque.

Dr. Nasr took the box with a slight, respectful bow, then looked inside. He reached in and held out some small objects. “Does anyone recognize these?”

One of the Earth representatives came forward and took them gingerly. “Ancient data-storage devices. Even if these have been protected and stored properly, it’s very unlikely the data on them still exists in readable form after so long. We might be able to recover something, though.”

“What of this?” Dr. Nasr held up a metal pin that glinted with color in the bright sun.

More of the people from Earth came forward, studying it, then one held it out toward Geary and the others from the Alliance. “In the old form of the language, it says Operation Long Jump.”

“What was that?” Geary asked, looking at the pin but not touching it. It didn’t seem right to mar this object from history with the touch of his fingers.

“I’m checking.” Another Earth representative was consulting a data pad. “There is little here. Secrecy in the old days and destruction of records since then have cost us much information. What our historians have pieced together is that Operation Long Jump was one of the earliest attempts to use jump space to reach other stars. Several of the experimental ships were lost, some automated and some with human pilots. Subsequent experience proved those jumps were aimed too far, beyond the ability of jump drives of that time to work properly.”

“They didn’t come out of jump,” Desjani said, her voice filled with horror. If there was one thing that could seriously rattle any sailor, it was the prospect of being trapped in jump space. “They died in jump. May the living stars have mercy on them. All the way to Dancer space? Decades, maybe, in jump. This person must have died long before coming out of jump space. There couldn’t have been enough food, water, and life support on their ship to survive a fraction of that time, even if being alone in jump space that long didn’t drive him or her insane.”

“There is no sign of violence,” Dr. Nasr repeated. “Self-inflicted or otherwise. Perhaps oxygen or other critical life support failed, bringing as peaceful an end as this poor pilot could hope for.”

“But the ship carrying this pilot did come out of jump eventually,” Charban said. “How?”

“Who knows?” Desjani said. “Why would anyone want to conduct experiments that involve tossing something into jump space when there isn’t any expectation it would come out again? No human would agree to that, once they understood what was going on, and why waste automated ships?”

“Perhaps the ship accidentally came close enough to a jump point much farther along than its original destination, and it popped out,” Geary speculated. “Or maybe jump space will eventually eject anything that doesn’t belong there if the object gets close enough to a gravity well. But who was this person?”

“Perhaps this will tell us,” Dr. Nasr said, holding up a small rectangle of metal with tiny letters and numbers embossed on it.

“The same old form of the language,” an Earth representative said, taking the tag and tilting it to catch the light of Sol. “It is hard to read. It says, ‘Maior… Paul… Crabaugh. 954… 457… 9903.’ That first word must be Major. Rank and name and a personal identification number used back then.”

“This is the last object in the box,” Dr. Nasr said. He had in his hand another piece of metal, this one about half the size of the palm of a hand, rectangular, and with an enameled decoration on one side. The ancient enamel still shone brightly in the sunlight.

As the Earth representative took the object, Geary craned his head to see the decoration. There were big letters on it, easy enough to read, over a scene of fields of bright green vegetation heavily dotted with large flowers bearing vivid yellow petals.

“The large word says Kansas,” the man from Earth read. “The small word says Lyons. This place. A souvenir. Perhaps from his family. Made when this town still lived and such plants grew here, as they will again. He took this into space with him, to remind him of home.”

“Now we know why the Dancers wanted to come here,” Rione said. “They were bringing him back.”

For a long time, no one spoke. The Dancers waited silently near the hatch to their shuttle. The wind sighing through the ruins of the town was the only sound.

“Why didn’t they tell us why they needed to come here?” Desjani finally asked.

“How would they have explained it?” Charban replied. “Apparently, they felt an obligation to return the body here. If they had told us at Varandal that they had him, we would have wanted him given to us at Varandal. If they had then refused to turn over the remains for reasons they couldn’t convey to us, what would we have done?”

“Totally misinterpreted things,” Rione said.

Dr. Nasr knelt by the container holding the remains of Major Crabaugh. “I see no signs of autopsy or other invasive procedures. If they examined his body, they did so only by noninvasive means.”

“They respected him,” Costa said, sounding angry. But as she glared at the other humans, it was clear her anger was not aimed at the Dancers. “They didn’t take him apart, they didn’t desecrate the body, they didn’t treat him like some strange animal cast up on their doorstep. Instead, they treated his remains as if he were…” She struggled for words.

“One of theirs,” Dr. Nasr finished for her. He stood up but continued looking down at the remains. “They did not know who he was, or what he was, or where he had come from. His appearance was very different from their own, perhaps as hideous in their eyes as the Dancers appear to us. But they looked at the artifacts with him, they looked upon him, and they saw a creature who must be like themselves in many ways. A creature whose remains deserved respect. A creature with a family and a home, both of which might be waiting for his return. They looked upon him and did not see the differences. They saw what this human must have in common with them, and when they could, they brought his carefully protected remains back to his home.”

“They have shamed us,” Senator Suva said. She was standing very straight, tears running down her face. “They have shamed us. We would not have done as well. We never have, and even after so many centuries of supposed progress, we still look at each other and see only the differences between us.”

“I will not be shamed by something that looks like that,” Senator Costa muttered, then gave Suva a challenging look. “I won’t be less than them. What they can do, I can do.”

Suva hesitated, then nodded. “We can try.”

Standing beside Geary, Senator Sakai spoke softly. “For so many years we searched for them. For someone like ourselves, yet different. When we found them, we thought we could learn from them, that whatever they were they would see things in us that we did not. It seems the philosophers were right. But will knowing this be enough to overcome human folly?”

“We don’t even know if we’re interpreting their actions here correctly,” Geary said in a very low voice so only Sakai and Desjani could hear. “But I don’t think I want to bring up that possibility. Maybe what we think we’re seeing is best left unexamined for now.”

Tanya reached out and squeezed Geary’s wrist. “Those sorts of questions are way above my pay grade. We got the Dancers here, and the Dancers did what they wanted to do. What do we do now?”

Geary looked around at the crumbling ruins of this town, at the remains of Major Crabaugh, brought home at last, at the Dancers in their armor, and the humans from the Alliance and from Sol. At the new grass springing up nearby, grass that matched that in the ancient decoration. The past lay heavy on Old Earth, yet the living were looking to the future.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “Once the crew finishes visiting Home, once our senators finish their talks with the authorities here, and once all the ceremonies are done, we’ll go back to our own home. We have work to do.”