THE ASSEMBLED humans sat there in silence, waiting eagerly for Rashaverak to state the Overlords’ proposals. But it was Karellen who began:

“You will know, of course, of the exploits of Mr Jan Rodricks?”

“No way am I going to forget that!” put in Rupert, petulantly. “He was my brother-in-law—briefly—in case everyone’s forgotten that.” He did not flinch at once again patronising the Overlords: the pain of his separation from Maia still stung, his re-awakened liaison with Ruby notwithstanding. But after a pause, during which no-one uttered a sound, he cooled off slightly. “All right: sorry. I reckon it was all my fault after all,” he continued. “That awful party stunt: my utter stupidity in fetching out that silly ouija table…”

“No-one is blaming anyone,” replied Karellen, kindly. “We do not even blame Mr Rodricks. He was fired up by an impulsive desire to find out more about our people. He asked the question about our home system on the spur of the moment. And once we realised what he was up to, we did not try to deter him. We merely watched him.”

“You mean—you knew?” asked Rupert, in some astonishment. “You knew he was going to stow away on your ship?”

“Of course we knew. Once we heard that he had visited your late friend Jack Sullivan, I went to investigate. Professor Sullivan showed me the ‘sperm whale’ that he was going to donate to our alien-life museum back on our home planet, and I could see at once that it was a dummy: a life-size model made up from an artificial skeleton covered in plastic and realistically painted. To tell the truth, I was relieved that Sullivan had not actually killed one of these rare and intelligent creatures just so as to provide a specimen for us. And I at once suspected a link with Jan’s aspirations. I went so far as to test Sullivan by making some mention of the legend, in your Bible, of the man supposedly swallowed by a ‘great fish’. Named Jonah. There’s even some similarity between the names ‘Jonah’ and ‘Jan’, don’t you think?—although that’s only a coincidence. And I observed Sullivan’s careful evasion of the topic—for all his professed innocence.”

“So you let Jan stow away!” exclaimed Ruth.

“Indeed we did,” continued Karellen. “We would have preferred that it would not have been aboard a ship bound for our home planet, but that is of little consequence, and few of our ships go from here to any worlds other than our own. As you may have realised, the voyage is a long one: the ship Jan hid himself in is still only just over one-third of the way to its destination, and he is still under the influence of narcosamine: the sleep-drug. He knows nothing of the Change, of course. When he arrives at our home planet, which is heavily built-up, he will find things unsettling. As I said, it would have been better had the ship been bound for a less developed world—but we shall ensure his safety and eventual return. I have of course sent a message to our world, requesting that he be well looked after and some of his curiosity satisfied. But he will not be allowed to stay there long. And we have a reason for bringing all this about.”

“What reason?” asked Ruth.

Rashaverak took over the account. “When the expected absorption of the Children’s minds into the Overmind takes place, about eighty years hence,” he began, “we anticipate that no Earthbound humans will remain alive. Jan, however, will have returned to Earth scarcely older, by his reckoning, than when he departed—and we shall take advantage of the opportunity to ask him to act as a witness. There is much we do not understand about the—apotheosis, you may call it—and we are still eager to study what happens—from all angles.”

“You mean, you wanted a human witness?” put in Rupert. “Why are you telling us all this? You don’t mean…” as a sudden thought struck him; “us!? You want us to be witnesses too?”

“That is our proposition,” said Rashaverak, calmly. “One human witness is well and good, but an additional witness or witnesses, observing the event from different angles—”

“You want to send some of us to your home planet?” exclaimed Ruth and Ruby almost simultaneously, in some alarm. But Leanne’s eyes were sparkling at the prospect of a voyage into space…

“Not at all,” said Rashaverak. “Remember that several years have elapsed since Jan’s exploit. If a ship were to depart today for our home planet, and even if there were a quick turnaround, it would almost certainly return too late.”

“So you’re planning to put us to sleep for eighty years?” asked Ruth. “Narcosamine?”

“No. That would not work either, I’m afraid. Firstly, narcosamine-induced sleep has never been attempted over that length of time. When he arrives at our home planet, Jan Rodricks will have been ‘under’ for only a few weeks of his time. Also: surely you know that, while narcosamine induces hibernation and slows down metabolism, it does not arrest the ageing process. You would all be dead of old age before you could be awakened.”

“So we’re back with relativity, then,” remarked Rupert.

“Exactly so,” replied Karellen. “But not a trip to our home planet. There is a planet we are in the process of colonising which is about twenty-five light years from Earth [see note 1]. It has a nitrogen-oxygen atmo­sphere which both you and we can breathe comfortably, and some primitive indigenous life. We believe it to be a reasonably safe environment, both for you and for us. I have discussed the possibility of a round trip with my superiors. Although the planet is not on our usual itinerary and we would not normally be able to justify the expense, the issue of recruiting witnesses has become so crucial that I have been given the necessary permission. We could accommodate up to six humans, and the round trip would take a little over fifty years by Earth’s reckoning, but only a few months from the ship’s perspective. As you said, Rupert, relativity works in our favour.”

‘My superiors’ thought Rupert. Who might they be? He’d always thought of Karellen as the Number One Big Cheese in charge of the Overlords’ mission to Earth. Surely he couldn’t have communicated with his home planet, what with the eighty-year time delay between question and answer! Perhaps he was referring to some hyper-intelligent AI on board one of his ships…

…or maybe with the Overmind. How? he wondered.

But he stopped short from putting the question.

Meanwhile: “I want to go,” declared Leanne, almost at once. “Please can I go on this trip? Please!”

But the others were more doubtful. “That’s rather a lot to ask of us, surely?” said Rupert. “For me: to abandon this planet altogether! Leave all my animals behind?”

“Is this Earth of ours a planet worth living on anymore?” put in Tamara, after some thought. “You can count me in on this trip, at any rate. I’ve nothing left, here,” she added, ruefully.

“The ship we are considering will not leave for at least another year,” Rashaverak assured them. “So you have plenty of time to think about this. As we said, we can accommodate up to six.”

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“Why do you need more witnesses?” asked Ruth. “If you have Jan, and you’ve contrived for him to be still alive eighty years from now, won’t he serve as your human witness?”

“That is true,” replied Rashaverak. “Our plan is to transport him back to Earth and settle him somewhere away from all the turmoil. Indeed, we have chosen a locality in the Azores which we have placed off-limits to all humans, so as to shield the area from all the chaos and inevitable damage. Also, as far from Australia as it is possible to be: almost at the antipodes. There is a reason for this.”

“You expect something dangerous to happen in Australia? Some gigantic explosion, perhaps?” asked Ruth.

“That is possible—although there is much we still do not know. The choice of location may be futile in any case. There is a distinct chance that, when the Overmind has completed the absorption of the Children’s minds, it will destroy the Earth—and if Jan remains on Earth he will be killed. He may well choose that option.”

“Destroy the Earth! Destroy an entire planet? We’re not talking Star Wars stuff, surely!” exclaimed Rupert. “How would they manage that?”

“We do not know,” said Rashaverak. “We have observed this to happen twice, but on each occasion the readings from our instruments were inconclusive—possibly because the Overmind tampered with the data. We suspect one of two methods: collision with a planetary-mass Black Hole, or introducing a large quantity of antimatter. Either method would lead to a monumental burst of gamma rays, and we have indeed observed that: twice. Your astronomers have observed gamma ray bursts too—though of a different origin [see note 2]. Such a burst would be lethal to any living being in the Solar System if unshielded.”

“Lethal to us, then. And to you,” said Rupert. “Why come back to Earth at all, if that’s going to happen?”

“We are not certain that that will be the outcome. And did you not hear us out earlier? We need human observers. Our instruments will show much. Our own eyes, likewise. But human eyes—linked as they are to a brain with the extra-sensory power that your race possesses and ours does not—those eyes may have a totally different perception of the event. We know this from past experience. All this will teach us a little more—and we are eager to learn.”

“So this is of benefit to your species, not to ours. Isn’t that rather selfish?”

“If you wish to call it selfish, so be it,” said Karellen. “But remember how it was that our race came to the rescue when your ancestors were on the point of destroying all life on your planet. Think of it as us merely calling in a long-overdue debt.”

Rupert had no answer to that.

It was Tamara who spoke next, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Planet-sized black hole? Or planet-sized mass of antimatter? Where in the whole Universe would you pick up such a thing? If there are any in existence, which I rather doubt.”

“It’s not us: it’s the Overmind,” Karellen reminded her. “You seem knowledgeable about such things, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I’ve a degree in physics and astrophysics,” replied Tamara. “Not that it’s any use nowadays,” she added, despondently.

“That is well,” said Karellen. “All I can say is, the powers of the Overmind are beyond our comprehension, as much as they are beyond that of your species.”

There was a pause; then Ruth decided to speak out. “If you bring us back to Earth, and Earth explodes, we go with it, then? And your people as well. That’s the sum of it?”

“If Jan remains on Earth, he will, as you say, ‘go with it’,” said Karellen. “But our intention is to post the other human witnesses elsewhere in the Solar System. On Earth’s moon, for one. We are also considering Mars, Ceres, and Ganymede as well. We shall provide such shielding as we hope will protect you against any moderate gamma ray burst—though we cannot be sure. As for us: all our remaining ships will have departed as soon as any danger is sensed. Once they have accelerated to near lightspeed—which as you know is within our capabilities—any gamma rays that hit us will be redshifted to harmless visible and infrared light. If any of you wish to embark on our ships at the same time, you will be free to do so.”

Cowards! thought Rupert. Fleeing from the danger, and leaving us to face it. But he did not speak those thoughts aloud.

However, another thought occurred to him, which it would do no harm to express out loud. “This planet you want to send us—some of us—to: the twenty-five-light-year one, I mean. Has it got a name?”

“No name that you could pronounce in any of your languages,” replied Rashaverak. “You may give it a name of your own choosing.”

“Very well. Let’s call it ‘Terranova’. ‘New Earth’, if you like. Even if it turns out to be not much of an Earth lookalike. Everyone OK with that?”

Ruth smiled. A fitting tribute to Rupert’s late close friend Jack Sullivan. Jack’s ill-fated submarine, now an eternal tomb trapped under the Antarctic ice, had been named Terranova. In its turn, a tribute to Sullivan’s boyhood hero, Robert Falcon Scott, ill-fated leader of what was almost the first expedition to reach the South Pole—only to be forestalled by Amundsen. Terra Nova had been the name of Scott’s ship.

Let’s hope whoever gets sent to Planet Terranova doesn’t come to an equally sticky end, she thought to herself.

*

After the Overlords had left them, the five assembled humans sat around the table, discussing the matter. After a while, they asked Marcie and Jason to join them, despite the fact that they were still weak and recovering from their injuries. Raphael Ngala, the foreman, who had been outside working on one of the cars in the compound, was also called in to the meeting.

“You can count me out, at any rate,” Ruth insisted from the start. “I don’t feel the urge to go on any madcap cruise to some unknown planet. Besides, I’m too old: fifty-nine, in case you forget. Let’s suppose the Overlords contrive to ‘jump’ us fifty years into the future. We’d still have thirty years, according to their estimate, to wait for—whatever’s going to happen. Even if I’m still alive at eighty-nine, how much use would I be as a witness?”

“I have no wish to go, either,” said Raphael. “I’m also over fifty, and I’m content to stay here with my wife and son. This is a peaceful place, sheltered from all the bad things happening outside, and I’m so grateful to Mr Boyce for inviting me to work here.”

“ ‘Rupert’, please!”

“I’m sorry: Rupert. Yes, I’m grateful to you for all this. I want to continue working with those animals that remain. I’m sure my fellow workers here, who must be equally grateful, will choose the same. The Reserve will continue to function, even if you leave us, Rupert: you can be sure of that.”

Rupert was thinking long and hard. It would be a wrench to leave his animals behind after caring for them for so many years—but at the same time, Leanne was flushed with eagerness at the prospect of going into space. He now realised how much he loved his newly-discovered daughter—besides his elation at his re-kindled marriage to Ruby. If they both left Earth, surely he could not bear to part with them!

Moreover, Raphael had proved to be an excellent foreman and ranger, displaying as much care and respect for the wild animals as Rupert himself. If he had to leave someone in charge, who better than Raphael? And he had already announced that he had no intention of leaving.

The prospect of discovering and perhaps nurturing totally alien life-forms on an alien planet: that was certainly intriguing.

But at the same time, the Reserve was very much Rupert’s comfort zone. Apart from occasional excursions into Kampala for supplies, he had never left it in all the years he had lived there. And—despite the fact that so many visitors had disparaged his villa—‘a tasteless example of neo-Corbusier-style concrete wilderness’, they called it—he was fond of the old place.

“I’ll need some time to think about this,” he announced, after a long pause. “Ruby?”

“If Leanne goes, I go,” was her simple answer.