WHAT’S IN A NAME?

The interiors of the plastic bubble tents were divided by two-meter-high partitions into cubicles that served as quarters for individuals, and wider areas for workshops and laboratories. The largest open area was for dining, and all nine of the landing team assembled there at the end of the day.

Jordan looked down the table at the eight of them. Hazzard had returned to Gaia. He, Trish Wanamaker, and Demetrios Zadar, the team’s astronomer, planned to remain aboard the ship.

The dining area felt strangely cold to Jordan. It smelled new, unused. The dome of the bubble tent curved high above, lost in shadows. The tall partitions were bare, undecorated. Well, that will change over time, he told himself. This is our first night; after we’ve been here a while this place will start to feel more lived-in. More like home.

Two robots stood passively against the far partition of the dining area, awaiting the order to begin serving the meal. The nine people around the table were quiet, talking to each other in hushed whispers. They looked pensive, Jordan thought, uncertain, almost frightened.

He got to his feet and raised his glass of carbonated water. “Here’s to our first night on New Earth. The first of many. We have a grand adventure ahead of us.”

All the others raised their glasses, but without any real fervor.

“You may begin serving,” Jordan said to the robots as he sat down. Both machines turned and went through the open doorway to the kitchen.

Brandon, on Jordan’s right, asked, “Is that how you think of our mission: a grand adventure?”

“Why, don’t you? We’re on a new world, we’ve encountered intelligent humanlike people and their civilization. Just think of what’s ahead for us!”

“That’s what I wonder about,” said Meek, sitting a few chairs farther down the table.

“This Adri is a pretty slick fellow,” Thornberry said. “He answers our questions, but the answers don’t seem to tell us anything.”

“Do you trust him?” asked Elyse, who was sitting beside Brandon.

“If we trusted him,” Brandon said, “we’d be having dinner in his city, instead of here.”

Jordan said, “Bran, you and I have stayed at the city, we’ve partaken of Adri’s hospitality. No harmful effects. Nothing sinister.”

“It’s just too confoundingly pat,” Meek grumbled. “Too good to be true.”

Longyear and several others nodded.

“Harmon,” said Jordan gently, “perhaps you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” Longyear muttered.

The robots glided into the room and began to place bowls of steaming soup before each person.

Jordan looked down the table at their suspicious faces. “Very well, you don’t trust Adri and his people. What do we do about it?”

Brandon replied instantly, “We try to find out as much as we can about them. Who they really are. Where they come from.”

“Adri says they were born here; they’re natives of this planet,” said Jordan.

“How can they be exactly like us?” Meek argued. “It’s beyond the realm of belief.”

Longyear countered, “They evolved on a planet just like Earth. Maybe it’s convergent evolution, or parallel evolution, if you want to call it that. I mean, this is the first really Earthlike planet we’ve found. Maybe wherever the conditions are the same, the results are the same, too. Inevitable.”

“I can’t believe that,” said Meek. “It goes against everything we know about biology. And statistics.”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Longyear replied. “I mean, we have two examples of Earthlike environments and both of them have produced a human species.”

De Falla spoke up. “That’s another thing. How could this planet have survived the Pup’s explosions? How could it possibly bear any life at all?”

“Zadar told me that Sirius can’t be more than five hundred million years old,” Meek chimed in. “That’s not enough time for a planet to evolve such a complex biosphere.”

“Especially if the Pup went through a nova phase and showered this planet with lethal radiation,” said Meek.

Elyse said, “And this planet has no moon.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Jordan asked.

“Earth’s Moon acts as an anchor,” she explained. “It keeps our axis of rotation from tipping over too far. Without a big moon serving as an anchor, this planet should wobble wildly, its climate should swing back and forth every few tens of thousands of years.”

“Which would destabilize its ecosystems,” Longyear said. “Ice ages and global warmings, one right after another.”

“You see?” Meek said, almost triumphantly. “None of this adds up.”

Jordan raised both hands. “All right. All right. We have a lot of questions to be answered. But for the moment, let’s dig into this soup before it cools off.”

Meek dipped his spoon into the soup, then looked up and said, “We should set up a systematic investigation. Paul, you start examining the local plant and animal life. Sylvio, you and Elyse should dig into the geology, see if there’s evidence of damage from Sirius B’s nova explosions.”

Brandon said, “That’s my area, too.”

“Then you work with them.”

“And Zadar can compute the range of the planet’s axis shifts,” Elyse suggested.

Jordan said, “Good. Let’s put together an agenda for study. I’ll question Adri about his people’s history.”

“We should’ve brought a cultural anthropologist with us,” Brandon said.

“Who knew we’d need one?” said Thornberry, with a crafty grin.

Soon they were all firing questions back and forth, creating agendas, working out a map to be explored.

Jordan watched them at it while he quietly spooned up his soup. Hardly tasting the brew, he smiled inwardly. Now they’re working instead of fretting, he told himself. They’ve replaced their suspicions with curiosity. Good.

And he thought that he would like to ask Aditi several thousand questions about her people, her society, her customs, herself.

*   *   *

The following morning, Jordan dressed in his own clothes, which had been brought down from the orbiting ship along with everyone else’s. He could hear others coughing or splashing in the common lavatories. These partitions leave a lot to be desired as far as privacy is concerned, he thought.

He started for the dining area, but stopped at the open doorway to Brandon’s cubicle. His brother was sitting at his desk, his phone open on the desktop, long lists of words scrolling down the big flat screen affixed to the desk.

“Hard at work this early?” Jordan called from the corridor. “I’m impressed.”

Brandon looked up, the expression on his face dead serious.

“Come and look at this, Jordy.”

Jordan stepped through the doorway and went to his brother’s side. The screen showed lists of what seemed to be proper names, with definitions beside them.

“Elyse thought Adri’s name sounded vaguely familiar to her. She thought she’d heard it somewhere before. So this morning I started poking through our files on names from various cultures.”

“She thought she’d heard Adri’s name before? Back on Earth?” Jordan asked.

“Take a look.” Turning to the computer, he commanded, “Show name Adri.”

The words on the screen dissolved, replaced by Adri, and a definition:

Minor god in Hindu mythology who protected mankind and once rescued the sun from evil spirits who were trying to extinguish it. Modern Hindu name meaning “rock.”

Jordan blinked at the screen. “It must be a coincidence of some sort,” he murmured, trying to convince himself. “A wild coincidence.”

“Is it?” Brandon asked, his voice flat and hard. “Another coincidence? Aren’t these coincidences getting beyond the realm of belief?”

Jordan said nothing.

“A completely Earthlike planet. Peopled by creatures who are totally like us. Now one of them has a Hindu name. That’s way beyond coincidence, Jordy.”

“Look up Aditi,” Jordan said.

Brandon commanded the computer, and the screen instantly showed:

Aditi: Archaic mother goddess, Hindu (Vedic). Wife of Kasyapa or Brahma. Mother of rain god Indra, and of Hari and the Adityas. Perceived as a guardian goddess who brings prosperity and who can free her devotees from problems and clear away obstacles.

Jordan stared at the screen.

Brandon said, “That’s no coincidence, Jordy. None of this is a coincidence. It can’t be.”