All-Patron Reward: Original Ending of Boundary

Boundary was the first full-length novel Eric and I collaborated on. As such, it's unsurprising that there were some significant changes from one draft to another. Some of these were included in the Second Edition of Boundary. 

However, the following couple of chapters -- the original ending of Boundary -- were not, and they're certainly different enough to be well worth seeing and comparing to the published version!

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xviii.

“All right, Dr. Mayhew, Dr. Skibow, everyone who wants to – and that’s damn near all of us – is online and listenin’.”

The inhabitants of Mars Colony One were gathered in the warm and open environment of Thoat; the screen showed Hathaway’s face, Jane Mayhew’s, and little icon indicators that most of the Nike crew had, indeed, already tuned in. 

“Thank you, Captain.” Jane said in her best professorial tone. “And we thank all of you for your patience, your assistance, your input, and ideas. We must especially thank Mr. Baker for his unique technical skills –”

“—and incredibly swelled head.” Cut in Joe.

“Mr. Buckley, would you like to give this presentation? No? Then please try not to heckle it, even if Mr. Baker does make it tempting on occasion. As I was saying, for his unique technical skills, which ultimately made this information available, Doctors Buckley, Secord, and of course Gupta for the engineering work they have done to both support our direct professional efforts and keep our impromptu temporary colonists alive and well, and Captain Hathaway for his ability to keep this madhouse under control.” A small, prim smile. 

“As all of you know, for the past month Dr. Skibow and I have been working on translating the information left behind by Bemmius Secordii, particularly the vast mass of information left on what has been called the “Legacy Disc”. We have all had uncountable questions during this mission, and after a month’s effort, we believe that we can now answer some of the most important and pressing questions: who, precisely, were these creatures? What were they like? Why did they come to this, our solar system? Why were they fighting? Why did they leave, and why did they build this Vault, when it seems clear that by the time anyone would open it, their entire species would likely long since be extinct?”

Helen found herself leaning forward. They had given tantalizing hints before, but always refused to make clear statements. Ever since she had found Bemmie, she’d wished she could have understood him – not just his unique biology, but what had brought him to die lightyears from his home, alone on an alien world. Now, perhaps, she would know.

“First, we have determined that they had a name for themselves. While this name meant, of course, ‘person’ or something like it, we may use the phonemic translation which, as best we can guess it from the sound encodings we have found, is,” and she gave vent to an exhaled hooting noise, “Hootha, to refer to their race. This, then, is their history, as best we can translated the summaries we have found…”

**************

The Hootha, as a primarily waterdwelling and later amphibious race, developed a complex intellectual civilization which existed in a sort of highly advanced stone age – with the ability to do basic construction, make blades from stone, and so on – for some considerable time before they discovered the potential uses of fire and other processes that could be used easily on land and were difficult-to-impossible in water. These advances were soon understood around the world, for they could communicate via both sound and by a complex code of sound, movement, and color; sound, movement, and color were for those who were friends or at least members of one’s group (“clan speech, perhaps” Jane said) or possibly those that you were trying to befriend, while pure sound was for long distance communication; as sound can carry immense distances underwater, news traveled fast. Thus, unlike on Earth, there was relatively little chance for one enclave of Hootha to become vastly more advanced than the others, and the Hootha achieved a worldwide civilization in a rather more uniform fashion than humanity.

“Unfortunately, they were far from being paragons.” Jane continued. “It appears that they were just as subject as we to indulging in argument – sometimes quite violent argument – over religious, philosophical, and material issues. They did, however, have the advantage of a generally unified set of attitudes about how differences should be resolved; whether this was due to the way in which their civilization developed, some instinctive biological imperative, or what I do not know. But by the time they began to expand into the galaxy, the Hootha civilization had a… what did you call them, A.J.?”

“I like calling them the ‘Lords of Arbitration’.” A.J. answered.

“Yes, quite so. An excellent term. The basic philosophy of the Lords of Arbitration was that it was impossible to eliminate conflict, and possibly counter-survival for a species to actually do so even if it were possible. What was necessary was to limit conflict, and to resolve disputes whenever possible without violence, or with strictly contained violence.

“The result of this basic policy was that many different organizations – some which we might consider ‘countries’, others we might call companies, religious or philosophical groups rather like missionaries, and so on – went out into space to seek whatever fortune, knowledge, or enlightenment they might desire, hopefully without conflicting with other groups of Hootha.”

“Excuse me,” Larry Conley, the astrophysicist, interrupted, “But if they were expanding into the galaxy like that, do we know how they were doing it? That is –”

“All in the proper time, Dr. Conley, please. These technical points are entirely separate.”

Larry nodded reluctantly and sat back with an impatient expression as his icon shrank back down. Helen couldn’t blame him for interrupting, nor for being impatient; Jane might be answering some of her questions, but the other scientists were champing at the bit for their own answers. She suspected that Jane was not entirely unaware of this and was probably enjoying it. Linguists rarely got a chance to hold the rest of the world on tenterhooks.

“Now where was I…. Oh, yes. These groups’ approach to other worlds ran quite the gamut, apparently, from those who attempted to disrupt other biospheres as little as possible to some who had the attitude of the worst robber-baron industrialist exploitation ever imagined in environmentalist nightmares. Worlds that they settled rather than just visited or hunted on were often effectively subjected to a form of controlled extinction, wiping out many native lifeforms and replacing them with Hootha-compatible lifeforms. Hardly a surprise given our own history, yet somewhat disappointing. 

“Not all of them were exploitative, and indeed with philosophies as variant as those of our own people it was inevitable that they would have some groups strongly opposing the uncontrolled exploitation of other worlds, either for uncaring settlement, hunting or harvesting unusual biologicals, or whatever other reasons. These groups naturally did come into conflict whenever a system of interest was found and two opposed groups arrived at points in time near enough to make the conflict have any point. The Lords of Arbitration had absolute, ironclad rules in these situations: the conflict, if it erupted into covert or overt violence, must be limited to those organizations directly involved in that particular system dispute. No outside help or interference would be tolerated. Of course, the conflicting parties could appeal to the Lords directly to mediate the argument, but if irreconcilable differences existed, the corporate war remained a private one and the other Hootha stayed out of it.”

Richard took up the story. “As you might guess, it turns out that our system was discovered, sixty-five million years ago, by two groups of Hootha. One we call the Researchers; they were something like a scientific research and exploration group with a deep interest in careful, cooperative development of solar systems with advanced lifeforms, a research group with almost religious overtones led by an individual who sounds something like a militant Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

“The other group we call the Combine, an association of extremely exploitative smaller organizations who had successfully taken advantage of several other systems previously and therefore found it to their advantage to continue to work together. Yes, yes, I know, exploiting other solar systems sounds economically unviable, but from what we’ve learned, perhaps not. More on that later.

“The Combine and the Researchers were clearly about as opposite each other as it was possible to get, and they had met before, at least once. In that instance, the Researchers had been the later arrivals and were not particularly well supplied, while the Combine was entrenched and very well supplied; the Researchers had, to put it bluntly, had their asses handed to them.” Rich gave a rather nasty grin. “The Hootha were pretty darn much like us, to the point that just like us, they didn’t forget that kind of thing and held grudges. 

“So this time, the Researchers happened to find the system first – a lovely solar system with one planet absolutely filled with complex, wonderful lifeforms, another that had once had life on it and might still have some lingering below the surface, and some very interesting astrophysical phenomena well worth studying. Having achieved some considerable economic success through careful marketing of particular biologicals (as near as we can tell) from some prior discoveries, the Researchers were able to move into our system with a great deal of material. Thus, when the Combine arrived and started shoving at the Researchers, the Researchers dug in and started shoving right back. It wasn’t long at all before Limited War was declared, and with the bad blood between both sides, neither was going to ask the Lords for any help bargaining. What began as just pointedly ignoring others' directives became direct opposition – removing the others' satellites, taking over choice vantage points, and so on – and then small skirmishes, and finally, the Combine had had enough. After yet another automated surveying drone was "accidentally" destroyed by a suspiciously heavily armored "research vessel", the Combine blew the "research vessel" sky-high. This triggered full-scale hostilities, involving direct battles between Combine and Researcher vessels, remote bombardment, and all the attendant ugliness of war.

“To the utter consternation of the Combine, they found themselves losing. The Researchers had prepared well, bringing in their resources subtly and distributing them throughout the solar system, and there was nowhere the Combine forces could go without the Researchers finding them. In desperation, the Combine resorted to a brute-force tactic, coordinating the final assault from their base on Phobos—which, I should note, we aren’t even sure was originally here, but may have been an artificially moved body; they directed multiple kinetic strikes against the Researchers' stable bases and used kamikaze tactics against their largest vessels. Unfortunately for the Combine, the Researchers' counterstrike wiped them out.”

“God.” Helen heard herself say. “And that was what they considered a limited war?”

“From the point of view of the race, certainly, Helen.” Jane answered. “The two groups might wipe each other out, but they wouldn’t harm, or involve, the rest of the race. One thing we’re not sure on is how they managed the separation of groups; perhaps there was some biological tendency to stay in clans, or schools, or herds that made it easy to keep like-minded groups together and didn’t encourage much overlap.

“The Researchers had won, but as you can undoubtedly guess it was at a terrible cost. They had one remaining base – the one that we had designated as Target Thirty-Seven – which had survived because they had intercepted several of the kinetic-kill missiles directed at it successfully and the last missile had been diverted by one of their cargo vessels ramming it. They had really insufficient resources to continue their research, and more importantly their leader had been killed – lost on an expedition from their base on Earth, when that base was targeted and destroyed.”

Helen sat up, incredulous. “Bemmie….?”

Jane nodded. “It would seem very likely.”

“And the Vault?” Hathaway asked.

“Ah, yes. This was one of their leader’s ideas, something which I suppose we might call religious, or at least something of not entirely rational nature, but one that the rest of the Researchers adhered to. Whether they continued to do so for very long after his death, we do not know. But according to the Hootha researches, most planets capable of developing life eventually will develop intelligence, and so from their point of view it was… how can I put it… polite for them to leave something for those future inhabitants that thanked them for what the Researchers had learned, discovered, or even taken from their worlds. They had, apparently, been building the Vault for quite some time before hostilities began. After their terrible battle against the Combine, they had won a technical victory but really lacked either the resources or, I suspect, the heart to continue. According to the rules of the Lords, they had won undisputed rights to our solar system, and so they decided instead to make the system a sort of memorial or monument to their fallen leader, and to make the war a victory for the planet – our Earth – which had suffered rather terribly at the same time they had tried to defend it. So they finished the Vault and sealed it, and … left.” She looked around her audience. “As we are here, and the Vault remained, it would seem that their ownership and preserve lasted for quite some time… until the Hootha no longer were a concern at all.”

xix.

There was a long silence after Jane had concluded. Then Madeline spoke up.

“Back to the question we had a while ago, Jane. How exactly did these people get around the galaxy?”

Joe saw the expression on Jane’s face, and knew he wasn’t the only one who recognized Madeline’s “professional” tone.

After a pause, Rich answered. “They had some technology they called by a name we best translate as ‘Trapdoor Drive’ or something like that. The name and some description seems to imply that it had something to do with making a ship sort of “drop out” of the universe around it and then pop back in.”

“An FTL drive?” Maddie said, carefully.

“It would appear so. There are no designs available for the drive – they didn’t provide us with blueprints for that.”

“I see.” 

The others were silent, watching her.

“You say ‘for that’ in a rather interesting way. Did they provide us with blueprints or something for some other devices?”

A.J. spoke up. “Yes, they did. In a way. Well, not the blueprints, but the theory. Which is well enough outlined that I am willing to bet that it wouldn’t take too much research to figure out how it worked, and that’s assuming we don’t find some more hints in what’s left of Phobos.”

“Stop being coy, A.J.! What is it?”

“Something that sounds awfully like a reactionless drive. At the least, it’s a damned efficient method for getting around that makes our rockets look absolutely sick. It’s not the same as the Trapdoor Drive, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s a connection somewhere, but it looks like they made trips between Mars and Earth in times measured more like days than weeks or months.” He looked her in the eye. “So, what do we report? You and your General are running out of time.”

Maddie stood still, alone in the center of Thoat’s cabin. Joe could see her thinking furiously, and part of her was clearly still stuck in a trap; there wasn’t really any way for her and the General to keep this lid on, and she knew it, but in her profession, how much did it matter what she knew?

He got up and went to her and just rested a hand lightly on her shoulder.

That seemed to be all she needed. One small hand came up and brushed his own lightly, and then she looked up. “Show me Bemmie.”

The screen split, half still showing Jane and half now outlining the fossil Helen had first unearthed – was it really just a few years ago? To Joe it seemed more like decades. 

For a few more minutes, no one said anything. Then Madeline, staring at Bemmie’s outline, broke the silence.

“These people were centuries more advanced than we were.” She said quietly. “And they were still arguing with each other over the same stupid issues, and fighting each other, and bashing other planets to wreckage while they did it.

“And here we are, arguing the same way as we leave our planet. Except unlike them, right now we can’t afford to lose a planet or tw, I’m guessing it’s not a peaceful universe out there today, either. So maybe the aliens aren’t coming here to steal our men and take our water; right now, there’s nothing stopping them from having another little family squabble in our neighborhood, and from the looks of the dinosaurs, it really sucks being an innocent bystander when that happens. We’ve been lucky that no one else has found us since.” She took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to jump from the high board when she’s never done it before.

“If we keep playing games with secrets, we may not have any defenses against that kind of thing when our luck runs out.” She smiled up at Jane. “Do it. Send it all. Every bit of it, your language translations, these equations, Barbara’s superconductor data, send it all. In the clear. It’s time we made things happen for us, instead of letting them happen to us.” 

She turned her glance to Captain Hathaway. “Well, Captain, do you think NASA might have an opening for an ex-spy, if she can keep out of jail?”

Hathaway’s laugh boomed out through both Thoat and, Joe felt sure, Nike. “Y’all can count on it, Maddie.” He said, Southern accent warm with relief. “And don’t worry about no jail. I think when the whole story gets back, it’s gonna be no issue at all.”

*******************

As the sun set on the Martian landscape, Joe sat at the front of Thoat with Maddie in his lap, the two of them staring at the lengthening shadows across the crimson-pink-salmon landscape. “Won’t be too long before the next shuttle’s here. A couple weeks and we’re going home.”

“Home?” she said, momentarily surprised. “Yes, I suppose Nike is home right now. Though I’ve almost gotten used to Thoat and our little camping base. But I can’t say I’ll be disappointed to stretch out in my own cabin again.”

“Well, about that…” Joe said, grinning at her, “I was thinking… how about making one of them our cabin?”

She smiled back. “Why, Mr. Buckley, what ever are you suggesting?”

“Nothing improper. There aren’t really any jewelers here, but…” He reached into his pocket and brought out a ring. “Would you marry me, Madeline Fathom?”

For once the secret agent who missed nothing was taken utterly by surprise. He could see the widening of her eyes and the shimmer of tears that he really hadn’t expected. She stared at the ring, a silvery band with something shimmering in multicolored brilliance at the top. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course I will, Joe!” 

When they stopped kissing, he slid the ring on her finger. She brought it closer to stare at what looked like a faceted mass of solidified, sparkling rainbows. “Joe, I can see that the band’s probably stainless steel or something, but… what in the world’s the stone?”

“Genuine 24-carat solid Fairy Dust.” Said A.J.’s voice from behind them. “Congrats, you two – even if you are jumping the gun!”

“Fairy Dust???”

“Well, I needed something that looked neat, and as we haven’t found any free diamonds lying around… don’t worry, you’ll have a real one soon enough.”

“And what about ME, Mr. Baker?” Helen said in mock severity. 

“Have patience.” A.J. said. “I don’t want to traumatize all the other ladies out there by permanently removing myself from the market before I absolutely have to.” 

Joe knew that in fact A.J. already HAD the ring; he’d brought it with him from Earth and had been planning on asking Helen as soon as they got back to the Nike and he could get to the ring. As Helen and A.J. continued their comfortable faux-feud, he settled back with Maddie in his arms. 

“I can’t believe I just lost my job and got engaged. On Mars.” Maddie said finally, as the stars shone down into the darkened cabin and a faint sparkle of dustfalls became visible. 

“Getting engaged ain’t anything.” Joe said, thinking back over the past few years of discoveries, explosions, crashes, and all. “After everything we’ve gone through, I can’t believe I’m still alive.”