THE BAJA GATE
Blaine C. Readler
CHAPTER 9
Winn didn't stop until he reached the plain again two hours later. Here he paused. He'd worked his way north as he came down out of the mountains, and he could see the tip of the Isengard tower off on the horizon. It was a straight shot across the flat ground, and he could be there in less than an hour. But, in the same vein, he'd be leading Gunnigle straight to Pierce if the agent happened to be watching from some perch above.
He ate as he thought about it, and, in the end, despite a great desire to be back with his friends, he reconciled himself to the fact that he'd have to wait until dark to make the crossing. It would be two hours until sunset, and he settled himself, using his backpack as a pillow. He stared at the pure blue porcelain-smooth sky and thought about the last couple of days. The excitement goosed by Gunnigle's gun had distracted him, and he contemplated the ancient alien site now with a fresh perspective. It was absolutely astounding that Toki was alive -- seemed to be alive -- and talking to them. And, as mind-bending as that was, there was still the arch embedded in the cliff and the promise of perhaps even more surprise. The ancient alien structure had only hummed at the afternoon sun so far, but somehow -- maybe just the hint at the sheer size of it -- Winn sensed a profound purpose. And, if Toki could still operate after all these centuries....
The day wasn't over, and he'd already had more exercise than he normally got in a month. He closed his eyes, and felt the late afternoon sun warming his face and arms. Far off, barely discernable, he heard a low moan, like the lowest notes of a giant pipe organ -- the arch. He smiled to himself. What would it reveal when it finally woke up? The humming was relaxing, like the vibration of his dad's tires during family vacations to the Sierra's. His thoughts drifted from Tokis and arches to happy days camping with his mom and dad.
Winn woke with a start, and sat up with a little gasp. Where the hell was he? Before him, a deep orange sky hunkered along an unbroken horizon under a sky gone dark. The sun had set, and he was sitting on the ground, two miles from his friends. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He felt like an old man, stiff and weak. He'd been deep asleep, and it took a few moments to fully wake up. He had to make his way across two miles of desert through scrub in the dark. What did he need to do to prepare? A bearing! Once it got dark -- and this happened quickly in the dry desert air -- he'd need to know what direction the camp was. He searched the fading horizon, and when he finally found the dim form of the Isengard tower, he inhaled, realizing he'd been holding his breath. Venus was a bold blue point of light two thumb's length above the horizon. Using his outstretched hand, he measured the distance between the tower tip and the Greek goddess of beauty. She would be his guiding light until the planet set in another hour, when he would pick up some lesser beacon to show him the way.
He picked up his backpack and set off. For a while, the last dusk glow provided a backlight, revealing the clumps of scrub brush in silhouette. All too soon, though, the dry thorny growth and protruding stones became invisible predators waiting to snag and trip him. After his third stumble ended in a jarring fall that scraped the heel of his palm, he slowed his pace and carefully placed each foot before taking the next step. It was after nine o'clock when he finally spotted the flickering glow of the campfire on the granite faces of the hill above. It seemed to take forever to reach it, and he discovered why when he finally entered the fire-lit circle: what he had thought was a small campfire, was actually a veritable bonfire.
His friends were sitting some distance away from it, probably because the blaze was so hot, and the first to notice him stride out of the dark was Toki in Derrick's hands, who said, "Greetings Winn! Welcome to our cozy assemblage!"
All three jumped up, surprised, and came to meet him, Ginny in the lead.
"We were so worried!" she said. He thought she was going to give him a hug, but she held back as Pierce came up behind.
He nodded at the chin-high fire. "I don't know; it looks more like a celebration."
She glanced at it confused. "Oh, no! That was so that you could see it better!"
He grinned at her, and she gave him a playful slap on the shoulder.
Pierce came up and nodded. He looked a little sheepish, maybe feeling guilty about sending him off on a diversion errand. "How'd you do?" he asked.
"I thought I may have found something, but I got distracted by some bullets." He related the afternoon's escapades while Ginny dished up some grits cooked with bits of jerky and cashews.
"You're sure they didn't follow you?" Pierce asked when he'd finished the story.
Winn shrugged. "I don't see how, unless they can see in the dark." As he said this, he eyed the raging fire.
"Right," Pierce said, guessing what he was thinking and throwing dirt on the fire's fringes.
"What are you doing?" Ginny asked, alarmed.
"Gunnigle doesn't have to see in the dark to find this," Winn explained, helping douse the flames.
Within minutes, the bonfire was a mass of smoldering embers peeking through piles of dirt. "You've been pretty quiet," he said to Derrick.
His friend gave the dirt a sullen kick without looking at him.
"He and Pierce had an argument," Ginny said. "Actually, Pierce laid into him." The anthropologist gave her a reproving look. "Well, you did," she said. Then to Winn, "He's jealous of Derrick and Toki."
"That's ridiculous," Pierce scoffed. "I simply thought it unwise to continue to influence the artifact. It should be studied in its native state."
"In other words," Ginny added, "he tried to take it from Derrick."
Winn looked at the alien thing still sitting on his friend's lap. "Derrick won the fist fight?"
"It never came to that -- Toki spoke up."
Winn nodded. Pierce continued to call Toki an "artifact", while the rest of them thought of it as a sentient ... something.
"Hey!" Ginny said brightly. "Do you know what 'Toki' means in its own language?"
Winn shrugged.
"It means, 'Hello.' "
He raised his eyebrows. They'd been calling the alien a "Hello." Actually, it made sense: what else would be the first thing one would say to a stranger? "How do you know?" he asked.
Derrick finally spoke up. "He's learned English."
"He's learned our language," Winn said skeptically. "In one day."
Derrick nodded confidently. "I spent the whole day reading one of your books to him."
Winn stared at his friend. "He learned English from reading one book?"
Derrick shrugged. "I explained a lot as we went along. I had to look some words up in your dictionary."
Winn was almost afraid to ask the next question. "What was the book?"
"The Confederation of Dances."
Winn stared at his friend for a moment. "You mean A Confederacy of Dunces?"
Derrick nodded. "Yeah, that's it."
Winn continued to stare. "You taught an alien to speak English using a farce?"
"It won a Pulitzer Prize!" Derrick said. "It said so on the cover."
Winn stared.
"That Ignatius guy seemed so smart," Derrick added, fidgeting nervously. "I figured he was a good role model."
"You haven't even heard the best part," Ginny said.
"I'm not sure I want to," Winn muttered.
She ignored him. "Toki is actually a toy."
He looked at the semi-solid balloon sitting on Derrick's lap. "Like the kind a child plays with?"
Ginny nodded. "Except in this case, it would be an alien child."
"Huh!" was all he could think of to say.
"You know that skin he crawled out of?" She didn't wait for his reply. "That was supposed to emulate the skin of the actual aliens, or, at least, the skin of their children. You were right, Winn, it originally let light through, but it got tarnished over time."
"How did the Toki get left behind?"
"It doesn't know."
"It can't remember?" He couldn't blame it, after thousands of years.
"No, it never knew. It was never activated."
"Activated?"
"Turned on. As close as we can tell, a Toki is mated ... 'mated' might not be the best description ... a Toki is paired with an alien child at birth -- the alien child's birth, not the Toki ... or what suffices for their birth--"
"The Toki told you all this?"
"Yes. But it's still mastering the nuances of English, so I'm not sure we've gotten all the details correct yet. Anyway, as I was saying, Toki was supposed to be activated when it was paired with an alien child. It's sort of a combination toy, tutor, and protector. Toki and the alien would have been paired all during the first phase of the alien's life, after which Toki would have been ceremoniously destroyed."
"That's a hell of a thanks for its devotion."
"Oh no! Toki considers it the ultimate honor -- his whole purpose for being. His destruction gives birth to the alien's next life-phase. Actually," she said, moving close in a conspiratorial huddle, "I think that the Toki's destruction is meant to erase all the dirty little secrets the alien may not want to carry into later life. Imagine if we all had video recorders strapped to our foreheads our whole childhood; who'd want that left lying around?"
Things began to click into place: why the Toki initiated attempts to communicate with Derrick, first by trying to get his "child" to talk, then setting out to learn a language his companion already knew; why he seemed to bond exclusively with Derrick. This was fantastic! The Toki was sentient, and would be able to tell them all about the aliens. Winn, Ginny and Derrick, with the Toki on his lap, sat in a tight group, the shared excitement almost palpable. Pierce, though, sat to the side, poking at the embers with a stick, purposely disengaged. Winn guessed that the anthropologist was sulking over his altercation with Derrick, or maybe it was just sour grapes; maybe he was jealous that Derrick had connected with Toki when it was he who'd found it and then left it lying abandoned in a supply tent for days on end.
"Did it explain about the arch?"
"That was one of the first things Derrick asked him about. Toki says that it's a food source ... but he also told Derrick that we already knew that, so we're not sure we have that quite straight yet."
Winn's excitement fizzled a bit. Maybe they were reading too much into the fact that the alien toy could learn English. "What triggered the Toki's activation when it met Derrick?" he asked.
Ginny shrugged. "Toki? What about it?"
Toki lay totally inert in Derrick's lap. When it spoke, it was as though there was a small radio speaker inside, connected by invisible wires. "After an interminably long period of time, I became fretful and endeavored to establish communications with my Makers."
Winn looked sideways at Derrick. "He talks like Ignatius Reilly."
Derrick shrugged. "Sounds impressive to me."
To Toki, Winn said, "If you weren't activated, how did you know it was a long time?"
"My mental processes were not completely idle in my manufactured state of unactivatedness. After three thousand, four-hundred and twenty-two years, I decided that I had well passed any reasonable quantity of waiting for coupling, and I self-activated myself."
"I'm surprised you waited that long ... by about three thousand, four-hundred and twenty-one years ... and that's 'inactivity,' not 'unactivatedness.' "
" 'Inactivity' -- thank you. Actually, it is not uncommon to wait some hundreds of years for activation and subsequent coupling."
Winn absorbed this. The aliens obviously operated on vastly different timescales than humans were used to. Of course, that's why they were called alien. "How long do the aliens -- your makers -- live?"
"That is not readily answered with satisfactful precision. My makers' lives are a product of their status, function, and luck. Some important contributors have lived over ten thousand years."
Winn shook his head. "It's hard to imagine a world where that kind of longevity would naturally evolve."
"Oh, that would indeed be a preposterous idea -- a veritable abomination to the very principles of natural evolution. No, my makers' longevity is a result of their own genetic engineering -- although, I suspect I use the word genetic loosely in their regard."
Winn took a deep breath. "Toki...."
"Yes?"
"That character from the book, Ignatius Reilly, does not represent an average human. In fact, he is, as he himself might put it, an abomination of what we consider normal. This is just a suggestion, but you might want to listen to how we talk."
"I see. Derrick, my coupling, what do you suggest?"
Derrick pouted a moment. "All right. I think it sounds cool, but Winn's probably right: the unschooled among us might think you're trying to be a snob."
"Very well, I shall endeavor to copy your speech patterns."
"There, for example," Winn offered, "you could have simply said, 'I'll try to talk like you.' "
"Understood. I pray that you will be patient -- this may take some time."
"Hopefully not three thousand and some odd years."
"I take it that this was a joke?"
"Or a poor attempt thereof ... wait! Now you've got me talking like this. Nobody says, 'thereof.' "
"I understand."
A dozen different questions vied to reach Winn's tongue. "Do your makers look like you?" was the winner.
"Presumably you refer to my corporeal earthly form."
"Uh, how about, 'You mean my body?' ... and, yes, I do."
"Thank you. My original appearance -- before I shed the sheath -- was similar to this of a Makers' earliest body--"
"Like an egg?"
"If you are referring to the chicken eggs Derrick ate during breakfast, only vaguely in the sense that they are both spheroidical--"
"Spherical."
"Thank you. As I understand it, a chicken egg does not move of its own volition. Even at the earliest stage, a Maker does. Understand that I was built to be also mobile; that function has greatly atrophied."
"I would think so, after three thousand years."
"It is not time, in and by itself, that perverts the geometrical base and damages the soul, but rather the degradation resulting from the extended period of a de-powered state that erodes the functional capabilities and ultimate ascendancy."
The group was silent as they sat staring at the embers.
Derrick finally broke the spell. "Uh, that definitely crossed the snob line, Toki."
"Try it again," Ginny encouraged. "This time, keep it simple."
"Thank you for the opportunity," Toki said. "My ability to move has been reduced from the long period without proper power."
The group applauded, except for Pierce, who tossed his poking stick, and strode away into the night.
"What do adult aliens -- the Makers -- look like?" Winn asked.
"The answer to that question is manifold, and the varied and splintering branches of genealogical diversity fostered by functional groupings--"
"Ahem...." Winn interrupted.
"Okay. Makers are of different forms, depending on their role."
"They evolved this way?"
"Not by natural selection."
"They, like, engineered themselves?"
"That is accurate."
"So, do they all have, like, two eyes?"
"Yes."
Toki seemed to have now swung the other way, dialogically, speaking. "Two ears?" Winn asked.
"Yes."
This could take some time. "Two arms?"
"No."
"Uh, Toki, it's okay to add details; just go easy on the multi-syllable adjectives."
"Using the human arm as a reference, i.e. two universal motion joints joined by a single-axis joint, and terminating with dexterous, opposable digits, no Maker would be considered as having any arms."
Well, Winn thought, a technical dissertation was probably better than sitting through a Harvard humanity's monologue. "Let's loosen the definition of an arm: how about an appendage that can manipulate tools."
"In that case, Makers variously have four, or eight arms."
Winn thought he was getting the idea. "Let me guess: the ones with four arms have four legs, and the ones with eight arms have no legs."
"That is generally accurate, although I advise caution in assuming specifics."
Pierce's voice came out of the darkness from behind them. "The aliens are bilaterally symmetrical, with a head, and eight appendages that originally served for both locomotion, and manipulation -- like our relatives the apes -- before they separated into specialized branches." He sat down with them, evidently ready to give up his pique. "I suspect that this is probably a universal form, with obvious variations, like eight appendages versus our four, and lizard-like skin versus our vulnerable soft epidermal layers."
"That is correct," Toki said. "In fact, Weebles have forms almost identical to humans."
"Weebles?" Winn asked.
"I've converted the native word into an English form. Weebles are a species that create and produce very little of their own initiative, but, rather, steal from other species."
"Scavengers," Winn offered.
"Scavengers," Toki repeated, as though trying the word out. "Perhaps, but since humans are the only technological species on Earth, I suspect that your scavengers are primitive, stealing only food and perhaps shelter from other species."
"Rats," Winn said.
"Vultures," Ginny offered.
"Hyenas," Derrick blurted, as though competing in a word game.
"Perhaps," Toki concluded. "Other than rats, I am not familiar with these. I believe that the Weebles -- the Scavengers -- evolved, though, from something similar."
"Wouldn't you know," Winn observed. "The closest thing in the galaxy to us is a highly evolved cockroach." Actually, considering that early hominids were themselves probably part-time scavengers, the concept was uncomfortably close to home. Maybe the only reason we didn't continue the scavenger route was that there were no other technological species to steal from -- we had no choice but to give up our dependant ways and become inventors. "Why were the Makers on Earth?" he asked.
"I presume to establish a remote gate."
"What's that?"
"I have difficulty describing this with the words I know. You will have to help me. A remote gate is the other end of a link that is not a straight line."
The four of them looked at each other. "It sounds like a riddle," Winn said. Why would you want a link that was not a straight line? Why would you want a link that was not the shortest distance between the two ends? He felt Einstein tugging at his sleeve. Sometimes the shortest distance is not a straight line.... "Hyperspace!" he cried.
The others looked at him.
"Toki must be talking about a hyperspace link!"
"That's gibberish," Pierce said. "Hyperspace is just a fantasy shortcut, a copout for lazy science fiction writers."
Winn hated arguing with his old friend, but this was too important to let go. "I don't know; I've read that some formulations of quantum mechanics allow for hyperspace links -- I think they involve black holes."
"You've read about it, and you think it has something to do with black holes. That's a long ways from knowing. Have you seen these formulations?"
Winn didn't answer. They both knew he wouldn't have understood the math anyway -- he'd never even finished his undergraduate degree. "Sometimes you just have to trust what scientists tell you." He addressed Toki, trying to slide away from the discussion. "Do you understand what we mean when we say 'hyperspace'? "
"I don't know, but I don't think so."
Ginny and Derrick glanced at him. They'd heard the emphases as well. Was Toki actually being sarcastic towards Pierce? Or, was it simply continuing to learn by imitation? He decided he wasn't going to touch that one. "We think of space -- normal space -- as what's all around us now, but some scientists think that it may be possible to take shortcuts through space -- this is the shortcut Pierce was talking about. Is this what you mean by a remote gate?"
"Possibly. Passage from one gate to another is almost instantaneous."
Winn nodded, satisfied. He didn't look at Pierce; no sense stirring the pot. "You need both gates before you can make the jump, though, right?"
"Correct."
"So, that means the Makers had to come through normal space to get here."
"Correct."
"Could they travel faster than light?"
"Only using gates."
"It would have taken them thousands of years to get here!"
"Possibly, but probably not. Remember, they would have left from the closest existing gate. Wanderers generally don't travel more than a couple of hundred light-years."
"Wanderers?"
"I translated. These are the Makers -- the sub-species who are engineered for space travel."
"How fast do they go?"
"Ninety-seven percent the speed of light. Beyond that, and the effort is not worth the return."
"Still, they live in their ships for hundreds of years?"
"There is a four-to-one time-shortening effect at that speed. For them, the time is measured in decades."
"Einstein's time dilation."
"The effect does not belong to Mr. Einstein."
Winn did a double take. "Was that a joke?"
"That was the intention."
"Do the Makers have jokes?"
"Of course. All intelligent species understand humor. It is a form of play. Intelligence would not evolve without an element of play."
Winn had never thought about this before, but the more intelligent a species was on Earth, the more it indeed seemed to enjoy play. Think of a dog, or a dolphin.
"You're getting off track," Pierce admonished.
Speaking of intelligence and humor, Winn thought. "So, why didn't the Makers build a gate here? Did they maybe decide the neighborhood was going to depreciate?"
"I don't understand."
"Why did they leave without building a gate?"
"But they did."
The four of them sat, stunned. Winn looked slowly at Derrick who returned his gaze with growing understanding. "Derr," Winn said, "When you asked Toki about the arch--"
"He thought I was talking about McDonalds!" Derrick exclaimed.
"Gee, I wonder how that came about?"
"Well, in the book, Ignatius takes a job selling hotdogs, and I was explaining about fast-food...."
"Never mind how our village idiot screwed up again," Pierce interjected, "is this thing telling us that the arch is actually a hyperspace terminal?"
Winn nodded with tight lips. Someday he was going to give the guy a poke in the nose. "Of course, this is only relevant to people who actually know hyperspace exists, and don't just believe it."
Pierce gave him a quick, irritated look. "Does this thing know what it's talking about?"
Ginny finally spoke. She seemed angry at Pierce as well. "This thing is sitting right in front of you; you can ask him yourself."
Toki didn't wait for the question. "I know that hyperspace exists, and I am confident that the arch you are uncovering is actually the top of a circle, and that this circle comprises a remote gate."
"Holy shit!" Derrick whispered.
"Ditto," Winn added. "Toki, do you think it still works?"
"I think that this is a reasonable expectation."
Winn nodded. "You're still working after three thousand years, and you're just a toy ... no offense."
"I take no offense. A coupled companion is an honorable role to serve."
"What sort of power would the gate need?"
"Remote gates are self-powered."
"It has to get power from somewhere, unless the Makers are able to repeal the first law of thermodynamics."
"I am unfamiliar with human's laws, but, like me, the gate absorbs energy from the sun."
Winn shook his head. "Sorry, Toki, but I have a hard time buying that. Even fully exposed, I doubt the gate's total surface area would be more than ... what? Maybe a hundred square feet. So, that's, um, like, maybe a thousand Watts -- a small micro-wave oven."
"The absorption is nearly 90 percent efficient, so the power gathered from the sun would be more like eight-thousand Watts, but you are correct: neither is anywhere near the energy needed to power a hyperspace gate. Is there a word for one million times one million?"
"Yeah, a trillion."
"It requires more than a trillion Watts to power the gate."
"A tera-Watt? Are you kidding? That's as much energy as the Hiroshima atom bomb!"
"Also, observe that, whereas the energy of an atom bomb is released in less than a second, the gate consumes this amount of energy continuously, as long as it is active."
"But, that's ridiculous! The gate would have to absorb sunlight for hundreds of years just to operate for one minute!"
"Actually, it would take about one-thousand, three hundred years before it could operate for one minute, if that was the only source of energy."
"... which, I gather, it's not?"
"I'm getting the idea that you are not familiar with universe energy -- I don't know the proper word in English."
"Universal energy? Not sure what you mean."
"Not 'universal' ... this is energy extracted directly from the universe. Since you have already developed atom bombs, I had the idea that you had also discovered this. It requires understanding the operation of the universe at very tiny dimensions -- smaller than atoms."
"Quantum physics. I don't understand it, but there's plenty of scientists working on it."
"I think you would have heard if they'd already discovered this. All intelligent species develop through four phases: they evolve abstract thought and communication, they develop tools, the tools become sophisticated enough to help them think, and they learn how to use, what I'll call, quantum energy. Failure to move on to any of these phases leads invariably to extinction."
"Toki, you sound like a teacher."
There was the slightest pause. "I am, Winn."
"Well, it sounds like you're talking about vacuum zero-point energy."
"Perhaps. What is your understanding of this?"
Winn laughed. "That's it: the name. All I remember is that some physicists think that there's no such thing as an absolute vacuum, but that quantum particles are constantly being created and instantly destroyed. But, I never read about anybody seriously considering tapping into this as an energy source."
"It sounds like you live in an exceptionally unique time."
"How so?"
"It seems that your species is poised to move on to stage four."
"If we don't destroy ourselves first."
"That is certainly possible. Sixty-seven percent of all intelligent species self-destruct in the process. 'Burned while playing with fire,' I think is the expression."
"Christ!" Pierce cried. "Enough with all this philosophy, already! Can the hyperspace gate work or not?"
Again, Toki paused a moment, as though letting Pierce's rudeness hover there for all to observe. "The gate draws trillions of Watts of quantum-derived energy to operate. It requires, though, initial energy to get it started -- to kick-start it. This is why the solar power is necessary."
"You're telling us," Pierce said, "that the gate can only turn on after being charged by the sun."
"And further, that it only stays on while the sun provides the controlling energy."
"I'm sorry, Toki," Winn cut in, shaking his head, "but that sounds ... contrived -- like expecting an elephant to follow a mouse around on a leash. It seems that the gate should be able to funnel off a tiny amount of the quantum energy and store it for ongoing use. It should never need the sun once it got going."
"It is exactly contrived, Winn. You must understand that the Makers build gates to operate on their own for many hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. It can take a long time to find the initial connection through hyperspace with the closest near-gate. Wanderers don't always wait for this, but move on to other systems."
"I still don't get it. Why build-in this sun-powered limitation?"
"There's a consequence of tapping into quantum energy; I suspect it has something to do with that first law of thermodynamics you talked about. The energy isn't created out of nothing. It is actually drawn from the momentum of the expansion of the universe. So, the space around the quantum tapping momentarily stops expanding, while all the surrounding space continues to expand. This can proceed for only so long before a 'hole' develops and the quantum energy becomes increasingly more difficult to extract."
"Therefore," Winn offered, "the gate has to cycle off for a while to let the space around it fill in."
"Correct."
Winn shook his head. "I'm sorry, Toki; I still don't get it. Why not just automatically cycle it off when needed? It could certainly store enough energy to start it up again."
"As you can imagine, the amount of energy the gate is handling is large--"
"Stunningly enormous," Winn corrected.
"Yes. There is an effect that can happen if the local hole in space becomes deep, and the tapping process is shut off too suddenly. I'll call this effect snapback. If uncontrolled, the snapback can release residual energy -- enough to destroy the gate. Also, if violent enough, a mini black-hole can form. This, of course, could be disastrous in the long run for the host planet."
Winn shrugged. "Still don't see the sun connection."
"The sun serves as a natural modifier. The Makers designed the gates to be very reliable, but no matter how well and carefully planned, it would be irresponsible to leave such a potentially dangerous device for thousands of years with even the slightest possibility of mis-operation. Reliability equates to simplicity. Using the sun as a controlling source guarantees that the gate will not be active for too long at a time."
"Let's cut to the chase, already," Pierce said. "What you're telling us, is that all we have to do is uncover enough of the arch, and it will become an active hyperspace gate."
Again that pause, as though Toki resisted Pierce's pushiness. "That is correct."
"That humming we hear in the afternoons..." Winn said.
"That is the gate attempting to kick-start the quantum energy tap, but there is not enough solar-gathering area to get it over the threshold."
The four of them sat in rapt silence.
"The Makers -- the Wanderers -- moved on?" Ginny finally asked. "They continued on to other stars?"
"That is one mystery I can't understand," Toki said.
"Why Wanderers didn't stick around?"
"Usually Wanderers don't stick around. Most remote gates are located on inhospitable planets that require extensive engineering to be made useable. There's no point in staying, since, even after the long period of locating a near-gate, the planet engineering process can take additional centuries to complete."
"The Earth is not hospitable to the Makers?"
"Quite the opposite: Earth is almost exactly like their home planet. Not one in a thousand planets that the Makers find is so perfect."
"So, that's the mystery -- why they left Earth?"
"Not only why they left Earth; why they purposely tried to deactivate the gate."
"What do you mean?"
"Pierce," Toki said, "the rubble covering the gate: is this a result of natural processes?"
It was Pierce's turn to pause. "No."