The Gambit

Dr. Huygens shook hands with his elderly opponent who just beat him in his favorite board game. “I have never seen anyone use the Reti Gambit so well against me,” the professor feigned a nervous laugh as they walked out the door, “Are you from here? I haven’t seen you at the chess club before.”

“I’ve only been here a week and thought I’d check out this club,” the old man explained.

“Care for some coffee, Mr. Chapman? I live just there,” Huygens pointed two houses away.

***

The two men sat on comfortable futons in his porch with steaming cups of freshly-brewed coffee in hand. Unmarried, Huygens had little company much of his life. Only occasionally had he any visitors. But when he did, he really loved it.

Curious about the queer English accent, Huygens asked enthusiastically, “So where are you from Mr. Chapman? Netherfield? Nuthall?”

“I am from far away, sir,” his voice grew raspy as he looked into the bright morning sky, “You are a man of physics, no? You fashion astronomy? I think you will understand.”

“Yes, I’ve been with the University of Nottingham for over twenty years now. Particle cosmology?” Huygens paused, Chapman nodded, “Yea, so I know a fair bit about the stars.” Huygens began proudly on his department, which proudly displays the blackboard used by Einstein.

***

“Interesting, Dr. Huygens,” Chapman said finally, “Are you a religious man?”

“No, not exactly. More than in fortune, I trust in causality. You know causality?” the professor asked. The old man urged him to continue. “All events in time occur as a result… as a reaction to the event that has happened before it. They occur for that purpose defined by that one most magnificent moment –” he paused, “The Big Bang” Chapman interrupted. Huygens smiled.

“If all events have purpose, couldn’t the Big Bang have been designed by a Creator, good sir?” Chapman asked innocently.

“Maybe,” Huygens shrugged, making it clear that the proposition wasn’t science.

“Then what of us, Dr. Huygens? What purpose have we evolved for?” the old man pursued. The professor understood that the conversation had grown deeper than what he had expected.

“We don’t know of that purpose yet. Possibly, our purpose, through society” he pondered “is that we find the purpose itself. Circular? No?”

“We live in a time where we don’t see where we are going,” Chapman shook his head somberly, “We see men working without purpose. Our world is not what it used to be. How long more can this planet sustain?”

“It’s not in our hands, Chapman. We are not society. Changes of ideology take years – decades! The society will understand, eventually.”

“What if it’s too late, Dr. Huygens?” Chapman asked sharply. “The heart of the problem is in the realization,” Chapman spoke with emphasis, “How did we get here? Who made humans?”

“If you read Dawkins, you know? Self replicating structures… evolving complexes… this and that…” Huygens chuckled, “A lot of stuff happened in the primordial soup and boom, life was born out of sheer circumstance… a one in a trillion circumstance. Our existence is an absolute miracle, I agree. But the cosmos is so huge that this was almost bound to happen.”

“I think, Dr. Huygens, that this planet is nearing a tipping point. We are abusing this miracle. This is chaos! Our attempts at recovering Earth from the crisis have far outweighed its costs. I feel that our actions are unjustified in our quest for a purpose.”

“You aren’t suggesting that we eradicate the human species now, are you Chapman?” Huygens asked jokingly, and the old man’s grave silence was not reassuring. “When the time comes, Chapman, I am sure this species will be able to respond and even change itself,” Huygens said. “Humans are a special species. We might even be the only one of our kind in the universe.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Chapman said looking at his now empty cup, “There are only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life.” Chapman sounded nearly metallic. Huygens slowly began to realize what he had implied.

“Wait a sec,” Huygens’ mouth agape, he asked, “How would you know that?”

“I am afraid your species has gone too far,” it said, “This planet cannot be allowed to perish.”