by David Brin
“But … aren’t you concerned that we might … misuse some of the most advanced…” Gerald noticed Akana shaking her head and motioning for him not to go there. But surely the thought was on everyone’s mind. “… That we might misuse some of the most advanced technologies?”
Such things happen. But the knowledge that we share should ensure your survival. And most of the problems that now vex you should vanish like a bad memory.
While most people reacted positively to that response, with smiles and sighs, Gerald caught a warning glance from Akana, not to diverge from the script again without consulting her. He nodded and cleared his throat, then spoke straight from the list.
“Please tell us about the federation of worlds that we are invited to join.”
Gerald saw his sentence enter the Artifact as a string of letters that divided and mutated into more than seven dozen different streams of characters, each zeroing in upon a different alien figure. At first Om—the Oldest Member—simply kept on smiling, as a rustle spread among the varied beings who stood, sat, squatted, perched, or lay behind him. But it quickly became apparent that something was different, this time.
The English version of Gerald’s question still floated, above the throng.
Please tell us about the federation of worlds that we are invited to join.
The creatures in the background were turning to one another, as if disturbed. Not angry or excited … perhaps confused was a better term. This soon manifested in the way that Om, standing up front, appeared to scratch the side of his head. The transcendent smile lapsed, somewhat.
Non sequitur. There is no federation of worlds.
Silence reigned in the Contact Center, and among the advisers behind the quarantine glass. It apparently prevailed far beyond, as well, since the storm of virts stopped whirling and trying to encroach from the periphery of Gerald’s percept. Most of them faded, as their authors lost interest. Or the glowing virtual messages dispersed like evaporating dew when ainalysis engines deemed them no longer top-relevant.
Gerald glanced at Ben Flannery, who nodded back at him. The Hawaiian anthropologist looked vindicated, yet saddened, as if he had hoped to be wrong. Alone on Earth, the two of them knew the likely alternative—the situation that prevailed out there instead of a federation.
Gerald made it the basis for an ad hoc question.
“Then please tell us about your loose interstellar affiliation of species—the alliance that dispatched you to share cultural values.”
Again, confusion caused a ripple among the ninety or so ersatz beings. This time they answered more swiftly through Om, whose expression seemed a bit irked.
There is no alliance or affiliation of species. I already told you this.
Gerald winced. It was the first time the alien envoy had rebuked him.
No you did not tell me that, he thought.
Earlier you said there was no “competition” among species. You said that competition could never happen.
We took that to mean no war. Or no easy physical travel. Or both.
But this is something else. “Affiliation” is a mild and tepid-friendly word. It can stand for anything … including Ben’s loose culture groups.
And you say there isn’t even that?
Gerald’s heart was beating harder now, from involuntary surges of adrenaline. He did not want to follow where this was leading.
“But,” he began. “But we see an affiliation of many species before our eyes right now. Also, you refer to we and us and to our community.…”
This time the Buddha smile crept back and the Oldest Member spoke without waiting.
We do, indeed, have a community. One of peace and adventure! It offers you a wondrous opportunity for your survival. For exploration and perpetual existence.
Gerald felt an awful sense of realization that had been creeping upon him for some time. There was a basic misunderstanding that he now saw suddenly—one that had been rooted, all along, in a flaw in the English language.
No federation of worlds … and no affiliation of species.
That left only one possibility.
Without willing himself to do so, he stood up from his chair while facing the Artifact that he had pulled out of cold space.
He tapped himself on the chest.
“M—me?”
He had to swallow before continuing.
“All this time you were talking about … talking to … me?”
Naturally, given your importance. You and other leaders who make decisions and allocate resources.
It was all Gerald could manage, numbed by realization, to move on.
“Individuals,” he said, for clarification. “It’s not about worlds or species or societies, or even cultural groups, but individual entities?”
He could picture millions of libertarians, out there, having their aha! moment of joyous vindication. For as short as it would last.
How could it be otherwise? Yes, one individual at a time. Though as many as your overall survival plan and dedication will allow.
The Oldest Member’s smile was wide and angelic once again, beaming with generosity. But Gerald ignored that, just as he pushed aside the murmurs penetrating through the quarantine glass. His specs filled with a tornado of distractions, so he yanked them off as well, facing the moment bare-faced. Bare-eyed.
“Survival…,” he said, and pointed at the Artifact.
“You mean … in there?”
He was breathing hard and fought to slow down.
“You mean inside that crystal cylinder … That is where it all would happen? That’s where you’re offering survival and life everlasting?”
No! Misunderstanding!
Om shook the pudgy head with an indulgent smile.
Let me clarify: Not just in this cylinder, of course. What a cramped “survival” that would be!
The corpulent entity appeared to chuckle in amusement over such silliness …
… and Gerald heard Emily shudder a sigh of relief.
A premature sigh. A presumptuous one.
Not just in this cylinder. But in MILLIONS like it! Perhaps hundreds of millions if you are ambitious, prudent, and resourceful.
We shall teach you how to build them. And how to fill each one with our duplicates. Ninety-two … plus a ninety-third! A chosen persona from your own race to enter each capsule. To join a community of perseverance, endurance, replication, and survival! And we will show you how to send them forth, like seeds, across the great black sky.
Gerald contemplated how wrong he had been. Those earlier stunned pauses had not been “silences.”
This was silence.
Nobody spoke. It seemed that no one could even breathe. Gerald was certain that shocked soundlessness pervaded the entire Earth.
Until Genady Gorosumov uttered the one phrase that would become more famous than any other.
“It’s a goddamned chain letter!”
* * *
Gerald glanced sourly at his Russian friend who had, after all, only stated the obvious. Still, Genady might have spared the world some pain by waiting a few more seconds—by letting the paralysis stretch on a while longer, allowing some people to cling to their illusions. Any illusion at all.
He looked to his left. Professor Flannery wore a dazed expression. Ben’s clever model of competing missionary probes still had some validity, but it applied to a situation even less palatable than “rival cultural memes.”
Sorry, Ben.
For the first time, the alien emissary did not wait for a question, but proceeded to speak on its own.
A hundred and twelve species have participated so far in this particular line. Ninety-two of us still thrive in here.
Whenever a new race joins the community, it selects one individual of its kind to be copied into each new probe. Some just replicate their king or queen, over and over in all the copies they make. A few use lotteries or sell tickets or choose their “best” by local criteria.
Some try
to be fair by assigning one copy to each person then alive. Naturally we like that approach since it leads to many more copies being made!
Each individual who is copied into a probe gets to continue … but it is at the NEXT site that great rewards are reaped.
When another planetary culture is found and helped to make new batches of copies each of us is reborn many million-fold!
By my best estimate, there may be trillions upon trillions of copies of me, now extant across the galaxy. Over time, you may be able to make that claim, as well!
The expression of satisfaction seemed so pure—so smug—that Gerald began to doubt the theory that Om was just a consensus puppet for the others. The Oldest Surviving Member’s pride was obvious. Blatant. Assured.
That can be your destiny, as well. Good outcomes for those who participate and replicate. Oblivion for those who break the chain. Join us!
There followed more. Words rolled out, accompanied by illustrations, amounting to what was now obviously a sales pitch—describing how luxuriously unlimited were the simulated environments that such crystalline homes could provide. How this lineage of probes was among the oldest and best around, with an unbeaten track record of getting itself copied and dispersed and recopied yet again!
It reminded Gerald of an extended infomercial for an oceanic cruise line—one embarking on an infinite voyage. He tried to follow that thought, but a rustle surged among the members of the contact team. Several of them could be heard to gasp aloud.
Gerald glanced at Akana, who motioned urgently for him to put his specs back on.
When he did so, he saw, superimposed upon reality, the face of the Chinese member of the contact team, Haihong Ming.
“My government has heard from the Xian Academy of Artful Illusion, which just spent two hours analyzing those images we saw earlier this afternoon, depicting the Artifact’s departure from the planet of the bat-helicopter people.
“Professor Wu Yan and his colleagues managed to amplify the flicker-moment, just as this pellet was launched upon its lengthy journey from its homeworld toward our own.”
Gerald’s specs darkened, immersing him once again within the galactic night, with the planet of Low-Swooping Fishkiller in the distance and the orbiting factory, manufacturing a long line of crystalline envoys—interstellar chain letters—visible much closer in the foreground view. Closest of all was a long conveyor belt carrying fresh, new pellets to the breech of a long mass-driver cannon. The titanic artillery piece was about to fire this probe on the beginning of its epic voyage toward a certain yellow sun.
“Notice how the spacesuited figures are starting to turn away and look below,” continued Haihong Ming. “As they notice bright objects converging toward the factory.”
Gerald did remember that … and briefly wanting to ask about it, till other matters intervened. Now, in much slower motion, he could see several of the batlike beings swivel again—as if to flee—while others simply froze, as if staring at inevitability. Bright streaks approached. Other glowing trails could be seen farther away, arcing to crisscross above the planet.
Oh, no.
The cannon fired—a burst of rising, concentric brilliance that seized the cameralike point of view, sending it streaking along the rails, leaving the blue-brown world behind at an accelerating rate.
Only now, fantastically slowed. The Chinese image analysts had managed to eke out the equivalent of three final frames, still encompassing the planet and manufacturing facility.
And Gerald presently made out something fell and deadly, that had previously been masked by the cannon’s blazing burst of electromagnetic thrust.
Detonations. Unmistakably atomic. One of them—the nearest—was just starting to consume the factory in a wave of violence that would barely fail to prevent the pellet’s escape. It seemed doubtful that any later probes would get away. Certainly none of the makers did.
“The bat civilization must have survived this round of violence,” Haihong Ming explained. “Because later they did send the promised beam of charged particles, to further accelerate the probe. But it took them many decades to recover enough to do so.
“And the beam did not last long.”
Gerald removed the specs again, this time to rub his eyes.
At least, that was what others saw him do. He managed to keep anybody—no matter how well equipped—from noticing the tears.
When he looked up again, he knew what he had to ask the Artifact entities. Though it took him a few seconds to focus on the Oldest Member and to gather his voice.
“What about your homes!”
He spoke sharply—almost a shout—in order to break the sales pitch, not caring if Om looked peeved over being interrupted.
“The planets and species and civilizations that each of you came from. Does this Artifact also contain information about them?”
The stout alien did not smile.
Some.
“They interest us, most of all. We want to know about them.”
It is not a topic that we recommend pursuing. At this phase in particular.
But Gerald was insistent.
“You said earlier that your home species had never met. That made no sense when we envisioned some sort of galactic federation. Now I must ask you straight. Up front.”
Gerald glanced at his team mates, at Emily and Genady and Ramesh and Patrice and Terren and Ben … and Akana, whose face was gaunt and pale. She gave a jerky nod.
“How can that be?” Gerald continued. “Why have they never met?”
Om remained reluctant.
Asking will not increase your happiness.
At this, Gerald gritted his teeth. He no longer wanted any part of fame, for discovering this thing. All he felt was cold fury. A need, at last, for some truth.
“Tell us,” he insisted. “Or we’ll put you in a dark box and go find others who will answer.
“Tell us now!”
The ninety-two alien occupants of a crystalline pocket universe murmured among themselves. Faces grimaced. Claws and tentacles clenched, and Gerald felt suddenly certain.
It isn’t for our sakes that they avoid this topic. But for their own.
Because of pain.
The fat avatar that represented them all now looked anything but jolly. The Oldest Surviving Member gave a shrug that might have been copied from some Earthling gesture, but the air of resignation—even cruel indifference—seemed all too real.
None of our home species still live. Having flared briefly, all are gone. Individuals may last! In this form we fill the cosmos and live forever. So can you!
But sapient species don’t endure. No civilizations. Nor planets that spawn them.
Then the entity took a step closer to the boundary and added—
What? You thought yours would survive?
PART SIX
THIS MORTAL COIL
The world may end later than the year 2060, but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit.
—Sir Isaac Newton
How might our world be different, if our literature, to say nothing of our politics, behaved more like a rational, intrepid adult than a hand-wringing adolescent?
—Kim Stanley Robinson
SPECIES
Autie-Murphy sifted the nor-nand gaps +/-/+ found 32,823 fugitives sought by normalpeople authorities + + missed by the hired aspies who run searches for FBI +Interpol +FRS +HanSecuritInc +cetera -/- he sifted the world’s image gestalt for not-patterns of people with altered biometrics hiding in plain sight +/+ at plane sites -/- at pain to spite a world searching for them!
some hidden ones are verybad people ./. wanted for doing badbadbad things./. dontthinkaboutthatdontdontdont
others hide for political reasons … moral … philosophical … stuff only weird homosapiens un
derstand -/+= no way any autie would be naughty
shall we report them all??? ask Auntie-Autie-Ortie !/+/- her savant-talent is ethics +/!/+ let her decide which to tattle-on!! Autie-Murphy won’t care -/+ he loves the search +analyzing worldwide cam usages +deviations/skews/kurtosis …
… and he found HER !/! chimera-mom and her little boy + + + age seven but big as a ten-year-old normalkid!!! Gene Autie accessed the database of scientists secretly studying the child —
=> go 145,627,010 base-pairs down the long arm of chromosome#1 => see <= the unusual version of 1q21.1 —- not a normalpeople variant —/- nor the “mistakes” carried by some autistics/schizophrenics/others -/+ it’s a resurrection of something longlost +/-
LOOK at the child!=>*<= beautiful bigskull protrudes in back. Perfect pitch and more surprises … yet stronger &better-focused than any autiee + with fight/flight response that’s calm-not-jittery!/!- speaks almost normal … but SEE how he relates to animals! here =>*<=
Agurne (greetings) Arrixaka (virgin) Bidarte (between the ways) should be proud of her son +-+ too bad they surgically removed his eyebrow ridges -/-/- to stand out less -/- but what a smile and perfect profile !/-/! without that ugly homosap chin (((
they did it !/! normalpeople (a few) redeemed their ancient crime + + + returned the Robust Folk to the world + + +
too bad other normalpeople want him dead
48.
REFLEX
The Silverdome was crowded. With winter coming, more deepees wandered in to escape the night chill, even if it meant serving on work crews and listening to preachucators while slurping free alganoodles, spiced with pulp-grade chicktish meat.
Arriving for his shift, Slawek groaned when he saw how many newcomers had arrived on the mezzanine level, erecting cots, privacy curtains, and cheap, pixelcloth vid-screens to distract the kids, perching it all on metlon-and-plyboard platforms that covered the old stadium seating.
