Existence

by David Brin

  Hijo’s faulty use of the plural almost made her protest. I have only one child. But Mei Ling shook her head. This was no time for petty distraction. She turned back to the mother.

  “How can I help? What can I tell you?”

  Agurne Arrixaka Bidarte leaned gently toward Mei Ling.

  “Everything. Anything you can remember. We already have many clues.

  “Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”

  A GLIMMER

  The gullet of the sea serpaint isn’t as gross or disgusting as he expected. The walls are soft and he has only to crawl back a short distance to find a space shaped to fit a recumbent person.

  While twisting into the seat, Bin hears the jaw of the mechanical beast close with a thump. There follows backward movement, undulating, shaking, like a worm wriggling out of a hole. By some tech-wizardry, the small space around him begins emptying of water. Soon, a hiss of air.

  Bin spits out the mouthpiece—a gasp of shuddering relief. The breather had gone foul. He gratefully rubs his eyes.

  A patch of wall near his head is transparent—a window! How considerate. Really. It makes him feel ever-so-slightly less a prisoner—or a meal. Pressing his face, he peers outside. The palace ruins are a jumble, collapsed further by the fighting, now lit by slanting moonlight.

  While the robot backs up, Bin spots his former attic shelter. Briefly, before the machine can accelerate forward, he glimpses the opening—and perhaps a shadowy silhouette. At least, he thinks so.

  Enough to hope.

  58.

  DESPERATION

  “They aren’t just battling it out with lasers anymore,” Gennady reported. “Now, many of the space attacks appear to involve kinetic energy weapons.”

  “You mean pellet guns?” Akana asked. “Wouldn’t those be slower? Harder to aim, with all those asteroids jumbling about, on different orbits? And your target might get a chance to duck.”

  “How does a lump of crystal duck?” asked Emily Tang.

  “Evidently,” replied Haihong Ming, “there are things out there with more … physical capability … than mere lumps of passive crystal.”

  That had been obvious for a while. Still it felt like a milestone for someone to say aloud what everyone was thinking. We’re in new territory, Gerald realized.

  “Exactly! So…” Akana blinked. “Oh, I see. If you fire a high-velocity pellet and it takes a while to intersect the orbit of its target, that gives you time to take cover or get out of the way, before anyone will notice and retaliate. Can’t do that with a laser.”

  “Depends on whether anyone’s using radar.…” Gennady started to quibble, then shook his head and let it go.

  “But why fight at all?” asked Dr. Tshombe. “What is this all about?”

  “You mean other than scaring the bejeesus out of several billion Earthlings?” Emily asked, with a crack in her voice.

  Or putting the kibosh on all those stupid claims of a hoax, Gerald pondered with some bitter satisfaction. One casualty had been the credibility of Hamish Brookeman and his backers. Well, sic transit gloria.

  Ben Flannery, their Hawaiian anthropologist, gestured toward the object Gerald recovered from space—what seemed ages ago—now covered by a thick black cloth. The recording technicians had been sent away and all light cut off. The commission members had come to realize it was still necessary to teach the Artifact a lesson, now and then.

  “We already knew there were factions. Machines that are related to our Artifact—part of the same interstellar lineage—may have worried, when other types started flashing for attention. Then came news reports from Earth, about space expeditions preparing to go fetch more varieties, for comparison. That was the last straw. Those cousins of our Artifact stepped in at that point, acting forcefully to remove the competition.

  “And that brought retaliation. A truce that may have lasted eons came to a sudden end.”

  “In order to achieve what?” Emily asked.

  “To claim the most valuable commodity in the solar system—human attention.”

  Gerald felt sympathy for Ben, a man of peace, reluctantly dragged into analysis of deadly war. One that apparently spanned millions of years, without a single living participant. But that didn’t make it any less violent.

  Akana had gone quiet for a while, as her tru-vus went opaque. Her teeth were clicking like mad, and among her subvocal grunts Gerald thought he heard one that signaled “Yes, sir,” repeated several times.

  Uh-oh, he thought.

  “You know, there is an alternative theory,” Gennady mused, oblivious to Akana’s distraction. “We already decided these crystal artifacts are a lot like viruses. Well, in that case, consider a biological analogy. One explanation for the machines that are shooting at these space viruses may be some kind of immune—”

  Akana’s specs abruptly cleared and she sat up, with the petite but commanding erect posture of a woman who had recently been promoted to the rank of major general in the United States Aerospace Force. Her bearing brought silence better than any spoken order.

  “That was the White House. All plans for another sample-recovery mission have been put on hold. Nobody feels prepared to send a crew, or even robots, into that mess out there. And I’m told that similar orders have been issued by Great China.”

  She paused while Haihong Ming checked with his government. In seconds, he nodded.

  “That is so. But there appears to be more. Will you all kindly give me a moment?” Then it was his turn to disappear behind interspectacles that went totally opaque.

  Gerald and the others looked at each other. Way back in olden times, it used to take weeks or months for an envoy to consult with his government, back home. Now, a couple of minutes seemed to stretch forever as Haihong Ming grunted in apparent surprise … then seeming protest … and finally evident submission.

  At last, he flipped back his eye hoods decisively and took a few seconds to scan those seated around the table, before resuming.

  “It would seem we now have sufficient reason for a complete pooling of resources and information.”

  “Um, I thought that was what we were doing already,” Gennady commented. But Gerald shook his head. “I think our esteemed colleague from the Reborn Central Kingdom has something specific in mind. Something that he was forced—until now—to conceal.”

  Haihong Ming agreed with a short, sharp nod. This admission clearly caused some pain. “My sincere apologies for that. But now I can reveal that we long suspected the existence of at least one more emissary artifact, here on Earth.”

  “You mean other than those shattered remnants people have been digging up, in recent weeks?”

  “I mean that certain elements within our venerable society have long believed in speaking-stones that fall from heaven. Some tales were thought more credible than others. There once was, for example, a specimen held in the Imperial Summer Palace, until it was sacked by European troops during the Second Opium War. That object was said to induce vivid dreams. Another—a carved egg made from especially pale jade, with purported ‘magical properties’—was taken from the National Museum by Chiang Kai-shek, when he fled to Taiwan. Neither piece was ever publicly seen again.”

  “Did those items exhibit any of the properties we’ve seen here?” Tshombe waved toward the cloth-covered Havana Artifact. “Clear and explicit images? Animated beings who respond to questions?”

  “Not in modern times, or witnessed by reliable chroniclers,” the Chinese representative conceded. “But they may have been rendered inactive by superstitious meddling or artistic … elaborations. Our mandarins and craftsmen were often too eager to cut and embellish naturally beautiful things,” he admitted, ruefully. “Or else, they may have been damaged amid centuries of warfare and looting.

  “Ancient accounts do at least suggest they would be good targets of study. Perhaps even now they are under scrutiny by cryptic groups.”

  That implication was unpleasant to consider. Some secret cove
n of elite power, gaining an advantage by comparing their own private source to the flood of public information emerging from the Havana Artifact.

  “Then there are even older legends, or vague hints that magical stones were buried in royal graves. And—”

  Refusing to be distracted, Ben Flannery sighed. “Is that all you mean to tell us? That some museum pieces may once have glimmered a little, before they were carved into uselessness? From your buildup, I figured you fellows already had something more tangible in your hands.”

  Haihong Ming shook his head.

  “We almost did. An especially promising piece kept slipping through our grasp. Not once but frequently, for a generation.”

  “A generation?” Akana asked, clearly puzzled. “But—”

  “That is how long we suspected something remarkable—an intact emissary stone—might have come into private possession. Our searches came close to recovering it, several times.”

  And if you did acquire a working space crystal, earlier than I snagged one out of orbit, Gerald wondered, would you have shared it with the world, as we did?

  Haihong Ming continued. “The most recent near miss—and it causes some embarrassment to say this—came just over a day ago. Thirty hours, to be exact. Since then, we have searched hard. And other forces appear to be doing so, as well.”

  “But…” Akana leaned forward, her elbows on the smooth tabletop. “How do you know this isn’t just another fetish stone, or crystal skull, or some other man-made—”

  “We know,” affirmed the representative of Great China, firmly. “And I am now authorized to show you how we know.”

  With a series of grunts and hand motions, Haihong Ming caused an image to appear above the table. A scroll of some sort, or flimsy document, a single page that stretched wider and then shimmered with pixelated rainbows, as if lit by some angled light source. Gerald squinted. His aiware compensated and interpreted.

  A memory sheet. An older, ten-petabyte unit for digital data storage.

  The filmy object floated—in synthetic 3-D—above them all, then appeared to flatten, turning and glistening in every refracted color.

  “This recording came into our possession just three hours ago. It is now being flown to Beijing, but a preliminary download contains information so startling—I am ordered to share it with you.”

  A small seed of blackness erupted from a corner of the memory sheet. Unfolding once … twice … several times … the darkness continued to expand through a dozen dimensions. It then unpackaged glittering, pinpoint stars that swirled and dispersed, arraying themselves across what rapidly became an ersatz, 3-D cosmos, complete with strange constellations … all of it enveloping a blue-brown world. One that clearly wasn’t Earth. Nor did Gerald recognize the globe from dozens revealed by the Havana Artifact.

  “As I said, we did not recover the interstellar voyager itself,” explained Haihong Ming. “That crystal may already be sequestered in a hidden place by some nation, cabal, or gang. But a sympathetic citizen did provide us with this record containing dozens of hours of output from the Heaven Egg.”

  “Heaven Egg?”

  “The original artifact is Chinese national property. It is ours, to name, as we choose. And be assured, we will recover it! Meanwhile, here is a small portion of its trove. Remember, I, too, am seeing this for the first time.”

  Haihong Ming motioned and a story commenced, made entirely of images.

  It began as natives of the blue-brown world launched a tiny, twinkling probe, then used giant machines to send sparkling rays, push-propelling its filmy sail across the vast desert of space. Gennady and Ramesh murmured about technical differences between the method portrayed here and that described by the Havana Artifact. No one else spoke as the little envoy passed for a time through darkness … then brightened in the light of a fast-approaching sun.

  Gerald’s breath caught as quick-looming Jupiter snagged and flung the little envoy … which then caromed wildly among other planets, slowing each time until, at last, a familiar globe floated into view, seizing the star-traveler into a final, flaming embrace …

  … followed by a miraculous, snow-cushioned landfall. Then discovery by men in sewn leather garments.… And the story had barely begun.

  There were no breaks—for meals, even the toilet—nor did anyone speak. Not till a single word took shape, central and glowing, above the table top, right next to the blanket-covered bulge of the Havana Artifact. It manifested as an ancient Chinese ideogram, floating and shimmering in a calligraphic style that seemed edgy. Even angry.

  Gerald’s aiware had no trouble with translation. And all at once, he understood why Haihong Ming and his superiors were in a sudden mood to share everything they knew.

  LIARS.

  LOYALTY TEST

  You got to hand it to those boys and girls on the Contact Commission. They do come up with clever tricks to get cooperation from the Artifact. First that behavioral training they used last month. Now, by refusing to record any more of those endless schematics and tech manuals the probe offers.

  Who would think to try that? Saying no to a free gift? Declining something humans passionately desire—all those advanced technologies—in order to get what’s more important.

  It makes sense though. What’s the probe’s top priority? Get us moving down the road toward making more probes. Put aside whether that ultimate goal is good, bad, or neutral. The Artifact must hunger to teach us those technologies. A hunger we can exploit. Hideoshi and her team are savvy. They won’t scratch the Artifact’s itch without some kind of payment. And their demand?

  More interviews with the passengers. One or two or three at a time.

  This grew more urgent when we spied lasers and guns blasting across the asteroid belt! The commission demanded an explanation—and Oldest Member first expressed surprise, then indifference, and finally attributed it all to “bad machines from earlier eras.”

  Adding that “You humans can protect yourselves by downloading strong tools. Let us show you how to cast powerful rays that could sweep your solar system clean!”

  Hm. Tempting. Persuasive. Who turns down an offer of big guns?

  And Gerald Livingstone tossed the Black Cloth, casting the artilens in darkness—till they finally accepted a deal. One hour for one hour. They get to teach us new-tech for a span, then we get some diversity—such as it is.

  So we’ve gone back to interviewing Low-Swooping Fishkiller—the youngest member—proud that his race made the Artifact we now hold, and apparently unmoved that we detect no sign of industry or radio by peering at his homeworld. “Organics all die,” he answered, shrugging those weird wings.

  And Squiddy … she picked the name herself, from fifty thousand submitted by school kids across Earth. Some sense of humor, for a tentacle-waving pseudo cephalopod! Her chief contribution to human culture—a fresh and convincing definition of “irony”—has the intelligentsia spinning in why didn’t we think of that circles! And it took an alien. Huh.

  Still, Squiddy won’t diverge from Om’s party line. He makes a case that the Artifact may indeed be like a virus—as critics say—but a beneficial or commensal one. And he gave hundreds of examples from our medical literature. A persuasive point.

  Others are harder to understand. Take the caterpillarlike being who spends its time during each interview peering out of the crystal at any nearby human, then muttering a puff of dismissive symbols that translate: “Man, what an imagination I have!”

  A clear case of Noakes Disease, earning that creature the web consensus name Bennie.

  “What did you expect?” commented M’m por’lock, the one who resembles a giant-reddish otter, after helping usher Bennie away. “We spend eternities floating through space, either sleeping or amusing ourselves in vast virtuality layers, deep within our crystal vessel. You can lose your way in dreamstate. Or miss your chance to taste objective reality, during each brief encounter with a living race.”

  Are you like me? Do you get
a sense, from M’m por’lock, of things unsaid?

  More broadly—is this doing any good?

  Sure, it scratches our curiosity itch, a bit. Glimpsing strange arts and tasting the cultural spread can be engrossing. This gives our psych and other experts a chance to chart behaviors, cross-correlate alien attitudes and other boffin stuff. But seriously, what do they expect—to come up with an extraterrestrial lie detector? Some way to verify the stories we’re told? Or to separate the Artifact’s good offers from the sales-pitch parts? The portions that are pure, viral self-interest?

  Suspicion lingers. The diversity of ninety races that we see—is it all somehow concocted? An act that’s been refined before many audiences across ten million years? A puppet show, serving that long-term goal—

  —to persuade?

  59.

  JONAH

  The artificial sea serpent took a circuitous route along the ocean floor, carrying Bin on a lengthy tour of murky canyons and muddy flats, stretching endlessly.

  His passenger cell was padded, but cramped. The curved walls kept twisting, throbbing as the machine beast pushed along. Nor was the robot vehicle as garrulous or friendly as Dr. Nguyen’s penguin surrogate. Giving only terse answers, it ignored his request for a webscreen, immersion specs, or any form of ailectronic diversion.

  For the most part, the apparatus kept silent.

  Or as silent as a motorized python could be, while undulating secretively across a vast and mostly empty sea. Clearly, it was avoiding contact with humanity—not easily done in this day and age, even far away from shipping lanes and shorelines. Several times, Bin felt thrown to one side as the snake-sub veered and dived, taking shelter behind some mound, within a crevice, or even burying itself under a meter or so of mucky sediment, then falling eerily quiet, as if hiding from predators. On two of those occasions, Bin thought he heard the faint drone of some engine gradually rise and then fall, in both pitch and volume, before fading away at last. Then, as the serpent shook itself free of mud, their journey resumed.