Existence

by David Brin

  HAMISH BROOKEMAN: Do you call a billion people unintelligent, Mr. Brill?

  NOLAN BRILL: Well, now you’ll have a shot at the other nine billion—who can see with their own eyes what’s happening in the asteroid belt—

  HAMISH BROOKEMAN: Their own eyes? How many have backyard telescopes? A few million? The rest—including you “news folk”—take the word of elites that anything’s going on out there! Boffins and bureaucrats who’ve lied before. Would-be priests, lords, and snobby “amateur science mobs,” all with a vested interest in this tale about alien—

  NOLAN BRILL: A tale you claimed to concoct—

  HAMISH BROOKEMAN: … Right … I was tricked into it. My own vanity—

  NOLAN BRILL: An appealingly convoluted plot, Mr. Brookeman! One of many paranoid romps you’ve enchanted us with, over the years. But first, let’s bring in Jonamine Bat Amittai, compiler of Pandora’s Cornucopia, and world authority on doomsday scenarios. She joins us from Ramallah.

  JONAMINE BAT AMITTAI: Thanks for letting me participate over this scratchy twodee connection. I couldn’t reach your Jerusalem studio, with the Megiddo riots spreading and so many factions battling over the Temple Mount—

  NOLAN BRILL: Well, we’re glad you’re safe. Heck I barely reached Newark this morning! Part of the same mania. Do you think we’re tumbling into a “things fall apart” scenario?

  JONAMINE BAT AMITTAI: Could be, Nolan. Though let’s recall, good trends oppose bad ones. There’s a worldwide counter-tide represented by the UCG, the Betsby Society, the Alliance for Civil Negotiation, and so on. All aim for calm discourse—

  NOLAN BRILL: Well now, who’d reckon a doom-gloom expert would be today’s optimist! But you rest a moment, after your harrowing escapade. Our final guest is the inimitable Professor Noozone, presentator of Master Your Universe, and evidently one of the elite sci-conspirators trying to convince us alien crystals are real, and we should listen when they forecast Judgment Day. Go easy on the patois today, will you brudder?

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Ho ho, my mon Nolanbrill. Praises to Jah and Wa’ppu to all viewers an’ lurkers, on Earth an’ in space. But no-o, I don’ think the world is ending, jus’ cause some zutopong simulated con artists fall from space to vank on us.

  NOLAN BRILL: You say the Artifact beings are real, that they should be heeded … but not trusted?

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Hey, I grok when a mon preten’ to be a ginnygog, in order to mess wit’ our heads. These space-virus puppets, dey got an agenda. Maybe not good-up for us. Time for care, zeen? For caution an’ scientific detachment. But that don’ mean alien stones ain’t real, mon. People sayin’ that must be smokin’ sour ganja, or else be bloodclotty liars—

  HAMISH BROOKEMAN: Hey now just a—

  NOLAN BRILL: What about the latest news? In parallel to the E.U.’s sci-tech control measure, U.S. Senator Crandall Strong introduced an urgent quick-bill calling for the Havana Artifact to be put under protective custody by an international commission of wise private citizens, tucking it away till things settle—

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Which could be forever! Anyway, we all know that senator-mon has ulteriors. He gettin’ a world of bodderation from the new Union of Calm Grownups. They be pushin’ to recall him from office, on account of how he’s a bandulu and a self-druggie indignation addict! Criminalize that and the world would so-change.

  Anyway, when it comes to dem alien stones, kill-mi-dead if our real solution isn’ in the opposite direction!

  NOLAN BRILL: But Professor, hasn’t our exposure to alien ideas proved traumatic? Wouldn’t it make sense to subject people to less influence?

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Nolan there be two ways that societies react to new an’ strange ideas. First wit fear. Dey suppose average folk be tainted or led astray. Bad notions warpin’ fragile minds. Better let priests an’ lords guard em from unapproved thoughts. Dat approach was followed by most human cultures.

  The other way of lookin’ is hopeful dat folks can deal with the new! Homo sapiens be an adaptable species. Change don’t got to terrify. Courage be transforming mere people-subjects into righteous citizens. Dat second way of lookin’ may be mistaken! But I be loyal to it, all de way to death an’ Babylon.

  In fact, our big-up goal should be the fix that ended all de old obeah superstitions that darkened de lives of our ancestors. More light!

  Want more truth than de Havana aliens been tellin’? Then get more stones, not less! As teenagers say—Duh?

  60.

  SHARDS OF SPACE

  Dozens of crystal fragments lay across a broad table and several shelves, bathed in sun-colored lamps. All seemed to glow.

  Some were mere clusters of chips, held together by rocky crusts. Any further cleaning would leave slivers or piles of sand. Others, more nuggetlike, featured knobs or jagged protuberances—recently washed free of stony dross. In a few cases, there remained almost half a cylinder or egg, though scratched, gouged, and missing chunks.

  Lacey wanted to stroke the specimens, fashioned by strange hands near faraway stars. It reminded her of a memorable evening when she and Jason strolled the Tower of London without chattering tourists or press-cams, when every display cabinet lay open for fifteen trillie families to fondle ancient regalia. (Well, rank hath privileges.) But mere baubles like rubies and emeralds never drew her as these shards did—gems of knowledge.

  Well … gems of persuasion. Isn’t that what jewels are about?

  “We feed them energy while lasers scan, trying every angle to excite holographic memories,” explained Dr. Ben Flannery, who seemed almost giddy, now that the quarantine glass was gone, letting advisors and commissioners mingle at last.

  He shouldn’t make assumptions. This may be prelude to a deeper quarantine. There were reported changes in security arrangements for the Contact Center. U.S. Navy guards were being replaced by men in black uniforms, without insignia.

  “Is this all the stone fragments gathered in the field? Weren’t there hundreds of micro-quakes, from buried crystals calling attention to themselves?”

  “Yes, but most were too deep for recovery. Twenty recent samples are undergoing cleaning. Others have been clung to by nations and private collectors attempting to study them apart, in defiance of Resolution 2525. The World Court will be busy for years. And we’ll never hear about fragments dug up secretly, gone straight from ground to hidden labs.”

  Lacey kept a dour thought to herself.

  That might be a good thing. With Rupert and Tenskwatawa setting up their “Wisdom Council,” pulling all strings to get it put in charge here. If they succeed … and ai models say they will … then all alien objects could be locked up and space missions canceled. “For public safety.” That’ll leave just fragments, tucked away from their clutches.

  Lacey no longer received briefings from the clade of trillionaires and her spy at the Glaucus-Worthington household hadn’t reported in days. This must be it—her long expected demotion from the oligarchy. Lacey had few regrets. Still, it wasn’t enjoyable joining ten billion commoners.

  She took solace in a grim thought. Any war on science can go both ways.

  Do they dare to trust their boffin hirelings—any of whom might suddenly declare loyalty to the Fifth and Ninth and Tenth estates? Sure, current odds favor their aristocratic putsch. But things could go badly for them, if their inner plottings leak. Or if some new factor eases public panic, replacing it with confidence. Or fascination.

  “Have any pieces responded to your probes?” asked a simtech expert from Xian.

  “They all respond to an extent. Here’s a complete archive of reactions, so far.” The fair-headed Hawaiian anthropologist waved in midair, as if his hand held something. Lacey flipped down her ai-shades, saw a shimmering virt-cube, and click-forwarded a copy to her chief analyst.

  “So, we’re learning stuff, even if broken crystals can’t talk?”

  “Indeed, Madam Donaldson-Sander. A few petabytes of holo-images, mostly degraded or lacking context. Part
ial starscapes. Incomplete globes. And blurry creatures—walkers, fliers, sea creatures. Some that seem robotic.

  “Have you traced lineages?” asked a representative of the Mormon League.

  “We’re pretty sure we’ve deciphered eleven families of message probes, each bearing distinct sets of alien figures. Plus some overlaps.”

  “Overlaps?”

  “Species that appear in more than one lineage.”

  “Appear in more than … but that would mean some races out there made several kinds of lifeboat probes! I thought these jealous things locked their hosts into duplicating just one virus-meme. But clearly a few organics…” Lacey swallowed, surprised at how an abstraction affected her. “A few host species kept some control over their own destiny, at the end.”

  “Still, there’s nothing here to contradict the original Artifact’s story.”

  Flannery motioned toward a lonely object across the room, that bulged under a heavy black cloth. All downloading had been suspended by the new Wisdom Council. Just a breather, they vowed, to let the world calm down. Sure.

  Lacey thanked Dr. Flannery and others crowded in with questions. She had a few minutes till her analysts could report back, summarizing what was learned from broken relics, dug out of mud and rock all over the planet. She expected no miracles, no game-changing alternatives from such pathetic remnants.

  The world overflowed with liars and self-deluders. Knowing this, Lacey had aimed her dreams skyward, hoping for enlightened minds. But it seems deceit is nature’s coin. Among humans, animals, or across the cosmos. Unless you’re held accountable by opponents who know your tricks. And you’ll retaliate, shining light on theirs.

  Competition—the engine of evolution—got a bad rap in primitive tribes, because it was almost never fair. Till rivalry was finally harnessed to let no one evade criticism. The Big Deal was supposed to ensure this. But Lacey and Jason always knew the odds—and human nature—were stacked. Feudalism runs in our blood. It erupted in almost every human culture, and probably across the galaxy. Wherever beings clawed up Darwin’s ladder.

  Now the clade was making its move. With limitless resources, bureaucracies captured, legislators blackmailed, and a mass reactionary movement stirred near boiling, they’d ride a wave of crisis-driven fear, fueled by the Artifact’s tale. The old lesson? In dangerous times—trust your lords.

  Some still hoped to fix all this with competition. Thousands worked around the clock on space missions robust enough to run a gauntlet of million-year-old lasers. If her money might help, Lacey would give! Only now she felt certain: those new launches would fail too.

  Rupert and the others think they have it all sewn up. The old plan. Only now with a new goal.

  The Quantum Eye had taken weeks to mull Lacey’s question, applying its mysterious polycryo-substrate to sift countless what-if parallel realities. The oracle’s answer:

  YOU MAY SOON BE TYPICAL

  The obvious meaning? Humanity is no different. Its fate like every other race. Rupert, Helena, the Bogolomovs, the Wu Changs … they’d get similar readings from the Riyadh Seer. And—terrified by its import—they would choose a new ambition, beyond mere oligarchy. After that quantum prophecy, her peers would view this planet as an ocean liner, hurtling toward unavoidable icebergs.

  Like aristocrats aboard Titanic, they were thinking about life boats.

  Once they consolidate power, all science will refocus on alien technologies. Artifact schematics will become prototypes, then orbital factories. My former peers—now masters of Earth—will picture their decisions arising from logic, necessity, and their sovereign will. But they’ll be dancing to a tune that echoes far back across spacetime.

  Ben Flannery lit up crystal fragments, revealing shredded constellations or partial globes, simulated beings and broken symbol-cascades that never fully cohered. Everyone seemed riveted. So, perhaps Lacey was the only one to notice when a quartet of figures emerged through a door at the chamber’s far end.

  Gerald Livingstone, Akana Hideoshi, and two other members of the original Contact Team—the Russian and the Chinese-Canadian woman—strode past the other table, the one with a single bulging object in its center, covered by thick cloth. Each wore a one-piece flight suit and carried a travel duffel, slung over a shoulder.

  The astronaut barely glanced at the shrouded Artifact that he once lassoed from space, as he led the small party to a side exit that had been sealed for months.

  Now, the portal gave way as Livingstone planted a shoulder and pushed. For a long moment the four just stood, bathed in bright Maryland sunshine, inhaling a planetary breeze for the first time in months.

  Lacey stepped near the second table, fingering a fringe of the black cloth. Thinking hard.

  Even though the sound was expected, she jumped when the door slammed shut behind her with a bang.

  LOYALTY TEST

  This may be the last session of alien interviews for us to examine for a while. Now that the Contact Center is virtually shut down, all interactions with the Havana Artifact must now go through that new council thing. Despite all the whistleblower spills, linking it to a cabal of gnomes and trogs.

  With riots and counter-riots raging, aren’t there enough upsetting rumors going around?

  —That the Artifact has already been destroyed, and the one shown to the press yesterday by the WC is a fake.

  —That it’s a fake all right, to cover up the fact that the original was STOLEN! Swiped by members of the old Contact Team who haven’t been seen since.

  —That it was a fake all along. (Yeah, that one is back.)

  —That the explosion yesterday at Canaveral was rigged to draw eyes from another launch at the same time, far out to sea.

  —That cryonic suspensions of living people—fleeing our raucous time—have gone up so fast that even the Seasteads can’t keep up. And liquid nitrogen futures are skyrocketing.

  —That the crisis might spark a reconvening of the Estates Generale, a conclave to reconsider the Big Deal.

  And so on and on. So many puzzles … and where the heck is Tor Povlov, when we need her?

  Never mind. Here and now, I want to dial back to our main interest, the Artifact aliens, or artilens. That last interview before shutdown. We started discussing it yesterday.

  You’ll recall most people were fascinated by the beetlelike being who called himself “Martianus Capella,” after an ancient Roman who saw the fall of civilization looming and tried saving some of it. Our Earthly Martianus Capella strove to collect what he considered the highest accomplishments of his culture, the Seven Liberal Arts, and his collection—in weird poesical format—seemed a candle to many, during the Dark Ages. That story inspired Isaac Asimov, by the way, to write his famed Foundation sci-fi series.

  The alien Capella’s struggles to retain many treasures of his people and planet, then safeguarding them against erasure, struck many of us as noble and moving. So moving that I missed something equally important.

  It came during the interview with M’m por’lock—that reddish furred otterlike being. When he was asked by Emily Tang (before she disappeared) about the Artifact’s central narrative. The story told by Oldest Member and most of the others. That all organic races die.

  M’m por’lock agreed with Om’s account … though with some body language that has stirred argument across the Mesh. Some suggest signs of reluctance, perhaps even coercion! Others chide that it’s foolish—interpreting alien quivers and crouches in human terms.

  Only then, M’m por’lock continued.

  “There is a legend,” he said. “That one day will come a species who achieves the impossible. Beings who notice and wisely evade all traps and pitfalls, yet do so while moving forward. A race that soberly studies the art of survival, the craft of maturity, and the science of compassion.

  “It is said this will be a new dawn. That long-awaited civilization will set forth to rescue all promising new races, teaching them the skills to make it and survive. And th
ey will lift up those who tumbled earlier.

  “They will light a path for all.”

  With eagerness, Emily Tang asked M’m por’lock to elaborate. Only then the Oldest Member appeared, reminding them that time was up.

  “Of course … it is only a legend,” finished the red alien, with Om standing alongside. “A tale for children or those in denial. Not for realists who can see. There is only one escape.”

  61.

  IT’S A BUOY

  Ascent.

  The ai inside his right eyeball wrote that ideogram, explaining the new path of the mechanical sea serpent that had swallowed Bin and the worldstone.

  Sure enough, it felt as if the robot snake were now aimed upward, throbbing hard with swishing strokes of its long tail. Peering through the tiny window, Bin watched an extinct volcano pass by—its eroded peak now crowned by a coral reef that shimmered with sunlit surf. Was this the secret base of whatever group had sent the machine after him?

  After the worldstone, that is? At best, Bin would be a helper, a tour guide, hoping for reward. Not death.

  But this was no secluded outpost. Instead of entering the lagoon via a clear channel that Bin spied through the shoals, he felt the machine twist and undulate away, following one shoulder of the mountain toward a ridge of shallows, some distance from the main atoll.

  It began slowing down.

  During one of the snake’s looping movements, Bin caught sight of something ahead … a metal chain leading from an anchoring point on the mountain slope, tethering something that bobbed at the surface. A wave-energy generator? Was the robot only stopping here to replenish its batteries?

  The thought that this might only be a brief stop, along a much longer journey, seemed to fill Bin’s body with sudden aches and his mind with new-formed terror of confinement. The tiny space was now even smaller and more stagnant. He flexed, involuntarily pushing with hands and feet against the close, padded space, breathing hard.

  Peng Xiang Bin.

  Focus.