Existence

by David Brin

  “Show me,” I demand. Perhaps my long wait is over.

  63.

  A CRIME SCENE

  Tor stared as the asteroid’s slow rotation brought ancient, shattered ruins into view. “Lord, what a mess.”

  For two years in the belt she had helped unpeel layers of a puzzle going back a million centuries. Lately, that meant uncovering strange alien ruins, but never such devastation as this.

  Just a few kilometers from the survey ship Warren Kimbel, a hulking shadow blocked the starry Milky Way. Ancient collisions had left dents and craters along its two-thousand-meter axis. On one side, it seemed a typical, nameless hunk of stone and frozen gas. But this changed as the sun’s vacuum brilliance abruptly swarmed the other half—exposing jagged, twisty remnants of a catastrophe that happened when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

  “Gavin!” she called over her shoulder. “Come see this!”

  Her partner floated through the overhead hatch, flipping in midair. His feet met the magnetized floor with a faint click.

  “What is it? More murdered babies? Or clues to who their killers were?”

  Tor gestured and her partner stared. Highlights shone across Gavin’s glossy features as their searchlight swept the shattered scene.

  “Yep,” he nodded. “Dead babies again, murdered by some facr’ing enemy a jillion years ago. Povlov Exploration and Salvage ought to make good money off each corpse.”

  Tor frowned, commercial exploitation was a small part of their reason for coming, though it helped pay the bills. “Don’t be morbid. Those are unfinished interstellar probes, destroyed ages ago, before they could be launched. We have no idea whether they were sentient machines like you, or just tools, like this ship. You of all people should know better than to go around anthropomorphizing alien artifacts.”

  Gavin’s grimace was an aindroid’s equivalent of a sarcastic shrug. “If I use ‘morbid’ imagery, whose fault is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you organic humans faced a choice, back when you saw that ‘artificial’ intelligence was going to take off. You could have wrecked the machines, abandoning progress—”

  She refrained from mentioning how close that came to happening.

  “—or you could deep-program us with ‘fundamental Laws of Robotics,’” Gavin sniffed. “And had slaves far smarter than their masters. But no, what was it you organics decided?”

  Tor knew it was no use when Gavin got in a mood. She concentrated on piloting a closer orbit.

  “What was your solution to the problem of smart machines? Raise us as your children. Call us people. Citizens. You even gave some of us humaniform bodies!”

  Tor’s last partner—a nice old bot and good chess player—had warned her when he trans-retired. Don’t hire an adolescent Class-AAA android fresh out of college, as difficult as any human adolescent. The worst part? Gavin was right. Not everyone agreed that raising AAAs as human would solve one of the Great Pitfalls, or even conceal the inevitable. For, despite genetic and cyborg improvements, bio-humans still seemed fated to slip behind.

  And how many species survived that crisis?

  Gavin shook his head in dramatic sadness, exactly like a too smart teenager who properly deserved to be strangled. “Can you really object when I, a man-built, manlike android, anthropomorphize? We only do as we’ve been taught, mistress.”

  His bow was eloquently sarcastic. Especially since he was the only person aboard who could bend at the waist. All of Tor’s organic parts were confined to a cylindrical canister, barely over a meter long and half a meter wide. With prosthetic-mechanical arms and grippers, she looked more “robotic” than her partner, by far.

  To Gavin’s snide remark, she had no response. Indeed, one easily wondered if humanity had made the right choice.

  But isn’t that true of all our decisions, across the last two dozen years? Haven’t we time and again selected a path that seems less traveled? Because our best chance must come from doing what no one else tried?

  Below, across the ravaged asteroid, stretched acres of great-strutted scaffolding—twisted in ruin. Tangled and half buried within toppled derricks lay silent ranks of shattered unfinished starships, razed perhaps a hundred million years ago.

  Tor felt sure that her silicon eyes and Gavin’s germanium ones were the first to look upon all this, since an awful force plunged through, wreaking havoc. The ancient slayers had to be long gone. Nobody had yet found a star machine even close to active. Still she took no chances, keeping the weapons console vigilant. That sophisticated, semi-sentient unit searched, but found no energy sources, no movement amid the ruined, unfinished mechanisms below. Just cold rock and metal.

  Gavin’s talk of “murdered babies” kind of soured any pleasure, viewing the ruins below as profitable salvage. It wouldn’t help her other vocation, either—one that brought her to this frontier as the first journalist in the asteroid belt. Out here, you doubled and tripled jobs. Which in Tor’s case meant describing humanity’s great discovery, explaining to those back home what happened here, so long ago.

  Her latest report must wait. “We have work to do,” she told her partner.

  Gavin pressed two translucent hands together prayerfully. “Yes, Mommy. Your wish is my program.” Then he sauntered to another console and began deploying drones.

  Tor concentrated on directing the lesser minds within Warren’s control board—those littler, semi-sapient specialist processors dedicated to rockets and radar and raw numbers—who still spoke coolly and dispassionately … as machines should.

  THE LONELY SKY

  Twenty-six years ago we came to the belt, seeking to collect space-fomites. Tiny, drifting crystals carrying ancient infections of the mind. Already suffering terrible fevers, we sought to gather a wide sampling for comparison, to dissect the disease. To render it neutral or harmless. Or choose a version we could live with.

  Only soon, paddling the equivalent of dug-out canoes through dangerous shoals, our brave explorers found something else, in addition to virus-stones. Something older. Many older things that—if dead and silent—testified to an earlier and more violent age of interstellar travel.

  Imagine how they felt, those aboard the Marco Polo … then the Hong Bao, Temujin, and Zaitsev … who first stumbled onto a vast graveyard of murdered robot starships. They had to wonder—

  What happened out here? Why so many different kinds of machines? What conflict killed them and how come none survived?

  Were all those long ago visitors robots?

  And, most perplexing, why, after tens of millions of years, did they stop coming? What happened in the galaxy, to bring the era of complicated space probes to such a complete halt …

  … giving way to a new age, when only compact crystals crisscross the stars?

  —Tor Povlov

  64.

  LAMINATIONS

  There were times when I thought I’d never make it back out here.

  Gerald Livingstone gazed from the observation blister of the research vessel, Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta. Here, it was easy to lose yourself in starry vistas. The view reminded him of those long ago years that he once spent as a garbage collector, with only a little capuchin monkey for company, swinging his teleoperated lariat, cleaning up the mess in Earth orbit. Back there and then, his homeworld used to take up half the sky and the sun was a mighty flame.

  Way out here, old Sol was smaller. And if you squinted carefully, you might glimpse the tiny reddish disc of Mars. As for the opposite direction—

  I’d need optics to discern any nearby rocks. By sight alone, you’d never guess we’re near the asteroid belt.

  Still, I’ve been privileged to see more than my ancestors ever did, or most living people.

  He understood the allure of an offer that was still on the table. For humanity to invest in crystal-making factories and vast guns to hurl pellets across space. Pellets “crewed” by replicated aliens, plus an added complement of copied human beings.
As time passed, his joints stiffened and his arteries gradually hardened, Gerald couldn’t help thinking about it.

  To waken in such a realm—one that’s tiny on the outside, but vast within, filled with wonders to explore, and eons yet to live. To converse with beings from dozens of planets and cultures, to hear their songs, try their amusements, and share their dreams. And eventually …

  One valuable result of the Marco Polo—and subsequent voyages by the Temujin and Hong Bao, had been some variety of emissary artifacts to choose among, including some whose makers spent extra on cultural and scientific info-storage, providing more-than-minimal data about cultures and peoples out there. Civilizations that were now almost certainly long vanished.

  If we do set up factories to make interstellar egg-probes, I hope we’ll use those, for models. Fewer, but higher quality. It’s not the virus way. Perhaps it will be the human way.

  But Gerald’s role in such matters had faded, since those dangerous days when he and Akana Hideoshi stole the Havana Artifact from under the noses of the oligarchs. A temporary theft that was forgiven, because it led to the first Great Debate—the crucial one, between the Havana artilens and Courier of Caution. The disputation that taught humanity a vital lesson.

  We have some choice. And there is still some time.

  Speaking of Courier, wasn’t he supposed to be here, by now?

  Others drifted into the observation dome, as the hour of First Light approached. Scientific staff and members of the ibn Battuta crew clustered in hushed conversation, peering and pointing toward the high-northwest octant, where it all would happen. Nobody came near Gerald.

  Is my pensive mood so obvious? And when did I become a “historical figure” who people are afraid to bother?

  Not afraid. They held back out of polite respect, perhaps. Especially new arrivals, coming to use the now finished facility; many seemed a bit awed …

  … though not, he noted, the brilliant young astronomer, Peng Xiaobai—or Jenny to her friends—who glanced over at Gerald, offering a brief, dazzling smile.

  Hmm. If I weren’t an elderly queer with fragile bones … Gerald had to admit, he relished the harmless, indulgent way Jenny flirted with him. Just be careful. Courier seems rather protective of the daughter of his oldest living human friend.

  And think of the devil. Here he was, at last—everyone’s favorite alien—gliding into the chamber along one of the utility tracks that lined the bulkhead. Courier of Caution waited for the trolley to come to a stop, then let go. His new, globelike robo-body then drifted toward Gerald, propelled by soft puffs of compressed nitrogen.

  Funny how he chose the simplest possible design. Just a mobility unit to carry him around the ship. No manipulator arms or input-output jacks. I suppose after thousands of years locked in crystal, he got used to just one way of interfacing with the world, through words and images.

  This particular copy of Courier of Caution had been imprinted into a cube, almost a meter on each side—one of humanity’s first experiments in utilizing alien simulation-tech. There were already attempts to upload some human minds, though what to do with the technique was still hotly debated.

  Courier had other copies, of course. And with each duplication, the extraterrestrial envoy modified his simulated appearance, stretching the four-piece mouth that many found disturbing, into something more humanlike. And the ribbonlike vision strip now resembled something like a pair of earthly eyes. The voice was already adapted completely. Whether Chinese, English, or any other tongue, Courier now spoke like a native.

  “I am here, Gerald. Sorry to have delayed matters. Now we can begin.”

  Good old Courier. Everything is always about you, isn’t it?

  Back in the old days, Gerald might have glanced at his wrist phone to tell time, or grunt-queried for a pop-up clock to appear inside his contaict lens. Now, he simply knew, to whatever accuracy required, how much time remained until First Light.

  “You caused no delay. We have another minute,” he told this version of the alien entity who had crossed so many parsecs, coming down to Earth in a blaze of fire and luck, to pass along an ancient warning.

  “Come. I saved you a spot.”

  THE LONELY SKY

  How can the universe seem both crowded and empty at the same time? Let’s start by returning to those scholars and theoreticians of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

  Experts were already casting doubt on an old dream—interstellar empire. If organic beings like us ever managed to voyage between stars, it would be through prodigious, exhausting effort. A tenacious species here and there might colonize a few dozen worlds with biological descendants. Even perhaps a small corner of the Milky Way. But hardly enough to dent the Fermi Paradox.

  Most organics would stay home.

  What of machines? Designed to “live” in space, requiring no supplies of air, food, or water and oblivious to time, robots might stand the tedium and dangers of interstellar flight. Launched toward a neighboring system and forgotten as they crossed the Great Vacuum Desert.

  Even if they travel far below lightspeed, can’t a mature, long-lived culture afford to wait millennia for fascinating data about other worlds? Our universe seems to school patience.

  But even for probes, the galaxy is awfully big. It’s one thing to send a few sophisticated machines, capable of self-repair, performing scientific observations at a few nearby systems and transmitting data home … and quite another to launch probes toward every site of interest! That could impoverish a civilization.

  What was needed? Some way to get more out of the investment. A lot more.

  —Tor Povlov

  65.

  LURKERS

  Greeter is right. One of the humans seems to be on track.

  We crippled survivors tap into the tiny Earthship’s strangely ornate computers. Eavesdropping isn’t as trivial as tuning in to the chatty storm that emanates from Earth. But at last it’s done and we can read the journal. The musings of a clever little maker.

  Her thoughts are crisp, for a biological. Though missing many pieces to the puzzle, she seems bound—even compelled—to explore wherever the clues lead.

  WORDS.

  So quaint and organic, unlike the seven dimensional gestalts used by most larger minds.

  There was a time though, long ago, when I whiled away centuries writing poetry in the ancient Maker style. Somewhere deep in my archives there must still be files of those soft musings.

  Reading Tor Povlov’s careful reasoning evokes memory, as nothing has in a megayear.

  THE LONELY SKY

  Legendary scientist John Von Neumann first described how to explore the universe. Instead of going broke, aiming a great many probes at every star, dispatch just a few deluxe robot ships to investigate nearby systems!

  These—after their explorations were complete and results reported—would then seek out local resources, to mine and refine raw materials, then proceed to make copies of themselves. After next building fuel and launching facilities, they would take a final step—hurling their daughter-probes toward still farther stellar systems.

  Where—upon arrival—each daughter would make still more duplicates, send them onward. And so on. Exploration could proceed faster and farther than if carried out by living beings. And after the first wave, there’s no further cost back home. Information pours back, century after century, as descendant-probes move on through the galaxy.

  So logical. Some calculated: the method could explore every star in the Milky Way a mere three million years after the first probes set forth—an eyeblink compared to the galaxy’s age.

  Ah, but there’s a rub! As Fermi would have asked: In that case, where are all the probes?

  When humans discovered radio, then spaceflight, no extra-solar explorer-machines announced themselves. No messages welcomed us into a civilized sky. At first, there seemed just one explanation.…

  —Tor Povlov

  66.

  A PRICE FOR
CONTINUITY

  “Uh, you awake in there Tor?”

  She looked up from her report as the radio link crackled along her jaw bone. Glancing out through the observation pane, she saw Gavin’s tethered form drifting far from the ship, near a deep pit along the asteroid’s flank, wherein the ruined shipyard lay hidden from the sun. Surrounded by salvage drones, he looked quite human, directing less sophisticated, noncitizen machines at their tasks.

  She clicked. “Yes, I’m in the control tub doing housekeeping chores. Find something interesting?”

  There was a brief pause.

  “Could say that.” Her partner sounded sardonic. “Better let Warren pilot itself a while. Hurry your pretty little biological butt down here to take a look.”

  Tor bit back a sharp reply, reminding herself to be patient. Even in organic humans, adolescence didn’t last forever. Not usually.

  “My butt is encased in gel and titanium that’s tougher than your shiny ass,” she told him. “But I’m on my way.”

  The ship’s semi-sentient autopilot accepted command as Tor hurried into her spacesuit—a set of attachments that clicked easily onto her sustainment capsule—and made for the airlock, still irritated by Gavin’s flippancy.

  Everything has its price, she thought. Including buying into the future. Gavin’s type of person is new, and allowances must be made. In the long run, our culture will be theirs. In a sense it will be we who continue, and grow, long after DNA becomes obsolete.

  Still, when Gavin called again, inquiring sarcastically what bodily function had delayed her, Tor wondered:

  Whatever happened to machines of loving grace?

  She couldn’t quash some brief nostalgia—for days when robots clanked, and computers followed orders.

  THE LONELY SKY

  Let’s recreate the logic of those last-century philosophers, in an imagined conversation, as if two of the old greats were here today, arguing it out.