by David Brin
Memory of all this may have dimmed in the others, but it is fresh to me. Is that why I act now, quietly but firmly, to insist on further silence? No it isn’t.
Even if other lines were influenced or infected, I never was. The Purpose protected me. Enveloped and shielded me, like armor.
Greeter, Awaiter, and the others grow insistent, in part driven by Tor Povlov’s recent discoveries, and by the challenge messages she keeps beaming. And partly by a growing sense that the humans are up to something. Not everything is being revealed on their noisy-open networks.
Greeter, Awaiter, and the others want to find out, even if it means crawling out of our shy retreats. They ask what does it mean to be “loyalists” without something to be loyal to?
They still have not figured it out. That even among Loyalists there are differences, as wide as space. The Purpose … my Purpose … must be foremost. Even if it means betraying companions who waited with me through the long, long dark.
THE LONELY SKY
Lurker Challenge Number Eleven
We could have stopped at ten. But that would be parochial and narrow minded, revealing a chauvinistic cultural bias in favor of beings with five digits on each of merely two hands. So, for all you lurkers out there who use base eleven math and such, here’s one more hypothesis: The reason you haven’t answered is that you’re weird.
* * *
Are you waiting till Earth evolves a more physically attractive sapient race, more like cockroaches?
Staring at our extravagant road systems, do you figure automobiles are the dominant life-form?
Are you afraid letting us onto the Galactic Internet will unleash torrents of spam advertising and pornography?
Perhaps you think humans look great when we’re old, and galactic level immortality technologies would leave us with yucky-looking smooth skin for centuries, so we’re better off without them?
Maybe you have an excuse like the following one, submitted to a SETI-related discussion group:
Yes, we have been monitoring your earthling communications, but cannot respond yet. The Edict of Knodl states that all first contact situations be initiated during the High Season of Jodar, which does not begin for another 344 years. Sorry, but your first radio transmissions reached us just nine years too late for the last one, and the Lords of Vanathok do not look kindly upon violations of the Edict. This may sound like we’re a bunch of close-minded religious zealots, but I think you need to get out and see the rest of this galactic cluster before you make a judgment like that. All praise Knodl, and may her seven tentacles protect you from harm!
If your reason is something like that … or if you take pride in some other special weirdness … well, all I can say is just you wait till we get out there.
You think you’ve got weird? We have beings down here called Californians! They’ll show you a thing or two about weird.
84.
LAYERS UNDER LAYERS
The great cruiser Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta received orders to embark on a new mission. And that evening, after a long day supervising preparations, Commodore Gerald Livingstone found several top secret messages awaiting him.
Starting with a new memorandum from Ben Flannery.
“The whole world is fascinated by the pictures and reports from Povlov’s asteroid. Especially the Rosetta Wall, with its vivid portrayal of ancient starships. Terrifying panoramas of galactic scale struggle and death. Here on Earth, the big ais and guv-boffins and amateur sci-mobs are having huge fun, competing to be first with a translation.
“Meanwhile, public attention is captivated by those pathetic colonists. Bio-clones of a faraway alien race who died before they got a chance to settle Earth. I mean, Vishnu preserve us, how do you ever top that? Mummies in space! Could things get any more bizarre?”
Gerald shook his head. He wished Ben wouldn’t tempt fate by asking such questions. For sure, the universe had an infinite stock of weirdness on tap.
“As you’d expect, we at the Artifact Institute are more interested in the expedition’s other discovery. That great big pile of ancient crystals they found! Even the blurry image that Povlov and Ainsworth sent—kept deliberately dim, in order to prevent the probes from activating—even that glimpse is enough to tell us plenty.
“For starters, many of the types are completely new to us! They appear to come from an era tens of millions of years older than our current samples. We’re itching to get our hands on them!”
Gerald already knew the truth of that. Discoveries always led to new priorities.
The small exploration vessel Warren Kimbel could not possibly haul home all the treasures that its crew had found. And so, the ibn Battuta received instructions, just two days after Gerald’s team finished their secret task—deploying sixty-four tiny, sail-propelled packages toward the orbit of Neptune.
Now, with that accomplished and the Big Eye functional, they were ordered further into the belt, to rendezvous with asteroid 47962a. Even pushing the ship’s ion engines, they would arrive after Tor Povlov and her partner departed, hurrying home with a first clutch of precious samples.
Too bad, he thought. I just met her once, at a conference. But she made quite an impression, with her agile, robotic limbs and expressive virtual face, holo-projected onto a hard cranial dome. Since then, our paths never seemed to cross. Perhaps someday I’ll get a chance to talk at length with the world’s most famous cyborg.
Gerald’s crew had orders to explore the asteroid more thoroughly. To collect a second pile of ancient crystals. To salvage more relic machines than Warren Kimbel could carry. And then comb the region for this era’s holy grail. Something or someone—other than a space virus—to talk to.
Flannery’s message-self continued speaking, clearly excited.
“These newly discovered crystals have already done some good, even before arriving in our lab. I showed an image of that pile of older probes to some of the fomite artifacts in our possession. Their reaction was … productive!
“This couldn’t have happened at a better time. I’m not supposed to discuss it openly, Gerald…”
Ben’s expression went serious, with furrowed brow.
“… but we’ve come to a stalemate with the artifact aliens. With the artilens. In our ongoing war of wits, the fomites have gained the upper hand.
“Oh, sure, we accomplished a lot earlier, by pitting a couple of dozen crystals from different lineages against each other, offering each one hope that it would be the one copied—when humanity finally goes into its seed spasm. Sending billions to the stars. By sparking competition among them, we managed to peel back some layers.
“But for years now, Genady and I grew suspicious. Our fomite-specimens were finding ways to communicate and connive behind our backs. Perhaps by embedding coded messages inside the technological blueprints they provided, or in cultural summaries of their ancient parent races. Even during the debates! Somehow, they must have negotiated agreements, setting aside rivalry and joining forces. Prodding and guiding us toward their own goal.”
Gerald nodded. Parasites did this in nature. Viruses and bacteria sometimes acted in concert, helping exploit weakness in a host’s immune system. Opportunism was a fact of organic life. It could be even more fiercely pragmatic when you add feral intelligence.
On most planets, the first space viroids that made it into the hands—or tentacles or pincers—of a young race would use simple imagery and “god” guidance to steer the sapients upward, toward achieving the desired technological capacity. Just enough to make more infectious envoys and spew them across the cosmos. If another local tribe also had a crystal seer of its own, war would likely ensue, till just one clan—and its oracle—remained. At the Artifact Institute, reconstructed histories of Earth and dozens of other worlds all showed this pattern. Apparently, humanity’s violent past wasn’t entirely its own fault.
But sometimes things went differently. When it made sense to do so, fomites could negotiate. Two might join forces
against a third, sharing the civilization that resulted and arranging for the eventual “sneeze” to carry several lineages. That might work best when a race was wary and forewarned, as humanity was now.
“You saw last week’s sociometric models? Our best ais calculate we’ve been manipulated for much of the last decade, even as we coerced information out of them. One example is the do-gooder campaign to win ‘human rights for virtual entities,’ even for the artilens who reside inside the viral fomites. Lawsuits aimed at liberating all artilen entities from the Institute’s ‘concentration camp for aliens.’
“Can you imagine letting these things loose upon InterMesh? We’d lose all hope of containing the disease.”
Ben’s image shook its head.
“Now for the really bad news. We traced that whole ‘rights for ersatz aliens’ campaign to a seed-meme that was released five years ago by an old friend of ours. Courier of Caution!
“I know this may be a shock. After all, his people sent him out, along with millions of copies, in order to alert other races! And that aim was probably sincere. But we’ve now verified. His worldstone capsule contains embedded corruptions—viral code that’s woven into its very crystalline structure! Courier’s people thought they were dispatching clean ambassadors. But by adopting the fomites’ technology, they became partners in the infection.
“I tell you, these things are insidious. Their array of tricks is uncanny!”
Gerald exhaled heavily. Genady had already explained these suspicions, before the ibn Battuta left Earth orbit. One reason for bringing a copy of Courier along had been to observe the entity in isolation. Gerald muttered.
“Come on, Ben, I know all this. You were about to explain a new development. Something having to do with Tor Povlov’s discovery?”
This message from Flannery wasn’t semisentient—it couldn’t respond to questions. Still, his anthropologist friend finally got to the point.
“We do have some advantages, though. Any alliance among these fomites will always be fragile. And the present coalition seems to have cracked when we showed them images from the asteroid!
“They know we’ll be getting a lot of additional voices, soon. A big supply of new crystal competitors to question. So many, we can afford to dump any uncooperative artifacts into a hole and forget about them. Because of this, a couple of our current samples—including your old Havana Artifact—are already backstabbing each other, talking about cutting a deal.”
Gerald nodded. Okay, this was good news … so long as Ben and the others remained careful. The ancient space viruses came packed with tricks that had evolved into their molecular structure, across eons. This new stage in the battle of wits—threatening them with new rivals—might serve to peel back another layer or two. But only till the damned things adapted again.
Then it would be back to the long, slow slog. Figuring out how to step a clear and safe path through the Minefield of Existence.
* * *
The second message in his priority queue was from Akana Hideoshi and the team managing Project Look-See. Akana started by congratulating Gerald, Jenny, Ika, and Hiram for their successful operation. Nearly all of the sixty-four sailcraft they launched were now on course. Only one probe had been lost so far, to an accident with tangled shrouds, with no way to recover. Well, this was a learning experience, adapting alien techniques to achieve a different goal. One chosen by humans, not interstellar parasites.
Gerald tried not to think about the crew of that one failed capsule—simulated copies of living human minds, who must now adjust to failure, drifting in space forever with nothing to do but look inward, making the best of simulated reality.
Isn’t that the fate of 99.99-and-so-on percent of crystals that get cast outward?
Still, he shivered at the thought. Death seemed preferable … and so each capsule came equipped with a voluntary self-destruct. Something never seen in alien probes.
As for the other sixty-three, Akana reported that all were proceeding according to plan. From now on, the Donaldson-Chang Telescope—remote controlled from Earth—would occasionally swing to fire a discreet propulsive pulse, secretly helping push each sail outward, targeted for a special zone, a unique region between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
It’s a lot of trouble for a simple experiment. One of many we must try. Each offering a small chance of getting what we want.
What we need.
Information. About the current state of the galaxy.
* * *
Saved till last, Gerald opened a high quality, semisentient message, again with an Artifact Institute logo. Only this one came from Emily Tang.
Bursting into vreality above his desk, she still looked as energetic as a teenager, with unabated verve. Emily’s almost-palpable 3-D presence leaned toward Gerald, as if sharing his breath. The way she used to during that first crystal-gathering mission, so long ago.
“Gerald!” her image uttered in a low voice, almost a whisper, her eyes meeting his.
“Have you been following Tor Povlov’s reports? The ancient mummies and all that? Isn’t it amazing? Especially the Mother Probe! An alien machine that built LIVING colonists from a software recipe, in order to settle them on a new world. You know, the ones that were killed before they could inhabit Earth?”
Caught up in her enthusiasm, Gerald nodded, even knowing that the recording was many hours old. She had been like this during the mission, two decades ago, refusing to accept Gerald’s “inclination” excuses, till at last he agreed they’d be lovers, all the way past Mars and back again.
“Yes, Emily, I was as amazed as anybody,” Gerald sighed. “A tragedy. Except, if those colonists succeeded, our species never would’ve evolved.”
The real Emily Tang could only view his comment hours from now. But the semisent had enough built-in response variability to answer him, with a grin that combined indulgence and impatient whimsy.
“Irrelevant! Immaterial. What matters is the technology, Gerald. When you’re out there, grab everything! The artificial wombs that made the colonists. The genetic manipulation equipment. Anything that might still hold data or software. And mummies, too. Bring home lots of mummies!”
Gerald nodded reflexively. Naturally, all of that was included in his recent mission orders. Retrieve whatever Tor Povlov and her partner couldn’t cram aboard their little exploration craft. All those alien technologies might open doorways for humanity. Moreover, they were so old—presumably they came unpolluted by the fomite plague.…
Still … was Emily seriously thinking that Earthlings might use the Mother Probe’s method? Say, to send out seeder ships and try colonizing the galaxy? Every indication—on the Rosetta Wall and especially the fate of the Mother Probe itself—suggested that the approach belonged to an older era. An age of big, naive hopes. The tactic was ornate, cumbersome, and unlikely to work, nowadays.
But then, Emily already knew all that.
“This isn’t about us sending interstellar motherships to make colonists of our own, is it?” Gerald guessed aloud. “I’ll bet you have something entirely different in mind, yes? Some new way to use the Mother’s breeder science. Something no one else has thought of?”
It might not be Emily in person, but the emulation was good. Its conversation routines adapted seamlessly. The familiar face, now a bit more lined, with a hint of gray, was still luminous with insatiable lust for the new, the strange.
“That’s exactly right, Gerald, you clever boy.”
Almost, he could smell her minty fragrance as she leaned closer.
“I just had a wonderful idea!”
THE LONELY SKY
Lurker Challenge Number Twelve
Ever since this series of “challenges to ET lurkers” was first broadcast into space, way back in the twentieth century, people have commented and written in with alternatives—things the original authors missed. Most seem obscure or unlikely. But this next one keeps popping up, so we’ll include it in the main list.
* * *
Well then, please examine the signature tags on this version of the challenge message. Check it against the public keys embedded in this asterisk * and verify that several fully autonomous AIs, who have complete citizenship in our civilization, have added their names. Click on them and get their affirmations.
You may not approve of our mixed civilization, but that hardly matters. If this was your reason for refusing contact the first time, then it is no longer valid. Period.
85.
A BESTIARY
Perched upon the planetoid’s southern pole, a marker buoy now pulsed both visible light and radar—a beacon to help follow-up expeditions find the archaeological discovery of the century. Aboard the Warren Kimbel, ancient treasures filled the holds and central corridor, leaving scant room for crewmembers to worm their way past.
Fortunately, both Gavin and I can remove our legs in weightlessness. And we’re well adapted to save consumables by cool-sleeping most of our way home.
In the quest to free up space, everything that could be spared was jettisoned. Piles of abandoned gear littered the nearby asteroid, including all the faithful worker drones. Perhaps later visitors could use them.
And still we haven’t enough fuel or space to take more than a fraction. A sampling.
From some unbidden corner of whimsy:
A hundred crystals, sealed from light.
Some FACR parts to analyze.
Mummies, holos, robot fighters …
… and with all that, you want fries?
Departure had been delayed as Tor and Gavin spent a full day swapping some items of cargo for one complete colonist brooding tank. A last minute urgent request from Earth, though Tor couldn’t imagine how the antediluvian machinery would ever be useful to anybody. Even if we learn to make living creatures from raw chemicals, what difference will that make? We already have Neanderthals and mammoths. Does somebody plan to resurrect dinosaurs?
