Existence

by David Brin

  “Terrific!” he nodded. “So for the sake of our mission—”

  “The point is, I find it unlikely that Earth would have crammed a package full of teensy bioreactors, that would only decay or go obsolete anyway, across millions of years. We’ll teach. We aren’t meant to do it ourselves.”

  Feeling deflated, Hamish found nothing to say, except a grunt of soft disappointment, like he always felt when one of his cool ideas got shot down.

  He turned and saw that they were slowing. Approaching a cluster of figures at the aft end of the great crystal ship, where the ceiling’s descending arc became almost a vertical wall. As had been the case at the ship’s opposite end, a handful of human figures mingled with aliens near some holo and twodee displays.

  He let out a sigh, turning back to Lacey and Om.

  “All right then. So the box doesn’t have directly to do with the Cure. Still, this means our vessel is larger and more capacious than your typical crystal probe. It also comes equipped with tools and ways to interact with the world. That’s great! We won’t be helpless. This should improve our chances of mission success. Right?”

  Something about Om’s reaction seemed off. Too muted or reserved.

  “I suppose that is true, my friend,” answered the alien entity. “The odds may go up, for this particular probe.”

  “And the other ten million just like it?”

  “They, too, will benefit, if they were dispatched so-equipped.”

  “So. Then. What’s the problem?”

  Hamish looked to Lacey, who lifted her shoulders. “I believe Om considers the extra expense to be a foolish waste.”

  The Oldest Member nodded. “Exactly so, my lady. Ten or twenty smaller, cheaper models could be made and cast across space for the cost—in time, effort, and resources—that went into making and equipping our lavish vessel.”

  “But you just said that our own chances of success were greater.”

  “By a very small factor. Perhaps they doubled. An insignificant amount.”

  “Double is insignificant?”

  “Remember that each probe is like a grain of pollen, cast into the wind! Triumphal achievement of our overall mission—spreading the Cure—will depend far more on numbers than on any one probe, Mr. Brookeman.

  “It will call for … it will require … vast quantities. Immense numbers.”

  Hamish felt a strange sensation, like numbness, pass across his face.

  Vast quantities.… Oh.

  His expression was one that Om misinterpreted, despite decades of experience with humans.

  “Do not worry, my friend. A lot of new sapients pass through this phase, lavishing excess care and attention upon their first wave of probes. They soon get over it and switch over to a more efficient approach.”

  For once at a complete loss for words, Hamish turned to Lacey Donaldson. But she was busy piloting her little craft toward a landing. Causing it to match—in both location and size—the figures ahead, who were gathered around some very mundane-looking displays, near the very aft end of the ship. Where the vertical crystal barrier came into direct contact with the mysterious, boxy cargo compartment.

  Trying hard to shake off a terrible sinking feeling, Hamish focused on the people who were turning now to greet them, as the travel disc melted into the floor of a glassy plain. First came a pair of humans he did not recognize and whose names meant little to him. Experts in optics and instrument design, he gathered. The third entity was far more interesting.

  Courier of Caution, emissary from a planet called Turbulence, where one race saw through the trap of the fomite plague and tried to come up with a solution. Its own early, primitive version of the Cure. Sending out capsules with the aim of helping new species, alerting them to the danger.

  Hamish glanced at his guide—his Virgil—the Oldest Member. These two (or different, earlier versions of them) once fumed, strutted, and hurled accusations at each other, during the first of the Great Debates between various crystal probes. An exercise that edified humanity and helped make a big difference. A crucial first step down the twisty path that threaded minefields, leading (perhaps) to survival.

  At least that was what Hamish had believed … till just minutes ago, when a dire suspicion was born, like a wasp within his mind.

  If he expected fireworks or friction between Courier and Om, they showed no sign of animosity. Well, weren’t they now sworn to the same mission? The same sacred goal? Helping to spread an antidote to poison.

  Courier stepped up to Lacey. The creature’s bullet head and throbbing eye-strip had been less endearing than Om’s Buddha-like appearance, during those first debates. But the artilen’s blunt dedication and honesty won hundreds of millions of hearts.

  “Well?” Courier asked.

  Lacey shook her head.

  “Birdwoman wants to calculate some more. But that’s how she deals with stress. Just crunching more numbers won’t make a difference. I’m afraid it’s pretty conclusive.”

  “What’s conclusive?” Hamish asked.

  Both Courier and Lacey turned to look at Hamish. He could not read the artilen’s expression. The woman was clearly torn. She started to speak—

  —but was interrupted, by a voice that came from behind Hamish.

  “Brothers and sisters, why be reticent? Even newly wakened, this here mon is no frail. Tell him de truth now. Or let me.”

  No, Hamish murmured to himself. Please don’t let it be …

  Turning around, he found his dread justified. A dark human figure approached, almost as tall as he was, but with “hair” consisting of snakelike tendrils, waving and emitting random puffs of aromatic smoke. Despite many other virtual augmentations—a bare, bristly chest and a softening of the man’s famously excessive island dialect—Hamish recognized the newcomer instantly.

  Professor Noozone offered a cheshire grin and arms wide in welcome.

  “Coo-yah, Mass Brookeman. How nice of ye to join us. I hope you will find today’s news adequately ‘significant’ to justify your wakeup call.”

  Hamish clenched his fists over the ribbing, but maintained surface calm. “Will somebody please tell me?”

  “Sure thing, mon,” Profnoo replied, the grin fading into a merely wry smile.

  “You see, we had been scheduled for another laser boost, to fill our sail an’ accelerate us boojum-faster across space interstell-ar. But it never came, y’know. Nor has any explanation come to us by narrowbeam radio.

  “This prompted us to take sightings an’ do some measurements of our very own. Good enough measures to reckon a fell fac’.”

  Hamish hated the way this man milked drama with every opportunity. But he was clearly expected to ask.

  “What fact is that, professor?”

  “Why, the rhaatid fac’ that the speed of our good vessel is no-quite up to what it should be, mon.”

  Hamish turned to Lacey. “I know this ship is a bit heavy. But how far off could we possibly—”

  He stopped when she closed her eyes.

  “By a factor of more than a hundred,” Lacey said.

  “What?”

  If he could have asked for a less realistic emulation of a human body, Hamish would gladly trade right now. This virtual copy felt awash in chemical reactions of astonishment and despair. Or simulations that were all too similar to the “real thing.” Above all, though, he wished that the next words came from anybody else, other than the Jamaican pop-scientist.

  “Bodderation, eh? At this velocity, we won’t even escape the system sol-ar, just orbit through de old Kuiper Belt an’ loop back aroun’ the sun again, eon after eon. Maybe snap some pictures of Pluto or Tyche or Planet X or whatever iceballs we happen upon.

  “But no aliens. No new star systems.

  “An’ that’s not even the biggest bloodclotty thing, mon.”

  With a reluctant sense of foreboding, Hamish forced himself to ask.

  “What … is the biggest … thing?”

  “Zeen, why
de fact that Earth is no even tryin’ to correct the problem, with new laser shoots. It seems, my old fren an’ adversary, dat wicked old world—dat Babylon we come from—has done abandoned us to our fate.”

  93.

  ABERRATION

  By now this crystal ship, a mere two meters long but packed with passengers and data-cargo, should have already entered the Oort Cloud of comets, starting at ten thousand times the Earth’s distance from the sun … not poking along at just five hundred or so astronomical units.

  Worse, their apparent speed was abysmal. Why had Earth failed to provide the promised boost, filling their sail with intense laser pulses, propelling it to 5 percent of lightspeed?

  Hamish sat at an edge of the glassy plane. Half listening while others argued behind him, he dangled his long legs over the seemingly vast interior of the probe. If measured by an external observer, he sat less than fifteen centimeters from the cylinder’s central axis. In fractal terms, the depth might be infinite.

  Techies kept waving their arms and conjuring into existence various instruments to measure the problem … as if a hundred-fold shortfall in velocity were something you could “analyze and solve.” Anyway, there were major obstacles to looking outside.

  First one thing; any view backward—toward Sol and Earth—was blocked by the great big cargo container. “So we can’t get a precise Doppler measurement, only rough estimates on how fast we’re leaving the sun,” explained a boffin.

  Another impediment—they could manifest telescopes and things with a wave of the hand, but only down here at a middling fractal scale, where “magic” was possible, where mist obscured most of the starry vista. It was futile trying to drag the instruments “upward,” close to where crystal met space. Made of virtual wish-stuff, the tools simply evaporated, upon approaching the boundary wall. Only autonomous uploaded passengers—or AUPs—could survive next to that harsh, outer reality.

  “The cause of it all may be political,” Lacey Donaldson suggested. “Our consensus to build a space factory and laser was never complete or universal. The Renunciation Movement still had a lot of strength, back home. Under new leadership, perhaps spurred by some bad event, populist know-nothings may have taken power and stopped the process.”

  Ouch, Hamish thought, recalling his own turn at the helm of that worldwide faction.

  “And hence,” continued the mellow voice of Oldest Member, “the problem may just be temporary. It often happens that a species will take a pause, work through some emotional issues, then resume production.”

  “That happened several times on Turbulence Planet,” added Courier of Caution. “Hence, it is possible, at any point, that our acceleration pushes may resume.”

  Normally, that might have cheered Hamish. But right now, he found any sign of agreement between Om and Courier depressing.

  Looking downward, he saw immense depths of ever-increasing complexity and pondered. Why not dive down there, right now? Start exploring. Try those magical abilities. Check out the wonders that other passengers have already built, through sheer wish-power … and maybe start building some of my own?

  All my life I was known for creativity. This could be my real chance. To show what I’ve got. To imagine greater than anybody!

  That had always been the plan, anyway. Even if their probe had been on target, with every hope of success at the other end, he still would have spent ninety-nine point nine nine (and so on) percent of the time either sleeping or amusing himself in games, simulations, and make-believe playgrounds.

  At least at this distance we’ll still have a slim supply of solar energy to tap. In the cold, unlighted depths of interstellar space, time itself would slow down for all inhabitants, as the crystal ship conserved power.

  “Well,” one of the humans behind him said, “if that were the case—if they shut off the laser—you’d think they’d have the decency to tell us!”

  Professor Noozone snorted.

  “Tell ten million little lumps o’ glass that everythin’s all fit n’ frock? Dat we should jus’ wait aroun’ a little for de real-life Earth folk to finish squabblin’? Now why would they feel obliged to do that? Remember we’re not people. Not citizens. We are probe-entities, zeen? Mere replicants aboard a dread zeppelin that’s goin’ nowhere. And jus’ one machine emissary out of millions. We’re quattie, mon. They owe us neegle.”

  Shut up, Hamish wished. But the voice continued.

  “I t’ink we need to accept another possibility, bredren an’ sistren. Yeyewata. That this may be no mere setback politic-al. We must consider that the very worst has happen. That de ol’ wicked world has finally done it.”

  “Done what?” someone asked.

  “Why, done stepped into a zutopeck pit. Forsaken Jah an’ done gone where rude bwoys all wind up.”

  “What do you—”

  “That Earth has gone and blown itself up, mon! The ginnygogs have wrecked all hope. It’s over. An’ that’s why nobody be callin’ us on de phone.”

  During the long silence that followed, Hamish envisioned the crystal—their entire universe—traveling several thousand kilometers farther from the sun. A long way … and a pathetically useless pittance.

  Finally, Lacey Donaldson spoke in a soft voice, very small.

  “I wonder what it was … which failure mode. The odds were always against us. There were so many ways to mismanage the transition … to blow it … even before external influences arrived to make matters worse.

  “It could have been a war. A designer disease. A food collapse. A calamitous physics experiment, Another eco-mess. Or…”

  She stopped as her voice seemed to choke off.

  Hamish stared harder into the depths. One half of his view was taken up by the shimmering inner wall of the ship, its aft end plunging almost vertically. And just on the other side of that barrier, a sheer massif of dark brown. The “box” that Noozone and the others had been trying to study—till far more serious news crashed in. News of failure. Of abandonment.

  And the possibility that we may be the last remnants of humanity. Not even successfully sent across the gulf to other stars, but left to drift in the outermost solar system, aboard a “ship” that’s filled with genetic and cultural riches. Gifts meant for others, far away.

  I guess we might hope—or imagine—that someday one of these crystal depositories will get picked up. Maybe by visitors from beyond. That way, someone might decipher, study, and relish bits and pieces of what we were … like possibly my novels and films.

  But for that to happen, some race would have to actually survive out there, in order to become the first real star-farers. Some sapients must find a real cure, and finally escape the trap.

  The many traps of existence.

  Hamish knew that he had plenty of faults. But no one ever accused him of indolence. Or inattention. Or lack of passionate caring about human destiny.

  All his life had been spent nosing around for possible mistakes, for “failure modes” that might ensnare his species. Every tale that he wove was meant partly to exploit and entertain and make lots of money … but also to warn and stir new wariness about yet another error to avoid. And if many of humanity’s brightest people resented him, for attacking science in general? Well, at least he was engaged, participating in the argument. Playing the role of vigorous devil’s advocate. Probing the path ahead for snakes, quicksand, and land-mines.

  Prove me wrong—I always demanded—by ensuring that this type of calamity can never happen. But first, I will make you pay attention.

  That was the core point. Always the underlying message of everything he ever wrote.

  For all the good it apparently did.

  In the end, perhaps I made no difference at all.

  * * *

  Well, at least humanity would not be contributing to the demise of others.

  If the end had finally come, on Earth … or if some clade of oligarchs had succeeded in the natural goal, using renunciation as an excuse to permanently reass
ert feudalism … either way, the planet would not be a source of further infection across the cosmos.

  Hamish had already been depressed, before learning about Birdwoman’s dire calculation. His earlier conversation with the Oldest Member made him realize a terrible truth.

  The “Cure” we were so proud of. It was just another layer of persuasion. Another insidious meme-driver to get humanity to do the same thing everybody else does, who doesn’t renounce. To devote huge resources and build giant factories and billions upon billions of messenger probes along with lasers to hurl them skyward.

  In our case—as it had been on Turbulence Planet—the decision required an extra motive beyond selfishness.

  Altruism. A desire to help others. That makes us above average.

  But didn’t it just lead to the same result? Oh, we swore we would only send ten million, pushed by just one laser. But Om showed me. The fomite logic would eventually demand more, and more—for the sake of the Cure! Till we fell into an unstoppably fatal cycle of missionary zeal.

  The Cure was clever. But clever enough to overcome a disease with a bottomless supply of tricks that evolved across eons? In the end, we were just as gullible, just as infected, as anybody else.

  He stared downward, tempted to leap off this virtual platform into the void below. To seek succor in diminishment and unlimited power. To plummet. And thereupon shrink into a mere god.

  94.

  REFRACTION

  “Y’know, there are other possibilities,” someone said. Hamish recognized the voice of Emily Tang. She must have followed soon after Lacey’s group, in order to join this discussion.

  “For example, suppose the folks back home came up with an improved model of interstellar probe! We were among the first, after all. Perhaps they stopped producing our version and switched to one that’s more efficient, less heavy, and easier to propel to high speed.”

  “So they might have only abandoned us,” commented the elegant Jovindra Singh. “Discarding the older models, leaving them to drift, while they allocate the laser to better bets. Wow, that is even more insulting than the renunciation theory!”