by Alex Lamb
‘But that data must be wrong!’ said Zoe. ‘These don’t match the scans made by the Reynard. And that unusual warp signature is gone!’
Just then, a group of three drones set upon one of their observation targets, scorching it with g-ray pulses. With the lone drone disabled, the others sliced it into pieces with scything blasts from scavenging lasers and scooped up the remains. In seconds it was gone.
‘What the fuck was that?’ said Mark. ‘Are these things feeding off each other?’
He surveyed the drone swarm with renewed alarm and ran a second round of analyses, looking for predation patterns. Before they intercepted the swarm, it’d be useful to know just how violent it was likely to get.
The SAP came back with a confused mishmash of readings. The drone traffic was neither exclusively random, predatory nor organised, but a confused mix of all three. He saw reports of drones modifying themselves or each other, and occasionally, for no apparent reason, self-destructing.
‘I guess now we know what the weapons fire is about,’ muttered Ash.
‘Okay,’ Mark said to the science team. ‘I admit I’m changing my opinion. This place isn’t human. I can’t think of a single group in human space weird enough to invent all this.’
‘It doesn’t look alien either, though,’ said Venetia. ‘Everything we’re seeing here has a human origin. It looks like a psychotic, almost parodic rehashing of the Earther colony that was here when the Photurians arrived.’
‘So long as you discount the atmospheric data,’ said Citra. ‘Which we shouldn’t.’
‘The rehashing may be important,’ said Yunus. ‘Maybe they’re reaching out to us. They anticipated our arrival and this is their way of saying hello.’
Mark could hear the excitement in Yunus’s voice. Whatever was actually going on in the system, he was loving it. For Yunus, encountering the unknown was apparently enough.
‘As your ship’s exopsychologist,’ said Venetia sternly, ‘I have to absolutely disagree. That’s anthropocentric confirmation bias. You’re seeing what you want to see. Where are the open comms channels? Where are the attempts at symbolic language? Let me ask you this: what kind of person takes something apart and then puts the pieces back together in random combinations?’
‘You mean scientists?’ said Zoe.
‘That’s right,’ said Venetia. ‘If anything, we’re being analysed here, not spoken to. Think about it: we’ve got models and samples at different levels of representation and attempts to mix them. We’ve got randomised reassembly, both in message and physicalised format. One way to look at this mess is as a kind of actualised dream or filtering process. I can’t help but wonder if we’re seeing a single intelligence here that’s using the entire star system as a cognition blackboard.’
‘But what for?’ said Zoe. ‘If we’re looking at something that can form a system-wide intelligence, why in all the worlds would it bother to attack us? And why would it even be struggling to understand us at all? It didn’t take the Transcended an hour. They did it all in a single software incursion.’
‘I have no idea,’ said Venetia.
Zoe shook her head as if appalled by the lack of order to it all. ‘Why this system? Why now?’ she said.
‘Of course they’re trying to understand us,’ said Yunus. ‘That’s a given. We invaded their territory. They’ve never seen anything like us before. They’re figuring us out.’
‘Bullshit!’ said Venetia.
Yunus sighed at her. ‘You said yourself you had no idea why they attacked. That’s an answer for you.’
‘There’s a difference between an answer and the right answer,’ said Venetia.
‘And we lack the information to assess in any case!’ said Yunus, throwing up his hands. ‘The only thing that matters is that we choose the safe interpretation – the one that’s least likely to create a disaster for the human race. We proceed with the utmost respect because anything else is madness. It’s time to invoke the diplomatic protocol and hail them.’
‘That’s the safe option?’ said Venetia. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, this entire system is full of several million cannibalistic warp-munitions.’
‘Won’t you please shut up and let my husband do his job?’ said Citra. ‘I mean, what else is supposed to happen here? Is your plan for the diplomacy ship not to engage in diplomacy?’
‘Shouldn’t we carry out a little more research before making ourselves known?’ said Mark.
‘What do you imagine the watchers at the edge of the system have been doing for the last month, Ruiz?’ Yunus snapped. ‘We have their data already. Are a few more minutes of prevaricating honestly going to make a difference?’
‘Mark,’ said Sam, ‘why don’t you ready a comms channel for Professor Chesterford? And keep the engines warm. Really warm.’
As the Gulliver slid into the shifting haze of the drone swarm, Mark grimaced to himself and prepped the comms-buffer. Yunus inserted a simple audio message, mimicking the style the Photurians had used in their initial assault.
‘We are humanity. We come in peace. We wish to talk.’
With grim reluctance, Mark forwarded it to the transmitter array and pumped it towards Tiwanaku Four. The Photurian response was almost immediate. It came back on the same channel, audio only, delivered by the voice of a human child. The accent was Earther, Tigerbelt – New Bangkok, perhaps.
‘We will talk,’ it said serenely. ‘Bring all your people to the surface of the planet.’
Yunus laughed in delight.
Sam blinked in surprise. ‘I’m not reassured,’ he said.
6.3: WILL
Will watched the camera feeds as they bore down on the drone swarm surrounding the occupied colony. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t a scam, or at least not the kind he’d expected. The sects simply didn’t have the resources or imagination to create something this wasteful and random. On the other hand, every alien site and memory he’d seen when he encountered the Transcended had one thing in common – purpose – and this place didn’t appear to have that, either.
From the carefully targeted puzzles to the borrowed experiences in unfamiliar bodies, everything the Transcended had shown him was designed to broaden his perspective. In contrast, the senseless display of symbols and artefacts here just left him feeling lost.
‘Who’d do this?’ he asked himself. ‘What’s it all for?’
Nelson watched from beside him on the Ariel Two’s bridge.
‘I’m starting to rule out human origin,’ he said, scanning the swarm for the fifth time. ‘Could this be another kind of a Transcended test?’
‘I can’t think of a justification,’ said Will. ‘This place isn’t a puzzle. It’s just nuts.’
He listened in as the Gulliver sent out their message to the swarm and brought his weapons systems as close to full readiness as he could without them being visible to a direct scan. The simple, straightforward reply it received surprised him just as much as the surreal junk that had preceded it.
We will talk. Bring all your people to the surface of the planet.
He waited for the Gulliver’s team to compose a reply and regretted afresh that he’d let Yunus Chesterford take the diplomatic lead. The mission plan called for Will to play a passive role until he had justification to act otherwise, which meant sitting and listening. He wasn’t sure he could stand it.
‘You want to meet us in person?’ came Yunus’s voice from the Gulliver.
‘Yes,’ said the swarm.
Will zeroed in on the origin of the response. It appeared to be coming from a loose mass of orbital machinery built around one of the Flags’ suntap stations.
‘Why isn’t he using a fucking video channel?’ Will muttered to Nelson. ‘Politeness, or something else? I want to know where that voice is coming from.’
‘We need reassurances,’ said Yunus
. ‘Can you tell us why you attacked this colony?’
‘You attacked the body,’ said the swarm. ‘We are punishment.’
Another pause while the diplomatic team deliberated.
‘We did not attack you,’ Yunus assured the swarm.
‘Clearly you did, as we are here.’
‘When and how did that happen?’
‘We do not know how to make this answer yet,’ said the swarm. ‘Bring your people to us.’
‘Wow, that sounds inviting,’ Will muttered.
He set his sensors to make another deep scan of the alien machines, scrambling for clues as to what was going on. At least the other drones weren’t moving to surround them. They appeared indifferent to the ships sliding through their midst.
‘We are uncertain,’ said Yunus. ‘What are your intentions regarding the human race?’
‘We have no intentions.’
‘Then what do you plan to do next?’
‘Learn to defend the body. Repair the body.’
‘Where is the body?’ Yunus asked.
‘We do not know how to make this answer yet. Bring your people to us.’
Will struggled to contain himself. ‘Ask about the voice!’ he shouted into the air of the Ariel Two’s bridge. ‘Why does it sound like a child? Get them to show you their face! Why aren’t you collecting as much data as you can?’
‘If we brought you a map of the stars on this shell, would you be able to show us where the body is?’ said Yunus.
‘Yes.’
‘We can send you one now.’
‘Bring it to us with the people,’ said the swarm. ‘We will need more information for the map-making.’
There was a pause from the science team. ‘How did you learn to speak English?’
‘We learned from you the last time your type attacked us.’
Yunus and his team deliberated again before trying to answer.
‘We have no record of attacking you before,’ he said at last.
‘Clearly you did,’ said the swarm, ‘as we speak English.’
‘Do you intend to attack us again?’
‘We attack in retaliation to an assault on the body.’
‘What constitutes an assault?’
‘We do not know how to make this answer yet. Bring your people to us.’
‘It’s a machine!’ Will yelled. ‘You’re talking to a machine.’
He couldn’t stand being cut out of the conversation any more. He could feel the situation getting dangerous. He wasn’t sure how yet. He just knew.
He sent a tight-beam request to the Gulliver, captain’s eyes only, requesting a real-time feed to the diplomacy team and prayed that Mark would be reasonable about it. To his credit, Mark didn’t hesitate. The link appeared in Will’s sensorium with a two-word note attached: They’re crazy. A view of the Gulliver’s lounge appeared. Will groaned with relief as he patched himself in.
‘… but this isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Sam was saying. He looked more anxious than Will had never seen him. ‘We barely know any more than we did before we hailed them.’
‘Will Monet here,’ said Will. ‘I have to agree with Sam. This encounter doesn’t match any of those we planned for. We need to exercise extreme caution. We need time to analyse and think. I recommend that we pull back to the edge of the system and investigate with probes.’
‘Ditto,’ said Venetia. ‘This swarm just sounds more and more like a SAP to me and less like a full sentient, which means there’s nothing to lose by sending an automated investigation. I want to know whose software we’re talking to and why it’s here. If a SAP wants us on the planet, it’s not going to be to learn about our culture.’
‘No,’ said Yunus. ‘We’re not giving up. We came here to speak with these people, and that’s what we’re going to do.’
Venetia looked exasperated. ‘Yunus, didn’t you even hear us? They’re not people.’
‘I heard your theory, yes. I just don’t agree with it. Of course Monet thinks we’re talking to machines. That’s what he’s bred for. And a retreat to the system’s edge would conveniently revert control over the mission to him. In doing so, we lose all hope for establishing a diplomatic dialogue. I’m not going to simply hand off control for this mission on the basis of a hunch.’
Here they were, Will thought, in exactly the position that Pari had warned him about.
‘Then let me prove it to you!’ he said. ‘Open a video channel to the swarm. Let’s take a look at them.’
‘We decided not to do that,’ said Yunus. ‘We didn’t want to risk cultural snap judgements about appearances.’
‘You didn’t want to risk it,’ said Venetia. ‘And I told you culture is irrelevant at this point.’
Yunus didn’t appear to care.
‘For crying out loud,’ said Citra, ‘please at least acknowledge that my husband knows what he’s doing. You’re all so confident that we’re talking to a machine, but why should that surprise you? Isn’t that exactly what would happen at Earth if aliens visited us? The fact that they have a translator program running is hardly surprising.’
‘First, that’s not a translator,’ said Will. ‘I know what a translator sounds like. And second, they’re using the voice of a human child. That’s a pretty unusual choice. Don’t you want to know why?’
Yunus arched an eyebrow. ‘Why so curious, Captain Monet? So you can judge them? What if they have a toddler wearing a neural shunt? And what if they had no idea what a child was before they attacked those ships? Does that make them evil?’
‘What are you fucking talking about?’ said Will. ‘This isn’t about good or evil, or any of that shit. It’s about risk assessment.’
‘Do I need to remind you that you’re not part of the diplomatic team, Captain Monet?’ said Yunus. ‘Your participation in this conversation breaches our mission plan.’
‘But Will has a point,’ said Sam. ‘Trying to talk to this thing isn’t working. We need to do better than this. Yunus, if you can’t find a way to make your diplomacy programme work, I’ll have to request that the Fleet take over so we can go with Will’s approach.’
‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ said Yunus. ‘I’ve decided to attempt first contact. Mark, can you wake our Spatials from coma, please, and make sure they’re briefed?’
‘Sam,’ said Will pointedly. ‘That isn’t a solution.’
Sam nodded. ‘Yunus,’ he said. ‘Professor Chesterford. Are you sure you want to do this? Whatever is out there sounds very keen to meet in person. Ominously keen. And there’s nothing to stop us sending a drone to meet them instead. Plus, I have to remind you that if we are facing aliens, they may have live human hostages. I can’t recommend that we expose any more of this team to danger than we absolutely have to, as that may only make that situation worse.’
‘Your perspective is welcomed, Overcaptain Shah, but this isn’t one of your police operations. We’re not talking about a hostage negotiation here. We are dealing with the unknown, and it has asked to meet us. Not a drone or a robot. A limited demonstration of trust is called for and that’s what we came here to do. Based on what happens when we extend that trust, we may have a solid reason to treat the Photurians as adversaries, but we cannot proceed on that basis. This may be the first live peer intelligence humanity has ever encountered and we can’t risk ruining that opportunity. I accept that the probability of a fully sentient system is lower than we’d both like, but we’re talking about aliens here. We shouldn’t expect to understand them at first glance. And if we don’t meet them with trust, we may incur a disaster for the whole human race.’
In the invisible privacy of his home node, Will clutched his hair. Yunus was clearly too much in love with the promise of a place in the history books to see the danger staring him in the face.
‘That being said,’ Sa
m insisted, ‘the risks here are huge. The team must be minimised.’
Yunus shrugged. ‘First contact requires only one.’
Citra looked pained. ‘You don’t need to do that, Yuni. I’ll go with you. I’m not afraid. I can’t get decent biosamples up here, in any case.’
Yunus shook his head. ‘Sam has a point, my love,’ he said. ‘And I couldn’t forgive myself if they hurt you. The diplomacy team should have minimum exposure and this is my responsibility. I’ll take the soldiers and leave it at that.’
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘You deserve this moment, Yuni, but don’t go alone. Please.’
He took her hand. ‘Don’t worry, my love. I’m not a fool. The soldiers will be with me and the contact shuttle has safeguards. I’ll use the telepresence kit, okay? You’re with me on this, though, right?’
Citra nodded, though Will couldn’t help noticing the cords of stress lining her neck.
‘We came here to do this,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘This is your dream.’
‘And my job,’ said Yunus. ‘Someone has to find us answers. And that person should be me. I’ll send you the data you need.’
Yunus reached for the control for the communication channel.
‘We will come to the planet,’ he told the swarm. ‘Can you meet me wherever I land?’
‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘Come quickly. We want to meet all your people.’
Yunus closed the channel and smiled. ‘Mark, please ask the Spatials to prepare for shuttle departure. I’m going in.’
‘I don’t recommend it,’ said Mark bluntly.
Yunus scowled into the closest camera. ‘Did I ask your opinion, Captain Ruiz?’
‘Just do it, Mark,’ said Sam. ‘You can’t stop him. Please.’
‘Whatever,’ said Mark. The shuttle ready-warnings came on.
Will contemplated reaching in and trying to secure remote control of the Gulliver. He was pretty sure he could do it, but the Vartian Institute defences might make the process take hours. By then, Yunus would be long gone. He turned to Nelson.
‘What do I do here?’ he said. ‘Is this where I start asserting myself?’
