Permanence

by Karl Schroeder

  He lay there with an arm flung over his face, thinking about the worlds he had seen and whose kami he had captured. Few people would ever have the luck to visit as many exotic places as he had in his service to Herat. After all, Herat was one of the vanguard of the Panspermia Institute— one of the select few who spent their careers in the field trying to identify and contact new intelligent species.

  Michael remembered multiple star systems, worlds with suns scattered like diamonds across the sky; cold Galilean planets where they drilled hundreds of kilometers into the ice to find hidden oceans; he had walked in the ruined cities of a dozen extinct starfaring species. Everywhere, he had been able to find the spark of the Divine, hidden though it might be. Dr. Herat left these worlds with a greater understanding of humanity's relation to other species; Michael Bequith left each knowing what kind of religious observations would permit someone's spirit to thrive in that place, or alongside that species.

  And then he and Dr. Herat had come to Dis and found things that whispered doubt into both their souls— so that now, Dr. Herat no longer believed in the ideals of Panspermia and Michael could no longer summon the kami of the worlds they visited.

  He sat up and entered full lotus position. The hollow echo of Dis was sounding in his mind; he had to clear his consciousness, or he might fall into despair again. Just as he was beginning to gain control of his thoughts, an inscape daemon chimed.

  "There's a message from the cruiser for Dr. Herat," said Meline; she was one of the few on this remote station who regularly remembered to notify Michael first about things. Michael's role was mysterious to these technicians, who mostly came from the oldest worlds of the Rights Economy and viewed the idea of service without remuneration as silly, if not criminal.

  "Thanks, Meline. Route it to me and I'll let him know."

  He opened his eyes— inscape would not write its images across his sensorium with them closed. The inscape window looked into some lounge aboard a starship; the only way to tell that this was a military craft and not a luxury liner was the row of high-gee couches along the wall and the uniform of the man who faced Michael now.

  "Dr. Laurent Herat. This is Rear Admiral Crisler, you may remember me from my days at the Institute. You're being temporarily relieved of your appointment here, sir. I'm authorized to take you to a new assignment. If you'd join us aboard the Spirit of Luna, we'll debrief you at twenty-hundred hours." The window blinked out of existence, revealing the stateroom's gray wall.

  So, it's happened. He sat up and looked around his tiny room glumly. It was early afternoon; they had a few hours to pack and say their good-byes.

  Dr. Herat should never have written that report.

  Michael could have called him through inscape and simply forwarded the message, but that wasn't polite. He went and rapped on the scientist's door instead.

  We have spent trillions on the search for our equals in the galaxy, Herat had written. What we have found has caused us to change our tactics, our goals and ultimately our ideals. The search as it is now proceeding is on its last legs. We must accept that and understand why.

  Herat opened the door. "Yes?"

  "The cruiser has signaled us. They want us aboard for a debriefing tonight."

  "Ah. I see. Forward me the message, will you?" Dr. Herat turned back inside, leaving the door open. He had been packing, Michael saw.

  Michael concentrated for a second and saw Herat purse his lips as the message arrived.

  Over the past four decades we strove to find other starfaring intelligent species with whom we could communicate. Our goal was the creation of a galaxy-wide, multispecies civilization, because we knew other species were out there and we had the evidence of past galactic-wide civilizations to inspire us.

  "You knew the cruiser had come for us?" Michael asked. Usually it was he who arranged transportation and who knew the starship routes and schedules. Michael knew nothing of the military, but Dr. Herat had his connections.

  Herat shrugged. "Nobody else on this planet is worth the effort. Although… I knew Crisler slightly, he used to be a scientist, back in the innocent old days. Now he's a rear admiral? Still doesn't explain why they sent him in particular. I wouldn't think I'd merit more than your average captain."

  Michael hadn't thought of that. "Maybe they were the closest ship?"

  "That could be. Help me with this stuff, would you? You always could pack better than me."

  Our well-funded and highly public search for our equals has turned up none. We have found some intelligent alien species, even a few that travel between the stars. We have not found a single race that shares our ideals, or even comprehends them.

  "You know, I can't in all honesty say I'm sorry it's ending like this," said Dr. Herat later as they piled their few belongings in a transit capsule at the bottom of the freight elevator. A few of the staff were fluttering around, upset at the suddenness of their departure. Herat was generally well liked.

  "How can you say that?" asked Meline. She stood with her arms crossed, scowling at the doctor.

  "It's better go out with a bang than a whimper," said Herat. "We've been reduced to studying lumps of gray rock on tidal flats— have you thought about where it goes from here?"

  They had made their inscape public, as was polite, and now Michael saw Dr. Herat summon a clock, which hung in the air above them like some ancient ghost, translucent and dire. "Ten minutes until the tide goes out," said Herat. "I'm going to miss the sound of it."

  Michael summoned a video image of topside events. The water above was choppy and low; scintillations of sunlight could be seen through it. He made the image public and placed it near the clock.

  The dream of Panspermia goes back to Teilhard de Chardin and his vision of ever-increasing sentience in the universe. We were brought up on this faith without even realizing it. The many assumptions behind it only became apparent when we began searching for a real counterpart to the vision. Then we learned the truth.

  Finally the waters parted, revealing late-afternoon sunlight and a few clouds. They said their good-byes and entered the egg-shaped transit capsule. The door slammed and Michael and Dr. Herat sat looking at one another in pensive silence.

  The truth is that we are intelligent animals, but animals just the same, subject to the inescapable laws of our evolution. Our first theories about alien intelligence were providential: we believed with Teilhard de Chardin that consciousness is a basic characteristic of complex thinking entities. When we developed the FTL drive, we burst into the galaxy in search of beings more «evolved» than ourselves, in the belief that a universal Reason would unite us with other species at the same level.

  What we found instead was that even though a species might remain starfaring for millions of years, consciousness does not seem to be required for toolmaking. In fact, consciousness appears to be a phase. No species we have studied has retained what we would call self-awareness for its entire history. Certainly none has evolved into some state above consciousness.

  The Panspermia Institute was formed out of the disappointment of this discovery. We sought to uncover the conditions that give rise to sentience; if we could not find aliens like ourselves, perhaps we could guide candidate species into our mode of experience.

  With the faintest shudder, the platform began to rise. The darkness of the station fell below and sunlight stabbed through the capsule's window. Michael and Dr. Herat leaned over as one to look at the shoreline of Kadesh one last time. It was beautiful under the sunlight; you wanted to run into the water every time you saw it. Michael could make out the faint checkerboard pattern of the Kadists under the water. They were just as mysterious now as when he and the professor had arrived.

  A shadow flitted overhead, then the capsule rang as something took hold of it. They were lifted gently and silently skyward by Kadesh's only skyhook, which normally reeled itself back to avoid the churning water when it passed over this spot. In seconds they had climbed above the lowest clouds.

&n
bsp; Studies on hundreds of worlds have turned up no pattern to the development of sentient life. The idea that Nature somehow instructs or guides species into sentience in a repeatable way also appears to be wrong. There is no discernible policy for the Institute to be gleaned from the evidence of past civilizations. We can neither predict the rise of sentience in a species, nor predict its ultimate course, not even in our own.

  We are left with a selectionist theory of sentience: consciousness and space-faring toolmaking ability, arise by chance from countless combinations of traits that in the vast majority of cases fail to produce results. Our studies have turned up thousands of species that "might have been" like ourselves. One, for instance, has all our traits, except that it lacks a tolerance for remaining stationary for long. Its people roam across the plains of their world, incapable of creating tools larger than they can carry.

  Countless other species are similarly close, but also miss the mark, some for want of a single trait. Records from extinct starfaring races show that some of our forerunners tried to genetically engineer such candidate species, to no avail: Even a single genetic alteration cascades unpredictable changes throughout culture, language and thought. Only brutal trial-and-error produces results. That, we do not have the moral courage to attempt.

  So we are alone. The existing starfaring species of the galaxy are not able to be our companions. We cannot find nor create a companion species. Indeed, the only way we could create a pangalactic civilization would be to exterminate or enslave all potential competition, as the Chicxulub did.

  * * *

  MICHAEL HAD LEFT behind many worlds in his travels with Dr. Herat, but as they rose above Kadesh he was reminded of his very first leave-taking, the day he left Kimpurusha and his family. That time, he had sat and stared out the porthole as white cloud swallowed the city of Manifest and then even the stark mountains that rose above it; he had watched as the horizon became a curve and the whole vast glacial plain of the northern hemisphere came into view. He remembered being astonished at the beautiful and subtle colors that played along the planet's terminator. His life was about to change forever, yet he felt confident and not alone, because he had embarked on this journey as a religious pilgrimage. He was taking Kimpurusha with him; how could he be lonely?

  It was hard to believe that was only five years ago. "We've seen a lot of worlds," he said as both he and the professor leaned back again.

  "Yes." Dr. Herat looked older than ever. "It's a rare privilege. I'm glad… I'm glad you're the kind of man who appreciates nature, Dr. Bequith."

  Compliments from Dr. Herat were rare. Michael smiled. "Thank you, sir."

  "I've never felt that you would be reluctant to accompany me on any of these jaunts," Herat went on. "Though some of them have been… well, insane."

  Michael grinned. "Like Ember?"

  Herat laughed. Ember was a fast-eroding planet recently swallowed by its red giant sun. Its surface was immersed in faintly glowing red fog, a single giant flame; the human settlers had dug their cities deep into the rock and there they claimed to have found artifacts of alien origin, fossilized in the limestone. Herat and Michael had joined a party of archaeologists on the surface, living in thick-walled refrigerant tanks, venturing out only by proxy using telepresence robots. Ember had strained their normally serene relationship almost to the breaking point.

  "Very different from Kimpurusha," said Herat. "You've seen fire and ice, now. Something to tell your grandchildren about."

  Michael nodded. "Have you heard from yours lately, sir?"

  "Yes, I was meaning to tell you. Mina is buying a house! Can you believe it? She's almost thirty years old now. Still single, like you." They shared a grin; it was an old ploy of Herat's to try to marry Michael off to his granddaughter. "And Jackson's completed his second tour for the service. They're actually talking about an expedition to the galactic center, can you believe it?"

  Dr. Herat sighed, looking, if possible, somewhat bewildered. Outside the blue of the sky had turned to black. The skyhook would release them soon on a trajectory to intercept the Spirit of Luna. That point of release— when they were briefly weightless— would be the moment when Michael felt he had really left Kadesh.

  They talked a bit more about Dr. Herat's family, but when weightlessness came they both fell silent. This was it; the long journey from Kimpurusha might be over today. Dr. Herat had insulted his colleagues by exposing the truth they'd sought to hide for years. He was sure to pay for it. This summons away from an active research project could only mean one thing: dismissal or downgrading in the Service. Oh, Herat would never be disgraced and he would never want for work. In all likelihood, though, their next stop would be Noctis Regina, Herat's homeworld. He had a mansion and a tenured position waiting for him there and if Michael remained in his employ he would likely be housebound, with no opportunity to use his talents for discovering and capturing kami.

  Michael had always felt that when the time came for them to part, it would be because Michael was being arrested because his religious activities had been found out; or because Herat was done wandering and Michael had found another way to seek out the spirits of the stars. Never had he imagined that he might lose his own faith and have nowhere to go himself once Herat retired.

  The mirrored sphere of the Spirit of Luna appeared and minutes later they were pulled inside it. Gravity returned abruptly and shortly thereafter the hatch undogged itself.

  The capsule stood alone in a gigantic hangar. Several uniformed men approached from the far end; one saluted. "Dr. Herat, welcome. I'm Chief Petty Officer McNeill. Here, let me take those bags, sir. We'll just run them through the scanner for you."

  Michael had handed over the bags before he realized that his black market kami storage unit was in one of them. It was too late to do anything; he would just have to hope they didn't find it.

  "Admiral Crisler is waiting to see you. You can visit your quarters to freshen up if you'd like…?"

  Herat waved away the offer. "No, I'm fine. Here, my man can take care of my things. He'll get me settled."

  "Good. If you'll come with me?" McNeill and Herat walked away, leaving Michael with several enlisted men. This was their usual pattern; the professor would do the high-level negotiating and Michael would become invisibly part of the local culture. Except in this case there was no way to fit in; he was a civilian.

  One of the men ran a wand over the luggage and whistled. "Lookee here, guys. A Mark 820."

  That was the offline datapack for the Shintoist AI. Michael folded his arms and watched as they zipped it out of its pocket.

  "Uncle of mine had one of these," said the soldier. He hefted it and squinted at Michael. "You realize that neurasthenic storage devices are illegal, sir?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Where you from?"

  "Kimpurusha."

  "Ah, well." Kimpurushans were reputed to be eccentric; Michael found this prejudice sometimes let him get away with things others couldn't.

  "Well, I'm going to have to confiscate this, sir. Now normally I would write a report specifying exactly what it is, before we put it in storage." The soldier grinned at his friends. "If we say it's a religious AI you'll never get it back. But I could just as easily mark it down as a porno unit, which are only prohibited on military ships. Then you'd get it back on the way out."

  "I see." Michael knew this game. "What would motivate you to do that?"

  "Well, you see, we have absolutely no idea where in the hell we are, or where in hell this ship is going. This is unusual…" From their expressions Michael saw that it must be pretty much unheard of.

  "You tell us what this sneaking is all about and I'll make sure you get this baby back safe and sound whenever we get to where ever the hell it is we're going."

  Michael hesitated. These soldiers looked uneasy; was there combat happening somewhere?

  "We've been out of touch," he said after a moment. "Is everything all right, back home?"

  "Rebel att
ack on Kavya," said another of the soldiers. "The fleet's headed there."

  "But we're not," said the first. "Instead we come three thousand light-years out of our way to pick up a scientist, under blackout no less. So what's it all about?"

  Michael shook his head. "I… I have no idea," he said. "We thought… we thought Dr. Herat was being retired."

  "Well then," said the soldier with exaggerated patience, "can you tell us what it is that your Dr. Herat studies?"

  Michael felt a sinking feeling: they had been recalled for a reason that had nothing whatever to do with Dr. Herat's report.

  "Aliens," he said. "Dr. Herat hunts aliens."

  8

  "B EQUITH, GET UP here!" Dr. Herat's voice sprang out of nowhere. It was the emergency inscape channel they'd established years ago and rarely used. The soldiers shouldn't be able to intercept it. They were still mulling over Michael's statement.

  "Dr. Herat wanted me to join him as soon as possible," he said. "About that…?" He pointed to the AI.

  "You haven't given us anything yet," said the soldier.

  "I'll tell you what I find out," he said. It was a small price to pay to keep the AI.

  "Good on ya." The soldier stuffed the AI into a black case. "Just dial 4330 to get me. Nice doing business with you."

  "Right. Now where…?"

  "There's only one way to go," said another of the soldiers. "You'll see."

  Michael did see. The military neuro interface had effectively taken over his inscape sensorium and it laid its own version of the ship over his vision. He knew there were side corridors and doors because every now and then he saw someone walk out of what looked like a wall; but the edited view of the place he saw had only those doors and stairs that took him in the direction of whatever briefing room they wanted him in. It was disconcerting and he had no idea how far the illusion went; the walls and ceiling themselves might not be real. The eeriness of the effect added to his apprehension.

  Because there was only one way to go he quickly found the lounge where Dr. Herat and the admiral sat at a large teak table. Rather, the admiral sat; Herat was pacing, a look of intense excitement on his face.