Permanence

by Karl Schroeder

  "And there's the sylphs, who are incredibly dangerous. We set up colonies on six sylph worlds before we even knew they existed. A biologist on one of the colonies made the discovery that every form of life on her planet had identical DNA— from the giant fern forests to sea slugs at the bottom of the ocean, it was one species, just expressing different genes to become different life-forms. And even the plants had nervous systems. What's more, the colonists had all reported various levels of radio and electronic interference on these worlds. It turns out the sylphs communicate constantly— it's a global network that passes experiential information back and forth. By the time we realized this, a good ten percent of the colonists themselves were sylphs— changelings, replaced in the womb by mimics.

  "After an initial panic we realized the sylphs weren't attacking, they were just doing what they do— adapting to a new feature of the environment, in this case us. The changelings didn't even know they were sylphs— their human consciousness was completely separate from the underlying sylph mind.

  "Discovering this, we made the fatal mistake: We tried to communicate with them.

  "The result," said Herat sadly, "was the extermination of a colony of twenty-five thousand people and the subsequent cauterization of the continent they'd lived on by our navy. It turns out that to the sylphs, the highest ideal is adaptation. To them, the notion of adapting your environment to suit you is horrifying.

  "They happily cohabited with us as long as they saw us as just another feature of the local environment. When they realized we were conscious beings like themselves, they were so outraged that they moved to destroy us. We had to wipe out one entire sylph culture in order to prevent the information spreading to the others. The sylphs have FTL and they're incredibly powerful. We're now in the midst of pulling our colonies off their worlds— slowly and carefully."

  Rue took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. "That's awful."

  "Well, the R.E. became a lot more cautious after that. About eight years ago, I was assigned to explore the various ruins we'd found and try to come up with a general pattern for the rise and fall of galactic civilizations."

  "Really?" She seemed fascinated by that idea. "Is that when you hired Mike?" She turned her dark eyes in his direction.

  "Shortly after," said Herat. "We visited hundreds of worlds and we did find a pattern. But we resisted accepting it, until we visited a place called Dis and were hit over the head with it." He smiled ironically.

  "Go on," said Salas. "I've heard of Dis— what's it like?"

  "Dis is a rectangular piece of woven fullerene, ten meters thick, four hundred kilometers wide, and five hundred long. Three billion years ago, it was part of a ring-shaped orbital structure almost two thousand kilometers in diameter. It had two-hundred kilometer high walls on the edges of the ring to keep atmosphere in and it rotated to provide gravity. At some time after its abandonment it must have been hit by an asteroid, which tore it apart. The part we found is in a highly elliptical orbit around a white dwarf star that was once a G-class sun. This sun long ago swelled up, swallowed its planets, and shrank again. Dis is the only legacy of a magnificent species three billion years old.

  "Most of the soil and structures that were on the inside surface of the Dis ring were knocked off it in the catastrophe, but we found one nearly intact city and thousands of kilometers of subsurface tunnels. They left records and we were able to piece together a little of their history.

  "They wanted their civilization to last forever— that's the one thing we do know about them. They built for the ages in everything they did. The evidence is that they did last a very long time— maybe eighty million years. But early on, they discovered a disquieting truth we are only just learning ourselves. It is this: Sentience and toolmaking abilities are powerful ways for a species to move into a new ecological niche. But in the long run, sentient, toolmaking beings are never the fittest species for a given niche. What I mean is, if you need tools to survive, you're not well fitted to your environment. And if you no longer need to use tools, you'll eventually lose the capacity to create them. It doesn't matter how smart you are, or how well you plan: Over the longest of the long term, millions of years, species that have evolved to be comfortable in a particular environment will always win out. And by definition, a species that's well fitted to a given environment is one that doesn't need tools to survive in it.

  "Look at crocodiles. Humans might move into their environment— underwater in swamps. We might devise all kinds of sophisticated devices to help us live there, or artificially keep the swamp drained. But do you really think that, over thousands or millions of years, there won't be political uprisings? System failures? Religious wars? Mad bombers? The instant something perturbs the social system that's needed to support the technology, the crocodiles will take over again, because all they have to do to survive is swim and eat.

  "It's the same with consciousness. We know now that it evolves to enable a species to deal with unforeseen situations. By definition, anything we've mastered becomes instinctive. Walking is not something we have to consciously think about, right? Well, what about physics, chemistry, social engineering? If we have to think about them, we haven't mastered them— they are still troublesome to us. A species that succeeds in really mastering something like physics has no more need to be conscious of it. Quantum mechanics becomes an instinct, the way ballistics already is for us. Originally, we must have had to put a lot of thought into throwing things like rocks or spears. We eventually evolved to be able to throw without thinking— and that is a sign of things to come. Some day, we'll become like the people of Dis, able to maintain a technological infrastructure without needing to think about it. Without needing to think, at all…

  "The builders of Dis faced a dilemma: The best way to survive in the long run on any world they colonized was to adapt yourself to the environment. The best survivors would be those who no longer needed technology to get by. They tried to outlaw such alterations, but how do you do such a thing for the long term without suppressing the scientific knowledge that makes it possible? Over tens or thousands of millennia, you can only do this by suppressing all technological development, because technologies intertwine. This tactic results in the same spiral into nontechnological life. So inevitably, subspecies appeared that were better survivors in a given locale, because they didn't need technology in that locale. This happened every time, on all their worlds.

  "The inhabitants of Dis had studied previous starfaring species. The records are hard to decipher, but I found evidence that all previous galactic civilizations had succumbed to the same internal contradictions. The Dis-builders tried to avoid their fate, but over the ages they were replaced on all their worlds by fitter offspring. These descendents had no need for tools, for culture, for historical records. They and their environment were one. The conscious, spacefaring species could always come back and take over easily from them. But given enough time… and time always passes… the same end result would occur. They would be replaced again. And so they saw that their very strength, the highest attainments they as a species had achieved, contained the seeds of their downfall.

  "This discovery finally explained to us why toolmaking species are rare to begin with. It takes an unusual combination of factors to create a species that is fit enough to survive, but at the same time is so unfit in its native environment that it must turn to its weakest organ, its brain, for help. Reliance on tools is a tremendous handicap for any species; only a few manage to turn it into an asset.

  "The builders of Dis knew they were doomed. We all are: technological civilization represents a species' desperate attempt to build a bubble to keep hostile environments at bay. Sentient species also never cooperate with one another over the long term, because the environments they need in order to live are incompatible. Some, like the Chicxulub, accept this easily and try to exterminate everyone else. Even they can't stop their own evolution and so eventually they cease to be starfaring species. Destruction or
devolution are the only choices.

  "It's hard to see how we can cohabit with the autotrophs and the sylphs, if humanity is bent on expansion and so are they. Something catastrophic is bound to happen; and if not, well, we'll just evolve away from what we are, sooner or later."

  "That's about as bleak a story as you can get," said Rue. She scowled off into space for a while. "But you still haven't answered my question: how is Jentry's Envy different?"

  Herat nodded. "Two things. One is something we found on Dis, something that scares me even to think about. But I'll start with the other, obvious one: Jentry's Envy appears to have been built for more than one kind of species to use— not just more than one species, more than one kind. It implies the one thing we've never seen: multispecies cooperation. If it's not a fluke, a one-time happening in the history of the galaxy, then it suggests there may be a way to break the cycle of competition and destruction that's ruled since the first stars were born.

  "But the other thing, the thing that scares me right now, is that while we were on Dis we found evidence that a number of other races had visited Dis in the past— searchers, like ourselves. In two places, we even found Lasa graffiti."

  "Graffiti?"

  "Well… artifacts and writings, like the ones on the habitat here. We haven't fully translated it, but the point is that one of those pieces of writing dates to the Lasa period, two billion years ago. We know it's Lasa because it illuminates the meaning of other samples we have— it's either Lasa or somebody who could think in the language. But the other…

  "The other thing was a piece of Lasa technology that also appears genuine, because its integrated data storage has the unforgeable mathematical signature of the Lasa," said Herat. "But when we dated it, we found it to be only twenty thousand years old."

  Salas whistled and sat back. "Two billion years…"

  Herat shook his head. "It's impossible. But every time I see the pictures of that habitat out there, with the Lasa writing on it, I wonder… Were the poor inhabitants of Dis right— is a permanent civilization possible? If so, how? What's frightening is the thought of how you might have to live— how you'd have to understand the world— in order to maintain a civilization for two billion years."

  12

  "Y OU'RE SET TO go, people," said Rue Cassels. She waved down at Michael. "All signs looking good."

  They were not wasting time. Michael had only just had breakfast and now he found himself clutching the lip of Lake Flaccid's shore, preparing to dive into who knew what. It was probably better to do it this way. Otherwise he might have to think about where he was about to go and that would be bad.

  Michael heard Herat sigh. "Okay, let's do it." Michael let go of the shore of Lake Flaccid and let himself sink.

  Real vision was impossible here. As the surface of the lake closed over the top of his helmet, Michael had a startling moment of déjà vu: He remembered as a child standing on the edge of a cliff in wintertime. He was all bundled up in a parka with the hood up and had been gazing out at some mountain sheep on a far slope, when a snow squall came up. In seconds everything went blank and he couldn't see more than a meter beyond his feet. Terrified, he had stood there for half an hour, englobed in white, until the storm abated and he could once again see the sheer drop at his feet. He had never gone to stand on that particular spot again.

  The evac suit felt much like a parka and as soon as he entered the lake he was embedded in milky whiteness. For a while he just stared at it, able to see swirls and layers in it as he descended. He waved his arms experimentally. It certainly felt like he was underwater.

  Then Dr. Herat's voice broke him out of the reverie: "Look at it! It's magnificent!"

  Michael switched to the inscape view provided by the mesobot "fish." The sonar mappings of all three fish were combined into one 3-D model and Michael's POV was adjusted to match his actual position in that model. He could look around and it was almost as if it were his own eyes that saw, in false color, the interior of the alien habitat.

  The first thing he noticed was that the wall he was following down did not extend all the way to the bottom of the habitat. There were windows just below him, then under that great arches opened up. The material of the walls swept down to become pillars that grounded in a blurry maze at the bottom; of course, since the habitat was a rotating sphere, the arches looked more like the arms of a star radiating out from the cylinder at the axis.

  There were numerous round «signs» like those they'd found above, set in vertical rows in the wall. When the sonar hit them just right, they turned into complex three-dimensional swirls that seemed to move. Beautiful.

  "It's all open down here." Herat was enjoying this altogether too much. In some ways, the man had no imagination, Michael had decided; he couldn't picture the nightmares that most people glimpsed in shadows. To him, this was just another place. True, Herat knew the utility of imagination; that was why he had hired Michael.

  Their lines could snap (though they were fullerene, strong enough to suspend a whole building) and they might fall into jagged wreckage or even traps down in that blurred substrate. Or the weird aerogel beads could penetrate the suit somehow.

  Or there might just be live things in here after all…

  "How are you guys doing?" asked Rue. The marine answered, "Great, thanks," with more than a tinge of relief in his voice. "I'm good, Rue," said Michael.

  Experimentally, he switched off the inscape view. It was dark down here now— an unremitting slate gray, not at all like water. He held up his hand and couldn't see it until he plastered his palm against the faceplate.

  "Tell me again what you're looking for?" asked the marine.

  "Evidence of habitation," said Herat. "That means organic materials, ad-hoc structures— bodies would be ideal. We want to know whether this cycler was launched with a crew who later abandoned it or died here. Why is it empty? That's what I want to know right now."

  "Yes, sir. My instructions are not to allow you to enter any small spaces, sir."

  Michael flipped back to inscape. Dr. Herat's fuzzy outline was floating near one of the «window» openings. It wasn't dark in there— sonar shadows in this view were like solid extensions of the objects casting the shadow. Every now and then the triangulation of the three mesobots failed and one of the space-suited figures would grow a long spike-shaped tail for a few seconds.

  "Bring one of the bots down here," commanded Herat. Something small and sleek slid up through the water to him, and the archway below Michael's feet vanished. He saw his own feet grow long pillars that grew down into indeterminacy.

  This was the perfect place to try to capture a kami— but not right now. Michael's mouth was dry and his heart was thudding painfully in his chest.

  As the mesobot approached the window, the opening took on more definition, despite being farther away from Michael than his own indistinct, overlapping hands. Since vision in his neighborhood was deteriorating, he swam in that direction.

  "It opens up just past the entrance," said Herat. "I see… looks like a swimming pool."

  "Maybe you should go topside, sir," said the marine.

  "I'm not hallucinating, man— I'm looking at a wide, long chamber with a low roof— maybe a meter high. The sonar hits a kind of boundary layer at the bottom and under that it's like another chamber. I'm going in."

  "No! Sir—" Herat disappeared into the opening. The marine followed.

  There was some scuffling and a sharp exchange of words. Then Herat and the marine emerged.

  "It's water!" Herat had forgotten his anger immediately in the light of a new discovery. "There's long tanks of water in there. We're at about the one gee level here; you could swim in there and just sort of glide into the water. Maybe that's where they slept— the equivalent of living quarters. We have to do a thorough investigation—"

  "Not before we've secured the approach, sir." The marine waved at the vaults below them. "I suggest we see what's down there before we proceed. And then, only
with Admiral Crisler's permission."

  "We don't need Crisler's permission," scoffed Herat. "Only Ms. Cassels's."

  "He's right," said Rue. "It's my ship."

  "You are correct," said the marine. "The ship is your responsibility. However, your safety aboard said ship is our responsibility. We are not threatening your ownership, merely doing our duty to protect you."

  "We'll see about that," said Rue.

  "Meanwhile," said Dr. Herat, "let's take this young man's suggestion and explore under the arches. Shall we?"

  They backed the fish out of the opening and began to lower it and the others. Michael let out his line and drifted down after, with Herat behind him and the marine above.

  The pools of water had sparked his imagination. This environment was alien, but something Herat had said last night came back to him: "What we will share most fundamentally with aliens will not be mathematics, or reason, or language, but basic bodily functions. If we're going to commune with them, it will be on that basis first and the others later or not at all."

  Indeed, the slope of these arches told him nothing— they were geometrically minimal structures and any cellular automata program could have evolved their design. No, what made this place make sense was the image of someone coming home after a hard day's work in an uncomfortable medium and slipping gratefully into real water for a rest.

  He knew he was half-consciously building the empathic basis for a NeoShinto revelation. A few months ago that would have pleased him; now he saw it as making himself vulnerable to a frightening truth he didn't want to see; he angrily shrugged off the feeling.

  They dropped past the top of one of the arches and for the first time the rest of the spherical habitat became visible.

  "It's a town!" Herat laughed. "An underwater town!"

  "Beware the metaphor, Professor," muttered Michael.

  It did look kind of like a mountain village back home, though. Farthest away was a smoothly curved latticelike structure suggesting boxes or buildings that rose up from the valley at the equator of the sphere toward its rotational pole. The boxes had openings on all sides, even the roofs. Inside, the sonar presented various complex shapes as multicolored blurs.