InterstellarNet 03 Enigma

by Edward M. Lerner

  “I’m terrified to find out,” Joshua said. “But regardless, I have to know.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Joshua feigned sleep, the better to ignore his fellow passengers aboard the packed lunar shuttle. The problem was, he wasn’t tired. And closed eyes did nothing to vanquish laughter.

  You’re not the universe’s lone source of amusement, Joshua told himself. Don’t be paranoid. The chiding did nothing to erase memories of the winks, nudges, and knowing grins that had pursued him through the Charleston spaceport concourse. And for every obvious gawker, how many more had watched discreetly through the public-safety monitors, sharing a good chortle by net?

  Passers-by seemed to recognize him wherever he went. Oh, not everyone. He knew that. It only felt that way. Yet somehow no one could find a trace of him for four entire weeks. How could that be?

  Meanwhile, the motion-sickness meds had yet to kick in, and the roiling in his gut did nothing for his mood. Neither did memories of the stewardess, floating down the cabin at mid-flight bearing a mesh bag of drink bulbs. Approaching his row, her eyes had studiously avoided his. Her enumeration of beverage choices—the list he had heard a dozen times as she’d made her way aft—suddenly lacked adult options. For all he’d felt like a beer, he had asked for water. On the space line’s infosphere site, in very fine print, the alcoholic beverage policy read Management has the right to refuse service at any time.

  Choosing his battles? Or chickening out? Maybe he was angrier with himself than with the stewardess.

  Here and there about the cabin, the sniggers grew louder. Opening his eyes and craning his neck, Joshua saw the infamous vid playing on a seatback display across the aisle. He watched long enough to see the vid had been improved. Now, at the point where Joshua exited the taxi, his face had been digitally rendered a Wicked Witch of the West green.

  Two rows away, a passenger was looked back. Staring. Staring at him. When Joshua caught her eye, the woman turned away. She didn’t even have the decency to shrug.

  Almost an hour left till Tycho City Spaceport. Joshua let his eyes full shut and filled his mind’s ear with Beethoven.

  Two symphony movements later, he still didn’t know what he would say. He hadn’t told Grandma Matthews that he was coming. He could always hole up in a bar or hotel while he found the words. Even without the chuckles drowning out a pianissimo passage, he knew that was a stupid idea.

  Did the words matter? Nothing he said could make things right.

  He had failed the whole family, but Joyce Matthews most of all. Grandma had been secretary-general of the ICU. Much of a century later, she remained legendary in the organization. Now he was a joke there.

  Grandma’s stories were why he had become an historian. Had he ever told her?

  She told such great stories. About alien AI trade agents. About misunderstandings large and small, often momentous, on occasion hilarious. About how the InterstellarNet took shape. For almost two centuries, ICU history and the Matthews family annals had been entwined.

  The tech of it all sometimes went over his head, but never the scope. The sheer scale of InterstellarNet had captured his imagination. With its members all light-years apart, every communication cycle took years. Even a trade deal negotiated overnight with a local AI agent relied upon programming and instructions from years earlier.

  He remembered the day—it was at a party for Aaron’s ninth birthday, which made Joshua twelve—when the LED of enlightenment had lit. Grandma (and Grandpa, still healthy) had not yet relocated to the Moon. Thunderstorms had driven everyone inside the house. His brother, sisters, and cousins were watching some 3-V toon. The adults were in another room discussing adult stuff. Grandma began telling stories and he had sat at her feet, rapt.

  Every incoming interstellar message was a communication from the past. Every communication that humanity transmitted was a missive to the future. And so, the passage of the years complicated even the most basic of exchanges. Did a question or its reply still have meaning? Between asking and answering, how had circumstances changed? When talking to the Centaurs, nine years separated question and answer. When dealing with the fringes of the InterstellarNet community, the Dragons of far-off Alrakis, the cycle took thirty-seven years.

  A pause between movements. Scattered chortles filled the gap.

  It took more than techies to phrase and parse InterstellarNet messages. Whatever they chose to call themselves, it took historians. To reconstruct years-old contexts. To imagine what a distant society might be like when a Sol system message would be received years later.

  And yet, what had seemed so clear to Joshua eluded others, even within the ICU. If they could not grasp the role of historical analysis in the InterstellarNet process, then what, besides nepotism, could he expect them to believe?

  When the lunar shuttle landed with a soft thump, Joshua still had no idea what he would say.

  • • • •

  Grandma was as tiny as Joshua remembered and even frailer. Fair enough: she was 110 years old, and even Earth-side she wouldn’t have weighed fifty kilos. Still, she leapt, easily wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s good to see you, boy!”

  Earth retirees were a growth industry on the Moon. Joshua could see why. “Hi, Grandma. May I come in?”

  “Of course.” She gave a final squeeze, and let go. In slow motion, she settled to the floor. “What can I get you?”

  “Nothing, thanks.” He followed her inside. Tiny woman, tiny furniture, tiny apartment. Giant spirit.

  “You look awfully glum, Josh,” she said. She perched on the edge of the sofa, patting a spot beside her.

  He sat. Grandma was the only one who still called him Josh. He didn’t mind it from her. “I’ve had a rough couple weeks, Grandma. You know why, of course. I’ve embarrassed everyone in the family. You cannot imagine how sorry I am. Most of all, I let you down.”

  Grabbing his chin, she turned his face toward hers. “How, possibly, could you let me down?” She squeezed hard when he opened his mouth. “Still talking here, Josh.

  “Of course I know about your disappearance. I worried about you the whole time. I netted your parents practically daily. And no one was happier than I when you returned home.

  “Being away isn’t an embarrassment. Being ill isn’t an embarrassment. How can you imagine you’ve let me down?” After a final pinch, she released his chin.

  “Our family had this wonderful legacy at the ICU. Now, when people hear the name Matthews, they think about drunkenness and nepotism. I am so sorry, Grandma.” It was hard not to shout: haven’t you heard the mockery?

  And it was precisely because the clan had accomplished so much at the ICU, Grandma more than most, that his supposed indiscretion refused to fade away.

  “I’m telling you something in confidence,” Grandma said. “Of all my grandchildren, I’m the proudest of you. Am. Present tense. Your grandfather, if he were still with us, would feel the same.

  “Both your sisters and their husbands are content to live on their trust funds and public allotments. There’s nothing wrong with that. They’re good people and I love them all, but they’re hardly ambitious. Your brother is a successful businessman and I respect him for that. What Aaron does, however, is mostly frivolous.

  “Now you”—she reached up again, this time to pat Joshua’s cheek—“you took a hard road. You chose to do something useful and difficult. You did it despite the complication that so many in the family preceded you there.”

  Why tell him this now? “You’re very kind, Grandma. It doesn’t alter—”

  “One question for you, Josh. Were you hiding away, drunk or stoned?”

  “No!” He steepled his fingers. “I don’t know where I was, but no. Absolutely not.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Grandma said. “It should be good enough for you. Don’t ever let other people tell you how to think about yourself.” She stood. “I’m getting myself a beer. Can I get you one?” It was ten in the morning local
time; he must have looked shocked. She cackled, her eyes twinkling. “Josh, lad, did you look out the view ports on approach? It’ll be night here for another standard week.”

  What a simple pleasure: to be trusted with a beer. He grinned. “Good enough for me.”

  She started the synthesizer. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Always.”

  “Lighten up. Decide what you want to do next, and then go do it. Don’t worry what anyone else thinks. Not your parents, or your pushy little brother, as much as I love the dear, or me.” The synthesizer beeped. She handed him a foaming glass, then clinked it with her own. “Expect the world to be confusing as hell. That’s its job.

  “Did I ever tell you about the time the Centaur trade agent applied for political asylum? That was almost seventy years ago. Your Dad was a baby. The AI emancipation movement was first beginning. I’d just become S-G. Looking back, I didn’t know what I was doing. The United Planets were in a redistricting uproar over the latest census …”

  Had she? At least ten times. Joshua would happily hear her retell it ten more. When she finished, he said, “Thank you, Grandma.” For listening. For believing in me. “Clearly age brings wisdom.”

  She downed the last of her beer. “Sometimes. Other times it just brings on new mistakes. The Snakes have been civilized a lot longer than humans, and I don’t see that the ages have made them any wiser.”

  And with that, Grandma launched into more reminiscing, this time involving the AI trade agent from Barnard’s Star.

  CHAPTER 5

  Corinne’s suborbital hop from Long Island to Geneva diverted, minutes before landing, to Basel. The pilot’s announcement said only that there had been a glitch in terminal ground control. The net offered no immediate explanation, although AI hiccups had become common enough of late that Corinne had her suspicions. She was too preoccupied to run down the details.

  A maglev train brought her to downtown Geneva just before one p.m. local. The depot’s main exit tunnel, lined with boutiques and eateries, led to ICU headquarters. VR and netheading went only so far; Joshua had found himself in Geneva several times every month. She sauntered into a café he had mentioned. Where he had often eaten, his ex-cronies might still.

  “Beyond” digital walls, slowly “turning,” snow-covered slopes plunged toward a distant timberline. Snow devils swirled. An alpine hare hopped past, winter-white. The place was packed, diners lingering over coffee and desserts. She had downloaded an ICU staff directory into her implant. She scanned the room now, searching for facial matches.

  Four translucent icons, three men and a woman, popped over her real-world view. Tags beneath gave names and titles. All were in the trade-policy bureau where Joshua had worked before his ill-fated promotion. An org-chart fragment showed different immediate bosses than any Joshua had had. Perfect.

  Joshua was on the Moon, on personal business. That was fine with Corinne. She hadn’t yet mentioned this expedition to him. Depending what she learned, she might never.

  She strolled to the booth where her unwitting sources sat, their table cleared but for coffee cups. “Excuse me.” They looked up, two seeming to recognize her. “Do you work at the ICU?” The woman nodded. “Good. I’m a reporter researching a story for the upcoming 175th anniversary. I’m asking people about their impressions. Background stuff.”

  Eyes on both sides of the booth glazed for a moment: a netted consultation. Perhaps some of the four did a quick infosphere lookup of her. If they were checking her out, well, fair enough. “Sure, Ms. Elman,” the woman said. She slid closer to a coworker. “Have a seat.”

  “Corinne. Thanks.” She sat.

  “I’m Becky,” the woman answered. She had floral nanornamented cheeks and a weightlifter’s upper body. Becky pointed to her companions. “Fred, Juan, and Travis.” Carrot top; bald with wings-of-Mercury cranial tattoos; blond with puppy-dog eyes.

  Old habits kicked in. Step one: put your subjects at ease. “How long have you been at the ICU?” Corinne began.

  “Eight years,” Fred and Juan said in unison. Travis raised a hand, fingers extended, thumb folded.

  “Ten years,” Becky answered, indicating by her tone that she was establishing seniority.

  They net-swapped bio files. Corinne commended the ICU. She inquired about their duties, nodding encouragement as they spoke. She lamented how the public failed to appreciate the beneath-the-hood complexities. She bought espressos and plates of sacher torte all round.

  On to step two: circle the real topic. “One hundred seventy-five years. That’s quite an accomplishment.” The observation got Corinne only nods. A touchy subject, it would seem. That might be Joshua’s doing. “I’d expect so, anyway.”

  “A hundred seventy-five years is a big deal.” A glazed-eye flicker, more consultation, and then—

  Ping! Corinne took the netted call, smiling inside. Déjà vu: Corinne “sat” with the foursome at a virtual café table. “You want confidentiality, obviously. That’s fine.”

  “I begin to doubt we’ll see much of an anniversary,” Becky netted. “At first I thought an ICU commemorative history was a great idea. No more. It’s made us a laughingstock.”

  “I always thought it was a dumb idea,” Fred said. “Too diffuse a story to tell. So much of what we do happens in interstellar slow motion.”

  Juan and Travis jumped in, championing particular ICU highlights. First-contact moments. Historic trade deals. The rise of the modern InterstellarNet. A distant relative of Joshua’s had invented the mechanisms behind swapping AI trade agents, and the AI quarantine mechanism so quaintly called the sandbox.

  Corinne let them chatter. It conditioned them to say things that perhaps they shouldn’t.

  Some journalists still claimed they produced the first draft of history. Not Corinne. Had worldliness or cynicism first changed her mind? Maybe there was no difference. She struggled to remember something Joshua had told her about history, miffed she had let her mental filing get behind. Ah: nothing might happen for millennia on end, beyond, perhaps, a marginally better method for chipping rock—and the next day, a genius might tame fire.

  Some days changed everything. Columbus reaches the Americas. Mobs storm the Bastille. 9/11. First Contact.

  The Snake trade agent, secure in his sandbox, data-mining his way to discovery of the undisclosed human antimatter factory on Himalia. The discovery that motivated a hijacking that …

  The memories washed over her: of Harmony shutting down, coming apart, hurtling into the cold and dark. Of corpses adrift in the corridors. With a shiver, she buried those images—until her next nightmare.

  The four had sufficiently agitated themselves, Corinne decided. She had best go on before, contrary to appearances, one found an interest in returning to work. And so, step three: sidle toward the real topic. “Someone mentioned a laughingstock. What’s that about?”

  “Joshua bleeping Matthews,” Becky snapped. “I’m so sick of hearing about him. He’s made the ICU a joke.” Virtual heads nodded agreement.

  Step four: ask the real questions—oh, so casually. “Do you know him?” Corinne asked.

  “For years, although not very well. He’s the quiet type.” Becky glowered. “If only he had stayed that way.”

  Travis mock-retched. Everyone laughed. “The shame of it is, now no one will take the historian job.”

  Oh? “No one?” Corinne repeated.

  “Who wants to become known as second choice to Joshua?” Travis mock-retched again. “It would be the kiss of death for a reputable historian.”

  Juan nodded. “I predict there’ll be no formal cancellation of the history project. It will fade away, never again mentioned. History killed by an historian: another Matthews conundrum.”

  “It’s clearly nepotism,” Fred said. “The ICU professional staff are technical specialists, whether in trade or economics or InterstellarNet plumbing. Why, except nepotism, bring in an historian? If Matthews hadn’t already been on-staff, no way
would he have gotten the appointment that panicked him.” And with a sympathetic expression, “Whoever pulled strings to get Joshua his historian gig did him no favor.”

  “No Matthews has been high-ranking for years,” Juan said. “Joshua was in the most senior post.”

  The four of them debated nepotism, hypothesized ancient obligations, speculated about professional courtesy, and generally belabored every possible explanation—other than talent and enthusiasm—for Joshua’s appointment. The longer they went on, the more Corinne thought: Joshua’s dismissal was a real loss to the ICU. What a shame no one here understood that.

  Somewhere in reality, chairs scraped against the floor. Travis glanced at the café’s wall clock. “Guys, I need to get back to work. Corinne, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

  Within minutes, Corinne had the restaurant almost to herself. Most other tables had also emptied out. A robot with a clattering tread moved about, clearing and cleaning. Sipping coffee, two thoughts chased around her head. First, it felt good to work on something new again. It made her feel, for the first time in a long time, like a real reporter. And second—

  Another Matthews conundrum?

  CHAPTER 6

  Joshua waited on the couch in his condo lobby, enjoying an actual fire of actual logs. Neighbors streamed past, dispensing sniffs of disapproval and oblique glances. He ignored them all. Maybe it was Grandma’s pep talk, maybe a stubborn streak he had not known he had in him. Whatever the reason, he was not about to accept ostracism.

  And waited some more. Corinne was late.

  Until the outdoor security cameras finally caught her scurrying beneath the front-entrance canopy for cover, he had started to worry. She folded an oversized umbrella. Dismissing the netted view, he stood, stretched, and turned toward the doors.

  Rain was coming down in buckets. Corinne, despite her umbrella, was soaked. Dark hair wet-plastered to her head made her face seem even rounder than usual. Her stomping feet sent water drops flying.