Oracle

by Douglas E. Richards

  “And the same goes for runaway biological evolution. Whenever one of the twenty-seven nears the point at which they’re sure runaway evolution will occur, the attempt fails. Every time. Most of us believe that this is because it is sabotaged to fail. Most of us can think of no other reasonable explanation as to why all intelligences have slammed into the same wall, which none of us have been able to punch through after thousands of years of effort.”

  Anna struggled once again to absorb the enormity of everything Vega was saying. But there was no way anyone could. The alien had used the words transcendent and Godhood—but these were mere words. But as he had run through a litany of the unimaginable power of these beings, who could well be orchestrating the galaxy-wide manipulation of dozens of civilizations, these words took on a much deeper meaning.

  She issued a sizable yawn as the car changed lanes to give room to a semi rolling slowly up an onramp ahead. She knew that if she closed her eyes and let herself drift for even five to ten seconds, she wouldn’t be able to open them again. But now was not the time to give in to fatigue. She shook her head vigorously, forcing her mind to full wakefulness, ensuring that she was as sharp as possible for this vital discussion.

  “Is there any other evidence that points to a grand manipulator?” she said.

  “Plenty of it. For example, all twenty-eight species hail from worlds with similar, breathable atmospheres. Some have more oxygen than others, and so on, but they are close enough that all species can survive on all planets, with varying degrees of comfort. All planets have very similar gravities. All species are roughly humanoid in appearance.”

  The alien paused. “There is such a thing as convergent evolution,” he added. “Which explains how a useful body plan can evolve over and over again. But all twenty-eight? This is the actual galaxy, not the set of the first Star Trek television show where aliens had to appear humanoid to save on the special effects budget.”

  “But this might make some sense if the seeding hypothesis were true,” noted Anna. “All the planets are similar, and the species are all humanoid, because this superintelligence selected planets to seed life on based on narrow criteria.”

  “This is a possibility, yes,” said Vega. “And, as you might expect, there are other theories to explain it as well. Some believe that this superintelligence is grouping civilizations according to their environmental needs and evolutionary convergence. That our grouping isn’t the only one. They believe that somewhere else in the galaxy there are other collections of sentient species. Other groups also linked by a network of portals and starships, who are all methane breathers, or who all live under water, or who are all insectoid in nature.”

  Anna couldn’t help but be caught up in the mystery of it all. If what Vega believed was true, the transcendent species he described was as alarming as it was majestic. Even those Westerners who were deeply religious believed that God had largely left humanity alone since biblical times. They believed that this omniscient, omnipotent being was indeed watching over humanity, but only to help. Never to actively, maliciously suppress human achievement.

  “So if this theory of yours is correct,” said Anna, “this super species of yours has been busy. Not only manipulating dozens of intelligences on dozens of worlds, but even manipulating their evolutionary development. Like so many chess pieces.”

  “Yes, we think so,” said Vega. “We call this theoretical species the Gatekeepers,” he added. “For obvious reasons. We can reach the gate to transcendence, but we aren’t allowed to pass through.”

  “I can only imagine how maddening this must be. Is that why you suggested earlier that Earth might not want to be part of the galactic group of civilizations? To protect us from the knowledge, for as long as possible, that we’re about to hit a barrier that we’ll never be able to breach?”

  Vega shook his head. “Not at all,” he replied. “Because this was just a partial backgrounder. The actual situation in the center of the galaxy is a lot worse.”

  “I get there are a lot of mysteries. And I get some kind of cosmic force is preventing you from further advancement. But you’re all still pretty advanced, right? Not transcendent, but not without electricity, either. Or starships. So how bad could it possibly be?”

  Vega sighed. “That’s a great question,” he said grimly. “But I’m sure that you’re not going to like the answer.”

  22

  Anna sniffed the air for several seconds and made a face. “What is that?” she asked her passenger.

  Vega shook his head. “We can hear a lot better than you can,” he said, “but you have the better sense of smell. What does it smell like?”

  The detective frowned. “I’m not sure. But pretty awful. Maybe rotten eggs. I thought I smelled it in your hotel room also.”

  Vega nodded. “I’m told the Tarts give off a distinctive odor. Which increases slightly right after death. You’re probably smelling the Tart body in the trunk.”

  “Lovely,” said Anna, just as the self-driving sedan suddenly veered to the right and onto an off ramp. The two passengers exchanged questioning glances.

  “Daisy, what is your destination?” said Anna.

  “As ordered, I have changed it from Huntington, Utah, to the Rest Easy Motel, since this motel meets the specified parameters. It is fourteen miles from our route. It is a one-level structure with parking in front of its rooms. Finally, it is nine blocks away from Hastings Motors, a used car seller.”

  “Outstanding,” said Anna. “What is our estimated time of arrival?”

  Anna knew that if she were at the wheel, given the time of night, the fourteen miles would go by in record time. But Daisy wouldn’t exceed the posted speed limit if they were the sole survivors of a worldwide apocalypse.

  “Just under twenty-three minutes,” replied the car.

  “Thank you. Please return to dormancy.”

  “Going dormant now,” said Daisy.

  Anna took a long pause to study the road behind them. If anyone was still following—which was highly unlikely by now—this was another time when their presence would be most evident.

  “So what is it that you aren’t telling me, Tom?” said Anna warily when she was satisfied they hadn’t grown a tail.

  Vega frowned deeply. “Simply this,” he replied. “The known intelligences have been at war with each other for almost twenty-two thousand of your years now.”

  Anna considered this powerful statement. It was a lot to take in. “All of them?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so. They have no other choice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “As I’ve said, there is virtual parity among all twenty-seven. No one is sure which species invented the star drive, but it first came on the scene after the last of the twenty-seven had reached the false Omega Point, and it quickly spread to all. Most suspect that none of the twenty-seven invented it, since none has been able to improve upon it, or even truly understand its operation.”

  “The Gatekeepers then?” said Anna.

  “Yes. That’s what most believe. My bet is that this superintelligence gave it to all sides simultaneously.”

  “Very democratic of them if they did,” said Anna dryly.

  “It also turns out that all twenty-seven have the same planetary energy shield technology,” continued Vega, “which is all but impenetrable. Starships have to slow to about ten percent of light speed within star systems due to gravitational interference. But try to smash a starship, or a missile, or anything else into a planetary shield, even at that speed, and the projectile will evaporate the instant it hits. It’s the ultimate bug zapper.”

  The alien paused. “And even though we all have them, we aren’t sure how they work, or who first invented them. Which points to the mysterious Gatekeepers yet again.”

  “You have to give them credit for sharing protective technology, as well,” said Anna.

  “No doubt about it,” agreed Vega. “Most species would now be extinct without it. Si
nce space around a planet is vast, and starships are small, there is no way to build a defensive net dense enough to keep out every one. So any planet without a shield would be helpless, and would be annihilated almost immediately. Just one starship would be enough to do the trick. Either by crashing into the planet at one-tenth light speed, hitting it with a single antimatter bomb, or using any number of other tactics.”

  Anna swallowed hard. She hadn’t really considered just how vulnerable Earth was to an attack, and humanity didn’t seem to have one of these planetary energy shields handy. It was fortunate that Earth wasn’t within starship range of the galactic center.

  “You said the shields were all but impenetrable,” she reminded him. “Why the qualifier?”

  “Because it is possible to breach them,” replied Vega, “but it takes an extraordinary effort. Hundreds of battleships working in concert, very near the planet, concentrating force on one small part of the shield. And this is something that solar system and planetary defenses, along with a modest force of defensive starships, can prevent. Unless the defending planet’s fleet has been all but destroyed.”

  Anna nodded, doing her best to absorb it all.

  “So the war has become a chess game,” said Vega, “played out almost entirely on the outskirts of the home solar systems of the twenty-seven intelligences. Mighty fleets forge alliances, which evolve, grow, and collapse. Enemies collaborate on occasion from desperation, and friends have been known to stab each other in the back. Perhaps this is the way the Gatekeepers intended for things to be.”

  “Why?” said Anna in horror.

  Vega shrugged. “Maybe they just have a cruel sense of humor,” he said. “Or maybe this war is meant to keep us busy and content with our lot. Perhaps it’s a measure to ensure that no single species evolves to superintelligence and wipes out all the rest. Or to ensure that the first species to develop star travel doesn’t spread throughout the entire universe exponentially, like an unstoppable plague of locusts,” he added. “A means of population control, if you will.”

  The alien shrugged. “Or perhaps they’re bored, and this provides many hours of entertainment for them.”

  Anna didn’t doubt this last. The war did sound like a galactic version of Game of Thrones, with chess moves and shifting alliances galore. “But why fight each other at all?” she asked. “What’s the point? Why not join forces? Try to ally and get to the bottom of what’s happening? Force the Gatekeepers to show their hand.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” said Vega. “And many of the twenty-seven do also.”

  A pained expression flashed across his face. “But there are those who don’t. The reason for the endless war is complicated. Some species hit it off with each other like humans and dogs, becoming fast friends. But other pairings can’t stand each other, their cultures and personalities clashing horribly, bringing out primitive primal hatreds.”

  The alien sighed. “But most importantly,” he continued in disgust, “some believe that war is what the Gatekeepers want. The Gatekeepers have never done anything to suggest this, of course, assuming they even exist. For all we know, they may have wound this clock up and then left the universe. But some of the twenty-seven intelligent species are convinced that these theoretical Gatekeepers set all of us up at technological parity, wanting a winner-take-all war to break out.”

  “Parity to ensure a more interesting contest?” asked Anna.

  “If you subscribe to the war as entertainment theory, yes,” replied the alien. “But there are species who believe the parity was created to ensure a fair contest. To ensure the winner is truly worthy.”

  “Worthy of what?” asked Anna.

  “Some believe this is forced Darwinism in action at the transcendent, galactic scale,” he replied. “Some believe the winning species, having proven its superiority over the others, will be allowed to reach the technological singularity and join the Gatekeepers as gods. Some believe the winner will be awarded a separate, newly formed universe to manage on their own.

  “No theory is too extreme. One species seems to be convinced that superintelligent species arise in most of the hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe. They believe the Gatekeepers have arranged a contest among the twenty-seven intelligences to identify the most talented species to allow to evolve and join them. Why? To help them battle many billions of other gods, each claiming entire galaxies as their stomping grounds.”

  “But your people don’t believe the Gatekeepers want war, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then what do you think they want?” she asked, shaking herself once again to keep the tendrils of sleep from finding the purchase they so desperately craved.

  “We’re unsure. But if they are testing intelligent species, we believe the way to pass the test is by working together—like you just suggested. Show the Gatekeepers that we can. Perhaps when this happens, when the twenty-seven have all shown maturity, sobriety, and open-mindedness—have finally eradicated the last vestiges of their warlike natures—we can all go forward.”

  Anna nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds like the galactic equivalent of being forced to wander the desert for forty years.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  “I shouldn’t either,” admitted Anna with a grin. “But I heard it on the radio once. It’s from a Bible story. God freed the Jews, who were slaves in Egypt, and promised them a home in Israel. The distance between Egypt and Israel is less than four hundred miles. But the ex-slaves had bad habits. And they also failed to truly believe in God’s might, despite repeated demonstrations. So God decided that only their offspring would enter what he called the Promised Land. To make this happen, he arranged for them to wander the desert for a full forty years—getting nowhere during all of that time.” She raised her eyebrows. “I guess they really could have used a GPS.”

  Vega smiled.

  “Anyway,” continued Anna, “it just reminded me a little of your theory. The Gatekeepers are making you wander the galactic desert. It seems like you’re stalled out forever, but as you suggest, they may just be waiting for you to shed bad habits.”

  “Fascinating,” said Vega appreciatively. “If I ever return to Vor, I think our people will find this story quite interesting.”

  “Are there any other theories?” asked Anna.

  “There are as many theories as there are intelligences,” replied Vega. “More, since there are multiple schools of thought alive within each species.” He shook his head grimly. “The problem is, if even a single species believes the Gatekeepers want them to prove themselves by destroying all the others, war is inevitable.”

  “Why?” said Anna. “You don’t have to engage, right? You said yourself the planetary shields are all but impenetrable. So why not just defend your planet? Without any aggression on your part.”

  “Some have tried to do that,” acknowledged Vega, “but they get sucked in. Because if your fleet gets decimated, as I said, a hostile fleet can destroy your planet. This isn’t just a hypothetical. There used to be one additional intelligence in the galaxy,” he added. “The Hangory. A species who tried what you suggest: defense only. But an alliance, led by the Tartarians, managed to achieve such an overwhelming fleet advantage that they were able to destroy the Hangory’s home planet. They then rooted out the remnants of this species and drove them into extinction.”

  Anna shrank back in horror. Millions of humans had been slaughtered in human wars, and this was devastating enough to ponder, but to lose an entire species in all but an instant was unthinkable.

  “So total passivity isn’t an option,” continued Vega after a brief pause to pay tribute to the Hangorys’ passing. “War and aggression are necessary. Battles and shifting alliances are necessary. To ensure that no one species, or alliance of species, is allowed to reach such dominance that their fleet is unstoppable. We all learned this lesson the hard way from the Hangory about twenty-two thousand years ago.”

  He gave Anna t
ime to digest this and then switched gears. “Most of the battles are in space, as I said. But when portals are open between worlds, each side tries to send soldiers and spies through to the other, to disrupt them from within. When the portals are stationary, the exits are well guarded. But new ones continue to arise randomly, allowing enemies to get through.”

  Anna couldn’t help but be fascinated by this unfolding picture. It was the most immensely complicated situation she could imagine. Space battles, protective planetary shields, but also portals offering instantaneous travel between worlds. But fickle travel. Travel that was random, couldn’t be counted on, and excluded most technology, including weapons, from making the trip.

  Vega had likened the war to chess. But in Anna’s opinion, this was a gross simplification. It was more like chess in twenty-seven dimensions.

  “So how do we fit in?” asked Anna after a long silence. “Earth and humanity? And how do I fit in, specifically? You obviously didn’t seek me out by accident.”

  Vega shook his head. “No, anything but by accident,” he said. “And what I’ve been telling you is just the minimum background you’ll need to make sense of my answer. So you can put what I say about humanity, and you, into the proper context.”

  “And do I have the proper context now?” said Anna.

  “Ideally, I would want to wait until I’ve had the chance to explain the science behind your abilities,” said Vega. “And demonstrate them to you.”

  The alien sighed. “But I guess there’s no time like the present,” he conceded. “And no one deserves a good answer more than you do.”

  23

  Vega asked for a moment to gather his thoughts, and Anna waited in suspense while the sedan continued to cut through the night. Only a few seconds later he resumed.

  “To understand how you fit in,” he began, “it’s best to go back about twenty-eight hundred of your years, to when the portal between us first opened. I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine, but nothing much has changed in the galactic center in all this time. Sure, there is an ebb and flow to the war, but in big-picture terms it has been maddeningly static.”