Existence (100 page)

Minutes later, he spotted a sleek, gray-blue
dolphin
suddenly pop out of some nearby clouds. Arching and swimming closer, its flukes thrashed at what seemed to be air, yet the creature moved swiftly and energetically, as if the muscular torso and tail were powering their way through water. Two passengers rode atop the cetacean’s slick back, clinging to its dorsal fin. Blinking in surprise, Hamish noted a monkey and what looked like a very large, grinning, cartoon rat.

The monkey pointed and chattered, prompting the dolphin to veer close toward Hamish and Om, swerving at the last moment before speeding off. For an instant, it felt as if a splash-wave of invisible water enveloped Hamish, chill and wet. Dolphin chattered and monkey shrieked as they receded. Even Om chuckled, while Hamish teetered toward outrage … then instead chose mild, wry amusement.

“Good one,” he admitted. It took just moments for that damp illusion to evaporate as the two of them resumed their forward-upward march.

Soon he realized, all the giant glob-clouds had become a fog of infinitesimal droplets and bubbles, collecting and parting in shreds of haze that swirled around. Especially ahead of them, obscuring vision. Hamish leaned forward against the uphill climb and a resisting pressure, eager to reach that dome he had seen, catching an occasional glimpse of sparkles on satin, somewhere ahead …

… until, abruptly, he and Om finally pushed through cloudy shreds. And Hamish sighed.

There they are, at last.

The stars.

What he had taken for a dome was just one sector of a great ceiling—the curved window-interface between a crystal cylinder’s interior and the universe outside.

Space.

A twentieth century man, Hamish had grown up associating the vast realm outside with romance. Adventure. Even though his own tales about
Bad Science
cynically ridiculed that notion, calling outer space an immense vacuum-desert punctuated by rare oasis-specks, a part of that old feeling nevertheless drew him toward the barrier, plodding and climbing against increasing resistance.

It’s not the interstellar travel we were promised. The warp drives and grand ships and sexy alien princesses. The star battles and empires and utopian colonies and melding of great civilizations, each learning from the others.

This way is both simpler and more practical, while far riskier on an individual basis. Just one of my thousands of copies may actually meet living beings on some far world, helping them to survive and thrive.

Still, it really is interstellar travel.

Wow. I’m a voyager, crossing the galaxy!

“The friction gets more intense as you approach,” Om commented on how hard Hamish found himself working, as he pushed closer to the barrier—so much like a membrane separating the outer world from the living interior of a cell. “And it can be very cold. Unless you approach with the help and companionship of others.”

Just ahead, Hamish could sense the frigid chill of space. He reached out and, for a moment, he felt as
large
as a virtual being could possibly be, inside this crystal vessel. Briefly, the hand near the wall seemed as big as the rest of him combined. Perhaps even full life-size—twelve centimeters wide at the palm—pushing toward the inner wall of a “ship” that was itself less than two meters long.

Someday I may stand here and press my hand against that wall when it’s warmed by an alien sun. And on the other side will be a living being. A member of some new race, innocent and promising. Bringing close a hand or feeler or paw of its own.

For some reason, pondering that encounter filled Hamish with as much anticipation as he used to get from fame, or sex, or any conceivable accomplishment. Well, that made a kind of sense …

… but stretching toward the interface took exhausting effort and the space-cold was harsh. He let his hand drop and stumbled back a few paces toward the mist, feeling himself shrink in scale.

Hamish turned to his alien guide.

“Well then? Let’s go find some others.”

91.

REFLECTIVITY

He saw it soon.

As they traveled together “forward,” striding toward the bow of this great crystal ship, Hamish glanced past the curved wall and spied a rippling arc that crossed the Milky Way at a steep angle. On one side, the vast spray of stars looked normal, untwinkling, and vastly numerous. (
I wonder, have the constellations already changed?
) But just ahead of that demarcation the pinpoints seemed to waver just a bit, as if reflecting off the surface of a gently curved pool.

Hamish realized, with a thrill.

It’s the sail!

A great sheet of atom-thin fabric, more than a hundred kilometers wide, intelligently reactive and nearly foolproof, it would accept the propulsive push of human-built lasers, reflecting photons, transferring their momentum to its slender cargo, propelling Hamish and his companions ever faster across the great gulf. And, upon arrival, the sail would turn, using the new sun’s light as a counter force to brake momentum. Whereupon—after many elongated orbits and planetary swings—it would finally guide this crystal ship into the warm hearth-zone where living worlds lay. Bearing a message from Earth to its faraway target.

“We will find more people at the very most forward end of the ship, discussing matters having to do with the sail,” Om said.

While Hamish felt eager to speed the pace, he could sense his companion slowing down a bit, as if suddenly reluctant. When he glanced at Om, the alien pursed those thick, expressive lips.

“I should warn you. This vessel was loaded with some … unconventional personalities. Your leaders ignored our best advice about what type of entities should be added to an emissary crew, in order to maximize their individual chances of survival. I’m afraid some of our crewmates will not last all the way to our far destination.”

But when Hamish pressed for details, the creature lifted a three-pronged hand. “I have already overstepped the bounds of propriety. I just felt that you should be prepared for some … eccentricity.”

Hamish refrained from answering. But inside he knew.
If they banned human eccentrics from uploading, I would never have been given a single slot, let alone ten thousand, no matter how popular or famous I was. Diversity is our strength. It will remain so, till we stop being human.

The domelike ceiling was starting to curve more, tapering over in front of them as they kept taking giant strides forward. And soon Hamish made out figures—both human and alien—who stood in clusters near an array of holo tanks, flat screens, and instrumentalities.

Of course. If this is a ship, then there must be a control room. A “bridge.”

Hamish picked up his pace, hurrying toward the group … and soon realized that he had better start getting
smaller,
too. Of course, the people down there would have reduced their fractal scale factor. How else could they wish into existence things like knobs and levers and screens? Anyway, he couldn’t interact with them as a giant, could he? If those people looked up now, they might only see him as a nebulously man-shaped cloud.

Dropping closer, in both distance and size, he began making out details.

The most colorful creature was something like a hybrid between a human and a bird of paradise—two slim legs and a feminine contour were covered with iridescent down. Shimmering flight feathers hung from slim arms, like the folds of a cape, leading back to a magnificent, curved tail. Even the beak melded gracefully into a face that might be a movie starlet’s. The creature was squawking and gesticulating at a human woman, whose good looks were very ordinary by comparison—a nice figure and glossy brown hair, streaked with stylish gray. She wore a snug T-shirt emblazoned with an eye-emblem, inside a giant letter “Q,” rimmed by a bold statement:
YOU MAY SOON BE TYPICAL.

There were others nearby, two more humans and an alien whom he knew he ought to recognize. This ET—bipedal with sleek reddish fur—was almost as famous as the Oldest Member, though its name wouldn’t come to mind.

As he both descended and shrank, Hamish felt a strange sense of power starting to form at his fingertips, as if they now contained some kind of magic. Like before, when he changed his bathrobe into a neat suit of clothes. Ah, yes. Smaller scale meant more could happen at whim. The sensation made him feel tempted to just keep going, diminishing past this fractal level to check out the realms of instant wish-fulfillment.

But I always enjoyed being tall.

Hamish slowed down his approach and turned to Om.

“I know that woman. The rich science junky, Lacey Donaldson-Sander. She seems a lot younger than when she passed away, decades before I…”

Hamish realized that he had no idea how to speak of dates and time. Perhaps the control center could bring him up to speed about such things.

“As do you, my friend,” Om commented.

“Hm, yeah. I guess I do. As for the others. They look familiar. But could you help me, before we land among them? That ET who looks like a crimson otter—”

“You refer to
M’m por’lock,
I presume. Called by some the Traitor … and by others the Loyalist.”

Hamish nodded. “Oh, yeah. He helped us to develop the Cure, didn’t he?”

Om nodded, noncommittally. But he held out a hand to halt their approach. “It occurs to me, Mr. Brookeman, that you appear to be data blind.”

“Data … oh, you mean walking around
not
linked to the Mesh by aiware. Well, you know I was an old guy and a bit of a techno-grouch. I hated the eye implants young people were getting, to stay hooked in twenty-four/seven. When I had to walk around using augmented reality, I put on tru-vu goggles, like God intended—”

Hamish blinked.

“I see. You’re saying this place has its own equivalent to the Mesh. And I’m wandering around half blind, unable to simply look up info on people I don’t recognize.” He sighed. “All right then. How do I…”

Om performed a hand-flourish, then held something out to Hamish. A pair of tru-vus. The old-style virtuality goggs that Hamish used to employ, way back then.
Well, what do you know.

“Until you figure out how to make your own interface,” the Oldest Member explained.

Hamish slipped them on. At which point, looking back at the people below, he now saw them equipped with name tags.

M’m por’lock

Lacey Donaldson

Birdwoman303

Jovindra Noonien Singh

Emily Tang

Emily Tang!

Chief architect of the Cure. The one human personality likely to be inserted into every crystal probe that humanity made. Suddenly—as he and Om finished shrinking and alighted on the glassy deck of the control area—Hamish felt a bit bashful and awestruck. What do you say to a woman whose idea coalesced human ambivalence about the “alien fomite plague,” coming up with a strategy to both fight back against the interstellar infection and possibly reclaim the stars?

Responding to his interest, the ersatz goggles began scrolling background text.

“The Cure” applies to a strategy for persuading some artilens to defect from their software allies, converting them instead to work honestly and effectively for humanity and Earth civilization. This method was inspired by the discovery, in the asteroid belt, of a relic—

The helpful summary vanished as Hamish diverted his attention to the creature looking a lot like a super-otter, who now conversed with Emily Tang. M’m por’lock, he now recalled, had been the very first extraterrestrial virtual being to fully accept Emily’s offer. Called a betrayer by some of the other crystal entities. Or the
Loyal One,
for remembering a much older allegiance.

The first of many artilens who came over to our side, revealing some clever memic tricks the fomites had been using against us. Instead of steering human civilization in the direction of spasmodic virus-creation, they helped us make the Cure. Because we offered them a deal they couldn’t refuse.

And our bribe?

Just what we were inclined to do anyway. To increase, yet again, the diversity of what it means to be “human.”

The Cure also persuaded Hamish to alter his version of Renunciationism. To throw his support behind building the Space Factory and the big laser.

Hamish shifted his gaze yet again, toward the most vivid-looking entity—the avian-human hybrid creature, whose name tag responded to curiosity, by expanding.

Birdwoman: representative of the Autie League—Fifth Branch of Humanity.

Ah. Now he understood. Not an alien, but a self-made form. A common thing nowadays, among the portion of humanity that spent ten thousand tragic years awaiting virtual reality and ai to set them free.

His fellow passengers were turning now, reacting to his arrival.

“Mr. Brookeman,” said the dark-haired woman, with a welcoming smile. “We were wondering if you’d ever deign to show up.”

When Hamish reflexively glanced at her tight T-shirt, his tru-vus interpreted the logo.

Symbol of the Quantum Eye, the oracle who famously predicted that
—

Meanwhile another pop-out commented:

Size 36-D. Biographically correct and unenhanced—

Hurriedly, Hamish lifted his gaze back to her face. This was one reason he never liked augmented reality.

“Madam Donaldson-Sander,” he took her hand in a clasp that felt warm and realistic. His first personal touch in this place. “Apologies for my absence. I left instructions to be wakened when something of significance happened. I guess that must have been both overly conservative and ill advised.”

“Hm. Well, you missed the launch for one thing. It was quite a show!” She turned and waved at the forward half of the star-flecked sky. “Our sail was filled with light from the propulsion laser and the acceleration was terrific.”