Existence (103 page)

And the possibility that we may be the last remnants of humanity. Not even successfully sent across the gulf to other stars, but left to drift in the outermost solar system, aboard a “ship” that’s filled with genetic and cultural riches. Gifts meant for others, far away.

I guess we might hope—or imagine—that someday one of these crystal depositories will get picked up. Maybe by visitors from beyond. That way, someone might decipher, study, and relish bits and pieces of what we were … like possibly my novels and films.

But for that to happen, some race would have to actually survive out there, in order to become the first real star-farers. Some sapients must find a real cure, and finally escape the trap.

The many traps of existence.

Hamish knew that he had plenty of faults. But no one ever accused him of indolence. Or inattention. Or lack of passionate caring about human destiny.

All his life had been spent nosing around for possible mistakes, for “failure modes” that might ensnare his species. Every tale that he wove was meant
partly
to exploit and entertain and make lots of money … but also to warn and stir new wariness about yet another error to avoid. And if many of humanity’s brightest people resented him, for attacking science in general? Well, at least he was engaged, participating in the argument. Playing the role of vigorous devil’s advocate. Probing the path ahead for snakes, quicksand, and land-mines.

Prove me wrong—I always demanded—by ensuring that this type of calamity can never happen. But first, I will make you pay attention.

That was the core point. Always the underlying message of everything he ever wrote.

For all the good it apparently did.

In the end, perhaps I made no difference at all.

*   *   *

Well, at least humanity would not be contributing to the demise of others.

If the end had finally come, on Earth … or if some clade of oligarchs had succeeded in the natural goal, using renunciation as an excuse to permanently reassert feudalism … either way, the planet would not be a source of further infection across the cosmos.

Hamish had already been depressed, before learning about Birdwoman’s dire calculation. His earlier conversation with the Oldest Member made him realize a terrible truth.

The “Cure” we were so proud of. It was just another layer of persuasion. Another insidious meme-driver to get humanity to do the same thing everybody else does, who doesn’t renounce. To devote huge resources and build giant factories and billions upon billions of messenger probes along with lasers to hurl them skyward.

In our case—as it had been on Turbulence Planet—the decision required an extra motive beyond selfishness.

Altruism. A desire to help others. That makes us above average.

But didn’t it just lead to the same result? Oh, we swore we would only send ten million, pushed by just one laser. But Om showed me. The fomite logic would eventually demand more, and more—for the sake of the Cure! Till we fell into an unstoppably fatal cycle of missionary zeal.

The Cure was clever. But clever enough to overcome a disease with a bottomless supply of tricks that evolved across eons? In the end, we were just as gullible, just as infected, as anybody else.

He stared downward, tempted to leap off this virtual platform into the void below. To seek succor in diminishment and unlimited power. To plummet. And thereupon shrink into a mere god.

94.

REFRACTION

“Y’know, there are other possibilities,” someone said. Hamish recognized the voice of Emily Tang. She must have followed soon after Lacey’s group, in order to join this discussion.

“For example, suppose the folks back home came up with an
improved model
of interstellar probe! We were among the first, after all. Perhaps they stopped producing our version and switched to one that’s more efficient, less heavy, and easier to propel to high speed.”

“So they might have only abandoned
us,
” commented the elegant Jovindra Singh. “Discarding the older models, leaving them to drift, while they allocate the laser to better bets. Wow, that is even more insulting than the renunciation theory!”

Hamish expected Om to speak up. This seemed compatible with his earlier comments. But the artilen said nothing.

“If only we could look,” Lacey said at last, after a sullen pause. She clearly referred to their blocked view homeward, where even a clear glance might reveal whether the Big Laser was still in use, even if it were aiming its great power at other targets. Without the box in the way, they might also pick up noise from Earth’s radio networks and industry. That, too, could tell them a lot.

Courier of Caution broadened Lacey’s longing into something more general.

“That has always been my own desire. To look and see, before doing anything else. It is why I urged support for your grand telescopes, Lacey—and other space-born efforts—to find out what has happened to other worlds. Whether any of them survived the disease, while still maintaining a vigorous, scientific culture.”

One of Courier’s most endearing traits had always been this penchant for unquenchable hopefulness, despite a frozen facial expression that resembled purse-lipped doubt. Even when giant mirrors gathered images of his home system, detecting no sign of civilization—no audible communications mesh, no atmospheric traces to suggest ongoing industry—Courier remained upbeat, explaining.

“It only shows that we became more
efficient
. That is exactly what a mature people must do, over time, in order to both have a mighty culture and use up few resources. It is what you humans have been doing, increasingly, for three generations! Earth was loudest in the radio spectrum back during the 1980s. It became a quieter planet while exploding with talk and ideas, carried over fiber and tight beams. My people have only taken this process further, by thousands of years!

“Need I also add that the galaxy is proved to be a dangerous place? I’ll wager that wise survivor races—like mine—grow cautious about leaking much. No sense in shouting! There are more subtle ways to reach out and explore. To find allies and fight back against an unfriendly cosmos.

“Nevertheless, I have every expectation that the next set of instruments will reveal them, my people, still vibrant and rambunctious. Still resisting the enemy with every strength.”

Hamish recalled how Courier used to say all this before every major new telescope came online. And when that one detected nothing at Turbulence system? Courier simply turned to help design the next.

One of those experiments involved propelling a few dozen early crystal probes, not toward faraway stars but a modest distance, into the gap between Uranus and Neptune. A unique zone, seven astronomical units wide, where theory suggested they might pick up focused
gravitational waves,
of all things. As Hamish recalled, that project delivered good science and helped humanity test its own early designs for crystal craft. But the probes found no trace of intelligent modulations in the gravitation noise. No spoor of high civilization, from any of sixty different directions.

Behind him, his fellow passengers—the ones who were serious, unlike the dilettantes playing god-games below—argued on, chewing over every possible explanation for their abandonment, from bad news to horrendous. Hamish, meanwhile, found himself staring not into the void, but at the great brown wall. The giant box that lay in contact with the aft end of their crystal vessel, blocking any view of home.

What if we were in a simulation? A test? And not in space at all? Isn’t that “box” exactly the sort of thing that the experimenters would set up, like a one-way mirror, to let them observe us up close? And to keep us from measuring things like the Earth or sun too closely?

Hamish gave in to an impulse and stuck out his tongue toward the great brown wall, at any spectators who might lurk there.

But no. He shrugged that idea aside. Not because it was stupid or illogical … it seemed as likely as anything others were discussing. No, Hamish dropped the idea because of something else. Something he had spent his whole life nurturing.

Intuition. Not always right. Often dead wrong. But always interesting. A trait that once got Hamish invited to join the Autie League! Because it was deemed a “savant-level talent.”

Right now, he was having a powerfully strange feeling, not unlike déjà vu, only in reverse.

A sense that something ought to be obvious.

Something to try.

Right now.

“Say!” he asked aloud, turning to interrupt whoever was talking. “Has anyone actually tried to
open
that thing?”

Hamish realized, with a bit of chagrin, that the person he cut off was Emily. She had been saying something guilt-ridden, about how the presence of new “alien” people on Earth might contribute to overall human wisdom in the long run, but the greater variety could prove frightening and destabilizing in the short term. She worried that her “Cure” might have killed the patient. An interesting notion—

—though Hamish never deemed any topic more valuable than his current question.

“What did you say?” Lacey Donaldson asked him. “Open what?”

Hamish gestured in the direction everyone called “aft” … which also pointed back toward the sun and everything they all used to know. A view blocked by a giant container.

“That thing. The box. The mysterious crate. Have … you … tried … to open it?”

Courier of Caution stared at Hamish with its ribbon-eye, pursing its diamond-shaped, four-lipped mouth.

“We have set up instruments, Hamish. Tried to probe the box with light and other rays. We even managed to wish-create a weak laser and got return reflections.…”

Hamish shook his head. “Look, we’re supposed to have access to the stuff inside, sooner or later, right? So … shouldn’t there be an instruction manual? Aren’t we supposed to be able to
use
whatever it is?”

The humans turned and looked at each other.

“I suppose that’s logical.”

“We had extensive pre-briefings, but no one mentioned it.”

“Because we were recorded from our originals some years before they settled on a final probe design. This box-thing’s an add-on.”

“So? He’s right. Even if it was all meant to be used at the destination, there have to be instructions!”

“But where? We scanned the surface of the box and found no message.”

“Embedded in the crystal, surrounding us? Like every other bit and byte carried aboard this solid state—”

“You mean like us? We’re just as much bits ’n’ bytes—”

A screech and series of sharp squawks made Hamish turn, to see that newcomers had arrived, bringing all of the team that had been staffing the “control room” at the forward end. Birdwoman and M’m por’lock and several others stepped off a traveling disc-conveyance.
So who’s at the helm?
Hamish wondered as his tru-vus translated the autie’s wing-flaps and chirps:

The answer is simple. We must have known the method once and forgot it.

“Forgot!” The Oldest Member expressed disdain with undulating puffs of his trunk-like breathing tubes. “I can assure you that I have forgotten nothing.”

“Well … maybe you were loaded that way,” Lacey commented. “But some of
us
could have had important bits buried. Unconscious. Like a—” she paused, searching for the right phrase.

“Like a posthypnotic suggestion?” offered Emily, rising with enthusiasm. “All it might take is a certain word or thought to trigger recollection. Giving us access to a more information. Like a command. Maybe something coded—”

Her eyes widened, at the same moment that Hamish saw several other people rock back. Including Lacey and Professor Noozone. Whatever it was … he experienced it too.

“Now that’s odd. Does anyone else feel suddenly compelled to say the word—”

“… key…”

“—key?”

“Key!”

“Yea. I-mon feel it, too, obeah-strong.” The black Jamaican science-showman seemed aggrieved at the very idea. Almost through gritted teeth, and glaring at Hamish, he added,
“Key.”

Four individuals, all of them human, approached each other near the edge of the glassy plain, while the others watched. Emily, Hamish, Profnoo, and Lacey exchanged looks, back and forth.

“So … now what?” Lacey asked. “Are we supposed to
conjure up
a key to unlock the box? Something capable of survival near the lattice surface, penetrating through the wall—and vacuum—and then the container? How? Shall we hold hands and wish it into being?”

I ain’t holding hands with Noozone,
Hamish grumbled inside.

“Well,” Emily suggested, “if we four concentrate, maybe it will manifest, by force of will.”

They tried for a while. Hamish closed his eyes, envisioning what a “key” might look like. Something to unlock a heavy, massive cabinet. A virtual object tough enough not to unravel when it was brought “up-and-large” near an unbridgeable barrier made of crystal and time. All he could come up with was the mental image of an old fashioned skeleton key with a cylindrical shank and a single flat, rectangular tooth.

He could feel magic gather at his fingertips. Something was happening in front of him. He opened his eyes …

… and saw a mess. His version of a “key”—muddled and half formed—was jumbled with another one that resembled a modern biomet-tag, of the kind that people on Earth might use to remotely identify themselves. Both of those swirled with someone else’s notion of a “key” … a maze of numbers, dots, and computer-readable smudges.

One of the onlookers guffawed at the resulting mishmash. Hamish couldn’t blame him.

“This is silly,” Profnoo said. And Hamish noticed that the man had altered his appearance. Now he resembled a real professor—tweed jacket, turtleneck shirt, and milder dreadlocks. Even spectacles. His affected accent was nearly gone.

“I doubt anything that we manifest will do the job.”