Existence (30 page)

Helena chuckled demurely, then straightened and met Lacey’s eyes, with a level gaze of apparently sincere affection.

“Please accept our blessings, dear one. Our prayers are with you, for Hacker to be found and safely returned to you.”

Lacey thanked the younger woman, with all the back-and-forth that it took to bring polite conversation to a close. Only, her heart wasn’t in it. And, after the holistube went blank, she was left in silence, sitting in the leather-trimmed lounge, feeling miserable. Alone.

First, Jason has to go racing toward the nearest disaster area on Awfulday, instead of staying sensibly away from danger, becoming an iconic hero of
newblesse oblige 
… as if that sort of honor ever did a widow any good …

… then Hacker goes hurtling himself into space—exhibiting all of Jason’s bravado without any of the showy responsibility …

… and now it comes to this. I am being cauterized by my peers. Set aside. Removed from deliberations that might affect the shape of civilization for generations to come. All because—with good reason—they fear I’ll be unhappy about their choice.

Shall I resign? Maybe join one of the other coalitions of do-gooder rich?

There were plenty of those, some of them more suitable for a philanthropist with her science-loving bent. Tech billionaires and first-generation entrepreneurs, fizzing with excitement over the Havana Artifact. Some, she knew well, as cosponsors of her Farseeker Telescope. Not all of the superwealthy were superreactionary. Not even a majority.

But those other rich folk tended to act as individuals or in small groups, pursuing personal passions and separate interests. The same fetish for uniqueness that had made them affluent prevented any action in concert. Not even the wary, tentative grouping that called itself the Naderites.

None of them—separately or all together—could match the influence, power, or Machiavellian ruthlessness of the clade.

If I step outside, I’ll join the billions. Those to whom history happens … instead of ordering it up, like a meal on a plate.

*   *   *

“There ought to be signs of intelligent life everywhere, madam, truly,” the showman-scientist crooned, his low, rich voice spiced with a velvety Jamaican accent.

“Ancient aliens—so-very
smaart
—should have preceded us by eons, sprouting corn all across our so-bright galaxy, even before the sun was born, filling the cosmos with culture and upfull conversation.

“Hence, it be fretful-puzzling, even long-back when we first began looking for signs of technological civilization, that this welcoming cosmos seem
sparse.
Indeed, with only one proved example of sapient life—us!”

Profnoo gestured with both hands, rocking his oversize head so avidly that each of his super-elongated earlobes rattled against thick collar ruffles. He swept them back to join the twitching, multibraided draidlocks of cybactivated hair that served as both antennae-receivers and his public trademark—though he was only the best known of a dozen science supertainers who came from that gifted little island.

“I know that,” Lacey sighed. She didn’t need a razzle-artist astronomer to lay out—for a thousandth time—the dismal logic of the Fermi Paradox. Yet, Professor Noozone proceeded to do just that, perhaps out of eagerness to impress his patron. Or else, practicing a riff for his weekly audience.

“See here now.” The professor pointed to a holistank that showed some kind of primeval sea, with meteors flashing overhead. “Precursors of life appear to emerge anywhere that you have a flow of energy, plus a dozen basic elements immersed in liquid—not just water, but almost any kind of liquid at all! And not only on planets with
surface
oceans! But
ten times as many little worlds
that have seas, roofed with icy covers, like Europa, Enceladus, Miranda, Tethys, Titan, Oberon…”

She wanted to interrupt. To get the man back onto the topic of the Artifact. But Lacey knew that any expression of outright disapproval might quash him too much. In order to be wielded effectively, power had to wear gloves—a lesson she had tried, in vain, to teach her short-tempered son.

Anyway, the situation with Professor Noozone was entirely her own fault.

It serves me right, for choosing an adviser with the brain of a Thorne or a Koonin, but with the insecure ego of a Bollywood star and the put-on reggae drawl of a rastaman.

Bulging implants throbbed just under the skin of Profnoo’s broad forehead, above dark, glinting eyes. The effect—totally intentional—made his cranium seem preternaturally large. Like an overinflated soufflé.

At least he doesn’t feel a need to lay the accent too thick, when he’s talking to me alone.
Though his vowels were stretched and every “th” dropped into a “d” or “t” sound, she felt grateful that he wasn’t peppering in very many island slang expressions.
In public, or on his shows, Profnoo can be hard to follow without subtitles!

Professor Noozone caused more images to dance about, with flourishes of a hand. “Indeed, our …
your …
earlier farseeker telescopes
did
find traces of life out there, on half a dozen planets! Those worlds, so far, proved disappointing. None of them exactly New Zion. Then there’s the
next step
. For life to rise-up an’ get
smaart
, an’ then technology-capable.

“Countless arguments have fumed and smoked over how much of a fluke it was, here on Earth, for humans to leap so far, so fast. And, if there very-truly
are
older races out there, how best to look for them. Does the lack of garish
tutorial beacons
mean there are no Elder Races out there, after all?

“
But, irie. Of course, the arrival of the Livingstone Object seems to have settled
that
!” He chuckled with the satisfaction of someone whose side had proved right, after a century of debate.

“By the Artifact’s mere existence, and the plurality of alien types that it contains, we may conclude that we are surrounded by an upfull multitude of advanced civilizations! Their invitation to come-ya ‘
join us’ …
to become members of some maarvelous community of star-bredren … has already thrilled and inspired billions across our lonely planet. Though the prospect may disturb a few downpressing ginnygogs an’ trogs who are terrified of change.”

Profnoo seemed unaware of Lacey’s ironic grimace, or her conflicted loyalties. By personality, she ought to share his forward-looking eagerness. If not for her worries about Hacker, she, too, might have been fizzing about the prospect of First Contact. (Though she would express it with more reserve than the super-extrovert in front of her.)

On the other hand, her caste—her peers in the top aristocracy—foresaw little good coming out of this. Even if the alien device represented a benign and advanced federation that was both generous and wise, the psychological disruption could spur fresh waves of anxiety, paranoia, or covetous wrath. With interstellar trade relations might come wave after wave of wondrous new technologies. Some hazardous? Even the most benign might shake an already tenuous economy, throwing whole sectors into obsolescence, putting hundreds of millions out of work, not to mention spoiling many investment portfolios.

No wonder this spurred a climax to long negotiations between the clade and Tenskwatawa’s renunciation movement.
Few cultures ever managed to transition after contact with superior outsiders, without generations of intimidation and victimhood. Meiji-era Japan did it. And their method was not democracy.

But Lacey pulled her thoughts back to the present. The science-showman on her payroll was continuing his rapid-fire explication, never slacking momentum.

“… even that still leaves us awash in puzzles! We can only hope the Artifact Commission overcomes all linguistic barriers.
Especially
now that dem lagga heads will finally allow me … and you, of course, madam … close enough to ask questions!”

“So, what should we ask first, Professor?”

“Oh, there are
so many
things. For example, the mere
existence
of the Artifact, here on Earth, proves—irie—that interstellar travel is possible!”

Assuming, again, that it’s not a hoax,
Lacey pondered, while noting that Profnoo still had not mentioned an actual question.

“True, we haven’t yet learned
how
the object crossed the vast gulf between the stars. But from the fact that it exists in a purely crystalline-solid state—tallowah an’ sturdy—I be wagering a whole-heap that the propulsion methodology wasn’t gentle! Perhaps a truly prodigious accelerator-cannongun fired it to near relativistic speeds. Or else, maybe its compact dimensions allowed slick passage through an obeah-generated
wormhole,
requiring the energy of a
superdupernova
! I-mon have done some rudimentary calculations—”

“Professor. Please. Can you stick to the point?”

“Ah, yes. The Invitation.” He nodded. “Do bear with me, Madam Donaldson-Sander, I-and-I will get to it! For, you see, even the
possibility
of interstellar travel was denied for eighty years by the cult of
SETI.
When their program of
sky worship
found nothing out there at all, they trotted out the same excuse.
Just a little more time
. Patience—and ever-more sophisticated-bashy gear—would eventually find the needle in the haystack … that wise, elder race they hoped for!”

Huh.
Lacey couldn’t help getting caught up in the spell he wove. Noozone had amassed his own fortune out of millions of micropayments, as people zigged-in to view and tactail his leaping, explanatory extravaganzas. Though some just liked his snakelike draidlocks, wafting and stirring clouds of ambiguous, colored smoke.

“Alas, interstellar
travel
changes everything. If advanced star-mon can deepvoyage an’ colonize, then
needles make copies of themselves.
Colonies send out their own expeditions, spreading an’
filling
the haystack!

“But we saw no fabulous Others. Nor any huge engineering projects that
we
may someday build, if we become a truly bold and successful civilization. Antimatter-spaceships, vaast solar collectors, Dyson spheres, and Kardashev worksheds that lace multiple star systems, all of them detectable.…” Profnoo had to gasp and catch his breath.

“And it gets worse!
Earth itself
would show signs, if visitors ever flushed a toilet here, or tossed a Coke bottle into our Paleozoic sea. My oh, geologists and paleobiologists would see in our rocks, the very moment when extraterrestrial bacteria arrived! Nuh true?

“No. Something was wrong with the old SETI logic. Till this marvel-stoosh
Galactic Artifact
turned up. Only now…” He lifted a finger—and one of his mentally activated draidlocks wafted also.

“Now, it seems that
life is fairly common
—and—

“—sapient life
, capable of technology,
is not rare—and—

“—some form of
interstellar travel appears to be possible
—and—

“—a
peaceful community
already exists that…”

Lacey raised a hand of her own, cutting him off with four braids and four fingers lifted in the air. Glancing out the window, she had noticed that the yacht bearing them from Charleston to Washington was cruising rapidly up the Potomac. Soon, they’d pass the zeppelin port and the Awfulday Memorial, before finally docking at the Naval Research Lab. Not that she minded traveling this way. Shipboard facilities let her stay in constant linkup with the rescue effort, searching for her son. But it was time to start winding this up.

“All right, then. Suppose there is a Galactic Federation we’re invited to join. Doesn’t that conflict with everything you just described? Especially the
sparse cosmos
that we observed, till now?”

“It would seem so, madam.” Profnoo’s earlobe rings and beaded locks clattered as he nodded. “So, where’s the overlap in conceptual space? Between the previous, downpressing
appearance
of meager sapience, and what we now know to be its high, upfull frequency?”

The man’s unquenchable zeal to speculate did not bother her. Vivid and aromatic, Profnoo made his intellectual frenzy into something unabashedly masculine. Frankly, his flirtatious attention—laced with rousing scientific jargon—filled some of the void in Lacey that used to be occupied by sex.

“Apparently, dem use crystal capsules instead of radio! I suppose interstellar pellets are easy, cheap, and
relatively
fast.” He chuckled, though Lacey found the jest rather lame. “They also allow aliens to travel as surrogates—as complete downloaded personalities. Indeed, this may prove my conjecture about networks of connection-wormholes!”

Or else, they may avoid radio because they know something that we don’t,
Lacey pondered.
Perhaps they deem it unwise to draw attention to their home worlds. Because something out there makes it dangerous.
The thought gave her a shiver, especially since Planet Earth had been anything but quiet, for the last hundred years or so.

“But, madam, just picture the long odds that this particular crystal—this Artifact—had to beat, when dem just happened to drift within reach of that astronaut’s garbage collecting bola-tether. Without any visible means to maneuver! A fluke? Or might there be others out there?”

Lacey nodded.
That may explain why Great China, India, the U.S., the E-Union and A-Union have all announced new space endeavors
.
I should assign some agents—real and spyware—to learn more about these missions.

Something about the notion of “other artifacts” tickled the edge of her imagination.

Why only out there? Indeed …

But the thought eluded her, skittering away as the yachtmaster’s amplified voice reverberated. It was time to stop for inspection at the security cordon near the Naval Research Center. Captain Kohl-Fennel had already made arrangements, of course. The pause would be brief. Lacey shrugged.