Existence (51 page)

He messaged back—“You’ve all got jobs, duties. Kids. Just keep in touch. I’ll see you in my dreams.”

Anyway, things were getting busy again. The
deprivation experiment
had been making progress, much to Gerald’s surprise. His discovery—the so-called Livingstone Object—was starting to respond.

*   *   *

“Thousands of years drifting between the stars—you’d think that would’ve taught these aliens patience,” Genady Gorosumov commented, after the third day. “I was afraid they’d wait us out. Call our bluff. They must know we’re under pressure.”

The slim Russian biologist nodded toward the observers’ gallery, just beyond a barrier of smoky glass, where almost a hundred experts, delegates, and VIPs looked down upon the quarantined Contact Commission and its work. Many of those dignitaries were sharply unhappy about the team’s current endeavor—to
starve
the Artifact entities into cooperating.

“But much to my surprise, our carrot-and-stick approach seems to be working,” Genady concluded. “Clearly, they’re getting worried in there.”

He pointed at the opalescent ovoid, which still lay in its cradle, only no longer bathed in artificial sunshine. A soft fog surrounded its base, where coils now sucked away heat energy, leaving both the egglike object and its nest chilled much closer to the temperature of space. Gerald sensed coldness whenever his hand drifted near.

With the chamber dimmed, the rounded cylinder’s former sheen faded and grew dull. Even more telling, the perpetual roil of images—planetary scenes and cityscapes and jostling figures—slowed from a frenetic maelstrom to languid, even desultory. The creature-entities seemed to droop with each passing hour.

“All right, let’s put them through another cycle,” said General Akana Hideoshi. She nodded to the expert in operant conditioning—animal behavior and training—they had hired from the Kingdom of Katanga, Patrice Tshombe, who moved almost jet-black hands across a series of holographic controls that glowed just in front of him, floating above the conference table.

Overhead, a projector issued a sudden lance of sharp illumination, like a jolt straight from the sun. Where it struck the grayish-colored stone, clouds abruptly roiled, like milk stirred into coffee. Soon, shapes moved through that inner mist, as if hurrying upward, clambering toward the light from some distance below. By now, Gerald and the others recognized forty-seven distinct alien species. Genady had constructed sophisticated bio-skeletal models, from the hawk-faced centauroid to the floating squid-thing, to a creature with four leathery wings surrounding a central mouth, resembling a cross between a bat, a helicopter, and a starfish.

Those three were the first to arrive, on this occasion …

… but only just ahead of other shapes that pushed in, close behind. To Gerald, it seemed like a crowd gathering at the sound of a dinner bell, thronging close, eager for sustenance. Each of the aliens pressed an appendage of some kind toward the glowing surface separating two worlds, whereupon small flurries of letters and words swirled around each point of contact.

Even with the help of computers, only primitive meanings could be parsed out of the jumbled tornado of conflicting, jostling phrases. Once in a while the messages congealed, mostly to repeat the now ironic invitation—
Join Us.

Gerald had been wondering for days.
What “us”?

From the second row, heads of various kinds lifted high, in order to crane over the trio in front; one of them looked somewhat insectoid, atop a slender, stalklike neck. Another was like a jolly, rotund Buddha, standing next to one who raised an arm that resembled an elephant’s trunk, only with a hand at the end—a hand with
eyes
at the base of all six fingers. These latecomers plucked at the first three, at first tentatively, then with growing insistence.

“They behave like French or Chinese,” commented Emily Tang. “Proudly refusing the indignity of taking turns or standing in line. It seems a pity that we are forcing them to become something else. British—or even Japanese. Tame acceptors of the tyranny of the queue.”

Haihong Ming—their member from the Central Kingdom—laughed aloud, and Akana Hideoshi offered a grim chuckle. But Ben Flannery, their anthropologist from Hawaii, looked at Emily, clearly puzzled and offended by her cultural bias. Emily shrugged. “Hey, just because it was my idea to teach them discipline, that doesn’t mean I don’t empathize. Right now, their fractious pushiness has a certain schoolyard charm. Even if it makes communication damn near impossible.”

Watching the rabble of aliens closely, Tshombe put up with a bit of squeezing and elbowing. But when several newcomers joined forces to shove the bat-creature aside, pushing their way up front, Patrice waved a curt hand and the overhead sunbeam cut off, leaving the stone once again in darkness. Compressors kicked in, activating heat pumps below the tabletop, as the stone was given a sudden taste of bone-deep chill.

“Now, boys and girls and whosits,” murmured Emily, with evident enjoyment. “Learn to behave.”

Patrice brought up the beam again, as soon as the jostling stopped. With scalpel precision, he centered it upon the centauroid and squid, leaving the newcomers tasting only a penumbra.

“I have had better training response from otters,” Tshombe grunted in his deep Frafricaans accent. “But clearly there is progress. The rate curves are improving.”

While several more of these cycles repeated, Gerald glanced over his shoulder at the “peanut gallery” beyond the quarantine glass—a slanted arena of plush VIP seats, where dignitaries and experts scrutinized every move the contact team made, aissisted by the very best tools, consultants, and instrumentalities that money could buy.

The advisers now also had a presence on
this
side of the quarantine barrier, lurking just a few meters to Gerald’s right—a luminous, 3-D figure named Hermes, complete with chiseled features, golden robes, and matching hair—who appeared to pace back and forth at the far end of the table, glaring at General Hideoshi’s team with growing frustration.

Why on Earth did the advisers pick that garish thing to serve as their liaison metaphor?
Gerald wondered.
Do the politicians and professors and aristocrats think Akana will be intimidated by a cartoon Olympian god?

Maybe it wasn’t a deliberate choice. Often a group’s avatar was selected by interpolating some trait that all members had in common. Did this golden god signify that the advisers viewed themselves as … an
elite
?

Or it might just be overcompensation.
Unconsciously, they want humanity to look its very best.

Even so, Hermes was way over the top. Impatience manifested in a furled brow as the ersatz Greek god drummed the tabletop with lambent fingertips, pausing now and then to scribble suggestions or chidings that he kept sliding across the table, to join a pile of shiny virts—messages that Gerald and the main team mostly ignored. Something about Hermes bugged Gerald. The synthetic Olympian’s fizzing frustration seemed all too similar to that of the Artifact aliens.

Unlike the main sci-fi stereotypes—extraterrestrials who were portrayed as aloofly superior, or cutesy-wise, or threatening—it does seem endearing and reassuring to find them behaving like disorganized schoolyard brats.

Unless … that reassurance is part of an act.

At the opposite end of the long conference table lurked another ai construct—Emily’s feline holvatar counterpart,
Tiger,
dedicated to paranoid suspicion, though just as much a caricature as Hermes. Gerald sometimes caught the two artificial beings glaring at each other past the real members of the Contact Team.

And yes, I can see another parallel. Are Tiger and Hermes really at odds? We have no idea if ais really do compete with each other on our behalf. Or whether that, too, may be a ruse, some reassuring role-playing for the sake of the rubes.

Half a dozen more cycles followed, as Patrice played his artful game of rapid rewards and punishments, with the Artifact wallowing in periods of chilled darkness, punctuated by intervals of sharp light and focused heat. Gradually, the Katangan expert began humming, while nodding contentedly. “I think they are starting to get the idea,” Patrice said. “Look closely.”

Gerald’s privileged position gave him a close-up view. First to become visible was the squidlike being, still front and center, waving forward a single tentacle, stroking the interface between two worlds. Only this time the centauroid and bat-like creature weren’t jostling to share the forwardmost position. Rather, they had taken up positions side by side, on the left facing
away
from the squid …

… and Gerald saw purpose in their actions. Those two were now actively blocking others in the crowd from coming closer. Nor were they alone in this effort. To the right, Gerald saw three others—including the Buddha-like figure—performing a similar role, preventing interference from the unruly rabble on that side. Moreover, as Tshombe’s energizing beam selectively made contact with the defenders, they seemed to grow more solid and distinct. Stronger and more capable of holding their ground.

In the center, chains of letters spiraled outward from that single tentacle. This time, words unrolled without jumble or interference, proceeding distinctly enough to activate the sonic interface. A voice emerged, sounding raspy and upset.

… we have come in friendship … across the vast and empty desert … with an offer of ultimate value … so why do you torment us?

Akana sighed with evident satisfaction.

“Okay, Gerald. You’re on.”

He leaned forward. No longer was it necessary to write directly on the ovoid surface with a pointed finger. Not so long as he enunciated clearly, speaking directly at the stone-from-space.

“We find your chaotic behavior disturbing,” he said. “While we appreciate the value of diversity, we require some degree of orderliness—or courtesy—if this conversation is to get anywhere. That can happen in either of two ways.”

He paused, as the linguistic adviser had recommended, if things ever got to this phase. Better to let the aliens ask. After several more seconds, the being that resembled a terrestrial cephalopod did just that. A slender tendril wrote—and the audio speakers interpreted—

What two ways?

Gerald spoke slowly and clearly.

“Either by taking turns, letting each individual have an allotted time to converse with us … or else by appointing one or more among you to represent the whole community.

“Frankly, we’d prefer
both
methods. But first the representative. It is time, at last, to clarify the nature of your mission here and what great commonwealth we are being invited to join.”

Sucker-tipped tendrils churned and writhed.

I recall … we used to do things … that way …

Gerald nodded, as did Ben and Emily. One theory held that the aliens’ disorderly behavior was the natural outcome of eons spent in isolation, drifting through space. A stupefying test of endurance that might demolish any former sanity.

I shall endeavor to persuade the others to … cooperate.

The squidlike being turned—the centauroid and bat-thing and Buddha and insectoid revolved to face it, as if intending to talk things over—

—and the scene began to dissolve into confusion, once more, as some on the periphery formed a wedge, joining forces to power their way through, driving hard to get into the foreground.

“Cut it off!” Akana commanded. The Artifact was plunged again into dark chill.

I hope the thing’s crystal structure can stand these wild swings of hot and cold,
Gerald thought.
It never had to deal with such rapid oscillations in space.
The advisory icon, Hermes, had made that very point, at length.

Gyrating clouds could still be seen, agitated by dim figures, grappling in the virtual depths underneath the Artifact’s surface. So vigorous was the action at first, that Gerald worried. Might emulated beings do actual damage to each other, maybe even cause death? It certainly happened in some human-designed game worlds.

“They’re slowing down,” he commented.

The brief tussle did seem to quickly sap whatever skimpy energy reserves remained in there. Through the mist, they saw the figures let go of each other and start to slump. Gerald leaned closer and squinted. After a minute, he diagnosed.

“I think … I think some of them are
talking
to each other.”

“Now,” said General Hideoshi. “Ramp up the sunlamp to ten percent, Patrice. Reward this.”

“I shall do so,” Tshombe replied. “With great care.”

The beam returned, and Gerald saw it break into components, each shining where a cluster of alien figures appeared—at some distance—to engage in conversation. While Gerald watched, these groups seemed to gain strength and animation. When a couple of them broke up, it was only to reconfigure, as individuals moved on to engage others.

“Could it actually be working?” asked Genady Gorosumov, who had been skeptical about this approach.

“Perhaps they are rediscovering a knack they had forgotten, during the long, dull voyage across so many light-years,” commented Ben Flannery. “After all, it must take a lot of cooperation—and courtesy—to maintain a vast and ancient civilization. What we have been seeing may be the behavior of brilliant and civilized minds, when they are far from their best, still drowsy, not yet fully roused from a long, cold sleep.”

It was a good theory. In fact, the most popular one. Still, Emily Tang seemed to enjoy tweaking Ben now and then. “So, we’re like the nurse who slaps you hard, for your own good? To get a lazy slug-a-bed to wake up?”

Flannery frowned. But any retort was cut off when Tshombe said—

“
Regardez, mes amis!
A delegation, at last. It arrives.”

All eyes turned to the Artifact—or nearby amplification screens—where something was clearly happening. A formation of more than a dozen alien figures approached through mists that now obediently parted, leaving them a clear path forward. And behind that group came another, even larger contingent, keeping what seemed a respectful distance.