Existence (84 page)

Jenny shook her head. “Or much longer. You do understand, Courier. Even this powerful new telescope may not verify continued existence of your species, on Turbulence Planet?” She used the Chinese pronunciation chosen decades ago by her father.

“We
should
be able to get spectral readings of some atmospheric components, and a clear enough image to tell if there are still oceans. Methane and oxygen together will prove life. If we detect lots of helium, it might indicate the presence of many busy fusion reactors … or the same trace could suggest extended nuclear war.”

“That, I assure you, never happened.”

“You can guarantee that—across the last
ten thousand years
? Anyway, I admit it could mean something if we detect fast-decay industrial by-products in Turbulence Planet’s atmosphere. That may indicate an ongoing technological civilization. On the other hand, such signs could be absent because your people moved on to better, more sustainable methods.”

“This big array can also scan for radio traffic?”

“It can, and will. So far, with Earth-based dishes, we’ve heard nothing above background static coming from your home system. But again, they could be using highly efficient comm-tech that emits almost zero leakage. Earth was loudest during the Cold War of the 1970s, with military radars blasting around the clock, along with prodigious civilian television stations. Our planet got quieter then, less wasteful. And yours may have advanced much farther, since you were hurled across space.

“But our beautiful new blossom…,” she continued, nodding toward the vast array outside, spanning forty kilometers and shimmering back-reflections from the distant sun, “may let us eavesdrop much better. That is, if anyone is still using radio or lasers, on or near your homeworld.”

“Hence, you can understand my eagerness,” Courier commented.

“Sure I can.” Jenny smiled. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before Turbulence Planet comes into view, we’ll turn the Donaldson-Chang Big Eye on systems that other
artifact
aliens claim to be from.”

“The homeworlds of fools and liars,” Courier murmured, as he had during the first Great Artifact Debate, before Jenny was born. He went on though, with grudging courtesy. “Of course, I hope all of them survived the plague, and that you will find them living, in good health.”

Clearly, Courier did not expect that to happen. Nor did the other emissary beings. It was the shared litany of all crystal-encased aliens.

Gerald listened to the conversation with just half an ear. His main concern had little to do with planets that lay light-years away. Other dangers loomed closer. He queried the ship’s defense ai.

Any sign of activity along the inner belt?

Having learned the modern knack of volition-messaging, Gerald no longer had to send subvocal speech commands to his larynx, almost-speaking with real muscles. The answer came as both a faint audible response, and quick-sign glyphs in his upper left field of view.

We detect no unknown active objects.

A depict seemed to erupt all around Gerald, immersing him in a slightly curved arc of small, dim specks—representing asteroids that ranged in size up to several hundred kilometers. Starting at the position of the
ibn Battuta,
a million or so klicks outward from Mars, the density of radar reflections rose steadily, peaking halfway to Jupiter’s orbit. He could both see and sense drifting lumps—carbonaceous, stony, and metallic—left over from the origin of the solar system. And if he focused on one, that patch of the Belt would zoom to any level of detail known by human science. So he was careful not to do that.

Jenny and Courier were still visible, among others in the observation lounge, as they watched the telescope’s giant petals finish unfolding, locking and adjusting swiftly into operational condition, performing calibration tests with aitomatic speed. But Gerald’s mind focused more on the depict data.

These visualization technologies just keep getting better. I feel as if I could just reach out with a finger and stir, sending all these asteroids tumbling.…

At his subtle command, the ship-ai adjusted this simulation, causing all the natural rocks to fade, leaving some glitters—far fewer, but still numerous—that orbited mostly along the belt’s innermost rim. He recognized these without being told. Each pinpoint represented an interstellar message crystal—detected but, so far, not collected.

Had it really been just two dozen years since those little cylinders, blocks, and spheres were considered treasure
,
worth any risk to seek? Any cost to acquire? Leading an expedition to gather more “interstellar chain letters” had been Gerald’s high point as an astronaut. The samples that he and Akana and Emily and Genady managed to bring back had proved key components in a kind of
inoculation
—the tonic that helped rouse humanity from a bad case of worldwide contact panic.

Well. It helped rouse humanity partway. Renunciators, romantics, and fanatics of every stripe still stirred, along with the DUN League, insistently demanding that facilities be built to
Download Us Now.

Collecting crystalline missionary-probes still had priority, especially to Ben Flannery and other alienists, refining their models of this galactic neighborhood—stretching a thousand light-years around Earth—pinpointing which species once lived near which star, and when each went through its own fever, building frantic factories and
sneezing
more space-viroids into space. Continuing to build that model was important work, and there were other reasons to gather more samples, but the desperate need had become less frantic.

He commanded those glitters to fade away as well. Leaving—

Earth vessels are noted in yellow.

That many?
Gerald wondered. From coded patterns, he saw that at least two dozen had some kind of human crew. Smaller yellow dots denoted automatic survey drones, picking their way though the Belt, tracing clues and relics that increased in number, the farther into the rocky maze you went. Bits and broken pieces of antediluvian machinery that hinted at some past disaster. Forensic evidence of ancient crimes.

Or of war.

But what of shooters? Any FACR sites in range?

The defense ai answered.

If any remain, they are being circumspect, keeping hidden. They aren’t reacting to the new telescope. Odds of an attack are now estimated 4 percent. And plummeting.

Gerald exhaled, a sigh of letting go, both relieved and … well … a little disappointed. For one thing, it meant Genady had won their wager. Those lasers and particle beams—once deemed so frightening that the
Marco Polo
was called a suicide mission—were mostly gone, showing up only a few dozen times in the last couple of decades and only rarely attacking Earth vessels.

Had they mostly wiped each other out? Gorosumov thought they were from a completely separate era. They had nothing to do with the ancient War of the Machines.

Then why disappointment?

If any of the shooters were to attack us now, or even just speak up, we’re ready. We have methods, plans … and it might give us someone else to question. Someone other than the damned artilens.

The ship’s ai could tell these were normal, inner thoughts, not volition-driven questions or commands. So it kept silent. And when Gerald’s attention shifted, the depict-vista of asteroids, ships, and artifacts swiftly faded from his eyes.

He glanced at Jenny and Courier, who continued their benign argument. As much as he liked them both, Gerald had no desire to get snared into a family spat that always turned into another sales pitch.

Courier came across the stars to warn us against “liars.” Against alien space probes that had evolved ways to make intelligent races copy them and spew more viruses across the cosmos. And yes, Courier’s warning was helpful.

But what does he want us to do, now? Beyond building ever greater telescopes, to determine the fate of his homeworld? Why, he wants us to make more crystalline probes! Not billions, but certainly millions of them. And fire them off … to spread his warning!

Gerald turned to go. Now that deployment of the great instrument was finished—and no mystery lasers had been drawn into attacking—there were other matters to attend to. But irony seemed to follow as he walked along the circumference of the spinning centrifugal wheel.

Maybe that’s what we should do. Help the universe. Copy Courier and his probe millions of times. And add some human companions to every one. Joining him in a mission to inoculate and save other races from the sickness.

Gerald knew that he would be an easy candidate to serve as one of those human self-patterns, downloaded into crystal and hurled outward. Would that qualify as
him,
getting an astronaut’s dream assignment, an expedition to the stars? A mission of help and mercy and adventure. It was tempting, all right.

But when does a cure start to resemble the disease?

He wondered.

Did some of the other crystal-fomites begin their career—generations back—as warnings? Only, after a dozen or so races added members, did the inescapable logic of self-interest gradually change their message?

Sometimes, evolution was a bitch.

THE LONELY SKY

The story remains sketchy, but we can already guess some of what happened out here, long before humankind was even a glimmer.

Once upon a time, the first “Von Neumann type” interstellar probe arrived in our solar system. A large and complex machine, crafted according to meticulous design, it came to explore and perhaps report back across the empty light-years. That earliest emissary found no intelligent life on any of Sol’s planets. Perhaps it came before Earth life even crawled onto land.

So the machine envoy proceeded with its second task. It prospected a likely asteroid, mined its ready ores, then built factory works in order to reproduce itself. Finally, according to program, the great machine dispatched its duplicates toward other stellar systems.

The original then—its chief tasks done—settled down to watch, awaiting the day when something interesting might happen in this corner of space.

Time passed in whole epochs. And, one by one,
new probes
arrived, representing other civilizations. Each fulfilled its task without interference—there is plenty of room and a plethora of asteroids. Once their own replicas were launched, the newcomers joined a growing community of mechanical ambassadors to this backwater system—waiting for it to evolve someone interesting. Someone to say hello to.

Ponder the poignant image of those lonely machines, envoys of creator races who were perhaps long extinct—or evolved past caring about the mission they once charged upon their loyal probes. After faithfully reproducing, each emissary commenced its long watch, whiling away the slow turning of the spiral arms …

*   *   *

We found a few of these early probes, remnants from the galaxy’s simpler time. Or, more precisely, we found their blasted remains.

Perhaps one day those naive, first-generation envoys sensed a new entity arrive. Did they move to greet it, eager for gossip? Like those twentieth century thinkers, perhaps they thought probes must follow the same logic—curious, gregarious, benign.

But the first Age of Innocence was over. The galaxy had aged. Grown nasty.

The wreckage we find—whose salvage drives our new industrial revolution—was left by an unfathomable war that stretched across vast times, fought by entities for whom biological life was a nearly forgotten oddity.

It might still be going on.

—Tor Povlov

68.

LURKERS

My own
Beginning
was a misty time of assembly and learning, as drone constructors crafted my hardware out of molten rock. Under the star humans call e Eridani, my awareness expanded with each new module, and with every tingling program-cascade the Parent Probe poured into me.

Eventually, my sisters and I learned the
Purpose
for which we and generation upon generation of our forebears had been made. We younglings stretched our growing minds. We ran countless simulations, testing one another in what humans might call “play.” And contemplated our special place in the galaxy … we of the 2,410th generation since First Launch by our Makers, long ago.

The Parent taught us about biological creatures, strange units of liquid and membrane, unknown in the sterile Eridanus system. She described to us different kinds of makers and a hundred major categories of interstellar probes.

We tested weaponry and explored our home system, poking through the wreckage of more ancient dispersals—shattered probes come to e Eridani in earlier waves. Disquieting ruins, reminding us how dangerous the galaxy had become. Each of us resolved to someday do our solemn Duty.

Then came launching day.

Would that I had turned for a last look at the Parent. But I was filled with youth then, and antimatter! Engines hurtled me into the black, sensors focused only forward. The tiny stellar speck, Sol, was the center of my universe, and I a bolt out of the night!

To pass time I divided my mind into a thousand sub-entities, and set them against each other in a million little competitions. I practiced scenarios, read archives of the Maker race, and learned poetry.

Finally, at long last, I arrived here at Sol … just in time for war.

*   *   *

Ever since Earth-humans began emitting those extravagant, incautious broadcasts, we survivors have listened to Beethoven symphonies and acid rock. We argue the merits of Keats and Lao Tse, Eminem, and Kobayashi Issa. There have been endless discussions about the strangeness of planet life.

I followed the careers of many precocious Earthlings, but this explorer interests me especially. Her ship-canoe nuzzles a shattered replication yard on a planetoid not far from this one, our final refuge. With some effort I tap her computer, reading her ideas as she enters them. Though simple, this one thinks like a Maker.