Existence

by David Brin

  “All right then.” Tor nodded, with an inward sigh, if Sato wanted to look foolish on camera, so be it. “Don’t most legends answer in the negative? Preaching against hubris?” Tor didn’t bother defining the term. Her audience was generally with it. They’d have instant vocaib.

  “Yes,” Sato agreed. “During the long Era of Fear, lasting six to ten thousand years, priests and kings sought—above all—to keep peasants in their place. So naturally, ambition was discouraged! Churches called it sinful to question your local lord. Even worse to question God. You brought up the Tower of Babel. Or, take Adam and Eve, cast out of Eden for tasting from the tree of knowledge.”

  “Or the mistake of Brahma, or the machine of Soo Song, or countless other cautionary fables.” She nodded. “The Renunciation Movement mentions all of them, forecasting big trouble—possibly another Fall—if humanity keeps reaching too far. That’s why I’m surprised that you took this path in today’s interview, Doctor. Are you suggesting that tradition and scripture may be relevant, after all?”

  “Hm.” Sato pondered a moment. “You seem to be well read. Do you know your Book of Genesis?”

  “Reasonably well. It’s a cultural keystone.”

  “Then, can you tell me which passage is the only one—in the whole Bible—that portrays God asking a favor, out of pure curiosity?”

  Tor knew this interview had spun out of control. It wasn’t being netcast live, so she could edit later. Still, she noted a small figure in a corner of her aiware. Twenty-three MediaCorp employees and stringers were watching. Make that twenty-four. And with high interest levels. All right, then, let’s run with it.

  “Offhand, I can’t guess what passage you have in mind, Dr. Sato.”

  He leaned toward her. “It’s a moment in the Bible that comes before that darned apple, when the relationship between Creator and created was still pure, without any of the later tsuris of wrathful expulsion, gritty battles, or redemption … or egotistical craving for praise.”

  He’s sincere about this, Tor realized, reading his eyes. A biologist, a would-be godmaker-meddler … yet, a believer.

  “You still don’t recall? It’s brief. Most people just glide past and theologians barely give it a glance.”

  “Well, you have our interest, Doctor. Pray tell. What is this special biblical moment?”

  “It’s when God asks Adam to name the beasts. Perhaps the only moment that’s truly like parent and child, or teacher and favored pupil. Indeed, what better clue to what humanity was created for? Since it had nothing to do with sin, redemption, or any of that later vex.”

  “Created for…?” she prompted. Interested, even though she could now see where he was going, and wasn’t sure she liked it.

  “Names have creative power! Like the equations God used to cast forth light and start the cosmos. What action makes up half of science? Naming moons, craters, planets, species, and molecules … even wholly new living things that men and women now synthesize from scratch. What could that passage represent other than a master craftsman watching in approval, while His apprentice starts down the road of exploration?

  “A road that led to Babel, where premature success might have spoiled everything … so He made the naming process more challenging! Still taking the apprentice toward one destination—a role and duty that was intended all along.

  “Co-creation.”

  Tor had to blink a few times. “Well, that certainly is a unique perspective on—”

  “On a passage so brief it was ignored for millennia? The implications—”

  “I see what you think it implies, Professor,” Tor cut in, anxious to reestablish some control. “And we’ll supply links for our viewers who don’t. But there’s a huge step between calling yourself a ‘co-creator’ and having enough wisdom not to botch it up! What we—my viewers and I—want to know is how—”

  Tor trailed off. The neurosmith was holding something out, gesturing for Tor to reach for it. The stone paperweight he had been handling—roughly cylindrical, tapering toward a rounded point at each end. The sides bore many fluted hollows.

  “Take it,” Sato urged as she put out her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s only thirty thousand years old.”

  Tor almost yanked back, before accepting the object. It felt cool. The stone must have once featured many sharp edges before getting rubbed smooth by countless fingers.

  “It is a prepared-core, either late Mousterian or early Châtelperronian, from a period when two hominid species occupied Europe, living side-by-side for quite some time, sharing almost identical technologies and—apparently—similar cultures. Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans had an especially long overlap in the Levant, where both groups seemed to be stuck at the same level for as much as a hundred thousand years.”

  Tor turned the artifact over. It wasn’t glossy, like obsidian, but gray and grainy. Her aiware identified the material as chert, offering links that she subvocally brushed away.

  “I thought humans wiped out the Neanderthals.”

  “It’s a prevailing theory. The long stable period ended at the dawn of the Aurignacian, with astonishing abruptness. Within a few dozen generations—an eyeblink—our ancestral tool kit expanded prodigiously to include fish hooks and sewing needles made of glistening bone, finely shaped scrapers, axes, burins, nets, ropes, and specialized knives that required many complex stages to create.

  “Art also erupted on the scene. People adorned themselves with pendants, bracelets, and beads. They painted magnificent cave murals, performed burial rituals, and carved provocative Venus figurines. Innovation accelerated. So did other deeply human traits—for there appeared clear signs of social stratification. Religion. Kingship. Slavery. War.

  “And—for the poor Neanderthals—genocide.”

  Tor felt nonplussed by the sudden shift. One moment, Sato had been talking in the cramped, six-thousand-year context of the Judeo-Christian Bible. The next, he was suddenly back in the vast realm of scientific time, reflecting on the fits and starts of humanity’s hard, slow climb out of darkness. Still, there was overlap … a common arching theme. And Tor saw, at last, where this was going.

  “You think we’re heading for another of those sudden speedups.”

  Sato tilted his head slightly.

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Suddenly, the scientist’s voice was free of any games. Contemplative, even concerned.

  “The question, Miss Tor, isn’t whether change is coming. Only how we can be smarter about it this time. Perhaps even wise enough to cope.”

  SCANALYZER

  Greetings. I’m Marcia Khatami, sitting in for Martin Raimer, who is following a hot story in Cuba. Good luck, Martin!

  Today we return to a favorite topic. For a century, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence has drawn both radio astronomers and zealous supporters with hopeful tenacity that rivals any previous faith. Sometimes funded by governments, by rich enthusiasts, or micro-donations, SETI uses sophisticated apparatus to sift the “Cosmic Haystack” for a single, glittering needle that may change our lives, telling us we’re not alone.

  The effort isn’t without critics. Let’s continue our debate between two mavens of superscience. Dr. Hannah Spearpath is director of Project Golden Ear, combining the Allen, Donaldson, and Chang SETI arrays. Welcome back, Hannah.

  DR. SPEARPATH: My pleasure, Marcia.

  MARCIA KHATAMI: Also with us is his inimitably provocative rasta-self, star of the popscience show Master Your Universe! and just returned from a touring with his sci-reggai group Blowing Cosmic Smoke. Welcome, Professor Noozone.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Praises to Almighty Jah and Wa’ppu, Marcia. Much respect and a massive big up blessing to all viewers an’ lurkers out there!

  MARCIA KHATAMI: Doctors, our last session got heated, not over listening for alien signals, but endeavors to beam messages from Earth to outer space. Shouting “yoohoo!” at the stars.

  DR. SPEARPATH: Yes, and I want to correct any im
pression that Golden Ear beams “messages” into the sky. Our antennas aren’t set up for transmission. We leave that to others.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: But Hannah, your verysame statement amounted to upfull support for the wicked men perpetrating this irresponsible behavior, nah even botherin’ to discuss it ’pon the people or dem scientific bredren. This is rhaatid! It violates a basic livication laid down, long ago, by Ras Carl Sagan himself, when he said any superadvanced races out there should “do the heavy lifting” of makin’ contact. An’ Mas Carl also said that youth like us should quietly listen. Ya haffa creep an’ walk before ya run.

  DR. SPEARPATH: Well, conditions change. Last time, I simply stated the obvious, that no possible harm could come from such transmissions.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: But hol’ on my dear. How can dem be “obvious” when well-informed people disagree? “No possible harm” is nuh-easy to say! It is based on many sad-unexamined assumptions about the cosmos, about intelligence, and the way so them aliens must think! Especially the unproved postulate that altruism be universal among advanced life-forms.

  You declare that upfulness and overstanding will drive every people, soon come all a time, out there among the so-bright stars.

  Oh, surely, I-and-I find dat notion super-attractive! Beneficent star-mons, bright-doing, everywhere across the galaxy! It what I hope to be a-true! Praise Jah an’ His Interstellar Majesty.… But scientists shoulda be Ras-skeptical. An’ the underlying tenet of universal altruism is one that you people refuse to offer up for analysis or peer review by your own-very science bredren, dismissing all other views as paranoid—

  DR. SPEARPATH: Because anything else is silly. If aliens wanted to harm us, they would have done it by now.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Oh buckery an’ bodderation! I could list six dozen ways that statement oversimplifies—

  DR. SPEARPATH: Anyway, the potential benefits of contact—of just detecting that another civilization is out there—outweigh any of the harm scenarios on your list, since you admit that each one, separately, seems unlikely.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Everything irie … I-and-I admit that. What you don’t admit is that the odds of harm aren’t zero. Kill-mi-dead if the sheer number of ways don’t add up to a whole heap—

  DR. SPEARPATH: How can anything compare with the top benefit of SETI? Beyond all the wonderful things we might learn. Just detecting that other intelligent species exist! Right now we don’t necessarily see a long future for technological civilizations on this planet. So many ways it could fail. A proof of existence, that someone survived their technical infancy, is valuable! Successful detection means longevity of civilizations is the rule rather than the exception.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: All very moving. Maybe even true, Hannah. But inna case, does not your failure to find anybody have the worrisome opposite meaning? Anyway, you describe a benefit of detection. Not of transmission, which increases the risk, without affecting any of the benefits—

  DR. SPEARPATH: Your patois is slipping again. If it were genuine—

  MARCIA KHATAMI: I want to focus on something else the professor said last week, about how the classic SETI search strategy has been all wrong for decades. Because it assumes that extraterrestrials are constantly transmitting in all directions, at all times.

  DR. SPEARPATH: We do not make that assumption!

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: But oh my, your search strategy implies it, Hannah! Aiming big, stooshy telescope arrays toward one target at a time, analyzing the radio spectrum from that candidate solar system, then doin’ the ten-toe turbo as you stroll on to the next one.…

  DR. SPEARPATH: Sometimes we take in whole globular clusters. We frequently return to the galactic center. There are also timing-pattern scenarios, having to do with the light cone of certain events, like novas, that turn our attention certain ways. We have an eclectic program.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: That be most-surely laudable. Still, your approach clings to an assumption—that benevolent aliens make great-profligate beacons that blare inna cosmos continuously, day after day, year after year, ray-ray just for neo-races like us, using SETI programs like yours.

  But Hannah, that ignores so-many possibles. Like suppose de cosmos be more dangerous than you think. Maybe ET stays quiet because him knows something we don’t!

  DR. SPEARPATH: (sighs) More paranoia.

  PROFESSOR NOOZONE: No way, Doctor, me I’m just thorough. But dere be a bigger plaint, based on hard-nose economics.

  MARCIA KHATAMI: Economics, Professor? You mean, as in money?

  DR. SPEARPATH: Alien capitalists? Investment bankers? This gets better and better. How unimaginative to assume that an advanced civilization will manage itself just like us.

  MARCIA KHATAMI: (chuckles) Now, Doctor, no one can accuse Profnoo of being—unimaginative. We’ll come back and discuss how economics might affect advanced aliens after this break.

  13.

  METASTABLE

  If only I could be more than one person.

  It was a frequent wish. As life kept getting busier, Hamish delegated as much as he could, but things kept piling up. The more successful he became, the more beleaguered he felt.

  Standing on a balcony overlooking the lanai of his Clearwater compound, gazing past palm trees, mansions, and surf-ruins toward the sparkling Gulf of Mexico, he could hear the musical jangle of calls coming in, answered by two secretaries, three assistants, and far too many soft-aissistors to count.

  To hell with being “influential” and saving the world! Wasn’t I happier when it was just me and the old qwerty keyboard? And my characters. Just give me an arrogant villain and some Big Technological Mistake. A gutsy heroine. A mouthy hero. I’d be set for months.

  All right, I also liked doing movies. Before Hollywood collapsed.

  Only now? There is the Cause. Important, of course. But with trillionaires joining their great power behind it, can’t the movement do without me for a week? Let me get some writing done?

  Clutching the wrought iron balustrade, he recognized one of those phone melodies—a call he couldn’t refuse. After the first ring, it started vibrating a flesh-colored plug in his ear.

  He refused to tap a tooth and answer. Somebody downstairs should pick up. Take a message.

  But no one did. Well trained, his staff knew that tune was for him alone. Still, he kept his gaze on the horizon, where several rows of once-expensive villas used to line the old beachfront, now jutting skeletally from the roiling tide. In the distance, he heard the day and night rumble as Conservation Corps crews extended a network of shoreline dikes and dunes. Keeping Florida a state, and not paradise lost.

  A new Flood is coming.…

  After a third ring—damned technology—the synthetic voice of Wriggles spoke up.

  “It is Tenskwatawa. We are behooved.”

  Hamish relented, giving the slightest nod of permission. A faint click followed …

  … and he winced as sudden, rhythmic, thumping sounds assaulted one eardrum. Dampers kicked in, filtering the cadence down to a bearable level. It was a four-four tempo, heavy on the front beat.

  “Brookeman! You there? Damn it, how come you’re not wearing specs?”

  Hamish grew tired of explaining why he only used aiware when necessary. You’d think a leader of the Renunciation Movement would understand.

  “Where are you calling from, Prophet?”

  “Puget Sound. A Quinalt potlatch ceremony. They hand-carve their own canoes and spears, stage a big sea hunt where they stab a robot orca, then come back and feast on vat-grown whale meat. Vat-grown! Bunch of tree-hugging fairies.

  “Never mind. Have you made any progress on the Basque Chimera?”

  “Both mother and child have gone underground. And pretty effectively. I figure they got help from elements in the First Estate.”

  “I suspected as much. It’s not as if they could hide in plain sight. So. I’ll put some pressure on the trillies. It’s time for them to stop playing both sides and choose. One thing
about aristos, they have an instinct for self-preservation.”

  “True enough, sir.”

  “So, what about that thing with Senator Strong? It’d be great if he can be salvaged. He’s been an asset.”

  “I’ve been home one day,” Hamish answered. “I did hire a team of ex-FBI guys to gather prelims through discreet channels. Tap government files and such. Investigate the fellow who claims to have poisoned the senator. Forty-eight hours to gather background, before I take an overall look.”

  “One of your trademark Big Picture brainstorms? Wish I could watch you do that some time.”

  Hamish bit back a sullen response. It used to be flattering when important men asked him to consult and offer a wide perspective—pointing out things they missed. Now, the fun was gone. Especially since Carolyn pointed out something that should have been obvious.

  “A hundred years from now, Hammi, what will be left of you?” she asked on the day they parted, ending all the anger and shouting with a note of regret. “Do you expect gratitude for all this conspiring with world-movers? Or to go down in history? Pick any of your novels. A book will still be around—read and enjoyed by millions—after that other crap has long faded. Long after your body is dust.”

  Of course she was right. Yet, Hamish knew how the Prophet would answer. Without the Cause, there might not be any humanity, a century from now, to read novels or do anything else.

  Still, thinking of Carolyn, he knew—she had also been talking about their marriage. That, too, was important. It should have been treated as something to last.

  Tenskwatawa’s voice continued in his ear. “But that’s not why I’m calling. Can you get linked right away? There’s news coming in. And I already have my plate full. Got to attend a conference with some aristocracy in Switzerland. One of the big newblesse clans may finally get onboard and join the movement.”

  “That’s great news.”

  “Yeah, well, we need those rich bastards, so I can’t turn away, even when something more urgent turns up.”

  Hamish felt pleasure turn to worry. “Something more urgent than getting support from some First Estate trillionaires?”