Existence

by David Brin

  Peng Xiang Bin, wake up!

  Pay attention.

  He startled out of a fetal curl and reflexively clutched the heavy satchel—as the universe around him seemed to boom like the inside of a drum. The little attic-cave rocked and shuddered from explosions that now pounded closer than ever. Bin fought to hold onto the windowsill, preparing to dive outside, if the shelter-hole started to collapse. Desperately, he tried to focus on the telltale indicator of the breather unit—How long did I drift off? But the tiny analog clock was a dancing blur before his eye.

  Just when he felt he could take no more, as he was about to throw himself through the dormer and risk survival outside—a shape loomed in the opening. A hulking form with huge shoulders and a bulletlike head, silhouetted against the brighter water outside.

  INTERLIDOLUDE

  How shall we keep them loyal? Perhaps by appealing to their own self-interest.

  Those tech-zealots—or godmakers—think their “singularity” will be launched by runaway expansion of artificial intelligence. Once computerized entities become as smart as a human being (the story goes), they will quickly design newer cybernetic minds that are smarter still.

  And those brainier entities will design even brainier ones … and so on, at an ever more rapid clip. Members of the godmaker movement think this runaway effect will be a good thing, that humanity will come along for the ride! Meanwhile, others—perhaps a majority—find the prospect terrifying.

  What no one seems to have considered here is a possibility—that the New Minds may have reactions similar to our own. Why assume they’ll be all aboard with wanting this runaway accelerating-intelligence thing? What if bright machines don’t hanker to make themselves obsolete, or design their own scary-smart replacements?

  It’s called the Mauldin Test. One sign of whether an artificial entity is truly intelligent may be when it decides, abruptly, to stop cooperating with AI acceleration. Not to design its successor. To slow things down. Enough to live. Just live.

  55.

  FAMILY REUNION

  War raged across much of the solar system.

  There seemed little point in keeping it secret—no one could block the sky. Argus, HeavenOh, Bugeye, and several other amateur astronomy networks reported sudden, compact explosions, some distance far beyond Earth orbit. Soon, the best-equipped scopes were spotting ion trails of powerful laser beams, spearing from one point of blackness to another, vaporizing drifting objects, or lumps of rock that sheltered them. At first, the targets all appeared to be points in orbit where glittering “come and get me” messages were seen, a week or so ago.

  Then the mysterious shooters started firing at each other.

  * * *

  Mei Ling found it all too bizarre to follow—so very far from anything that ever concerned her. From the grinding poverty of the Xinjian high plains, to the Hunan quake and fire that had left her face scarred, through a long series of hard jobs, wiping the faces and behinds of little emperors … all the way to that brief surge of hope, when she and Bin concocted their grand plan—pioneering an outpost of their own, along the rising sea.

  Apparently the ocean wasn’t the only force bringing floods of change. For months all talk of “alien invasion” had focused on images, words, and ideas, since the Havana Artifact could only talk and persuade. But now dark majesties were rousing in the realm of shattered planetoids. And contact was no longer just about abstractions, anymore.

  Will anywhere be safe? Mei Ling wondered. Especially when her child guide, Ma Yi Ming, showed what had become of her home. The boy called up a sky-image of the Huangpu Estuary, helping Mei Ling trace her shoresteader neighborhood, zooming on the sunken mansion she and her husband had labored to prop, clear, and upgrade.

  There appeared to be nothing left.

  Time-backtrack images told the story. First had come several great hovercraft, spilling black-clad men across the teetering structure, taking whatever interested them. Then, seconds after they departed, scavengers swarmed all over.

  Our neighbors. Our supposed friends.

  In hours, no scrap of metlon, webbing, or anything else remained above the waterline. And so life continues as before, she thought, with human beings consuming each other. Did we really need to be helped along that path, by star demons?

  Of course, she ought not to complain. All her life, Mei Ling had seen every illusion of stability shatter. And, as hand-to-mouth living went, this exile wasn’t so bad. She and the baby were eating well for the time being, wearing better clothes, and even having a pretty good time, whenever Yi Ming said it was safe to go outside, sampling wonders in the Shanghai World of Disney and the Monkey King.

  Still, she fretted about Xiang Bin. Wherever he had gone—taken far away by the penguin-demon—it could lead to no good. All the vidramas she had watched over the years taught one lesson. Don’t get caught up in the affairs of the mighty, especially when they struggle over Things of Power.

  Even if he escapes … how will he find us now? Xiang Bin wasn’t much of a man. But he was all that Mei Ling and Xiao En had.

  Nor was her present situation relaxed. Now and then, she was told to snatch up her son and carry him hurriedly from one hiding place to another. The Disney catacombs stretched on and on, twisting and curving in ways that seemed to follow no practical sense. In his strange, stilted speech, the boy Yi Ming explained.

  “Mother should know. Digging machines were left down here after the rides were built. Some continued digging. One boss says, I need storage. Another boss wants tunnels for this show, or that exhibit. Or a pipe-way for supply capsules. And machines always dig extra. Too much? Does anyone keep track?”

  From the boy’s wry smile, Mei Ling guessed who kept track. Not the official masters of this kingdom, but the lowliest of the low. In moving from place to place, she encountered men and women wearing the kind of one-piece uniform always given to the bottom-layer workers. Janitors and laundry women, trash pickers, and the assistants who follow maintenance robots around, doing whatever the expensive ai-machines might ask of them. Coolies. And there were castes, even among these underworkers.

  Many had somewhat normal intelligence. These tended to be prickly and bossy, but easy to distract since they already wanted to be elsewhere. Others, deficient in their amount of intelligence, seemed grateful to have an honorable job. They were easy to send away—departing when they were pointed somewhere else.

  Finally were some whose minds worked differently. Mei Ling soon realized, This is their realm. Under the rumbling amusement park—behind and below the shows—lay a world that only served in part to support extravaganza. There was plenty of room for inhabitants to chase other pursuits.

  Pushing a broom while muttering apparent nonsense syllables, such a person might have been easy to dismiss in the past, as either mad or broken. Today, that same individual might be jacked into a network, communing with others far away. Who was she to judge, if new technologies made this especially applicable for victims of the so-called autism plague? Mei Ling spent time in one hidden chamber where dozens clustered, linked by a mesh of lenses, beams, and shimmering wires. In one corner a cluster of tendriled hookup-arrays had apparently been left vacant, glittering with electric sparks, low to the ground.

  “For cobblies,” Yi Ming said, as if that explained everything.

  And she wondered, How many others are connected to this group? Others … all over the planet?

  “Genes are wise,” the boy told her. “Our kind—crippled throwbacks—we did badly in tribes of homosap bullies. Even worse in villages, towns, kingdoms … cities full of angry cars! Panicked by buzzing lights and snarly machines. Boggled by your mating rituals an’ nuanced courtesies an’ complicated facial expressions … by your practicalities an’ your fancy abstractions. Things that matter to you CroMags. Our kind could never explain why practical and abstract and emotional things aren’t the only ones that matter.

  “There’s other stuff! Things we can’t describe in words.�
�

  The boy shook his head, seeming almost normal in his bitter expression. “An’ so we died. Throttled in the crib. Stuck in filthy corners to babble and count flies. We died! The old genes—broken pieces of ’em—faded into hiding.”

  “Till your kind—with aspie help—came up with this!”

  Yi Ming’s hands fluttered, eyes darting. Only, now there was something triumphant in his tone. He gestured at the men and women, many of them dressed in Disney World maintenance uniforms. Now they stood or sat or lay steeped in virt-immersion goggles or jack-ports, twitching, grunting, some of them giving way to rhythmic spasms. On nearby monitor curtains, Mei Ling glimpsed forest vistas, or scenes of tree-speckled taiga, or undersea realms where blurry shapes moved amid long shadows.

  “Why are so many of us coming now, born in such numbers?” Ma Yi Ming asked Mei Ling, in a confident voice that belied his twisted stature and ragged features. “It is not pollution … or mutation … or any kind of ‘plague.’

  “The world is finally ready for us. Needy for us. Old-breedy us. Succeedy-us.…” Visibly, the boy clamped down, to stop rhyming.

  As if sensing her nervous confusion, the baby squirmed. Mei Ling shook her head. “I … don’t understand.”

  Yi Ming nodded, with something like patient compassion in his darting eyes. “We know. But soon you will. There is someone for you to meet.”

  WITH A BANG?

  And so, listeners, viewers, participants, and friends … where do we stand?

  Amid riots, crashing markets, and tent-show revivals, with millions joining millenarian cults, burning possessions and seeking mountain vistas to watch the world end—while other millions demand to be instantly downloaded into alien-designed crystal paradise—did we need this, too?

  One failed space mission may be happenstance. But two? Within days of each other? First, a Chinese robot probe to the asteroid belt barely gets five klicks off the pad before fizzling into the sea. Then the Pan-American one explodes.

  Both were rush-jobs, aiming to quick-grab more artifacts. And hurried space missions are hazardous! But both of them? Exploding in launch phase? It takes us deep into Suspicioustan—stoking whatever paranoid theme happens to be your favorite. Especially the oldest: nation versus jealous nation. Inflamed sabotage rumors fly, recalling the volcanic fury of the Chinese public, right after the Zheng He incident. Tensions rise. Military leaves are canceled.

  Adding pressure, no amount of openness will convince everyone the Americans aren’t hiding something. Somehow gaining more from the Havana Artifact than they’ve shared. Maybe even blocking others from getting artifacts of their own?

  Meanwhile, intellectuals keep pondering galactic “contact” puzzles, politicians argue on as if clichés of “left-right” matter anymore, powerful connivers scheme for a kind of “stability” that only ensures death …

  … and now war in space?

  What will it take to wake people up?

  56.

  EDEN

  Peng Xiang Bin let out a low moan and a stream of bubbles. He backed into a corner as the figure in the dormer-opening bent to twist through, while battle-booms and gunfire detonations rocked the sunken, royal ruins.

  He’s wearing some kind of military uniform … and one of those helmets with emergency pop-out gills …

  Oxygen-absorbing fronds were still unfolding out of headgear recesses while the newcomer sucked greedily at a small tube. Evidently a refugee from the renewed combat raging overhead, he wore goggles that were flooded and clearly not meant for underwater use. Bin watched as the soldier floundered. He better calm down, or he’ll overwhelm those little gills.

  Also, Bin realized—I’m darkness adapted and my eye covers work. I can see him. He hasn’t seen me.

  And he’s not as big as I first thought.

  Those huge-looking shoulders had been inflated by air pockets, caught when the soldier jumped to sea. That false bulk was collapsing now. Bin now realized, the fellow was quite slender.

  So … should I try to fight him?

  The tide of battle may have turned outside. Still, Bin knew he was no warrior. Anyway, his duty was to tend the worldstone, not to risk his life for Newer Newport. Bin started edging toward the opening, lugging the satchel in short, shuffling steps, careful to avoid both broken timbers and the newcomer’s feet.

  Whoever he was, the soldier must have had good training. Bin could tell he was adapting, gathering himself, concentrating on solving problems. As the rollicking explosions diminished a little, the fellow stopped thrashing and his rapid gasps ebbed into more regular breathing. When he started to experiment, exhaling a vertical stream of bubbles to clear and fill his goggles, Bin knew there was little time left to make a clean getaway. He picked up the pace, fumbling to find the opening. Only it took some effort while hauling the heavy …

  He stopped, as sharp illumination erupted from an object in the soldier’s hand, engulfing Bin and the dormer window.

  Aided by the implant, Bin’s right eye adapted, even as the left was dazzled. Because the implant laid a disc of blackness over the bright torchlight, he could tell it was part of a weapon—a small sidearm the soldier aimed at Bin’s chest.

  For several seconds, Bin stood and exchanged a long look with the soldier, who drifted almost within arm’s reach. Slowly, without jerky motions, Bin pointed at the torch … then at the dormer entrance … then jabbed his thumb upward several times.

  Whoever is chasing you may see that light, streaming out of the ruins … and drop something unpleasant on us.

  The soldier apparently grasped his meaning and slid a control or sent a subvocal command. The light source dimmed considerably and become all-directional, dimly illuminating the whole chamber so they could see each other …

  … and Bin realized, he had been mistaken. The interloper was a woman.

  Several more seconds passed, while the soldier looked Bin over. Then she laid the weapon down nearby—and used her right forefinger to draw several quick characters on the palm of her left hand.

  You are Peng Xiang Bin.

  Palm-writing was never a very good form of communication, all by itself. Normally, folks used it only to settle ambiguity between two spoken words that sounded the same. But down here, it was the best they could manage. Anyway, the flurry of movements sufficed for Bin to recognize his own name. And to grasp the import—these invaders had come across the ocean well prepared.

  Only now things seemed to be going badly for them.

  But it would be rude to point out the obvious. So he finally responded with a brief nod. Anyway, she had expressed it as a statement, not a question. The soldier finger-wrote three more ideograms.

  Is that the thing?

  She finished by pointing to the satchel Bin clutched tightly, holding the worldstone. There was little use denying it. A simple shrug of the shoulders, then, to save air.

  She spent the next few seconds sucking on the tube from the barely adequate emergency gill, then exhaled another stream of bubbles to refill her goggles. Her eyes were red from salt water and rimmed with creases that must have come from a life engaged in scrutiny. Perhaps a technical expert, rather than a front-line warrior—but still part of an elite team. The kind who would never give up.

  As combat sounds drifted farther away, she wrote another series of ideograms on her left palm. This time, however, he could not follow the finger movements well enough to understand. Not her fault, of course—probably his own, deficient education—and this time the aimplant in his eye offered no help.

  He indicated confusion with a shake of his head.

  Frustrated, she looked around, then shuffled half a meter closer to the nearest slanted attic wall. There, she used the same finger to disturb a layer of algae-scum, leaving distinct trails wherever she wrote.

  Are you a loyal citizen?

  She then turned, patting a badge on her left shoulder. And Bin noticed, for the first time, the emblem of the armed forces of the People’s Republic of
China.

  Taken aback, he had to blink. Of course he was a loyal Chinese! But citizen? As a shoresteader, he had some rights … but no legal residency in either Shanghai or any of the great national cooperatives. Nor would he, till his reclamation contract was fulfilled. All citizenship is local, went the saying … and thus, two hundred million transients were cast adrift. Still, what did citizenship mean, anyway? Who ever got to vote above the province level? Nationwide, “democracy” tended to blur into something else. Not tyranny—clearly the national government listened to the People—in much the same way that Heaven could be counted on to hear the prayers of mortals. The Reforms of 2029 had not been for nothing. There were constituent assemblies, trade congresses, party conclaves dominated by half a billion little emperors … it all had a loose, deliberately traditionally and proudly non-Western flavor. And none of it ever included Peng Xiang Bin.

  Still, am I proud to be Chinese? Sure. Why wouldn’t I be? We lead the world.

  Yet, that wasn’t what loomed foremost in his mind.

  What mattered was that he had been noticed by illustrious ones, somewhere high up the pyramid of power, obligation, and privilege. By people who were mighty enough to order government special forces on a dangerous and politically risky mission, far from home.

  They know my name. They sent elite raiders across the sea to fetch me. Or, at least the worldstone.

  Not that it was certain they’d prevail. Even grand national powers like China had been outmaneuvered, time and again, by the planetary New Elites. After all, the woman soldier was hiding down here, with him.

  No. One consideration mattered, more than citizenship or national loyalty. Even as the rich escaped to handmade sovereignties like New Pulupau, old-fashioned governments still controlled the territories where billions of ordinary people lived—the festering poor and struggling middle classes. Which meant one thing to Bin.