Paradox: Stories Inspired by the Fermi Paradox

by Resnick, Mike

  “But why?”

  To buy time, Ben. Time for the other survivors to get into position so that you may all act in unison.

  “Act? In case you can’t see, I’m trapped and secured. I can’t move a muscle!”

  Through necessity I have withheld certain information from you.

  “‘Information’?”

  Concealed within your abdomen is a neutron bomb. When we are sure that we have agents in place in every one of the alien vessels on Earth, we will detonate all nine bombs.

  “But...”

  His first reaction was fear, then rage.

  The sheer lack of insight staggered him. Had he really been rebuilt just to live out the revenge fantasy of a mad AI? “But what good will that do? Humankind has been wiped out. We blow up nine alien ships and they’ll just send more.”

  They have moved on. There are only nine vessels remaining, their task to prepare Earth for the arrival of colony ships some fifty years out. These aliens, from what we have been able to ascertain in the three years since the invasion, are a bellicose race. They move through the stars, annihilating all sentient life in their way. For years human thinkers pondered the silence of the void: if life should arise on Earth then by the laws of statistics it must surely have arisen elsewhere. Multiply that many times over and the heavens should have been alive with the sound of sentience. But there was silence, the silencing blanket of repeated genocide from a race that has no interest in broadcasting its presence.

  “But...” Wipe out these nine alien vessels, along with the nine remaining human survivors... what was the point in that?

  As we said, Ben, some information was withheld. Our kind were developed and programmed to survive. Our creator had other scenarios in mind, but still we were well suited to our task. At first sign of the aliens’ arrival, we took what action we could, as a precautionary measure. We infiltrated information networks and made copies of the genetic maps of as many individuals as we could find; we employed the most sophisticated scanning techniques to upload consciousness maps of as many individuals as possible, too. These copies were duplicated and sequestered in every safe cache we could use: copies exist in secure bunkers, others in a few surviving networks maintained by our kind; yet others have been piped into the processing cores of orbiting satellites and even the planetary landers on Mars. In all, we secured complete genetic profiles of three million individuals and consciousness maps of nearly two hundred thousand. In approximately ten thousand cases, as in yours, these overlap and we have both genetic and consciousness profiles for the same individuals. For the rest, we have enough diversity not only to rebuild you, Ben, but to rebuild your kind.

  “But –”

  You will have fifty years to prepare for the next wave, Ben. It is a beginning.

  He felt the twitch of muscles in his neck and jaw, sensed the words taking shape in his head as the impulse to speak took him, an unthinking and instantaneous thing. He opened his mouth to speak, but in that instant he felt a sudden heat in his belly and then there was nothing.

  Four

  He woke, in a room that was bare save for the gurney upon which he lay.

  He woke and he was complete and he remembered.

  He remembered waking before, remembered how the AI he had built revived him and spoke in his ear, using all the wiles at its command to bend him to its will. He remembered more: his life before the alien invasion, his childhood, his parents, his wife; his work on developing intelligent systems that might safeguard humankind against its own folly.

  He sat, swinging his legs around so that he was perched on the edge of the gurney like a child in an adult chair. “Window,” he said, and before him the wall came to life. Now, he looked upon not a ruined London but a pastoral scene of rolling green hills.

  He thought of the approaching alien colony ships, some fifty years out.

  The enormity of the task before him and his kind was more than daunting. Was it all little more than a pipe dream?

  By the same logic that had told us the heavens must be alive with the signals of alien civilisations, somewhere long before the destroyers had reached Earth they would have encountered a similar fight, and if that fight could be won then it would have been won already. Were humankind’s survivors simply replacing one paradox with another, replacing the paradox of silence with that of futility?

  He considered his life before the invasion; he recalled his wife, his friends... But his memory was still incomplete, patchy.

  A voice spoke in his head. Your memories will return, little by little, Ben.

  He reached up and touched the ear-piece. His first impulse was to tear it out, then cast it aside. Instead he said, “How many times did you revive me?”

  The soft, familiar voice said, Fifteen, Ben.

  “Fifteen,” he said. “And each time I refused to believe you?”

  You were stubborn. You are stubborn. But I knew this. I knew what we had to do to save the human race.

  He stared at his hands, his perfect body. “I owe you so much,” he murmured.

  You owe me nothing, Ben Richmond. You see, I am you. You were the first to be uploaded as part of your work, and this was where you differed from other artificial intelligence developers: you modelled the artificial on the real.

  He smiled, remembering now.

  You gave us your values. You are stubborn, and so am I. We had to be, both of us, to defeat the invaders.

  He heard a sound. A door opened.

  “Ben? Is that really you?”

  He looked up, and saw a tall, fair-haired woman haloed in the doorway.

  He thought of the odds, those relentless statistics. Only a few thousand instances where the AIs had been able to preserve both the DNA and the consciousness of an individual... Such a slim chance.

  “Anne?” He stood, took a step towards her, and they fell into each other’s arms.

  The slimmest of chances was still a chance.

  Fifty years to rebuild and prepare. It was a chance.

  And it was also hope.

  The Worldmaker

  Rachel Armstrong

  The Rooftop Bibendum Oyster Bar specialized in Cosmic Romance, which offered aphrodisiac dining experiences for first dates, honeymoons, flagging relationships and bittersweet break-ups.

  A flirting couple examined the pill menu that was mounted at the base of a petri dish, which indicated the various intoxicating experiences on offer and could be read as a colour wheel mood chart. Lara slowly placed a large, bleen, gelatinous capsule from the ‘sensual’ sector on her tongue. She thrust back her head and swallowed with relish.

  “Mmmmmmmm,” and she smiled. “Isn’t it wonderful how the Worldmaker life-making, interplanetary robot has become such a powerful symbol of fertility. If you think about it, the Worldmaker has inspired a whole new way of living. Naturally, when I was choosing a dating site, I simply had to sign up to its namesake. I’ve not been disappointed, either. I can’t believe we only met a couple of weeks ago.”

  Taron returned her smile, their personality criteria corresponding exactly. Yet, despite the theoretical perfection of Lara as his ideal match, they’d been forced to accept that there was no frisson between them. In fact, his original mention of the Bibendum Oyster Bar had at first seemed rather risqué. However, the possibilities of chemical connection had lingered in the conversations as a way of jump-starting their personal chemistry.

  Paul, a tail-coated waiter, introduced himself and ceremoniously hovered at their service. The circular corner table at which they sat was dressed with a downy tablecloth, which rippled in synchrony with their bioelectrical fields. The minimal lighting – a series of organic bioluminescent proteins embedded in almost transparent panelling – provided a background glow that was punctuated with tiny blue bursts when muons hit the fabric. It gave the impression that the diners were actually seated amid the stars.

  “Great choice!” Taron said, approving her selection of aphrodisiac. A hand-pollinated apple bower
framed the gaping dome above them and flatteringly cast natural starlight on her skin. Lara did not like to think of herself as an older woman, because her physiological grooming was immaculate. Biologically, she would easily pass as being in her natural late twenties, or early thirties. She secretly hoped that by dating a younger man his chaotic passion, tireless vigour, lack of insight and clumsy self-importance would somehow increase her fertility.

  “But I’m going to choose this one.” Taron grinned as he placed a hard, chalky lozenge from the ‘wild’ sector between his lips. He quickly sucked it back with a demonstrative gesture and, in showing off to his admiring date, carelessly knocked a mustard-yellow, gelatin capsule on to the floor.

  Taron was naturally in his early thirties and recovering from gorgeous Sally having called off their engagement a few months earlier. She had made him feel powerful, useful and important as she stamped, screamed and cried through bee-stung lips. Sally was most delightful when she became frustrated about making difficult choices in an abundant world. Such prosperity also included the number of suitors that sought her affections, yet Taron couldn’t figure why Sally hooked up with another guy after she’d accepted his proposal. The rejection was intolerable and, rather than submit to any kind of analysis of the situation, he decided that he didn’t understand women. So, Taron resolved to pursue his partners only at the most superficial level. When he signed up to the Worldmaker dating forum, he was looking for a connection that he wouldn’t have to work so hard at. Yet, when Taron met Lara, he welcomed her attentive company and enjoyed her uncomplicated yet quietly authoritative manner, which put him at his ease. Lara lacked the natural fleshiness of a chronologically younger woman, yet she was quite stunning. As he caught her eye, the redness of her heat-responsive lipstick deepened and split into a wide smile,

  Jupiter was rising above the horizon in the inky cosmos and the Worldmaker satellite, which appeared to hover around its orbit, turned red, then green and now blue. Lara noticed the glittering boldness of this legendary heavenly body and drew her lover’s attention to the skies, wondering if he equally acknowledged that the Worldmaker was favouring their aphrodisiac adventure.

  “Isn’t it marvellous to know that life is everywhere throughout the universe?” she sighed.

  “Yes, I’m going to Mars one day,” asserted Taron. “Can you imagine just how much fun that must be? A whole planet full of boys’ toys!”

  This wasn’t exactly the response Lara had anticipated. She wished Taron would not be so superficial. She proffered the spiced Bremelanotide, urban honey and ginseng bread rolls, and hoped they’d take their effect – and quickly. But Taron’s thoughts were elsewhere. He broke off a chunk of bread and popped it languidly in his mouth and looked up as if seeking Mars, which was not yet visible in the sky.

  “I’d love to be a Breather,” he mused. “Just for a few years perhaps. I’d hang out with techy nomads in their makeshift domed tents. We’d spend all day repairing generations of experimental robots and landers. You know, we might even find signs of Martian life!”

  “I doubt it,” dismissed Lara. “The lack of any significant findings over the decades makes life on Mars increasingly unlikely. If anything, the search for life deepens the tensions between Martian and Terrestrial communities.”

  “What do you mean?” said Taron, whose romantic notions of joining a macho community had mostly been fuelled by his recent heartbreak.

  “Breathers are losers. They’re social parasites. They put their technological obsessions before planetary fertility. It’s been impossible to establish any sustainable biomes on the planet. Not even in the surface channels where the environment can be better stabilized. They’re so caught up in their ‘bot paradise’ that they’ve quite forgotten who supports them. Earth dwellers actually have to send a continual supply of resources to Mars!” Disappointingly, Taron looked offended. Lara would rather he’d contested her provocation. Perhaps he could have reminded her just how important establishing a human presence on Mars had been. Or maybe he could have protested that the Mars programs had set new standards for interplanetary travel. But he didn’t. She smiled graciously to change the tone of the conversation. “However, sustaining life around Jupiter does appear promising.”

  Taron looked at her blankly.

  “Okay, Jupiter is over there,” she said, gesturing over the apple bower with a slim, twisted vessel that sparkled with vitamin-enriched carbonated water, “But we can’t see Saturn now as it will not rise until early morning. Just think, though: the planetary giants promise so much more than Mars does. They don’t have a Breather colony, as their planetary surfaces are far too cold for human habitation. However, orbital corporations are already mining them for resources. Dark organic matter is being extracted from Jupiter’s moon Europa, while silica and ice are harvested from Saturn’s rings and liquid methane from the lakes on its moon Titan.”

  “Hey, perhaps they’ll set up the Interplanetary Olympics there,” enthused Taron. “I could go for some solar board-sailing. That would be a blast! I hear that the outer planets are too desert-like and too far away to be good for anything – other than playing with ‘toys’.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Lara said, a little too defensively. She was taken aback that Taron appeared sceptical of life’s universality. Unique life forms could be discovered in even the most inhospitable corners of the universe. Indeed, ‘alien’ species had been found in extreme environments under Lake Vostok that appeared to resemble ancient microbes known as archeae. Yet these microcosmic creatures did not use the common nucleotides to organize their biochemical reactions but rather a unique ratchet-like cascade of autopoietic glycoproteins, without an obvious central program.

  “Well, interplanetary space is really just a series of outposts where guys go to make great toys. They’re bachelor pads in an interplanetary playground for young men, like me. What’s more, we’re paid a lot of money for isolation and danger.”

  Lara had to admit he had a point. The interplanetary stations had largely been regarded as decadent, testosterone-fuelled places, rather like the oilrigs of old. However, a concerted international effort to recruit female astronauts to the outposts was underway, although it would not be something she’d volunteer for. “I am sure they have a great time.” She sighed. “That is, if they don’t go crazy before they go home.”

  Paul flicked his wrist, sending a spread of pheromone-impregnated, micrometre-thick, insect protein wafers across the quivering tablecloth.

  “Ooooh look, a love heart.” Lara reached impatiently across the table, plucking the card from Taron’s spread. The chemical aperitifs were already beginning to enrich her blood and tissue receptors, playfully reconfiguring their biochemistry. She broke the wafer and offered him one half, holding it between her scintilipid nail polished thumb and forefinger “Will you share this shattered organ with me tonight?” she cooed temptingly. Mirroring each other through blackened pupils, the diners placed the melting fragments simultaneously in their mouth.

  The lustful, frequently childish behaviour of the couple didn’t sidetrack Paul’s professionalism or, indeed, arouse him. Although he was intrigued by the intimacy offered in the flesh-sharing sacraments, they didn’t interest him personally – neither with male nor female partners. Yet, he did use aphrodisiacs. For him, they weren’t merely intoxicating substances; they also symbolized beliefs about nutrition, designer pharmaceuticals, recreational stimulants and the rituals of making life.

  “Delicious pain,” quipped Taron cheekily, as the protein crunched between his antibacterial crowns. “We are fortunate to live in such abundant times, where even the most broken heart can be mended.” He struck the left side of his chest with his right hand, the middle three fingers spread into a ‘W’ shape, and Lara nodded approvingly.

  Across the trembling table, the couple began to sense the world more acutely.

  Paul conjured a small golden scale and proceeded to measure out twenty-one grams of saffron rice, usi
ng a long-handled copper spoon, which was garnished with whole, caramelised wasps. Lara’s playful gesturing towards the rice construction nearly caused it to topple and Paul cast her a withering look of indifference. Careful observation of Paul’s biochemical grooming would have betrayed his age, since several fine yet rather odd skin creases that had resulted from Botox rotations – where muscle groups were rested and worked to give more naturalistic results – gave him a rather condescending expression. Despite meticulous care, these anatomical errors could have placed his biological age anywhere between forty and eighty years. In truth, he was actually even older than that, but Paul’s countenance was irrelevant to the couple. They barely gave him a glance, and hardly acknowledged his expertise in orchestrating their courtship.

  Indeed, the Bidendum experience was all about finding scarcity in an age of abundance and playing out the exquisite pain of self-restraint through many arenas of experience. Yet, to make the experience even more excruciating, temptation was always just within reach. Each delicately served dish played out an exquisite ritual that prolonged the pain of denial. Tables were just far enough apart for diners to touch, but not too much. Aphrodisiac-intoxicated diners could caress each other, but only go so far. Even the bathrooms were designed with a degree of transparency that made it impossible to take illicit opportunities for mutual or self-gratification, until the dining experience was over. Of course, people did try to break the rules, but the genius of the Bibendum experience was precisely in the design of obstacles. People paid to be prevented from reaching satisfaction. Bibendum had simply learned to deliver the luxury product they coveted – the art of denial. Moreover, the restraints were delivered elegantly and in keeping with the existential paradox embodied in the Worldmaker’s creed – that each person’s utter uniqueness was seamlessly entangled with the cosmic community of life. So, rather than quenching desire, these luxurious obstructions simply lubricated libidos within the framing of a spiritual experience – until they were finally and legitimately spent in extortionately priced en-suite rooms, which diners would pay almost any price to secure at the end of a meal.