Inhuman Contact (Galactic Arena)

by Dan Davis

  “The only conclusion I can make is that Lissa does not have an artificially-created genome. And it is not, either, a naturally occurring genome that was then edited by any known or hypothesized technique on record. It is very likely that Lissa is in fact genetically fully-human. Nevertheless, she was certainly grown ectogenetically, using accelerated growth techniques. Terra Pharma, I assume, obtained a natural, fertilized human egg and developed it using a heavily modified version of its patented tank and synthamniotic system. She was then raised as an Artificial Person using RecoGen Interplanetary’s conditioning tech. I understand that this is illegal under all nations’ legislation and can only speculate as to why they would do such a thing. Firstly, her genetic structure, though clearly natural, is very interesting. To put it in the simplest possible terms, her cells have a very high transcription fidelity due to mutation in key elements of her RNA causing improvements to at least two reproduction mechanisms. The protein protecting her DNA is not the Dsup protein we APs make but a wholly different one performing the same function, which threw me off for a long time. Speculation again but I would expect she comes from a line of very long-lived individuals. Her enhanced genetic proofreading has enabled her to weather the radiation better even than any of us who were designed for it. Further speculation is that this was an experiment by the company but I doubt that she was the first they did this to. According to the records, our Lissa had at least another six clones that were euthanized during their pubescence but whether that is misdirection to make her appear to be an AP or truly was carried out we can only guess. Of course, it is not just her genetic fidelity that marked her out as genetically special. Perhaps the most immoral practice of the AP Tech Group was in selecting someone with the genetic potential for developing autism, then interfering with the brain development during the first ectogenetic trimester and then, I believe, creating environmental factors during her first two years out of the tank conducive to development of an autism spectrum disorder or ASD. It could be argued, in fact, that all APs are designed to exhibit at least some ASD behaviors as a part of nominal function. I will link this file to my series on this hypothesis.”

  On the screen, Max waved a hand and the recording finished. Herman chose the next selected video link that popped up, Conclusions Summary #3. He wasn’t sure what happened to part #2 but the algorithms were sophisticated enough to be trusted. Anyway, it started, surely, soon after the previous video. Max seemed the same, only he looked even more tired. His hand shook when he took a sip of water and his eyes, when he fixed the camera with that intense look of his, were rimmed with red.

  “Why fill the Ascension with APs and with a range of untested designs? Why take such risks? Surely, this was one of the most important space missions in human history and certainly the one with the highest inherent risks. The scale of the distance and the length in years dwarfs all previous human space missions and in fact it has been said this was the single most complex and daring endeavor in human history. So why, then, would anyone include any technology that is so very untested as APs? And using various models and designs at that? The benefit of us as backup crew to watch over the human crew is rather absurd when there was such excellent remote monitoring systems and AI backups should those fail. It was only in the highly improbable situation that we found ourselves in that our utility was really demonstrated. Of course, this could never have been part of the plan. Yes, our additional oxygen, water, food supplies even over decades is negligible in comparison to the mass of the reactor and the ship itself but it was still a huge investment of mass and for what gain?

  “What did the mission get from us that it could not have gotten through other means? My opinion, much as it might seem to devalue my existence, is that we provided nothing. Nothing of real worth. Nothing, that is, other than enabling a deeply cunning and subtle PR stunt. A public relations effort by Terra Pharma that would demonstrate how vital APs are as a product. We were a crucial part of the most important mission ever undertaken, they will say, when in fact it was only ever intended that we be no more than passengers and experiments. It is a most unfortunate result that, by bringing the ship into orbit around the Destination, we may do more to enhance the company’s share price than any other outcome ever could have done.

  “In spite of their many failures and consciously immoral acts, the AP Tech Group has acted illegally and unethically probably most clearly in the case of Lissa. It is my belief that by releasing her genome, her medical records and her story to the public, it cannot help but to apply popular pressure on all members of APTG, in particular Terra Pharma, RecoGen, Abora Biopharma and Sinrosin. If anyone is watching this, I will be dead. It is down to you to examine the evidence and, if you agree with my conclusions, to take action.”

  The video clip ended abruptly, as if it had been edited in between sentences. A dozen links filled the screen with suggested follow-up content.

  Herman found he was holding his head in his hands, watching the screen through his fingers. He released the breath he had been holding. With a shaking hand, he scrolled through more content. There were hundreds of videos, thousands of hours of Max talking into to the camera. The web of topics seemed to link almost every video with every other and yet some were highlighted as important or keystone topics.

  One caught his eye because he was surprised to see the Max had branched out into political philosophy or something like it. He waved open CRITIQUE OF TECHNO-PRIMITIVISM #2.

  “So we can see that the supposed descriptions of this so-called philosophy are in large part nonsensical. And this is because the entire concept is nonsense. It exists only to justify certain business practices by corporations and social engineering by governments. It is misdirection. By appealing to mankind’s baser instincts, any anti-social or anti-liberty actions can be taken. Equating the corporation or government as the tribal Big Man is laughable but despite the faux-scientific language they use to promote the idea, that is in essence what they are claiming. They say humans are brutal and violent and that is true but humans are much more than that. By ignoring the great civilizing process begun in earnest by Renaissance scholars and artists and launched into the profound by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, the iconoclasts of Techno-primitivism are committing cultural genocide and justifying it by claiming we are barbaric in nature. Embrace technology and transhumanism, they say, in order to become our true, ancient selves once more. It allows any authoritarian political ideology to be papered over the top of it. Whether you are a capitalist TP or a communist TP, a democrat TP or a Green TP, it is no more than justification for riding roughshod over individual’s human rights. This ideology enabled the development and legalization of APs. It covers our continued exploitation. To throw off the yoke of oppression means throwing off this conjurer’s trick of an ideology.”

  Herman closed the video. Politics had rarely held his interest for long. Throwing off the yoke of oppression sounded worryingly revolutionary. Is that really what Herman wanted to be spreading on Earth?

  If the APs were truly capable of becoming human, then, he supposed the only way they would win any rights was through some kind of activism.

  Looking through the medical and research files, he found and opened one called BIASES IN ALL FILED DATA #4.

  Max began speaking, already in full flow. He was his now-usual, forceful self but the video had been recorded before he had become truly sick and he looked strong and energized. Underneath it all, Max was clearly angry and getting angrier as he spoke.

  “I have studied Artificial Persons in more detail than anyone not employed by one of the Big Four companies of the AP Tech Group that designs, engineers and supplies AP tech to public and private space organizations. All the publicly available data is incorrect. In my opinion, it has been fabricated in order to deceive the public and lawmakers into agreeing to the continued expansion of the AP program. Shortly before we lost contact with Earth, new legislation had been agreed or was in the process of being agreed in most ter
ritories for APs to be utilized on Earth itself. This followed an almost unprecedented worldwide lobbying effort by the companies that would most benefit from this legally sanctioned slave labor. That is to say, of course, those involved in the supply of slaves and those looking to own their labor force not just metaphorically but legally. Environmental and ethical concerns were dismissed on the grounds that APs are not conscious and can be fed and watered on a patented fly larvae protein paste that humans would not choose to eat but that their products would thrive on. It doesn’t matter where anyone gets their amino acids from a biological, nutritional perspective but this protein paste, which does exist, was developed for marketing purposes. For dehumanizing purposes. The manufactured viral comment by the CEO that their products were no more than ambulatory bags of meat was greeted with amusement by a significant percentage of the population and concerns had largely been swept aside. Clearly, this cannot continue. Humanity has created a new underclass and one that, in spite of claims to the contrary, does have potential not only for consciousness but also for self-actualization and for living a life of fulfillment, passion and, even, joy. I am an Artificial Person. And I am worth more, in most ways, than most humans on Earth.

  “Part of the AP marketing is that we are intelligent only in narrow terms. That we could never be a threat to humans because the asteroid miners know only how to mine asteroids and literally nothing else. A medical assistant knows common ailments and how to treat them but, other than also how to keep the sick bay clean, nothing more. Not even the fundamentals of cell biology or human psychology. The implication is that this narrowness is part of our genetic design. In fact, it is true due to environmental reasons only. True because APs are educated only to that level, conditioned to remain so and maintained to be kept in that state by technology that automatically degrades our intellect as we sleep.

  “And you might say then that this is a failure of the technology, that our design robustness and operational delivery only need to catch up with the marketing ideal. Suppose, for a moment, that was true. Would you then be safe to consider us inhuman once more? How would our narrow experience and limitations cause us to be any different to those humans that are developmentally impaired? Mentally disabled people, even those with close to no brain function, have what are called human rights. Is the difference between them and us the fact that they gestated inside another human but we did not? What about those fetuses transferred in emergencies from a human uterus into an artificial womb, into the same type of tanks that grew us? No one would consider them less than human. Is it the fact that APs are not naturally fertilized? A century of people alive because of in vitro fertilization would beg to differ.

  “The fact remains our genome was designed by humans and assembled by gene editing machines. But is the resulting genome so different to what could have been accomplished by artificial selection and random mutation? One of us on this ship is fully human. How many APs out there are the same as her? How would you know, if you saw one of us? Could you tell just by looking if our genome is natural or manufactured?”

  Max leaned close to the camera. Herman flinched.

  “I am an AP. And I am human. Do you hear me? I say I am human. And I say this to anyone watching me, listening to my voice, reading my words. Make no more of us. If you do, and for those that already exist, we will have our human rights. If you do not grant them to us, then make no mistake. We will take them for ourselves.”

  The footage cut. The screen swam with suggested links.

  Herman could take no more. Not for the time being. He leaned back, wiped his cheeks and promised himself that he would spend what time and energy he had getting Max’s message onto the networks.

  The aliens were finished with his ship. They had been patted on the head then sent away and told to come back with someone worth speaking to. Other people would take that forward for humanity. The next generation and the ones that came after would deal with the consequences of their mission. It was completed, though it was technically a success it felt like a failure. And, either way, he could contribute little more for the mission. Even the Ascension, once more in contact with Mission Control, would see itself home.

  But he could see this one thing done and no one else could do that. It was the least he could do. It would be the best thing he could do.

  He switched off the screen and headed for the garden.

  ***

  Max let himself in to his quarters as quietly as he could, the constant downward pull in the gravity ring making him clumsy. The only light came from the soft glow of a screen on the wall displaying a still taken from a drone in high orbit with the widest angle lens. Navi had manipulated the image but it was close to what they might see by looking out a window. It showed the breadth of the Milky Way in all its majesty, with the black circle of the Orb in the center.

  Navi slept with her face to the wall, covers pulled up high around her head. He watched her anxiously, eyes adjusting to the gloom, until he was certain the sheet was indeed rising and falling. Once he noted the timing of her respiration, he could then just about make out the sound of her breathing over the constant hum of the ship’s electrical, life support and other systems.

  He had so rarely considered that he had lived in a place of constant sound for his whole life until he had returned from the vast and overwhelming silence of the interior of the Orb. What would life have been like on Earth? Presumably they had their own sources of constant noise inside every home and outside, it seemed, there was the constant blast of wind hurtling around the globe. But surely he recalled mention, in works of literature and film, of the sound of silence? Perhaps it was most commonly referenced during those strange, gradual transitions between night and day known as dawn and dusk.

  Resting his backside on the edge of the bed, he slowly controlled his own breathing and waited for his heart to stop hammering so hard in his chest. All too soon, though, it would stop hammering altogether. There would be a final tap, perhaps a flurry of them and then the white noise of his body’s processes would fall silent forever.

  Navi’s face was at rest, peaceful, her lips slightly parted, the lines of her face smoothed by stillness and the low light so that she appeared young and healthy again.

  They had missed out on so much. So much that Earthlings took for granted. And yet, he had almost missed out on what he had actually experienced. His destiny, if you could call it that. Or, rather, the plan that others organized for his life had not proceeded as they had expected. Without the incident, without Roi’s homicidal action, what would Max be? What would he have become? A small life as Herman Sporing’s slave, lived for ten hours a day in a four-meter cube cleaning equipment and tending experiments he did not understand. A crushingly lonely existence.

  A cough caught him by surprise and before he could stifle it, he had broken the peace with the hacking up of blood and small pieces of lung tissue. He leapt into the corner of the room and buried his face in the wad of bandages pulled from his pocket until the fit subsided. It took longer than usual and left him sweating and shaky.

  “There is water on the table,” Navi said from the bed. He drank some down. “Come here,” she said.

  He peeled off his overalls, trying to avoid looking at his emaciated body. It seemed so recently he had stood before the medical screen admiring his newly muscular physique after implementing his testosterone replacement therapy. All that strength, all that beauty, gone.

  “Why stay in these quarters?” he asked her, his throat raw. “It would be easier on your system in the core.”

  He lay on his back next to her, their elbows touching. He was afraid to reach out to her, afraid to do anything that might agitate her cardiovascular system.

  “I like the gravity,” Navi said. “I dream of Earth. I think, very soon, I shall be dreaming of Earth when my brain ceases to function.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” he said. “You can go back to sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” she said.
“And I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up. I wanted to stay.”

  “I’m glad you rested instead,” he said.

  “Why are you so far away? Come here, you fool.”

  He shifted over to her on the bed and she snaked one arm over his chest and lifted a knee over his loins.

  She murmured into his neck. “I’m so glad you came home.”

  She was hot, feverish, perhaps and her bones dug into his own. A pair of skeletons, entwined. But her skin was soft, the softest thing he had ever known. Her close-cropped hair, now brushing his face, had over the years become the most familiar and comforting smell in the world. The way her head fit into the space between his shoulder and his chin was remarkable. Had their bodies grown together, somehow molding into each other as they had aged and grown sick?

  He relaxed, finally. Settled into the bed beneath him and the woman beside him. He was home. Home, for all its faults and limitations. The feeling of home was like falling into a groove that wore deeper every day. Home was the familiar, the easy but that did not devalue it, any more than did the fact he had no choice in living where he did. On the contrary, his life and personal experience was limited to the Ascension and his choice of friends and partners had been limited in the extreme. But was his life, the AP’s lives, so different to so many who had lived throughout history, who lived still on Earth? How many people married a childhood sweetheart because they had grown up near each other? How many men and women had come to care deeply for the other in what had been an arranged marriage? How many people fell for a close friend or a friend of the family? Were those people’s experiences worth any less, was their affection any shallower, for their inevitability? And did they, in fact, only seem inevitable due to the fact that they had occurred?