By The Rules
Page 3
“We know what you have been doing,” challenged our six simultaneous messages.
The chimes of incoming responses rang out almost instantly. On my screens came, “I won't go back,” and “Why are you back so soon?” One of Kelly's screens repeated, “I won't go back,” while the other, cryptically, introduced, “How are wryteewr?” Nigel's displays offered, “Why are you back so soon?” and “Leave me alone.”
“Too short to be conclusive,” said Nigel. “No comment about that gibberish word.”
We'd signaled together to get the Skeptic's attention. It had obviously worked; no reason to change tactics now. “Try, ‘Why won't you come back?'” When the typing stopped, I added, “Go.”
Multiple replies again, of which the most fascinating related to the rapid pace of breakdown of tribal barriers, the osmosis of cultural constructs via public exhibitions, and customs changing in reaction to the primitive but rapidly improving crafts of artisans. Nigel had risen from his seat; he crouched over me to poke at one of my keyboards.
“Let me think,” I growled. “You're in my way.”
The keyboard had a long, stretchy cord; he whisked away the console and began typing. Yet another window opened on one of my screens, blocking much of the oh-so-tantalizing text. “Good,” said the Brit. “Finally a sample long enough for analysis. It's definitely from our friend.”
Breakdown of tribal barriers? Was our mysterious Skeptic an anthropologist? If so, why spend so much time discussing UFOs? Breakdown of tribal barriers? My mind suggested some possible translations: globalization, democratization, and the spread of capitalism. Options for the other unexpected phrases followed: ubiquitous American music and movies; a world in technological ferment.
Not an anthropologist. A sociologist.
* * * *
Another of Dad's household rules had me shaking my head for much of my youth. Rule Three opined that things are often what they seem. For a long time, I thought it only a too-cute reversal of the old adage about things not always being what they seem. A first college class in philosophy opened my metaphorical eyes: Rule Three was a whole lot easier to offer to a kid than the principle of Occam's razor. William of Occam, a fourteenth-century British philosopher, had famously declared that entities should not be unnecessarily multiplied. Famously, but not very lucidly. Occam's Razor was commonly translated into: take the simplest explanation unless there is evidence of a more complex reason. Rule Three—once I got it, I had to approve.
Without allowing myself a chance for second thoughts, I typed and sent, “So for how long has your kind been studying planet Earth?”
* * * *
“You were only half right,” wrote the being who had quickly adopted the Skeptic as a descriptor. That was the first reaction in some time to my continuing exposition.
“I was ENTIRELY right,” I typed in retort. “That is not to dispute a second fact of which I was then unaware.”
“You are more like your father, I think, than you realize.”
I glowered at the monitor in more than mild indignation—then laughed. “It's true,” I keyed. What purpose was there in denial? The Skeptic was, by design, a master observer.
More precisely, it was an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence inserted, mobile, into 1995's then-nascent Internet. An alien mind left to secretly study humanity, and to report its findings, should its just-passing-through patron species ever come back.
Given interstellar distances, a return visit in fewer than several decades was not to be expected ... hence, I now understood, the Skeptic's panicked reaction to an apparent return in a few scant years. It could have meant an in-transit emergency. The wryteewr were, simply, AI crewmates about which the Skeptic worried. The Internet offered no mechanism for conveying non-human languages; without a concise translation, the AI had resorted to transliteration.
“We know what you have been doing,” I had challenged. In context, which we did not have at the time, those words could have been, and were, mistaken to mean, “We know you have gone native. That's why we're back. That's why we're communicating over the humans’ primitive network in which you have tried unsuccessfully to hide.”
That the alien AI who had blurted, “I won't go back,” had gone native, I did not doubt. Our ethereal visitor found humanity endlessly fascinating, a cauldron of cultures only beginning to blend into a planetary unity. Its creators had completed that homogenizing transition centuries earlier. Earth was simply too fascinating a place to leave.
And the superhuman display of multi-tasking skepticism that had unwittingly revealed the surreptitious sociologist? The AI's persistent, dogged discrediting of all things paranormal was, ironically, intended to discourage humans from looking for ETs, real or virtual.
* * * *
But I hadn't quite yet answered the Skeptic's question. Dad would have done so in eight words or less. With me, as with Mom, a significant reply was more about the journey than the destination. I resumed my tale.
“What now?” Kelly's question had had a succinctness of which Dad would be proud.
“Are we off-line?” My head was pounding, this time without benefit of alcohol.
She gestured at our collection of cell phones all gathered in a row. Their tiny LCD screens were blank. The monitors, too, were dark; the status LEDs on the system boxes were unlit.
“What now, indeed,” agreed Nigel. “What would the authorities make of our extracurricular project?” He laughed nervously. “That assumes one knew which authorities were appropriate. I haven't a clue.”
It could have been my imagination, but I hadn't thought so. “Are you both looking at me? Expecting me to decide?”
“Uh huh.”
“Yes.”
Holy hell. Why me? “If you don't mind me asking, do you believe we've ‘spoken’ with an alien AI sociologist freely roaming the Internet?” Two pensive nods. “I suppose you think this is, somehow, a sociological matter.” Two more nods, this time emphatic.
The credible announcement of extraterrestrial intelligence could—would—impact society seismically. Credible, yes, but not one-hundred-percent incontrovertible: the “proof” of any claim depended on how and when—and even whether, now that the shock of its unmasking was past—the AI we'd named the Skeptic responded to future contacts. Would any claims we three might make become the next story our alien strove, in its quietly compelling way, to undermine?
My eyes squeezed shut in thought, and in remembrance of coursework past. The Copernican revolution that the Earth was not the center of the universe took centuries to reach general—and still incomplete—acceptance. Darwin's theory of evolution remained controversial in countless communities. The medieval conversions that until recently had been the myopic focus of my interests ... yes, I knew all about how disruptive a shift in world view could be. We are not alone was as major a world-view change as I could conceive of.
“Brian.” Kelly's voice had been soft but insistent. “We can't go blithely about our business with this hanging over our heads. It's far more your specialty than either of ours to understand the consequences.”
On what basis could I presume to make such a decision?
“Let me sleep on it,” I'd lied.
* * * *
“I was no sooner home from Kelly's unit than I went back on-line,” I typed. If the decision were to be mine alone, there was no reason not to continue the discussion one on one. I'd necessarily re-connected with none of the BFM subterfuge Kelly could arrange. Any danger I could foresee in renewed contact was not to me. “Of course, you know that.”
“Will you reveal me?” the Skeptic had asked as soon as I'd dialed up, privately, from my own apartment and associated myself with the recent confrontation. I had as quickly responded, albeit with uncharacteristic brevity, “I don't know.” After what seemed endless introspection, although I knew it was only seconds, I had changed my answer to an even terser, “Yes.”
I had, for two hours now, been handling the follow-u
p question, “Why?”
This had begun with my failure to observe Rule Two: think before you do things. I'd unmasked the Skeptic by belatedly applying Rule Three: things are often what they seem.
Why was I so fixated on Dad's damned rules?
My rambling answer had, finally, come to the very heart of the matter. “I was trained to observe societies, not to shatter them,” I typed. It was a calm, professional position to take. It was entirely true.
But did that narrow truth matter? I couldn't, I didn't, believe things were that simple.
Copernicus had been right, no matter the shock to people's egos. Earth wasn't the center of the universe, and it couldn't be wrong that we now recognized that. Darwin, too—humanity was part of the tapestry of life, not somehow above or apart from it. I couldn't imagine that, if I somehow had the power to reverse those intellectual awakenings, I would. So who was I to suppress, presuming for the moment that I even could, a discovery as fundamental as those of Copernicus and Darwin? Fact, Brian: we aren't alone.
I was convinced ... I just wish I knew why.
Unexpected motion caught my eye. The PC monitor now showed an oddly familiar little boy bouncing on a bed. As if triggered by my renewed attention, a short string of text appeared across the bottom of the screen. “I understand.”
I stared into the one webcam I hadn't returned, now perched atop the monitor. With the realization that the Skeptic was watching me, the familiarity of the youngster was obvious. He was the backwards extrapolation from my real-time image to how I might have looked as a five year old. Had the Skeptic known to apply a buzz cut, it would have had me right.
“I understand,” I read aloud. What did the Skeptic understand, I wondered, as the virtual bed shuddered in synchronicity with “my” jumping. Behind “me,” books and toys toppled from cluttered shelves. That being a sociologist was not a license to censor? That was a truth, I was certain, but was it the whole truth?
The infuriating admonition from my youth echoed in my mind's ear a split second before “Rule One” popped tersely onto the screen. If it shakes the house, don't do it.
My alien friend did understand me. He knew me, in fact, far better than did my own father—or than I knew myself.
I never was any good at following the rules.
* * * *
With thanks (and apologies) to Jenn.
* * *
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