Identity Theft and Other Stories

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “Okay,” said King.

  “And the three possible replies are below. Two of them are strings of DNA. The first one—in answer box one—is a string of DNA very similar to the one above. It reads as CAC—the same as before; TTA—which is one nucleotide different from the string on the top, so it codes for, umm, let me see, for leucine instead of serine; and then there’s GTC again, which is valine, just as before.”

  “So it differs by only one-ninth from the specimen at the top,” said Larry. “A close relative, you might say.”

  Darren nodded. “Exactly. And that brings us to the second possible response. Like the first possible response, it consists of nine codons, but here the codons don’t match at all—the sequence is completely different from the one above. And, if you look carefully, you’ll see it’s not just frameshifted out of synch from the sample above; it really has nothing in common with it. Nor could it be a possible match for the other side of the DNA ladder, because it doesn’t have the same pattern of duplicated letters.”

  “So that second string of DNA represents a distant relative—if it’s a relative at all,” said King. “Would that be right?”

  “It’s as good a guess as any,” said Darren.

  “And the third possible answer?” asked King.

  “That’s the puzzler,” said Darren. “The third answer box is empty; blank. There’s nothing in it except three pixels in the upper right, which just indicate that it is the third possible answer.”

  “Have we ever seen an empty box like that before in one of the Tailiens’ messages?” asked King.

  “Yes,” said Darren. “It was in message four-dash-twelve, one of the math problems. They asked us what the correct answer to six divided by zero is. The possible answers they gave us were six, one, and a blank box.”

  “And—wait a second, wait a second—you can’t divide by zero, can you?”

  “That’s right; it’s a meaningless concept: how many times does nothing go into something? So, in that case, we chose the empty box as our answer.”

  “And what’s the correct answer this time?” asked King.

  Darren spread his arms, just as he’d seen dozens of other people—including many working scientists, rather than hobbyists like him—do today on other talk shows when asked the same question. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Everybody had hoped that other messages would continue to come from the Tailiens. Just as they had gone on to send the math problems after receiving no reply to the anatomy diagrams, humanity hoped that they would continue sending questions or information before a reply was sent.

  But the Tailiens didn’t. They seemed to be intent on waiting for a response to the DNA puzzle.

  And, finally, the United Nations decided that one should indeed be sent. By this point, Darren was pretty much out of the spotlight—and glad of it. The United Nations secretary-general himself was coming to Las Vegas to initiate the blinking of the city’s lights. That was fine with Darren; he wasn’t sure that the UN scientists had come up with the right answer, and he didn’t want sending an incorrect reply to be on his head.

  The answer the UN had decided to go with was number one: the DNA that was similar, but not identical, to the sample string. There were various rationales offered for supposing that it was the correct response. Some said it was obvious: the aliens were moving us beyond questions of absolute truth, the kind of clear right or wrong that went with mathematical expressions; this new message was designed to test our ability to think in terms of similarity, of soft relationships. Although none of the three choices matched the sample string, the first one was the most similar.

  Another interpretation was that it was a test of our knowledge of evolution. Did new species (the blank space to the right of the sample string) emerge by gradual changes (answer one, with its single nucleotide difference); by complete genetic redesign (answer two, with its totally dissimilar DNA); or out of nothing—that is, through creationist processes?

  Some of the fundamentalists at the UN argued that the third answer was therefore the proper one: the aliens were testing our righteousness before deciding whether to admit us to the galactic club. But others argued that everything the aliens had presented so far was scientific—mathematics, anatomical charts, DNA—and that the scientific answer was the only one to give: new species arose by incremental changes from old ones.

  Regardless of whether it was a question about inexact relationships or about the principles of evolution, answer one would be the correct response. And so the lights of Las Vegas were turned off one last time in a single, knowing wink at the heavens.

  Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed happened to be in the communications room when the response was received from the third planet. Of course, regardless of what answer they’d chosen, it would begin with one stretch of darkness, so Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed waited…and waited…and waited for a second and third.

  But more darkness never came. Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed’s tail twitched.

  He had to tell Captain Curling-Sixth-Finger, of course; indeed, the computer had probably already informed her that a response was being received, and she was presumably even now making her way down the spoke from her command module, and—

  And there she was now: twice Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed’s size, and capable of the kind of fierceness only a female could muster.

  “What is the response?” demanded Curling-Sixth-Finger as she floated into the room.

  “One,” signed Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed with restrained, sad movements. “They chose answer one.”

  Curling-Sixth-Finger’s feeding slit momentarily opened, exposing slick pink tissue within. “So be it,” she signed with her left hand, and “So be it” she repeated with her right.

  Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed whipped his tail back and forth in frustration. It was such a straightforward question: when seeking other life forms to associate with, do you choose (1) the being most closely related to you genetically; (2) the being least related to you genetically; or (3) is it impossible to answer this question based on genetics?

  Answer three, of course, was the morally right answer; any advanced being must know that. Oh, it was true that primitive animals sought to protect and favor those with whom they shared many genes, but the very definition of civilization was recognizing that nepotism was not the engine that should drive relationships.

  Perhaps, reflected Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed, such enlightenment had come more easily to his people, for with partners changing every mating season, genetic relationships were complex and diffuse. The race inhabiting the second planet of the star they had last visited had chosen the wrong answer, too; they’d also picked the first choice.

  And they’d paid the price for that.

  If nepotism drives you as a species, if protecting those who are most closely related to you is paramount, if forming allegiances based on familial lines is at the core of your society, then how can you ever be trusted in relationships with beings that are alien to you? Yes, it seemed all life, at least in this neighborhood of the galaxy, was based on DNA, and therefore was quite possibly related in its distant, distant past. But, then again, all creatures on any given world also share a common ancestor. And yet—

  And yet these benighted souls of the third planet still chose genetic favoritism; indeed, they were so convinced of its righteousness, convinced that it was the proper order of things, that they didn’t even attempt to disguise it by giving a false answer. Those poor creatures, prisoners of their own biology…

  Curling-Sixth-Finger was already on the intercom, calling down to the propulsion room, telling Fist-Held-Sideways to engage the fusion motors. Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed felt an invisible hand pressing down upon him, driving him to the floor, as the great engines came to life. As he and Curling-Sixth-Finger settled to deck plates, Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed looked up at her.

  “I’ve got no choice,” she signed. “A species driven by selfish genes is
too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

  Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed slowly, sadly spread his fingers in agreement. The Ineluctable would dive down into the plane of the solar system, into the cometary belt just past the orbit of the eighth planet, and it would launch a series of comets on trajectories that would send them sailing in for eventual rendezvous with the third planet.

  Oh, it would take time—thousands of years—before the impacts. But eventually they would strike, and two skyswoopers would be felled with a single rock: the galaxy would have one less selfish species to worry about, and, with most of its native life wiped out, there would be room—a whole new world!—to move billions and billions of members of to.

  Palm-Up-Middle-Fingers-Splayed was glad that Fist-Held-Sideways and the other females were no longer in estrus. He didn’t feel like making love, didn’t feel like making babies.

  Not now. Not right now.

  But, of course, he would want to do that again the next time the females came into heat. He, too, he reflected, was a prisoner of biology—and for one brief moment, that shared reality made him feel a bond with the aliens that now, sadly, he would never meet.

  The Right’s

  Tough

  For some reason, I get asked to write stories for anthologies that are completely contrary to my own personal philosophy and politics: I’m in Future War, but I’m a pacifist; I’m in the Libertarian anthology Free Space, but I’m a Canadian-style socialist; and, with this piece, I appeared in Visions of Liberty, an anthology from Baen Books about how the world would be a better place without governments of any kind.

  I finished this story in 2001, ironically on US income-tax day—April 15. The book was to have been published in 2002, but then the September 11 attacks occurred—and suddenly having no government didn’t seem quite so palatable an idea. The anthology was held off until July 2004, meaning—again ironically—that it hit the stands in the heat of one of the ugliest presidential elections in US history.

  “The funny thing about this place,” said Hauptmann, pointing at the White House as he and Chin walked west on the Mall, “is that the food is actually good.”

  “What’s funny about that?” asked Chin.

  “Well, it’s a tourist attraction, right? A historic site. People come from all over the world to see where the American government was headquartered, back when there were governments. The guys who own it now could serve absolute crap, charge exorbitant prices, and the place would still be packed. But the food really is great. Besides, tomorrow the crowds will arrive; we might as well eat here while we can.”

  Chin nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s give it a try.”

  The room Hauptmann and Chin were seated in had been the State Dining Room. Its oak-paneled walls sported framed portraits of all sixty-one men and seven women who had served as presidents before the office had been abolished.

  “What do you suppose they’ll be like?” asked Chin, after they’d placed their orders.

  “Who?” said Hauptmann.

  “The spacers. The astronauts.”

  Hauptmann frowned, considering this. “That’s a good question. They left on their voyage—what?” He glanced down at his weblink, strapped to his forearm. The device had been following the conversation, of course, and had immediately submitted Hauptmann’s query to the web. “Two hundred and ten years ago,” Hauptmann said, reading the figure off the ten-by-five centimeter display. He looked up. “Well, what was the world like back then? Bureaucracy. Government. Freedoms curtailed.” He shook his head. “Our world is going to be like a breath of fresh air for them.”

  Chin smiled. “After more than a century aboard a starship, fresh air is exactly what they’re going to want.”

  Neither Hauptmann nor his weblink pointed out the obvious: that although a century had passed on Earth since the Olduvai started its return voyage from Franklin’s World, only a couple of years had passed aboard the ship and, for almost all of that, the crew had been in cryosleep.

  The waiter brought their food, a Clinton (pork ribs and mashed potatoes with gravy) for Hauptmann, and a Nosworthy (tofu and eggplant) for Chin. They continued chatting as they ate.

  When the bill came, it sat between them for a few moments. Finally, Chin said, “Can you get it? I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”

  Hauptmann’s weblink automatically sent out a query when Chin made his request, seeking documents containing Chin’s name and phrases such as “overdue personal debt.” Hauptmann glanced down at the weblink’s screen; it was displaying seven hits. “Actually, old boy,” said Hauptmann, “your track record isn’t so hot in that area. Why don’t you pick up the check for both of us, and I’ll pay you back tomorrow? I’m good for it.”

  Chin glanced at his own weblink. “So you are,” he said, reaching for the bill.

  “And don’t be stingy with the tip,” said Hauptmann, consulting his own display again. “Dave Preston from Peoria posted that you only left five percent when he went out to dinner with you last year.”

  Chin smiled good-naturedly and reached for his debit card. “You can’t get away with anything these day, can you?”

  The owners of the White House had been brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

  The message, received by people all over Earth, had been simple: “This is Captain Joseph Plato of the U.N.S.A. Olduvai to Mission Control. Hello, Earth! Long time no see. Our entire crew has been revived from suspended animation, and we will arrive home in twelve days. It’s our intention to bring our landing module down at the point from which it was originally launched, the Kennedy Space Center. Please advise if this is acceptable.”

  And while the rest of the world reacted with surprise—who even remembered that an old space-survey vessel was due to return this year?—the owners of the White House sent a reply. “Hello, Olduvai! Glad to hear you’re safe and sound. The Kennedy Space Center was shut down over a hundred and fifty years ago. But, tell you what, why don’t you land on the White House lawn?”

  Of course, that signal was beamed up into space; at the time, no one on Earth knew what had been said. But everyone heard the reply Plato sent back. “We’d be delighted to land at the White House! Expect us to touch down at noon Eastern time on August 14.”

  When people figured out exactly what had happened, it was generally agreed that the owners of the White House had pulled off one of the greatest publicity coups in post-governmental history.

  No one had ever managed to rally a million people onto the Mall before. Three centuries previously, Martin Luther King had only drawn 250,000; the four separate events that had called themselves “Million-Man Marches” had attracted maybe 400,000 apiece. And, of course, since there was no longer any government at whom to aim protests, these days the Mall normally only drew history buffs. They would stare at the slick blackness of the Vietnam wall, at the nineteen haunted soldiers of the Korean memorial, at the blood-red spire of the Colombian tower—at the stark reminders of why governments were not good things.

  But today, Hauptmann thought, it looked like that magic figure might indeed have been reached: although billions were doubtless watching from their homes through virtual-reality hookups, it did seem as if a million people had come in the flesh to watch the return of the only astronauts Earth had ever sent outside the solar system.

  Hauptmann felt perfectly safe standing in the massive crowd. His weblink would notify him if anyone with a trustworthiness rating below 85% got within a dozen meters of him; even those who chose not to wear weblinks could be identified at a distance by their distinctive biometrics. Hauptmann had once seen aerial footage of a would-be pickpocket moving through a crowd. A bubble opened up around the woman as she walked along, people hustling away from her as their weblinks sounded warnings.

  “There it is!” shouted Chin, standing next to Hauptmann, pointing up. Breaking through the bottom of the cloud layer was the Olduvai’s lander, a silver hemisphere with black legs underneath. The exhau
st from its central engine was no worse than that of any VTOL aircraft.

  The lander grew ever bigger in Hauptmann’s view as it came closer and closer to the ground. Hauptmann applauded along with everyone else as the craft settled onto the lawn of what had in days of yore been the president’s residence.

  It was an attractive ship—no question—but the technology was clearly old-fashioned: engine cones and parabolic antennas, articulated legs and hinged hatches. And, of course, it was marked with the symbols of the pre-freedom era: five national flags plus logos for various governmental space agencies.

  After a short time, a door on the side of the craft swung open and a figure appeared, standing on a platform within. Hauptmann was close enough to see the huge grin on the man’s face as he waved wildly at the crowd.

  Many of those around Hauptmann waved back, and the man turned around and began descending the ladder. The motherships entire return voyage had been spent accelerating or decelerating at one g, and Franklin’s World had a surface gravity twenty percent greater than Earths. So the man—a glance at Hauptmann’s weblink confirmed it was indeed Captain Plato—was perfectly steady on his feet as he stepped off the ladder onto the White House lawn.

  Hauptmann hadn’t been crazy enough to camp overnight on the Mall in order to be right up by the landing area, but he and Chin did arrive at the crack of dawn, and so were reasonably close to the front. Hauptmann could clearly hear Plato saying, “Hello, everyone! It’s nice to be home!”

  “Welcome back,” shouted some people in the crowd, and “Good to have you home,” shouted others. Hauptmann just smiled, but Chin was joining in the hollering.

  Of course, Plato wasn’t alone. One by one, his two dozen fellow explorers backed down the ladder into the summer heat. The members of the crowd—some of whom, Hauptmann gathered, were actually descendants of these men and women—were shaking the spacers’ hands, thumping them on the back, hugging them, and generally having a great time.