by Bill Napier
You see what this means? Your girlfriend drinks some enzyme juice, gets herself pregnant and nine months later she’s produced a superior little baby.
Callaghan: A genetically modified baby? Are you serious?
Petrie: One which will never suffer disease. When we’ve worked through the enzymes, my bet is we’ll have a means to boost our intellects, live three hundred years, maybe three thousand. We’ll have transformed humanity but that’s just scraping the surface. There’s a mountain of stuff I couldn’t understand but it related to particle physics. I saw some of the easier subnuclear patterns – Gell Mann’s eightfold way and stuff like that – and I thought I glimpsed a Calabi-Yau space, but most of it I hadn’t a clue about, and I think we’re being given knowledge of physics centuries ahead of where we are now. We can’t handle the real stuff because it’s so advanced we’d have no basis for understanding it – it’d be like giving calculus to an ape – so they’re making it easy for us, giving us stuff a few centuries ahead instead of thousands of years ahead. We don’t need to think that far ahead anyway since what they’ve given us is enough to transform all our lives and we’re still just skimming the surface of it. There’s an intelligence out there which maybe holds all knowledge and it knows more about us than we do about ourselves.
Alice: Whoa, Tom, slow down for us. What do you mean, an intelligence out there? You know the source of these signals?
Petrie: I do, yes I do. I absolutely know where they’re coming from and it’s absolutely incredible.
Callaghan: Well?
A sly grin momentarily breaks the tension on Petrie’s face: That’s a bargaining chip. I’ll keep it to myself for now.
Callaghan: Okay, Tom. You said something about still skimming the surface. What do you mean?
Petrie: Yes, there’s more, far far more, but this next bit will blow your mind. I can’t take it in myself, it’s just fantasy … Can I have some water or something, please?
Off-screen muttering. A chair scrapes on a hard surface. A door bangs.
Petrie stands up: I don’t think you’ll grasp the next bit.
Callaghan: Tom, don’t be so bloody insulting. I have a degree in law.
Petrie: We’re being invaded.
Callaghan: What? Look, Tom, sit down and calm down. I don’t get it.
Petrie: Listen, you dumb ox …
Callaghan: You’re right, Tom. I must be dumb because why else would they assign me out here in the boonies?
Petrie: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.
Callaghan: That’s okay, Tom. You did mean it and you’re right. So why don’t you calm down and explain why you think Darth Vader is heading this way?
Petrie laughs, but his hand is shaking as he takes the glass of water. Some dribbles down the side of his mouth. A female hand, all bangles and rings, appears with a paper handkerchief. He dabs at his chin.
* * *
The President was biting a thumbnail. He glanced over at his Science Adviser. ‘He’s high on something, right?’
‘No, sir. He just got more and more excited as he told his tale.’
‘So he’s a screwball?’
‘No, sir. He’s as sane as any of us.’
Bull shook his head as if to clear it. ‘He’s sure as hell blowing my mind.’
Hazel gave the President an arch smile. ‘Wait till you hear the next bit.’
* * *
Petrie stands up again. He is pacing up and down and on occasion is completely off-screen.
Alice says, ‘I’m getting a headache.’
‘You said we’re being invaded. They’re already among us; maybe like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers?’ Callaghan’s tone is flat.
Petrie taps at his jacket. ‘I have the advance guard right here in my pocket. But it’s not a physical invasion. It’s an invasion of ideas.’
There is a long, strained silence. Petrie, owl-like behind his round spectacles, forces a brief, nervous smile. Alice leans back in her chair. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s just off the wall.’ She turns to Callaghan. ‘I think we should turn him in.’
Callaghan is peering thoughtfully into Petrie’s eyes. ‘Keep talking, Tom.’
Petrie shakes his head in frustration, like a man lacking the words to get his thoughts over. He sits down again. ‘Imagine a world where countries are always at war with each other. So, war is good. War forces change, drives technology, sweeps away dead wood and so on. But as technology advances it reaches a point where it’s so destructive that societies crash if they go to war. At that stage things can go one of two ways. Either they keep going back to the Stone Age, or they get through the threshold by developing some code for living together.’
‘Where did you get that from? Out of some CND pamphlet?’
‘Now if you’re on a planet that doesn’t get through the barrier, you don’t matter. You keep going back to the Dark Ages and that’s that. But if you break that threshold, if you evolve a moral code which makes war impossible, there’s no stopping you. You just keep growing in technology and knowledge. Survival of the fittest selects those civilisations. Until they hit the next barrier.’
‘Which is?’
‘Your first extraterrestrial contact. Then natural selection works just like before, only on a different scale of space and time. Now it’s planets instead of countries but the same rules apply. On the long term the choice is still between mutual destruction or mutual sharing of some moral code which allows survival.’
‘With you so far. The good guys win through.’ Callaghan is humouring a lunatic. ‘Don’t quite connect it with this alien signal, though.’
‘Right. Right.’ Petrie blinks in surprise, as if he thinks the connection is self-evident. ‘Okay, here’s a question that bugged us from the day we got the signal. Why did they contact us? They don’t need us, not for food, not for their test tubes. We’re too primitive to be of any interest to them.’
‘They just want to be nice to us?’ Callaghan suggests.
‘They want us to survive, for their own reasons. And to survive they want us to adopt a particular complex of ideas because that’s our best chance of survival. If we don’t, we become a threat to them, maybe a thousand years down the line, maybe just a hundred. They need us to evolve towards their values and morality because it’s their best protection.’
‘Otherwise we might turn into Vikings or something?’
Petrie nods. ‘Exactly. And if we don’t respond, we’re a potential threat to the signal. Not now, but in the future. I don’t know how they handle a threat.’
Callaghan is struggling. ‘Excuse me, did I hear you say we could become a threat to the signal?’
‘Yes, Joe, the signal. It propagates, it grows, it evolves by natural selection, it communicates. By any reasonable definition it’s a living thing. It’s infinitely powerful because it contains all knowledge. And it uses life forms as its medium of storage. I guess that’s why it wants us to survive and prosper. Life is rare and precious.’
Alice says, ‘You’re a nutcase.’
Petrie grins desperately. ‘And I’ve been running amok with an axe. You know what Darwin said? He said the chicken is the means by which the egg reproduces itself. The egg has all the information it needs to make the chicken. The information is stored in the DNA but the storage medium doesn’t matter – it can be molecules or silicon chips or paper tape. The knowledge is what matters. You can encode life in a string of letters, you could even reduce it to Morse code.’
‘Now hold on, a musical score ain’t music,’ Callaghan objects.
‘Excellent point, Joe, on the button. You need an instrument to play a tune, and the signal needs life forms to propagate itself. Signal and life need each other like the chicken and egg need each other.’
‘The invaders are ideas? Not guys in spacesuits?’
‘There’s no point in interstellar travel because civilisations don’t need it. With the information content in these particle flows you don’t have to visit alien wor
lds, you could recreate them in virtual space. The signal outstrips any conceivable spaceship. At the speed of light, information can cross the Galaxy in fifty thousand years.’
‘Still a helluva time.’
‘Joe, it’s a lot less than the lifespan of a primate species. Expand your mind. Anyway the nearest signallers could be next door. We’re just four hundred years from Antares, two hundred from Betelgeuse, eight years from Sirius and four months from the Oort cloud.’
‘Let me get this right – the invaders are ideas?’ Callaghan asks.
‘The life forms stay nice and cosy in their own planetary system or whatever. They might be organic life forms like us, or machines or computers or molecules, but so far as the signal is concerned, life is just a storage medium. The signal is the real living entity.’
‘The signals have colonised the Galaxy,’ Callaghan repeats. He is still struggling with the concept.
‘Not guys in spacesuits, not even machines. The colonisers are imperialistic, all-conquering complexes of ideas and information bound together by a moral code which ensures mutual survival of life forms – organic life or machine descendants – because without life forms to transmit it, the signal itself would die.’
‘Gentle Jesus, I’m just a Trade Adviser.’
Alice asks, ‘Are we supposed to believe that this signal is a living entity or what? Is it a spiritual thing?’
‘I don’t know. It encompasses all knowledge. It evolves and reproduces itself and acts to protect itself. It inculcates its baby – life – with the moral code it needs for its own survival and that of life. It pervades the Galaxy.’
‘Maybe even beyond?’ Alice suggests. ‘Making the Universe a living thing?’
Petrie grins again. ‘You’re getting into the spirit, Alice. Maybe our Galaxy has been seeded, maybe genetic material drifts around like spores, I don’t know. Some of it takes, some of it doesn’t. But just as soon as any garbage civilisation crawls out of the caves and learns the most primitive biochemistry, the signallers fire off a blueprint for survival.’ His eyes are gleaming. ‘There’s a Galactic club out there. It’s a paradise club, it’s immortality. The signal is an invitation to join.’
* * *
The President put his beer can on a coffee-table, still unopened. He contemplated it for a few seconds, sighed, looked up and grinned. ‘Yep, I’ve finally heard it all.’
The CIA Director said, ‘Seth, if you were trying to beat a murder rap, would you come up with a yarn like that?’
43
The Oort Cloud
‘Now just so we can get the complete background, Tom – why the murder?’
‘It was self-defence. He was sent to kill us all.’
‘Ah yes – “they’re out to get me”. You told me that. Who is out to get you, Tom? The Slovaks? The aliens?’
‘Sneer away, Joe, but I have the evidence right here in my pocket.’ Petrie taps at his casual jacket. ‘I think my own government wants me dead, maybe the Russians too.’
‘At the risk of asking the obvious…’
‘My guess is they still have a pre-emptive strike mentality. They think we should keep our heads down. If we reply, it’s telling the signallers that we’re approaching a technological stage where we could become a risk to them maybe a few centuries down the line. They think the signal could be a lure to flush out civilisations like us in order to remove us.’
‘But you don’t believe that?’
‘If the signallers thought like that, they’d have self-destructed long ago.’
‘Tom, maybe my government will take the same line as your government. You know what I mean?’
‘I know. I’m taking that chance.’
* * *
Hazel said, ‘He’s keeping something back.’
Sullivan looked sharply at the Science Adviser. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Can we run it back? Go to that bit about timespans.’
Petrie’s soul-baring ran backwards, stopped, ran back again, and then settled on ‘… a helluva time.’
‘Look at his posture near the end of the sentence.’
A frame at a time; Petrie’s voice a low-pitched, robot-like drawl. We’re-just-four-hundred-years-from-Antares-two-hundred-from-Betelgeuse-eight-years-from-Sirius-and-four-months-from-the-Oort-cloud. The frame froze. Petrie’s mouth was half-open, intensity congealed on his face.
‘A hesitation on the last phrase?’ the DCI asked.
‘Yes. And a slight shifting back in his seat. He wasn’t sure about the Oort cloud.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t sure this damn cloud fitted his argument.’
‘No sir, that’s not what the body language is saying. Look at the way he leans back after he mentions the cloud. See how he puts his fingers over his mouth. He’s thinking, I shouldn’t have said that. He’s said more than he intended.’
‘What is this damned Oort cloud anyway?’
Killman said, ‘It’s a reservoir of maybe a hundred billion comets orbiting the Sun. They’re so far beyond the planets that the Sun heats them to just three degrees above absolute zero.’
‘How do we know this cloud is there? Can we see it?’
‘It’s invisible from here.’
‘So how the hell do you know it’s there?’ Bull repeated.
‘We see stray comets coming in from it.’
The President pulled a sceptical face. ‘Surely three degrees absolute is too cold for life forms?’
‘Three degrees rings a bell,’ said Baxendale.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Killman. ‘By coincidence the relict heat from the Big Bang is also at three degrees. We’re immersed in it. So when the cosmologists thought they were seeing primordial ripples in the Big Bang radiation, they were actually looking at patches of dust in the Oort cloud. Fooled them for years.’
‘Some of us don’t have degrees in astrophysics,’ Bull complained.
Killman put a fat hand to his forehead, horrified. ‘And Petrie thinks the signal came from the Oort cloud?’
Hazel was shaking her head doubtfully. ‘Does that make sense? Life on a deep freeze planet?’
‘No, ma’am, not in my opinion. But it raises another issue.’ The physicist raised a finger in the air. They gave him time, while he gathered his thoughts. Then he was speaking to himself. ‘I think I see what this guy’s getting at. He thinks there’s a relay station in the Oort cloud.’ He raised his head and seemed surprised to find that he had an audience. ‘Could be it fires signals at us from time to time.’
‘You mean they’ve been watching us?’ Bull asked Killman in alarm.
‘Maybe for a million years.’
Hazel turned to Bull. ‘Mr President, if this Oort cloud story is right, then any contact you make may not just affect our remote descendants. The cloud’s only three months away at the speed of light. If we replied to the signal, we could get a response within six months. Three or four weeks if it’s in the inner cloud, which is even more stable.’
The DCI sipped beer. ‘Maybe a response like a death ray.’
‘All information about the galactic civilisations, all knowledge, could be stored in stations like this. They could be scattered round every planetary system with life, they could get updated every millennium or two.’
Killman was beginning to look wild-eyed. ‘Dialogue with the relay station would in effect be dialogue with the Galactic club, but with a response time of weeks instead of thousands of years. If this guy’s right – it’s breathtaking!’
Bull sighed. ‘I’d like us to keep our eye on the ball here. This Iraq business is filling my diary by the hour, and what am I doing about it? I’m sitting here listening to fantasy. All we have is this lunatic’s word.’
Sullivan said, ‘We have hard evidence.’
‘Huh?’
‘A compact disk. A sampler, this Petrie says, with knowledge centuries ahead of the present time. The main information is on another disk which he has with him.’
‘Now that’s what we
really need. Hard evidence. So where is this sampler disk?’
‘I have it on site,’ said Hazel. ‘At least its electronic contents. I’m having to call on outside help for analysis.’
Bull looked at Baxendale disapprovingly. ‘That’s dangerous.’
‘I’d like to call in Fort Detrick with your permission, Mr President,’ said Hazel.
‘It’s okay, Mr President,’ Sullivan said. ‘I’m handling the security angle.’
‘We could have results by tonight,’ said Baxendale.
Bull stood up, and the others got to their feet. ‘I don’t like this. Some knowledge is just too dangerous to handle. But yes, bring in Fort Detrick.’ He turned to Killman. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr MIT.’
Killman opened his mouth to say, ‘Actually, it’s Professor Killman’, but then he caught Hazel’s look and left quietly. She’d had enough trouble getting him into Shangri-La in the first place.
When the door had closed behind the MIT Professor, the President turned to his Science Adviser and the DCI. ‘This is a helluva way to spend a day. Hazel, I’ll hear your report on the guy’s sample disk this evening. Use my helicopter to ferry in personnel. If this turns out to be kosher I’ll bring in Paley and Flood. If it’s not, I want to be back in the Oval Office tomorrow morning.’
Outside Aspen, the CIA Director glanced up at the low, heavy sky. Big snowflakes were materialising out of the amorphous grey. By tomorrow morning Camp David would be all but inaccessible by road. He turned up the collar of his windcheater to protect his neck against the freezing air and the big snowflakes, and made footprints in the pristine snow on the path.
He thought that his phrase ‘handling the security angle’ had carried just the right degree of vagueness.
There were some things with which you shouldn’t burden the President.