Paradox: Stories Inspired by the Fermi Paradox

by Mike Resnick

  Alex didn’t need reminding.

  “Whoever set this up,” Frank continued, “they clearly didn’t care who else was on the patio. It could have been your partner, kids, the CP even. Any ideas?”

  “The chairperson is off colony, but point taken. As for who… If it’s business, I think the most likely suspects would be the Lomonosov group. They’re ruthless enough.”

  “Perhaps. But don’t jump to conclusions. This looks like a one-off, a booby-trap that won’t be tried again. But I’m still worried something else may be attempted. Can you stay put for a couple of days?”

  “I have a council meeting in three days’ time and my kids to teach tomorrow.”

  “Surely the kids can wait.”

  “No, they’re important and I don’t want to disappoint them. I like teaching and, above all, it’s my duty.”

  “All righty, I’ll try and fix it. We’ll switch the class to a secure location. That should keep them safe. Even so, you will have to take Jim with you.”

  “Does he have to come into the class?”

  “Yes. Why? Will he scare the kids?”

  “No, not if he’s out of that daft monkey suit. The kids are thirteen – they’ve got to get used to this stuff. It’s going to be part of their life anyway. I just don’t want to look wimpy.”

  Jim smiled and said in his bass voice, “Sorry sir.”

  Alex shrugged. At least his heavy had more brains than he did.

  Frank said, “Three days from now we’ll have a couple of drinks in the stellar bar and joke about this. In the meantime, you’ve plenty of space for the girls, detectives and Jim to stay here without even rubbing shoulders. They will tidy away the mess and take care of poor Chivers. Jim will stand in for him while the girls finish the investigation. Remember, even you have to conform to their requests at all times.”

  “I know, security before business before pleasure.”

  “What are you teaching, by the way?”

  “We’re halfway through a special course on the Fermi Paradox and its implications.”

  “Well, good luck with that. I’ll let myself out and will be back the day after tomorrow. Just try to relax.” Jim, in full butler mode, let him out.

  The girls turned to him and one of them, Janet, said in a low but very feminine voice, “Councillor, please resume your usual routine. We shall try to be as unobtrusive as possible. If you have any special requirements, please let us know.”

  What an offer! But he managed a meek “thanks” and sat at the desk, desperately suppressing improper thoughts. Contacting a mistress was out, security-wise. It looked like an early night with cocoa.

  At least in the morning he felt better for a good sleep. Jim brought him breakfast in bed and the news that, from an analysis of past comms, he had been the only target and, strangely, a break-in had been planned. Well, he knew how, but was not much closer to who and why. It was a puzzle. Burglary was four hundred years out of date. What the hell could they have wanted?

  Jim, looking a bit more respectable, drove the car by his own route to the class, mostly down the body of the Shepherd. It was well before midday, the light from the three evenly spaced longitudinal strip suns yet to reach its maximum; even when it did, there was little danger of sunburn, the spectrum being carefully ‘chopped’ away from that of natural solar radiation to avoid general overheating of the habitat.

  Jim sat discretely at the back of the class with the teacher, and after the kids’ respectful ‘Good morning, councillor’, Alex asked, “Are all communications, robots, slaves, companions, outside?”

  “Yes, councillor.”

  “Then you may sit.”

  He handed out the marked homework and then set a half-hour test on the last two lessons. All conducted with paper and pen.

  A sense of pride filled Alex as he watched the children work. Since the space-age had reached its maturity around 300 years ago, with full human life cycles being lived away from Earth, ‘space children’ had become adept, first in those sciences and skills necessary for survival, and latterly in the philosophies, politics and cultures needed to prosper away from Earth. Therefore he was teaching to a far from naïve audience.

  Signs of primitive life had been detected on extra-solar planets, so the lack of any evidence of intelligent life after centuries of search had increased the acuity of the Fermi Paradox. This was the third class in his series discussing the Paradox itself, after which the course went into the likely cultures, politics, or ideologies which would spring from either a positive or negative answer to Fermi’s question ‘where are they’? That’s why only the elderly such as Alex were allowed to teach this subject – it was just too important. As the revered writer Arthur C Clarke had remarked over four centuries before, either a positive or negative answer to the question ‘are there any intelligent aliens out there?’ was philosophically shattering. He needed to get this part right. The fact that a third of the class were his great or great great grandchildren did not matter. He was a patrician, and godfather to them all.

  He would steer the class towards a discussion of the intelligence-to-spacefaring terms of the Drake equation. If the answer to the Paradox was ‘we are alone’ the reasons for it would be somewhere there. It was a credible answer considering the wars and mayhem that had been endemic in all of human history and which had even intensified during the space-age. Perhaps, although humans had made it thus far, technical civilisation was still impossible in the long term. The weapons were just too powerful. Looking at the collapse at the start of the iron age (technical) the collapse of the classical world (ideological), the collapse of Islam (invasion), the world civil wars of the 20th century (socio/political), the collapse of solar civilisation only 200 years ago (the Resource Wars), it was easy to be pessimistic. The fact that each collapse had been more and more costly in human life and the degradation of ideals was not promising. The next collapse could be the last.

  Still a few minutes of the test to run. He looked protectively at the kids. Sixteen girls, twelve boys. Patrician kids to be trained in the ideology and mission of the Albion founding families. And to be ready to die for them.

  In the aftermath of the resource wars it had been decided to increase the male to female ratio, to allow some redundancy. The balance was approximately restored by the time they were forty. Males were somewhat expendable and usually assigned to the more risky functions of the colony while the females were doing the more important things such as government, security, and breeding. As with earlier tribal societies, when properly engineered this kept the ratio of dim or aggressive males acceptably low. In any case and in any generation, unfavourable gender ratios could be compensated for with slaves, lower clones, licensed human robots and so on. Gene enhancement had been banned 200 years ago. Nevertheless, it was clear that some colonial groups were cheating.

  The test was finished, merits awarded and the planned discussion on the likelihood of technical, spacefaring aliens elsewhere in the galaxy began. He loved the beauty of the topic and the extreme demands of knowledge that it demanded, from physics to biology, intelligence, culture and politics. As always, the class discussed the vastness of space and what it would take for intelligent life to cross interstellar distances. In this century the kids had one big aid to concentration: robotic probes had already been launched towards half a dozen systems within twenty light years where lifesigns had been detected. None would be transmitting results until the kids were much older, towards the ends of their long lives. There were a few moments of silence as the implications of this sank in.

  Then: “Sir, I will be old before I know if any interesting life exists outside the solar system.”

  “I’m afraid so, Richard.”

  “Why can’t we live longer?”

  “Actually, 140 is a pretty good span, half again what was thought possible before the space age and on the limit of what we can achieve.”

  “But the distances to the stars are so huge.”

  “Only
if one is thinking on an individual human scale.”

  Lucy, one of his stars, took up the baton “But isn’t that the only way we can think?”

  “Again, only if we are dealing with things on our scale. To think outside that is difficult but not impossible, and with the disciplines of physics and maths to help us, we have discovered both the quantum and cosmic universes. The time scales are the real challenge. The impossibility of grasping minute quantum time-scales is clear, but most people fail to see how impossibly large cosmic time scales really are. In fact, these are a clincher for the Fermi Paradox.”

  He had their full attention now.

  “As you know, standard propulsion bays with a nuclear engine and sufficient fuel can propel our colonies around the solar system. Mountings for such a unit are being fitted to the Shepherd at the moment. Now suppose that an extra-large engine is fitted, together with a container for the Helium 3 and Deuterium fuel as big as the Shepherd itself . Calculations show that with such an arrangement the Shepherd could be accelerated up to 1% of the velocity of light and so would be able to cross the entire galaxy in 10 million years.”

  “Now imagine that the Shepherd stops at the first opportunity and founds a colony, which then builds up wealth and sends out other ships, and so on. Oceania on Earth was colonised in this way. With quite reasonable assumptions, the galaxy could be completely colonised in 250 million years. I agree that the people who do this will evolve genetically, socially and ideologically and some will not want to go on, but galaxy-wide the diversification should be enough that some always will. Thus, even with the technology we now have, the galaxy could be colonised in only a fiftieth of its lifetime. So if starship building civilisations are at all possible, the Galaxy could have been colonised many times already! The problem is that we have never detected any signs of such intelligence in any way, either organic or machine. You can see how perceptive Fermi was to point this out in the 1940s.”

  Lucy showed her sharpness. “Does this mean that we’re doomed because technical civilisation always fails for some reason and starships are never built?”

  “Very good, and definitely something worth discussing in detail. However, this general solution to the Fermi Paradox is unlikely, as humans have lived and prospered in space for over 300 years, so many of the extinction threats are much lower than when we were confined to one planet. Both anthropogenic and cosmic threats are greatly reduced because we are now diversified into many different cultures throughout the solar system, although a galactic gamma-ray burst or black hole remain causes for concern. In fact, it is because of the latter that some of the absolutist religiously driven colonies are pushing for human seeding of the galaxy in some form.”

  “On the other hand, most of the less extremist groups such as ours reason that such cosmic threats are low enough to ignore until we can develop faster methods of interstellar transport. The data that we have seems to support us. If what you say is the answer, it would be more likely for a human rather than a cosmic factor to cause our downfall. If you consider the weapons used in the Resource Wars, just about everything that would have finished us if we had been confined to Earth, such as biological and nuclear weapons, were deployed. Not only that, but advanced machine intelligence subversion as well. Most of our security measures today are directed towards preventing our competitors or enemies (which is sometimes a fine line) from practicing similar subversion. However, the tendency for humans to fiddle with things just for the hell of it remains, even though hacking is one of the highest capital crimes. The last thing we want is any more kinds of robot revolution.”

  He glanced at Jim, who was doing his best to look harmless and smile benignly. The result was disturbing.

  “Nevertheless, because we have survived all the types of self-derived threats that could have finished us on Earth, I am inclined to think that the human doom factor is probably overrated as the answer to the Fermi Paradox. It is, in my opinion, far more likely that the social civilisation, technical and other higher terms in the Drake equation are much smaller than most of the experts calculate.”

  Several hands shot up, but Lucy was first.

  “Does this mean we are the chosen race?”

  He waved the burst of hands down and brought the class to order.

  “Let’s not get messianic. I agree that some of the extremist groups are preaching this line and some are getting enough resources together to launch the robotic probes we discussed earlier. We calculate that it will not be long before one or two of them will be in a position to mount a human expedition, although whether these will be generational, hibernatory or simply seeding we cannot say. Our agents are working hard trying to find out. Not easy, as the most likely groups are pretty fanatical and suspicious of outsiders.

  “No, the fact that we may be the first spacefaring civilisation in the galaxy does not necessarily mean that we are chosen. I think it simply means that we have been very lucky.”

  The lesson then veered into a discussion of various religious systems, proofs of God and so on. Just the sort of thing he enjoyed. Everyone over a hundred years of age was required to teach the history, cultural values and ideologies of the Albion families. He didn’t know any of his friends who didn’t just enjoy doing so but valued it. Nothing compares to learning from kids. In fact, Alex fully intended to accompany them on their educational trips to Earth, which were due soon. He would love the chance to visit a few museums of the early space age. His favourite had just acquired a fully restored Skylon and he would give a lot to see that.

  At lunchtime he handed the kids back to the teacher. “See you in three days for history.”

  “Hope so. The kids always enjoy that.”

  On the way back, Jim carefully guided the car around and over some beautiful estates, all of which (as had been agreed and specified by the council) were distinctly Mediterranean, in keeping with the rest of the habitat. The last hull of the group, the Cleator, had been decked out as a ‘green and pleasant land’ as might be expected. The décor of the next, the Gatland was still being discussed, although a majority seemed in favour of a sub-tropical mid-oceanic climate like Madeira. When working as a fleet, this variation added to the interest of travel. Of course ‘Mediterranean’ still allowed room for stylistic variation. Roman villas and Byzantine Palaces were common, as were those in Greek, Arabic and Art Deco styles. Less common was modern terrestrial, both pre and post RW. The gardens were by no means fully established yet, but the effect was already Arcadian. They passed groves of cypresses, fig trees, olives and so on. Someone was breaking the rules with a beautiful magnolia.

  Jim broke the silence. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to use the patio yet, sir.”

  “Good job I’ve plenty to do indoors, then. We’ll have a late lunch after which I’ll get down to preparing for the council meeting the day after tomorrow.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll busy myself after lunch. I’m sorry I’m not Chivers.”

  “Not your fault, old chap. He was with me so long we had built up a vast amount of memories together. What really hurts is that he was my father’s for many years, a link to my dad that’s now lost.”

  “Didn’t he do any memory downloads? I could try one.”

  “Of course. Thanks for the offer, but even if I let you do that it wouldn’t be the same without his full personality interaction which, as you know, involves the whole body and a lifetime of wear and tear. Anyway, because of the distributed nature of memory, the recordings are never right. You just wouldn’t be the same. No offence intended.”

  “None taken, sir.”

  Next morning, after Jim had brought him a light breakfast of smoked salmon, wholemeal bread lightly toasted, and a glass of Chablis, Alex was finishing the council work when the girls came in to let him know that, as far as they could tell, the entire complex of flats and their intelligences were now clean. They handed him a copy of their report and left.. He then kept himself occupied by walking around his flat to consider whe
ther any modifications were needed before he and his partner held their first dinner party in a few weeks. The main and five guest bedrooms were completely ready but the lounges, library, art room and the spacious dining room were lacking some décor and fittings. Also, most of the spaces for the artwork and display cabinets for his minerals collection were empty. His collections were still in cases in the three store rooms. Quite apart from his collectables, Chivers had put three cases of the latest samples into his workroom/laboratory, ready for him to inspect, check and classify. He walked down to the lab. All the equipment seemed to be installed and the power supplies, drainage systems and ventilation were on. He checked a drawer and the tools all rested in their proper places. Good old Chivers, he’d made sure that this place would be ready, as soon as Alex was able to continue assaying the samples. Ah! There were the three new boxes, each around 25 kilos (in standard gravity), stacked near a small work-bench at the back. They were evidently very important; his prospecting department had classified them as ‘secret’ and for his eyes only, but he hadn’t had the chance to investigate them yet.

  He went to the safe and took out the log book. The samples had come from one of his farthest surveys, right out at the inner edge of the Oort Cloud.

  The first of the exploration probes had been sent there many years ago. They were state of the art: the helium 3/deuterium motors were the best available (from Bond Martin engineering) and the intelligence highly specialised and incorruptible..

  The probe that brought these samples was only the second to return. The first had been back for six months and the results were still being assessed. This one had been back only a couple of weeks and these samples rushed to him. Intriguing, to say the least. Communication with probes, even coded, was only sporadic and never attempted at all if the probe hit something valuable.

  Jim walked in, interrupting his thoughts. “Frank is coming, he will be here in five minutes or so.”

  “Bring him to the lounge by the patio, there’s a bar in there…” He looked at his watch. “And it’s lunch time.”