Oracle

by Douglas E. Richards

  “We didn’t,” he corrected. “But, yes, faster-than-light technology is known to all twenty-seven intelligent species.”

  “I can’t help but notice that you left one species out of your little tech party,” said Anna pointedly.

  “Not really our choice,” he replied.

  “Whose?

  “I’ll get to that part soon enough. But the reason that Earth isn’t part of this galactic community is because no one can reach you—not without help. Not that you’d want to be part of our . . . party, anyway.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows, but her gut told her not to digress to explore this statement further. “Why do you need help to reach us?” she asked instead.

  “Because the maximum speed of our starships—anyone’s starships—is only about fifty times the speed of light. Which is approximately nine million of your miles a second. Or more than thirty-three trillion miles an hour.”

  “Only about fifty times the speed of light?” said Anna in disbelief. “Only nine million miles a second? Are you kidding? That’s what we on Earth call ludicrous speed.”

  “Maybe so,” replied Vega, “but even travelling this fast, a twenty-five thousand light-year journey to Earth would take five hundred years to complete.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows. “That is quite the road trip,” she said wryly. “But on the bright side,” she added with a smile, “I have to believe you’d earn enough frequent flier miles to get free travel for the rest of eternity.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  Anna’s smile grew. Just because humor wasn’t Vega’s strong suit, and just because, as impressively prepared as he was, any number of pop culture references were sure to elude him, didn’t mean she still couldn’t amuse herself.

  “We considered trying to make the trip, anyway,” continued Vega, “but a five hundred year journey is beyond even our capabilities. Starships can be large, but not as large as we’d need. Not big enough for a good generational ship, or big enough to carry the equipment we would require to make our own fuel.”

  “Right,” said Anna. “So, as you said, you needed help to get here.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So just what kind of help are we talking about?”

  “In addition to starships,” said Vega, “there are portals on each world that connect them to various other worlds. You can step through and travel impossible distances in the blink of an eye. In this case twenty-five thousand light-years. One moment I was on Vor, and the next I was here.”

  Anna’s eyes widened. It was too incredible for words. Instantaneous really did put a mere nine million miles a second to shame. “That’s amazing,” she said. “Beyond amazing. But I still don’t see why you needed help.”

  “Because the portals are random. In number, location, destination, and so on. And those that lead to Earth are all but nonexistent.”

  “Why would they be random?” asked Anna. “Who installed them?

  “I only wish I could tell you. I wish anyone could tell you. This is the biggest mystery in the known cosmos. One even you wouldn’t be able to solve, Detective.”

  Vega pursed his lips and then continued. “There are all kinds of theories,” he said. “Some say it’s just a natural phenomenon. Seems impossible, because the portals are so perfect, so flawless in construction. But some say that just because something is natural, doesn’t mean its properties can’t be perfect and brilliantly organized—like crystals, or better yet, stars. Some say the universe, in its entirety, is an intelligent organism, and creates the portals and chooses where to place them. But the vast majority believe a superintelligence, one not comprised of the entire universe, is responsible.”

  Anna paused to consider this. She had passed surreal and mind-blowing so long ago she might as well be Alice in Wonderland. “How do the portals work?” she asked.

  “Again, unknown,” replied the alien.

  It occurred to Anna that they were sitting in a car that was driving itself to Utah. Something that might have been nearly as mind-blowing to her ancestors as a portal was to her. This was even truer when it came to computers, jets, microwave ovens, and televisions.

  “We have endless theories to explain their operation,” continued Vega, “but no direct knowledge. All we know is that we know nothing. The portals are impervious to our attempts to analyze them, and they have a mind of their own. The portal that brought me to Earth has now disappeared again. It was open between our two worlds for a thirty-year period once—twenty-eight hundred years ago—and then it disappeared. And three of your years ago it reopened for a brief period and then disappeared again. After only sixty-four of us had made it through.”

  “Did all sixty-four come through at once?”

  “No. This portal is too small for that. They vary. Some are large enough that hundreds can go through at once. Some only allow single-file travel. They’re fickle in every way. In addition to opening and closing whenever they feel like it, most of our technology won’t go through, for unknown reasons.”

  Anna stifled a yawn. Fatigue continued to knock at the door, and while she was staying sharp and fending it off, this wouldn’t be possible forever. “Apparently, the implants in your eyes made it through,” she pointed out.

  “Yes, thankfully,” replied Vega. “And a comm system we have implanted internally as well, which allows us to communicate subvocally. The Tartarians—the Tarts—have a similar system. And thousands of years ago, when we first began coming here, and before we had the ocular implants, we were able to get wearable external light devices through.”

  Anna suddenly snapped out of her relative stupor to let the enormity of what was being revealed to her sink in, beyond the nuts and bolts of the portals. Yes, the portals were a miracle, but the big picture was that Earth had been visited by the Vors in its ancient past. It was yet another stunning revelation. What might this imply? Had the Vors helped to shape human history?

  And if so, how?

  21

  A flood of additional questions came to Anna’s mind all at once as the blue Honda named Daisy continued its journey, having no idea of the epic nature of what was being said within its confines. Anna could have spent eons asking follow-up questions on the topics Vega had already introduced, and the alien didn’t seem anywhere near the finish line.

  “How many of you came here originally?” she asked Vega, forcing herself to narrow her questioning. “Did they stay? Have they and their offspring been sharing the Earth with us all these years without us knowing it?”

  Anna paused and her eyes narrowed. “Was Jesus a Vor?” she added. “Or Buddha? Or Muhammad?”

  “Almost twelve hundred of my people arrived on Earth all those years ago,” replied Vega. “At that time, the Vors were the only one of the twenty-seven intelligent species here. And all were stranded when the portal disappeared. Just like my fellow Vors and I are stranded here now. But they and their offspring only survived for five to six hundred years before dying out. I’m guessing that this was before any of these historical figures you mention came on the scene.”

  He paused. “Not that any of my ancestors would have attracted this kind of attention to themselves, anyway. They stayed out of the limelight. Also, apparently, they had their hands full with other matters—but more about that later.”

  Anna nodded. He was putting off numerous subjects, but her gut told her he was only doing so to avoid putting too many carts before too many horses.

  “So why are you here now?” she asked him. “What is your intent?”

  Vega paused to consider the best way to answer this question. “Let me back up,” he replied finally. “This will take some explaining.”

  The alien took a deep breath and forged ahead. “All twenty-seven intelligent species are at the same basic level scientifically and technologically. Give or take. There are minor differences. Vors excel at optics, genetic engineering, and computer modeling, for example. And the Tarts are better at chemistry. And so on.”

&n
bsp; “But you’re all more advanced than we are, aren’t you?” said Anna. “Which means humans are the slow learners in the bunch.”

  Vega actually smiled. “Just the opposite,” he assured her. “Your species is among the fastest learners of any of us. And also, unfortunately, one of the most aggressive and ruthless. Along with the Tarts. But humanity will reach the same level as all of the others soon enough.”

  Anna’s gut suddenly insisted that she probe something that her conscious mind would have ignored. “Let me back up to something you said just a moment ago,” she said. “That all twenty-seven intelligences are at the same level of scientific advancement. How is that even possible?”

  “Great question,” said Vega. “It isn’t possible. Or at least it shouldn’t be. Even though it’s often true in human science fiction.”

  “So you don’t know about frequent flier miles, but you know about our science fiction?”

  Vega nodded. “I’ve studied it extensively. It can reveal a lot about how you might react to the knowledge of extraterrestrial civilizations. And also how you imagine the future to be. Both are important for me to be aware of.”

  “That makes sense,” admitted Anna.

  “In Star Trek,” continued the alien, “there are any number of different species, but all are more or less at the same state of technological development. The same with Star Wars. There are exceptions in Star Trek, of course, including the Q and the Borg, among others, but most species are in the same tech lane.”

  Anna whistled. This alien really knew his Star Trek. “But you’re saying this shouldn’t be the case.”

  “No, it shouldn’t. Not for these shows, and not in reality. The reality is that each of the twenty-seven species were all climbing the scientific learning curve at different rates, at different times. Yet all of us eventually reached our current level and slammed into an impenetrable wall. The same wall. Something we now call the Omega Point. And none of us were able to progress any further.

  “Sure,” continued Vega, “we all continue to make marginal improvements and advances, but nothing game changing. The Vors were on the plodding side. It took us thousands of your years to go from taming electricity to reaching the Omega Point. You’ll achieve this in a fraction of that time. Your progress has been as fast as any of the twenty-seven known intelligences. But make no mistake, you will hit this same wall. And you will not go beyond it.”

  Anna’s eyes narrowed. “How can you be so sure?” she said.

  “We believe that whoever is supplying the portals is actively making certain of this. Actively retarding scientific progress once any of us reach the Omega Point. Even though this shouldn’t be anywhere near the real Omega Point. We’re convinced it’s an artificial barrier.”

  “Maybe,” said Anna. “But isn’t it possible that a civilization just reaches a certain level of knowledge, beyond which there just aren’t any more secrets to discover, or magic to wring from the universe?”

  Vega shook his head. “That’s not how it works,” he insisted. “Einstein said he stood on the shoulders of giants, and he was right. And the more advanced a species becomes, the more shoulders of greats from the past there are to stand on. Or, said without the metaphor, the more science and tech you’ve discovered, the easier it is to advance even further.

  “Your species is seeing this now in ways that couldn’t be any clearer. The progress of your technology has been exponential. And the exponent itself has been growing. This applies to communications capabilities, computer speeds, speed of DNA sequencing, and so on.”

  Vega paused. “And exponential growth has a funny way of sneaking up on you,” he continued. “At first, it’s barely noticeable. Start with a dollar and double your money every day. At first, when you’re only increasing your wealth from one to two dollars, or from two to four, it’s hardly meaningful. But on day twenty-one you have a million dollars. And when you double this, it’s an impressive jump—another million. Nine days later you’ve got five hundred million. Now you’re taking gargantuan steps. Which is where humanity is now. Science and tech advancements are happening so fast you can barely keep up. More has changed on this front in the past twenty years than in the entirety of human history before this, combined. The world your grandparents lived in seems positively primitive.”

  Anna thought about this. It was impossible to disagree. Advances were coming at a dizzying pace. Too fast for most of humanity to truly absorb.

  “Getting back to the money example,” said Vega, “if you continued to double your money each day, in far less than a year you’d have more dollars than there are atoms in the known universe. That’s the power of exponential growth.”

  Anna sighed. “This is undeniably impressive,” she said. “But it hardly makes your point. If you, or whoever agreed to double your money each day, runs out when you get to a thousand dollars—that’s it. Stick a fork in it. The fun with exponents game stops.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “My point is that science and technology can’t stay on an exponential path forever. At some point, Moore’s Law stops working.”

  “Very good,” said Vega in admiration. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you have great insight into areas that you aren’t expert in.”

  “Right,” said Anna. “Because my hidden mind is expert in a lot of areas that I’m not. Believe me, any insights I appear to have are just coming to me, forged in this cauldron.” She grinned. “For that matter, the phrase forged in this cauldron must have come from the same place, because it sure doesn’t sound like the conscious me speaking.”

  Vega actually returned her smile. “Getting back to your point,” he said, “you are right, of course. Exponential growth can’t go on forever. There is sure to be a true Omega Point. But all twenty-seven species, and yours as well, are certain that we aren’t even close to that point.

  “To use your Moore’s Law example,” continued the alien, “our computers are much more advanced than yours—but not nearly as much as they should be. Theoretically, progress in computer science shouldn’t stop until we have computers billions of times more powerful than what we have now. It shouldn’t stop until we have systems that calculate using atoms and electrons themselves, and thus can pack more computing power into the head of a pin than all the computing power that has ever been used in the history of your planet.”

  Vega paused to give Anna time to ponder this point. “This is true for computer systems and biological systems,” he added. “Both should reach a stage of runaway evolution, during which they rapidly evolve into transcendent species. Species that are so advanced they have as much in common with us as we do with bacteria.

  “That isn’t to say that we’d expect both types of super-species to exist in all cases. Whichever form is first to achieve transcendence, biological or computer, might destroy the other. Perhaps like in your Terminator movies. Or, more likely, a hybrid of the two might emerge. Regardless, one or both should self-evolve, reaching what your scientists have called a singularity event.”

  Anna considered. “So you’re saying that the twenty-seven intelligences should have self-evolved into a nearly omniscient state a long time ago. But didn’t somehow.”

  “Exactly. All twenty-seven are certain of this. Twenty-eight, counting you, because even your scientists see this as inevitable. Provided you don’t self-destruct first.”

  “Just because twenty-eight intelligences agree on something,” noted Anna, “doesn’t mean it has to be right.”

  Vega nodded. “This is true,” he said. “But this is just one example among many of unexplainable phenomena. I’ll give you another. The twenty-eight known civilizations all arose within thirty thousand years of one another. That is stunningly improbable. The Milky Way is over thirteen billion years old. Civilization ought to be separated, not only by trillions of miles, but by eons of time.

  “Some civilizations should have arisen billions of years ago. Others millions of years ago. And some should be even younger th
an you are. And yet we still all, independently, reached sentience and the Omega Point over a span of less than thirty thousand years. That would be far less probable than if twenty-eight patients in a coma, who could each wake up at any time during an entire year, all just happened to awaken within the same fraction of a second.”

  “And none of you have come up with any explanation?” said Anna.

  “A number of explanations,” replied the alien. “We just have no idea which of them, if any, are right. The most popular theory is that one species did achieve transcendence. Call it Godhood. Hundreds of thousands, million, or even billions of years ago. Maybe they wiped out all other emerging intelligences at the time. Maybe intelligences wiped themselves out. We’ve landed our starships on several planets to find nothing but the ruins of great civilizations that warred themselves into extinction. So we know this isn’t rare.

  “Regardless,” continued Vega, “it seems fairly clear that this super-species arranged for our current situation. Arranged to stall out our progress.”

  Vega shook his head miserably. “Why?” he continued. “Good question. For their own amusement? For entertainment? Or just maybe because they don’t want any other species to achieve transcendence.”

  “These are all fairly petty reasons,” said Anna.

  “Maybe so. I offered these up because they’re the easiest to understand. There are many others that are more complicated. But the bottom line is that we believe they set things up so that all the intelligent species we know of emerged at about the same time. And ended up with about the same technology. Some of us believe that they seeded what would become intelligent life on all twenty-eight home planets at once, making us all related in a sense. Some of us have theorized that they manipulated time itself to ensure that our civilizations are all approximately the same age. Regardless, they also set up some sort of regulator valve to ensure that no matter how sophisticated our computers become, they never turn sentient, never achieve runaway evolution.