Robert Sawyer - Ineluctable

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.