David Brin - Existence

Or else they were desperate and willing to bluff, pretending to represent some part of the state.

Yi Ming cleared part of Mei Ling’s perplexity by steering her past the ticket booth and straight toward the broad, viridium portal, right under the shadow of scholar Wu Cheng’en, who wrote the great national classic adventure tale Journey to the West. Though five centuries had passed, it was still easily a match, in culture and excitement, for more recent stories about talking ducks and dogs and mice.

Stopping abruptly, the boy turned and dashed over to a well-dressed couple who were just leaving the park, with a little girl who wore a cute, if retro, silken costume copied from the classic Sailor Moon. Her mouth was stained from sucking at the neck of a candy victim, from the featured ride Vampires of the Adnauseam.

Evidently both tired and spoiled, in an era that much favored girls over boys, she gaped suspiciously, with sugary “blood” oozing down her jaw, as Yi Ming planted himself in front of the family, chattering in a friendly manner. None of his words made sense, at least not to Mei Ling or to the parents. But for a moment their surprise was such that they allowed him to take their hands and pat them while continuing to babble away.

The girl recovered first, swiftly snarling at Yi Ming with red-stained teeth.

What’s he doing? Mei Ling wondered. Does he suddenly find the situation hopeless? Is he abandoning me here and picking someone else to guide around town?

The pursuers had made it halfway across the square. Mei Ling started eyeing alternative escape paths. None of which looked promising while schlepping a baby. Perhaps down the escalator to the train station…

The tourist couple yanked their hands away and, egged on by the girl’s screech, the father pushed at Yi Ming-who simply laughed, spun about three times, then sped over to Mei Ling.

“Mother. Hand.”

As the rich family hurried off, suddenly the boy was scribbling upon the back of Mei Ling’s wrist with the same pen he used on her face, half an hour ago. There was no apparent pattern at first, just a rapid series of dots that pricked and hurt a little, even on her calloused skin. The specks were all constrained within a square area, perhaps three centimeters on a side.

Oh, she thought, could it be? Can a mere person do this?

The men were closer now. Yi Ming let go of her hand and started doing the same thing to the back of his own. The right hand, making Mei Ling realize that he was a lefty. Somewhere she recalled hearing that the trait showed up more often among autistics. The same could be said of the boy’s misaligned teeth, his poor skin, and strange gait. Though she found none of those disconcerting anymore.

I saw worse among the drooling old-timers at the hospice .

“We had better-” she urged, doubting this would work.

“Yes Mother, now.”

They turned together, walking as quickly but nonchalantly as they could, like a nanny escorting a child and a baby toward the portico where arrivals were automatically checked for tickets. Tickets in the form of temporary, coded tattoos.

Mei Ling made sure that her left hand was open to view, though she never saw the beam that scanned it. To her great surprise, no Disney guards or robots pounced. Instead a voice crooned downward, as if from Heaven.

“Welcome back, Mrs. Chu and darling little Lui. My, it did not take you long to change your clothes and return from your hotel.

“Of course, your VIP pass is still valid. A robo-carriage awaits you, down the Avenue of Pandas, on your left.

“If Mr. Chu comes later, we’ll bring him to you with pleasant and courteous haste.”

Hurrying onward, she and Yi Ming crossed over the boundary, demarked by a line of tiles that gleamed Imperial yellow, almost a comfortable minute before their pursuers reached the security cordon. There, the large men fumed and stomped, knowing how futile it would be to try entering without a pass-let alone armed. It might, in all likelihood, bring down upon them, from nearby hidden places, more swift force than they could possibly deal with. At least not without a fistful of lawful writs, signed by several courts and by many powerful men. Nor even then.

Mei Ling drew a rush of luscious satisfaction, glancing over her shoulder at their frustration, before turning all of her attention the other way, toward a cascade of wonders. Ahead of them lay a boulevard of shops and rides, buildings that seemed to be alive and playful robotic characters who bowed or danced with pleasure when you looked their way. Little Xiao En was charmed instantly, and so was she. Though Yi Ming kept shaking his head, murmuring something about cobblies… cobblies everywhere.

Well, anyway. This certainly beat wearing puny vir-spectacles that merely painted fantasy overlays upon a mundane city street. Nor could any full-immersion game match it. For, in this enchanted place, where every flower looked ten times its normal size and even Shanghai smog vanished under aromatic mists, all the disadvantages of real life seemed to be gone, even down to pebbles one might trip upon-and yet, the richness of reality lay all around her. It was nothing less than the world remade!

With a VIP pass as well? Mei Ling wondered what that meant. Feeling a growl in her stomach, having missed lunch while fleeing across half of East Pudong, she hoped it would turn out to be something good, as she carried her baby and followed her strange young guide through a portico of wonders, under the beaming, beneficent smile of Mickey Mao.

What a Waist.

I mean, have you seen how quickly the Mesh consensus settled on nicknames for every one of the ninety-two artifact visitors? Some rude, others respectful, like Longtooth, Kali, and Big-Squiddy ?

Then there’s the long list of questions for our alien guests, pouring in from a world-public that’s eager to satisfy countless individual yearnings.

And Wow Ain’t It Strange That almost all of the questions are based on two clichés? One or the other. Either fear or longing ?

The first of these two has faded a bit, as we learn that the aliens have no physical power, and speak of welcome. So, more questions now deal with eagerness to learn from our ancient visitors, with the commonly shared assumption that they are motivated by altruism.

In fact, for a century most of those who searched the sky simply took that as given. How could anyone get truly advanced without giving up selfishness, in favor of total generosity? But is that belief chauvinistic and humano-centric?

What kind of moral systems might you expect if lions independently developed sapience? Or solitary, suspicious tigers? Bears are omnivores, like ourselves, yet their consistent habit of male-perpetrated infanticide seems deeply rooted. Meta-ursine moralists might later view this inherited tendency as an unsavory sin and attempt to cure it by preaching restraint. Or, perhaps they would rationalize and sacralize it, writing great literature to portray and justify the beauty of their way, just as we romanticize many of our own most emotion-laden traits. Anyone who doubts that intolerant or even murderous habits can be romanticized should study religious rites of the ancient Aztecs and baby-sacrificing Carthaginians. If we are capable of rationalizing and even exalting brutally unaltruistic behaviors, might advanced extraterrestrials also be capable of such feats of mental legerdemain? Especially if their evolutionary backgrounds predispose them?

And yet, even if it is largely absent from the natural world, that alone doesn’t render pure altruism irrelevant.