David Brin - Existence

It is not a topic that we recommend pursuing. At this phase in particular.

But Gerald was insistent.

“You said earlier that your home species had never met. That made no sense when we envisioned some sort of galactic federation. Now I must ask you straight. Up front.”

Gerald glanced at his team mates, at Emily and Genady and Ramesh and Patrice and Terren and Ben… and Akana, whose face was gaunt and pale. She gave a jerky nod.

“How can that be?” Gerald continued. “ Why have they never met?”

Om remained reluctant.

Asking will not increase your happiness.

At this, Gerald gritted his teeth. He no longer wanted any part of fame, for discovering this thing. All he felt was cold fury. A need, at last, for some truth.

“Tell us,” he insisted. “Or we’ll put you in a dark box and go find others who will answer.

“Tell us now!”

The ninety-two alien occupants of a crystalline pocket universe murmured among themselves. Faces grimaced. Claws and tentacles clenched, and Gerald felt suddenly certain.

It isn’t for our sakes that they avoid this topic. But for their own.

Because of pain.

The fat avatar that represented them all now looked anything but jolly. The Oldest Surviving Member gave a shrug that might have been copied from some Earthling gesture, but the air of resignation-even cruel indifference-seemed all too real.

None of our home species still live. Having flared briefly, all are gone. Individuals may last! In this form we fill the cosmos and live forever. So can you!

But sapient species don’t endure. No civilizations. Nor planets that spawn them.

Then the entity took a step closer to the boundary and added-

What? You thought yours would survive?

The world may end later than the year 2060, but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit.

– Sir Isaac Newton

How might our world be different, if our literature, to say nothing of our politics, behaved more like a rational, intrepid adult than a hand-wringing adolescent?

– Kim Stanley Robinson

Autie-Murphy sifted the nor-nand gaps + /-/ + found 32,823 fugitives sought by normalpeople authorities + + missed by the hired aspies who run searches for FBI + Interpol + FRS + HanSecuritInc + cetera -/- he sifted the world’s image gestalt for not-patterns of people with altered biometrics hiding in plain sight + / + at plane sites -/- at pain to spite a world searching for them!

some hidden ones are verybad people./. wanted for doing badbadbad things./. dontthinkaboutthatdontdontdont

others hide for political reasons… moral… philosophical… stuff only weird homosapiens understand -/ += no way any autie would be naughty

shall we report them all??? ask Auntie-Autie-Ortie!/ + /- her savant-talent is ethics + /!/ + let her decide which to tattle-on!! Autie-Murphy won’t care -/ + he loves the search + analyzing worldwide cam usages + deviations/skews/kurtosis…

… and he found HER!/! chimera-mom and her little boy + + + age seven but big as a ten-year-old normalkid!!! Gene Autie accessed the database of scientists secretly studying the child -

=› go 145,627,010 base-pairs down the long arm of chromosome#1 =› see ‹= the unusual version of 1q21.1 – not a normalpeople variant -/- nor the “mistakes” carried by some autistics/schizophrenics/others -/ + it’s a resurrection of something longlost + /-

LOOK at the child! =› * ‹= beautiful bigskull protrudes in back. Perfect pitch and more surprises… yet stronger &better-focused than any autiee + with fight/flight response that’s calm-not-jittery!/!- speaks almost normal… but SEE how he relates to animals! here =› * ‹=

Agurne (greetings) Arrixaka (virgin) Bidarte (between the ways) should be proud of her son + - + too bad they surgically removed his eyebrow ridges -/-/- to stand out less -/- but what a smile and perfect profile!/-/! without that ugly homosap chin (((

they did it!/! normalpeople (a few) redeemed their ancient crime + + + returned the Robust Folk to the world + + +

too bad other normalpeople want him dead

The Silverdome was crowded. With winter coming, more deepees wandered in to escape the night chill, even if it meant serving on work crews and listening to preachucators while slurping free alganoodles, spiced with pulp-grade chicktish meat.

Arriving for his shift, Slawek groaned when he saw how many newcomers had arrived on the mezzanine level, erecting cots, privacy curtains, and cheap, pixelcloth vid-screens to distract the kids, perching it all on metlon-and-plyboard platforms that covered the old stadium seating.

Slawek passed an ottodog, sniffing for contraband, then hurried past the Big Placard of Rules painted in no-overlay red-the hue that specs were never supposed to cover or conceal. Though it only took some dime hackerware to change the spectral pattern of your goggles. Slawek knew a dozen u-levels where this sign had been defaced with crude mockings. Resentment toward authority was rising, among the Silverdome’s rowdier ethnics.

Please don’t let them assign me to enforcement today, he prayed. Subdural nerve impulses almost lifted his right hand to trace a cross on his chest. But Catholicism was nekulturny among a lot of other kidz. So instead, the neural pattern went to Slawek’s soul-avatar, telling it to genuflect in a private corner of virspace, adding a pater noster on his behalf.

Aleksei “Danny” Hutnicki was in charge at Duty Station, where a banner-chart of work parties kept changing as laborers reported for assignments, got excused for sick call, or else came back from one of the homestead zones of Old Detroit. Aleksei glanced up and grimaced.

“You’re late. You never used to be, when you slept here.”

“Yeah, well.” That was before Slawek packed off to one of the Silverdome’s satellite projects, two dozen homes-a couple of city blocks-that were being reclaimed as a commune-complete with dairy, greenhouse, school, and some glass-covered ex-basements converted into algae farms. Still, you had to put in time here, at the main center, if you wanted to advance.

“The jitney bus broke down. Had to use my skutr.”

“Hm.” Aleksei looked dubious. Scanning the Duty Board. “Let’s see what I can find that’s right for you…” He seemed to be looking for a shit job to give Slawek.

But it wasn’t hard to in-spec the fellow’s facials, using cheapware to correlate flush tones and iris dilation. What a faker! He already knows what I’ve been assigned.

Sure enough, Aleksei waggled a couple of fingers and the big board flickered. Slawek’s specs automatically zoomed on his name and the adamant word next to it.

ENFORCEMENT.

His face stayed impassive-he had been practicing with a feedback program. But Slawek’s soulvatar, responding to involuntary nerve twitches, expressed his disappointment by cursing and stomping in its private little capsule of subreality-a slightly sinful e-tantrum that the little homunculus thereupon commenced to pray-off, kneeling and offering fervent Hail Marys, observable only by Porfirio and God.