David Brin - Existence

After a long stretch of shyness, Bin now dared to speak.

“Courier of Caution-the emissary in our worldstone-claims that the aliens in Washington are liars. ”

“Exactly!” Paul snapped, while tugging at his animatronic crucifix. He had lately grown more willing to treat Bin as a member of the team, even acknowledging his presence with a terse nod, now and then. “They may not be telling the truth. Perhaps they are using this story to push us toward despair and self-destruction-the very scenario that our own envoy warns against.”

Yang Shenxiu agreed, switching from the colloquial Chinese they had all been using to English.

“This is bigger than any of us. We should bring these terrifying stones together. Let them debate each other, before the world!”

All eyes turned to Dr. Nguyen, the Annamese ceramics mogul, who had been pensive and nearly silent for several days. Now he rested both elbows on the teak tabletop and bridged his fingers, blowing a silent whistle through pursed lips, till finally shaking his head.

“I am answerable to a consortium,” he said at last, returning the conversation to impeccable Mandarin, with only a hint of his childhood Mekong accent. “My instructions were to start by getting this stone’s story and determining if there were any differences from the Havana Artifact. That we have accomplished.

“Alas, the second imperative priority was made luminously clear-to seek advantageous technologies, at almost any cost. Either through interrogation or through dissection. Also, using such methods to determine if there are troves of information the thing is holding back.”

With grim, tight lips, Paul Menelaua nodded. Meanwhile, Bin and the others stared, in various degrees of shock.

“The word ‘advantageous’ …, ” Anna protested, “it assumes we can learn something that the researchers in Washington aren’t discovering-technologies that would give our consortium an edge.

“But we’ve already seen that these objects are similar. Moreover, the entire premise of the story being told by the creature-simulations inside the Havana Artifact… their whole narrative… revolves around a promise that they will give humanity every capability to make more of these stones. It’s the reason they crossed so many light-years! What motive would they have, to hold anything back? Surely that means we’d gain nothing from tearing apart-”

“Not necessarily,” Paul dissented. “If Courier is right, they may have a hidden agenda. In which case they’ll hold back plenty. Sure, they’re teaching humanity how to make crystalline copies. But really, what are they offering? These stone emissaries don’t seem to be all that far in advance of our present capabilities. Now that we’ve seen their ai and simulation technologies at work, we could probably duplicate everything-except those super-propulsion lasers-without any help, in thirty years. Or less.

“No, what has to worry us is the possibility that there may be a lot more to all of this, underneath what they are telling. Only, because the Havana Artifact is openly shared and in public hands, it will never be subjected to harsh scrutiny. ”

“But we can cut into our stone, because we’re not answerable to public opinion, is that it?” Anna’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Are you listening to yourself? If Courier is telling the truth, then only he can expose the other stone’s lie! Yet, because we believe him, and have an opportunity to proceed in secret, we’ll start sawing away at him, with lasers and drills?”

“Hey, look. I was only saying-”

She turned around. “You, Xiang Bin, made a point, a few days ago, that some clandestine group or groups may already have one or more of these things. Either complete or a partially working fragment. They might also have heard some variant of the tale told by the Havana Artifact-”

“I hope there weren’t any secretly held stones,” Paul interrupted. “I can think of no worse crime than for selfish people to have clutched such a mystery, all this time, without sharing its warning with the world.”

“Perhaps not telling the world may have been the more beneficent course. More merciful and wise,” Yang Shenxiu muttered. “Better to let people continue in blissful ignorance, if all our efforts will be futile anyway. If humanity is simply doomed to ultimate failure.”

Paul Menelaua pounded his fist on the table. His action-crucifix wriggled in rhythm to the vibrations. “I can’t accept that. We can still act to save ourselves. The Havana aliens must be lying! That stone should be dissected, instead of this one.”

Silence stretched, while Yang Shenxiu seemed uncertain whether to interpret Paul’s shouting as disrespect, or simply a matter of cultural and personality difference. Finally, the scholar shrugged.

“If we might get back on topic,” he said.

“Indeed,” Anna said. “I doubt any group would keep such an active stone secret out of pure altruism. Human beings tend to seek advantage. While rationalizing that they mean well, for the greater good. ” She spoke in ironic tones, without looking directly at Dr. Nguyen. “But that’s the problem with this hypothesis of Xiang Bin’s. If any other group already had such a stone, would we not already see new technologies similar to… similar to-”

Her voice stuttered to a stop, as if suddenly realizing what should come next.

Paul filled in for her. “Similar to the advances we’ve all seen, across the last century or so, in the game and entertainment industries? As I just said, we’re already rapidly converging on these abilities. Heck, even military hardware hasn’t advanced as rapidly as Hollywood simulation-tech. Methods for advanced visualization, realistic avatar aindroids that pass Turing tests-”

“All of which may be just incremental progress, propelled by the market, by popular culture, and by human ingenuity,” Dr. Nguyen pointed out. “Honestly, can you name a single breakthrough that did not follow right on the heels of others, in a rapid but natural sequence of inventiveness and desire? Isn’t it a tiresome cliché to credit our own clever discoveries to intervention from above, like claiming that the ancient pyramids could only have been built by UFOs? Must we devolve back to those lurid scenarios about secret laboratories where hordes of faceless technicians analyze alien corpses and flying saucers, without ever telling the citizenry? I thought we had outgrown such nonsense.”

The others looked at their leader, and Bin could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

Aren’t we, in this room, doing exactly that?

Anyway, he added in his thoughts. If anybody does know about another, secret stone, it would be him.

“But of course,” Dr. Nguyen added, spreading his hands with a soft smile, “according to this hypothesis of Xiang Bin’s, we should look carefully at those who have profited most from such technologies. Bollywood moguls. The owners of Believworld and Our-iverse. The AIs Haveit and Fabrique Zaire.”

Bin felt a wave of satisfaction, on hearing one of his ideas called a “hypothesis.” He knew that his guanxi or relationship-credibility had risen, lately. Even so, he had an uneasy feeling about where this was heading.

“But that only makes our purpose here more pressing,” Nguyen continued. “If there are human groups who already have this advantage-access to alien technologies-then they may turn desperate to prevent the International Commission from completing its study of the Havana Artifact. Even worse, there is no telling how long we can keep our own secret. Almost anything we do, any coding or shrouding that we use, could be penetrated by those who have had these methods for some time.