David Brin - Existence

“Which may not be a bad thing!” protested Mercedes. “You’ve all plunged way too far down paths of suspicion, with all this talk of viruses. Snap out of it! Have you considered the possibility that our Havana Artifact may be telling the truth? That all sapient races stumble into one doom or another, completely on their own? Isn’t it consistent with everything we’ve seen in the last century?

“By that light, they’re offering us a way out! Not perfect. Not salvation. But perhaps the only option the universe allows. All this talk of viruses may blind you to what we’re being handed-a way to preserve something of humanity!”

Silence ensued for a time. Fatigued by the wrangling, Lacey assigned a gisting-ai to keep following the conversation while letting her attention drift across her POV. That caused the inner face of her specs to light up, tendering first a report from her spy in Switzerland, detailing maneuvers by the new alliance of oligarchy and paranoia, now frantically reorganizing to overcome betrayal by Hamish Brookeman, and to exploit the Havana Artifact’s fog of despair. All of it creepy-relevant to what Henri and the others were discussing.

“So we achieve the ultimate irony,” Henri mused. “Those who are most pessimistic about humanity see the good in all this… while the optimists sink into gloom.”

Lacey put the Swiss report aside for later and scrolled down through other urgent messages, half listening while her colleagues talked about the differences between symbiotic, commensal, and parasitic viruses.

“I’ll tell you what worries me most,” Hermione said in a low voice, as Lacey checked the latest Project Uplift report from Hacker.

“Embedded persuasion. It may be in everything that’s said by the Artifact, by its so-called passengers, and every page of technical…”

Finally, buried among the merely urgent messages, Lacey stumbled onto the one she had been waiting for. From Riyadh.

The Quantum Eye had taken up her question, at last.

It might even have a preliminary answer soon!

Lacey sat up with rising enthusiasm. Only, before she could read more-

– commotion broke out, beyond the thick glass! Gerald Livingstone and his colleagues were tapping on immersion goggles or clustering around holoscreens. She heard muffled shouts. No one paid any heed to the egg-shaped Artifact, still methodically dumping technical schematics.

“What’s going on?” Lacey asked, while other advisers clicked into the Mesh. Hermes appeared to roll his eyes upward, going deathlike for a moment, before speaking in flattish, machinelike tones.

“There are reports of activity in the asteroid belt and several Lagrangian points. Observatories and monitoring satellites report intense light beams, followed by flashes and detonations.”

Henri sucked through his teeth. “So? We’re pretty sure those are come-and-get-me signals from other emissary probes, desperate to make their own sales pitches. The Chinese, Brazilians, and Americans are preparing missions. Those space twinkles perfectly disprove the ridiculous hoax claim-”

“You aren’t following me,” Hermes interrupted. “These are intense coherent beams, seven or eight orders of magnitude more energetic than earlier flashes. Powerful enough to vaporize solid rock.”

Silence reigned for several seconds. Then-

“Jeepers,” Lacey said. “You mean laser weapons?”

“Not just that,” Ram commented. The Afro-Hindi alienist waggled fingers, causing holos to appear above the table, portraying black space dusted by a torus of glittery motes. Some specks brightened abruptly, accompanied by rows of numbers. “Most targets appear to be where we saw come-get-me flickers, days ago.

“Somebody is destroying those competing probes.”

Bright, narrow spears crisscrossed the zone between Mars and Jupiter. Lacey stared, letting it sink in.

War had erupted in the solar system.

Who was shooting? At whom? Without data, only one thing was clear.

Competition had a new and stronger meaning.

THE PRIVATE WRITE-ONLY DIARY OF TOR POVLOV

Events are breaking so fast. I can barely keep up with the demands on me.

Hardly what you’d expect for a woman who was fried nearly to a cinder. Any prior era, I would’ve died in mercifully brief agony, or lingered under intravenous drip till I went mad from sensory deprivation. Now my problem? Overstimulation!

First, the docs won’t leave me be. They send nanocrawlers creeping from brain to spine, unreeling trellis fibers, secreting growth cocktails that lure neurons to follow. I’m repeatedly yanked out of my thoughts, or sent thrashing in my gel-capsule, by some impertinent flash of false color, taste, or smell.

I should be attentive and grateful. But seriously, there’s way too much on my plate. Like coordinating the now highly-rated Povlov-Possai, in its ongoing, semipro search for truth. Didn’t we help spread the alarm over those laser beams that amscis detected in space, a full seven minutes before Secur-Net announced anything?

And played a role in debunking that Hamish Brookeman character, till his be- fox’dfollowers are winnowed down to just half a billion or so-the gullible and desperate.

Still, perplexities linger… like who is helping him? Somebody furnished the “evidence” he offered, for a conspiracy that supposedly built the Artifact out of bits of this and that, then left it for Gerald Livingstone to find. Nonsense, but who would want to muddy the waters, using Brookeman as their shill?

Just as curious-who’s helping us ? Certain pseudonymous members of our smart-mob-Like Birdwoman303-clearly know more than they let on.

And now, we seem to’ve been slipped a skeleton key… a set of pass codes letting us through some very well-protected doors!

This could be dangerous. But I downloaded some late-recent skulk-ware, to create shell personas and protect our members. That won’t keep out any of the Big Five governments… or Porfirio. But if they want us to stop, they should speak plainly. Or get out of our way.

What? Some of you want to follow the world’s attention outward, where beams of energy suddenly crisscross space with savage violence? Aw people, what are we, sci-fi fans? That’s where everyone else is looking! And by our own smart-mob covenant, we don’t hunt where others do. Come. Leave such garish stuff to major media, bureaucrats, the public. Let’s stay targeted.

We’re hot on the trail of those who knew what the Artifact was, even before Livingstone did. Who may have known about such things for centuries, or longer. Whatever their ancient rationalizations for secrecy…

… they have not been our friends.

Concussion slammed Peng Xiang Bin’s backside, when the window behind him exploded into a million shards.

It felt like a fist striking his body from behind, studded with millions of jagged slivers. Someone screamed-it might have been him-as the storm of brittle flecks jetted past to collide with a scintillating fog… the discretion screen that masked the worldstone. Dazzling sparkles flared as glass splinters met ionized nitrogen, framing his shadow in a blazing aura. It might have even been beautiful, if his mind had room for anything but shock and pain… plus a single, stunned word.

What?

Crashing into the table edge, Bin glimpsed Dr. Nguyen shouting-his left cheek bloody from a dozen cuts. Only a low hum penetrated. Nguyen pointed at Bin, then into the blinding haze above the tabletop-and finally jutted his thumb toward the exit farthest from the explosion. The ai-patch in Bin’s lower right vision cone started offering helpful interpretations, but he already understood.