David Brin - Existence

“You know why this observatory was established at the Martian L2 point. It allows us to take advantage of the Phobos staging area, but stay away from any major gravitational wells. It also means the telescope will stay mostly aimed outward, away from the sun. Your homeworld is in the direction of Capricorn, presently too near the sun for safe viewing. It will be more accessible in half an Earth year, or a fifth of a Mars orbit. Do try to be patient.”

That last part was a dig, of course. He watched Courier take the bait-

“Patient. Patient? ” The vision-strip seemed to flare. “After all the millennia I endured in freezing space and fiery plummet, immured under ice, then communing with erratic primitives, worshipped, stolen, worshipped again, then buried and drowned, interrogated then drowned again…”

The alien envoy stopped abruptly and rocked back. Gerald knew Courier well enough by now for some of his mood-expressions to be familiar. Including rueful realization.

“Ah, Gerald my friend, I see that you tease me. Very well. I will stop demanding haste. After waiting thousands of years for humans to develop technology, then dozens more for you to make up your minds and build this instrument, I suppose I can be patient a few more months.”

Jenny shook her head. “Or much longer. You do understand, Courier. Even this powerful new telescope may not verify continued existence of your species, on Turbulence Planet?” She used the Chinese pronunciation chosen decades ago by her father.

“We should be able to get spectral readings of some atmospheric components, and a clear enough image to tell if there are still oceans. Methane and oxygen together will prove life. If we detect lots of helium, it might indicate the presence of many busy fusion reactors… or the same trace could suggest extended nuclear war.”

“That, I assure you, never happened.”

“You can guarantee that-across the last ten thousand years ? Anyway, I admit it could mean something if we detect fast-decay industrial by-products in Turbulence Planet’s atmosphere. That may indicate an ongoing technological civilization. On the other hand, such signs could be absent because your people moved on to better, more sustainable methods.”

“This big array can also scan for radio traffic?”

“It can, and will. So far, with Earth-based dishes, we’ve heard nothing above background static coming from your home system. But again, they could be using highly efficient comm-tech that emits almost zero leakage. Earth was loudest during the Cold War of the 1970s, with military radars blasting around the clock, along with prodigious civilian television stations. Our planet got quieter then, less wasteful. And yours may have advanced much farther, since you were hurled across space.

“But our beautiful new blossom…,” she continued, nodding toward the vast array outside, spanning forty kilometers and shimmering back-reflections from the distant sun, “may let us eavesdrop much better. That is, if anyone is still using radio or lasers, on or near your homeworld.”

“Hence, you can understand my eagerness,” Courier commented.

“Sure I can.” Jenny smiled. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Before Turbulence Planet comes into view, we’ll turn the Donaldson-Chang Big Eye on systems that other artifactaliens claim to be from.”

“The homeworlds of fools and liars,” Courier murmured, as he had during the first Great Artifact Debate, before Jenny was born. He went on though, with grudging courtesy. “Of course, I hope all of them survived the plague, and that you will find them living, in good health.”

Clearly, Courier did not expect that to happen. Nor did the other emissary beings. It was the shared litany of all crystal-encased aliens.

Gerald listened to the conversation with just half an ear. His main concern had little to do with planets that lay light-years away. Other dangers loomed closer. He queried the ship’s defense ai.

Any sign of activity along the inner belt?

Having learned the modern knack of volition-messaging, Gerald no longer had to send subvocal speech commands to his larynx, almost-speaking with real muscles. The answer came as both a faint audible response, and quick-sign glyphs in his upper left field of view.

We detect no unknown active objects.

A depict seemed to erupt all around Gerald, immersing him in a slightly curved arc of small, dim specks-representing asteroids that ranged in size up to several hundred kilometers. Starting at the position of the ibn Battuta, a million or so klicks outward from Mars, the density of radar reflections rose steadily, peaking halfway to Jupiter’s orbit. He could both see and sense drifting lumps-carbonaceous, stony, and metallic-left over from the origin of the solar system. And if he focused on one, that patch of the Belt would zoom to any level of detail known by human science. So he was careful not to do that.

Jenny and Courier were still visible, among others in the observation lounge, as they watched the telescope’s giant petals finish unfolding, locking and adjusting swiftly into operational condition, performing calibration tests with aitomatic speed. But Gerald’s mind focused more on the depict data.

These visualization technologies just keep getting better. I feel as if I could just reach out with a finger and stir, sending all these asteroids tumbling…

At his subtle command, the ship-ai adjusted this simulation, causing all the natural rocks to fade, leaving some glitters-far fewer, but still numerous-that orbited mostly along the belt’s innermost rim. He recognized these without being told. Each pinpoint represented an interstellar message crystal-detected but, so far, not collected.

Had it really been just two dozen years since those little cylinders, blocks, and spheres were considered treasure , worth any risk to seek? Any cost to acquire? Leading an expedition to gather more “interstellar chain letters” had been Gerald’s high point as an astronaut. The samples that he and Akana and Emily and Genady managed to bring back had proved key components in a kind of inoculation -the tonic that helped rouse humanity from a bad case of worldwide contact panic.

Well. It helped rouse humanity partway. Renunciators, romantics, and fanatics of every stripe still stirred, along with the DUN League, insistently demanding that facilities be built to Download Us Now.

Collecting crystalline missionary-probes still had priority, especially to Ben Flannery and other alienists, refining their models of this galactic neighborhood-stretching a thousand light-years around Earth-pinpointing which species once lived near which star, and when each went through its own fever, building frantic factories and sneezing more space-viroids into space. Continuing to build that model was important work, and there were other reasons to gather more samples, but the desperate need had become less frantic.

He commanded those glitters to fade away as well. Leaving-

Earth vessels are noted in yellow.

That many? Gerald wondered. From coded patterns, he saw that at least two dozen had some kind of human crew. Smaller yellow dots denoted automatic survey drones, picking their way though the Belt, tracing clues and relics that increased in number, the farther into the rocky maze you went. Bits and broken pieces of antediluvian machinery that hinted at some past disaster. Forensic evidence of ancient crimes.

Or of war.

But what of shooters? Any FACR sites in range?

The defense ai answered.

If any remain, they are being circumspect, keeping hidden. They aren’t reacting to the new telescope. Odds of an attack are now estimated 4 percent. And plummeting.