David Brin - Existence

Gerald exhaled, a sigh of letting go, both relieved and… well… a little disappointed. For one thing, it meant Genady had won their wager. Those lasers and particle beams-once deemed so frightening that the Marco Polo was called a suicide mission-were mostly gone, showing up only a few dozen times in the last couple of decades and only rarely attacking Earth vessels.

Had they mostly wiped each other out? Gorosumov thought they were from a completely separate era. They had nothing to do with the ancient War of the Machines.

Then why disappointment?

If any of the shooters were to attack us now, or even just speak up, we’re ready. We have methods, plans… and it might give us someone else to question. Someone other than the damned artilens.

The ship’s ai could tell these were normal, inner thoughts, not volition-driven questions or commands. So it kept silent. And when Gerald’s attention shifted, the depict-vista of asteroids, ships, and artifacts swiftly faded from his eyes.

He glanced at Jenny and Courier, who continued their benign argument. As much as he liked them both, Gerald had no desire to get snared into a family spat that always turned into another sales pitch.

Courier came across the stars to warn us against “liars.” Against alien space probes that had evolved ways to make intelligent races copy them and spew more viruses across the cosmos. And yes, Courier’s warning was helpful.

But what does he want us to do, now? Beyond building ever greater telescopes, to determine the fate of his homeworld? Why, he wants us to make more crystalline probes! Not billions, but certainly millions of them. And fire them off… to spread his warning!

Gerald turned to go. Now that deployment of the great instrument was finished-and no mystery lasers had been drawn into attacking-there were other matters to attend to. But irony seemed to follow as he walked along the circumference of the spinning centrifugal wheel.

Maybe that’s what we should do. Help the universe. Copy Courier and his probe millions of times. And add some human companions to every one. Joining him in a mission to inoculate and save other races from the sickness.

Gerald knew that he would be an easy candidate to serve as one of those human self-patterns, downloaded into crystal and hurled outward. Would that qualify as him, getting an astronaut’s dream assignment, an expedition to the stars? A mission of help and mercy and adventure. It was tempting, all right.

But when does a cure start to resemble the disease?

He wondered.

Did some of the other crystal-fomites begin their career-generations back-as warnings? Only, after a dozen or so races added members, did the inescapable logic of self-interest gradually change their message?

Sometimes, evolution was a bitch.

The story remains sketchy, but we can already guess some of what happened out here, long before humankind was even a glimmer.

Once upon a time, the first “Von Neumann type” interstellar probe arrived in our solar system. A large and complex machine, crafted according to meticulous design, it came to explore and perhaps report back across the empty light-years. That earliest emissary found no intelligent life on any of Sol’s planets. Perhaps it came before Earth life even crawled onto land.

So the machine envoy proceeded with its second task. It prospected a likely asteroid, mined its ready ores, then built factory works in order to reproduce itself. Finally, according to program, the great machine dispatched its duplicates toward other stellar systems.

The original then-its chief tasks done-settled down to watch, awaiting the day when something interesting might happen in this corner of space.

Time passed in whole epochs. And, one by one, new probes arrived, representing other civilizations. Each fulfilled its task without interference-there is plenty of room and a plethora of asteroids. Once their own replicas were launched, the newcomers joined a growing community of mechanical ambassadors to this backwater system-waiting for it to evolve someone interesting. Someone to say hello to.

Ponder the poignant image of those lonely machines, envoys of creator races who were perhaps long extinct-or evolved past caring about the mission they once charged upon their loyal probes. After faithfully reproducing, each emissary commenced its long watch, whiling away the slow turning of the spiral arms…

We found a few of these early probes, remnants from the galaxy’s simpler time. Or, more precisely, we found their blasted remains.

Perhaps one day those naive, first-generation envoys sensed a new entity arrive. Did they move to greet it, eager for gossip? Like those twentieth century thinkers, perhaps they thought probes must follow the same logic-curious, gregarious, benign.

But the first Age of Innocence was over. The galaxy had aged. Grown nasty.

The wreckage we find-whose salvage drives our new industrial revolution-was left by an unfathomable war that stretched across vast times, fought by entities for whom biological life was a nearly forgotten oddity.

It might still be going on.

– Tor Povlov

My own Beginningwas a misty time of assembly and learning, as drone constructors crafted my hardware out of molten rock. Under the star humans call e Eridani, my awareness expanded with each new module, and with every tingling program-cascade the Parent Probe poured into me.

Eventually, my sisters and I learned the Purposefor which we and generation upon generation of our forebears had been made. We younglings stretched our growing minds. We ran countless simulations, testing one another in what humans might call “play.” And contemplated our special place in the galaxy… we of the 2,410th generation since First Launch by our Makers, long ago.

The Parent taught us about biological creatures, strange units of liquid and membrane, unknown in the sterile Eridanus system. She described to us different kinds of makers and a hundred major categories of interstellar probes.

We tested weaponry and explored our home system, poking through the wreckage of more ancient dispersals-shattered probes come to e Eridani in earlier waves. Disquieting ruins, reminding us how dangerous the galaxy had become. Each of us resolved to someday do our solemn Duty.

Then came launching day.

Would that I had turned for a last look at the Parent. But I was filled with youth then, and antimatter! Engines hurtled me into the black, sensors focused only forward. The tiny stellar speck, Sol, was the center of my universe, and I a bolt out of the night!

To pass time I divided my mind into a thousand sub-entities, and set them against each other in a million little competitions. I practiced scenarios, read archives of the Maker race, and learned poetry.

Finally, at long last, I arrived here at Sol… just in time for war.

Ever since Earth-humans began emitting those extravagant, incautious broadcasts, we survivors have listened to Beethoven symphonies and acid rock. We argue the merits of Keats and Lao Tse, Eminem, and Kobayashi Issa. There have been endless discussions about the strangeness of planet life.

I followed the careers of many precocious Earthlings, but this explorer interests me especially. Her ship-canoe nuzzles a shattered replication yard on a planetoid not far from this one, our final refuge. With some effort I tap her computer, reading her ideas as she enters them. Though simple, this one thinks like a Maker.

Deep within me the Purpose stirs, calling together dormant traits and pathways-pulling fullness out of a sixty-million-year sleep.