David Brin - Existence

“Uh, Gavin, I think you better come down here… I found them.”

“Found who?” he muttered. Then came an exclamation. All his former ambivalence seemed to vanish. “The colonists!”

“Yeah. And… and something else, as well.”

This time, there was hardly a pause.

“Hang on, Tor. I’m on my way.”

She was standing in the same spot when he arrived ten minutes later. Still staring at her discovery.

Lurker Challenge Number Seven

Let’s suppose you’ve monitored our TV, radio, Internet and the reason you don’t speak is that you enjoy watching.

Perhaps you draw entertainment from our painful struggles to survive and grow. Worse, you may be profiting off our cultural, scientific and artistic riches without reciprocating or paying anything. Maybe you repackage and transmit them elsewhere. In that case, there’s a word for what you’re doing.

It’s called stealing.

Stop it now. We assert ownership over our culture, and a right to share it only with those who share in turn. In the name of whatever law or moral code applies out there-and by our own rules of fair-play-we want quid pro quo ! Do not take without giving or paying in return.

We hereby assert and demand any rights we may have, to benefit from our creativity and culture.

Tor has figured out that Seeders had one purpose. Planting sapient biologicals on suitable worlds.

Once, it was relatively common. But that variety of probe had mostly died out when a member of my line last tapped into the slow galactic gossip network, three generations ago. I doubt Makers still send emissaries instructed to colonize far planets. The galaxy has grown too dangerous for elaborate, old-fashioned Seeders.

Has my little Earthling guessed this yet, as she moves among those failed colonists, who died under their collapsing Mother Probe so long ago? Would Tor Povlov understand why this Seeder in particular, and her children, had to die, before establishing a colony on Earth? Empathy can be strong in an organic race. Probably, she thinks their destruction a horrible crime. Greeter and Awaiter would agree.

That is why I hide my part in it.

There are eddies and tides in the galaxy’s sweeping whirl. And though we survivors are all members of the Old Loyalist coalition-having eked a narrow victory in that long-ago war-there are quirks and variations in every alliance. If one lives long, one eventually plays the role of betrayer.

… What a curious choice of words! Have I been watching too much Earth television? Or read too many human e-braries? Is this what comes from wallowing through the creatures’ wildly undisciplined online discussions?

While pondering all this, I must endure another irritating distraction, as Tor’s automatic system continues rebroadcasting the old “Challenge-to-ET” messages. And now, by sardonic happenstance, we’re at the ones regarding meddling and theft, insisting that we stop. A defiant demand that stabs at all of us out here, we enduring castaways who have immersed in Earth culture for almost two centuries without paying anything back.

Again, what choice of words! It makes me wonder: Have I acquired a sense of guilt ? If true, then so be it. Studying such feelings may help allay boredom after this phase ends and another long watch begins. If I survive.

Meanwhile, I unleash the persuasive “Lawyer” entity I invented long ago for this very purpose-in order to keep the others calm and prevent them from responding. Lawyer will come up with every needed excuse or rationalization.

Anyway, Guilt is a pale thing next to Pity.

I feel for the poor biologicals-these humans-living out their lives without the one supreme advantage that I possess. Perfect knowledge of why I exist, and what part, large or small, the Universe expects me to play.

I wonder if a few of them will understand, when the time comes to show them what is in store.

Lurker Challenge Number Eight

Let’s say you’ve monitored our TV, radio, Internet and the reason you won’t speak is that you’re responsible for some of the so-called UFO incidentsor pushy behaviors that fill our darker legends…

… well in that case, cease and desist!

Better yet, will you please drop dead?

The group who authored this set of messages consists largely of astronomers, SETI scholars, science fans, and others who (for the most part) don’t believe in UFOs.

Nor for that matter, do we credit similar tales told by our ancestors about elves, kobolds, and forest creatures who were said to do similar things-kidnapping people, treating them in grotesque ways, flitting about mysteriously, dropping cryptic hints, and never greeting people honestly. It’s all so blatantly a product of fertile, paranoid human imagination. Is any other explanation necessary?

Still, who knows for sure? Millions of humans do follow lurid reports of “visitors” from afar, swooping and behaving very badly. Others claim aliens played “god” in our past, meddling in politics, social structures, even our genes. Again, we in this group don’t believe such tales.

But if any happen to be true, and you’re even partly responsible-stop!

Come openly, as honorable visitors. Just phone SETI personnel at home or work, or the NASA Office of Planetary Protection. That shouldn’t be beyond your high technical abilities, right? Or nominate others who’d make you feel comfortable. Provide proof (it may require lots of repetition) and eventually you can be sure we will do what’s required.

We’ll throw you the biggest party in history! Or else arrange for discretion, safety, and comfort. Whatever works for you.

If, in the face of an offer like that, you still refuse to come forward honestly, and continue afflicting us with rude vexations, then we’ve settled what you are. And we have just one thing to add.

Go away!

Consider that maliciousness inevitably has consequences. Ask your parents, guardians, or other responsible adults to please talk to us, instead.

And if you turn down this request? Choosing to keep teasing and poking? Well, just you wait.

Third shift aboard the Sol System cruiser Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta. A time when all scientists, researchers, and regular staff were in their hammocks, wired for enhanced sleep-recharging bodies and brains-while the small downtime-crew performed upkeep chores. Swapping and testing modules, processing recyclables, shifting around fuel, waste, and other fluids, rough tasks that were banished to the small hours, because they might disturb delicate experiments with sloshing, gurgling vibrations. Everyone got used to such soft sounds muttering away during third shift. The music of maintenance.

For Gerald, it was time to perform “unique functions.” Those that called for-

Well, “secrecy” was too obscene a word, nowadays. “Discretion” better fit the operation that he now supervised from the bridge, while Captain Kim and most of her officers dozed below.

Of course, this is why they keep coming back to me. The reason humanity’s most-elite conspiracy keeps sending me out here. Because I’m a sneaky bastard, with my generation’s easy knack for lying.

Just three others shared this bridge watch with Gerald, all of them members of his close-knit team. Jenny Peng wore a floppy sweatshirt with a pixilated penguin roaming actively across the folds of cloth. She monitored the Big Eye Telescope, preparing it for special duty similar to its role as a weapon, a while back.