David Brin - Existence

We’ll be doing this most nights till the ibn Battuta goes home. Adding little shoves to all sixty-four probes-ten minutes here, half an hour there-as much as we can manage without making the scientists suspicious. Without letting word get back to Earth. Without letting the space viruses know what we’re doing. Not yet.

Well, after all, who would suspect? However impressive the space telescope seemed, the laser beam it emitted was many orders of magnitude too weak to propel anything like the Havana Artifact. These sails were small and crude, by galactic standards. Their crystal cargoes miniature and overspecialized, able to carry a bare minimum crew of simulated personalities. It was the best humanity could do, right now, cribbing from alien blueprints, building them from scratch and carefully cleansing them of embedded alien agendas. Far from ready to launch on interstellar missions.

But good enough for something much nearer. A goal within reach. An experiment worth making.

The beam cut off. The faint glitter of sail reflections faded, and that probe was left to coast, tacking on the faint push of mere sunlight.

Okay, that’s one. On its way to a special stretch of “empty” space between Uranus and Neptune. A realm that may contain something we desire. Good hunting, my virtual friends.

And if these first envoys did not find treasure there?

There are other domains rich with possibility, farther out. They might offer what humanity-what the living Earth-needs above all else.

“Ready for number two,” Jenny announced as component petal-mirrors of the Donaldson-Chang Array shifted slightly under her guidance, re-aiming toward another gossamer sail. “Preparing for propulsive pulse in five, four…”

And so it went for the next few hours. After the fortieth deployment went without a hitch, Gerald started to relax. Maybe this will work… and we won’t get caught.

Not that the consequences of exposure would be awful. A minor scandal. This wasn’t even illegal-Gerald and his co-conspirators were fully empowered to try whatever measures they saw fit, in seeking a way out of the fomite-trap. Still, there were reasons-good ones-for violating the modern moral code against secrecy.

We’re at war, after all. In a strange but real way. With a universe that seems bent on crushing every hope. It makes sense to keep the enemy in the dark for as long as possible.

A cheery thought.

Yet, Gerald felt content. If anything in the world gave him joy, it was to be surrounded by competence. These three young people, Jenny, Ika, and Hiram-representing three of the five subspecies of Man-exuded so much of it that he felt awash in pride.

Every decent father wants his children to be better than him. These are my kids, as much as if they sprang from my loins. And they are so much better than I ever was.

At this rate… if we keep improving… then goddamn the Fates and every single thing that’s “written.”

Lurker Challenge Number Nine

Let’s say you’ve monitored our TV, radio, Internet-and you haven’t answered because you’re meddling in ways you think beneficial.If so, please consider what happened to our civilization, the last few generations.

We spent the first half of the twentieth century plunging into simpleminded doctrines-from communism and fascism to nationalism, fundamentalism, collectivism, oligarchy, and solipsistic individualism-as passionately as other eras clutched their cults. Was this partly your doing? Or an adolescent phase you could only watch us endure like a fever? Either way, it damn near killed us.

The twentieth’s second half was also turmoil, with swerves into wrath and razor-edged risk. Yet we evaded that Third World War. And gradually, ideological incantations lost some of their grip. Instead, multitudes started adopting pragmatic ways to allow give-and-take among complex citizens.

Our media filled with messages promoting diversity, eccentricity, and suspicion of authority. And while varied forms of hate still fill many hearts, hatred itself acquired an odor.

Mass media rushed to cover bad events and countless dramas finger-wagged at human obstinacy-while making billions off mass audiences who paid to be guilt-tripped. Amid an illusion that things were getting worse, per capita poverty, violence and oppression plummeted. And so we advance with grinding slowness that leaves each utopian spirit angry. Perhaps too slowly to save us! Still, progress.

Did you help bring this about? If so, thanks. We grasp why you might conceal your role. Proud children like to think they accomplished something, all by themselves.

On the other hand, perhaps you find recent events puzzling. Do you have some favorite dogma or formula that should be right for us? That worked for your species, and now you push it “for our good”? Have you been doing that for years? Generations? Won’t you reconsider?

Nearly all we’ve accomplished lately came by abandoning recipes and incantations. Embracing our complexity. Look up emergent properties and the positive sum game . Then join discussions (see Challenge #5). Be patient, persistent, to better understand our perplexing natures.

Meanwhile, please stop meddling in things you don’t understand.

The chert-core gleamed under Tor’s headlamp as she turned it in her prosthetic hand, holding the relic up close to a stretch of carved and polished asteroidal stone-the wall that was her greatest discovery. Those chiseled lines and figures were her fame. All else would fade, in comparison. Yet, it was the fist-size rock from Earth-rounded and fluted from the labor of mesolithic toolmakers-that held her contemplation.

Is this why I brought you along, half a billion klicks from home? To represent the dim ages of my ancestors? To somehow illuminate this dark place?

The last hands that hewed and chipped at the core were those of cave-dwellers, who saw mere god-twinkles when they looked up at the stars. But they did look up. And thus began a journey that led here…

… back underground again. Trading torchlight for laserbulbs to view cavern art. Lower gravity. No air. And this cave last heard voices sixty million years ago. Yet, still.

She held the stone age specimen close to a portion of the message-wall, depicting scenes of devastation. One of the deep-carved cavities seemed almost a perfect fit. It was uncanny.

On impulse, Tor slid the ancient tool-core into a niche in the far more ancient wall. It stayed there, right at home, now surrounded by incised figures and rays. Now part of a prehistoric tale of battle and woe, enduring brutal assault by forces of relentless belligerence.

I miss my old smart-mob, she thought, pondering her handiwork-her small addition to panel twelve of row four of the Great Chronicle. They would have been pouring forth correlations and tentative translations by now. A posthuman intelligence made up of ten thousand merely very smart individual human beings… and their ais and tools.

Ah, but hadn’t that been one of her reasons for leaving Earth? Denied the pleasures of flesh-of family and warm lovers-she had become the heart of a mob-entity, its driving spirit, its mother… one of the top twenty out of eighty thousand citizen posses that prowled the New Earth Civilization like organic T cells, sniffing for crimes, conspiracies, or errors to unveil…

It was my work, important work, and it consumed me. All the other members-except the auties-had regular lives to return to. They took turns. But I was always on call, with nothing for distraction. In the end, it was depart or die. Move on to a new phase. A new adventure.