David Brin - Existence

Maybe you have an excuse like the following one, submitted to a SETI-related discussion group:

Yes, we have been monitoring your earthling communications, but cannot respond yet. The Edict of Knodl states that all first contact situations be initiated during the High Season of Jodar, which does not begin for another 344 years. Sorry, but your first radio transmissions reached us just nine years too late for the last one, and the Lords of Vanathok do not look kindly upon violations of the Edict. This may sound like we’re a bunch of close-minded religious zealots, but I think you need to get out and see the rest of this galactic cluster before you make a judgment like that. All praise Knodl, and may her seven tentacles protect you from harm!

If your reason is something like that… or if you take pride in some other special weirdness… well, all I can say is just you wait till we get out there.

You think you’ve got weird? We have beings down here called Californians! They’ll show you a thing or two about weird.

The great cruiser Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta received orders to embark on a new mission. And that evening, after a long day supervising preparations, Commodore Gerald Livingstone found several top secret messages awaiting him.

Starting with a new memorandum from Ben Flannery.

“The whole world is fascinated by the pictures and reports from Povlov’s asteroid. Especially the Rosetta Wall, with its vivid portrayal of ancient starships. Terrifying panoramas of galactic scale struggle and death. Here on Earth, the big ais and guv-boffins and amateur sci-mobs are having huge fun, competing to be first with a translation.

“Meanwhile, public attention is captivated by those pathetic colonists. Bio-clones of a faraway alien race who died before they got a chance to settle Earth. I mean, Vishnu preserve us, how do you ever top that? Mummies in space! Could things get any more bizarre?”

Gerald shook his head. He wished Ben wouldn’t tempt fate by asking such questions. For sure, the universe had an infinite stock of weirdness on tap.

“As you’d expect, we at the Artifact Institute are more interested in the expedition’s other discovery. That great big pile of ancient crystals they found! Even the blurry image that Povlov and Ainsworth sent-kept deliberately dim, in order to prevent the probes from activating-even that glimpse is enough to tell us plenty.

“For starters, many of the types are completely new to us! They appear to come from an era tens of millions of years older than our current samples. We’re itching to get our hands on them!”

Gerald already knew the truth of that. Discoveries always led to new priorities.

The small exploration vessel Warren Kimbel could not possibly haul home all the treasures that its crew had found. And so, the ibn Battuta received instructions, just two days after Gerald’s team finished their secret task-deploying sixty-four tiny, sail-propelled packages toward the orbit of Neptune.

Now, with that accomplished and the Big Eye functional, they were ordered further into the belt, to rendezvous with asteroid 47962a. Even pushing the ship’s ion engines, they would arrive after Tor Povlov and her partner departed, hurrying home with a first clutch of precious samples.

Too bad, he thought. I just met her once, at a conference. But she made quite an impression, with her agile, robotic limbs and expressive virtual face, holo-projected onto a hard cranial dome. Since then, our paths never seemed to cross. Perhaps someday I’ll get a chance to talk at length with the world’s most famous cyborg.

Gerald’s crew had orders to explore the asteroid more thoroughly. To collect a second pile of ancient crystals. To salvage more relic machines than Warren Kimbel could carry. And then comb the region for this era’s holy grail. Something or someone-other than a space virus-to talk to.

Flannery’s message-self continued speaking, clearly excited.

“These newly discovered crystals have already done some good, even before arriving in our lab. I showed an image of that pile of older probes to some of the fomite artifacts in our possession. Their reaction was… productive!

“This couldn’t have happened at a better time. I’m not supposed to discuss it openly, Gerald…”

Ben’s expression went serious, with furrowed brow.

“… but we’ve come to a stalemate with the artifact aliens. With the artilens. In our ongoing war of wits, the fomites have gained the upper hand.

“Oh, sure, we accomplished a lot earlier, by pitting a couple of dozen crystals from different lineages against each other, offering each one hope that it would be the one copied-when humanity finally goes into its seed spasm. Sending billions to the stars. By sparking competition among them, we managed to peel back some layers.

“But for years now, Genady and I grew suspicious. Our fomite-specimens were finding ways to communicate and connive behind our backs. Perhaps by embedding coded messages inside the technological blueprints they provided, or in cultural summaries of their ancient parent races. Even during the debates! Somehow, they must have negotiated agreements, setting aside rivalry and joining forces. Prodding and guiding us toward their own goal.”

Gerald nodded. Parasites did this in nature. Viruses and bacteria sometimes acted in concert, helping exploit weakness in a host’s immune system. Opportunism was a fact of organic life. It could be even more fiercely pragmatic when you add feral intelligence.

On most planets, the first space viroids that made it into the hands-or tentacles or pincers-of a young race would use simple imagery and “god” guidance to steer the sapients upward, toward achieving the desired technological capacity. Just enough to make more infectious envoys and spew them across the cosmos. If another local tribe also had a crystal seer of its own, war would likely ensue, till just one clan-and its oracle-remained. At the Artifact Institute, reconstructed histories of Earth and dozens of other worlds all showed this pattern. Apparently, humanity’s violent past wasn’t entirely its own fault.

But sometimes things went differently. When it made sense to do so, fomites could negotiate. Two might join forces against a third, sharing the civilization that resulted and arranging for the eventual “sneeze” to carry several lineages. That might work best when a race was wary and forewarned, as humanity was now.

“You saw last week’s sociometric models? Our best ais calculate we’ve been manipulated for much of the last decade, even as we coerced information out of them. One example is the do-gooder campaign to win ‘human rights for virtual entities,’ even for the artilens who reside inside the viral fomites. Lawsuits aimed at liberating all artilen entities from the Institute’s ‘concentration camp for aliens.’

“Can you imagine letting these things loose upon InterMesh? We’d lose all hope of containing the disease.”

Ben’s image shook its head.

“Now for the really bad news. We traced that whole ‘rights for ersatz aliens’ campaign to a seed-meme that was released five years ago by an old friend of ours. Courier of Caution!

“I know this may be a shock. After all, his people sent him out, along with millions of copies, in order to alert other races! And that aim was probably sincere. But we’ve now verified. His worldstone capsule contains embedded corruptions-viral code that’s woven into its very crystalline structure! Courier’s people thought they were dispatching clean ambassadors. But by adopting the fomites’ technology, they became partners in the infection.