David Brin - Existence

Enough. This message-to-ET broadcast is finished. For now. Till the next time someone beams it outward to vex and challenge. Take that, you alien skulkers out there.

That is, if you exist.

Did we cover every potential reason why non-earthly lurkers in our solar system might decide to stay silent, instead of openly saying hello? Of course not!

Indeed, the “lurker” scenario never seemed very likely. There are plenty of other hypotheses that try to resolve the paradox of the Great Silence-the strange absence of voices in a cosmos that ought to teem with life and intelligence. Among almost a hundred “Fermi” explanations that have been proposed, most envision aliens (if they exist) dwelling much farther away, perhaps stuck in their own solar systems, or distracted by deep projects, or aloofly ignoring us, or keeping silent for reasons we’ll never understand.

The strangest possibility? Yet one consistent in all ways? That we’re the first to climb this high. Humanity may be the “Elder Race.” Creepy thought.

Meanwhile, I now turn my attention back to the humans who are reading or listening to this right now. Not mythical aliens, but real people who feel curiosity’s itch, who crave ideas, and who still (even today) buy science fiction stories and ponder the sacred question “what if?”

In other words, folks who are far more worthy of my time and attention than snooty aliens.

As we embark on a new century, let’s recall our duty. To keep looking around. To keep looking ahead.

– The Lonely Sky (1999)

What am I not-seeing? Gerald knew he shouldn’t ask. That was too much like paying attention. Indeed, the thing he was trying involved looking away.

By now he was getting pretty good at the physical part-averting his gaze, picking another part of the hallway to stare toward, at just the right angle, so the natural blind spot of his left eye would float over the length of corridor in question. That trick was easy, once you got the hang of it. Sure, his brain kept stitching together seams, trying to ignore the small missing zone-but as skilled as the human visual cortex might be, it couldn’t insert what your retina didn’t see.

Gerald recalled a story about a medieval king who loved to do this trick while bored at court, glancing away in order to let the blind spot of one eye settle over the head of a tedious petitioner, surreptitiously decapitating the man, for being criminally tiresome.

Of course, Ika and Hiram wanted him to go beyond just shifting the eye. Or even “ignoring” that little stretch of corridor. According to some tantric legends, any person who was disciplined enough to not contemplate a particular thing or person or idea, for a whole day, might thereupon master that thing, person, or idea.

Nonsense . If just relocating your attention was enough, Buddhist monks and such would be conversing with cobblies, for centuries.

Not-looking was just part of it. A beginning.

Unless this is all just a practical joke. Like shouting at someone “Quick! DON’T think of an elephant!”

He wouldn’t put it past Hiram and Ika. Both auties and Neanders enjoyed tweaking the homosap majority, professing to have deep stores of “ancient wisdom” on tap, unavailable to the hordes of regular Cro-Magnon humans infesting Earth and nearby space-a con that seduced millions of the eagerly gullible.

I hear dolphins do it, too.

What if the claims were for real, and not just an act? Weren’t the combined branches of humanity going to need all the wisdom they could get? Alas, with a billion citizens demanding to be uploaded into crystal, another billion loudly renouncing science, and several billions more just scared, what chance was there of reaching consensus on anything?

At least there’s no lack of clever plans.

Like Emily’s unique idea for using the Mother Probe technologies. A scheme that called for taking an ancient dream, one that was a lie, and turning it into truth. A truth that might then help to expose liars…

Something about his thought-drift must have wandered in the right direction, because suddenly Gerald felt a creepy presence. A chill up the back of his neck that said he wasn’t alone in the quiet stretch of slightly curved hallway. And along with all that… a queer sense of approval.

Of course, the moment he noticed it, the glimmer started fading. So he veered quickly to another topic. Diverting away from the maybe-cobbly.

Why me? Why now?

Why are Ika and Hiram so insistent I try this, even as our ship plows deeper into dangerous territory? How am I a better candidate than younger, more mentally agile crew members?

Something about the nothing changed-it felt vaguely like a nod. He was asking good questions. Try conjectures.

Because he was the famous explorer Gerald Livingstone? Tested by space and time and alien demon-artifacts. The man who lassoed an ancient, star-voyaging crystal out of orbit, brought home dire news from the galaxy, then helped find new ways around the danger.

Venerable commander and warrior. Helping humanity to claim the solar system. Already with his visage on a dozen postage stamps… though with stronger jaw and straighter nose than he ever saw in a mirror, and no hint of the flawed, limited creature who lurked behind those eyes. Any single part of the legend seemed unlikely.

The whole thing? Preposterous!

But I already knew all that. I’ve been luckier than anyone deserves. Starting the moment I saw something fishy in that object Hachi and I snagged with our tether…

He recognized the same feeling now. A shiver near the base of the spine. A frisson of uncanny recognition. Still veering his attention and gaze away from that patch of hallway, Gerald thought hard.

Other generations would attribute it all to intervention by the gods… or God. Or apply the catch-all “destiny.” Human egos perceive convenient correlations that flatter our prejudices, our outrageous sense of self-importance, ignoring exceptions.

And so, science leans far the other way, training us to dismiss subjectivity. To shrug off observation bias. A good and mature teaching…

… but shouldn’t we keep one eye cracked open, just a little, for the fey and strange? For things that are too good-or too bad-to be true?

Movement in his blind spot.

It shouldn’t happen. He had no retinal cells aimed at that small portion of the corridor. But Gerald glimpsed something anyway, allowing it to form, without expectation-

– then recoiled from a sudden-strong impression-a momentary, electric imprint on his mind. The glimmer of a narrow, pointed face, fuzzy, with long whiskers, a looping tail and black eyes that shone…

“Porfirio,” he whispered. The rat god of the InterMesh. Mostly mythological, yet paid homage by countless groups, individuals, and ais across Earth and space, who tithed one-millionth of their bit cycles for use by the patron deity of uploaded beings.

Gerald broke the trance, rubbing his eyes before glancing at the corridor again, this time with full attention. Nothing was there. Nothing but scattered dust, held to the plastic floor by static charge and centrifugal force.

That was no cobbly. Rather, the famous little software rodent was exactly what his subconscious might dream up! An illusion born of imagination and fatigue. At another level, clearly, Porfirio represented a different explanation for Gerald’s life story. The usual obsessive thought-that all of this could be a simulation.

The next time I rouse, will I find myself living in some crystal world, doomed to drift across the vast desert between stars? Or already sealed in mud beneath some planet’s sea? Is this reality of mine, aboard a mighty ship where I’m a legendary hero-leader, the place where my mind goes in order to evade some awful truth?