David Brin - Existence

They all made out a humanoid figure climbing from the inner reaches, starting minuscule but growing rapidly. At first, Hamish reckoned it to be a downloaded person, one of the other AUP passengers. Only this shape appeared simpler, almost two dimensional. It swept higher, rising without effort or any pretense at “walking.”

He felt Lacey and Profnoo rejoin this higher level, while Birdwoman seemed content to stay just below, dancing among her numbers.

The approaching cartoony shape lacked texture or feigned reality. A message-herald, Hamish realized as it drew near… before Emily Tang let out a shout.

“Gerald!”

The figure braked to a halt, floating next to their thought-flattened platform. A simplified version of the famed astronaut explorer, not a full-scale virtual entity. A recording then, with some ai thrown in.

Hamish couldn’t-he just couldn’t-help himself. It simply came out and he vowed never to apologize for it.

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

The discoverer of the first recovered fomite-artifact hovered near the group, granting Hamish a slight nod.

“Just honorary degrees, I’m afraid.

“Hi Emily. Lacey. Everyone.

“Well, it took you long enough to trigger things in motion. Slower than average by ten percent. Six million other capsules have already checked in.”

Lacey stepped back a bit, her hand over her breast.

“Then civilization hasn’t forgotten or abandoned us? Or blown itself up?”

The figure shook its head, conveying ruefulness.

“Millions of probes, and the virtizens in every one leaped to the same dark conclusion-assuming the worst. What a dismal bunch! If we do this again, we really must include more optimists. Or at least spare you AUPs some suspense!

“To answer your question, no, we’re still tottering along back here on Earth and the Settlements, uncovering failure modes just in time. Sometimes gaining a little breathing room and confidence. At other times barely avoiding panic. Doing some planet repair. Staving off tyrants and demagogues. Coping with both would-be godmakers and fanatical nostalgia junkies. Gradually learning to benefit from our multiplicity.”

Gerald Livingstone’s aivatar spread its hands in an open gesture.

“As for abandoning you and your mission? Now why would we give up such an important investment? You have a big job to do!”

Oldest Member stepped up to confront the message simulacrum.

“Then why did the laser stop firing? Has it malfunctioned? We are moving only at one hundredth of the planned and necessary departing velocity! When will repairs be completed, and more launch lasers built? If this delay lasts much longer, our rendezvous at the target system will have to be recalculated.”

Gerald the herald held up a single finger.

“First, the laser works just fine. When you get your optics running, take a glimpse back home. You’ll see it still operates, alone, on a slow-but-steady schedule, launching special experiments. None as extensive as your particular mission, which required ten million probes.

“As for your complaint about speed, in fact, your craft appears to be exactly on its planned course. No further adjustments or laser boosts will be required.”

Om howled. “That is absurd! At this rate, none of the probes will ever leave the solar system at all!”

The answer he got next failed to please the most ancient known member of a viral chain. The astronaut’s voice had a faint, sardonic edge.

“I’m afraid you’re making a faulty assumption, venerable Om.

“You always had that tendency… my friend.”

Hamish saw the rotund artilen glower in what had to be simmering anger. The next words to puff from those waving vent tubes came as individual snorts.

“And… what… faulty… assumption… is that?”

“Why, that your crystal vessel was ever meant to visit another star system. Or that you were dispatched to be interstellar envoys.

“Or interstellar parasites.”

The simulated image of Gerald Livingstone paused, as it must have aboard many millions of other crystal vessels at the same point, upon delivering similar news. Even caught up in his own state of shock, Hamish appreciated the dramatic effect.

“As a matter of fact, you won’t leave the solar system, because you were never meant to.”

Emily Tang took a step toward her old comrade and lover. “Then our destination…?”

The simulated astronaut’s affectionate smile made him seem almost as real as she was.

“Why, my dear, you are already there.”

“Five hundred and fifty astronomical units from the sun. We’re beyond Neptune, Pluto, and the Kuiper Belt. Way outside the heliopause, where the solar wind stops and interstellar vacuum officially begins,” Lacey explained to the others. “But that’s still only sixteen light-hours from Earth. The nearest stars are several light- years away. Hell, at our present pace, we’ll barely touch the innermost edge of the Oort Cloud, the immense swarm of comets surrounding our sun, before we plunge back down, in the descending part of our orbit.”

“When will that happen?” Emily asked.

Birdwoman squawked, providing the answer. Abruptly Hamish realized, he could now translate her message without the fiction of tru-vu goggles.

three hundred and twelve years

then we plunge like falcons

toward the light

“Even when we dive back in,” Lacey added, “it will be a quick, comet-brief passage, followed by more centuries out here in the cold zone. And so on, forever.”

Hamish turned to pace away, uncertain how to react.

At one level, he felt betrayed. Manipulated! Horrifically used by the powers back on Earth, whose grand tale-about sending ten million messengers of salvation, carrying the Cure to other worlds-turned out to be one big…

… hoax.

The word punched out of his subconscious so forcefully that Hamish actually saw it shimmer for a moment, in the space before him. Despite his still-glowering sense of affront, a part of him felt cornered into grim appreciation of rich irony.

Hamish, can you-the great hoaxer-honestly complain?

Sure I can! he retorted to himself, hotly. Yet, he couldn’t help but notice-his inner conflict was so vivid, so lush and complex, that it made him feel more intensely genuine, more fleshed-out, than any time since he first awoke as a virtual being in this world. Anger and irony seemed to reinforce the sensation-

– that I’m alive.

Anyway, he wasn’t the only one stewing in wrath, fuming apart from the others. Some distance across the glassy plain, Hamish saw the Oldest Member, pacing and stomping in a display of fiery temper. No one had ever witnessed any version of Om behave like this before.

Because he always seemed so calm, so supremely confident, Hamish recalled. In fact, we’re pissed off for different reasons, he and I.

This version of Hamish Brookeman is still habitually self-centered. I wanted to be a stellar voyager. To personally-in this virtual form, aboard this ship-see other worlds and strange kinds of people. I’m angry because I’m disappointed for my own sake.

But Om is an evolved, intelligent virus. He hardly gives a damn about this particular copy of himself, or whether this specific probe ever makes contact. He’s enraged to learn that none of the ten million will ever get a chance to infect some distant race. Nor is humanity building millions or billions more. Not now. Perhaps not ever.