David Brin - Existence

In bed, she drifted a while, generally pleased with today. Learning that humanity-through a combination of wisdom, politics, diversity, ethics, foresight, and popular opinion-had chosen curiosity over the easy-but-lethal alternatives. Giving in to the fomites or giving in to fear. And yet, the fate that humanity was fighting against seemed so huge. So ponderous. A galaxy-wide equilibrium of death.

We know there was a long, earlier era of bickering machine probes. That seemed a stable condition too. Till suddenly, in a galactic eyeblink, it ended. And the long, sterile desert of the Crystal Plague began. Another equilibrium.

But the thing about such states… Lacey mused, half asleep… is that they can seem steady, even permanent… until…

… until each one ends, as abruptly as it started.

Which could mean… that statistics don’t matter… since all it takes is one…

Lacey sat up.

Her pounding heart felt more than virtual.

The Quantum Eye had said:

You may soon be typical.

Everyone took the prophecy’s obvious, gloomy interpretation. That humanity would likely join all the other toppled sapients out there. Another typical failure. But there was another possible meaning.

That the galaxy’s situation… the typical condition of intelligent life… might soon transform…

… to be more like us.

Lacey blinked upward in the dimness of her bedroom, whose roof and ceiling magically vanished, like a dream, revealing a skyscape of luminous clouds. And beyond them, she glimpsed Sagittarius, its innumerable stars like dust.

Suppose we find a real cure, a way to prosper… a roadmap through the minefield of existence… then the cosmos may change again, filling with voices and variety. With adventure and wisdom. And by our hand, the galaxy may come back to life.

Lacey settled back against the pillow, feeling suddenly content. This dream-within-a dream culminated a fine day. Moreover, she felt certain the T-shirt would be gone tomorrow.

One question lingered, though. Why had the Oracle been so vague?

Of course. Because there was a choice which of the two meanings came true. It would take combining maturity with perpetual youthfulness-being joyfully ready for anything! Agility. And care. And work.

From all of us, she thought. And drifted into blissful sleep.

She sits before me, cross-legged, as I rise to awareness, vaguely knowing she has been here for some time, tending me like a gardener. Or a mother.

I know about gardens only from Earth-images. The same with mothers. Except my own-

Vast machinery against vacuum-bright stars. Robot hands, constructing me under a small, red sun…

She leans forward now, lithe and human-limbed, to rap me above my oculars. She peers into them with one brown-irised eye, then another.

“Aha! Someone’s home in there, at last. Can you speak?”

Vision broadens and deepens. I look past her at a realm unlike any that I’ve known. Not the comfortable black chill of space. Nor the film-separated layers of Earth-blues and whites above greens and browns. Here, there is a sense of vertical without weight. Dimensionality seems limitless. My sense of scale is painfully warped. The clouds appear to be alive.

And yet-I realize-this isn’t one of those cramped crystal-worlds either. It borrows from all three… expanding on them all.

“Well?”

Her question prods me. And so, words manifest from a place below my oculars, in a way that seems both wet and strange.

“I… remember you.”

“Well, you ought to!” She grins. “We had our times, you and I. Up and down. Trust and betrayal. Friendship and hate. Scary and weird.”

I feel an involuntary shift. My nod of agreement.

“Tor. Your name is Tor.”

Again, a warming smile.

“Very good. Now tell me yours.”

I pause. It takes some time to search, as if opening raw, unfinished drawers.

“I was… I am Seeker.”

Her approval gives me pleasure. An attractive but unsettling sensation.

“Excellent. Now try to stand up, like I’m doing. Envision it.”

I have never done this before. But she patiently helps until I wobble in the soft gravity. Looking down, I see two spindly legs, ending in ridiculous paddle-feet, pale and squishy. Pebbles crunch between what could be toes.

Reflexively, I lift things that must be hands. Even squishier. Yet unbelievably supple.

“I am human now?”

“We agreed. Gavin and I spent years with you, as mostly machines. It’s your turn. You could not exist as physical flesh. Not yet. So this version will suffice.

“Anyway, it will help you to prepare, till we arrive.”

“Arrive?”

“At the first of many stops, ports, interventions. Adventures. We have things to do. Places to go and strangers to meet. Destinies to transform!”

It all sounds rather grandiose and tiring. But yes. I recall now. Memories are coming back. One thread tugs painfully.

“I… had a purpose.”

She nods. Partly in sympathy. But I know that there is more.

“Yes. And you still have it. Only, it’s become larger, yes?”

“Larger… yes.”

And I mourn. Lost simplicity. Lost purity.

“It has changed?”

Tor smiles at me, taking my hand, leading me toward a rainbow of impossible brightness.

“Silly,” she chides. “Don’t you know by now?

“Everything changes.”

THE END…

… of Existence …

I get questions from all directions. For example: “What relevance does the literature called science fiction offer-what light can it shine-on ‘eternal human verities’ or the core mysteries that vex all generations?”

A quite different query comes from fans of the hardcore stuff-bold, idea-drenched sci-fi: “Why are most serious authors no longer writing deep space adventures, using warp drive to explore on a galactic scale? Have you all just given up and surrendered to Einstein?”

Two seemingly opposite perspectives, from a very broad reader base! Yet, I found both concerns converging during the long, arduous process of writing Existence . Let me answer the second one first.

No, I haven’t lost any love for grand, cosmic vistas, or contact with strange minds, or even great cruisers roaming the interstellar expanse. I’ll return to the Uplift Universe soon, where vivid heroes and villains don’t have just one way to cheat relativity, but twenty! I promise gigatons of sense-o-wonder.

Still, “warp drive” is kind of like playing tennis with the net lowered. Way fun, but more and more, authors like Bear, Robinson, Banks, Asaro, Sawyer, Kress, Vinge, Benford, Baxter, and others want to see what they can do with the hand nature dealt us. And if that means dancing with Einstein? Well, so be it.

Existence is about the cosmos that we see. Stark, immense beyond immensity, and unwelcoming to moist mayflies like us. Strangely-dauntingly-quiet. And perched in this vast emptiness is the oasis speck of Earth. More fragile than we imagined.

Yet, despite all that, might there be ways to persevere? To endure? Perhaps even to matter?

Which brings us back to question number one. Like most (usually) serious SF authors, I’m appalled by the notion of eternal human verities. A loathsome concept, foisted by brooding, husk-like academics, proclaiming that people will forever be the same, repeating every Proustian obsession, every omphaloskeptic navel-contemplation, and every dopey mistake of our parents, all the way until time’s end. A horrible concept that is-fortunately-disproved by history and science and every generation of bright kids who strive to climb a little higher than their ignorant ancestors. And to raise kids of their own who will be better still. The greatest story. The greatest possible story.