David Brin - Existence

It serves me right, for choosing an adviser with the brain of a Thorne or a Koonin, but with the insecure ego of a Bollywood star and the put-on reggae drawl of a rastaman.

Bulging implants throbbed just under the skin of Profnoo’s broad forehead, above dark, glinting eyes. The effect-totally intentional-made his cranium seem preternaturally large. Like an overinflated soufflé.

At least he doesn’t feel a need to lay the accent too thick, when he’s talking to me alone. Though his vowels were stretched and every “th” dropped into a “d” or “t” sound, she felt grateful that he wasn’t peppering in very many island slang expressions. In public, or on his shows, Profnoo can be hard to follow without subtitles!

Professor Noozone caused more images to dance about, with flourishes of a hand. “Indeed, our… your… earlier farseeker telescopes did find traces of life out there, on half a dozen planets! Those worlds, so far, proved disappointing. None of them exactly New Zion. Then there’s the next step . For life to rise-up an’ get smaart , an’ then technology-capable.

“Countless arguments have fumed and smoked over how much of a fluke it was, here on Earth, for humans to leap so far, so fast. And, if there very-truly are older races out there, how best to look for them. Does the lack of garish tutorial beacons mean there are no Elder Races out there, after all?

“ But, irie. Of course, the arrival of the Livingstone Object seems to have settled that !” He chuckled with the satisfaction of someone whose side had proved right, after a century of debate.

“By the Artifact’s mere existence, and the plurality of alien types that it contains, we may conclude that we are surrounded by an upfull multitude of advanced civilizations! Their invitation to come-ya ‘ join us’… to become members of some maarvelous community of star-bredren… has already thrilled and inspired billions across our lonely planet. Though the prospect may disturb a few downpressing ginnygogs an’ trogs who are terrified of change.”

Profnoo seemed unaware of Lacey’s ironic grimace, or her conflicted loyalties. By personality, she ought to share his forward-looking eagerness. If not for her worries about Hacker, she, too, might have been fizzing about the prospect of First Contact. (Though she would express it with more reserve than the super-extrovert in front of her.)

On the other hand, her caste-her peers in the top aristocracy-foresaw little good coming out of this. Even if the alien device represented a benign and advanced federation that was both generous and wise, the psychological disruption could spur fresh waves of anxiety, paranoia, or covetous wrath. With interstellar trade relations might come wave after wave of wondrous new technologies. Some hazardous? Even the most benign might shake an already tenuous economy, throwing whole sectors into obsolescence, putting hundreds of millions out of work, not to mention spoiling many investment portfolios.

No wonder this spurred a climax to long negotiations between the clade and Tenskwatawa’s renunciation movement. Few cultures ever managed to transition after contact with superior outsiders, without generations of intimidation and victimhood. Meiji-era Japan did it. And their method was not democracy.

But Lacey pulled her thoughts back to the present. The science-showman on her payroll was continuing his rapid-fire explication, never slacking momentum.

“… even that still leaves us awash in puzzles! We can only hope the Artifact Commission overcomes all linguistic barriers. Especially now that dem lagga heads will finally allow me… and you, of course, madam… close enough to ask questions!”

“So, what should we ask first, Professor?”

“Oh, there are so many things. For example, the mere existence of the Artifact, here on Earth, proves-irie-that interstellar travel is possible!”

Assuming, again, that it’s not a hoax, Lacey pondered, while noting that Profnoo still had not mentioned an actual question.

“True, we haven’t yet learned how the object crossed the vast gulf between the stars. But from the fact that it exists in a purely crystalline-solid state-tallowah an’ sturdy-I be wagering a whole-heap that the propulsion methodology wasn’t gentle! Perhaps a truly prodigious accelerator-cannongun fired it to near relativistic speeds. Or else, maybe its compact dimensions allowed slick passage through an obeah-generated wormhole, requiring the energy of a superdupernova ! I-mon have done some rudimentary calculations-”

“Professor. Please. Can you stick to the point?”

“Ah, yes. The Invitation.” He nodded. “Do bear with me, Madam Donaldson-Sander, I-and-I will get to it! For, you see, even the possibility of interstellar travel was denied for eighty years by the cult of SETI. When their program of sky worship found nothing out there at all, they trotted out the same excuse. Just a little more time . Patience-and ever-more sophisticated-bashy gear-would eventually find the needle in the haystack… that wise, elder race they hoped for!”

Huh. Lacey couldn’t help getting caught up in the spell he wove. Noozone had amassed his own fortune out of millions of micropayments, as people zigged-in to view and tactail his leaping, explanatory extravaganzas. Though some just liked his snakelike draidlocks, wafting and stirring clouds of ambiguous, colored smoke.

“Alas, interstellar travel changes everything. If advanced star-mon can deepvoyage an’ colonize, then needles make copies of themselves. Colonies send out their own expeditions, spreading an’ filling the haystack!

“But we saw no fabulous Others. Nor any huge engineering projects that we may someday build, if we become a truly bold and successful civilization. Antimatter-spaceships, vaast solar collectors, Dyson spheres, and Kardashev worksheds that lace multiple star systems, all of them detectable…” Profnoo had to gasp and catch his breath.

“And it gets worse! Earth itself would show signs, if visitors ever flushed a toilet here, or tossed a Coke bottle into our Paleozoic sea. My oh, geologists and paleobiologists would see in our rocks, the very moment when extraterrestrial bacteria arrived! Nuh true?

“No. Something was wrong with the old SETI logic. Till this marvel-stoosh Galactic Artifact turned up. Only now…” He lifted a finger-and one of his mentally activated draidlocks wafted also.

“Now, it seems that life is fairly common -and-

“-sapient life , capable of technology, is not rare-and-

“-some form of interstellar travel appears to be possible -and-

“-a peaceful community already exists that…”

Lacey raised a hand of her own, cutting him off with four braids and four fingers lifted in the air. Glancing out the window, she had noticed that the yacht bearing them from Charleston to Washington was cruising rapidly up the Potomac. Soon, they’d pass the zeppelin port and the Awfulday Memorial, before finally docking at the Naval Research Lab. Not that she minded traveling this way. Shipboard facilities let her stay in constant linkup with the rescue effort, searching for her son. But it was time to start winding this up.

“All right, then. Suppose there is a Galactic Federation we’re invited to join. Doesn’t that conflict with everything you just described? Especially the sparse cosmos that we observed, till now?”

“It would seem so, madam.” Profnoo’s earlobe rings and beaded locks clattered as he nodded. “So, where’s the overlap in conceptual space? Between the previous, downpressing appearance of meager sapience, and what we now know to be its high, upfull frequency?”