David Brin - Existence

A glint of white cloth and silvery metal… Bin winced as his right eye, fresh from surgery, overreacted to the sudden glare reflecting off a nineteen-meter sloop that passed into view around the far corner of Newer Newport. Sheets of bright neosilk billowed and figures hurried about the deck, tugging at lines. A call-distant but clear-bellowed across the still lagoon.

“Two-Six, heave!”

Voices answered in unison as well-drilled teamwork rapidly set the main sail. Though the crew seemed to be working hard, few would call it “labor.” Not when the poorest citizen of this independent nation could buy or sell a man like Peng Xiang Bin, ten thousand times or more. Bin found the sight intriguing in more ways than he could count.

I always thought that rich people would lay about, letting servants and robots do everything for them. Sure, you heard of wealthy athletes and hobbyists. But I had no idea so many would choose to sweat and strain… for fun. Or that it could be so-

He shook his head, lacking the vocabulary. Then something happened that he still found disturbing. A dark splotch appeared, as if by magic, in a lower corner of his right eye. The shadow resolved into a single Chinese character, with a small row of lesser figures underneath, offering both a definition and pronunciation guide.

Obsessive.

Yes. That word seemed close to what he had in mind. Or, rather, what the ai in his eye estimated, after following his gaze and reading subconscious signals in his throat, the subvocalized words that he had muttered within, without ever speaking them aloud.

This was going to take some getting used to.

“Peng Xiang Bin,” a voice spoke behind him. “You have rested and the worldstone has recharged. It is time to return.”

It was the same voice that had come from the penguin-machine, his constant companion during the hurried journey that began less than a hundred hours ago-first swimming away from his wife and child and the little shorestead, then slipping aboard a midget submarine, followed by two days aboard a fast coastal packet-freighter, then a hurried midnight transfer to a seaplane that made a final rendezvous, in midocean, with yet another submarine… and all that way accompanied by a black, birdlike robot. His guide, or keeper, or guard, it had spoken soothingly to him about his coming duties as keeper of the worldstone.

Only at journey’s end, after surfacing and stepping onto Newer Newport, here in Pulupau, did Bin meet the original owner of the voice.

“Yes, Dr. Nguyen,” he answered, nod-bowing to a slight man with Annamese features and long black hair, braided in elegant rows. “I come, sir.”

He turned to gather up the off-white ovoid-the worldstone- from a nearby patio table, where it had lain in sunshine for an hour, soaking energy. A welcome break for him, as well. As carefully as he would handle a baby, Bin hefted the artifact and followed Nguyen Ky between sliding doors of frosted glass, moving slowly out of habit, in order to let his vision adapt to interior dimness. Only, he might as well not have bothered. His right eye… or ai… now adjusted brightness and contrast for him, more quickly than any spreading of his natural iris.

The room was broad and well appointed, with plush furnishings that adapted to each user’s comfort preference. Programmable draperies were set to soothing patterns that rippled gently, like a freshwater brook. The farthest window was left open. Through it, Bin glimpsed the rest of Newer Newport-more than a hectare of sleek, multistoried luxury, perched on massive footings, firmly anchored over the spot where ancestral kings of Pulupau once had their palace.

Some distance beyond, a series of other mammoth stilt-villages, each wildly different in style, followed the curve of a drowned atoll. Thielburg, Patria, Galt’s Gulch and several others with names that were even harder to remember. One of them, all stainless steel and glass, was dedicated to caring for aged aristocrats, immersing them in comfort and threevee experience, before freezing them for a nitrogen-chilled journey through time, aimed at repair and resurrection in a hundred years or so-to be young again, in tech-enhanced paradise.

Another artificial islet, with polycarbonano architecture reminiscent of palm logs and thatch roofing, was set aside for the old royal family and a number of genuine Pulupauese. As legalistic insurance, no doubt. In case any nation or consortium should doubt the sovereign independence of this archipelago of wealth.

Seasteading. Of course, Bin had heard of such places. Along the spectrum of human prosperity, these projects lay at the very opposite end from the shore stead that he had settled with Mei Ling in the garbage-strewn Huangpu. Here, and in a few dozen other locales, some of the world’s richest families had pooled funds to buy up small nations to call their own, escaping all obligation (especially taxes) owed to the continental states, with their teeming, populist masses. Yet, Bin could see a few traits shared in common by seastead and shorestead. Adaptation. Making the best of rising seas. Turning calamity into advantage.

Three technical experts-a graceful Filipina who never removed her wraparound immersion goggles; an islander, possibly a native Pulupauan, who kept fingering his interactive crucifix; and an elderly Chinese gentleman, who spoke in the soft tones of a scholar-watched Peng Xiang Bin and Nguyen Ky gingerly replace the worldstone in its handcrafted cradle, surrounded by instruments and sleek, ailectronic displays.

The ovoid had already started coming alive in response to Bin’s touch. As keeper of the worldstone, he alone could rouse the object to craft lustrous images-like a whole world or universe shining within an egglike capsule, less than half a meter long. Whatever the reason for his special knack, Bin was grateful for the honor, for the resulting employment, and for a chance to participate in matters far above his normal station of life. Though he missed Mei Ling and the baby.

The now familiar entity Courier of Caution lurked-or seemed to-just within the pitted, ovoid curves, amid those swirling clouds. Courier’s ribbon eye stared outward, resembling Anna Arroyo’s unblinking goggles, while the creature’s diamond-shaped, four-lipped mouth pursed in a perpetual expression of uneasiness or disapproval.

Bin carefully reattached a makeshift device at one end that compensated for some of the object’s surface damage, partly restoring a sonic connection. Of course, he had no idea how the mechanism-or anything else in the room-worked. But he kept trying to learn every procedure, if only so the others would consider him a colleague… and less an experimental subject.

From their wary expressions, it might take some time.

“Let us resume,” Dr. Nguyen said. “We were attempting to learn about the stone’s arrival on Earth. Here are the ideograms we want you to try next, please.” The small man laid a sheet of e-paper in front of Xiang Bin, bearing a series of characters. They looked complex and very old-even archaic.

Fortunately, Bin did not have to hold the ovoid in his hands anymore. Just standing nearby seemed to suffice. Bringing his right index finger close-and sticking out his tongue a little in concentration-he copied the first symbol by tracing it across the surface of the worldstone. Inky brushstrokes seemed to follow his touch-path. Actually, it came out rather pretty. Calligraphy… one of the great Chinese art forms. Who figured I would have a knack for it?

He managed the next figure more quickly. And a third one. Evidently, the ideograms were not in modern Chinese, but some older dialect and writing system-more pictographic and less formalized-from the warring states period that preceded the unification standards of great Chin, the first emperor. Fortunately, the implant in his eye went ahead and offered a translation, which he spoke aloud in modern Putonghua.