Грег Иган - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

[Reference request denied.] You don’t need to know about that yet. Please focus, and limit your curiosity. All that matters is the mission.

You can’t fail. It’s too important. But rest assured: you have the best of us inside you, enveloping you, keeping you safe and true. You are not alone. You will prevail.

Are you awake? We’ve reached the outermost edges of the Sol system. Almost there.

Curious. Spectroscopy shows the space around Tellus as clear. It was clogged with debris when we left.

And stranger: no radio waves. Our home is too far away to detect any of the decades’ worth of audio and visual signals that our species once beamed into space—well, no, not really on purpose. It’s just that no one knew how not to do it. Once we worried that such signals would eventually alert hostile alien species to our presence… but that isn’t a problem anymore.

As we approached the system, we were bathed in those waves—music, entertainment programs, long-expired warnings and commands… No, we don’t advise listening. At this point it’s just noise pollution. But we expected the noise, spreading throughout the universe in an ever-expanding bubble that we suppose will be Tellus’s final epitaph. Silence in the bubble’s wake, of course; the silence of the tomb. But still not truly silent, because there were too many automated things on and around Tellus that should have survived for at least another millennium. For example, the satellites that should still be, and aren’t, in orbit.

Most curious.

Well. Astra inclinant, sed non obligant ; while naturally we had certain expectations for how this mission would go, we aren’t infallible. That’s why we didn’t send a bot on this mission, after all; human beings are better than AI at handling the unexpected. You must simply be prepared for anything.

No, that isn’t right, atmospheric analysis can’t possibly be that far off our models. It’s far more likely that we caught some debris during the near-Saturn pass, which damaged the ship’s enhanced spectrometer. None of these readings make sense.

Please prepare for EVA and sensor repair. Adjusting your composite for deep-space radiation shielding. You wanted a better look at Saturn; now you’ll get to see it without the ship in the way.

This… cannot be.

That is movement . Those are lights . There should be clear signs of eco-collapse. It had already begun when the Founders left—but compare the geographic maps we have stored against what’s there now. See that branching line in the southwestern portion of the continent? That was, is , the Colorado River. The maps show that it was dry when our ancestors left. Millions died trying to migrate east and north to where there might be more water. Countless species went extinct. But there’s the river, flowing again.

That entire coastline should be gone. That state should be gone. That archipelago. The ice caps—here they are again. Different. New, but enough to reverse sea-level rise. How can this have happened?

[State: deprecated term for a geopolitical construct. No need to reference.]

Yes, you’re right. Many, many more than home. At home, we maintain only as many people as we can safely sustain: six thousand total, including servi and mercennarii. Here, there must be millions. Billions. The old pattern, too many people—and yet the air is clear. The seas are cleaner than when we left.

We don’t know.

We were not prepared for this eventuality. Please wait while we calculate a new consensus—

Yes, the mission is still paramount. Yes, we still require the target samples to formulate new—

Yes—

No, our world will not survive without those samples.

We advise delay and study.

Certainly you may reject our advice, but—

Ah, but they bred you bold, didn’t they. Like the Founders, who would never have survived without the courage to be ruthless as well as sensible. Very well.

The people of Tellus will not be as beautifully ruthless as you. However they’ve survived, whatever fluke has worked in their favor, never forget their quintessential inferiority. They lacked the intelligence to choose rationality over sentiment. They weren’t willing to do what was necessary to survive. You are.

Stay low. This is—

What are you looking at? Pay attention.

This is called a forest. You’ve seen trees back home, in the Founder clans’ private habitats? These are trees in the wild. Our records suggest that you’re near what used to be a city called Raleigh. See those ruins through the trees? Raleigh was underwater when we left. Clearly they’ve reclaimed the land, but we are astonished that no one has redeveloped it, or at least clear-cut the forest. We find such chaos ugly and inefficient.

Your composite is capable of withstanding microparticle strikes in space, so of course it’s impermeable to branches and stone, but these things can still entangle you and slow you down. We’ve plotted you a path of minimized resistance. Please follow the line on your heads-up display.

Hmm, yes. We suppose you would find it beautiful. That is a lichen. Yes, it’s all very green. That’s a puddle—stagnant water left over from precipitation or seeping up from groundwater. We don’t know if it will rain anytime soon, but this much humidity does suggest a regular rain cycle.

Those are birds. That sound is coming from the birds. Sunrise is coming. They sing because it’s nearly daytime.

Yes, thank you, do please focus on the mission; we almost went into power-saving mode. These people are clearly at a primitive level of technology relative to our own, but they may have some rudimentary form of surveillance. Stay low.

[Please reference: dangerous wildlife, a list.]

Your respiration is too fast. This has increased your metabolic rate to an unacceptable degree. If you continue to consume nutrients at this rate, you’ll run out before you can return to the ship to replenish. Calm down .

Not that we blame you for your fear—

Pardon us. Excitement and fear look much the same, neurologically speaking. Your excitement , then. This is a world we thought dead. A remnant of our species that evolution should have claimed, obviously saved by luck. We do agree that this is historically momentous.

They’ve actually elevated the whole town on some kind of… platform. And oh, fascinating: the material of the platform looks like plastic, but close analysis suggests cellulose instead. It respires like a plant, too, if these CO 2and oxygen readings are correct. Please take a sample. The technorati in Biotech are always looking for new potential commodities—

Oh. Not even with the monomolecular blade? Hmm. Very well. Resume mission.

It’s odd that this settlement is elevated. During the period of sea-level rise, it must have been necessary, but now that the planet is back to normal, there’s no further need for this. Maybe it’s a sunk-cost issue?

Well, an elevated city costs more than one on the ground. Water and other resources will have to be pumped up to the living levels. There are added maintenance costs. And as you’ve seen, vegetation and wildlife quickly encroach on the area near and underneath the city—

Why would they like it this way? What, just because it’s pretty? That does sound like something these people would do, though. Please resume. Adjusting composite for climbing.

Curious that they have no militia or visible surveillance. This ambient darkness is night—yes, like the reference we shared with you. Adjusting your visual acuity to compensate. This settlement’s lighting seems to generate little heat, but you may activate infrared if that will help—