Creations (20 page)

“But it’s not real life, Max. Whatever happens it’s only a figment in some computer somewhere.”

“It is for now,” Max said, glancing briefly out to sea. Nobody answered him, but Safi saw where he was looking and stared back with a quizzical frown on her face.

Doug however was looking thoughtful. “What if you did leave it going until something intelligent appeared, no matter how long it took? Would they know they were only in a game on some computer? Would they be able to figure out that their world
wasn’t real life?”

“I’m not sure they would,” Max said. “After all, how do we know?”

Doug laughed. “That’s a good question.”

“Anyway, that’s assuming that intelligence is inevitable,” Ross said. “I’m so not sure it is.”

“How do you mean?” Safi said.

“Well, life on Earth has been around for nearly four billion years, and it’s only in the last million or so that anything intelligent has been here. I think we’re a fluke. Life was getting on quite happily without us, and we evolved against the odds.”

“That’s a popular view,” Max said. “The amount of energy it takes to run a brain our size is huge, and we’re born with fewer survival instincts because we learn so much later on. Intelligence is more of a drawback than we like to think.”

“So if I asked you guys about life on other planets, you’d say the chances were pretty slim?” Doug said.

“Do you mean intelligent life, or anything from microbes upward?” Max said.

“To be honest, I think the chances of both are pretty slim,” Ross said.

“How come?” Max said.

“Think of all those years people have been pointing dishes into space looking for signals, and still nothing, and all those people who said Europa had to have life because there was water under the ice, and look what they found there.”

It had been over twenty years since the first lander had been despatched to the icy moon of Jupiter, its robotic microsub melting its way to the vast ocean beneath. It had found stalactites of ice measuring kilometres in height, complex rock formations round volcanic undersea vents, salinity levels that would make the Dead Sea look like tap water — and no life.

“That was disappointing,” Safi said, “but it’s not conclusive.”

“So if you were looking for life off this planet, what would
you look for?” Doug asked her.

“If I was looking for
intelligent
life, I know exactly what I’d look for,” she said, turning to face out to sea. “I’d look for those.” Then she pointed the way she was looking, out toward the Prospectors on the horizon.

“You’d look for robotic boats?” Ross said, confusion on his face.

“I’d look for replicators. They’re a sure sign that something intelligent has been at work.”

“Why?” Ross said.

“Think about it. All the time and money that’s been spent sending probes to other planets. Why not just send one that can copy itself? The same principle as those things out there, but for exploration rather than production. It travels to a new star system, spends some time exploring, replicates itself using the materials it finds, then the machines split up and head off to the next two stars. Soon you’d have a wave of exploring machines spreading out through the galaxy, each one beaming its findings back home.”

“Sounds like a good solution,” Doug said.

“It is. And any intelligent race that appears will have the same idea, they’re bound to. Even if the things spent a hundred years at each star, and moved at a fraction of the speed of light, the galaxy would be teeming with them within a hundred million years. If intelligent life had ever existed away from Earth, we’d see the evidence for it right here. Their probes would have been here long ago.”

“Yeah, Fermi’s paradox,” Doug said. “‘If they’re anywhere, they’d be everywhere.’ But would we recognise them if we saw them?”

“We would, I’m sure. If you knew what to look for, it would be obvious.”

“Then why isn’t anyone looking?”

She smiled. “Well, maybe they are,” she said.

“Of course, you’re forgetting the dozen or so intelligent species that we already know about,” Gillian said.

“Such as?”

“Whales and dolphins? They’re just as intelligent as we are, only in different ways. Just as social, just as inquisitive.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Ross said. “I actually saw some dolphins the other week, swimming round the Prospectors.
They
were being pretty inquisitive. One of the boats had just finished its rep cycle and was about to split, and they all hung around it to watch. It was weird.”

“Where did you see this?” Safi said.

“Out in the shallows, near the drop site. I was trying out some of the underwater gear.”

“With Victor’s permission of course.”

“Of course. He said I could help myself as long as it’s not being used. Looks like ex-military stuff, most of it.”

“Sounds like fun. So is there much to see out there?”

“Plenty of life,” he said. “Corals, fish life, that kind of thing. You can come out and see it for yourself if you like.”

“Yeah, I’d like to do that. When’s a good time?”

“We can do it today if we go right now. I think the tide’s okay at the moment.”

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Ross stood up, ready to go. “You guys coming too?” he said, turning to the others.

“Sure,” Max and Doug said together. “Do you want to come?” Max asked Gillian.

She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for adventures today. You guys have fun though.”

“I’ll see you back home?”

“Or here.”

They got up and knocked the sand off their legs, then headed back along the beach, leaving Gillian alone.

* * *

The diving suits were like miniature survival systems, containing breathing gear, short range intercoms, and even navigation systems. Anyone wearing one could survive underwater for up to four hours at a time, depending on their depth and breathing rate. Max’s face mask had smelled musty and damp until the fresh air had begun to flow, and it had taken a good few minutes to adjust the straps that held the watertight seal in place. But once they were ready, and the four of them had waded out into the sea next to the harbour, the experience of swimming freely underwater made it all worthwhile.

At first all they could see was sand as they swam out away from the beach into deeper and deeper water, but once the surface was thirty feet or so above their heads the first scenery came into view. Ross was leading, with the other three in a line behind him. He kept looking back over his shoulder to keep an eye on Doug and Max, but he knew that Safi had used equipment like this before in her air force training so needed little supervision. At the same time he kept everyone talking over the intercom so that he’d know if any problems emerged. In reality he was being over cautious, Max thought. Even though it was the first time Max had worn a system like this, it wasn’t his first time underwater by any means, and his confidence in this environment had returned quickly.

Ross stopped them briefly to take a first look at the life that was laid out before them. Almost every colour imaginable was to be found somewhere, either in the fish swimming in and out of the corals, the plants and animals rooted to the seabed, or the corals themselves, some shaped like leafless trees, some like huge fans almost ten feet across. Max recognised almost all the species on sight, including his own favourites, the clownfish: bright orange in colour, no bigger than his hand, and seemingly playful and inquisitive of anything new that swam past, though he knew
from experience that they would take a bite out of any hand that got too close for comfort.

Most of the life lay between this depth and one hundred and twenty feet, Ross explained. Any deeper and the sunlight was too weak; any shallower and the buffeting from the waves and tropical storms would break the fragile structures into pieces. Then he led them further down, diagonally across the slope, so as not to descend too quickly. As Max swam he could hear various mechanical noises coming from the equipment on his back as the breathing set adjusted to the increasing pressure. By the time they levelled off, over seventy feet of depth was registering on the display inside his faceplate. There they paused, hovering over the corals, and watched the sea creatures coming and going.

The light here was noticeably darker, and the colours seemed slightly muted, as if some parts of the spectrum hadn’t got through at all. As Max looked up and to the left, he noticed a group of ten or twelve jellyfish, undulating along in the slight current. Beyond them, the water took on a definite green colour as the sunlight was filtered by the blooms of algae that now invaded the once pristine tropical waters, evidence of the shifting oceanic currents that had been — and still were — the main culprits behind the imminence of GRACE.

When the Prospector design work had still been underway and Max had seen the figures for how much solid material was held in solution in the sea, he’d found it difficult to comprehend just how huge the numbers involved were. All those tonnes of magnesium, aluminium and silicon seemed hard to equate to the seemingly empty waters of the ocean. However, as he looked round himself at this depth, at the shafts of light coming down like pillars from the surface, he could almost visualise the huge stockpile that surrounded him. He ran his hand through the water in front of his face and tried to imagine how much material had just slipped through his fingers, how much iron, how much
copper — and how much gold. Why was it that gold had such an effect on people? It was more than just the value. There was something about the colour, the beauty of it. And to think that he was literally swimming in the stuff, if only he could get hold of it. He held his hand right up to his face to see if he could catch some, but every time he closed his fingers it seemed to slip away. If he looked really closely, he could almost see it glistening in front of him.

“Max, you okay?”

Max came to with a start at Ross’s words and realised he’d almost tipped upside down. He dropped his hand away from his face and oriented himself toward the others. “Yeah, just looking at something,” he said, shaking his head to clear the blurring from his eyes.

“Okay, good. Let’s carry on.”

It was Jacques Cousteau who had named it, “The Raptures of the Deep”, the intoxicating effect of pressurised air giving the same response as a mild anaesthetic. It wasn’t the first time Max had felt it; those divers who said they’d never experienced it were simply too badly affected to notice. Once Max had cleared his head he felt fine, but he kept his eyes moving all the same, so as not to fixate on any one object.

They swam for another twenty minutes, following the sixty foot contour and taking in all the sights along the way. Then they came to the edge of the ravine that led from the harbour and out to sea. All Max could see of it was a steep cliff face, dropping down into even darker water beyond.

“We don’t want to go down there,” Ross said. “It’s a bit deep I think. And there won’t be much to look at.”

The others agreed, so they followed the edge of the ravine back toward the shore.

They were about halfway back when they heard the clicks and whistles, instantly recognisable, and seemingly all around them, then noticed the dark shapes coming at them out of the gloom.
Then they were upon them: five or six dolphins, flashing past at impossible speeds, parallel to the coastline. No one had time to say anything as they passed. Only one of the dolphins stopped to look at the four intruders, a youngster with dappled grey skin. It paused for about two seconds before heading off to follow the others. “The day we can swim like that,” Ross said once they’d gone, “that’s when we’ll really belong down here.”

The seabed gradually rose as they approached the shore. They were just entering the shallows when one of the speedboats from the complex passed overhead, the rumbling drone of its engine giving the first sign of its presence. Then the boat itself appeared as its shadowy silhouette went over them, speeding away from the island. The violent swell of its wake broke the otherwise calm surface.

“Wow, he’s really going for it,” Doug said. “I wonder what the hurry is.”

Less than thirty seconds had passed before a second one went over, again leaving the island behind and powering out to sea.

“Must be some kind of race,” Ross suggested.

Soon the water was shallow enough to stand, so they took off their fins and waded up the beach. They were only a couple of hundred yards away from where they’d gone in. The breathing sets weren’t heavy, but in the strong sun they were feeling hot by the time they got back to the complex. They were just putting the sets away in the workshop area when Victor dashed in, looking agitated.

“There you are!” he said. “Where have you all been?”

“Out in the sea,” Ross said. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“They’re getting out, the boundary’s failed! We’ve lost fifty of them already! You need to come with me, now!”

The others exchanged glances, then followed him up to the operations room on the top floor. They felt out of place standing there in their swimming gear, but it was clear they didn’t have time to get changed. Victor led them over to one of the display
screens and told them what had happened.

“The first one went about twenty minutes ago. It sailed straight over the buoy line as if it wasn’t there. The tripwire system picked it up of course, but then more of them went. Somehow they’re ignoring the boundary.”

“What about the boundary itself? Is that still working?” Max asked urgently.

“Yes, that’s the strange thing, most of them are staying inside. We don’t know what’s causing it. If the others go too, then —”

Max cut him off. “And how far have they gone, the ones that have got out?”

“They don’t move very fast, maybe three miles at most for the first ones.”

“All in the same direction?”

“No, look at the screen. Almost every part of the boundary has been affected. They’re going out in all directions.”

“How many boats have you sent out after them?”

“Three so far, we’re calling in the crews for the other two.”

“And they’ve got the right equipment on board to tow the things back?”