Existence (67 page)

“No, what has to worry us is the possibility that there may be
a lot more to all of this,
underneath what they are telling. Only, because the Havana Artifact is openly shared and in public hands, it will never be subjected to
harsh scrutiny.
”

“But
we
can cut into
our
stone, because we’re not answerable to public opinion, is that it?” Anna’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Are you listening to yourself? If Courier is telling the truth, then
only he
can expose the other stone’s lie! Yet,
because
we believe him, and have an opportunity to proceed in secret,
we’ll
start sawing away at him, with lasers and drills?”

“Hey, look. I was only saying—”

She turned around.
“You,
Xiang Bin, made a point, a few days ago, that some clandestine group or groups may
already
have one or more of these things. Either complete or a partially working fragment. They might also have heard some variant of the tale told by the Havana Artifact—”

“I hope there weren’t any secretly held stones,” Paul interrupted. “I can think of no worse crime than for selfish people to have clutched such a mystery, all this time, without sharing its warning with the world.”

“Perhaps
not
telling the world may have been the more beneficent course. More merciful and wise,” Yang Shenxiu muttered. “Better to let people continue in blissful ignorance, if all our efforts will be futile anyway. If humanity is simply doomed to ultimate failure.”

Paul Menelaua pounded his fist on the table. His action-crucifix wriggled in rhythm to the vibrations. “I can’t accept that. We can still act to save ourselves. The Havana aliens
must
be lying!
That
stone should be dissected, instead of this one.”

Silence stretched, while Yang Shenxiu seemed uncertain whether to interpret Paul’s shouting as disrespect, or simply a matter of cultural and personality difference. Finally, the scholar shrugged.

“If we might get back on topic,” he said.

“Indeed,” Anna said. “I doubt any group would keep such an active stone secret out of pure altruism. Human beings tend to seek
advantage.
While rationalizing that they mean well, for the greater good.
”
She spoke in ironic tones, without looking directly at Dr. Nguyen. “But that’s the problem with this hypothesis of Xiang Bin’s. If any other group already had such a stone, would we not already see new technologies similar to … similar to—”

Her voice stuttered to a stop, as if suddenly realizing what should come next.

Paul filled in for her. “Similar to the advances we’ve all
seen,
across the last century or so, in the game and entertainment industries? As I just said, we’re
already rapidly converging
on these abilities. Heck, even military hardware hasn’t advanced as rapidly as Hollywood simulation-tech. Methods for advanced visualization, realistic avatar aindroids that pass Turing tests—”

“All of which may be just incremental progress, propelled by the market, by popular culture, and by human ingenuity,” Dr. Nguyen pointed out. “Honestly, can you name a single breakthrough that did not follow right on the heels of others, in a rapid but natural sequence of inventiveness and desire? Isn’t it a tiresome cliché to credit our own clever discoveries to intervention from above, like claiming that the ancient pyramids could only have been built by UFOs? Must we devolve back to those lurid scenarios about secret laboratories where hordes of faceless technicians analyze alien corpses and flying saucers, without ever telling the citizenry? I thought we had outgrown such nonsense.”

The others looked at their leader, and Bin could tell they were all thinking the same thing.

Aren’t we, in this room, doing exactly that?

Anyway,
he added in his thoughts.
If anybody does know about another, secret stone, it would be him.

“But of course,” Dr. Nguyen added, spreading his hands with a soft smile, “according to this hypothesis of Xiang Bin’s, we should look carefully at those who have profited most from such technologies. Bollywood moguls. The owners of Believworld and Our-iverse. The AIs Haveit and Fabrique Zaire.”

Bin felt a wave of satisfaction, on hearing one of his ideas called a “hypothesis.” He knew that his
guanxi
or relationship-credibility had risen, lately. Even so, he had an uneasy feeling about where this was heading.

“But that only makes our purpose here more pressing,” Nguyen continued. “If there are human groups who already have this advantage—access to alien technologies—then they may turn desperate to prevent the International Commission from completing its study of the Havana Artifact. Even worse, there is no telling how long we can keep our own secret. Almost anything we do, any coding or shrouding that we use, could be penetrated by those who have had these methods for some time.

“No. Our only safe recourse would be to get as much out of this worldstone as possible, quickly, in order to catch up.”

Bin realized something, watching Nguyen weave this chain of logic, even as the others nodded in agreement.
He is using this argument to support a decision that was already made, far above our heads.

Yang Shenxiu made one last attempt.

“Even if there were no such hidden stones, before, there are now pieces and fragments being discovered, all over the world. Artifact messengers that have drawn attention by sacrificing parts of themselves.”

“But you’ve seen the reports,” Anna responded. “Most of them are too shattered or melted or fused to offer anything coherent.”

“So far. But it has only been a few weeks. And don’t forget those glittering signs that people have detected in space! Undoubtedly from other stones, signaling for attention. Those would be undamaged and surely—”

“—can’t be reached by anyone for at least one or two years,” Anna interrupted again, making Bin frown in disapproval. “That’s how long it will take to gear up the space programs to send unmanned—and then manned—search and retrieval missions, even if preparations proceed at a breakneck pace.”

“Exactly!” Paul pounced. “Now, these things are rare. In a few years, they may be as plentiful as common stones! Those who have an advantage will surely act before that happens.” Then Paul blinked, as if unsure which side of the argument he had just supported.

“None of this changes the essential mission before us.” Dr. Nguyen signaled the end to discussion by adopting a decisive tone. “Xiang Bin, I want to start asking the Courier entity for useful things. No more stories or homesick picture shows about his homeworld. Nor denunciations of the stone in Washington. We need technologies and methodologies, as quickly and practically as possible. Make clear how much depends upon—”

He paused as—ten meters across the lavish chamber—a door opened. At the same instant, curtains of obscurity fell across the table—a dazzle-drapery consisting of countless tiny sparkles that prevented any newcomer from viewing the worldstone.

Too bad it also filled the air with a charged, ozone smell. Bin wrinkled his nose. He didn’t understand how a discretion screen was generated by “laser ionization of air molecules,” but he knew that a simple bolt of black velvet could have accomplished the same thing. Or else locking the door.

A liveried servant hurried in—a young woman with strawberry hair. Bin had spoken to her a few times, a refugee from New Zealand, whose spoken Chinese was broken and coarse, but she lent the place a chaste, decorative charm.

“I asked that we not be disturbed for any—” Nguyen began.

“Sir, I am so sorry, sir.” She bowed low, as if this were Japan, where they still cared about such niceties. “Supervisor Chen sent me to come to you here with discreet message for you. He needs you at command center. Right away.”

Nguyen started to get up, unfailingly polite. “Can you please say what it’s about?”

“Sir, I believe…” The young woman swallowed, then bowed again. “Supervisor Chen is worried that our security has been breached.”

SCANALYZER

In light of our present, worldwide hysteria over these crazy space Artifact messengers, I’ve decided to animate and hyper-reference one of the most popular person-interviews of ten years ago—back in that blessed era before we learned that we weren’t alone in the universe.

Let me rephrase that. Before we discovered that we actually ARE alone in the universe. Funny, how reality corresponds to both statements, at once, in dismal irony. Either way, it’s time to have another look at this prescient interview. Just will your gaze trackers to follow the keywords “doomsday-fatigue.” Let’s gather a comment-mob and do a full talmudic gloss on this piece.

MARTIN RAMER (FOR THE BBC):
We’re here with Jonamine Bat Amittai, compiler of
Pandora’s Cornucopia
—the epibook that’s been scaring and depressing so many of us ever since Awfulday, conveying all the myriad ways that the universe might
have it in for us,
bringing an end to human existence. Or perhaps only our dreams.

Either way, it’s been a heady ride through the valley of potential failure and plausible death. Jonamine, how do you explain the popularity of your series?

JONAMINE BAT AMITTAI:
Men and women have always been attracted to stories about ultimate doom, from the Books of Daniel and Revelation to Ragnarok, from Mayan cycles to Nostradamus, from
Dr. Strangelove
to
Life After People
. Perhaps there is an element of schadenfreude, or deriving abstract pleasure from the troubles of others—even if those others will be your own descendants. Or else, some may feel stimulated to relish what they have, in the precious here-and-now, especially if our lives and comforts appear to be on temporary loan from a capricious universe. For billions of people,
nostalgia
fascinates with the notion that the past is always better and preferable over the future.

I like to think that much of our fascination with this topic arises from our heritage as practical problem-solvers. The curiosity that drew our ancestors toward danger, in order to begin puzzling ways around it.

MARTIN RAMER:
But your list is so lengthy, so extensive, so depressingly thorough. Even supposing that we do manage to discover some pitfalls in time, and act prudently to avoid them—

JONAMINE BAT AMITTAI:
And we have already. Some of them.

MARTIN RAMER:
But dodging one bullet seems always to put us in front of another.

JONAMINE BAT AMITTAI:
Is there a question, Mr. Ramer? Or were you merely stating the obvious?

50.

DIVINATION

The art that I practice is the only true form of magic.

It had taken Hamish years to realize this consciously, though he must have suspected it as a child, while devouring fantasy novels and playing whatever interactive game had the best narrative storyline. Later, at university and grad school, even while diligently studying the ornate laws and incantations of science, something had always struck him as
wrong
about the whole endeavor.

No,
wrong
wasn’t the word.
Sterile.
Or dry, or pallid … that is, compared to worlds of fiction and belief.

Then, while playing hooky one day from biomedical research, escaping into the vast realm of a little novel, he found a clue to his dilemma, in a passage written by the author, Tom Robbins.

Science gives man what he needs.

But magic gives him what he wants.

A gross oversimplification? Sure. Yet, Hamish instantly recognized the important distinction he’d been floundering toward.

For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price—that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It’s about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words—“I might be wrong.”

On the other hand, magic is what happens when we convince ourselves something is, even when it isn’t. Subjective Truth, winning over mere objective fact. The will, triumphing over all else. No wonder, even after the cornucopia of wealth and knowledge engendered by science, magic remains more popular, more embedded in the human heart.

Whether you labeled it faith, or self-delusion, or fantasy, or outright lying—Hamish recognized the species’ greatest talent, a calling that spanned all cultures and times, appearing far more often, in far more tribes, than dispassionate reason! Combine it with enough ardent
wanting,
and the brew might succor you through the harshest times, even periods of utter despair.

That was what Hamish got from the best yarns, spun by master storytellers. A temporary, willing belief that he could inhabit another world, bound by different rules.
Better
rules than the dry clockwork rhythms of this one.

*   *   *

The cephalopod emerged from her habitat-cage slowly, cautiously, soon after her handlers opened the gate. Two of her eight tentacles probed the rim as Tarsus brought her bulbous head forward, allowing one big eye—gleaming with feral intelligence—to peer around the rest of the pool. A few rocks and fronds dotted the sandy bottom. Briefly, she tracked some of the fish, darting overhead. But they were too quick and high to try for. She had eaten the slow or unwary, long ago.

With no other danger or opportunity in sight, Tarsus gave a pulse with her siphon, propelling herself toward the only thing of interest. A man-made box with two lids on top.

Whenever they let her out, it meant she had a task to do—one that Tarsus had performed many times before.

*   *   *

Oh, for sure, science wasn’t worthless. Hamish knew there was plenty of good work still to be done in the great laboratories, poking Nature, prying loose more secrets. Research was often a noble endeavor—he still viewed it that way—though one easily led astray.