Existence (99 page)

The message carried by this little probe—(it seemed so vast inside!)—was worth all the effort, the expense, the resources, and sacrifices. A message of cautionary warning for other young species. An offer of hope.

Now Hamish recalled the pride, the great honor, of being chosen as one of the first. Not only to upload a version of himself into many tens of thousands of crystal ships, but also when he was invited to come up in person—frail but spry in his nineties—to inspect the first batch of probes, all shiny and new, emerging from humankind’s first giant, automated factory-in-space.

That memory—of being old, with creaky joints and aching bowels, yet lauded with a role at the ribbon cutting—seemed fresh as yesterday. In fact, he remembered everything up to the point, a few days later, when they attached electrodes and told him to relax, assuring him that personality and memory recording almost never hurt.

So, it must have worked.

I was skeptical, in my deepest heart, that any copy of me would ever waken in a virtual world, no matter how thoroughly we tested alien technologies, modifying and revising them with human science. Many of us feared the inhabitants would be just clever simulations. Robaitic automatons, not really self-aware.

But here I am! Who can argue with success?

It was all coming back. Years spent leading a new branch of the Renunciation Movement, fighting an obsolete prophet for control, then guiding the faction in new directions. Making it less a tool of oligarchs, religious troglodytes, and grouchy nostalgists. Transforming it instead into a more aggressive, technologically empowered force. An affiliation combining tens of millions … even hundreds of millions … who wanted science
controlled.
Guided by wisdom.

Good times. Especially sticking it to all the boffins and would-be godmakers who thought they could “prove” him wrong with mere evidence. A notion easily belied by hordes of adoring fans who stayed loyal to him, even when his “hoax” story about the artifacts was shown to be a hoax, in its own right …

Hamish frowned then, recalling how many of those same followers later reviled him when he veered yet again, lending his support to a bold technological endeavor. The growing push in
favor
of building star messengers.

Well, new reasons, new arguments, new motives … all can lead to new goals. New aspirations. So he explained at the time. So he believed now.

Anyway, millions held true, accepting his assurance that
the universe needs us.

With nervous curiosity, Hamish performed a body inventory, palping and flexing arms and legs. They felt strong. The torso, tall and lean as it had been in youth, twisted and rippled satisfactorily. Simulation or not …
I feel like me. In fact, more like me than I did as a frail old man.

And if it weren’t accurate, how would you know?
asked a small part of him that tried to raise existential questions.
Might a virtual being be programmed to find its new self satisfactory?

Bah.

Hamish had always dabbled in philosophy, but more as a storytelling tool. A plot gimmick. A great source for aphorisms and wise protagonist chidings, letting his characters opine about chaos theory or laws of robotics, while preaching against hubristic technology. In fact, he had no use for philosophers.

“I am aboard a crystal starship.” He tasted the declaration out loud, getting reacquainted with speech. “I’m Hamish Brookeman, on an adventure across interstellar space! One of many, on thousands of such vessels, each of them equipped with new ways to contact new races. Each of us charged with a mission, to spread good news!

“And maybe … with luck … those thousands could become billions, scattering through the galaxy, delivering a desperately needed antidote. The
cure
to combat a galactic plague.”

*   *   *

Movement in this strange new setting involved more than just flexing your legs and shifting your weight. By trial and error, Hamish learned to apply direct volition—
willing
motion to happen—the way he might impel his arm to extend, with unconscious assurance. At first, progress took many fits and starts … but soon he began gliding among the cloudlike globs, which started out mushy or springy, each time he landed. Hamish adapted his technique and soon they reacted by providing firm, reliable footing.

Once he got the knack, movement became smooth, even fun.

Hamish tried heading toward some of the shapes that he made out vaguely through the haze. But chasing after them proved difficult—like clutching at an elusive idea that kept slipping away.

Eventually, he was able to approach one. Perched atop this cloud-blob was a house with gabled roof—more of a cottage, actually. The wooden, clapboard walls seemed quite realistic and Earth-homey, down to paintbrush strokes covering each exterior panel. Alighting near the front porch, Hamish wiped his feet on a doormat that read
EXPECT CHANGE
.

Glancing down at his bathrobe and slippers, he thought.

This isn’t appropriate. I wish—

—and voilà, in a whirl of what had to be simulation pixels, his attire changed, transforming into the gray suit he used to wear for interviews, back in days of Old TV.

That’s better. You know, I could get used to this.

Raising a fist, he knuckle-rapped on the door and waited … then knocked again, louder. But no one came. Nobody was home.

Ah well. In fact, that’s a good sign. People have things to do. Places to go. Folks to see and matters to attend to.

He had worried about that. Back home, some of the experts tried to explain about subjective time flow rates and the danger of interstellar ennui. They discussed a number of solutions. Such as sleep. Or slowing the mental clock rate. Or else keeping busy. Even a simulated mind must find many ways to survive the long epochs, with no way to affect or influence the external, objective universe.

They made it sound more cramped in here than it is,
Hamish pondered, leaving the porch and launching himself again across the sky. Glancing back, he saw the little house diminish behind him. Soon, Hamish passed other constructions. One was a medieval castle, covered in vines. Another combined glassy globes and glistening spheres, in ways that he deemed much too modernist, impractical, even alien.
I guess I’ll want to fashion a home of my own. Providing I learn how.

Or ever figure out how to get anywhere or meet anyone!

In fact, tedium was already setting in. The simulated reality’s expanse, which had seemed pleasingly vast, was now starting to frustrate and bug Hamish.
It would help a lot if I met someone who could answer questions. I wish—

Behind him. A soft sound, like the chuffing of breath, an ahem-throat-clearing. While Hamish struggled to turn quickly, thwarted by the queer footing, a voice spoke.

“It is good of you to join us at last, Mr. Brookeman. Might I be of assistance?”

“Thanks. I could really use—”

Hamish stopped, his mouth freezing shut when he saw the figure who had popped into being behind him.

Rotund-chubby, its roundish head topped a height even taller than Hamish. The entity was also a much more massive being. Yet the impression wasn’t threatening. More Buddha-like, with slitted eyes that seemed permanently squinting in amusement. A thick-lipped mouth even curved slightly upward at the ends, as if with an enigmatic smile. There was no nose—breathy sounds came from stalky vents that opened and closed rhythmically, at the top of its head.

An alien. One of the artifact beings, among the earliest discovered, in the very first crystal the public ever saw. Hamish recognized the figure—who wouldn’t?

“Om,” he said, nodding a stiff bow of greeting. It stood for “Oldest Member.” “No one told me you’d be aboard.”

“Are you surprised to see me, in particular? Or any aliens at all?” Om seemed indulgently amused. “By the time this first batch of probes got launched, some compromises were made. Come now, you knew the reasons.”

Hamish recalled. There had been design flaws in the probes sent out by the home planet of Courier of Caution that carried just one simulated species aboard. The inhabitants of that world tried to copy only themselves into their warning-messengers, in order to help safeguard new worlds against infection, but the effort failed. Attempting to rip out every embedded trace of previous programming had resulted in a crystal that was too fragile, too easily corrupted. Apparently, if you were going to use this ancient technology, some of the older extraterrestrial personalities had to be included. For technical reasons.

“Well … so long as the mission remains—”

“—to alert other races about the Big Bad Space Virus Plague? And to offer them the Cure?

“Yes, that is still the plan, Mr. Brookeman. The function of this probe. This fleet. Perhaps, if we all are very lucky, we aboard this very crystal may get a chance to tell some bright new sapient species the wonderful news!”

Hamish raised an eyebrow, archly.

“And you don’t mind helping to spread the Cure? You were
part
of the plague!”

The Oldest Member shrugged, a human gesture that took some contortion, making Hamish realize that the entire conversation took place in flawless English. Well, it was already known that artifact beings could learn. A good thing, since Hamish planned to learn a lot.

“I suppose I was part of it, for millions of your years,” Om said. “So? Should I repent until eternity? Or shall I atone as best I can—with this new-improved version of myself—by assisting you humans in your sacred mission to help other cultures survive?”

Hamish felt his ersatz eyelids blink several times as he roiled with questions, objections! “But … but…”

“Look,” Om said. “You wanted help. You wished for a guide. Shall I assist you now, and answer your prudish denunciations later? There will be plenty of time, believe me.

“Moreover, let me point out one central fact. That there is no way to go back to Earth and alter the situation. Our probe is dispatched and on its way, beyond any conceivable recall. As you humans say: what’s done is done.”

A pause. Then Hamish sighed with a shrug of his own. And a nod.

“Very well. Then teach me.”

Om bowed with evident satisfaction, giving Hamish a clear view of the breathing vents, puffing like flexible chimneys atop the alien’s bulbous head.

“What would you like to see first, Mr. Brookeman? I will take you. And along the way I shall explain a thing or two about scale.”

90.

TRANSPARENCY

Hamish soon realized why he’d been having so much trouble getting anywhere. As one of the institute boffins once explained it, the inner world of crystal probe was limited, yet there were ways to cleverly maximize its sense of roominess. As an inhabitant, you could adjust yourself down to any number of “fractal levels” of size. The smaller you shrank, the more personal space you had. And the greater your freedom to make things happen simply by wanting them to.

The boffins had warned (while ninety-year-old Hamish half slept through tedious briefings) that entities aboard a crystal probe could “die,” vanishing from any future contact with the universe. One way for this to happen was for the simulated being to dive way down the scale ladder, plunging smaller, ever smaller—into realms where wishes and magic reigned, and where you became too small to matter anymore, to anyone back in the “real” world.

That is, unless a new civilization starts dissecting your probe. Or tries building uncontaminated versions. That’s when we discovered hidden ones are always there, tucked inside the atom-by-atom structure of the crystal itself, but able to rise out of deep scale-dormancy, protecting the virus and its self-serving mission.

No wonder it had taken decades to perfect the Cure.

“Let me show you the way,” Oldest Member told Hamish. “Try to follow me.” And he departed … without traveling or even leaving. Instead, Om started growing larger.

Hamish, who had spent most of his life as the tallest person in almost any room, didn’t like the sensation of tilting his head to stare up at a giant. It added to his sense of motivation—wanting to catch up with the alien.
If only there were a bottle labeled “drink me.” There’s got to be a trick to it!

Focusing hard on changing his sense of scale—on growing
—
he found that the secret was more a matter of
looking
in a certain way. Expecting to see things that you can’t control.
Makes sense,
he thought as the blob shrank beneath his feet and he began scaling up to follow Om.
If going small gives you power to alter everything around you, then getting large entails coming to terms with what you can’t change.

He could see the logic of it all. Tiny beings would have lots of subjective space around them, to erect their ideal homes, virtual companions, games and distractions, while not interfering with any of the crystal vessel’s other official inhabitants. On the other hand, if you choose to grow big enough to interact with other uploaded passengers, then you must accept the same concept that thwarted most humans—as babes and again in adolescence—the harsh fact that other beings may not want the same thing that you do.

Funny perspective though,
Hamish thought. Looking down, he still seemed to be in a vast world of cloudy shapes. But lifting his eyes, Hamish began to discern something up-and-ahead … like a dome of dark color, obscured by both distance and a strange mist. Following Om’s lead, he began
walking
toward that distant dome, while continuing to grow.

Hamish noticed—it was more difficult to move at this scale. His feet now felt a bit heavy and the surface under them somehow stickier. Progress wasn’t exactly
hard
, but it took some effort, like striding into a stiff breeze. Or being held by gravity.

At last Hamish could make out some of those other figures that had seemed so distant and blurry before. Two humans and a mantislike alien emerged from a fog bank at one point, sparing him a nod of slight greeting as they hurried by, apparently too busy to stop and chat. Hamish felt a little miffed, but shrugged it off.