Existence

“We had better-” she urged, doubting this would work.

“Yes Mother, now.”

They turned together, walking as quickly but nonchalantly as they could, like a nanny escorting a child and a baby toward the portico where arrivals were automatically checked for tickets. Tickets in the form of temporary, coded tattoos.

Mei Ling made sure that her left hand was open to view, though she never saw the beam that scanned it. To her great surprise, no Disney guards or robots pounced. Instead a voice crooned downward, as if from Heaven.

“Welcome back, Mrs. Chu and darling little Lui. My, it did not take you long to change your clothes and return from your hotel.

“Of course, your VIP pass is still valid. A robo-carriage awaits you, down the Avenue of Pandas, on your left.

“If Mr. Chu comes later, we’ll bring him to you with pleasant and courteous haste.”

Hurrying onward, she and Yi Ming crossed over the boundary, demarked by a line of tiles that gleamed Imperial yellow, almost a comfortable minute before their pursuers reached the security cordon. There, the large men fumed and stomped, knowing how futile it would be to try entering without a pass-let alone armed. It might, in all likelihood, bring down upon them, from nearby hidden places, more swift force than they could possibly deal with. At least not without a fistful of lawful writs, signed by several courts and by many powerful men. Nor even then.

Mei Ling drew a rush of luscious satisfaction, glancing over her shoulder at their frustration, before turning all of her attention the other way, toward a cascade of wonders. Ahead of them lay a boulevard of shops and rides, buildings that seemed to be alive and playful robotic characters who bowed or danced with pleasure when you looked their way. Little Xiao En was charmed instantly, and so was she. Though Yi Ming kept shaking his head, murmuring something about cobblies… cobblies everywhere.

Well, anyway. This certainly beat wearing puny vir-spectacles that merely painted fantasy overlays upon a mundane city street. Nor could any full-immersion game match it. For, in this enchanted place, where every flower looked ten times its normal size and even Shanghai smog vanished under aromatic mists, all the disadvantages of real life seemed to be gone, even down to pebbles one might trip upon-and yet, the richness of reality lay all around her. It was nothing less than the world remade!

With a VIP pass as well? Mei Ling wondered what that meant. Feeling a growl in her stomach, having missed lunch while fleeing across half of East Pudong, she hoped it would turn out to be something good, as she carried her baby and followed her strange young guide through a portico of wonders, under the beaming, beneficent smile of Mickey Mao.

THINGS TAKEN FOR GRANTED

What a Waist.

I mean, have you seen how quickly the Mesh consensus settled on nicknames for every one of the ninety-two artifact visitors? Some rude, others respectful, like Longtooth, Kali, and Big-Squiddy?

Then there’s the long list of questions for our alien guests, pouring in from a world-public that’s eager to satisfy countless individual yearnings.

And Wow Ain’t It Strange That almost all of the questions are based on two cliches? One or the other. Either fear or longing?

The first of these two has faded a bit, as we learn that the aliens have no physical power, and speak of welcome. So, more questions now deal with eagerness to learn from our ancient visitors, with the commonly shared assumption that they are motivated by altruism.

In fact, for a century most of those who searched the sky simply took that as given. How could anyone get truly advanced without giving up selfishness, in favor of total generosity? But is that belief chauvinistic and humano- centric?

What kind of moral systems might you expect if lions independently developed sapience? Or solitary, suspicious tigers? Bears are omnivores, like ourselves, yet their consistent habit of male- perpetrated infanticide seems deeply rooted. Meta-ursine moralists might later view this inherited tendency as an unsavory sin and attempt to cure it by preaching restraint. Or, perhaps they would rationalize and sacralize it, writing great literature to portray and justify the beauty of their way, just as we romanticize many of our own most emotion-laden traits. Anyone who doubts that intolerant or even murderous habits can be romanticized should study religious rites of the ancient Aztecs and baby-sacrificing Carthaginians. If we are capable of rationalizing and even exalting brutally unaltruistic behaviors, might advanced extraterrestrials also be capable of such feats of mental legerdemain? Especially if their evolutionary backgrounds predispose them?

And yet, even if it is largely absent from the natural world, that alone doesn’t render pure altruism irrelevant.

Complexity theory teaches: new forms of order arise as systems gain intricacy. It may be no accident that the most complex society created by the most complex species on Earth has elevated altruism from a rare phenomenon to an ideal something to be striven toward.

Further, wow ain’t it strange that it is entirely by these recent, higher standards that we now judge ourselves so harshly?

And waist we project a higher level of altruism upon those we hope to find out there? Beings more advanced than ourselves?

47.

THE INFINITE CHAIN

Despite Gerald’s grim readiness to continue questioning the Artifact aliens, Akana called-and enforced-a recess for dinner, it already being quite late-almost midnight-outside where an ever turning Earth still made the sun and stars appear to march across the sky. Gerald admitted that a break for food and drink and bodily functions might even be a pretty good idea.

Though complaints about the delay poured in from all over the globe-sent by millions eager to know more now about “life everlasting,” the commercial sponsors wanted to get in their nag-n-lure time. After all, any product might be rendered obsolete, tomorrow, by some alien wonder. Better sell now what could be sold.

When Professor Flannery met him in the sandwich line, and tried to apologize, Gerald waved it away.

“No harm done, Ben. We all felt the same frustration. In fact, things worked out fine. That lengthy description of their voyage helped to divert people from obsessing on the immortality thing, giving us a chance to learn more before hysteria really sets in.”

The anthropologist seemed relieved. “Thanks. I really appreciate that, Gerald. Nevertheless I wanted to make up for my behavior. So I did a little modeling and came up with something I think you’ll find interesting.”

While Gerald ate, Ben opened the palm of one hand. It was empty, but Gerald simply let his aiware follow where the other man’s gestures beckoned, allowing images to flow out of Flannery’s personal virt cloud. And lo, there seemed to unfold in midair above the hand, a glittering model of the Milky Way galaxy.

Swiftly, at Ben’s waved finger-command, this replica expanded and soon they were zooming in toward just one section of a single spiral arm… till the illustration encompassed (according to a convenient graphic counter) a mere hundred thousand stars. Ben explained that the display excluded all giants and dwarves and binaries, leaving only those systems that might be abodes of life.

“Imagine that three or more interstellar cultures are competing with one another as they move out, across the star lanes,” Ben urged. “If they were doing so physically, planting colonies and then