Existence

Progress may have been slower for your race. Harder. Less continuous. But you get the pride of knowing that you lifted up yourselves, through your own efforts.

And there were costs for our rapid development. Under guidance by crystal-encased “gods,” marriage and reproduction became tightly managed on Planet Turbulence. Mating required permission. Half the males in any generation could not breed at all. Our ancestral forebears had been monogamous, gregarious, friendly, easy-going creatures. Under guidance, we became harshly competitive, performing every trick in order to be noticed-to gain approval – from those domineering immortals in the oracle stones.

Continuing to unfold its tale, the Courier entity arrived at a pivotal phase of history when a single mega-tribe- guided by one especially effective sky emissary-triumphed, becoming dominant across most of the planet.

A generation later, we had cities.

Within five, we were in space.

Whereupon… only then… did we learn what the gods wanted from us.

Bin felt tension, even though he knew the answer already. Everyone on Earth knew, thanks to the Havana Artifact. Bin painted a summary with his finger.

They asked you to build more emissary stones-billions of duplicate bottles… And messengers to put inside them-and then spend every resource to cast them forth toward new planets beyond.

Again, Courier nodded.

That is the deal they presented to us, back on Turbulence.

And we agreed! After all, these were the deities who had vexed and confused and guided and tormented and loved and taught us, as far back as our collective race memory could penetrate the misty past. Even when we knew what they truly were-mere puppets sent by beings who once dwelled by faraway suns-we felt obliged to move forward. To grant their wish.

Slowly, of course, while building a society of knowledge and serenity…

But no! They hectored that it should be our top-our only-priority! They badgered us. Cajoled and manipulated. Until, at last, they confided a reason for haste.

And so came the great lie…

Black characters continued scrolling under the surface of the stone, but their already-dim contrast was fading fast. All background images vanished and Bin realized, the artifact must be nearly drained. Moreover, his eyes hurt.

He painted a symbol on the ovoid-WAIT-and rubbed them. Time also for some water. And the last protein bar, which he munched quietly, pondering more clearly than ever how small and unimportant his life was. All individual lives, for that matter, on the grand and tragic scale of many worlds. Many tragic destinies.

Yet, his mind’s wanderings kept returning to what mattered most. His mate. His child. Somehow, there must be a way to help them… to ensure their lives and comfort and liberty… while salvaging something worthwhile out of his own tangled loyalties. To China. To Dr. Nguyen. To Courier. Humanity. Himself.

To the truth.

Without realizing it, Bin had been finger-writing while thinking. He realized this because the worldstone glimmered with an answer. One that throbbed briefly, faintly, before drowning in dull mist.

Truth?

Just get me to where I can…

He missed the last part as the robot-sub began vibrating suddenly, jouncing the scarred crystal on his lap. But for the padded walls, it might have been deafening. As the cramped compartment twisted and flexed, Bin voiced questions for the mechanical serpent, getting no answers.

Paying close heed though, he noted an apparent change in the sea-leviathan’s rippling motion. And perhaps the angle of his seat. Then the ai-patch intervened again, diagnosing with a single word, floating in the lower right corner of vision.

Ascent.

DEBATING DESTINY

Welcome to Povlovian Response. I’m Nolan Brill, sitting in for your regular inciter Miss Tor Povlov, who’s following a major story. Or so I’m told. There she is, in that corner of the studio. Hasn’t moved a tread or gripper in days. The lights on her robomobile canister are green and there’s tons of encrypted link activity, so we assume Tor is roaming out there now, following a scent with her award-winning smart-mob. Good hunting, Tor!

Meanwhile, we have quite a lineup for today’s gladi-oratorial tiff. First, Dr. Clothilde Potter-Ferrier, the EU’s Deputy Minister of Possibilities. She joins us from Earth Union’s equatorial capital, in Suriname. Good of you to spare time, Minister.

DR. POTTER-FERRIER: Thank you, Nolan. Anything for Tor’s vraudience.

NOLAN BRILL: Terrific. But get ready for hard questions about the EU’s new policy on tech controls. Some liken it to the “War on Science” that raged in the U.S., a generation ago.

DR. POTTER-FERRIER: An unfair comparison, Nolan. That campaign was driven by a few conniving billionaires. Whereas this new endeavor-

NOLAN BRILL: -is propelled by several dozen trillionaires? Using “species salvation” as an excuse to eliminate competition from other estates?

DR. POTTER-FERRIER: Nonsense. Populist momentum has built for some time, as we saw “progress” wreak terrible harms. Then came the terrifying fact taught by those alien refugees-that all planets wind up damned by one arrogant overreach or another. If we’re to have any hope-

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Fact? You call dat story fact? Jus’ because some obeah space-puppets say? Oh, mon, what quattie foolish-

NOLAN BRILL: Coo-yah now, don’ you be nuh-easy, Profnoo. You’ll get chance in a minim. Firs lemme inner-duce our guests.

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: So sorry, Nolan brudder. Fit ’n’ frock.

NOLAN BRILL: Bashy. Also on the mat is Mr. Hamish Brookeman, who wrote the shit- disturbers Cult of Science and Progress-Hubris, here to pop another entertaining rationale for why any intelligent person should listen to his story that “It’s all a hoax I wrote.”

HAMISH BROOKEMAN: Do you call a billion people unintelligent, Mr. Brill?

NOLAN BRILL: Well, now you’ll have a shot at the other nine billion-who can see with their own eyes what’s happening in the asteroid belt-

HAMISH BROOKEMAN: Their own eyes? How many have backyard telescopes? A few million? The rest-including you “news folk”-take the word of elites that anything’s going on out there! Boffins and bureaucrats who’ve lied before. Would-be priests, lords, and snobby “amateur science mobs,” all with a vested interest in this tale about alien-

NOLAN BRILL: A tale you claimed to concoct-