Existence

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: (laughs) Hundreds? Oh my, thousands! So? Make dem cheap, bashy an’ trivial to use by lots of amateur science-bredren an’ sistren, corned-up all over this lovely globe! Each backyard dish will then patrol just one livicated strip of sky. Ah sey one. Networked, these home-units make the greatest telescope looking in all directions at once! Letting us spot brief signals from far civilizations… assuming upfull-wise aliens exist. But there also be an important, bashy-awesome side benefit.

MARCIA KHATAMI: What is that, Professor?

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Why… making it so-much harder for any badulu thing or any bakra tief to sneak up on us! Picture a planet where millions of amateurs have patient, robotic antennae in de backyards, gazing out. A stoosh network with no central control.

Want a benefit? No more creep-a-silly fables about badbwoy UFOs, bringin’ baldhead, ginnal phantoms to vank on good folks! No more UFO obeah stories? Bless up pon that! (laughs)

MARCIA KHATAMI: Well, Dr. Spearpath? What do you say about this notion, that we should replace the big, fancy telescopes run by your institute, with a worldwide network of amateur-owned dishes covering all the sky, all the time?

DR. SPEARPATH: Amusing. Our friends at the SETI League are trying to set up something like that. Too bad Profnoo’s scenario is based on one shaky assumption.

MARCIA KHATAMI: What assumption, Doctor?

DR. SPEARPATH: That advanced technological extraterrestrial civilizations will care about things like economics. Or “efficiency”!

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Cha! It be no matter how advanced they are! Laws of physics rule. Even if they have a gorgon-big civilization, way-up at Kardashev Stage Three-able to utilize the full-up power of a galaxy! Even so, they’ll have priorities to balance. Whatever dem technology, dem will want to choose methods that accomplish goals without wasted…

DR. SPEARPATH: “Efficiency” is a contemporary notion, assuming that society consists of diverse interest groups, each with conflicting priorities. Today, the poor have less influence than the rich, but they still have some. Under these conditions, I agree, even the mighty must negotiate and balance goals, satisfying as many as possible. But your assumption that this applies elsewhere is spatio-temporal chauvinism! Not even all human civilizations were like that. I can think of several that engaged in gigantic projects, without any care about efficiency.

MARCIA KHATAMI: Give us an example, Doctor?

DR. SPEARPATH: Sure. Ancient Egypt. When they built the pyramids in a pattern that mimicked the constellation Orion, their prodigious size sent a visual message-both through time and to the god- observers they thought to dwell above-saying “Look! We’re intelligent and we’re here!”

PROFESSOR NOOZONE: That “Orion theory” is disputed-

DR. SPEARPATH: True. What’s not disputed is this. The Old Kingdom pharaohs poured monumental resources into the effort, without heed to “conflicting interests.” They simply did the biggest, most noticeable thing possible.

MARCIA KHATAMI: So… if I am following you… and I hope that I am not… it seems you’re saying… that your SETI search strategy expects to find prodigious beacons, transmitted continuously and in all directions… altruistically… by civilizations that don’t feel any need to do it efficiently… because they…

PROFESSOR NOOZONE:… because they practice some superadvanced equivalent of tyranny. A universal downpression?… or slavery?

Yeyewata. My eyes fill wit’ tears as I say… wicked… You caught me in a lapse of imagination this time, Hannah. I-and-I truly never thought of that before.

15.

ARTIFACT

“There’s a leak.”

Not a phrase that any astronaut likes to hear. Not in space, where precious air might spill away in seconds. Or during reentry, when the same gases turn from friend to fiery foe-searing, etching, and screaming just beyond your fragile heat shield, seeking a way in.

But no, Gerald knew that Akana Hideoshi meant another kind of leak. One that bureaucrats took even more seriously. The brigadier’s grimace flickered and rippled on a flat viewscreen, despite heavy image enhancement, with her crackling words barely audible over a deafening roar, as the tiny capsule bore Gerald homeward. Still, her vexation came through, loud and clear.

“Somebody tattled about our little find. Rumors have taken off, in all ten estates. During the last hour, I’ve had calls from five senators, four tribunes, a dozen news agencies, and God knows how many top-rated amazones…”

Her face wavered onscreen, almost vanishing as the return craft bucked and rattled, turning its sharp nose for a cross-range correction.

“We’ve narrowed… possibilities down to a blabbermouth… at Marshall, a possible lurker daemon in… NASA-Havana mainframe… and that zillionaire tourist you folks were hosting up there. Now that’s gratitu…”

Akana’s image now crackled away completely, disappearing under static, as the capsule stole ai-resources from communication and transferred them to navigation. Still, in the old days, there would be no contact at all, during this phase of descent, when ionized flame surrounded you like the halo of a righteous saint. Or the nimbus of a falling angel.

Or a starry messenger, bearing something luminous and tantalizing. A harbinger of good news, perhaps. Or bad.

Violating several rules, he had taken the Artifact from its foam case, to hold on his lap like an infant during this wild ride. From the moment the hatch closed, sealing his departure from the station, and all through a sequence of short impulses that pushed the return capsule onto its homeward path, he kept turning the glossy cylinder in gloved hands, inspecting it from many angles, applying every augmented sense available to his spacesuit. Each glint and complex glimmer was recorded-though what it all meant…

Anyway, studying this thing beat the alternative-listening to superheated plasma whine and howl as it began scraping the capsule’s skin. Never a favorite part of this job-entrusting his life to a “reentry vehicle” that had been inflated from a two meter cube, and that weighed little more than he did. Astronauts used to rate higher-class accommodations. But, then, astronauts used to be heroes.

Abruptly, the general’s voice and image returned.

“… summoned to the White House! And what can I say? That we’ve recorded a hundred and twenty previously unknown alphabets and symbolic systems? And glimpsed a few dozen tantalizing, hazy globes, that might be other worlds? That shadowy figures keep rising toward the surface and then sinking again, like the cryptic answers in a toy eight ball?”

“Well, yes, you could start with all that,” he mumbled, knowing that his words went nowhere. Only a ground- based laser could punch through the ionization shell. For now, communication was one-way.

As it was, so far, with the Artifact. For days, he and Saleh had presented it with a long series of “SETI messages,” prepared by enthusiasts across six decades, ranging from simple, mathematical pulse codes all the way to animated slide shows, cleverly designed to illustrate laws of scale. Laws of physics and chemistry. Laws of nature and laws of humanity. Frustrated by the murky response-a swirl of ambiguous symbologies-they had moved on to basic tutorial programs. The kind made for children learning a second language…

… when, abruptly, a command came for Gerald to come down. To bring the object home for study in proper facilities.