Existence

CONFLICTING WISDOM

Already the danger is so great, for every individual, every class, every people, that to cherish any illusion whatever is deplorable. Time does not suffer itself to be halted; there is no question of prudent retreat or wise renunciation. Only dreamers believe that there is a way out. Optimism is cowardice.

– Oswald Spengler, Men and Technics, 1932

In good times, pessimism is a luxury; but in bad times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling and fatal prophecy.

– Jamais Cascio, Open the Future, 2005

24.

THE WORLD WATCHES

“Why must I wear this thing?” Gerald complained. He plucked at the sleeve of his freshly laundered and ribboned dress uniform, referring to what lay beneath-a bulge in the fleshy part of his forearm. An implanted NASA telemetry device.

“Oh, don’t be a wiper,” General Hideoshi scolded. In person, the brigadier was even more petite than she appeared onscreen-which had the paradoxical effect of making her rank more imposing. Stars on each shoulder glittered under the stage lights. “You’ve worn implants ever since you entered training.”

“For health diagnostics, biologging, and work-related drugdrips. And we get to turn ’em off, after missions. But this thing is huge! And I know it’s not just checking my blood pressure.”

Akana shrugged. “Price of freedom, friend. You chose to be a human guinea pig, by planting your hand on that thing.” She nodded toward the Object, glossy and opalescent in its felt-lined cradle, sitting a meter away from Gerald atop the conference table. “It was either this,” she gestured at his arm, “or extended deep quarantine. You still have that option, you know. Go back into the tank.”

Gerald snorted. “No tanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Akana chuckled.

He didn’t mention other implants that he only suspected-like something foreign floating inside his left eyeball, sampling light without blocking his retina. Looking out at the world through his own iris. In effect, seeing whatever he saw. As if it weren’t enough that a dozen other team members were constantly watching, whenever he communed with the Messenger from MEO. Just one of many names for the object.

My “egg” they call it. Gerald’s Galactic Geode. Or the Havana Artifact. Or the thing that garbageman-cowboy Livingstone lassoed with his space-lariat. It had better turn out to be benign because from now on, my name is tied to whatever it does. Good or ill.

Beyond thick curtains, a babble of press and invited guests could be heard, taking seats in the hall proper-the largest auditorium at the Naval Research Lab, just outside of Washington. A convenient older building that survived Awfulday unscathed-and diplomatically innocuous, while offering military levels of security.

This side of the curtain, on a wide stage, dignitaries filed in to take assigned positions at the long table. First NASA and Foresight officials, then representatives from EU and AU and GEACS. Finally delegates from both guild and academy. Some had helped with preliminary analyses in Cuba. Others just wanted to shake Gerald’s hand… the one that hadn’t touched the Artifact, of course. Others just kept glancing toward the ovoid crystal, glistening quietly under the stage lights.

Someone had suggested laying a purple cloth over it, for the president to pull away with due drama. But a public affairs psychologist insisted, “Let the public see it, first thing, as soon as the curtain opens. They’ll be thinking about nothing else, anyway. So turn that into a dramatic advantage. Sit and wait while all viewers zoom in with specs and vus. An expression of ultimate openness. Only after the hubbub dies down, then have the president come onstage.”

That courtesy harkened back to when the office held real and terrible power. Of course, it all sounded like hooey. At least a cover might have offered Gerald a break from the thing’s constant, eye-drawing allure. What decided the matter was simple practicality. The object needed to bathe in light for some time, in order to function.

Everyone settled into assigned places. Akana to Gerald’s left, where the Artifact would not block her face from the crowd. His own position, closest to the gleaming thing, bespoke a growing consensus. He was not only its discoverer, but in some way its keeper. The one asked to pick it up. To carry the ovoid, whenever it must be moved. The one present, whenever specialists wanted to try some new method for communicating with the entities inside.

An honor, I suppose-and who knows? Maybe even historic. On the other hand, I’m not sure I like the way this thing tugs at me. Like a habit or addiction. Or like I belong to it, now.

And if all this goes badly, there’s no place on or off the planet where I can hide.

At present, the orb lay quiescent, a soft shimmer rippling its surface-a liquid impression of great, perhaps infinite depth. A vastly magnified image of the ovoid was projected onto a giant screen, above and behind the dais, bright enough to cast Gerald’s shadow across the table, limned in silvery light.

“Wouldn’t it be something, if it refused to perform in public?”

Akana shot him a glare, for even thinking that way. Of course, there were recordings of hour after hour, spent by specialists interrogating the smoke-and-mirror enigma-some contained in that terabyte of sample images that somebody had leaked. Many of the pictures showed Gerald with his left hand planted on the glossy surface, while some other palm seemed to rise out of those milky depths, to touch his, from within.

Time and again that happened. Some alien-looking hand-variously scaly, or fleshy, or furry, or consisting of pincer-claws-appeared to float up from within the Artifact, in order to perform the same strange ritual, ever since he first established contact, during fiery reentry.

Contact, yes, but with what? With whom?

Gradually over several days, more depth developed. Hands led to arms or tentacles that receded inward, as if the Artifact were tens of meters deep, perhaps much more, instead of a few dozen centimeters. Then, torsos or bodies appeared at the ends of those arms, moving closer, though always distorted, as if viewed through a thick ball of milky glass.

And finally came heads… sometimes faces… equipped with eyes or sensing organs that pressed up to the inner surface, seeming to peer outward, even as Gerald and his colleagues stared back.

After gaping long enough, your mind played tricks. You even found it possible to imagine that you were inside, while those alien figures scrutinized your cramped, little prison-world from the outside, as if through some kind of lens.

Maybe they’re doing just that. One theory called the Artifact a transmitter. An interstellar communication device offering instant hookup across the light-years, to aliens now living on some other world.

While others think it has to be a hoax.

Some of the best experts in display technology-from Hollywood to Bombay to Kinshasa-had flown in to examine the thing. Many of its behaviors and functions could be duplicated with known technology, they decreed. But not all. In fact, some were downright astonishing. Especially the way three-dimensional images might loom outward in any direction-or all directions at once-from deep within a solid object. Or the unknown manner that it sensed nearby people and things. Or the mysterious and unconventional means by which it drew power from ambient lighting. Still, none of those enigmas guaranteed against a fake. Fraudulent alien artifacts had been tried before, by spoof artists with deep pockets and plenty of creativity. An Interpol team had been assigned to trawl the vir and real worlds, seeking to profile a certain kind of prankster-one with fantastic ingenuity and extravagant resources.

Likewise, the symbols that kept floating upward through that inner murk, to plaster themselves against its translucent shell, like insects wriggling and trying to escape. Were they proof of alien provenance? More words had formed, that went beyond the initial greeting, and yet all meaning remained frustrating. Ambiguous. It wasn’t just a