Existence

When it came to most of the scions, princes, sheiks, and neolords whom Lacey knew-many of them convinced they were high intellects, because sycophants had flattered them and given them high marks at Oxbridge-well, one had to hope and pray that none of them was a secret string puller! Surely, any cabal of aristocratic titans ought to be smarter, by far.

Could it be that they don’t exist? Perhaps every part of the aristocracy thinks that someone else is really guiding affairs?

Lacey wasn’t sure which possibility felt more frightening. A cryptic superelite of mighty meddlers, working their will beyond her sight… or else that things actually were as they seemed, a melange of cartels and “Estates,” of impudent guilds and impotent legacy nations, plus a bewildering fog of “smart” citizen-mobs and ephemerally frightening ais… all desperately tugging at the tiller, with the result that no one was really steering the ship. Nobody at all.

She answered, carefully.

“Hm. I… suppose some top ai tools would help. Can I access the Quantum Eye in Riyadh?”

Helena blinked, shifting back in her chair. This request went a bit further than diverting one crackpot old lady from bigger matters.

“I… I can approach the Riyadhians. Though, as you know, they tend to be a bit-”

“Suspicious? But aren’t they fully committed members of our clade? So, if there’s consensus that my mission is important-”

She left the sentence hanging. And it worked. Helena nodded.

“I don’t expect that will be a problem, Lacey. My factotum will contact yours about details. Only now, I am so sorry, but I must run. The Bogolomovs are arriving, and you know how much they love ceremony. They actually think they’re czars or boyars or something, complete with a family tree made of fairy dust and forged DNA!”

Helena chuckled demurely, then straightened and met Lacey’s eyes, with a level gaze of apparently sincere affection.

“Please accept our blessings, dear one. Our prayers are with you, for Hacker to be found and safely returned to you.”

Lacey thanked the younger woman, with all the back-and-forth that it took to bring polite conversation to a close. Only, her heart wasn’t in it. And, after the holistube went blank, she was left in silence, sitting in the leather-trimmed lounge, feeling miserable. Alone.

First, Jason has to go racing toward the nearest disaster area on Awfulday, instead of staying sensibly away from danger, becoming an iconic hero of newblesse oblige … as if that sort of honor ever did a widow any good…

… then Hacker goes hurtling himself into space-exhibiting all of Jason’s bravado without any of the showy responsibility…

… and now it comes to this. I am being cauterized by my peers. Set aside. Removed from deliberations that might affect the shape of civilization for generations to come. All because-with good reason-they fear I’ll be unhappy about their choice.

Shall I resign? Maybe join one of the other coalitions of do-gooder rich?

There were plenty of those, some of them more suitable for a philanthropist with her science-loving bent. Tech billionaires and first-generation entrepreneurs, fizzing with excitement over the Havana Artifact. Some, she knew well, as cosponsors of her Farseeker Telescope. Not all of the superwealthy were superreactionary. Not even a majority.

But those other rich folk tended to act as individuals or in small groups, pursuing personal passions and separate interests. The same fetish for uniqueness that had made them affluent prevented any action in concert. Not even the wary, tentative grouping that called itself the Naderites.

None of them-separately or all together-could match the influence, power, or Machiavellian ruthlessness of the clade.

If I step outside, I’ll join the billions. Those to whom history happens… instead of ordering it up, like a meal on a plate.

* * *

“There ought to be signs of intelligent life everywhere, madam, truly,” the showman-scientist crooned, his low, rich voice spiced with a velvety Jamaican accent.

“Ancient aliens-so-very smaart-should have preceded us by eons, sprouting corn all across our so-bright galaxy, even before the sun was born, filling the cosmos with culture and upfull conversation.

“Hence, it be fretful-puzzling, even long-back when we first began looking for signs of technological civilization, that this welcoming cosmos seem sparse. Indeed, with only one proved example of sapient life-us!”

Profnoo gestured with both hands, rocking his oversize head so avidly that each of his super-elongated earlobes rattled against thick collar ruffles. He swept them back to join the twitching, multibraided draidlocks of cybactivated hair that served as both antennae-receivers and his public trademark-though he was only the best known of a dozen science supertainers who came from that gifted little island.

“I know that,” Lacey sighed. She didn’t need a razzle-artist astronomer to lay out-for a thousandth time-the dismal logic of the Fermi Paradox. Yet, Professor Noozone proceeded to do just that, perhaps out of eagerness to impress his patron. Or else, practicing a riff for his weekly audience.

“See here now.” The professor pointed to a holistank that showed some kind of primeval sea, with meteors flashing overhead. “Precursors of life appear to emerge anywhere that you have a flow of energy, plus a dozen basic elements immersed in liquid-not just water, but almost any kind of liquid at all! And not only on planets with surface oceans! But ten times as many little worlds that have seas, roofed with icy covers, like Europa, Enceladus, Miranda, Tethys, Titan, Oberon…”

She wanted to interrupt. To get the man back onto the topic of the Artifact. But Lacey knew that any expression of outright disapproval might quash him too much. In order to be wielded effectively, power had to wear gloves-a lesson she had tried, in vain, to teach her short-tempered son.

Anyway, the situation with Professor Noozone was entirely her own fault.

It serves me right, for choosing an adviser with the brain of a Thorne or a Koonin, but with the insecure ego of a Bollywood star and the put-on reggae drawl of a rastaman.

Bulging implants throbbed just under the skin of Profnoo’s broad forehead, above dark, glinting eyes. The effect-totally intentional-made his cranium seem preternaturally large. Like an overinflated souffle.

At least he doesn’t feel a need to lay the accent too thick, when he’s talking to me alone. Though his vowels were stretched and every “th” dropped into a “d” or “t” sound, she felt grateful that he wasn’t peppering in very many island slang expressions. In public, or on his shows, Profnoo can be hard to follow without subtitles!

Professor Noozone caused more images to dance about, with flourishes of a hand. “Indeed, our… your… earlier farseeker telescopes did find traces of life out there, on half a dozen planets! Those worlds, so far, proved disappointing. None of them exactly New Zion. Then there’s the next step. For life to rise-up an’ get smaart, an’ then technology-capable.

“Countless arguments have fumed and smoked over how much of a fluke it was, here on Earth, for humans to leap so far, so fast. And, if there very-truly are older races out there, how best to look for them. Does the lack of garish tutorial beacons mean there are no Elder Races out there, after all?

“But, irie. Of course, the arrival of the Livingstone Object seems to have settled that!” He chuckled with the satisfaction of someone whose side had proved right, after a century of debate.

“By the Artifact’s mere existence, and the plurality of alien types that it contains, we may conclude that we are