Existence

communications may solve part of the conundrum. Another contributor may be some kind of Zoo Hypothesis.”

This one she knew well. “The idea that young races like ours are held in quarantine. Deliberately kept in the dark.”

“Yes, madam. Many possible motives have been offered, for why elder races might do such a dread thing. Fear of ‘human aggression’ is one old-but-implausible theory. Or a ‘noninterference directive’ leaves new races alone, even if it deprives them of answers they need, to survive.” Profnoo shook his head, clearly disliking that explanation.

“Or aliens may stay silent to sift our broadcasts an’ surf our networks, gathering our culture-art, music, and originalities-without paying anything in return! I call it the Cheapskate Thief Hypothesis. And it does vex me, truly, to think they may be such blackheart mon! First thing I plan to ask these beings? What intellectual property laws they have! Interstellar peace and friendship be fine… but kill-mi-dead if I don’ want my royalties!”

Lacey chuckled politely, since he seemed to expect it. In fact, Profnoo’s eyes had a glint as he hurriedly waggled notes in the air, caching this idea for his show.

Inwardly, she wondered, Would it have been better, if this all took place out of public view?

The professor assumes that citizenship in some galactic federation will involve expanded rights and privileges. But what if aliens exact a price for admission? Changes in our social structure or government? Or beliefs? Might they demand something tangible, in exchange for knowledge and trade? Like precious substances?

Lacey had once seen a humor magazine cynically explain why the U.S. government would both suppress medical advances and quash the truth about ET visitors-because officials were selling fuel for the aliens’ “cancer drive engines.”

But no. UFO scenarios were mental slumming.

More likely, they want access to cheap Earthling labor, outsourcing work to our teeming masses. Grunt toil their own citizens and robots are too spoiled to perform? Software can travel between the stars, so will Earth become the new coding sweatshop? Or intergalactic call center?

Lacey realized, If this contact episode had taken place behind closed doors… our elite talking to theirs… then we’d have had an option. The possibility of saying-“No thanks. No deal. Not now.

“Not yet.

“Maybe not ever.”

It frankly shocked Lacey, the path her thoughts had taken. Where was the zealot who spent her adult life pursuing this very thing-First Contact? When push came to shove, was she as conservative and reluctant as all the rest?

Why do I have the creepy feeling there’s going to be a catch?

She was still in that dour mood when Professor Noozone helped guide her down a ramp leading from the yacht to where several fresh-faced young men and women in starched uniforms waited to salute and greet her. It was a clear day. Beyond the zep port-with flying cranes bustling among the giant, bobbing freighters-she could make out the remade Washington Monument and the pennants of New Smithsonian Castle. But even those sights didn’t lift her spirit.

While servants brought the luggage and Profnoo’s scientific supplies, Lacey made sure to shake hands with her hosts, one by one. She tried to quash a bitter-and irrational-feeling of anger that sailors should be standing here, instead of helping right now in the search for her son, missing at sea. Of course, only fatigue could provoke such an awful resentment.

I can’t help it though. Underneath all the turmoil about rocks from space, beyond the scientific puzzles and philosophical quandaries I am, after all, a mother.

“The reception for our distinguished Advisory Panel will start soon, madam,” said Lacey’s assigned guide, a bright-looking ensign, who seemed a little like Hacker. “I’ll take you first to your guest quarters, so you can freshen-”

The young officer abruptly gasped as his face took an orange cast, flinching backward from some surprise that he saw, beyond Lacey’s shoulder. Others reacted, too, cringing or raising hands before their eyes.

“Bumboclot!” Professor Noozone cursed.

Lacey turned to find out what caused the flaring glow, when sound caught up with light-a low, rumbling boom accompanied a palpable push of displaced air. Thoughts of Awfulday raced through her mind-as they must have through everyone else.

But then, why am I still on my feet? she wondered until, turning, Lacey saw a globular gout of flame roiling in the sky beyond the Pentagon, some distance upriver, maybe in Virginia. The setting sun made it hard to see clearly, but the fireball faded quickly and she realized with some relief-it couldn’t be anything as terrible as a nuke. Not even a small one.

That comfort was tempered though, when there followed another detonation. And then another. And she knew that, when it came to explosions, size wasn’t everything.

RENUNCIATORS

What about the notion of “inevitable progress”?

Decades ago, author Charles Stross urged that-even if you think a marvelous Singularity Era is coming, you shouldn’t let it affect your behavior, or alter your sober urgency to solve current problems.

“The rapture of the nerds, like space colonization, is likely to be a nonparticipatory event for 99.999 percent of humanity-unless we’re very unlucky,” Stross wrote. “If it happens and it’s interested in us, all our plans go out the window. If it doesn’t happen, sitting around waiting for the ais to save us from the rising sea level/oil shortage/intelligent bioengineered termites looks like a Real Bad Idea.

“The best approach to the singularity is to apply Pascal’s Wager-in reverse-and plan on the assumption it won’t save us from ourselves.”

– from The Movement Revealed by Thormace Anubis-Fejel

28.

THE SMART-MOB

Washington was like a geezer-overweight and sagging-but with attitude. Most of its gutty heft lay below the Beltway, in waistlands that had been downwind on Awfulday.

Downwind, but not out.

When droves of upper-class child-bearers fled the invisible plumes enveloping Fairfax and Alexandria, those briefly empty ghost towns quickly refilled with immigrants-the latest mass of teemers, yearning to be free and willing to endure a little radiation, in exchange for a pleasant five-bedroom that could be subdivided into nearly as many apartments. Spacious living rooms began a second life as storefronts. Workshops took over four-car garages and lawns turned into produce gardens. Swimming pools made excellent refuse bins-until government recovered enough to start cracking down.

Passing overhead, Tor could track signs of suburban renewal from her first-class seat aboard the Spirit of Chula Vista. Take those swimming pools. A majority of the kidney-shaped cement ponds now gleamed with clear liquid-mostly water (as testified by the spectral scanning feature of her tru-vu spectacles)-welcoming throngs of children who splashed under summertime heat, sufficiently dark-skinned to unflinchingly bear the bare sun.

So much for the notion that dirty bombs automatically make a place unfit for breeders, she thought. Let yuppies abandon perfectly good mansions because of a little strontium