Existence

morning on the quay was lively as three sailors haggled with a smoke artist whose delicate portraits couldn’t be reproduced by nanofax or shipped by omail. They forked over cash and watched her puff a gel-hookah, adding clots of fast-congealing haze. A cloudy caricature of fresh-faced young Navy chaps took shape while onlookers sighed.

It made Tor think of Wesley, though his air-sculpts dealt with surf and waves and rising tides. Adamant forces, implacably changing the world. And cued by her subvocal thoughts, a pict image of him played in the upper left part of her percept, recorded by her specs just a few hours ago-shaggy blond hair sodden as they rushed to escape the horizontal storm. Laughing, but with tension, a gulf between them. The dilemma of a long-distance relationship unresolved-and likely never to be.

The lovemaking that followed had been more intense-and tense-than ever, with a clutching fury of knowing it could be the last… till one of them improbably relented.

Tor shook herself. This wasn’t like her-moodily strolling instead of s-trolling. Contemplating, not templating to amuse her fans. Musing, instead of sifting for stories along her beat, the ten million blocks of Camino Unreal.

Every cubic centimeter above these sidewalks swarmed with position-tagged information, notifications and animations that existed only on the high planes of IP9 cyberspace. Viewing the world through some virt overlayers, you might see the city transformed into fairy-tale castles with leering gargoyles lining the roofs. Or everyone overpainted with cartoon mustaches. On one coded level, all clothing would magically seem to vanish, replaced by simulated flesh, while supplying unsuspecting pedestrians with exaggerated “enhancements,” all by the design of some prurient little snot. On another, Post-it tags reported tattletale rumors about any person who walked by-a rich source of leads, if you had good ai to sift out swill and slander.

Anyway, who had time for kid stuff? Tor’s ersatz reality-stack was practical, concentrating on essentials-the world’s second stratum of texture, as important now as the scent of food and water might have been to distant ancestors. The modern equivalents to a twig cracking. Hints of predator and prey.

Tor paused at a shop selling vat-grown walking sticks-these could perform a variety of strides and even break into a jog. An out-of-towner-you could tell because he wore lead-lined underwear here in Sandego-haggled over a bulk order. “For my sister’s store in Delhi,” said the tourist, unaware that metal briefs altered the display pattern of his pixel-fiber jumpsuit, making him a potbellied satire of Superman. Underpants on the outside. Waggling fingers and clicking teeth, the shopkeeper quick-scanned the sister’s business and credit, then offered his hand. “I’ll ship in ten days.”

The men shook. Their specs recorded. As in villages of old, reputation mattered more than any contract. Only this “village” spanned a globe.

There are times when it’s too big. Like when two ambitious people want to remain close, while chasing separate ambitions a continent apart.

Soon after the lovemaking, Wesley offered a solution-swapping remote-controlled sexbots-to be with each other by proxy, across thousands of kilometers. Tor called it a rotten joke and said he should not come to see her off… and he agreed, with a readiness that stung.

Should I call? Say to come, after all? Lifting a hand, she prepared to twiddle his code…

… as a low whistle made the smoke sculptures quiver, beckoning from the Lindbergh-Rutan Skydock. Boarding call, she realized. Too late. Tor sighed, then turned to go.

Her reaction to the whistle did not go unnoticed. One nearby vendor tapped his specs, smiled and bowed. “Bon voyage, Miss Tor,” he said, in a thick Yemeni accent. He must have scan-correlated, found her on the Santos-Dumont passenger list and noted her modest local fame. Another shopkeeper, grinning, pressed a cluster of fresh flowers into her hand as she passed.

A ripple of e-lerts flowed just ahead of Tor-like fluttering glow-moths-and she found herself walking along a corridor of evanescent goodwill, arms filling with small, impulsive gifts and her ears with benedictions in a dozen languages. Half buoyed by a wave of sentiment for the town she was leaving behind, she made her way toward the terminal where a mighty zeppelin strained skyward.

Tor-despite the perceptiveness of all her surrogate guardians-never realized that she was being followed all that time. Indeed, there was no reason that she should. For it was a ghost that made its way close behind, stalking her through familiar, neighborly paths of a global village.

But outside the village… beyond its forest of tame overlays… murmured a jungle that her natural eyes could never see.

ENTROPY

Way back, about a century ago, physicist Enrico Fermi and his colleagues, taking a lunch break from the Manhattan Project, found themselves discussing life in the cosmos. Some younger scientists claimed that amid trillions of stars there should be countless living worlds inhabited by intelligent races, far older than ours. How interesting the future might be, with others to talk to!

Fermi listened patiently, then asked: “So? Shouldn’t we have heard their messages by now? Seen their great works? Or stumbled on residue of past visits? These wondrous others… where are they?”

His question has been called the Great Silence, the SETI Dilemma or Fermi Paradox. And as enthusiasts keep scanning the sky, the galaxy’s eerie hush grows more alarming.

Astronomers now use planet-hunting telescopes to estimate how many stars have companion worlds with molten water, and how often that leads to life. Others cogently guess what fraction of those Life Worlds develop technological beings. And what portion of those will either travel or transmit messages. Most conclude-we shouldn’t be alone. Yet, silence reigns.

Eventually it sank in-this wasn’t just theoretical. Something must be suppressing the outcome. Some “filter” may winnow the number of sapient races, low enough to explain our apparent isolation. Our loneliness.

Over ten dozen pat “explanations for the Great Silence” have been offered. Some claim that our lush planet is unique. (And, so far, nothing like Earth has been found, though life certainly exists out there.) Or that most eco- worlds suffer more lethal accidents-like the one that killed the dinosaurs-than Earth has.

Might human sapience be a fluke? Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr said-“Nothing demonstrates the improbability of high intelligence better than the fifty billion earthly species that failed to achieve it.” Or else, Earth may have some unique trait, rare elsewhere, that helped humans move from mere intelligence to brilliance at technology.

Sound gloomy? These are the optimistic explanations! They suggest the “great filter”-whatever’s kept the numbers down-lies behind us. Not ahead.

But what if life-bearing planets turn out to be common and intelligence arises frequently? Then the filter lies ahead. Perhaps some mistake that all sapient races make. Or several. A minefield of potential ways to fail. Each time we face some worrisome step along our road, from avoiding nuclear war to becoming skilled planetary managers, to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and so on, we must ask: “Is this it? The Big Blunder? The trap underlying Fermi’s question?”

That’s the context of our story. The specter at our banquet, slinking between reflection and foresight, as we turn now to examine a long list of threats to our existence.

Those we can see.

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

4.

RESURRECTED CITY