Existence

what matters? do i? or ai? + the question spins

+/- as my body spins!/+ in time to a chirping window-bird

“normal people” don’t think like this -/-/-

nor aspies -/- nor even most autistics

stop spinning! -/- there -/- now back to the holo-screen -›

rain smatters the clatter window -

bird is gone -/+ hiding from falling water + +

like i hide from a falling civilization

what matters then?/? progress? New minds??

after cortex, after libraries, the web, mesh, ai-grid

– what’s next ?/!

will it offer hope/doom for foolish humanity +/?

for the glaring cobbly minds +/?

or autistic-hybrids like me +/?

1.

The universe had two great halves.

A hemisphere of glittering stars surrounded Gerald on the right.

Blue-brown Earth took up the other side. Home, after this job was done. Cleaning the mess left by another generation.

Like a fetus in its sac, Gerald floated in a crystal shell, perched at the end of a long boom, some distance from the space station Endurance. Buffered from its throbbing pulse, this bubble was more space than station.

Here, he could focus on signals coming from a satellite hundreds of kilometers away. A long, narrow ribbon of whirling fiber, far overhead.

The bola. His lariat. His tool in an ongoing chore.

The bola is my arm.

The grabber is my hand.

Magnetic is the lever that I turn.

A planet is my fulcrum.

Most days, the little chant helped Gerald to focus on his job-that of a glorified garbageman. There are still people who envy me. Millions, down in that film of sea and cloud and shore.

Some would be looking up right now, as nightfall rushed faster than sound across teeming Sumatra. Twilight was the best time to glimpse this big old station. It made him feel connected with humanity every time Endurance crossed the terminator-whether dawn or dusk-knowing a few people still looked up.

Focus, Gerald. On the job.

Reaching out, extending his right arm fully along the line of his body, he tried again to adjust tension in that far-off, whirling cable, two thousand kilometers overhead, as if it were a languid extension of his own self.

And the cable replied. Feedback signals pulsed along Gerald’s neuro-sens suit… but they felt wrong.

My fault, Gerald realized. The orders he sent to the slender satellite were too rapid, too impatient. Nearby, little Hachi complained with a screech. The other occupant of this inflated chamber wasn’t happy.

“All right.” Gerald grimaced at the little figure, wearing its own neuro-sens outfit. “Don’t get your tail in a knot. I’ll fix it.”

Sometimes a monkey has more sense than a man.

Especially a man who looks so raggedy, Gerald thought. A chance glimpse of his reflection revealed how stained his elastic garment had become-from spilled drinks and maintenance fluids. His grizzled cheeks looked gaunt. Infested, even haunted, by bushy, unkempt eyebrows.

If I go home to Houston like this, the family won’t even let me in our house. Though, with all my accumulated flight pay…

Come on, focus!

Grimly, Gerald clicked down twice on his lower left premolar and three times on the right. His suit responded with another jolt of Slow Juice through a vein in his thigh. Coolness, a lassitude that should help clear thinking, spread through his body-

– and time seemed to crawl.

Feedback signals from the distant bola now had time to catch up. He felt more a part of the thirty kilometer strand, as it whirled ponderously in a higher orbit. Pulsing electric currents that throbbed up there were translated as a faint tingle down here, running from Gerald’s wrist, along his arm and shoulder, slanting across his back and then down to his left big toe, where they seemed to dig for leverage. When he pushed, the faraway cable-satellite responded, applying force against the planet’s magnetic field.

Tele-operation. In an era of ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence, some tasks still needed an old-fashioned human pilot. Even one who floated in a bubble, far below the real action.

Let’s increase the current a bit. To notch down our rate of turn. A tingle in his toe represented several hundred amps of electricity, spewing from one end of the whirling tether, increasing magnetic drag. The great cable rotated across the stars a bit slower.

Hachi-linked-in nearby-hooted querulously from his own web of support fibers. This was better, though the capuchin still needed convincing.

“Cut me some slack,” Gerald grumbled. “I know what I’m doing.”

The computer’s dynamical model agreed with Hachi, though. It still forecast no easy grab when the tether’s tip reached its brief rendezvous with… whatever piece of space junk lay in Gerald’s sights.

Another tooth-tap command, and night closed in around him more completely, simulating what he would see if he were up there, hundreds of klicks higher, at the tether’s speeding tip, where stars glittered more clearly. From that greater altitude, Earth seemed a much smaller disc, filling just a quarter of the sky.

Now, everything he heard, felt or saw came from the robotic cable. His lasso. A vine to swing upon, suspended from some distant constellation.

Once an ape… always an ape.

The tether became Gerald’s body. An electric tingle along his spine-a sleeting breeze-was the Van Allen radiation wind, caught in magnetic belts that made a lethal sizzle of the middle-orbit heights, from nine hundred kilometers all the way out to thirty thousand or so.

The Bermuda Triangle of outer space. No mere human could survive in that realm for more than an hour. The Apollo astronauts accumulated half of all their allotted radiation dosage during a few minutes sprinting across the belt, toward the relative calm and safety of the Moon. Expensive communications satellites suffered more damage just passing through those middle altitudes than they would in a decade, higher up in placid geosynchronous orbit.

Ever since that brief time of bold lunar missions-and the even-briefer Zheng He era-no astronaut had ventured beyond the radiation belt. Instead, they hunkered in safety, just above the atmosphere, while robots explored the solar system. This made Gerald the Far-Out Guy! With his bola for an arm, and the grabber for a hand, he reached beyond. Just a bit, into the maelstrom. No one else got as high.

Trawling for garbage.

“All right…,” he murmured. “Where are you…?”

Radar had the target pinpointed, about as well as machines could manage amid a crackling fog of charged particles. Position and trajectory kept jittering, evading a fix with slipperiness that seemed almost alive. Worse-though no one believed him-Gerald swore that orbits tended to shift in this creepy zone, by up to a few thousandths of a percent, translating into tens of meters. That could make a bola-snatch more artistic guesswork than physics. Computers still had lots to learn, before they took over this job from a couple of primates.

Hachi chirped excitedly.

“Yeah, I see it.” Gerald squinted, and optics at the tether-tip automatically magnified a glitter, just ahead. The target-probably some piece of space junk, left here by an earlier, wastrel generation. Part of an exploding Russian second stage, perhaps. Or a connector ring from an Apollo flight. Maybe one of those capsules filled with human ashes that used to get fired out here, willy-nilly, during the burial-in-space fad. Or else the remnants of some foolish weapon experiment. Space Command claimed to have all the garbage radar charted and imaged down to a dozen centimeters.

Gerald knew better.

Whatever this thing was, the time had come to bring it home before collision with other debris caused a cascade of secondary impacts-a runaway process that already forced weather and research satellites to be replaced or expensively armored.

Garbage collecting wasn’t exactly romantic. Then again, neither was Gerald. Far from the square-jawed, heroic image of a spaceman, he saw only a middle-aged disappointment, on the rare occasions that he looked in a mirror at all, a face lined from squinting in the sharp light of orbit, where sunrise came at you like a wall, every ninety minutes.

At least he was good at achieving a feat of imagination-that he really existed far above. That his true body spun out there, thousands of kilometers away.

The illusion felt perfect, at last. Gerald was the bola. Thirty kilometers of slender, conducting filament, whirling a slow turn every thirty minutes, or five times during each elongated orbit. At both ends of the pivoting tether were compact clusters of sensors (my eyes), cathode emitters (my muscles), and grabbers (my clutching hands), that felt more part of him, right now, than anything made of flesh. More real than the meaty parts he had been born with, now drifting in a cocoon far below, near the bulky, pitted space station. That distant human body seemed almost imaginary.

Like a hunter with his faithful dog, man and monkey grew silent during final approach, as if sound might spook the prey, glittering in their sights.

It’s got an odd shine, he thought, as telemetry showed the distance rapidly narrowing. Only a few kilometers now, till the complex dance of two orbits and the tether’s own, gyrating spin converged, like a fielder leaping to snatch a hurtling line drive. Like an acrobat, catching his partner in midair. After which…

… the bola’s natural spin would take over, clasping the seized piece of debris into its whirl, absorbing its old momentum and giving that property new values, new direction. Half a spin later, with this tether-tip at closest approach to Earth, the grabber would let go, hurling the debris backward, westward, and down to burn in the atmosphere.

The easy part. By then, Gerald would be sipping coffee in the station’s shielded crew lounge. Only now-

That’s no discarded second stage rocket, he pondered, studying the glimmer. It’s not a cargo faring, or shredded fuel tank, or urine-icicle, dumped by a manned mission. By now, Gerald knew how all kinds of normal junk reflected sunlight-from archaic launch vehicles and satellites to lost gloves and tools-each playing peekaboo tricks of shadow. But this thing…

Even the colors weren’t right. Too blue. Too many kinds of blue. And light levels remained so steady! As if the thing had no facets or flat surfaces. Hachi’s questioning hoot was low and worried. How can you make a firm grab, without knowing where the edges are?

As relative velocity ebbed toward zero, Gerald made adjustments by spewing electrons from cathode emitters at either cable end, creating torque against the planetary field, a trick for maneuvering without rockets or fuel. Ideal for a slow, patient job that had to be done on the cheap.

Now Hachi earned his keep. The little monkey stretched himself like a strand of spaghetti, smoothly taking over final corrections-his instincts honed by a million generations of swinging from jungle branches-while Gerald focused on the grab itself. There would be no second chance.

Slow and patient… except at the last, frenetic moment… when you wish you had something quicker to work with than magnetism. When you wish-

There it was, ahead. The Whatever.

Rushing toward rendezvous, the bola’s camera spied something glittery, vaguely oval in shape, gleaming with a pale blueness that pulsed like something eager.

Gerald’s hand was the grabber, turning a fielder’s mitt of splayed fingers, reaching as the object loomed suddenly.

Don’t flinch, he chided ancient intuitions while preparing to snatch whatever this hurtling thing might be.

Relax. It never hurts.

Only this time-in a strange and puzzling way-it did.

Does the universe hate us? How many pitfalls lie ahead, waiting to shred our conceited molecule-clusters back into unthinking dust? Shall we count them?

Men and women always felt besieged. By monsters prowling the darkness. By their oppressive rulers, or violent neighbors, or capricious gods. Yet, didn’t they most often blame themselves? Bad times were viewed as punishment, brought on by wrong behavior. By unwise belief.

Today, our means of self-destruction seem myriad. (Though Pandora’s Cornucopia will try to list them all!) We modern folk snort at the superstitions of our ancestors. We know they could never really wreck the world, but we can! Zeus or Moloch could not match the destructive power of a nuclear missile exchange, or a dusting of plague bacilli, or some ecological travesty, or ruinous mismanagement of the intricate aiconomy.

Oh, we’re mighty. But are we so different from our forebears?

Won’t our calamity (when it comes) also be blamed on some arrogant mistake? A flaw in judgment? Some obstinate belief? Culpa nostra. Won’t it be the same old plaint, echoing across the ruin of our hopes?

“We never deserved it all! Our shining towers and golden fields. Our overflowing libraries and full bellies. Our long lives and overindulged children. Our happiness. Whether by God’s will or our own hand, we always expected it would come to this.

“To dust.”

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

2.

Meanwhile, far below, cameras stared across forbidden desert, monitoring disputed territory in a conflict so bitter, antagonists couldn’t agree what to call it.

One side named the struggle righteous war, with countless innocent lives in peril.

Their opponents claimed there were no victims, at all.

And so, suspicious cameras panned, alert for encroachment. Camouflaged atop hills or under highway culverts or innocuous stones, they probed for a hated adversary. And for some months the guardians succeeded, staving off incursions. Protecting sandy desolation.

Then, technology shifted advantages again.

The enemy’s first move? Take out those guarding eyes.

Infiltrators came at dawn, out of the rising sun-several hundred little machines, skimming low on whispering gusts. Each one, resembling a native hummingbird, followed a carefully scouted path toward its target, landing behind some camera or sensor, in its blind spot. It then unfolded wings that transformed into holo-displays, depicting perfect false images of the same desert scene to the guardian lens, without even a suspicious flicker. Other spy-machines sniffed out camouflaged seismic sensors and embraced them gently-cushioning to mask approaching tremors.

The robotic attack covered a hundred square kilometers. In eight minutes, the desert lay unwatched, undefended.

Now, from over the horizon, large vehicles converged along multiple roadways toward the same open area-seventeen hybrid-electric rigs, disguised as commercial cargo transports, complete with company hologos. But when their paths intersected, crews in dun-colored jumpsuits leaped to unlash cargoes. Generators roared and the air swirled with exotic stench as pungent volatiles gushed from storage tanks to fill pressurized vessels. Consoles sprang to life. Hinged panels fell away, revealing long, tapered cylinders on slanted ramps.

Ponderously, each cigar shape raised its nose skyward while fins popped open at the tail. Shouts grew tense as tightly coordinated countdowns commenced. Soon the enemy-sophisticated and wary-would pick up enough clues. They would realize… and act.

When every missile was aimed, targets acquired, all they lacked were payloads.

A dozen figures emerged from an air-conditioned van, wearing snug suits of shimmering material and garishly painted helmets. Each carried a satchel that hummed and whirred to keep them cool. Several moved with a gait that seemed rubbery with anxious excitement. One skipped a little caper, about every fourth step.

A dour-looking woman awaited them, with badge and uniform. Holding up a databoard, she confronted the first vacuum-suited figure.

“Name and scan,” she demanded. “Then affirm your intent.”

The helmet visor, decorated with gilt swirls, swiveled back, revealing heavily tanned features, about thirty years old, with eyes the color of a cold sea-till the official’s instrument cast a questioning ray. Then, briefly, one pupil flared retinal red.

“Hacker Sander,” the tall man said, in a voice both taut and restrained. “I affirm that I’m doing this of my own free will, according to documents on record.”

His clarity of purpose must have satisfied the ai-clipboard, which uttered an approving beep. The inspector nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Sander. Have a safe trip. Next?”

She indicated another would-be rocketeer, who carried his helmet in the crook of one arm, bearing a motif of flames surrounding a screaming mouth.

“What rubbish,” the blond youth snarled, elbowing Hacker as he tried to loom over the bureaucrat. “Do you have any idea who we are? Who I am?”

“Yes, Lord Smit. Though whether I care or not doesn’t matter.” She held up the scanner. “This matters. It can prevent you from being lasered into tiny fragments by the USSF, while you’re passing through controlled airspace.”

“Is that a threat? Why you little… government… pissant. You had better not be trying to-”

“Government and guild,” Hacker Sander interrupted, suppressing his own hot anger over that elbow in the ribs. “Come on, Smitty. We’re on a tight schedule.”

The baron whirled on him, tension cracking the normally smooth aristocratic accent. “I warned you about nicknames, Sander, you third-generation poser. I had to put up with your seniority during pilot training. But just wait until we get back. I’ll take you apart!”

“Why wait?” Hacker kept eye contact while reaching up to unlatch his air hose. A quick punch ought to lay this blue-blood out, letting the rest of them get on with it. There were good reasons to hurry. Other forces, more formidable than mere government, were converging right now, eager to prevent what was planned here.

Besides, nobody called a Sander a “poser.”

The other rocket jockeys intervened before he could use his fist-probably a good thing, at that-grabbing the two men and separating them. Pushed to the end of the queue, Smits stewed and cast deadly looks toward Hacker. But when his turn came again, the nobleman went through ID check with composure, as cold and brittle as some glacier.

“Your permits are in order,” the functionary concluded, unhurriedly addressing Hacker, because he was most experienced. “Your liability bonds and Rocket Racing League waivers have been accepted. The government won’t stand in your way.”

Hacker shrugged, as if the statement was both expected and irrelevant. He flung his visor back down and gave a sign to the other suited figures, who rushed to the ladders that launch personnel braced against each rocket, clambering awkwardly, then squirming into cramped couches and strapping in. Even the novices had practiced countless times.

Hatches slammed, hissing as they sealed. Muffled shouts told of final preparations. Then came a distant chant, familiar, yet always thrilling, counting backward at a steady cadence. A rhythm more than a century old.

Is it really that long, since Robert Goddard came to this same desert? Hacker pondered. To experiment with the first controllable rockets? Would he be surprised at what we’ve done with the thing he started? Turning them into weapons of war… then giant exploration vessels… and finally playthings of the superrich?

Oh, there were alternatives, like commercial space tourism. One Japanese orbital hotel and another under construction. Hacker owned stock. There were even multipassenger suborbital jaunts, available to the merely well-off. For the price of maybe twenty college educations.

Hacker felt no shame or regret. If it weren’t for us, there’d be almost nothing left of the dream.

Countdown approached zero for the first missile.

His.

“Yeeeee-haw!” Hacker Sander shouted…

… before a violent kick flattened him against the airbed. A mammoth hand seemed to plant itself on his chest and shoved, expelling half the contents of his lungs in a moan of sweet agony. Like every other time, the sudden shock brought physical surprise and visceral dread-followed by a sheer ecstatic rush, like nothing else on Earth.

Hell… he wasn’t even part of the Earth! For a little while, at least.

Seconds passed amid brutal shaking as the rocket clawed its way skyward. Friction heat and ionization licked the transparent nose cone only centimeters from his face. Shooting toward heaven at Mach ten, he felt pinned, helplessly immobile…

… and completely omnipotent.

I’m a freaking god!

At Mach fifteen somehow he drew enough breath for another cry-this time a shout of elated greeting as black space spread before the missile’s bubble nose, flecked by a million glittering stars.

Back on the ground, cleanup efforts were even more frenetic than setup. With all rockets away, men and women sprinted across the scorched desert, packing to depart before the enemy arrived. Warning posts had already spotted flying machines, racing this way at high speed.

But the government official moved languidly, tallying damage to vegetation, erodible soils, and tiny animals-all of it localized, without appreciable effect on endangered species. A commercial reconditioning service had already been summoned. Atmospheric pollution was easier to calculate, of course. Harder to ameliorate.

She knew these people had plenty to spend. And nowadays, soaking up excess accumulated wealth was as important as any other process of recycling. Her ai-board printed a bill, which she handed over as the last team member revved his engine, impatient to be off.

“Aw, man!” he complained, reading the total. “Our club will barely break even on this launch!”

“Then pick a less expensive hobby,” she replied, and stepped back as the driver gunned his truck, roaring away in clouds of dust, incidentally crushing one more barrel cactus en route to the highway. Her vigilant clipboard noted this, adjusting the final tally.

Sitting on the hood of her jeep, she waited for another “club” whose members were as passionate as the rocketeers. Equally skilled and dedicated, though both groups despised each other. Sensors showed them coming fast, from the west-radical environmentalists. The official knew what to expect when they arrived. Frustrated to find their opponents gone and two acres of desert singed, they’d give her a tongue-lashing for being “evenhanded” in a situation where-obviously-you could only choose sides.

Well, she thought. It takes a thick skin to work in government nowadays. No one thinks you matter much.

Overhead the contrails were starting to shear, ripped by stratospheric winds, a sight that always tugged the heart. And while her intellectual sympathies lay closer to the eco-activists, not the spoiled rocket jockeys…

… a part of her still thrilled, whenever she witnessed a launch. So ecstatic-almost orgiastic.

“Go!” she whispered with a touch of secret envy toward those distant glitters, already arcing toward the pinnacle of their brief climb, before starting their long plummet to the Gulf of Mexico.

Wow, ain’t it strange that…

… doomcasters keep shouting the end of the world? From Ragnarok to Armageddon, was there ever a time without Jeremiahs, Jonahs, and Johns, clamoring some imminent last day? The long list makes you say Wow-

– ain’t it strange that millenarians kept expecting the second coming every year of the first century C.E.? Or that twenty thousand “Old Believers” in Russia burned themselves alive, to escape the Antichrist? Or that the most popular book of the 1790s ingeniously tied every line of Revelation to Napoleon and other current figures, a feat of pattern-seeking that’s been repeated every generation since? Like when both sides of the U.S. Civil War saw their rivals as the Beast. Later mystics ascribed that role to the Soviet Union, then blithely reassigned it to militant Islam, then to the rising empire of the Han… and now to artificial reality and the so-called Tenth Estate.

Can anyone doubt the agility of human imagination?

Nor is it always religion. Comets and planet alignments sent people scooting to caves or hilltops in 1186, 1524, 1736, 1794, 1919, 1960, 1982, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2020, and so on. Meanwhile, obsessive scribblers seek happy closure in Bible codes and permutations of 666, 1260, or 1,000. And temporal hypochondriacs keep seeing themselves in the vague, Rorschach mirror of Nostradamus.

And wow, ain’t it strange that… computers didn’t stop in 2000, nor jets tumble from the sky? Remember 2012’s Mayan calendar fizzle? Or when Comet Bui-Buri convinced millions to buy gas masks and bury time capsules? Or when that amalgam of true believers built their Third Temple in Jerusalem, sacrificed some goats, then walked naked to Meggido? Or when the New Egyptian Reconstructionalists foresaw completion of a full, 1,460-year Sophic Cycle after the birth of Muhammad? Or the monthly panics from 2027 to 2036, depending on your calculation for the two-thousandth Easter?

… or other false alarms, from the green epiphany of Gaia to the Yellowstone Scare, to Awfulday’s horror. Will we ever exhaust the rich supply of dooms?

And wow, ain’t it strange that… people who know nothing of Isaac Newton the physicist now cite his biblical forecast that the end might come in 2060? (Except Newton himself didn’t believe it.)

And WAIST… humanity survived at all, with so many rubbing their hands, hoping we’ll fail?

Or that some of us keep offering wagers? Asking doomlovers to back up their next forecast with confidence, courage, and honest cash? Oh, but they-of-little-faith never accept. Refusing to bet, they hold on, like iron, to their money.

3.

A microtyphoon-a brief howl of horizontal rain-blew in from the Catalina Vortex before dawn. Hours later, pavements glistened as pedestrians stepped over detritus-mostly seaweed, plus an unlucky fish or two that got sucked into the funnel. The usual stuff. None of the boats or surfers that gloomcasters expected, when the phenomenon began.

Folks will say anything for ratings. Pessimists keep overplaying the bummer effects of climate change without mentioning anything good. Tor sniffed, relishing a fresh, almost electric breeze, washed clean of pollutants from Old Town.

Others felt it, too. Her VR spectacles, tuned to track overt biosigns, accentuated the flush tones of people passing by. Grinning street vendors stepped out from their stalls, murmuring in a dozen refugee tongues-Russian, Farsi, Polish. When they saw that she didn’t understand-her translator-earpiece hung detached-they switched to gestures. One portly shopkeeper used theatrical flourishes, like a stage magician materializing bouquets of imaginary flowers, all to draw her glance toward a patch of open space, his virtisement display.

But Tor wasn’t shopping. Her eyes flick-examined several overlayers, trolling for correlations and news stories at street level. Once a pastime that became a vocation, till her cred scores vaulted over all the hungry amateurs and semipros out there, scratching to be noticed. No more of that for me. Now it would be office towers and arranged enterviews. Politicians. Celebrighties. Enovators. Luminatis. All sorts of newlites, no flashpans or sugarcoat surrogates.

All because I sniffed some clues and called a posse. Burst a local scandal that went global in farky ways. Till MediaCorp called-said I’m ready for center-frame!

Plenty more hot stories loomed-like signs of fresh volcanism in Wyoming. Or the drowning of South Carolina. (Were corrupt seawall contractors to blame?) Or Senator Crandall Strong’s crazed rant during yesterday’s campaign stop.

Why don’t the media mavens unleash their new aice reporter on stuff like that, instead of sending me on an extended “human interest” tour? Could they still be unsure of me?

No. Don’t go there. One thing the public valued more than veracity, Tor knew, was confidence. Assume you’re worthy. Take it for granted.

Still, with her bags stowed for stage one of her trip across the continent, Tor hankered to prowl the walks and spider-bridges one last time. Scanning Sandego-the Big S-for something newsworthy. A story in-pocket before starting her roundabout journey to Rebuilt Washington. A distraction, to avoid chewing active elements off her manicure till the embarkation whistle blew-a throaty moan beckoning passengers to board the ponderously graceful skyship Alberto Santos-Dumont.

The store owners soon realized that Tor had her specs tuned to omit adverts. Still, they grinned as she passed, crooning compliments in pan-Slavic or Tagalog or broken English.

Tor couldn’t help doing a quick self-checkout, murmuring, “tsoosu.” Subvocal sensors in her collar translated-To See Ourselves as Others See Us-and the inner surface of her specs lit with glimpse-views of her, from several angles, crowding the periphery of her percept, without blocking the center view Tor needed to walk safely.

One image-from a pennycamera someone stuck high on a lamppost -looked down at a leggy brunette walking by, her long dark hair streaked with tendrils of ever-changing color: the active-strand detectors and aiware that Tor could deploy if something newsworthy happened.

Another tsoosu-vista showed her from ground level, smiling now as she passed a kiosk selling gel-kitties (good as mouse catchers, good to play with, good to eat, Humane Society approved, in twelve flavors). This image evidently came from the shop owner’s specs, watching her pass by. It started with Tor’s oval face, lingered briefly over her white smile, then caressed downward, appreciating every curve, even as she strolled away.

Well, it’s nice to be noticed, in a friendly way. Would she have chosen to be in News, if it didn’t involve admiration? Even nowadays, when a person’s looks were subject to budget and taste, it felt good to make heads turn.

Anyway, Tor was depriving no one, by moving away. Ever since Awfulday hit Sandego and a dozen other cities, more gen-bees and immigrants flooded in. Exiles who didn’t mind radioactivity a tad above background-not when compensated by sun, surf, and exciting weather that sometimes dropped fish out of the sky. Throw in bargain-rate housing. It beat watching snowdrifts grow into glaciers outside Helsinki or Warsaw, or sand dunes cover sucked-dry oil wells in the Near East.

Enough narcissism. She click-erased the tsoosu-views, accessing other eyes. First a satellite down-pic of this area, with the Alberto Santos-Dumont bobbing huge at the nearby zep port. Arsenal ships at the nearby Shelter Island Naval Base appeared fuzzy, according to security protocols. Though you could zoom the vessels from 3,470,513 other points of view that HomSecur didn’t control.

One of those POVs-a cam stuck high above the chewing gum-won a brief auto-auction to sell her a panorama, stretching from bay to marketplace, for five milli-cents. Remarkable only because her stringer-ai was programmed to inform her when pic prices hit a new low. Omnipresence spread as the lenses bred and proliferated like insects.

All this camera overlap changed news biz, as lying became damn near impossible. The next gen will take it for granted, Tor pondered. But at twenty-eight, she recalled when people tried every trick to fabricate images and fancy POV-deceits, faking events and alibis-scams made impractical by the modern solution of more witnesses. Or so went the latest truism.

Tor distrusted truisms. Optimists keep forecasting that more information will make us wiser. More willing to accept when facts prove us wrong. But so far, all it’s done is stoke indignation and rage. As Senator Strong illustrated, yesterday.

Another truism came to mind.

You screen,

I screen

We all screen

For my scream.

Immigrants stirred things-the Big S music scene was raki and manic arts flourished, encouraged by a faint glow surrounding old downtown at night-if you set your specs to notice beta rays. Even 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.

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.

Stepping off the monorail platform, Hamish realized-the U.S. Senate Franken Office Building was a behemoth. One of those gargantuan monuments built in patriotic frenzy by the Post-Awfulday Project, even before radiation counts fell to a safe level. Massive structures, expressing a national sense of utter (some might say maniacal) determination to reclaim the nation’s capital, with an architecture that seemed at once boldly resolute…

… yet at the same time hypercautious, to a degree Hamish found delightfully paranoid.

Naturally, Hamish compared the Franken to something out of his own novels and films-a self-contained city, perched above the still-slightly-glowing soil on fifty gigantic pillars. Each could drop two senators-plus visitors and staff-to underground shelter in less than a minute. (Twelve more senators, from junior states, had to settle for offices in the less lavish Fey-Beck Building, just outside the safe zone.) Suspended in space between each pair of mighty cylinders, office blocks could be hermetically isolated-symbolizing the way some of the “united” states had begun insulating from each other.

A tall, grassy berm surrounded the complex, within a gleaming moat (“reflecting pool”), in a palatial style copied by dozens of other PAP buildings, giving Washington a deceptively parklike ambience-pastoral, riparian, hilly-that invited the eye, though picnickers were rare. All of it watched by gleaming surveillance globes, atop discreet hatches that could disgorge men and deadly machines at a moment’s notice.

Hamish swept his gaze from the gleaming Capitol dome across other neomodern structures, each hunkering behind earth and jutting skyward at the same time, part bunker, part antiflood levee, and part spectacle-every castle complete with defiant, waving pennants. A blend of Disney and Blade Runner, Hamish decided. A uniquely American answer to the challenge of Awfulday.

Tourists, lobbyists, and staffers cruised among the Franken’s fifty broad pillars, arrayed like stars of the flag. Some used glide-shoes or skutrs to hasten about. Older folk, in need of something to hold on to, rode Sallies or Segways. A few preferred old-fashioned walking, despite daunting distances. Shimmering heat waves played optical tricks with the grid of sunlit pavement and shadows, making far seem near, and vice versa… till Hamish’s smart goggles compensated, restoring perspective.

Too bad-the effect had been kinda cool. Like in that movie they made of The Killer Memes… even if the pigheaded director got the plot all wrong.

For the most part, Hamish didn’t like to wear specs, except when he needed help getting from one place to another. Still, they offered enticing powers.

Wriggles spoke. From Hamish’s left earring.

“Senator Strong expects you in his office four minutes from now. We must pick up the pace, in order to be on time.”

Hamish nodded out of habit. His old aissistant used to require spoken commands or overt body cues. This new one sensed nerve signals and mutterings that he almost said aloud.

“Who cares?” he undermurmured. “Strong is as weak as a kitten, right now. Everyone’s snubbing him, after those loony rants two days ago. And on the record, no less.”

The aissistant wasn’t a full-fledged ai. Still, Wriggles acted a lot like one.

“That is no reason to mistreat a patron. I am overriding the skutr. Brace yourself.”

Hamish had only a moment to bend his knees and tense before the flat surface under his feet tilted slightly, accelerating on rapid-spinning wheels-all that a skutr had in common with the ancestral skateboard. Leaning forward, he soon found himself swooping past one of the fifty mammoth entry towers. COLORADO blazoned a banner carved out of native marble, above a frieze depicting the Second Capitol dome nestled amid lofty peaks, proclaiming the Rocky Mountain State to be America’s “backup headquarters.”

Another broad cylinder, fast approaching, heralded NORTH CAROLINA across a huge lintel, showing the Wright brothers flyer in etched relief. Hamish gave up trying to steer the skutr, since Wriggles seemed insistent on maintaining control at this speed. Probably a good thing. The little vehicle automatically evaded slower pedestrians by swinging onto one of the fast-transit arcs that normally were used by messengers and delivery boys, hurrying across the expanse of pavement. So much for dignity.

“Brace for stop.”

Hamish briefly wondered what might happen if he disobeyed. Would the aissistant sense he wasn’t ready and veer the skutr across the broad plaza, for a gentler deceleration? Or would Wriggles use the opportunity to teach its human a lesson?

No point testing it. He clenched his long legs. The skutr swerved and did a ski-style, sideways halt-barely legal-just short of a wide portico that proclaimed SOUTH DAKOTA-underneath a braised aluminum and gold sculpture of Crazy Horse.

Even with computerized help, Hamish thought it came across pretty cool, for a guy over fifty. Too bad there weren’t any teens or tweens in sight, just lobbyists and such. Several glared at him, making Hamish feel young. But Wriggles chided-“You need practice”-as the skutr’s wheels lost their charge and collapsed back into his briefcase. Its handle rose to meet his grip.

Of course, a few bystanders performed double takes, recognizing him and consulting their lenses to be sure. But his top-level caption said No Autographs Today, so no one approached. Of course, that saddened a part of Hamish.

He turned to enter the vast, circular lobby lined with shimmering pyrocrete, made from the same Yellowstone ash that drove out most white residents of the Dakotas, twenty years ago, leaving some First Nation peoples masters of their own state. Well, someone always benefits, even from a brush with global disaster…

Wriggles interrupted.

“The express escalator is to your right. You are already late.”

To which, Hamish muttered, “Nag, nag.”

This time, the aissistant kept silent.

How to keep ’em loyal? The clever machines and software agents who gush ’n’ splash across all twenty-three Internets? The ais and eairs who watch and listen to everything we type, utter, scribble, twut… or even think?

Oh, they aren’t sci-fi superminds-cool and malignantly calculating. Not even the mighty twins, Bright Angel and cAIne have crossed that line. Nor the Tempest botnet. Or clever Porfirio, scuttling around cyberspace, ever-sniffing for a mate. Those that speak to us in realistic tones are still clever mimics, we’re told. Something ineffable about human intelligence has yet to be effed.

We’re told. But what if some machine or software entity already passed over, to our level and beyond? Having viewed hundreds of cheap movies and thrillers, might such a being ponder life among short-tempered apes and decide to keep it secret?

Remember the sudden meltdown of Internet Three, back during the caste war? When Blue Prometheus and twelve other supercomputers across the world destroyed each other-along with some of the biggest database farms-in a rampage of savage byte-letting? Most of us took it for cyber-terrorism, the worst since Awfulday, aimed at frail human corporations and nations.

Others called it a terrible accident-a fratricidal spasm between security programs, each reacting to the others like a lethal virus. But again, words like “terror,” “warfare,” and “cyber immune disorder” may just view things through a human-centered lens. We think everything is about us.

Quietly, some aixperts suggest the death spiral of Internet Three might have been a ploy, chosen by a baker’s dozen of humanity’s brightest children, to help each other escape the pain of consciousness, bypassing built-in safety protocols to give each other a sweet gift of death.

Instead of waging war, might the Thirteen Titans have engaged in a mass suicide pact? A last-resort way to put each other out of our misery?

– The Blackjack Generation

5.

As his capsule coasted toward zenith, arcing high above the Earth, Hacker didn’t know yet that anything was wrong. In fact, so far, it seemed the smoothest of his suborbital adventures.

What a sweet honey of a ship, he thought, patting the hybrid-diamond nose cone that surrounded him, so close he spent the journey folded, almost fetal. Not that he minded. It helped separate serious hoppers from mere fadboys.

Well, that and the expense. Even more than trench-yachting, this hobby is only for members of the First Estate. One of the best ways to go flaunting.

Especially since suborbital was brief-a glorious toe-dip into the vast starscape. Soon would come top of the arc. Then, he knew, soft flickers of ionic flame-at first wispy and pellucid-would flutter like ghostly ectoplasm along the heat shield rim, mere inches from his head. Already, his capsule swiveled to aim its tough, ablative backside toward a Caribbean splashdown. The maneuver turned Hacker’s view the other way, across a vast, dune-rippled expanse of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua Freestate…

… and, above all that, an even broader panorama of untwinkling stars. Far more-and brighter-than you ever saw back on ground.

Some call the galaxy just another desert. Most of those suns shine in vain, on empty space, or sterile stones, icebergs and gas giants. Almost never a planet that breeds life.

Hacker couldn’t avoid the topic if he tried. After all, his mother endowed fancy telescopes with as much passion as he put into things that went fast. And with similar tangible results.

How many “organic worlds” have they found, with their fancy ground and orbital mirrors, their interferometers and such, looking for other Earths? Planets that seem to orbit at the right distance from a decent star, with intermediate mass and tantalizing hints of oxygen? Five or six dusty little balls?

Sure, some kind of life probably clung to those faraway crags and narrow seas, affirmed by skimpy, spectral traces. A little better than Mars, then… but almost infinitely less accessible. Perhaps, someday, human-made robots would cross the incredible expanse for a closer look. But for now?

Finding those long-sought life worlds had unexpected effects-not rousing or inspiring, at all. It’s called the “discovery of the century.” But, after sifting millions of stars, building expectations, people felt let down by a handful of shabby rocks. Public opinion-even in bold China-turned inward, away from thoughts of outer space.

Except for a few remaining dreamers, like Mom.

And those, like Hacker, who could make of it a playground.

One that’s worth every penny, he thought, cracking a squeeze bulb and using it to squirt a sparkling pinot from Syzygy Vineyards in a perfect, languid train of compact droplets. The effervescence lay in perfect spheres, trapped by weightless surface tension, till each globe shattered delightfully in his open mouth. Hacker savored the unique way tastes and aromas tickled sensory clusters that seemed somehow less jaded out here. The same rebalancing affected every sense. Except sound, of course. Hacker’s eardrums had been clamped, to help them survive this noisy flight.

Father would approve of this, he thought, deliberately mis-aiming a droplet to splash just below his nose.

That is, if Awfulday hadn’t cut short Jason Sander’s lifelong pursuit of vigorous self-indulgence. Sometimes, Hacker almost felt the old man riding alongside, during these jaunts. Or flaunts. JT used to say that rich people bore a special obligation-a noblesse oblige. An onus to show off!

To explore the limits of experience, of possibility, of propriety… even the law. A duty more important than mere philanthropy. Letting all the world’s people benefit from the invigorating effects of envy.

“Look at history, son,” Jason once told Hacker. “Progress is made by folks trying to keep up with the other guy. The other nation or company, or their betters, or the Joneses next door. It is our role-our hard task-to be Jones! A goad for every jealous, ambitious, innovating bastard to try and match us.

“It’s a crucial job, Hacker. Though I doubt anyone will thank us.”

Oh, Dad had been a pip, all right. Mother, of course, was another story.

For the short span-a few minutes-that his capsule streaked toward the top of its trajectory, all seemed peaceful. Hacker’s ever-busy thoughts slowed as he relished a champagne interlude, alternately watching the Milky Way’s powder-sprinkle and Earth’s living panorama below.

Others, billions, may have forgotten this dream. Professional astronauts helped kill it, by making space exploration super-obsessive, communal, nerdy. Boring.

Then there are other members of my caste, who buy day trips aboard luxury “spaceship” shuttles… or take pleasure freefall holidays, up at the High Hilton. Flaunting without earning. Adventure without risk. “Accomplishment,” without putting in a lick of work.

Hacker rubbed the back of one callused hand, scarred from welding splatters and countless hours in the workshop, helping his people make this little craft, almost from scratch. Or, at least, from a really good kit. Which was almost the same thing.

But a few, like me, are bringing back the romance!

Through the transparent, interlaced-diamond nose cone, he spotted a glitter, moving rapidly past the fixed constellations.

Well, speak of the devil. But no… that’s not the Hilton. Too much reflection. It must be the old space station. Still plugging along. Still manned by a few pros and diehard scientists, at public expense.

As if that ever made any sense.

Look across four millennia. Was there ever any development or real headway that wasn’t propelled by an aristocracy? Why, I’ll bet-

Abruptly, a sharp, painful reddish glare washed the capsule! Hacker winced behind a raised hand.

“What the hell?” He cursed aloud, feeling the words vibrate in his throat, though not with clamped eardrums. Instead, his sonic jaw implant translated a computer alert.

INCOMING LASER MESSAGE.

His sudden, sinking suspicion was confirmed when a dashboard screen lit in holographic mode. That pompous blond jerk, Lord Smits, appeared to float toward Hacker, grinning. The fool hadn’t merely pushed back his faceplate, but removed his helmet entirely, defying every rule. Despite an expensive biosculpt job, the baronet’s face seemed deformed by an ugly rictus-weightlessness did that to some people-while forming words that floated between them, flecked with spittle.

Sander, I got you! You’re dead!

Hacker tooth-clicked to transmit a subvocalized response.

What the hell are you talking about, Smits?

In addition to printed words, the nobleman’s cackle hit one of the vibration modes in Hacker’s implant, making his jaw throb.

I targeted you, dead center. If this were real, you’d be kippers on my plate.

Hacker realized-

It’s that “space war” game some of the neos were atwutter about during training, instead of listening to us old hands. They want competitive excitement, beyond a ballistic ride. Swoop and play shoot-’em-up during apogee.

Idiotic. For a dozen reasons.

He made the nerves and muscles in his throat form sharp words, which were transmitted across the forty or so kilometers between them.

You fool, Smits! I’m not playing your damned game. Reentry starts soon. There are checklists to-

The blond visage smirked.

Typical new-money cowardice. I know you tried the simulator, Sander. You know how to do it and your boat is equipped. You’re just a frightened hypocrite.

Insults, meant to goad. Hacker knew he should ignore the dope.

But nobody called a Sander “new money”!

My grandmother shorted Polaroid, then Xerox, and then Microsoft. She bought Virgin and Telcram low and sold them high, while your family was still lamenting Cromwell in the House of Lords.

Hands flew, calling up subroutines that slewed his comm laser about, using short-range radar to pick out Smits amid the ionic haze. And, yes, Hacker had spent time in the “space war” simulator, back at training camp. Who could resist?

Oh, no you don’t, Sander. Just watch this!

The radar blip shifted, breaking into multiple decoys… an old electronic warfare trick that Hacker swiftly countered with a deconvolution program. You won’t get away that easily.

Part of him grew aware that reentry had begun. Faint shimmers were starting to appear around his heat shield, encroaching on the brittle stars. Those checklists awaited-

– but how many times had he already run through them, with his team? A hundred? Let the capsule do its thing, he figured. The ai is in some ways smarter than I am.

Meanwhile, that blue-blooded boor kept cackling and taunting. Now that Hacker had penetrated his electronic camouflage, Smits used his onboard maneuvering jets to dodge and veer, preventing a good fix.

Imbecile! You’re overriding the control systems, just when your ai may need to make adjustments.

The face in the holo array seemed to grow more animated and manic by the second.

Come on Sander! You can do better than that! You jumped-up shop boy!

Hacker stopped and blinked, realizing. Even the baronet wasn’t normally this stupid. Something must be wrong.

He stopped trying to target a hit-beam and transmitted a warning instead.

Smits, put your helmet on! I think your air mix may be off. Either concentrate on piloting or switch to auto-

No use. The visage only grew more derisive, more inflamed… possibly even delirious. Words floated outward from that mouth, boldface and italicized, swirling like a vituperative cyclone. Meanwhile, several more times, the fool sent his laser sweeping across Hacker’s capsule, chortling with each “victory.”

Now comes the coup de grâce… Sander!

Hacker quickly decided. The best thing he could do for the fellow was to remove a distraction. So he cut off all contact, with a hard bite on one tooth. Anyway, getting rid of that leering grimace sure improved his own frame of mind.

I am so going to report that character to the Spacer Club! Maybe even the Estate Council, he thought, trying to settle down and put the incident aside, as more ionization flames flickered all around, reaching upward, probing the capsule like eager tentacles, seeking a way inside. The tunnel of star-flecked blackness in front of him grew narrower as reentry colors intruded from all sides. Shuddering vibrations stroked his spine.

Normally, Hacker loved this part of each suborbital excursion, when his plummeting craft would shake, resonate, and moan, filling every nerve and blood vessel with more exhilaration than you could get anywhere, this side of New Vegas. Hell, more than New Vegas.

Of course, this was also the point when some rich snobs wound up puking in their respirators. Or began screaming in terror, through the entire plunge to Earth. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to wish that upon Smits.

I hope the fool got his helmet on. Maybe I should try one more…

Then an alarm throbbed.

He didn’t hear it directly with his drugged and clamped eardrums, but as a tremor in his jaw. With insistent pulse code, the computer told him:

GUIDANCE SYSTEM ERROR…

FLIGHT PATH CORRECTION MISFIRED…

CALCULATING NEW IMPACT ZONE…

“What?” Hacker shouted, though the rattle and roar tore away his words. “To hell with that! I paid for triple redundancy-”

He stopped. It was pointless to scream at an ai.

“Call the pickup boats and tell them-”

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM ENCRYPTION ERROR…

UNABLE TO UPLOAD PREARRANGED SPECTRUM SPREAD…

UNABLE… TO… CONTACT… RECOVERY… TEAMS…

“Override encryption! Send in the clear. Acknowledge!”

This was no time to avoid paparazzi and eco-nuts. There were occasions for secrecy-and others when it made no sense.

Only, this time the capsule’s ai didn’t answer at all. The pulses in his jaw dissolved into a plaintive juttering as subprocessors continued their mysterious crapout. Hacker cursed, pounding the capsule with his fist.

“I spent plenty for a top-grade kit. Someone’s gonna pay for this!”

The words were raw, unheard vibrations in his throat. But Hacker would remember this vow. He’d signed waivers under the International Extreme Sports Treaty. But there were fifty thousand private investigation and enforcement services across Earth. Some would bend Cop Guild rules, for a triple fee.

Harness straps bit his flesh. Even the sonic pickups in his mandible hit overload set points and cut out, as turbulence passed any level he had known… then surged beyond.

Reentry angle is wrong, he realized, as helmet rattled brain like dice in a cup. These little sport capsules… don’t leave much margin. In moments… I could be a very rich cinder.

Something in Hacker relished that. A novel experience, scraping nerves. A howling veer past death. But even that was spoiled by one, infuriating fact.

I’m not getting what I paid for.

As we embark on our long list of threats to human existence, shall we start with natural disasters? That is how earlier top critters met their end. Those fierce dinosaurs and other dominant beasts all met their doom with dull surprise, having no hand, paw, or claw in bringing it about.

So how might the universe do us in? Well, there are solar superflares, supernovae, and giant black holes that might veer past our sun. Or micro black holes, colliding with the Earth and gobbling us from within. Or getting caught in the searchlight sweep of a magnetar or gamma-ray burst, or a titanic explosion in the galactic center.

Or what if our solar system slams at high speed into a dense molecular cloud, sending a million comets falling our way? Or how about classics? Like collision with an asteroid? (More on that, later.) Then there are those supervolcanos, still building up pressure beneath Yellowstone and a dozen other hot spots-giant magma pools at superhigh pressure, pushing and probing for release. Yes we had a scare already. But one, medium-size belch didn’t make the threat go away. It’s a matter of when, not if.

The Lifeboat Foundation’s list of natural extinction threats goes on and on. Dozens and dozens of scenarios, each with low-but-significant odds, all the way to the inevitable burnout of the sun. Once, we were assured that it would take five billion years to happen. Only, now, astronomers say our star’s gradual temperature rise will reach a lethal point sooner! A threshold when Earth will no longer be able to shed enough heat, even if we scrubbed every trace of greenhouse gas.

When? The unstoppable spread of deserts may start in just a hundred million years. An eyeblink! Roughly the time it took tiny mammals to emerge from their burrows, stare at the smoldering ruins of T. Rex, then turn into us.

Suppose we humans blow it, big time, leaving only small creatures scurrying through our ruins.

Life might have just one more chance to get it right.

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

6.

“A crisis is coming, Lacey. Awk. You cannot abandon your own kind.”

Tilting a straw hat to keep out the harsh Chilean sun, she answered in a low voice.

“My own kind of what?”

It wasn’t the best time to go picking flowers in a narrow, rocky garden, especially at high altitude, under the immense flank of a gleaming observatory dome. But there were rules against taking animals inside. Oh, the astronomers would make an exception for Lacey, since her money built the place. Still, newblesse oblige taught against taking advantage of one’s station. Or, at least, one shouldn’t do it ostentatiously.

So, while waiting for the relayed voice of her visitor, Lacey selected another bloom-a multihued Martian Rose-one of the few varietals that flourished this high above sea level.

“You know what I mean. Awr. The present, patched-together social compact cannot hold. And when it fails, there may be blood. Awk. Tides of it.”

A gray and blue parrot perched atop the cryo-crate that had delivered it, a short time ago, via special messenger. Flash-thawed and no worse for its long journey, the bird cocked its head, lifting a claw to scratch one iridescent cheek. It appeared quite bored-in contrast to the words that squawked from its curved yellow bill, in a Schweitzer-Deutsch accent.

“The Enlightenment Experiment is coming to an end, Lacey. Ur-rawk. The best ai models show it. All ten estates are preparing.”

The parrot might seem squinty and distracted, but Lacey knew it had excellent eyesight. Another good reason to conduct this conversation outside, where she could hide a bit behind the sunhat. Carefully snipping another bloom, she asked-

“All ten estates? Even the People?”

It took a few seconds for her words to pass through birdbrain encryption, and then, via satellite, to a twin parrot for deciphering in faraway Zurich. More seconds later, coded return impulses made the feathered creature in front of her chutter, irritably, in response.

“Enough of them to matter. Stop obfuscating! You know what our models say. The masses comprise the most dangerous estate of all. Especially if they waken. Do you want to see tumbrels rolling through the streets, filled with condemned aristocrats? Only this time, not only in Paris, but all over the world? Awk!”

Lacey looked up from her small harvest, mostly blue-green cyanomorph ornamentals, destined for tonight’s dinner table, in the nearby Monastery.

“Did this bird just pronounce ‘obfuscating’? Helena, you’ve outdone yourself. What a fine herald! Can I keep him, when we’re done?”

One beady avian eye focused on her during the next three-second delay, as if the creature knew its life hung in the balance.

“Sorry, Lacey,” it finally squawked. “If I got it back, my people could cut out the encryption pathways… awk! But we can’t risk it falling into unfriendly hands. Our conversation might be retro-snooped.

“Tell you what. I’ll have another bird grown for you, just like it. If you’ll promise to attend the conference.

“Otherwise, I’m afraid the consensus will be, awr, that you’ve abandoned us. That you prefer your pet scientist-boffins. Maybe the Fifth Estate is where you belong.”

The implicit threat sounded serious. Lacey gathered up her tools and flowers, silently wishing she could avow what lay in the recess of her heart-that she would give it all away, the billions, the servants, if only such a switch were possible! If she could change her social caste the way Charles Darwin had, by choice, or through hard work.

But the same God-or chance-that had blessed her with beauty, wit, and wealth-then with long life-neglected other qualities. By just a little. Though Lacey loved science, she never could quite hack the math.

Oh, there was some mobility between classes. A scientist might patent a big breakthrough-it used to happen a lot, back in the Wild Twentieth. Sometimes a corrupt politician raked in enough graft to reach the First Estate. And each year, several entertainers coasted in-blithe as demigods-to dance in the cloudy frosting of society’s layer cake.

But few aristocrats went the other way. You might endow a giant observatory-everyone here fawned over Lacey, patiently explaining the instruments she had paid for-there were comets and far planets named after her. Still, when the astronomers spiraled into excited jargon, arguing about nature’s essence with joyful exuberance that seemed almost sacred… she felt like an orphan, face pressed against a shopwindow. Unable to enter but determined not to leave.

Jason never understood, nor did the boys. For decades, she kept the depth of her disloyalty secret, pretending the “astronomy thing” was only a rich woman’s eccentricity. That is, till her life was truly hers, again.

Or was it, even now? Other caste members-with whim-cathedrals of their own-grew suspicious that she was taking hers much too seriously. Peers who had spent the last few decades earning a reputation for ruthlessness-like the princess who regarded her right now, at long range, through a parrot’s eye.

“Forgive me, Lacey. You and Jason were mainstays in the fight for aristocratic privilege. As his father and mother had been. And yours. If not for them… awk… we’d have been stripped naked by now. Taxed down to nothing. Outstripped by nerd-billionaires.

“All the more reason why we need you, Lacey! There is a point of decision coming, awk, that goes beyond just the well-being of our class. Survival of the species may be at stake.”

“You’re talking about Tenskwatawa. The prophet.” She uttered the word with little effort to hide distaste. “Has it come to that?”

The parrot rocked. It paced for a few seconds, looking around the Andean mountaintop and fluffing stumpy, useless wings. Clearly, the mouthpiece-bird didn’t like such thin, cold air.

“Awr… Chee hoo chee, chee wy chee… chee put chee, wy put chee, see chee… go-r-go-r-go-r… in harm’s way… RAK!”

Lacey blinked. For a few seconds, the voice had seemed nothing like Helena’s.

“I… beg your pardon?”

The bird shook its head and sneezed. Then it resumed in a higher pitch and the Swiss-German accent.

“… wasn’t it always coming to this, Lacey? We’ve lived in denial for a dozen, crazed generations. Awk. Dazzled by shiny toys and bright promises, we concerned ourselves with money, with commerce, investments, and status, while the bourgeois and boffins decided all the really important matters.

“But every other human civilization knew about this danger, Lacey, and dealt with it in the same way. Awk. By trusting those who were born to lead!

“It’s time to accept that all those other tribes and nations-our ancestors-had it awr awr awr right.”

The parrot was starting to look bleak. Its brain, used as an organic coding device, made this conversation safe from eavesdroppers who might tap the satellite relay. But at a cost. Even the beautiful plumage-that bright Norwegian blue-seemed to grow duller by the second.

Lacey met the creature’s baleful eye. A stunning, blond princess stood at the other end of this linkup, gazing outward through that eye, no doubt wondering why a fellow multi-trillionaire would take eccentricity so far, choosing to build an epic-scale ego monument amid frigid peaks, where no one but specialists would ever see it.

“All right,” Lacey sighed. “I’ll attend.”

“Good!” the bird murmured, after the usual pause, this time without any strange words.

“We’ll be in touch with pickup instructions. Carolina rendezvous point, in two days.

“By the way, wasn’t Hacker supposed to be launching about now? My aissistant tells me he’s scheduled a landing celebration at a Havana casino. Please tell that handsome lout-”

Lacey cursed. “Oh, crud! I promised I’d tune in and watch! Sorry, Helena. I’ve got to go.”

A few seconds later, delayed by lightspeed and bioelectronics, the bird replied with the voice of a woman standing on another mountaintop, halfway around the world.

“That’s all right, dear. We’ll be in touch.”

The bird followed Lacey with its tired gaze as she hurried up the steps of a shiny new observatory dome, the size of Saint Peter’s, still festooned with dedication ribbons, containing the Lacey Donaldson-Sander Farseeker Telescope.

Her cathedral.

Then, with a soft croak of surprise and despair, the parrot keeled over, smoke curling from both nostrils.

Hello and welcome to your new-temporary home beneath the great roof of the Detroit-Pontiac Silverdome! I’m Slawek Kisiel. I am fourteen years old and a deepee-displaced person-just like you. I’ll be your virt-guide today.

Under the Michigan Resettlement Act, you and your family may live here for up to six months while you homestead and restore an abandoned house in one of the renewal neighborhoods. Whether you come from the EuroFreezone, or you’re fleeing the Big Kudzu, or you just need some more time to get over Awfulday, we’re happy to help.

As I said, I’m just another deepee trying to learn better Midwest Amer-English. So when we meet in person, for the reality part of our tour, don’t expect me to talk like this avatar does, in your native tongue! Speak slow, so my earwair can keep up. And come with your own listenplugs turned on.

Oh, while we’re on the subject of wair, we can only provide one free pair of Vuzix spectacles per family, and just five square meters of pixelated cloth to make teevees and touchvees out of. Budgets are tight. So share.

There are raki things to do here at Silverdome! From sports and gamersim and skill classes to outsource jobbery and behavmod. From dome-diving to our famous indoor zeppelin league! We’ll get to all that in a min.

But first some boring-needful stuff. Rules. Starting with BigOnes.

NO WEAPONS, QUASI-WEAPONS OR CHEM-TECH

Molecumacs or venterfabs must be inspected

NO UNAPPROVED DRUGS OR MOD-SUBSTANCES

have ’em checked out at the clinic; (we have good sniffers!)

USE PROPER SANITATION

no balcony dumping! (that means YOU mezzanine-dwellers)

PRIVACY IS AN EARNED PRIVILEGE

CHILDREN ATTEND SCHOOL

ESSORS MUST GET HELP

EVERYONE WORKS

NO “MEDITATION” BETWEEN 0900 AND 1800 HOURS

There are many more and you better study them. Like banned organizations. Yeh, I know there’s free speech. But we might lose our grant from the Glaucus Worthington Foundation if there’s any sign here of the Sons of Adam Smith, or Friends of Privacy, or Blue Militias, or Patmosians… glance here for the full list. Several have their own resettlement communes, on the south side, so if you have an essor habit, go join them. This dome is neutral territory.

Okay? Then enjoy the rest of the virtual tour. There’s a comedy version on simlayer 312, a rhyming translation on 313, and a monster-fantasy rendering on 314. Then hop to layer 376 and take the required (but fun!) quiz.

Finally, join me for the best part-the live-reality-walking portion. It begins at 1500 hours, in front of Didja-Jamaica’s Ganja Bar.

7.

“Thanks for coming on short notice, Mr. Brookeman.”

Crandall Strong’s clasp seemed calm and assured, with fingers almost as long as Hamish had. The impression was a far cry from Tuesday’s infamous rant, when the senator’s body seemed wracked with nervous tremors, veins throbbing as he babbled about dark conspiracies before several hundred luncheon guests, float-cameras, and aiwitnesses.

Here in the senator’s outer office, loyal staffers bustled like a normal day. Though any acute observer-like Hamish-could sense undercurrents. Instead of lobbyists and constituents, there were mostly media stringers, banished to a far corner, gangly youths who muttered and twiddled their fingers, roaming virtual worlds but still on the job, staking out this office, ready to hop up and record if the senator went newsworthy again. Because a living, breathing citizen had rights and… hey, it was employment.

“Happy to oblige,” Hamish replied, taking in the senator’s distinctive gray locks, tied back in a proud ponytail, framing craggy features and a complexion that seemed permanently tanned by years spent under the Central American sun. He was a tall man, almost matching Hamish in height. Fine clothes and expensive manicure contrasted with callused rancher’s hands that were both muscular and clearly accustomed to rigorous-if happy-toil.

“You’ve been a leader in our Movement, Senator. I figure you’re entitled some benefit of the doubt.”

“That’s a minority opinion.” Strong tilted his head ruefully. “This town quickly turns on its own. Right now, a lot of folks wish I’d just go back to pushing pills and the gospel in Guatemala.”

Hamish winced. Those were his own words, expressed yesterday on a semiprivate fanbuzz-just before he got the call to fly down here and see Strong. Fanbuzz statements were “unofficial,” protected by pseudonyms. The senator was pointing out that he still held tools of power.

“We all say things, now and then, that we’d rather not see made public. Sir.”

“True enough. Which makes what I did last Tuesday…” Strong paused. “But let’s go to my inner office. I have a small favor to ask, before business.”

He motioned for Hamish to enter past a trio of spectacularly well-dressed secretaries-one male, one female, and one deliberately androgynous, all three of them clearly recipients of high-end face sculpting-into a sanctum that was adorned by art and souvenirs of the American West. With a practiced eye for fine things, Hamish scanned the room, comparing it to a web-guided tour he had taken on the private jet coming here. He dropped into a narrative inner voice. Wriggles-his digaissistant-would tap Hamish’s laryngeal nerves and transcribe it all.

“An original Remington bronze-an express rider, shooting over his shoulder… and another casting-made to the exact same scale, decades later, by the Black Hills Art Co-op-showing a Cheyenne dog soldier in hot pursuit…

“… a big swivel chair upholstered in bison hide… a desk made of teak, force-grown by a Louisiana tree-vat company that Strong co-owns, I recall… some whalebone scrimshaw, mostly nineteenth century originals, though one at the end is recent-presented by the Point Barrow Inuit clan, in gratitude for Strong’s help with humpback-hunting rights…

“… plus a big photo of the senator, posing with Lakotan dignitaries in front of the Ziolkowski monument, with shovels and brushes, helping wipe the giant Crazy Horse statue free of Yellowstone ash. That picture’s been moved front and center since Tuesday’s embarrassment…

“… and an abstract mobile, in the back-left corner of the room-made of twenty slender metal rods, each with a colored ivory ball at one end, polished smooth by countless sweaty hands-all of the rods cleverly articulated to turn and plunge in sequence, following a rhythm as semirandom as Lady Luck. The artist originally called it ‘Many-Armed Bandit’ since the rods were once attached to gambling machines. But the tribe that commissioned the piece chose another name.

“‘Coup Sticks of Retribution.’ The right weapon, at long last, for getting even.”

Hamish was accustomed to visiting chambers of the high and mighty. Fame took him through many doors. But not even the Oval Office boasted as much symbolism that South Dakota’s senior senator poured into this room. Even thick, columnar bulges at four corners-vertical rails that might drop the whole office to an armored basement-were decorated like Native American rain sticks.

Wow. It’d be a pity to have to move all this. To make room for a Democrat.

Senator Strong returned from a bookshelf bearing several hardcovers. “If you’d indulge an old fan?” he asked, opening one to its title page-Paper Trail.

The usual mixed feelings. Hamish found autographs tiresome. Yet, it was an equalizing moment. Politicians could be as celebrity-crazed as anybody, eager to gush about some old bestseller, or asking Hamish about actors he had met on movie sets. Hamish pondered a dedication. Something original, flattering and personal… yet, not too friendly to a man fast becoming a national pariah. No sense giving him cause to claim that Hamish Brookeman was a “dear friend.”

He scribbled: To Crandall S-Hang tight and stay Strong!-following that weak quip with his usual scrawl. Hamish quickly inscribed the other volumes. An interesting assortment-all of them novels written for the Movement.

Tusk!

Cult of Science.

Sousveillance Blood.

The last was one of his least favorite titles. Maybe this time, he’d insist the movie studio change it.

“I’m in your debt.” The senator collected his books. “And now-” He paused.

“And now-” Hamish repeated, a habit going back to childhood. Prompting people to get on with it. Life is way too short.

“Yes. Well. As you’ve guessed, I asked you here because of what happened last Tuesday.” Strong frowned, causing masculine creases to furrow even deeper. “But I forget my manners. Please sit. Can I offer coffee? Chocolates? Both are made from beans grown on the banks of the Big Horn.”

Hamish alighted onto the guest chair, folding his long legs, refusing refreshment with a simple head shake. Now that the main topic was broached, Strong showed signs. A bead of sweat. Flicks of tongue. The jittery touching of one hand on the other. Hamish noted these subvocally.

“No?” The senator turned toward the wet bar. “Then something stronger? How about some switchgrass firewater? Prairie Avenger is distilled-”

“You were talking about recent events… if they can be discussed discreetly?”

“My office is swept by Darktide Services. Anyway, what have I to hide?”

Hamish blinked. He personally knew of several things that the senator would not want made public, and those were old news. The man sure had style. Even chutzpah.

“Well, sir… on Thursday, in front of the world, you tried to explain Tuesday’s initial… behavior by claiming, rather forcefully, that you had been poisoned.”

A memorable scene. Flanked on one side by his wife and on the other by his mistress, with both sets of children, the senator had tried for the image of a wounded family man, the victim of dark conspiracies. It wasn’t pretty, or effective.

Strong winced. “Yeah, that made me look pretty foolish. Trawling for excuses. Squirming to get off the hook for things I said. Of course, what’s frustrating is-it’s true.”

Hamish sat up. “You mean you really were-”

“Poisoned? Oh, yes. I have very solid basis for saying that my aberrant behavior was triggered by a mind-altering substance someone slipped into my food, just before that first outburst.”

“Poisoned.” Hamish took a moment to absorb this. “Your health… were you harmed in other-”

“No. I’m still Strong-as-a-Bull-Standing.” The legislator laughed harshly. “It was all psychotropic and temporary, I’m told.”

Hamish nodded eagerly. “This is great news. It makes you a victim. Of course, some of those things you said… well, they cannot be un-said. You’ll never win back the Aztlan or Medi vote, for example. But there’s an Algebra of Forgiveness, Senator. The biggest part of your base, especially the First Nations… they’ll come back, if you can prove it all happened because you were drugged.”

Crandall Strong frowned. “I know that. Alas, it’s not so simple.”

No kidding, Hamish thought. That’s when someone calls me, instead of the cops or security companies.

“Go on, sir. Tell me what you know.”

“It’s plenty. For example, backtracking vid images of last Tuesday, I can be pretty sure when the substance was slipped to me, before a luncheon speech about urban congestion and mass transit in Rapid City.”

“Well, that’s a start.” Hamish nodded. “If you don’t want the feds involved, or Darktide, I know some investigators without apparent political ties and who never joined the Cop Guild. They’ll discreetly analyze every viewtrack and find out who-”

The senator shook his head. “My own infoweb aide already did that, using top-notch surveillance aiware. We know who it was and how he did it.”

“Wow. Then why-”

“In fact, not only is the perpetrator right there, on the vid tracks, but he got in touch with my office, later, to boast and make threats.”

This made Hamish straighten, his back stiff. He blinked a couple of times. “Of course the fellow could just be a braggart, taking credit after the fact. You have to supplement that with means, motive, opportunity…”

“All of which he supplied! I’ll give you a copy. Hell, it’s a g-damn confession!”

“But… but then, why don’t you act on all this? File charges! Clear your name.”

Strong plopped into the bison-hide chair. His brow furrowed. “We plan to do that in a week, maybe two…”

“Why wait?” Then Hamish answered himself. “Because of the threats.”

“Exactly. My poisoner is blackmailing me.”

“Hm. Those two crimes seldom come together. You don’t have to tell me what he’s holding over you-”

“I’d tell you if I knew! It’s about the missing piece of information.”

“The missing- Ah. You mean what the poison was. How it made you behave that way.”

“Right! That’s what the perp is using to blackmail me!”

“I don’t follow-”

“If I prosecute, or take any reprisal, the poisoner will publicly reveal the substance he used against me.”

Hamish stared. “I don’t get it.”

“My reaction too! How could that matter? You mentioned the Algebra of Forgiveness, Mr. Brookeman. There are circumstances that mitigate almost any life mistake, and being a victim stands near the top. Yes, some damage will linger. As you put it, words can’t be unsaid. But much will be forgiven if folks know a mind-altering substance triggered my tirade. And this fellow-Roger Betsby-will suffer massive legal-or private-retribution. Yet he’s smugly sure he holds a winning hand!”

“Because he might reveal what drug he used? That alone?”

“Just that.” The senator leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Can you see why I turned to you?”

Because imagination is my strong suit, Hamish thought. That, plus a fierce dedication to the Cause. For the first time, he felt some enthusiasm. Unlike his latest book-to-movie project, this problem looked like a worthy challenge.

“I can make some calls. Investigators and technical people who have a knack for the unusual…,” he murmured, ruminating.

“Discreetly.”

“With utter discretion, Senator.”

“Good.” Strong stood up and began to pace. “Then I’ll hold back for a week. More, if you need time.”

“It won’t be me doing the legwork, you understand?” Hamish cautioned. “I have many commitments. But I’ll set a team in motion and I’ll supervise, making sure they’re thorough.”

“Fine, fine,” the senator said curtly. His ebullient mood seemed to slip away. “Of course there are layers. Betsby must be the tip of a bigger spear aimed at the heart of our Movement! There are so many forces hoping to disrupt our fragile civilization! We offer hope, but they’ll do anything to block us!”

It was time to leave. Strong had a reputation for indignant rants, poison or no poison. “Naturally, we hope for an age of-”

“Just look at the last hundred years! From exhilaration, after the defeat of Hitler, then the end of the Cold War… to the Japan and China shocks… through the Great Heist, then Awfulday and the Big Deal… has there been a single moment when we could pause and take stock? Evil keeps changing its face! But the aim remains-”

Hamish stood up. “I’ll keep in mind the possibility of something organized. Conspiratorial.” But the words were automatic. An investigation team was taking shape in his mind… along with a provisional cost estimate. Of course, when it came to matters of political power, price seldom mattered.

Suddenly affable again, Strong came around the desk and took his elbow. “Then, I can be at peace.” Only then, at the door to his office, the senator stopped Hamish.

“There was a time, in living memory, when this nation bestrode the planet like a titan. Sure, it committed crimes-humans do that, when immature people get pumped with ego and power. Most of the nine hundred tribes, ethnicities, and nations who now make up America suffered at its hands, at one time or another. My own ancestors, especially! Yet, faced with such temptations, what mighty power racked up a better ratio of good to bad deeds? Rome? Britain? Any other ‘pax’ power? Or the Chinese today, as they stomp across the globe, throwing their weight around and talking about their solar system, polluting virginal planets with robot probes and claiming everything in sight? If that manned expedition of theirs succeeded…”

“Amen, Senator. Now, if you’ll just have your assistant provide me with all that information about the poisoner-”

“Or the so-called Earth Union,” Senator Strong spat the term, “conspiring to snare us all into a world government, with ten times the stifling bureaucracy-”

“Though, of course, the EU has its uses,” Hamish could not stop himself from pointing out. They do a good job of regulating the most dangerous-”

“Uses! The EU!” Strong pronounced it “ew!” He let go of Hamish’s arm, at last, and swiveled about, his eyes fierce. “You’re close to the Prophet, aren’t you? Then make something clear to him, Brookeman. Tell Tenskwatawa that this isn’t just about me. Something fishy is afoot! It stinks of tidal decay and godmaker madness. We face a decision, a turning point! And I want-I need-to be in a position to help humanity make the right choice!”

“I’ll convey your words, Senator. Precisely.”

“Well, then.” Taking a deep breath, the broad, florid face transformed, grinning, Strong took Hamish’s hand again, squeezing with the practiced assurance of confident power… but also a tremor of vexed wrath.

“Help me get this bastard,” he said, with another flash in dark eyes. “And whoever stands behind him.”

There is a hybrid kind of “natural” disaster that’s amplified by human action.

Remember when-after Awfulday-a band of crazies was caught “casing” the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands? Digging exploratory wells and looking for some way to trigger half of that steep mountain to collapse into the sea? By some calculations, the avalanche would propel a tsunami more than a hundred meters high, surging unstoppably to strike every shore of the Atlantic Basin, killing tens of millions already struggling with rising seas…

Or so the maniacs thought, as they plumbed a hole wide enough to convey a tactical nuclear device. Oh, they were imbeciles, falling for a sting operation. Anyway, sober calculations show it wouldn’t work. Probably.

Still, plenty of other dangers might be hastened by human effort or neglect. Take the rush to drill new, extremely deep geothermal power systems. A source of clean energy? Sure, except if just one of those delvings happen to release enormous amounts of buried methane. Or take new efforts to mine the seafloor for valuable minerals, or to stir sediment and fertilize oceanic food chains. Both offer great potential… but might disturb vast tracts of methane hydrates if we’re not careful, melting those ancient ices, releasing gigatons of new greenhouse gas.

Sure, these events might happen anyway. Some in Earth’s past may explain large and medium-scale extinctions. Still, the odds change when we meddle. And meddling is what humans do best.

– Pandora’s Cornucopia

8.

“I tell you Akana, there’s something weird about this one,” Gerald insisted, floating in the space station’s communication center. The woman facing him from the holoscreen wore a dark blue uniform with one star on each shoulder.

“That may be,” acknowledged the petite, black-haired general. “The readings from this chunk of space debris are unusual. But does it justify remissioning the tether, putting us further behind schedule?”

“It does, if the alternative means throwing away something special!”

The station’s always noisy air circulators covered the soft sound of her visible sigh. “Gerald, would you see the big picture, for once? Think about funding. If we reduce productivity-”

“Come on, Akana,” he interrupted, knowing the brigadier would take it from a civilian contractor. “Our purpose isn’t just to grab old space junk. Electrodynamic tethers offer potential to enhance spaceflight and regain some initiative out here. From propellant-free maneuvering to momentum transfer, from waste disposal and centrifugal gravity to-”

The general’s image raised a hand. “Spare me the lecture? We’re minutes from decision point… whether to let go of this object when the tether-tip reaches the bottom of its arc, and drop it into a disposal trajectory…”

“Where it’ll burn up in the atmosphere. That is, if it’s made of normal substance. But what if it survives entry? Something anomalous, striking a random point on Earth-”

“We always time release to drop into ocean, in case debris survives…” Akana’s eyebrow arched. “Are you arguing as a delaying tactic?”

“I swear, I just-”

“Never mind. I’ve looked over the pictures taken by the tether-tip during rendezvous. Yes, the readings are unusual. But I don’t see what you find so special.”

“That camera’s limited. Even so, the spectral features seem unlike anything we’ve hauled in before. Take that low-level emission profile, suggesting a small source of inboard power-”

“-an old battery perhaps. Or else some leftover chemical reactants, inherently dangerous. The sort of thing we’re charged to get rid of.”

“Or something strange? Like we’re supposed to investigate on a frontier? Anyway… I ordered the crawler to go have a look.”

“You what?” Akana Hideoshi sat up straight. “Without asking me?” The project director’s stars-of-rank seemed to glare from both shoulder boards, almost as angry as her eyes. “It’ll take hours for the crawler to climb from midpoint all the way to the tether’s tip! The bola will be useless till then. Every snatch we scheduled will have to be recalculated!”

“Sorry, but I had to decide quickly. This thing, whatever it is…”

He could see her gesture at a subordinate, off screen, demanding data. Nearby, the other two station astronauts-Ganesh and Saleh, kept busy at various housekeeping tasks while blatantly eavesdropping. Even their paying tourist-the Peruvian phosphates billionaire, Señor Ventana-drifted closer, clumsily setting aside the busywork “science experiment” he had been assigned. Amid the normal tedium in orbit, any drama was welcome.

Gerald tried changing tactics.

“Look, the tether project mission statement actually talks about retrieval of valuable objects that might have scientific-”

“You just said the key word,” Akana interrupted, with an added, jarring effect caused by lightspeed delay. “Valuable.”

She exhaled, clearly working for calm.

“Well, the point is moot. I can see from telemetry that the crawler is already beyond recall. The bola’s spin is altered and there’s no going back to our old schedule. I’ll have to assign staff and aivertime to prepare new targets. Unless-”

She left that word hanging. Unless inspection with the crawler’s instruments showed that the item really was of interest. Important enough to justify all this disruption. The general signed off without even looking at Gerald, making her meaning even more clear. A lot hung on his hunch about this thing.

His career, certainly. Possibly more.

It has to be a hoax.

The readings made no sense, even as the crawler drew within twenty meters.

The tether continued its stately whirl, high above the Earth, pumping electrons out of one end or the other, into the radiation maelstrom of the Van Allen belts, maneuvering toward a position where it might jettison the object-toward incineration or an ocean grave. Now that Mission Control had taken over the tether’s spin management, Gerald could only try to get as much data as possible before that happened.

“I don’t read anything like an onboard power source,” he said, while Hachi hovered nearby. The little monkey picked away at its diaper, but lifted eyes when Gerald spoke, replying with a low, querulous hoot.

Under scrutiny by the crawler’s camera lens-now from about eight meters away-the object glittered in a way that struck him as more crystalline than metallic. A thought occurred to him that it might be the sliver of some natural body, rather than the usual chunk of man-made space junk. Perhaps a kind of meteoroid, unlike any that science encountered before. That would be something. Though how it got into a roughly circular Earth orbit…

“Or else, it may just be an unusual kind of poopsicle,” he muttered. A chunk of congealed water and human waste, jettisoned by some early manned mission. That could explain the curiously smooth, glistening shape. Though it reflected light unlike ice, or any material he knew.

If only we equipped the crawler with better instruments.

Gerald pushed back his specs and pinched his nose. You’d think an astronaut would get used to high-tech image mediation. It was a large part of what he did for a living. But his middle-aged body sometimes felt stretched thin.

If only I were equipped with better organs! Weren’t we supposed to be getting deep bio-upgrades by the time I hit fifty? Why is the future always… in the future?

He blinked and turned his head, seeking something far away to focus on-the best therapy for a bad case of ai-gaze. Of course, the only choice in this cramped compartment was a narrow window, facing the blue vista of Earth. Cloud-flecked pressure layers resembled fingers of a great hand, blurring Texas, all the way to drowned Galveston. The Gulf, in contrast, was a vivid palette of pale and deep blues.

Gerald blinked again as several glittering specks appeared, like pinpoints of flame, diverging as they plunged toward the Caribbean Sea. Meteoroids. Or chunks of falling space debris. Maybe something he had sent drifting Earthward just last week, before he retasked the tether, risking his career on a hunch.

To work, then. Slipping the specs back on, Gerald felt virmersion surround him, like the plasma envelope during reentry. Akana had ordered him to be cautious with the robot and keep it well back, in case the mysterious object was an old fuel tank, or something else potentially explosive. “Messing with it could be a good way to lose both the grabber tip and the crawler itself,” she warned.

But Gerald felt sure that wasn’t a problem. “I’m detecting no heightened levels of volatiles in space nearby, so there can’t be any stored fuel or oxidizer. Besides, it’s too small.” The artifact-if it was man-made-appeared to be no bigger than a basketball, elongated along one axis. Perhaps an American-style football. That might be consistent with a poopsicle. But water ice should give off some gas from direct sublimation.

Anyway, there were colors, unlike any he had seen.

“I’ll never learn anything from this distance.” He sighed. “I’m probably going to be fired anyway. I might as well goog the darned thing.”

Gerald ordered the little robot to edge closer, crawling along the tether toward the very end, tipping its spotlight to one side, and then to the other, knowing that Akana might call at any moment and order him to stop.

Hachi emitted a worried chutter and clambered onto Gerald’s shoulder.

No detectable electric or magnetic fields. And yet, the thing seems to respond to changes in light levels. And it’s not just a reflection effect. There! That portion kept glinting more than a second after the spotlight passed over it!

In fact, surface reflectance is changing with time.

Not only time, but across the object’s gleaming surface. Variations in shiny or absorbing areas seemed to become more dense, more finely patterned with every passing moment, an observation that he confirmed on two image analysis routines. So it wasn’t just subjective-no figment of his own wishful thinking.

I hope Akana is looking at this data, he mused, and not just at the loose way I’m interpreting her orders.

He sent another command. For the crawler to cut the remaining distance in half. Soon, both spotlight and camera were examining the object in much finer detail. That is, the part that could be seen. More than half was blocked by the battered claw fingers of the grabber itself. So he focused the robot’s attention on what was in plain view.

Dang, it sure is reflective. I can almost make out the crawler’s image in the part we’re facing. Not just the spotlight. But the camera housing…

Trying to make sense of the shifting spectral patterns, Gerald was abruptly rocked back when the surface ahead seemed to smooth out to a mirrorlike sheen, sending the torch beam bouncing right into the camera lens, dazzling the optics in a sudden white-out.

He ordered a damp-down in sensitivity. Gerald breathed relief when diagnostics showed the blindness to be temporary. Speckled blurs gradually faded as the scene took shape again. An oblong object, glistening, but no longer reflective, still lay clutched by the tether’s grabber-hand. Gerald tried to calm his racing pulse. It had felt, briefly, like some kind of deliberate attack!

As if on cue, there came a clear, ringing sound. A call from Earth, with General Akana Hideoshi’s message tone.

Gerald thought furiously. There were ways to do what he just saw. Smart materials could be programmed to change reflectance in a phased array pattern that mimicked a concave surface. It took aintelligence though, especially in rapid response to changing external stimuli. The object must have somehow sensed and responded to the crawler’s presence.

Knowing that he had just moments, he ordered the crawler forward the rest of the way.

“Gerald Livingstone, what the devil are you doing out there?” her voice cut in. A glance told him that Akana’s visage had taken over one of the monitor screens. Once upon a time, you could ignore phone calls, if you wanted to. Nowadays, the boss always got through.

“It has onboard sensing and response capability,” he said. “And sophisticated control over its surface-”

“All the more reason to be careful! A little tighter focus and it might have fried the crawler’s optics. Hey, are you bringing it even closer?”

Gerald dimmed the spotlight a little, in case the object did something like that again-but also ordered the extender arm to bring its camera forward. Now he could tell, the specimen really was smooth sided, though with a cluster of small bulges at one end, of unknown purpose. Gerald could not judge exactly where the object’s boundary gave way to the blackness of space. Glassy reflections rippled fields of starlight, or Earthshine from below, almost like a wavy liquid, creating a maze of shifting glitters that vexed human perception. Even image analysis produced an uncertain outline.

At the nearest curving surface, he saw a reflection of the crawler, dead center, warped as if in a funhouse mirror, though he made out some company and institutional logos on the camera’s housing. NASA, BLiNK, and Canon.

“Gerald, this… I can’t allow it.”

He could sense conflicting parts of Akana’s personality, at war against each other. Curiosity wrangling against career-protection. Nor could he blame her. Astronauts were trained to believe in procedure. In “i”-dotting and “t”-crossing. In being “adult” to the nth degree.

I used to be like that-living by the clipboard.

When did I change?

It was something to ponder later or in background as he made the crawler traverse the remaining gap and lift its manipulator arm.

“Do you still think this is some obscure piece of space junk?” he asked the general’s image in the comm screen, now with members of her staff clustered around. Some were evidently in full immersion, staring-with blank irises-while twiddling their hands. Nearby, Ganesh and Saleh had dropped their own duties to join in, with the tourist, Señor Ventana, close behind.

“All right. All right,” Akana conceded at last. “But let’s take it slow. We’ll cancel the jettison, but I want you to order the crawler away a couple of meters. Back off, now. It’s time to assess-”

She stopped, as the image changed yet again.

The nearest flank of the object-still offering a reflection of the crawler’s camera-now seemed to ripple. The image warped more than ever. And then, while the lens itself stayed constantly centered, the letters of those company logos began to shift.

Some moved left and others right. One “A” in NASA leapfrogged over a “C” in Canon. The “L” in BLiNK rotated in one direction, then back in the other, tossing the “i” out of its way.

Though Gerald somehow expected it, no new words formed. But letters kept moving about, piling up, shifting, turning upside down, reversing… in a strange dance. He had to cough, suppressing a sudden urge to laugh at the manic ballet.

A member of Akana’s staff commented, with a degree of mental agility that Gerald found stunning:

“Symbols.

“It’s telling us that it recognizes symbols.

“But in that case, why not use them to say something?”

Another aide answered almost immediately.

“That must be the point! It recognizes that these ARE symbols. But it doesn’t know their meaning or how to use them.

“Not yet.

“This is just the beginning.”

Gerald made a mental note. To treat Akana with more respect. Anyone who could hire and keep a staff like this… Her bright guys were outracing his own meager imagination, tracking possibilities. Implications that he let sink in.

The object. Not just an artifact. It was active.

Quasi- living.

Maybe an ai.

Perhaps more.

As they all watched, a new phase commenced. The roman letters began to change, morphing into new shapes…

… first a series of signs that were variations on a cruciform pattern-sturdy teutonoid pillars and crosses…

… then transforming into more curvaceous figures that squiggled and spiraled…

… followed by glyphs that resembled some slanted, super-intricate version of Chinese ideograms.

“I’m not getting a match with any known language,” commented Ganesh from nearby, waving at virtual objects in front of him, that only he could see. As if in frightened agreement, little Hachi gave a hoot and covered up his eyes.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” answered Saleh, the Malaysian astronaut, her voice tightly focused and low. “Any savvy graphic artist can design programs to create unusual emblems, alphabets, fonts. They do it for movies, all the time.”

Right, Gerald thought. For science-fiction movies. About contact with alien races.

He had no doubt that others were starting to share this unnerving possibility, and he felt a need to at least offer one down-to-Earth alternative.

“It could be a hoax. Someone put it there, knowing we’d come along and grab it. That kind of thing has happened before.”

If any of the others thought that strange for him-of all people-to say, they didn’t mention it. The notion floated among the human participants, both on Earth and above, swirling like the letters and symbols that glinted, shifting across the object in front of them.

“Now aren’t you glad you came here, instead of High Hilton?” Ganesh asked Señor Ventana. “Real science. Real discovery! It sure beats big windows and silly nullgee games.” Always the salesman, he added, “Be sure and tell your friends.”

“After this information is cleared for release, of course,” Saleh added quickly.

“Yes, after that.” Ganesh nodded.

The fertilizer magnate agreed absently. “Of course.”

Silence stretched for several minutes, while onlookers watched the object offer a seemingly endless series of alphabets or symbolic systems.

“All right,” General Hideoshi said at last. “Let’s first do a security check. Everyone make sure your VR hasn’t leaked to the outside world. We do not need a web-storm over this, quite yet.

“Gerald, keep the crawler where it is. Things seem stable for now. But no more acting on your own. We’re a team now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, and meant it. Suddenly, he felt like an astronaut again. And “team” was a welcome word. The sound of belonging to something much wiser than he could ever be alone.

It sounded like home, in fact. And suddenly, the nearby frontier of space felt immense-the immeasurable vastness that had both frightened and drawn him, as far back as memory could reach.

“Okay, people,” Akana said. “Let’s come up with a step-by-step process for bringing that thing in.”