InterstellarNet 03 Enigma Page 5

  Huh, Joshua thought. That was news to him. “Play historical parlor games on your own time, Tacitus. Can you find alternatives for the off-limits archives?”

  As a flourish of unseen trumpets rang out, images flashed: the Library of Congress, the British Museum, Roman catacombs, the Valley of the Kings, an unidentifiable grass-covered plain.

  “I’m not following you today,” Joshua netted.

  What must be the Roman Senate appeared. Tacitus sat, setting the scrolls beside himself on the stone bench. “You wanted more data about the Matthews conundrum, right? About the incredible circumstance that puts the only known intelligences within easy radio reach of each other, at about the same technology levels.”

  “I know what I asked.” Joshua sensed a great cosmic shoe waiting to drop. First, whatever had happened that night on his ride home from the Ritz-Trump. Now … what?

  “History.” Tacitus patted the pile of scrolls. “Human existence, depending how you define human, a few million years. Recorded human history, a few thousand years. And human radios? Scarcely three hundred years.”

  The metaphorical shoe loomed ever larger in Joshua’s imagination. He almost saw what Tacitus was driving at. Almost.

  “Joshua, you’ve made a very astute observation. A cluster of solar systems, a tiny bubble of intelligence, huddles in an otherwise silent galaxy. Eleven stars among billions.” Tacitus leaned forward. “My point is that proximity captures only one part of the improbability. Sol is a bit under five billion years old. Alpha Centauri is six billion. Barnard’s Star is at least ten billion. Yet humans, Centaurs, and Snakes—all the InterstellarNet members—are in technological terms quite similar. If any were only a bit less advanced, they could not communicate at all. If they were only a bit more advanced—we’d be communicating in person. That’s already begun.”

  A physical glass of iced tea slipped from physical Joshua’s hand. The metaphorical shoe had fallen. Eleven stars out of billions—somehow all nearby. A few hundred years out of billions—and somehow the neighboring species were technologically synched.

  The puzzle was far stranger than even Joshua had imagined.

  • • • •

  The potted trees of the penthouse garden twittered with birdsong. The sounds were recorded, Joshua decided, but pleasant nonetheless. While Corinne focused on a fist-sized muffin, dropping crumbs all around her plate, he took in the panoramic view of Central Park.

  Denise Chang, as trim and blond as her wife was plump and dark, flitted about being hostess. She set a fresh carafe of coffee and a wholly unnecessary second plate of muffins on the patio table. “How’s it been going?” Denise asked.

  “Rough,” he admitted. “I forced myself to take a cab from the maglev station. The cab said, ‘You puke; you clean up.’ ”

  Denise smothered a chuckle. “Sorry. I’ll leave you both to your work.” Bursts of random noise from indoors suggested where she had settled down. Maybe he would have sensed a melody if he had been gene-tweaked to hear ultrasound. Access to broad-spectrum music never struck him as sufficient reason to be rewired.

  “Let’s do this,” Corinne said. “You said you have new information.”

  “The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old,” Joshua began. He grinned at her horrified expression. “Not to worry, I’ll skip over most of that time. In fact, permit me a metaphor. Call the Sun’s age one day. All right?”

  “Where are you going with this?” she asked.

  “I’ll give you a hint. Remember the Mediocrity Principle.” She didn’t comment further, so Joshua continued. “Midnight, the Sun coalesces out of some primordial nebula. Four minutes later, the planets have formed. The first microbes appear on Earth around three a.m.”

  Corinne topped off his mug of coffee. “And one of them had it in for you?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m going somewhere with this. Okay, life, but not oxygen-producing. We don’t see that until about ten-thirty in the morning, still single celled. Skipping a few steps—and you’re welcome—it’s not until about nine in the evening that we see multicellular life more complex than sponges or jellyfish. Extinction of the dinosaurs at about twenty before midnight.”

  “Whoa. Whiplash,” she said.

  “Primitive humans, if you’re inclusive in your definition of human, show up at about three minutes to midnight. For most of our three minutes, humans are hunters and gatherers. Agriculture and writing are inventions of the last second before midnight. Marconi and Tesla experiment with radio starting about six milliseconds before midnight.”

  He stopped his recitation. For a time, birdsong and the audible portion of Denise’s broad-spectrum “music” were the only sounds.

  Corinne stared into space. Finally, she said, “By the Mediocrity Principle, we’re to doubt that our place in space is anything special. I guess you’re saying we should question our place in time being special. I don’t see the extension to time, though. I don’t understand what planetary history has to do with anything. We’re in the time we’re in. That’s all.”

  He shook his head. “Agreed, we only see the moment in which we find ourselves. Here’s the puzzle. Eleven intelligent species clustered into InterstellarNet. They’re all technologically synchronized within, in my simple metaphor, milliseconds of the one-day clock. Only it’s not always one day. Barnard’s Star is more than twice our Sun’s age. Epsilon Eridani is scarcely one billion years old. Or if you prefer, a bit over two ‘days’ at one extreme, and just over five ‘hours’ at the other.

  “So why are we all at the same tech level?”

  • • • •

  Rising temperatures drove Corinne and Joshua inside. That’s okay, Corinne decided. We can be befuddled as readily indoors as out.

  Denise rejoined them for lunch. She quickly caught up with Corinne’s confusion. “So this is the latest thinking? Someone kidnapped Joshua, made him a laughingstock, and gave him amnesia—all to discredit his publicizing an astronomical oddity. And now you’re both excited about a second astronomical anomaly.”

  Joshua poked at his chicken salad. “You don’t sound convinced. The way you tell it, I wouldn’t be either, only I have nothing else to offer.”

  Denise wasn’t buying it. “So who, exactly, is out to discredit you? The Inquisition? The Kansas Board of Education? No, wait. They advocated reasons Earth and humans were special. Now that the orthodoxy is this Mediocrity Principle, that we live in a typical galactic backwater, you’re claiming we are special. So I guess the Secret Order of Mediocrities is after you.”

  Corinne felt herself blush.

  Joshua didn’t rise to the bait. “The facts are what they are. We don’t know why only these neighboring stars are special. I’m open to a better explanation why whatever happened to me happened. And that our era is also special makes me even more curious.”

  As Denise, with pursed lips, sat watching, Corinne had to concede: all this did seem absurd. A secretive bender was far more plausible than any Secret Order of Mediocrities.

  Her professional comeback depended upon breaking just the right story. The wrong story would only turn her into a joke by association—

  And those doubts must have shown on her face.

  “Don’t lose faith in me,” Joshua said. “Of all people, Corinne, you should be open-minded. You were kidnapped by Snakes and you fought alongside Centaurs—as a result of scheming that spanned years and light-years. How likely was any of that?

  “I can’t say what, or who, or why, but something very strange is happening. Somehow it relates to InterstellarNet. I’m sure of it. Show me my error, and I’ll walk away quietly.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Gaia Hypothesis: the collective term for several interpretations of an unremarkable observation—the life forms and environments of Earth interact to sustain livable conditions. The name gives homage to the Earth goddess of ancient Greek mythology.

  In its weakest form, the hypothesis merely encapsulates the fact that organisms alter their envir
onment. Plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. In its intermediate forms, the hypothesis acknowledges the many interdependencies among living populations. Plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Animals breathe in the oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. In its strongest—and most metaphorical—sense, the hypothesis views the world as a unified organism that consciously maintains and fosters conditions favorable for all life. In this view, the planetary entity actively guides its own evolution, inter-species balance, and climate.

  Despite its widespread popularity, no evidence exists to substantiate the Gaia Hypothesis in its strongest form.

  —Internetopedia

  • • • •

  Joshua’s neighbors gradually responded to weeks of public sobriety. The thaw wasn’t much, in the main just nods of greeting in the lobby, but at least they again acknowledged his presence. No one brought up what, in overheard conversations, he had learned most residents of the building referred to as “the episode.” He told himself that the trend was positive.

  AI friends kept him going. Drinking was a vice only experience made explicable: his presumed lapse and any possible relapse held no interest for software. Joshua was just happy for their companionship.

  Not so his family’s. Their recurrent checkups, by net and in person, grew ever more tedious. Cousins, an uncle, and the sister who had never before found their way to Charleston had suddenly, one by one, been “in the area.” Aaron was due at any moment, “just passing through.”

  Alan the doorman netted in. “Dr. Matthews, your brother is here to see you.”

  Neighborhood sensors showed Joshua a balmy evening. “Please take Aaron’s bags and tell him I’m coming down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They did the fraternal backslapping hug thing. “You up for a walk, Aaron?”

  “Sure. I’ve been sitting all day: scramjet, maglev, cab.” Aaron pretended not to notice Joshua flinch at “cab.” Body language said Aaron wanted to collapse into a massage chair. His eyes said, resignedly, he would follow wherever Joshua led.

  Joshua was sick of the walking-on-eggshells treatment. “Then off we go.” They ambled downhill toward the harbor, into a salt-smelling breeze. The night sky was clear. Space stations and orbiting habitats slid by overhead. Between the cusps of the crescent Moon, cities gleamed like diamonds.

  Lesser lights crept through the harbor shallows: tourists on ghost tours of the old, sunken city. Off Patriot Island, red lights blinked atop the flight-control tower of the long-submerged carrier USS Yorktown.

  Aaron plodded beside him, oblivious to everything. “Tina says hi.” It was his first attempt at conversation for three city blocks.

  “Hi, back,” Joshua said. “How are she and the boys?”

  “They’re good.”

  Would the family’s surprise inspections ever end? Given Aaron’s exhaustion, Joshua managed to credit good intentions. He could hold his frustration in abeyance till Aaron pushed a new job at him.

  Joshua said, “Let me tell you what I’ve been doing.”

  His narration accomplished one thing: it revved up Aaron.

  “Damnation, Joshua. You had esoteric-enough interests to start. That has-been reporter is only making things worse.”

  Corinne had accomplished far more than he and Aaron combined. Letting the slap pass, Joshua pointed skyward. “Still, it’s fascinating. I—”

  “I’ve got to say something here,” Aaron snapped. “You’re being absurd. So our solar system is younger than some, and older than others. Why wouldn’t you expect that? Now, for all your prattling about some Mediocrity Principle, it offends you that Earth’s age isn’t special.”

  Joshua shook his head. “You misunderstand me. What surprises me is that, disparate as are our stars’ ages, the InterstellarNet species have converged to the same technological level.”

  “Billion of consumers and millions of businesses make their individual decisions. Stuff gets made, distributed, bought and sold, recycled. No one knows in detail what’s happening. We anthropomorphize the process, call it ‘the market’ and move on.” Aaron’s voice shook with frustration. “Plankton and grass and cows and koalas and pandas and and and somehow add up to an ecosystem. No one pretends to entirely understand how that works. We call it nature or evolution or Gaia, and let that go.

  “So maybe there’s another mysterious mechanism out there. Different order emerging from chaos viewed on a yet bigger scale. Some kind of interstellar feedback loop. Before InterstellarNet, we couldn’t have known. What does it matter to me?”

  Seagulls wheeled overhead. A ship’s bell tolled. Joshua waited.

  On Aaron’s forehead a vein gradually slowed its pulsing. In a softer voice, he tried again. “Joshua, there are a thousand things I don’t understand. A million. The universe doesn’t care. The difference between you and me is, I accept that. I don’t …”

  “Don’t what?” Joshua demanded. “You don’t obsess?”

  “Your word,” Aaron said. “And if I do, I don’t allow my obsessions to hurt the family. For most people, an incident like yours would have blown over by now, and a fixation like yours would embarrass only you. That’s for most people. If the Matthewses aren’t Kennedys, Gateses, or Coopersmiths, neither are we ‘most people.’ You know that, or at least you ought to.

  “My boys are still taunted now and again about you. So are your niece and other nephews. Mom gets crap at her work and Dad takes not so good-natured ribbing from his so-called buddies. I’m willing to bet I’ve lost a couple of customers, through snickering by association. Oh, not everyone knows or cares about your … indiscretion, but more than enough do.

  “Joshua, we all love you. We support you. We’d do anything for you. The question is: when will you start thinking about us?”

  “Damn it! Those four weeks of my life were stolen!”

  Aaron jerked to a stop and grabbed Joshua’s arm. “I believe neither you nor the police know where you were. To me, that sounds like amnesia and a good samaritan. But you? You’re constructing an ever more elaborate conspiracy theory involving, well, I’m not sure what. Every InterstellarNet species? The billions of years of evolution that made them? Joshua, admit it. You need help.”

  They stood face to face, glaring. Joshua’s mind spun. His gut churned. Denise and his brother, in their very separate ways, were so down to earth. So pragmatic. So sensible.

  Buoys rolled in the swell, their bells clanging. Waves slapped the shore. Couples strolled, hand in hand, along the boardwalk. In an alley, unseen, cats hissed and yowled.

  Why couldn’t he accept that there were things he didn’t know? I do need help, Joshua thought. “Let’s get some dinner,” he said at last.

  In the awkwardly silent walk back home, he wondered how close the family was to having him committed. If they were to try, he didn’t know that he could blame them.

  Or that they would be wrong.

  CHAPTER 9

  Antebellum Charleston scarcely existed anymore. Most of the old city lay submerged or in rubble or both. At the mouth of the harbor, little remained of Fort Sumter but underwater gravel. Calvin had been a Cat Five hurricane, and Charleston had taken a direct hit. Still, more and more historic reproductions lined the streets. Palmettos and crepe myrtles, however young and spindly, again grew everywhere.

  Joshua had to admire the civic tenacity. He projected stately full-grown magnolias over the wide boulevard on which he strode. His inner vision also tinted the gray sky blue and the drought-withered grass a vibrant green.

  This should be poker night. Another regular had brought a friend—to fill in—to the third weekly game during Joshua’s absence. Two months after his reappearance, Temp Guy was still sitting in. Joshua couldn’t bring himself to object. He didn’t see why he should have to object.

  No job and fair-weather friends had left him with too much time on his hands. Today that had meant a quick jaunt by maglev to and then home from DC. Now, as the familiar streets of Charleston empt
ied, he netted with Tacitus as he walked, more about the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History than anything else. The bug zoo. Trilobites and coelacanths. Mastodons. Dinosaurs.

  “None of which,” Tacitus netted, “tells us anything useful.” His recent notion of useful was all too often limited to matters of InterstellarNet and the Matthews conundrum.

  “You have to admit this was great,” Joshua replied. This was a netcam pointer to a favorite exhibit, of Tyrannosaurus and Albertosaurus skeletons locked in battle. He refused to be drawn into those supposedly useful topics.

  “You doubtless rooted for the Albertosaurus,” Tacitus answered.

  True enough. Joshua usually rooted for the underdog. But why did his friend seem disapproving? “Am I to understand you rooted for the T-Rex?”

  Tacitus primly straightened his toga. “I rooted for the meteor.”

  Joshua snorted. An elderly passerby gave him a dirty look. There was no recognition in her expression—Joshua might have been any errant whippersnapper. He had long since exceeded his allotted fifteen minutes of fame; perhaps the worst had passed. The possibility lifted his spirits, just a tad.

  Tacitus began net-texting mastodon recipes he had encountered somewhere online. Joshua deleted the information—esoteric even by his lofty standards—as soon as it struck his mind’s eye. His thoughts, wandering, had found their way to Corinne.

  Doubtless he was better off apart from her.

  As she must have come to the reciprocal conclusion. When last they connected, she had mentioned pursuit of several possible stories. Boredom within the Upload community. Statistics among hunters and gengineered tigers (the tigers were winning). Growth rates in the Augmented population (all by conversion, of course—Augmented minds disdained sex as a distraction).