Come to think of it, let’s start mapping events versus geology, terrain, political instability, hydro-cycles…
Come on, people and people-helpers. Feedme here! Tear yourselves away from the TV and do what you are good at.
Bugging the universe with curiosity.
43.
Among all the added complications, who needed a rising wave of copycat hoaxes? People “discovering” ancient messenger-rocks of their own.
Some of the posted vids and palps showed blatant fakes-little more than chunks of glass, crudely lit from below, or pixeltrated with off-the-shelf image-altering programs-easy to spot. Others were the work of ingenious, high-tech pranksters, featuring impressive “aliens” who uttered mysterious warnings from their crystal homes… sometimes laying the groundwork for terrible punch lines, endlessly shaggy stories, or groaner puns. Others played it straight, claiming to be real star-emissaries offering deep (if always clichéd) wisdom… attracting storms of crit from smart posses yelling “fake!” And equal crowds of fervent believers.
A festival-like sense of momentum built, as vids of homemade Artifacts flooded the Mesh. And it’s possible that one or two may be real, Gerald thought. But someone else will have to check-and-vet them.
The Contact Commission had its hands full with the oblong, rounded cylinder that he brought home from orbit. It sat before him now, drinking in a bright diet of photon energy. The resident aliens had asked for a recess behind shrouded mists. Some time to get organized. And Akana Hideoshi’s team was happy to comply. People, too, needed food and rest. So did the tense observers who watched from the advisers’ gallery, just beyond the tall glass wall.
Reconvening on schedule, Gerald sat between Emily Tang and Haihong Ming, as Genady, Ben, Patrice, Akana, and other team members took their places. He saw dignitaries arrange themselves among the plush cybo-chairs that were steeply arrayed, auditorium-style, beyond the quarantine barrier. They seemed less agitated over there, now that the behavioral conditioning experiment had worked and the aliens were behaving better. Not that anyone enjoys being proved wrong. The advisers’ consensual holvatar representative-Hermes-no longer paced angrily, his broad forehead crowned with miniature lightning flashes. Now the ersatz god merely drummed the table, frowning nervously.
At the appointed time, all room lights dimmed and those swirling clouds within the Artifact began to change. Tshombe reduced the beam intensity, so everyone could see… as mists began to part, revealing a luminous vista of bright stars.
A veritable galaxy, presented in luscious three dimensionality, that none of the Earthling hoaxes had been able to duplicate so far. Gerald was about to shout for Ramesh to make sure the starscape was being recorded-
– when the Rajasthani astronomer beat him to it, reacting with an uncannily speedy virt.
These aren’t real stars. Uniform in spectra and brightness, they’re scattered about for art’s sake. It’s a metaphor.
Dang. That part of a long list of questions would have to be delayed, till more urgent matters were settled.
A murmur rose from the peanut gallery as, originating from dozens of distinct pinpoints, there unrolled a pattern of slender, curvy lines… that soon flattened and took the form of golden roads, tapering into the distance. These pathways branched and split, many of them leading to dead ends. But all of those that survived eventually joined together, merging one-by-one into a single highway that proceeded toward Gerald’s point of view… now shared by several billion watchers, tuning in from all across Earth.
People still complain about the degraded image quality that’s allowed to leave quarantine. In fact, only a very few of the most paranoid-not even Emily and her Tiger holvatar-still thought it likely that these images held dangerous codings.
Gerald leaned forward, staring directly into the Stone, instead of at the giant, magnifying screens nearby. Now, the eye began to make out figures, distant at first, striding along those golden paths. Seeming to begin at quite some distance, they all could be seen heading this way… toward the face of the Artifact that lay directly in front of Gerald. And soon, observers could tell that the Artifact beings all looked a bit different this time.
The centauroid, the bat-helicopter alien, the raccoonlike creature, the blimpy-thing… they now wore garments of some luxurious fabric, wafting in simulated breezes. Even the squid-cephalopod being had draped itself in formality as it glided forward along with the others, its means of locomotion as mysterious as ever.
Here it comes at last, Gerald thought. The formal invitation.
Where before there had seemed to be too little room at the interface-forcing aliens to jostle one another at the curved boundary between the Artifact’s inner world and the humans outside-now the foreground somehow seemed uncrowded. All the visitor emissaries were able to share this grand procession, gathering and arranging themselves so that every one could see outward-and be seen.
“That’s some group portrait, when they decide to get it together,” the anthropologist Ben Flannery commented. “Their earlier fractiousness showed that they tolerate diversity. Now they are displaying a wakened cooperative spirit and shared purpose. What combination of traits could be more encouraging? I’m pretty optimistic, right about now.”
General Hideoshi made a soft shushing sound. A number of the central figures were moving their arms/tentacles/appendages in unison…
… and letters formed, flowing toward the curved interface, arranging themselves into words that also emerged as sound from loudspeakers overhead.
We have asked the oldest surviving member to speak for us.
Out of the center of the crowd there emerged a being Gerald had seen before. Tall, bipedal, with a rotund-chubby figure, it had short arms that clasped each other across a stout belly. A roundish head nodded from atop its roly-poly neck. The eyes-wide but narrow-slitted, as if squinting with amusement-were in roughly the “right place” for a gestalt that seemed very close to human, and so was a thick-lipped mouth that even seemed to curve slightly upward, as if in an enigmatic smile. There was no nose-the creature apparently breathed through vents that opened and closed rhythmically, at the top of its head. Gerald’s overall impression was of a wise-looking, Buddha-like being. In fact, though he knew it was taking first impressions way too far, the fellow seemed rather… jovial.
Oldest member? Do they mean that this was the first race of their commonwealth? The founders who emerged upon the starlanes before anybody else? Perhaps those who contacted and taught all the others how to live together in interstellar peace?
But wait. Gerald suddenly recalled. Did they say “oldest surviving”? That doesn’t necessarily mean anything ominous… still…
Gerald knew his mind was racing way ahead of any rational basis for speculation. He tried to emulate the patience that he thought he saw in those eyes.
The head-top vents rippled and symbols emerged. Strange and unfamiliar, they rapidly mutated, transforming into letters of the Roman alphabet that rushed forward, arraying themselves into words which transducers interpreted into sound-conveyed by a voice that seemed both low and strong, if a bit breathy.
You have proved capable and worthy. Join us!
Gerald heard a number of outright sighs, as tension released, even though this only repeated the one cogent message already received so far. That earlier, hopeful statement had emerged out of chaos and confusion. Now, coming from a clearly chosen consensus leader, representing the entire alien community, it felt even more firm, clear, and reassuring.