Existence (26 page)

First thing, I must find a good hiding place for the stone. Then come up with the right story for Quang.

It took real effort just to haul himself out of the water, Bin’s body felt limp with fatigue. He was past hunger and exhaustion, making his way from the atrium dock to the stairs, then across the roof, and finally to the entrance of the tent-shelter. It flapped with a welcoming rhythm, emitting puffs of homecoming aromas that made his head swim.

Ducking to step inside, Bin blinked in the dimmer light. “You won’t believe what a day I have had! Is that sautéed prawn? The ones I caught this morning? I’m glad you chose—”

Mei Ling had been stirring the wok. At first, as she turned around, he thought she smiled. Then Bin realized … it was a grimace. She did not speak, but fear glistened in her eyes, which darted to her left—alerting him to swivel—

A creature stood on their small table. A large
bird
of some kind, with a long, straight beak. It gazed at Xiang Bin, regarding him with a head tilt, one way then the other. It spread stubby wings, stretching them, and Bin numbly observed.

No flight feathers. A penguin? What would a penguin be doing here in sweltering Shanghai?

Then he noticed its talons.
Penguins don’t have—

The claws gripped something that still writhed on the tabletop, gashed and torn. It looked like a
snake.…
Only, instead of oozing blood or guts, there were bright flashes and electric sizzles.

A machine. They are both machines.

Without moving its beak, the bird spoke.

“You must not fear. There is no time for fear.”

Bin swallowed. His lips felt chapped and dry.

“What … who are you?”

“I am an instrumentality, sent by those who might save your life.” The bird-thing abruptly bent and pecked hard at the snake. Sparks flew. It went dark and limp. An effective demonstration, if Bin needed one.

“Please go to the window,” the winged mechanism resumed, gesturing with its beak. “And bring the stone here.”

Well, at least it spoke courteously. He turned and saw that the white, egg-shaped relic lay on the ledge, soaking in the fading sunlight—instead of wrapped in a dark cloth, as they had agreed. He glanced back sharply at his wife, but Mei Ling was now holding little Xiao-En. She merely shrugged as the baby squirmed and whimpered, trying to nurse.

With a low sigh, Bin approached the stone, whose opalescent surface seemed to glow with more than mere reflections. He could sense the bird leaning forward, eagerly.

As if sensing Bin’s hands, the whitish surface turned milky and began to swirl. Now it was plain to the eye, how this thing differed from the Havana Artifact that he had seen briefly through an ailectronics store window. It seemed a bit smaller, rounder, and considerably less smooth. One end was marred by pits, gouges, and blisters that tapered into thin streaks across the elongated center. Yet similarities were plain. A spinning sense of depth grew more intense near his hands. And, swiftly, a faint shape began to form, at first indistinct, coalescing as if from a fog.

Demons,
Xiang Bin thought.
Or rather, a demon
. A single figure approached, bipedal, shaped vaguely like a man.

With reluctance—wishing he had never laid eyes on it—Bin made himself plant hands on both tapered ends, gritting his teeth as a brief, faint tremor ran up the inner surface of his arms. He hefted the heavy stone, turned and carried it away from the sunlight. At which point, the glow seemed only to intensify, filling and chasing the dim shadows of the tent-shelter.

“Put it down here, on the table, but please do not release it from your grasp,” the bird-thing commanded, still polite, but insistent. Bin obeyed, though he wanted to let go. The shape that gathered form, within the stone, was not one that he had seen before. More humanlike than the demons he had glimpsed on TV, shown peering outward from the stone in Washington—but still a demon. Like the frightening penguin-creature, whose wing now brushed his arm as it bent next to him, eager for a closer look.

“The legends are true!” it murmured. Bin felt the bird’s voice resonate, emitting from an area on its chest. “Worldstones are said to be picky. They may choose one human to work with, or sometimes none at all. Or so go the stories.” The robot regarded Xiang Bin with a glassy eye. “You are fortunate in more ways than you might realize.”

Nodding without much joy, Xiang Bin knew at least one way.

I am needed, then. It will work only for me.

That means they won’t just take the thing and leave us be.

But it also means they must keep me alive. For now.

The demon within the stone—it had finished clarifying, though the image remained rippled and flawed. Approaching on two oddly jointed legs, it reached forward with powerfully muscular arms, as if to touch or seize Bin’s enclosing hands. The mouth—appearing to have four lips arranged like a flattened diamond—moved underneath a slitlike nose and a single, ribbonlike organ where eyes would have been. With each opening and closing of the mouth, a faint
buzzing
quivered the surface under Bin’s right palm.

“The stone is damaged,” the penguinlike automaton observed. “It must have once possessed sound transducers. Perhaps, in a well-equipped laboratory—”

“Legends?” Bin suddenly asked, knowing he should not interrupt. But he couldn’t help it. Fear and exhaustion and contact with demons—it all had him on the verge of hysteria. Anyway, the situation had changed. If he was special, even needed, then the least that he could demand was an answer or two!

“What legends? You mean these stones have appeared before?”

The bird-thing tore its gaze away from the image of a humanoid creature, portrayed opening and closing its mouth in a pantomime of speech that timed roughly, but not perfectly, with the vibrations under Bin’s right hand.

“You might as well know, Peng Xiang Bin, since yours is now a burden and a task assigned by Heaven.” The penguinlike machine gathered itself to full height and then gave him a small bow of the head. “A truth that goes back farther than any other that is known.”

Bin’s mouth felt dry. “What truth?”

“That stones have fallen since time began. And men are said to have spoken to them for at least nine thousand years.

“And in all that long epoch, they have referred to a day of culmination. And that day, long prophesied, may finally be at hand.”

Bin felt warm contact at his back, as Mei Ling pressed close—as near as she could, while nursing their child. He did not remove his hands from the object on the table. But he was glad that one of hers slid around his waist, clutching him tight and driving out some of the chill he felt, inside.

“Then…,” Bin swallowed. “Then
you
are not an alien?”

“Me?” The penguin stared at Bin for a moment, then emitted a chirp—the mechanical equivalent of laughter. “I see how you could leap to that mistaken conclusion. But no, Peng Xiang Bin. I am man-built. So was this snake,” its talons squeezed the artificial serpent harder, “sent here by a different—and more ruthless—band of humans. Our competitors also seek to learn more about the interstellar emissary probes.”

Meanwhile, the entity within the stone appeared frustrated, perhaps realizing that no one heard its words. The buzzing intensified, then stopped. Then, instead, the demon reached forward, as if toward Bin, and started to
draw a figure
in space, close to the boundary between them. Wherever it moved its scaly hand, a trail of inky darkness remained, until Bin realized.

Calligraphy. The creature was brushing a figure—an ideogram—in a flowing, archaic-looking style. It was a complicated symbol, containing at least twenty strokes.
I wish I had more education,
Bin thought, gazing in awe at the final shape, when it stood finished, throbbing across the face of the glowing worldstone. Both symmetrically beautiful and yet jagged, threatening, it somehow transfixed the eye and made his heart pound.

Xiang Bin did not know the character. But anyone with the slightest knowledge of Chinese would recognize the radical—the core symbol—that it was built from.

Danger.

CONFLICTING WISDOM

Already the danger is so great, for every individual, every class, every people, that to cherish any illusion whatever is deplorable. Time does not suffer itself to be halted; there is no question of prudent retreat or wise renunciation. Only dreamers believe that there is a way out. Optimism is cowardice.

—
Oswald Spengler,
Men and Technics,
1932

In good times, pessimism is a luxury; but in bad times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling and fatal prophecy.

—
Jamais Cascio,
Open the Future,
2005

24.

THE WORLD WATCHES

“Why must I wear this thing?” Gerald complained. He plucked at the sleeve of his freshly laundered and ribboned dress uniform, referring to what lay beneath—a bulge in the fleshy part of his forearm. An implanted NASA telemetry device.

“Oh, don’t be a wiper,” General Hideoshi scolded. In person, the brigadier was even more petite than she appeared onscreen—which had the paradoxical effect of making her rank more imposing. Stars on each shoulder glittered under the stage lights. “You’ve worn implants ever since you entered training.”

“For health diagnostics, biologging, and work-related drugdrips. And we get to turn ’em off, after missions. But this thing is huge! And I know it’s not just checking my blood pressure.”

Akana shrugged. “Price of freedom, friend. You chose to be a human guinea pig, by planting your hand on that thing.” She nodded toward the Object, glossy and opalescent in its felt-lined cradle, sitting a meter away from Gerald atop the conference table. “It was either this,” she gestured at his arm, “or extended deep quarantine. You still have that option, you know. Go back into the tank.”

Gerald snorted. “No tanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Akana chuckled.

He didn’t mention
other
implants that he only suspected—like something foreign floating inside his left eyeball, sampling light without blocking his retina. Looking out at the world through his own iris. In effect, seeing whatever he saw. As if it weren’t enough that a dozen other team members were constantly watching, whenever he communed with the Messenger from MEO. Just one of many names for the object.

My “egg” they call it. Gerald’s Galactic Geode. Or the Havana Artifact. Or the thing that garbageman-cowboy Livingstone lassoed with his space-lariat. It had better turn out to be benign because from now on, my name is tied to whatever it does. Good or ill.

Beyond thick curtains, a babble of press and invited guests could be heard, taking seats in the hall proper—the largest auditorium at the Naval Research Lab, just outside of Washington. A convenient older building that survived Awfulday unscathed—and diplomatically innocuous, while offering military levels of security.

This side of the curtain, on a wide stage, dignitaries filed in to take assigned positions at the long table. First NASA and Foresight officials, then representatives from EU and AU and GEACS. Finally delegates from both guild and academy. Some had helped with preliminary analyses in Cuba. Others just wanted to shake Gerald’s hand … the one that
hadn’t
touched the Artifact, of course. Others just kept glancing toward the ovoid crystal, glistening quietly under the stage lights.

Someone had suggested laying a purple cloth over it, for the president to pull away with due drama. But a public affairs psychologist insisted,
“Let the public see it, first thing, as soon as the curtain opens. They’ll be thinking about nothing else, anyway. So turn that into a dramatic advantage. Sit and wait while all viewers zoom in with specs and vus. An expression of ultimate openness. Only after the hubbub dies down, then have the president come onstage.”

That courtesy harkened back to when the office held real and terrible power. Of course, it all sounded like hooey. At least a cover might have offered Gerald a break from the thing’s constant, eye-drawing allure. What decided the matter was simple practicality. The object needed to bathe in light for some time, in order to function.

Everyone settled into assigned places. Akana to Gerald’s left, where the Artifact would not block her face from the crowd. His own position, closest to the gleaming thing, bespoke a growing consensus. He was not only its discoverer, but in some way its
keeper.
The one asked to pick it up. To carry the ovoid, whenever it must be moved. The one present, whenever specialists wanted to try some new method for communicating with the entities inside.

An honor, I suppose—and who knows? Maybe even historic. On the other hand, I’m not sure I like the way this thing tugs at me. Like a habit or addiction. Or like I belong to it, now.

And if all this goes badly, there’s no place on or off the planet where I can hide.

At present, the orb lay quiescent, a soft shimmer rippling its surface—a liquid impression of great, perhaps infinite depth. A vastly magnified image of the ovoid was projected onto a giant screen, above and behind the dais, bright enough to cast Gerald’s shadow across the table, limned in silvery light.

“Wouldn’t it be something, if it refused to perform in public?”

Akana shot him a glare, for even thinking that way. Of course, there were recordings of hour after hour, spent by specialists interrogating the smoke-and-mirror enigma—some contained in that terabyte of sample images that somebody had leaked. Many of the pictures showed Gerald with his left hand planted on the glossy surface,
while some other palm seemed to rise out of those milky depths, to touch his, from within.

Time and again that happened. Some alien-looking hand—variously scaly, or fleshy, or furry, or consisting of pincer-claws—appeared to float up from within the Artifact, in order to perform the same strange ritual, ever since he first established contact, during fiery reentry.