A Sword Into Darkness

17: “UNIVERSAL TRUTHS”

Date Unknown; USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1), location unknown; Mission Day ???

They all stared agape at the aliens’ marble avatar, trying to process their thoughts and their pain, to reconcile its cold, mechanistic words with its face—the face of their own XO—which smiled at them in amused condescension. Nathan’s mind and emotions whirled about, unable to settle on any one bit of the automaton’s announcement. Patrons? The cultural works of Earth? The casual murder of Christopher Wright and his rebirth as this … thing? Where did one start?

Dave Edwards, an eminently practical—if impudent—individual, recovered from this latest string of shocks first. He pulled himself forward to float slightly in front of Nathan, focusing the avatar’s attention on him rather than his Captain. The Master Chief drew his face into an expression of contempt and distaste, the same look someone might give to a particularly large roach one has found in the sink. He shook his head and said, “Let me get this straight … we’re being invaded by art lovers?”

The marble avatar peaked an eyebrow over the blank, colorless hemispheres it had for eyes and glanced back to the alien—the Patron—holding station in the mess’s main hatch. The alien flicked a tentacle tip and the automaton nodded and turned back to them. “That explanation is rather simplistic, but it suffices.”

Edwards grinned with as much malice as he could muster, which at this point was a great deal. “Well, you’ll have to forgive me, but that’s about the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. No one crosses light-years of space and spends decades of time to go browsing over the artifacts of another planet like some sort of interstellar garage sale.”

Nathan’s eyes widened and his brain finally engaged. He reached out an arm and dragged Edwards behind him. Nathan scowled at the Master Chief and spun back toward the avatar. “Sorry about that, but I’ll admit that it sounds a little implausible to me as well.”

The avatar shrugged, its features quite expressive even though its voice remained toneless and uninflected. “However plausible it might seem, given your preconceived notions of value and worth, is irrelevant. I speak only the truth, and it is a truth which should make perfect sense if you only give it some thought.”

Nathan allowed himself to drift closer to the moving statue of his XO. “My thoughts are a little jumbled here, but I’m not getting it. We’ve imagined any number of dire motivations for you … Patrons to be coming to Earth—things like desire for our resources, or our biological diversity, or simply the desire to subjugate us as life different from your own. Art and culture weren’t high on that list.”

The avatar smiled. “Yes, all of those inimical motivations that your fictions have ascribed to invaders, but those invaders were always merely disguised copies of invaders in your own history. Very few were developed with any sort of nod toward actual universal truths.”

“Universal truths?” Nathan asked.

“Yes.” The avatar turned and walked upon the deck, as if it were under the full acceleration of gravity. It approached a painting on the bulkhead of the mess, a likeness of the Sword of Liberty, engines blazing against the backdrop of a nebula. The automaton lightly touched the canvas and then faced them again. “What makes something valuable, Captain?”

Nathan frowned. “I don’t know. We value things for all sorts of reasons. Some for their intrinsic worth, for their value as a resource in order to fabricate something we need, or something we like. Some things are valuable because of the difficulty of obtaining them or creating them. Some are valuable because they belong to us, for sentimental reasons, or for their worth as personal property.”

The avatar gestured with its hand for him to keep going, a gesture it had no doubt copied from the thousands of video signals it had cataloged. “Yes, yes. And what does each of those measures of worth have in common? What is the universal truth that defines worth and value, no matter your culture, your species, or your planet?”

Nathan thought about his answers and what each of them shared. He looked beseechingly toward Kris, but she only shook her head and shrugged. He returned to the avatar and answered tentatively, “Rarity?”

The avatar smiled broadly. “Precisely. That which is rare or unique or is difficult to obtain, is what has value—value enough to cross light-years for. And knowing this, how valuable are simple raw resources for any society capable of expending enough of them to reach another star system?”

Nathan nodded, excited and pleased by their interaction, in spite of the hatred and revulsion he still felt toward the aliens and this vessel through which they spoke. “Given the technology you’ve already demonstrated and the sheer quantities of energy you’re expending to get to Earth, I’d imagine that raw resources are no big deal for you.”

“Certainly not. Elements and minerals are of no difficulty to obtain. With nanotechnology and other means, an asteroid can be rendered into its component elements in days, and those elements can be recombined into whatever composition we desire, with an efficiency far exceeding chemical processing. And those molecules can then be formed into whatever we desire, with greater precision and speed than any other manufacturing method. Material wealth holds no special distinction for us—it can be obtained in nearly unlimited quantities from any single star system, not just a populated one. It is the same way with energy resources. Hydrogen and helium are abundant and available wherever we travel, and that is only considering fusion as a power source. There are other, more compact and energetic forms of power that are more difficult to obtain, but not overly difficult.

“So, if your material and energy resources themselves are not rare enough to make us travel light-years for them, why would your cultural works be?”

Nathan shook his head, straining to put himself in the alien’s mind. He answered slowly, “If the only reason to travel to another star system is to obtain something rare and unique, something physical that can’t be obtained elsewhere, then I suppose the answer’s obvious: while the materials aren’t truly rare, what we do with them is … because … there’s only one human race?”

The avatar clapped its hands together. “And there you have it. Life, throughout the galaxy and perhaps the universe, is ubiquitous. It exists in most star systems in one form another, so common, yet so subtly different, that it has no intrinsic value as a biological resource for any species other than its own. Intelligent life is only slightly more unique, but again, it has no real value to any other species. Whatever discoveries it might make, whatever technology it could conceivably create is governed by universal laws common to all races. Science and technology are not unique and therefore have no value to a sufficiently advanced race, such as the Patrons.

“Art, however, has value—value beyond merely what it does or from what it is made. Every piece of art is a unique statement, a singular expression of a localized, transient idea, alone within the entirety of the universe. Each piece is shaped by any number of factors, all of which are semi-random and unlikely to be repeated exactly in any other place or time: the biology and environment of the species creating it, the mental processes of that species, the history and aesthetics that have developed within the individual culture. All of these make a race’s art—as opposed to simple materials or biology—rare and unique, and therefore of value beyond merely the species creating it.”

Edwards shook his head and sneered. “That doesn’t make any sense. Art only has value beyond its materials if you understand it, if you understand the emotions and the sentiment behind making it. Hell, I don’t give a damn for modern art, but some folks’ll pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. If a barrier like that exists within our own culture, why would we expect an alien culture to understand, appreciate, or value our art? I mean, to you Patrons, there wouldn’t seem to be any way to tell the relative value between a second grader’s refrigerator finger painting and a one-of-a-kind Jackson Pollack.”

The avatar glanced over at Edwards and appeared vaguely disappointed—an expression he had received from the actual Wright on many an occasion. The Master Chief bristled at the look, a look his antagonistic friend and superior would never give him again.

The statue spoke. “You assume that we are incapable of making the same distinction that you can. I will admit that an understanding of your culture and your development are necessary to properly classify your artifacts, but it is a task with which we are familiar. A child’s crude attempt at expressing its thoughts and emotions in a work of art is fundamentally different from a master-work. As a snapshot in time of an artist at that level of capability it has value, but because of the likely abundance of these ‘finger-paintings’ and because of their simplicity and coarseness, that value will be limited. If these ‘Jackson Pollacks’ are indeed rare, and if their complexity and nuance are appreciated by a large portion of your culture, trust that we will soon discover that same value.”

The avatar nodded at its own explanation, then gestured to the alien at the hatchway and stood aside. The alien brought out the imaging device it had shown them earlier, before it had killed Wright. They all moved back, away from the device, uncertain of what it was about to do.

Scintillating rainbows of light sprang out from the unit, coalescing in midair before them into a three-dimensional image. It was the Cathedral, lit from below by the drive-star, either before they had damaged it in their attack or repaired in the time since.

The avatar narrated as the image swooped in to examine the alien vessel’s gothic arches and filigreed stonework more closely. “This is the Patrons’ largest and oldest collection, that of the Keltara. The Keltara were a species quite similar to your own—bipedal oxygen breathers, builders and artisans. Their level of technology when we discovered them was the equivalent of several centuries below your own. Their various sub-cultures were in a renaissance of sorts, but none had yet experienced an industrial revolution.”

The image moved into the Cathedral. Strange sculptures and paintings of lizard-like creatures standing stooped upon their hind legs lined presentation halls and corridors. Garbled, raspy, unintelligible speech poured forth from a hologram within the alien ship, showing what they assumed to be some sort of play. The image swept on, to examine finely detailed wrought armor, ornate items of jewelry, and thousands of smaller works, from manuscripts and reliefs, to tapestries and musical instruments. The color schemes all seemed either too garish or oddly muted, designed for eyes and aesthetics accustomed to different wavelengths of visible light.

The image changed, now showing the Polyp, the organic-appearing vessel in the Patron fleet. “This collection is representative of the combined works of the Ixkillixis, a race of ammonia swimmers. They were quite advanced in terms of mathematics and philosophy, but as they existed in a liquid medium, they never discovered fire and were unable to progress beyond simple tool-making. However, they achieved some fascinating and beautiful things with hand-shaped tools and extruded objects. They experienced their environment through a mixture of vision, sonar, and chemical tags, like your dolphins, had they progressed beyond the intelligence of dogs.”

Inside the Polyp, liquid-filled passages displayed gently curving loops and ridges of shaped coral and stone, glowing with bioluminescent greens, pinks, and yellows, all arrayed in mathematically complex, nonrandom patterns. Strange, haunting sounds like whale-song and the clicks and chirps of dolphins issued forth from the image. A hologram within the Polyp showed trilaterally symmetric creatures, best described as boney, plated octopi with immense, intelligent eyes, swimming around one another in what could only be described as a dance.

The image changed again, this time zooming in toward the Junkyard. To Nathan, it looked different than it had before they had destroyed it, though whether that was because it was an old image from a different aspect, or whether it was a new image of a re-constructed vessel, he had no idea. If it was a new Junkyard, how long had it taken to rebuild? How long had they been in stasis? How far from Earth were they now?

The avatar frowned. “This is what remains of our last collection, that of the Nnnnek, whom you could properly refer to as the Deltans, since their home star was our last destination, Delta Pavonis. Most of the artifacts are now reconstructions, the originals destroyed by your senseless assault. As a result, the collection is of limited value. Reconstructions simply do not have the same worth as originals, no matter how exacting their attention to detail.

“The Nnnnek, were a hive-minded, insectoid species. They were quite unique in that they had no identifiable sense of nostalgia. Since the individuals were just parts of a few, nearly eternal, whole minds, their works of art and culture were all perpetual works in progress. Each building, each sculpture was in a constant state of flux and alteration. Whatever they did not need at the moment was discarded with little care, and used again or not as the mood struck the over-minds down through the ages. This lead to the ‘junky’ appearance that none of your species were capable of understanding, but among the junk were individual articles of such exquisite refinement and complexity that a non-hive awareness could hardly appreciate them fully.”

The avatar shook its head and narrowed its stone eyes. “And you blew it up.”

The image switched to the interior of the reconstituted Junkyard, but before any of them could see these recreated masterworks of insectoid culture, the image blanked off, denying them a peek of the damage they had caused. The alien lowered the device and then stood still in the hatchway again, glaring at them with its many strange eyes.

The avatar walked back to the center of the room, standing where the images had floated, between the crew and the Patron. “And that is the purpose of this fleet. That is why the Patrons have devoted eight decades to traveling to Earth. Yours is a rich, vibrant culture, perhaps the richest ever encountered. You advance and create so rapidly, that it will take a display ship of staggering dimensions to do justice to the entirety of your history and culture. The works of Man will become the centerpiece of my masters’ collection and humanity will be held in awe throughout the community of the galaxy.”

Nathan tilted his head to one side, as if to gain a new perspective on the avatar. During the virtual tour of the Patron fleet, his head had finally gotten full control over his emotions and he thought analytically again, no longer just reacting to each successive shock. He smiled slightly, wondering if either the alien or the avatar could tell the difference between a friendly look and the hateful, calculating one Nathan sported now. “Well, it sounds like you Patrons are a bunch of selfless humanitarians, if you’ll pardon the term. But what exactly do we—or the people of Earth—get for handing over all those Velvet Elvises? As a people, we value those works you’re admiring even more than you do.”

The avatar smiled, a smile so close to the one Christopher Wright had so rarely displayed—preferring to hide it beneath his usually serious demeanor—that Nathan nearly lost his new-found composure and tried to smash the living statue. “We are sorry for all the mistakes that have been made thus far—most of all for the regrettable necessity of the sacrifice that Mr. Wright made to form a bridge between us.

“Believe us when we say we hold no malice for the people of Earth, despite the confrontations and violent misunderstandings that have thus far defined our contact. We were, in fact, taken aback by your visitation all the way out here. When we first discovered you through your radio broadcasts, we never imagined you would develop the means to travel this distance in the short time you had available, but, as we have said, you are an imaginative, driven race. We had been prepared to present our case after we arrived in your local space, but now we have you.

“Our desire is that you and your crew will join us in negotiations with Earth, that you will calm the admittedly justifiable concern which has arisen regarding our arrival, and that you will ease the transfer of representative artifacts and original works from your planet to the display vessel we will build. In return, you will receive exact, nano-resolution copies, indistinguishable from the originals to your technology. And we ask that we be provided explanations for the artistic intent and history behind each piece, so that our galactic peers can understand what they are seeing—in return for which, we will be happy to pass along any information or resources which can aid your species in achieving your goals and desires. As we have said, materials and technologies have no intrinsic worth to us, but they do have value to you, and we have no wish to hold you back from your destiny.”

Nathan’s half smile was still frozen in cold hatred. He looked at the statue and at the alien behind it, and considered the offer. Was this all just a huge misunderstanding? Were the deaths and violence thus far tallied simply the clashing of two widely disparate cultures, grease upon the innocent, but callous, gears of progress.

It all led up to this. It all led up to now. Gordon Lee had devoted twenty years and his life to this moment. They had a built a ship that had changed the world, had fought and bled, and planned and re-planned, had endured literally astronomical obstacles to reach this point.

Nathan was no statesmen. He was no ambassador. He was only an officer of a single nation on the globe, and that only because of an act of political face-saving. Did he have the right to commit mankind to either destruction or salvation based upon what they now knew, what they had just been told?

He shook his head, considering his doubts, objectively looking at the situation and the avatar’s explanation without prejudice or paranoia—or at least he tried to. For a long moment, he said nothing. He simply concentrated, listening to the nervous breathing of the crew behind him, and the absence of breath from the avatar before him.

Eventually, he turned his head and peaked an eyebrow, looking at Master Chief Edwards, his old, trusted shipmate. Edwards’ own expression was blank. “I know that look, Nathan. You sure you want to kick on this? There ain’t no goin’ back once you do.”

Nathan nodded. “I think it’s better we know for sure now, rather than find out too late. So give it to me honestly. Don’t hold back.”

Edwards frowned and shook his head. He said simply, “Past tense, boss. Every one of ‘em.”

Nathan nodded and glanced over to Kris. Her eyes were still lined with red, though her tears for Christopher Wright and all the others had either dried or faded away. Her mouth was set in a firm line until she answered his unspoken question. “Universal truths, Nathan. The artist’s paintings aren’t worth diddly until after he’s dead.”

“Yep,” Nathan answered, “I figured the same thing.”

She smiled. “I love you.”

He returned it. “I know you do. Me too.”

Nathan turned back toward the avatar. “On behalf of the US government, and as a representative of all the rest of humanity … fuck you. You are hereby directed to alter course to skirt our solar system. If your intentions are benign, we can establish a dialog and an exchange after you come to a stable orbit well outside of our Kuiper Belt. However, if you insist on closing with our solar system, we will tear you apart. You will come up against the massed might of every nation on Earth, most notably that of my own country, the United States of America. We will release wave upon wave of hell on you, until not even the atoms of this ship remain. Your collections will be reduced to ash and plasma. You won’t take so much as a single postcard from our world, and you by God won’t harm a single person on the whole face of the planet.”

The statue’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Why would you be so belligerent and defiant after we have apologized and explained ourselves?”

Nathan smiled again, this time more broadly. “Because—We. Don’t. Believe. You. You just told us about three of your collections, the Keltara, Nnnnek, and the Ixki … whatever—but you spoke about every single one of the races in the past tense. Now maybe that was just an oversight, a translation error, but between damn near a century of our television and radio broadcasts and whatever you stole from my XO’s brain when you cut him up, you’ve shown a pretty decent command of the language. What I don’t think you quite got was nuance and subtlety, just like you don’t quite get how we express emotion verbally. I think you used the past tense to describe those races because it was the correct thing to do—since they only exist in the past.”

The statue was stock still, not reacting at all. Nathan continued. “You might take every work of art from our planet, every last trinket and use it however you use it in whatever economy or society there is out there in the greater galaxy—though how that interaction works on interstellar timescales, I have no idea—but you’ll use it to gain power. That power, that wealth only retains its value if there are no other human artifacts. If anyone else drops by and picks some up—or if we start bartering for ourselves—your collection is devalued. The only way your collection keeps its worth is if there’s no more human stuff being produced for other entities, other patrons to acquire.

“Maybe you’d act in good faith right up to the end, playing nice so we won’t damage the goods fighting against you, but in the end you’ll torch the planet. You’ll make us ‘past tense’ because that’s the only way that particular universal truth works out. Well, forget it. We’re not going to help you sneak up on mankind unaware. And without us making the introductions, you can plan on every nasty trick our human culture can devise being thrown at you. You’re not indestructible. We’ve proven that, and now we’re going to make you pay for even thinking about raping our planet.”

The avatar stood frozen, stone-faced. In the hatchway, the Patron itself entered the mess, maneuvering nimbly in microgravity with its mass of tentacles. Nathan and the others all stiffened as it came closer and raised the same device with which it had destroyed Wright.

Nathan forced himself to remain still, to not retreat as the creature pointed the weapon at him.

The avatar shook its head, its expression sincerely saddened, even if its voice was as articulate and monotone as ever.

“We thought it probable that you would defy us, but we had to make the attempt. There is always some damage incurred when a species resists. Plus, it is always difficult to catalog and describe the various works when the artisans and historians are dead, but we will deal with it. We always have.

“What will happen is this: when we arrive in your solar system, we will sweep aside whatever primitive resistance you have cobbled together, and then we will take station at one of your planet’s LaGrange points. The drive will be turned upon your planet and the resulting disruption of your ionosphere and the cascades of radiation will, within a few days, sterilize the Earth. Humanity will be dead, and your works will remain, hardly the worse for wear. Do not doubt us. It is not the first time we have done it.”

Nathan glared at the weapon in the Patron’s tentacle, his jaw set in anger. “And what about us? Are you going to break us all down with that thing like you did our XO?”

The statue smiled. “No. You may yet have an opportunity to survive, to serve. A human perspective will be necessary to properly catalog and classify the collection. So you will go into stasis as others have. And when you emerge from the white field, your planet will be dead, your artifacts will be in a dazzling new collection, and the wider galaxy will be presented the whole exhibition to the accompaniment of the last humans’ anguished cries—your own anguished, bitter cries.”

Nathan snarled, and his wordless, angry command spoke to most of the crew. En mass, they all surged forward, hands stretched out like claws toward the alien—

a sea of white

filled the mess

nathan cried out

in frustration

at the vanished patron