The Cure (15 page)

For the first time, Erin’s expression wasn’t one of complete skepticism, and Hansen seemed to pick up on this. “Drake told me when he explained how he had used software to transform his face into Raborn’s, you said it couldn’t be done. Not so convincingly, so seamlessly. Not in real time during a conversation. Well you’re right. It can’t be done. At least not with
human
technology.”

This gave Erin pause. It had been one hell of a magic trick, however he had pulled it off.

“When I’ve finished explaining everything,” continued Hansen, “I hope you’ll trust me enough to let me take you to Yuma to meet Drake in person. It’s the only way you’ll be absolutely convinced I’m telling you the truth. You’ll see for yourself he’s not human. A short time with him and you’ll have absolutely no doubt.”

Erin studied him once again. She was far from convinced he was telling the truth, but if his purpose had been to get her to come to Yuma with him, there were far simpler lies that could have done the trick. In fact, he had to have known that the approach he was taking was certain to make her
more
suspicious of him rather than less.

Hansen seemed to read the indecision in her eyes. “The ten minutes you agreed to give me are up. If you’d like, I’ll leave right now. Or
you
can. I won’t stop you. But I can’t believe that someone with your kind of curiosity, your passion for knowledge, would refuse to at least hear me out the rest of the way. Not unless you really think I’m certifiably insane. Which I don’t think you do.”

Erin sighed, realizing that he was right. “Go on,” she said in surrender.

“To be honest, Drake is trying to limit the number of people who know of his origins. For obvious reasons. And you weren’t supposed to be among them.”

“So why are you telling me this now?”

“He had no other choice. You saw the real Hugh Raborn and then, being understandably suspicious and feeling betrayed, you weren’t willing to give him the dosage combination for the cure. So he knew he had to come clean. He set up this meeting, knowing all along he was going to send me. Inviting you to Yuma to meet him and verify what I’m now telling you would have been the most direct route. But he knew you didn’t trust him enough to do that. You needed to be eased into what is an entirely new and earth-shattering reality for you. A two-step process, begun on your home turf, where you would feel reasonably comfortable.”

“Okay,” said Erin. “In the interest of humoring you some more, you mentioned other alien species. Are representatives of
all of them
on Earth?” She leaned toward him and raised her eyebrows. “You’re not a member of the Men in Black, are you?”

Hansen laughed. “No. Black isn’t my color. And I’m afraid Drake is it. Period. I’ll tell you why later on, but he’s the only nonhuman on the planet.”

“Uh-huh. Well somebody gave him bad directions to end up in Yuma. He does realize that Area 51 is to the west of him and Roswell is to the east, right?”

A warm, genuine smile flashed across Hansen’s face once again, revealing two rows of perfectly straight teeth, no doubt perfected after years of wearing metal in his mouth when he was young. “No aliens at either of those places, I’m afraid.”

Hansen paused as if searching for the best way to bring Erin up to speed. “Now that you’re willing to hear me out, let me start at the beginning. There are seventeen known intelligent species in our section of the galaxy. The level of their technology is all basically equivalent. The growth in our science and technology has been exponential, but you can’t maintain that forever. And any significant differences in the technology of these seventeen civilizations has been smoothed away over thousands of years of trade, so now it’s all perfectly homogeneous. Some arrived at this level thousands of years before others, but progress has slowed to a crawl now that they’re pressing up against the maximum capacity the universe will allow in many fields.”

Erin was fascinated despite herself. If it was a hoax, at least it was a well-thought-out hoax.

Hansen finished the last of his sandwich, washed it down with a long drink of Coke, and continued. “Recently—at least in the scheme of things—our closest intelligent neighbors caught our transmissions and began to relay them to the other sixteen known intelligences. Now they are all aware there is an
eighteenth
intelligence in the stellar neighborhood—which is a
very
big deal. A species which still has quite a ways to go before reaching the level of technology of galactic civilization. They’d like to welcome us into the galactic community. But they became alarmed upon viewing our transmissions.”

“They didn’t view any of our reality TV, did they?” said Erin with mock seriousness. “That would alarm
any
intelligence.”

Hansen laughed. “I sure hope not. The good news is that they do recognize fiction from nonfiction. Although I’m not sure how they would classify reality television. But anyway, even after factoring out the endless violence and destruction we tend to depict in fiction, we’re the most violent, troubled species they have yet run across. Capable of atrocities the other species can barely comprehend. Mass genocides, tortures, and unspeakable cruelty. They find us gifted, but brutal.”

“So they’ve matured beyond this stage?”

“I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that none of them were ever
at
this stage. Evolution can work through competition, but it can work through cooperation also. Take a beehive. Total cooperation, and they’ve done brilliantly in the scheme of evolution. Most species have a mix of brutal, survival-of-the-fittest competition, and good-for-the-long-term-survival-of-the-entire-species-and-its-genes cooperation. We’re apparently much closer to the survival-of-the-fittest side of the ledger than the other seventeen intelligent species.”

Erin digested this statement but didn’t respond. She swallowed the last of her sandwich, not taking her eyes from the man across from her.

“But here’s the thing,” continued Hansen. “The Seventeen…” He paused. “That’s what I call them: the Seventeen. I don’t know why, but I feel a little ridiculous calling them Galactics or anything similar. The Seventeen have computers that are millions of times more powerful than ours. And their computers have predicted a ninety-two percent probability that we’ll destroy ourselves.”

Erin nodded. She could have told him that.

“Intelligence is rare in the galaxy. They would love for us to mature enough to join the galactic community. And they would hate for us to self-destruct.”

Erin’s eyes widened as her agile mind leaped ahead. She suddenly had a very good idea where this Kyle Hansen was headed. But she decided to let him get there in his own time.

“The problem is that they can’t do much to stop us from committing suicide. Interstellar distances are interstellar distances, and the speed of light is even more of a bitch to get around than we all thought. The Seventeen can travel at a good fraction of the speed of light, but that’s it. Even a ship from Suran would take several hundred years to arrive. This being said, their scientists have made a breakthrough allowing them to bypass the speed of light. But at a monumental cost in energy and resources. Their equivalent of the
Apollo
project just to send a single citizen here through a singularity. Requiring the equivalent of the entire energy output of their star for several years.”

“So you’re suggesting they mounted this
Apollo
project and sent Drake?”

“Right. They were convinced if they arrived by slow-boat it would be too late.”

“And this community of seventeen species, they only sent a single, um … Wrap?”

“Yes. Wraps are the unofficial leaders of the Seventeen. The species who has probably contributed the most to the group. And Suran is relatively close to Earth, at least compared to the home planets of most of the Seventeen. Most importantly, Wraps are one of the closest matches to us physically.”

“Okay. So Drake was sent here, defying the laws of physics, sucking up a substantial amount of resources from an entire civilization, just to save us from ourselves. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“That’s right. The Seventeen weren’t positive humanity’s self-destructive tendencies could be reigned in, but if there was an answer, Drake was sent here to find it.”

A slight smile played over Erin’s lips. The moment of truth had finally arrived. If it really was truth, that is. “Let me guess. Drake determined that the answer was finding a cure for psychopathy? Am I right?”

“Yes. With the help of a quantum computer he brought with him. That’s what did the seamless conversion of Drake’s face into Hugh Raborn’s. Its capabilities are truly astonishing.”

“Quantum computer. Sounds fancy, but I know nothing about computers.”

“Then I won’t waste my breath explaining it to you. It works on principles of quantum physics that are far from intuitive, and far different from the principles governing computing today. And orders of magnitude more powerful. We’ve been working on them for decades, but haven’t gotten very far. And this computer has calculated that a cure for psychopathy would reduce our chances of self-destruction by a considerable amount, making it almost certain we could take our place in this galactic community in a few hundred years. When Wraps and others are finally able to reach us.”

“If it takes hundreds of years for one ship to reach us, how does that constitute a community? Of Galactics, or Seventeens, or whatever you want to call them? Unless you like playing chess through the mail, making a single move every few centuries.”

“First, while they can’t routinely travel faster than light, they
have
cracked faster-than-light communication. Using the same type of technology that made the quantum computer possible. Although Drake hasn’t spent the time or resources building such a transmitter, which is a daunting challenge using only current human technology, eventually he will, and can report back. If he is successful in saving us from ourselves, all seventeen known civilizations will send ships here to our solar system, the farthest away not reaching us for several thousand years. Each of the Seventeen now have sixteen of these ships in their systems. So each member of the Seventeen has a full intergalactic community orbiting its star. It really is the only way to make it happen.”

Erin had a blank look on her face. “I must be missing something.”

Hansen flashed a sheepish smile. “If you are, that just means I’m not explaining it well. I’ve already come to the conclusion that you don’t miss anything.”

Inexplicably, Erin found herself responding warmly to the compliment.

“The ships are interstellar arks,” clarified Hansen. “We’ve imagined ships like these for many decades, but they’ve put them into practice. Basically you just hollow out an asteroid and turn it into a mini planet—but one you can drive through space like a ship. You can fit millions, or even hundreds of millions of people very comfortably inside a hollowed-out asteroid far, far smaller even than our moon. Imagine a sphere only twenty miles in diameter. If you layered the inside like an onion, or honeycombed it, the total surface area available inside would be staggering. And that’s for a ship only twenty miles in diameter. Ships like these that transport huge populations over hundreds of years are called generation ships, or interstellar arks. The aliens who sign on are committing themselves and their offspring for all eternity to live in a foreign solar system. But this is the only way to achieve cross-cultural exchange, given the distances involved.”

Erin realized that her mind was now officially blown. This Kyle Hansen was so convincing. His description of this galactic society was so well-reasoned, and held together so well. It was mesmerizing to imagine, and she found herself hoping it was true. But she had to remind herself that just because she wished it were true didn’t necessarily make it so. Science fiction and fantasy writers had fabricated societies that were every bit as complex and well-reasoned as this, and which were incredibly rich in detail.

Hansen’s phone vibrated but he ignored it, his total focus on Erin not wavering for an instant. A fraction of her mind noted this with approval. So many people these days couldn’t possibly resist glancing at their phones to see what was coming in, no matter what the circumstances. There were a few people Erin knew who would check a ringing phone even if they were on fire at the time.

Erin stared into Hansen’s expressive blue eyes, which continued to be alive with an easy intelligence. “Let me make sure I understand,” she said. “So now you have seventeen species living together, in each of seventeen different solar systems. Basically each species flying heavily populated mini planets to sixteen different neighborhoods. And they all live in perfect harmony?” she said, a note of skepticism in her voice.

“Great question. Again, I’m not the expert. But it’s my understanding that although these alien species are all much more peaceful and cooperative than humans, it isn’t a perfect world. Or a perfect galaxy in this case. So the answer is no. Two of the seventeen keep almost entirely to themselves. They send out generation ships, but with only thousands, not millions of inhabitants. And they have almost no interaction with other species. Almost as if they’re just making sure to have an observation post on the outskirts of civilization, keeping tabs. Some species hit it off with each other like humans and dogs, becoming fast friends, inseparable. Other pairings have an instinctive aversion to each other. Either due to their respective appearances, or to minds that are so incompatibly alien to each other there is instant hatred and combustion whenever they meet. There are a number of cases in which culture A is friends with B. And B is friends with C. But A and C haven’t interacted at all in a hundred thousand years.”

There was almost a minute of silence as Erin digested the enormity of seventeen civilizations living together in seventeen regions of the galaxy.

“All of this is fascinating,” she said finally. “Incredible. Very thought-provoking for someone who has studied psychology and sociology. So even if it isn’t true, hats off to you for a stunning vision of cross-culturalism in a galaxy with a prohibitive speed limit.”