Insistence of Vision by David Brin
Story Notes
This story falls into the general category of “hard” science fiction, where the central issue is a technical or scientific question or possibility. SF can sometimes be used to illustrate such issues with delightful vividness and efficiency, doing more than just reiterating “eternal verities”!
In “An Ever-Reddening Glow,” the one strong, stylistic component is irony.
Indeed, look around yourself.
Clearly, irony is one of the heaviest elements in the universe.
The following tale first appeared in the book Isaac’s Universe Volume One: The Diplomacy Guild, an anthology of stories set in the Erthumoi universe of Isaac Asimov, a special edition published in his honor. My tale – another think-piece – was intended to work out the implications of an idea. Still…
The Diplomacy Guild
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“I have heard it suggested that you humans undergo this queer obsession because you live so hot and fast. You sense time’s current at your backs, and so feel you must copy yourselves, in order to be two places at once.”
Phss’aah’s words flowed so musically from the translator grille that it was easy to lose the Cephallon philosopher’s meaning in the harmonies. Anyway, I had been distracted for a moment by the whining of my other guest, a miserable Crotonite huddled in the corner – a pathetic figure, whimpering and uselessly flexing broken stubs that had once been powerful wings.
One more burdensome responsibility. I cursed fate and my boss’s meddling for saddling me with the creature – cruelly scorned by its own kind, and yet Ambassador Plenipotentiary from a powerful interstellar race.
Phss’aah’s words shook me from perusing my newest guest. I turned back to the huge tank taking up half the ship’s Visitor Suite, where a vaguely porpoise-like form flailed oxygen-rich water into a froth.
“I’m sorry...” and I made the wet sound approximating Phss’aah’s name as near as a descendant of Earth humans could form it. “I didn’t quite catch that last remark.”
Bubbles rose from the Cephallon’s twin exhalation slits, and now I read what might be mild exasperation in the flex of his long snout. Instead of repeating himself, Phss’aah waved a four fingered flipper-arm toward the aqua-bot that shared his tank. The bulbous machine planted a sucker on the glassy wall and spoke in its owner’s stead.
“I believe Master Phss’aah is proposing a hypothesis as to why humans – you Erthuma – were the only one of the Six Starfaring Races to invent true autonomous robots. He suggests it is because you have such short natural lifespans. Being ambitious, your race sought ways to extend itself artificially. In order to be many places at once, they put much of themselves into their machines.”
I shook my head. “But our lives aren’t any shorter than Locrians, or Nexians...”
“Correction,” the robot interrupted. “You are counting up an individual’s sum span of years, including all of his or her consecutive natural lifetimes. You’ve had four renewals, Ambassador Dorning, totaling three hundred and four standard Earth years.
“But my master apparently thinks your Erthumoi worldview is still colored by the way existence was for you during the ages leading to High Civilization. In any event, your race invented artificially intelligent constructs like me well before learning how to Renew.”
The machine – and Phss’aah – did have a point. Not for the first time I tried to imagine what it must have been like for my ancestors, facing certain death after only a single span of less than nine standard decades. Why, at my first Renewal, I was still barely formed... an infant! I’d only completed one profession by then.
How strange that most humans, back in olden times, became parents as early as thirty years of age. In most modern nations of the modern Galactic Erthuma, you weren’t even supposed to think about breeding until the middle of your second life.
All this time Phss’aah watched me through the glass with one eye, milky blue and inscrutable. I almost regretted the human-invented technology that enabled the Cephallon to use his robot mouthpiece as yet another veil to shelter behind. Though, of course, getting Phss’aah to rely on this fancy assistant-drone was actually quite a coup. The idea was to sell large numbers of such machines to the water race, and then each of the other Big Five, so they’d get used to what some called the “bizarre Erthumoi notion” of intelligent devices... robots. Frankly, we newcomer humans could use the trade credits.
“Hmm.” I answered cautiously. “But the Crotonites –” I nodded toward my unwanted guest in the corner. “– have even shorter lifespans than natural, old style humans, and they don’t renew! Why then, didn’t they invent robots? It’s not for lack of skill with machines. They’re more nimble than anyone, with unsurpassed craftsmanship. And Space knows they have easily as much ambition as anyone.”
The Cephallon surfaced to breathe, and returned trailing bubbles. When he spoke, the wall unit conveyed an Erthumoi translation, this time bypassing the robot.
“You reply logically and well for one of your kind. Certainly you and the Crotonites share the quick metabolisms characteristic of breathers of supercharged oxygen atmospheres. They, however, are oviparous flyers, while you are descended from arboreal mammals. Mammals are gregarious...”
“Some mammals.”
“Indeed.” And some of Phss’aah’s irritation briefly showed. Cephallons do not like being interrupted while pontificating. That was exactly why I did it.
Diplomacy is such a delicate business.
“Perhaps another reason you invented intelligent machines was because –”
This time the interruption wasn’t my fault. The door behind me hissed open and my own secretary ‘bot hovered into the Guest Suite.
“Yes, Betty, what is it?” I asked.
“Messages received,” she said tersely. “High priority, from Erthuma Diplomatic Guild, Long-Last Station.”
Oblong, suspended in a cradle of invisible force, the machine looked nothing like her namesake, my most recent demi-wife on Long-Last. But, as it was imprinted with her voice and twenty of her personality engrams, this was a device one had to think of as possessing gender, and even a minimal right to courtesy. “Thank you,” I told the auto-sec. “I’ll be right up.”
Assuming dismissal, Betty turned and departed. From the corner of the suite, the Crotonite lifted his head and watched the machine briefly. Something in those cat-like eyes seemed to track it as a hunter might follow prey. But this Crot wasn’t going to be chasing flitting airborne victims above the forests of any thick-aired world. Never again. Where once he had carried great, tent-like wings, powerfully muscled and heavier than his torso, now the short, deep-chested being wore mere nubs – scarred from recent amputation.
The Crotonite noticed my look, and snarled fiercely. “Plant-eating grub! Turn away your half-blind, squinty orbs. You have no status to cast them on my shame!”
That was in Crotonoi, of course. Few Erthumoi would have understood so rapid and slurred an alien diatribe. But my talents and training had won me this post. Cursed talents. Double cursed training!
By my own species’ standards of politeness I’d have accepted the rebuke and turned away, respecting his privacy. Instead, I snapped right back in my own language.
“You dare throw insults at me? You who are broken and wingless and shall never again fly? You who shame your race by neglecting the purpose for which you were cast down? Here, try doing this!”
I flexed my strong legs and bounded high in the half gravity of the Guest Suite. The cripple, of course, could not manage it with his puny legs. I landed facing him.
“You’re a diplomat, Jirata. You won your fallen state by being better than your peers, the first so chosen for a bold new experiment. Your job is now to try something new to your folk... to empathize with ground-walking life forms like me, and even swimming forms like Phss’aah. To make that effort, you were assigned to me, a burden I did not ask for, nor welcome. Nor do I predict success.
“S
“Try, Jirata. Just try, and the least you’ll win is that I, personally, will stop being cruel to you.”
The Crotonite looked away, but I could tell he was struggling with a deep perplexity.
“Why should you stop being cruel?” he asked. “You have every advantage.”
I sighed. This was going to take time.
“Because I’d rather like you than hate you, Jirata. And if you don’t understand that, consider this. Your job is to investigate a new mode of diplomacy for your people. Empathy is what you must discover to succeed. So while I’m away, why not converse with Phss’aah? I’m sure he’ll be patient with you. He doesn’t know how to be anything else.”
That was untrue of course. Phss’aah gave me a look of exasperation at this unwelcome assignment. For his part, Jirata glanced at the Cephallon, floating in all that water, and let out a keening of sheer disgust.
I left the room.
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“Actually, there are two messages of Red Priority,” Captain Smeet told me. She handed over a pair of decoded flimsies. I thanked her, went to the privacy corner of the ship’s bridge, and laid the first of the shimmering, gauzy message films over my head. Immediately, the gossamer fabric wrapped my face, covering eyes and ears, leaving only my nostrils free. It began vibrating and, after a momentary blurriness, sight and sound enveloped me.
My boss – the slave driver whose faith in my abilities was anything but reassuring – looked across his desk. He seemed to feel there was no end to the number of tasks I could take on at once.
“Patty,” he said. “Sorry about dumping the Crotonite on you. He’s part of an experimental program initiated by the Seven Sovereigns’ League. You’ll recall that particular Crotoni confederacy suffered rather badly for bungling the negotiations at Maioplar, fifty years ago. In desperation, they’re trying something radical to revise their way of dealing with other races. I guess they’re testing it on us Erthuma because we’re the least influential of the Six. If it flops, our opinion won’t matter much.
“In answer to your last query – I have no idea if the Seven Sovereigns cleared this with the other Crotonite nation-states, or if they’re doing it on their own. Crot intra-race politics is such a tangle, who can tell? That’s why the Diplomacy Guild decided to farm out Jirata and the others like him to our roving emissaries. Try to figure out what’s going on, far away from media and the like. I’m sure you understand.”
“Right, Maxwell.” I gave a very un-ladylike snort. Back on Long-Last, Betty used to chastise me for that. But I never heard any of our husbands complain.
“Excellent, Patty,” he went on, as if he was sure my reaction would be complete enthusiasm. “Who knows, maybe the League’s idea of using crippled bats as envoys may work, so let’s put it on high priority, okay?”
“As high as preventing a break in the Essential Protocols?” I muttered. But I knew the answer.
“Of course, nothing is to stand in the way of getting King Zardee to toe the line on replicants. If he gives you any trouble, just tell that freon-blooded son of a b–”
I’d heard enough and ripped the flimsy off. It instantly began dissolving into inert gas.
“Orders, madam?” Captain Smeet looked at me coolly, expectantly.
“Proceed to Planet Nine of this system, and please beam to King Zardee that I’ll wait no longer for him to prepare for my arrival. If he plans to shoot us out of the sky, let him do so and live with the consequences.”
Smeet nodded. I could have asked her to take me wet-diving in the nearby sun of Prongee System and she’d have found a way to do it, keeping her opinion of crazy diplomats to herself. That was more than I sometimes was able to do, after listening to Maxwell for a while.
Why success followed that awful old man around so, I could never understand.
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An angry visage greeted me, glaring out of the communications tank. I had been sent on this mission because, among all the different styles of government used by various Erthumoi nation-worlds, royal-inheritance domains were among the quirkiest, and I had the most experience in our sector dealing with arrogant creatures known as kings.
Some were smooth. But this one actually reminded me of Jirata as he growled. “We are not accustomed to being made to wait,” he said as I stepped into the Communications Lounge. Ignoring the remark, I curtsied in the manner customary for women in his commonwealth.
“Your majesty would not have liked to see me dressed as I was when you called. It took a few moments to make myself presentable.”
Zardee grunted. I felt his eyes survey me like a piece of real estate, and recognized covetousness in them. I always find it amazing how many Erthumoi societies left their males with these unaltered, visually stimulated lust patterns. And Zardee was nearly eight hundred standard years old!
Never mind. I’d use whatever chinks in his armor I could find.
“I accept your apology,” he said in a softer tone. “And I must offer my regrets in turn for keeping such a comely and accomplished lady waiting at the boundary. I now invite you to join me on my yacht for some refreshment and entertainment I’m sure you’ll find distracting.”
“You are most gracious, Your Majesty. However, first I really must inspect your mining establishment on the ninth planet of this system.”
His visage transformed once more to anger, and again I felt astonishment this system’s folk put up with such a monarch. The attractions of kingship are well documented, but sentimental indulgence can become an illness if it isn’t looked to.
“There’s nothing on my mining world of interest to the Diplomacy Guild!” he snapped. “You have no authority to force yourself upon me!”
This from a fellow so atavistic, I had no doubt he would chain me to a bed in his seraglio, were it in his power. I kept my amusement to myself. “I’m sure, Your Majesty, that you wouldn’t want it to get out among your Erthumoi and Nexian neighbors that you have something to hide...”
“All kingdoms and sovereign worlds have secrets, foolish woman. I have a right to keep vital security information from the prying eyes of outsiders.”
I nodded. “But not when those secrets violate the Essential Protocols of the Erthuma. Or is it your intention to join the Outlaw Worlds, foregoing the services of my Guild?”
For a moment it looked as if he might declare just such intentions. But he stopped. Commercial repercussions would be catastrophic. That step might push his people too far.
“The Essential Protocols don’t cover much,” he said, slowly. “My subjects have access to Erthumoi ombudsmen. I vet my treaties past Guild lawyers, and my ship captains report to the Guild on activities observed among the Other Five races. That is all that’s required of me.”
“You are forgetting Article Six of the Protocols,” I said.
Blinking, Zardee spoke slowly. “Exactly what do you accuse me of, Ambassador?”
I shrugged. “Such a strong word. There are rumors, Majesty... that someone is violating the rule against creating fully autonomous replicants.”
His face reddened three shades. I did not need a Nexian’s insight or Cephallon’s empathy to tell I’d struck home. At the same time though, it was not guilt I read in the monarch’s eyes, but rather something akin to shame. I found the reaction most interesting.
“I’ll rendezvous with your ship above the ninth planet,” he said tersely, and cut the channel. No doubt Captain Smeet and the king’s captain were already exchanging coordinates by the time I departed the lounge and headed for the Guest Suite, to see how things were progressing there.
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I shouldn’t have expected miracles from Phss’aah. After all, Jirata the Crotonite was my responsibility, not his. But, at least, I might have hoped for tact from a Cephallon diplomat. Instead, I returned to find
“... so unlike the other Starfaring Races, we Cephallons find this human innovation of articulate, intelligent machines useful and fascinating, even if it is also puzzling and bizarre. Take your own case, Jirata. Would not a loyal mechanical surrogate be of use to one such as you, especially in your present condition? Helping you fend for...”
Phss’aah noticed my return and interrupted his monologue. “Ah, Patty. You have returned. I was just explaining to our comrade here how useful it is to have machines able to anticipate your requirements, and of repairing and maintaining themselves. Even the Crotonites’ marvelous, intricate devices, hand-made and unique, lack that capability.”
“We do not need it!” Jirata spat. “A machine should be elegant, light, compact, efficient. It should be a thing of beauty and craftsmanship! Pah! What pride can a human have in such a monster as a robot? Why, I hear they even allow the things to design and build more robots, which build still others! What can come about when an engineer lets his creations pass beyond personal control?”
I felt an eerie chill. Glad as I was that Jirata seemed, in his own style, to be emerging from his funk, I didn’t like the direction this conversation was headed.
“What about that, Patty?” Phss’aah asked, turning to face me. “I have consulted much Erthumoi literature having to do with man-created machine intelligence, and there runs through much of it a thread of warning. Philosophers speak of the very fear Jirata expressed... calling it the “Frankenstein Syndrome.” I do not know the origins of that term, but it has an apt sound for dread of destruction at the hands of one’s own creations.”
I nodded. “Fortunately, we Erthuma have a tradition of liking to frighten ourselves with scary stories, then finding ways to avoid the very scenario described. It’s called Warning Fiction, and historians now credit that art form with our species’ survival across the bomb-to-starship crisis time.”