2011's Best Science Fiction by Anthology

Author:Anthology
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: St. Martin’s griffin
Published: 2012-07-26T15:34:46+00:00

A Response from EST17

TOM PURDOM

Here’s an ingenious First Contact scenario, told mostly from the perspective of the aliens being contacted, as two competing probes from Earth enter into a complicated and ultimately dangerously confrontational series of negotiations with the natives as to whom they’re going to be in contact with, negotiations which may eventually determine the future survival of both the alien civilization and of Terran civilization itself.

Tom Purdom made his first sale in 1957, to Fantastic Universe, and has subsequently sold to Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Star, and most of the major magazines and anthologies. In recent years, he’s become a frequent contributor to Asimov’s Science Fiction. He is the author of one of the most unfairly forgotten SF novels of the 1960s, the powerful and still-timely Reduction in Arms, about the difficulties of disarmament in the face of the mad proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as such novels as I Want the Stars, The Tree Lord of Imeten, Five Against Arlane, and The Barons of Behavior. Purdom lives in Philadelphia, where he reviews classical music concerts for a local newspaper. Many of his short works have recently been made available at the Barnes & Noble Nookstore, Amazon’s Kindle store, and through Fictionwise.

The Betzino-Resdell Exploration Community received its first message from Trans Cultural 5.23 seconds after it settled into orbit around the planet designated Extra-Solar Terranoid 17.

“I am the official representative of the Trans-Cultural Institute for Multi-Disciplinary and Extra-Disciplinary Interstellar Exploration and Study,” Trans Cultural radioed. “I represent a consortium of seventy-three political entities and two hundred and seventy-three academic, research, and cultural institutions located in every region of the Earth. You are hereby requested to refrain from direct contact with the surface of Extra-Solar Terranoid 17. My own contact devices have already initiated exploration of the planet. You will be granted access to my findings.”

The eighteen programs included in the Betzino-Resdell Community were called “alters”—as in “alter-ego” or “alternate personality”—but they were not self-aware. They were merely complicated, incredibly dense arrangements of circuits and switches, like every machine intelligence the human species had ever created. But they had been sponsored by seven different sets of shareholders and they had been shaped by the goals and personalities of their sponsors. They spent the first 7.62 seconds after their arrival testing the three copies of each program stored in their files so they could determine which copies had survived the journey in the best shape and should be activated. Then they turned their attention to the message from Trans Cultural.

Betzino and Resdell had been the primary sponsors of the expedition. Their electronic simulations controlled 60 of the 95 votes distributed among the community. Their vote to reject the demand settled the matter. But the other five concurred. The only no vote came from the group of alters tasked to study non-human sexuality. One member of that group cast one vote each way.

22.48 seconds after its arrival, the Betzino-Resdell Exploration Community initiated its exploration routine. The programs housed in Trans Cultural noted that Betzino-Resdell had failed to comply with their orders.

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