N. K. Jemisin
EMERGENCY SKIN
You are our instrument.
Beautiful you. Everything that could be given to you to improve on the human design, you possess. Stronger muscles. Finer motor control. A mind unimpeded by the vagaries of organic dysfunction and bolstered by generations of high-intelligence breeding. Here is what you’ll look like when your time comes. Note the noble brow, the classical patrician features, the lean musculature, the long penis and thighs. That hair color is called “blond.” [Please reference: hair variations.] Are you not magnificent? Or you will be, someday. But first, you must earn your beauty.
We should begin with a briefing, since you’re now authorized for Information Level Secret. On its face, this mission is simple: return to the ruined planet Tellus, from which mankind originates. When our Founders realized the world was dying, they built the Muskos-Mercer Drive in secret. Then our ancestors bent the rules of light and fled to a new world circling another sun, so that something of humanity—the best of it—would survive. We’ll use the MMD, much improved by our technorati over the years, to return to that world. The journey, from your perspective, will take days. When you return, years will have passed. How brave you are to walk in your forefathers’ footsteps!
No, there’s no one left alive on Tellus. The planet was in full environmental collapse across every biome when our people left. There were just too many people, and too many of those were unfit, infirm, too old, or too young. Even the physically ideal ones were slow thinkers, timid spirits. There was not enough collective innovation or strength of will between them to solve the problems Tellus faced, and so we did the only merciful thing we could: we left them behind.
Of course that was mercy. Do you think your ancestors wanted to leave billions of people to starve and suffocate and drown? It was simply that our new home could support only a few.
Tellus is nearly a thousand light-years from home, meaning that the light we receive from that world is hundreds of years old. We cannot directly observe it in real time—but we knew the fate that awaited it. Tellus is by now a graveyard world. We expect that its seas have become acidic and barren, its atmosphere a choking mix of carbon dioxide and methane. Its rain cycle will have long since dried up. It will be terrible to walk through this graveyard, and dangerous. You’ll find toxic drowned cities, still-burning underground coal fires, melted-down nuclear plants. Yet the worst of it might be seeing our past greatness, on this world that was once so ideal. Mankind could build high into the sky, there where the gravity wasn’t as heavy. We could build all over the planet because it was not tidally locked. [Please reference: night.] Look at the names whenever you find them on buildings or debris. You’ll see the forebears of our Founder clans—all the great men who spent the last decades of that planet’s life amassing the resources and technology necessary to save the best of mankind. If for no other reason, this world should be honored because it nurtured them.
To ensure success, and your mental health during extended isolation, we have equipped you with ourselves—a dynamic-matrix consensus intelligence encapsulating the ideals and blessed rationality of our Founders. We are implanted in your mind and will travel with you everywhere. We are your companion, and your conscience. We will provide essential data about the planet as a survival aid. Via your composite, we can administer critical first aid as required. And should you suffer a composite breach or similar emergency, we are programmed to authorize adaptive action.
[Reference request denied.] You don’t need to know about that yet. Please focus, and limit your curiosity. All that matters is the mission.
You can’t fail. It’s too important. But rest assured: you have the best of us inside you, enveloping you, keeping you safe and true. You are not alone. You will prevail.
Are you awake? We’ve reached the outermost edges of the Sol system. Almost there.
Curious. Spectroscopy shows the space around Tellus as clear. It was clogged with debris when we left.
And stranger: no radio waves. Our home is too far away to detect any of the decades’ worth of audio and visual signals that our species once beamed into space—well, no, not really on purpose. It’s just that no one knew how not to do it. Once we worried that such signals would eventually alert hostile alien species to our presence… but that isn’t a problem anymore.
As we approached the system, we were bathed in those waves—music, entertainment programs, long-expired warnings and commands… No, we don’t advise listening. At this point it’s just noise pollution. But we expected the noise, spreading throughout the universe in an ever-expanding bubble that we suppose will be Tellus’s final epitaph. Silence in the bubble’s wake, of course; the silence of the tomb. But still not truly silent, because there were too many automated things on and around Tellus that should have survived for at least another millennium. For example, the satellites that should still be, and aren’t, in orbit.
Most curious.
Well. Astra inclinant, sed non obligant; while naturally we had certain expectations for how this mission would go, we aren’t infallible. That’s why we didn’t send a bot on this mission, after all; human beings are better than AI at handling the unexpected. You must simply be prepared for anything.
No, that isn’t right, atmospheric analysis can’t possibly be that far off our models. It’s far more likely that we caught some debris during the near-Saturn pass, which damaged the ship’s enhanced spectrometer. None of these readings make sense.
Please prepare for EVA and sensor repair. Adjusting your composite for deep-space radiation shielding. You wanted a better look at Saturn; now you’ll get to see it without the ship in the way.
This… cannot be.
That is movement. Those are lights. There should be clear signs of eco-collapse. It had already begun when the Founders left—but compare the geographic maps we have stored against what’s there now. See that branching line in the southwestern portion of the continent? That was, is, the Colorado River. The maps show that it was dry when our ancestors left. Millions died trying to migrate east and north to where there might be more water. Countless species went extinct. But there’s the river, flowing again.
That entire coastline should be gone. That state should be gone. That archipelago. The ice caps—here they are again. Different. New, but enough to reverse sea-level rise. How can this have happened?
[State: deprecated term for a geopolitical construct. No need to reference.]
Yes, you’re right. Many, many more than home. At home, we maintain only as many people as we can safely sustain: six thousand total, including servi and mercennarii. Here, there must be millions. Billions. The old pattern, too many people—and yet the air is clear. The seas are cleaner than when we left.
We don’t know.
We were not prepared for this eventuality. Please wait while we calculate a new consensus—
Yes, the mission is still paramount. Yes, we still require the target samples to formulate new—
Yes—
No, our world will not survive without those samples.
We advise delay and study.
“That entire coastline should be gone. That state should be gone.”
Certainly you may reject our advice, but—
Ah, but they bred you bold, didn’t they. Like the Founders, who would never have survived without the courage to be ruthless as well as sensible. Very well.
The people of Tellus will not be as beautifully ruthless as you. However they’ve survived, whatever fluke has worked in their favor, never forget their quintessential inferiority. They lacked the intelligence to choose rationality over sentiment. They weren’t willing to do what was necessary to survive. You are.