“Open this,” Mei Ling insisted, forcing him to choose between the bowl and the largest box, that she thrust toward him. With a sigh, he put aside his meal and accepted the heavy thing, which was about the size and weight of his own head… maybe a bit longer. Bin started to pry at the corroded clasp, while Mei Ling picked up little Xiao En, to nurse the infant.
“It might be better to wait a bit and clean the box,” he commented. “Rather than breaking it just to look inside. The container, itself, may be worth-”
Abruptly, the wood split along a grainy seam with a splintering crack. Murky water spilled across his lap, followed by a bulky object, so smooth and slippery that it almost squirted out of his grasp.
“What is it, husband?” Mei Ling asked. “Another stone?”
Bin turned it over in his hands. The thing was heavy and hard, with a greenish tint, like pale jade. Though that could just be slime that clung to its surface even after wiping with a rag. A piece of real jade this big could bring a handsome price, especially already shaped into a pleasant contour-that of an elongated egg. So he kept rubbing and lifted it toward the horizontal shaft of sunbeams, in order to get a better look.
No, it isn’t jade, after all.
But disappointment slowly turned into wonder, as sunlight, striking the glossy surface seemed to sink into the glossy ovoid. Its surface darkened, as if it were drinking the beam greedily.
Mei Ling murmured in amazement… and then gasped as the stone changed color before their eyes…
… and then began to glow on its own.
MARCIA KHATAMI: We’re back. Before the break, we heard Professor Noozone-our favorite science-dazzler and gadfly-question some of the assumptions behind Project Golden Ear, the world’s greatest SETI program, headed by our other guest, Dr. Hannah Spearpath. Professor, you asserted, in your colorful rasta-way, that economics will play a crucial role in the decisions made even by advanced alien cultures. Wouldn’t superbeings be beyond such things as money?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Look true, them may come in many types! Some may be like supersocialist hive-dwellers, or solipsistic self-worshipping Ayndroids, or shi-shi foo-foo babylon-capitalists, or mistik-obeah wizards… or even hyper-elightened rastabeings, living inna smoke ring of sacred, loving yum-aromas. Diversity is grand, an’ who tell dere isms an’ skisms?
DR. SPEARPATH: What? Look, I knew you as an undergrad at Tulane. You spoke plain English before picking up this faux-Jamaican patois! So just spit it out, will you? Are you saying that every alien culture will have money?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Whatever system a superculture uses to govern itself, some things are dictated by simple physics. A pure beacon that continuously screams “hello!” in all directions, whole-heap, for centuries inna de morrows is just mind boggling-an’ surely more annoying to the neighbors than a tone-deaf steel drum band! Especially since dere be more efficient ways by far.
MARCIA KHATAMI: More efficient?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Long time back at the turn of the century, three white coolboys-Benford, Benford, and Benford-showed that any civilization wanting to transmit First Contact messages will do so periodically, not continuously. Dem use narrow, practical beams an’ shine briefly upon likely abodes of young-uplifting civilization, then move on to the next, spot-calling each one in turn, before returning to the start again, in a regular cycle. Sight? Seen?
DR. SPEARPATH: It’s called “pinging.” The famous WOW signal may have been a brief ping.
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: So right, mon. Simple calculations show-this approach use less than a millionth the energy of those garish beacons SETI looks for.
T’ink about it. If both teacher and de pupil be sifting the sky by hopping aroun’ with narrow beams, what dem odds that both the looker and transmitter will face each other, at exactly the same moment, iwa? That’s quattie, my ol’ girl-fren! Soon come, we won’t get anywhere!
MARCIA KHATAMI: What kind of search strategy would be better?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Searchers like Hannah assume we can seek narrowly while ET broadcasts broadly. It make more sense to seek broadly for mas-ET’s narrow messages.
DR. SPEARPATH: That method would need hundreds of radio telescopes, spread across the world, in order to cover the sky. Might I ask our showman “scientist,” who’d pay for such a vast array?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: (laughs) Hundreds? Oh my, thousands! So? Make dem cheap, bashy an’ trivial to use by lots of amateur science-bredren an’ sistren, corned-up all over this lovely globe! Each backyard dish will then patrol just one livicated strip of sky. Ah sey one. Networked, these home-units make the greatest telescope looking in all directions at once! Letting us spot brief signals from far civilizations… assuming upfull-wise aliens exist. But there also be an important, bashy-awesome side benefit.
MARCIA KHATAMI: What is that, Professor?
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Why… making it so-much harder for any badulu thing or any bakra tief to sneak up on us! Picture a planet where millions of amateurs have patient, robotic antennae in de backyards, gazing out. A stoosh network with no central control.
Want a benefit? No more creep-a-silly fables about badbwoy UFOs, bringin’ baldhead, ginnal phantoms to vank on good folks! No more UFO obeah stories? Bless up pon that! (laughs)
MARCIA KHATAMI: Well, Dr. Spearpath? What do you say about this notion, that we should replace the big, fancy telescopes run by your institute, with a worldwide network of amateur-owned dishes covering all the sky, all the time?
DR. SPEARPATH: Amusing. Our friends at the SETI League are trying to set up something like that. Too bad Profnoo’s scenario is based on one shaky assumption.
MARCIA KHATAMI: What assumption, Doctor?
DR. SPEARPATH: That advanced technological extraterrestrial civilizations will care about things like economics. Or “efficiency”!
PROFESSOR NOOZONE: Cha! It be no matter how advanced they are! Laws of physics rule. Even if they have a gorgon-big civilization, way-up at Kardashev Stage Three-able to utilize the full-up power of a galaxy! Even so, they’ll have priorities to balance. Whatever dem technology, dem will want to choose methods that accomplish goals without wasted…
DR. SPEARPATH: “Efficiency” is a contemporary notion, assuming that society consists of diverse interest groups, each with conflicting priorities. Today, the poor have less influence than the rich, but they still have some. Under these conditions, I agree, even the mighty must negotiate and balance goals, satisfying as many as possible. But your assumption that this applies elsewhere is spatio-temporal chauvinism! Not even all human civilizations were like that. I can think of several that engaged in gigantic projects, without any care about efficiency.