“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.”