The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model by Charlie Jane Anders Read Free Book Online Page A

Most likely, they had a small Closure, kept making Culture, then had a final Closure afterwards. The second one may not have been radioactive. It could have been biological, or climate-based. It doesn’t matter. They all end the same way.”
    At least Jon had the decency to let Toku finish voiding her stomachs and snarling at Instigator’s attempts at aromatherapy before he started bombarding her with data. “Hey love,” Jon said. “Boy, those two thousand years flew by, huh? The time between new civilizations is getting longer and longer. Makes you wonder if the Great Expedient is almost over.”
    “Just tell me the score,” Toku grumbled.
    “Well,” Jon said. “We know they were bipedal, like us. They had separate holes for breathing and food consumption, in a big appendage over their bodies. And they had a bunch of languages, which we’re still trying to decipher. We’ve identified manufactured debris orbiting their world, which is always a nice sign. And, uh… we think they might have survived.”
    “What?” Toku jumped to her feet and lurched over, still queasy, to look over Jon’s shoulder at his globe. “That doesn’t happen.”
    “That’s what I said. So what do we do? The Over-nest says not to approach if we think there’s a living culture, right? On the other hand, it might be even longer than two millennia before we find the next civilization.”
    “Let me worry about that,” Toku said, sucking in some energizing flavors and slowly straightening up her beautifully round frame. Her speaking tentacles knotted around her feed-holes. “I think we assume they didn’t survive. It’s like you said: They probably held on for a little while, then finished up.”
    Space travel being what it was, Jon and Toku had months to debate this conclusion before they reached this planet, which was of course called Earth. (These civilizations almost always called their homeworlds “Earth.”) For two of those months, Instigator mistakenly believed that the planet’s main language was something called Espanhua, before figuring out those were two different languages: Spanish and Mandarin.
    “It all checks out,” Toku insisted. “They’re ultra-violent, sex-crazed and leader-focused. In other words, the same as all the others. There’s absolutely no way.”
    Jon did not point out that Toku and he had just spent the past two days having sex in his chamber. Maybe that didn’t make them sex-crazed, just affectionate.
    “I’m telling you, boss,” Jon said. “We’re seeing culture that references the Closure as a historical event.”
    “That does not happen.” Toku cradled all her marrows.
    There was only one way to settle it. Weeks later, they lurched into realspace and settled into orbit around Earth.
    “So?” Toku leaned over Jon and breathed down his back, the way he hated. “What have we got?”
    “Looking.” Jon hunched over the globe. “Tons of lovely metal, some of it even still in orbit. Definitely plenty of radioactivity. You could warm up a lovebarb in seconds.” Then he remembered Toku didn’t like that kind of language, even during sex, and quickly moved on. “I can see ruined cities down there, and… oh.”
    He double- and triple-checked to make sure he wasn’t looking at historical impressions or fever-traces.
    “Yeah, there are definitely still electromagnetic impulses,” said Jon. “And people. There’s one big settlement on that big island. Or small continent.” He gestured at a land mass, which was unfortunately lovebarb-shaped and might remind Toku of his dirty talk a moment earlier.
    Toku stared as Jon zoomed in the visual. There was one spire, like a giant worship-spike, with millions of lights glowing on it. A single structure holding a city full of people, with a tip that glowed brighter than the rest. These people were as hierarchical as all the others, so the tip was probably where the leader (or leaders) lived.
    “Options,” Toku said.
    Jon almost offered some