Tears in Rain (6 page)

Madrid, January 19, 2109, 13:10
Good afternoon, Yiannis

IF YOU ARE NOT YIANNIS LIBEROPOULOS,
CENTRAL ARCHIVIST FT711, QUIT
THESE PAGES IMMEDIATELY

ACCESS STRICTLY LIMITED
AUTHORIZED EDITORS ONLY

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE
PUNISHABLE BY IMPRISONMENT UP TO
A MAXIMUM OF TWENTY YEARS

Teleportation

Keywords: history of science, TP disorder, Cosmos Fever, Robot Wars, Day One, Other Beings, Human Peace, Global Agreements of Cassiopeia, sentient beings.

#422-222

Entry being edited

Teleportation or teletransportation (TP) is one of humankind’s oldest dreams. Although quantum teleportation had been attempted in the twentieth century, the first significant experiment took place in 2006, when Professor
Eugene Polzik,
of the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, succeeded in teleporting a tiny, but macroscopic, object a distance of eighteen inches using light as the means of transmission of information about the object. It was not until 2067, however, with the discovery of the unsuspected light-boosting attributes of
astatine
—an extremely rare element on Earth but relatively abundant in the mines on Titan—that teleportation took a giant leap forward. In 2073, thanks to so-called
dense light
, capable of transporting 100,000 times more information in a manner that is 100,000 times more stable than
laser light
, Professor
Darling Oumou Koité
was teleported—or TP’d, as they say today—from Bamako (Mali) to Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. It was the first time that a human had been TP’d across outer space.

As of that moment a genuine frenzy of exploration and conquest of the universe by the nations of Earth was unleashed. Given that teleportation eliminated distances and traveling a mile was thus no different from traveling a million miles, Earth’s governing bodies became
locked in a race to colonize remote planets and exploit their resources. This was referred to as
Cosmos Fever
and became one of the principal triggers for the
Robot Wars
, which devastated Earth from 2079 to 2090. Teleportation was always prohibitively expensive, and for this reason it was general practice to TP exploration teams of no more than two or three people. Given that credible information was available for scarcely a few hundred planets with colonizing potential, it was not unknown for envoys from various countries to coincide at a particular target, either by chance or as a result of espionage, often resulting in violence. Numerous explorers died in combat or were assassinated, and the ongoing recurrence of diplomatic incidents heightened tensions worldwide. As the better-known destinations were seized or converted into bitterly disputed territories, the powers of Earth began to take more and more risks and to send their explorers to ever more remote and obscure places, which increased exponentially the already high loss of life among those being teleported. In 2080, the last year of Cosmos Fever, 98 percent of the explorers from Earth died (about 8,200 individuals, almost all of them technohumans). The majority of them simply disappeared during the transfer
, perhaps disintegrating through error
in deep intergalactic space, perhaps instantly volatilized while being TP’d to an unexpectedly fiery planet
.

By that stage, something that the scientists and governments had known since the earliest days of this technology had become public knowledge: teletransportation is an atomically imperfect process that can have grave side effects. This is a consequence of the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
, according to which not all the characteristics of a particle can be measured accurately. The very act of teleportation subjects particles to infinitesimal but essential changes. This means that any teleported organism experiences microscopic alterations; thus, what is reconstructed at its destination is not exactly the same as the original subject. Normally these alterations are minimal, subatomic, and imperceptible, but in a significant number of cases, the changes are important and dangerous: eyes moved to cheeks, defective lungs, hands without fingers, and even skulls lacking brains. This destructive effect of teleportation is referred to as
TP disorder
, and those individuals afflicted by visible deformities are colloquially known as
mutants
. It has, moreover, been established that repeated instances of teletransportation inevitably lead to organic harm. The likelihood of suffering a serious TP
disorder increases exponentially with each transfer, reaching 100 percent as of the eleventh TP. The
Global Agreements of Cassiopeia
(2096) are currently in force, and these restrict to six the number of times living things (humans, technohumans,
Other Beings
, and animals) can be TP’d during their life span.

The risks involved in transfers, the deaths and numerous disappearances of explorers, the prohibitive costs, and the beginning of the Robot Wars all combined to put an end to Cosmos Fever and to the enthusiasm for teleportation. As of 2081, TP was used solely to support the exploitation of the distant planet Potosí, the only heavenly body beyond the solar system discovered during Cosmos Fever whose resources proved sufficiently profitable to develop a mining industry. In the early years, ownership of Potosí was shared by the European Union, China, and the American Federation. Post-Unification, it belongs to the United States of the Earth, although the most productive mines have been sold to the
Kingdom of Labari
and the
Democratic State of Cosmos
.

The first documented encounter between human beings from Earth and Other Beings, or ETBs (extraterrestrial beings), took place on May 3, 2090, a date thereafter known as
Day One
. On that day an alien spaceship landed on the Chinese sector
of the mining colony of Potosí. Inside it were
Gnés
explorers, a people from the planet
Gnío
, close to Potosí; both planets circle the star Fomalhaut. Their ship was very fast and very advanced technically, although their displacement method was conventional and they traveled at well below the speed of light. They knew nothing of physical teleportation but had developed an ultrasonic means of communication supported by light beams, and capable of reaching phenomenal distances in record time. Thanks to such messages, or
telegnés
, the Gnés had established nonvisual contact with two other remote extraterrestrial civilizations, the
Omaás
and the
Balabís
. We humans had ceased to be alone in the universe.

The impact of such a remarkable discovery was absolute. Three days later
Human Peace
was signed, thereby ending the Robot Wars. Though the accord was undoubtedly deemed to have been driven by the fear the extraterrestrials inspired in the inhabitants of our planet
(the very name—Human Peace–almost suggests a desire to highlight the unity of this species against the aliens),
a positive feeling of community began to develop over the few short years leading into the Unification process and the creation of the United States of the Earth in 2098. At the same time, contact was
established with the three ETB civilizations, and there is no doubt that the existence of teleportation was the most significant factor enabling a genuine political and cultural exchange among the four worlds: for the first time, everyone could meet face-to-face. There were studies, reports, the intensive training of translators, negotiations, pre-agreements, emissaries being TP’d, myriad telegnés crisscrossing the galaxies, and frantic diplomatic activity throughout the universe. It soon became clear that the four species were in no way competing against one another and posed no threat to one another. Their home planets were vast distances apart, and teletransportation was equally harmful to all of them. The grandeur of the cosmos seemed somehow to encourage human nobility, and the talks advanced rapidly and harmoniously, culminating in the Global Agreements of Cassiopeia in 2096, the first interstellar treaty in history. The agreements regulate the patenting and use of technologies
(for example, we buy the Gnés’ telegnés, and they buy teleportation from us, but both the intellectual property and the rights to exploitation belong exclusively to the civilization that developed the particular invention)
, the exchange of goods, the type of currency, the use of teletransportation, terms of migration,
etc. Faced with the need to coin a word that would define our new partners in the universe and identify us with them, the term
sentient beings
, an expression borrowed from the Buddhist tradition, was agreed to. The sentients (
G’nayam
in Gnés,
Laluala
in Balabí,
Amoa
in Omaánese) constitute a new level in the taxonomy of living things. If, up to that point, human beings had belonged to the kingdom
Animalia
, the phylum
Cordata
, the class
Mammalia
, the order
Primates
, the family
Hominidae
, the genus
Homo
and the species
Homo sapiens
, after the agreements a new rank was added—the line
Sintiente
, located between class and order—because, curiously, all extraterrestrials appear to be mammals and to have hair of one sort or another.

Although teleportation has enabled the four civilizations to exchange ambassadors, it is not very common to see an alien in person. In total, there are fewer than twenty thousand aliens on our planet, a tiny number compared with the four billion citizens of Earth, known as Earthlings. Each diplomatic delegation consists of three thousand individuals, spread across the most important cities in the USE. There are also about ten thousand Omaás, who TP’d to Earth fleeing from a religious war on their own planet. That said, their unusual looks
are extremely well known to all, thanks to the images screened on the news. The official name for extraterrestrials is
Other Beings
, but they are commonly referred to as
bichos
,
or creeps
.

“I
found this on my desk two days ago,” said Myriam Chi.

She leaned forward and handed Bruna a small holograph ball. Bruna held it in her palm and pressed the button. Immediately, a three-dimensional image of the RRM leader formed on her hand. It was no more than four inches tall, but it clearly showed Myriam in her entirety, smiling and waving. Suddenly, from nowhere, a minuscule hand appeared holding a knife, and the blade, enormous by comparison, slit the rep’s belly from top to bottom and, using the tip of the weapon as a lever, skillfully extracted her intestines. Her guts spilled out and the hologram switched off. That was it, but it was more than enough.