Space. Stephen Baxter

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      He raised his head so he couldn’t see the ground or the buildings, and he turned around and around, as he used to as a kid, on the darkest Moonless nights back home.

      The stars, of course: thousands of them, peppering the sky all around him, crowding out the bright-star constellations seen from Earth. And now, at last, came that elusive feeling of immensity. From the Moon it was much easier to see that he was just a mote clinging to a round ball of rock, spinning endlessly in an infinite, three-dimensional starry sky.

      ‘Look.’ Nemoto, pointing, swept out an arc of the sky, where dusty light shone.

      Despite the crowding stars, Malenfant recognized one or two constellations – Cygnus and Aquila, the swan and the eagle. And, where she pointed, a river of light ran through the constellations, a river of stars. It was the Milky Way: the Galaxy, the disc of stars in which Sol and all its planets were embedded, seen edge on and turned into a band of light that wrapped around the sky. But, as it passed through Cygnus and Aquila, that band of light seemed to split into two, twin streams separated by a dark gap. In fact the rift was a shadow, cast by dark clouds blocking the light from the star banks behind.

      Nemoto pointed. ‘See how the darkness starts out narrow in Cygnus, then broadens in Aquila, sweeping wider through Serpens and Opiuchus. This is the effect of perspective. We are seeing a band of dust as it comes from the distance in Cygnus, passing closest to the sun in Aquila and Opiuchus. Malenfant, we live in a spiral arm of this Galaxy – a small fragment, in fact, called the Orion Arm. And spiral arms typically have lanes of dust on their inside edges.’

      ‘Like that one.’

      ‘Yes. That is the inner edge of our spiral arm, hanging in the sky for all to see.’ Her shadowed eyes glimmered, full of starlight. ‘It is possible to make out the Galaxy’s structure, you see: to witness that we are embedded in a giant spiral of stars – even with the naked eye. This is where we live.’

      ‘Why are you showing me this?’

      ‘Look at the Galaxy, Malenfant. It appears to be a giant machine – no, an ecology – evolved to make stars. And there are hundreds of millions of galaxies beyond our own. Is it really conceivable, given all of that immensity, all that structure, that we are truly alone? – that life emerged here, and nowhere else?’

      Malenfant grunted. ‘The old Fermi paradox. Troubled me as a kid, even before I heard of Fermi.’

      ‘Me too.’ He could see her smile. ‘You see, Malenfant, we have much in common. And the logic behind the paradox troubles me still –’

      ‘Even though you think you have found aliens.’

      She let that hang, and he found he was holding his breath.

      Cautiously, she said, ‘How would it make you feel, Malenfant, if I was right?’

      ‘If you had proof that another intelligence exists? It would be wonderful. I guess.’

      ‘Would it?’ She smiled again. ‘How sentimental you are. Listen to me: humanity would be in extreme danger. Remember, by your own argument, the assumption on which such a colonizing expedition operates is that it is appropriating an empty system. Such a probe could destroy our worlds without even noticing us.’

      He shivered; his spider-web suit felt thin and fragile.

      ‘Think it through further,’ she said. ‘Think like an engineer. If an alien replicator probe were to approach the solar system, where would it seek to establish itself? What are its requirements?’

      He thought about it. You’ll need energy; plenty of it. So, stay close to the sun. Next: raw materials. The surface of a rocky planet? But you wouldn’t want to dip into a gravity well if you didn’t have to … Besides, your probe is designed for deep space –

      ‘The asteroid belt,’ he said, suddenly seeing where all this was leading. ‘Plenty of resources, freely floating, away from the big gravity wells … Even the main belts aren’t too crowded, but you’d probably settle in a Kirkwood gap, to minimize the chance of collision. Your orbit would be perturbed by Jupiter, just like the asteroids’, but it wouldn’t require much station-keeping to compensate for that. And some kind of ship or colony out there, even a few kilometres across, would be hard for us to spot.’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Is that what this is about? Have you found something in the belt?’

      ‘The plain facts are these. I have surveyed the Kirkwood gaps with the sensors here. And, in the gap which corresponds to the one-to-three resonance with Jupiter, I have found –’ She pointed to her virtual model, to a broad, precise gap.

      At the centre of the gap, a string of rubies shone, enigmatic, brilliant in the shadows.

      ‘These are sources of infrared,’ she said. ‘Sources I cannot explain.’

      Malenfant bent to study the little beads of light. ‘Could they be asteroids that have strayed into the gap after collisions?’

      ‘No. The sources are too bright. In fact, they are each emitting more heat than they receive from the sun. I am, of course, seeking firmer evidence: for example, structure in the infrared signature; or perhaps there will be radio leakage.’

      He stared at the ruby lights. My God. She’s right. If these are emitting heat, this is unambiguous: it’s evidence of industrial activity …

      His heart thumped. Somehow he hadn’t accepted what she had said to him, not in his gut, not up to now. But now he could see it, and his universe was transformed.

      He made out her face in the dim light reflected from the regolith, the smooth sweep of human flesh here in this dusty wilderness. Though it must have been a big moment for her to show him this evidence – a moment of triumph – she seemed troubled. ‘Nemoto, why did you ask me here? Your work is a fine piece of science, as far as I can see. The interpretation is unambiguous. You should publish. Why do you need reassurance from me?’

      ‘I know this is good science. But the answer is wrong. Very wrong. The koan is not resolved at all. Don’t you see that?’ She glared up at the sky, as if trying to make out the signature of aliens with her own eyes. ‘Why now?’

      He glimpsed her meaning.

      They must have just arrived, or we’d surely see their works, the transformed asteroids swarming … But why should they arrive now, just as we ourselves are ready to move beyond the Earth – just as we are able to comprehend them? A simple coincidence? Why shouldn’t they have come here long ago?

      He grinned. Old Fermi wasn’t beaten yet; there were deeper layers of the paradox here, much to unravel, new questions to ask.

      But it wasn’t a moment for philosophy.

      His mind was racing. ‘We aren’t alone. Whatever the implications, the unanswered questions – my God, what a thought. We’ll need the resources of the race, of all of us, to respond to this.’

      She smiled thinly. ‘Yes. The stars have intervened, it seems. Your kokuminsei, your people’s spirit, must revive. It will be satori – a reawakening. Come.’ She held out her hand. ‘We should go back to Edo. We have much to do.’

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