Steam

 by Ian Reeve

 

The Ambassador looked completely human. A man apparently in his mid forties with a Mediterranean skin tone wearing a smart suit with a white shirt and a tie. Even though I knew it was a machine, the skin and hair looked indistinguishable from that of a real person. If I hadn't known the truth, I would have taken him to be a completely normal member of the human race.

"Welcome aboard," he said, standing aside to allow us to pass through the hatch. "You are the first people from your world ever to step aboard an Aquilonian spaceship."

"We appreciate the honour," said David Hockings, Secretary-General of the United Nations as he stepped across the threshold. He was followed by the other six world leaders, who were followed in turn by myself and the other assistants and deputies. Outside, in the widest, flattest part of the Tabernas Desert, television cameras and hordes of photographers stood on ground scorched by the ship's landing, watching as we went in, and a crowd of thousands sweating in the bright sun, was held back by police. Ever since the aliens had first announced themselves to the human race, mankind had been talking about nothing else. Wars had stopped and politicians had ceased their lying and scheming, as if ashamed of what the Visitors would think of them. If it lasted, people were saying, the simple knowledge that we weren't alone might take mankind into a new golden age, but I was a little too cynical to believe that yet.

 The corridor beyond was sized for human beings, as if the ship had been constructed especially for this one mission. If it had been sized for the Aquilonian progenitors it would have been twice as high and wide, as they'd been massive creatures. The holograms the ambassador had shown us had revealed them to be heavy quadreds the size of rhinos with a mass of writhing tentacles at their front end, each tentacle ending in three rubbery fingers. They had left the flesh behind a million years before, though, and had uploaded their minds into mechanical bodies bristling with tools, appendages and sensory equipment. I wondered whether the humanoid body the ambassador was currently occupying felt cramped and limiting in comparison, with only two hands, and eyes that could only look in one direction at a time.

The Ambassador chatted amiably as he led us along the corridor, past rooms that were specialised for various purposes. Supply, storage, fabrication of new tools and equipment. One room he took us to was for the storage and maintenance of the android bodies themselves. "Can we see the cockpit?" asked the Secretary-General, staring around in wonder.

"There isn't one," the Ambassador replied. "Remember that we are machines. We can have information from the ship's navigational equipment fed directly into our brains, and steer the ship with a thought. There are no recreational facilities either, for the same reason. We entertain ourselves in virtual environments that exist only in our heads. All the starfaring races of the Galaxy do things much the same way. All species become uploaded software eventually."

"We must seem awfully primitive to you," I said. "Still in our fragile, organic bodies."

"Not at all," the Ambassador replied. "Your telescopes will soon be sophisticated enough to see the waste heat from civilisations on other worlds. That's why we decided to make contact with you, because it will be impossible to remain undiscovered for much longer. We decided to make contact in this way so that we could manage the process and ensure that it proceeds in a calm and orderly manner."

"We appreciate your thoughtfulness," said Sonia Theuriau, the President of the European Union, one of the other dignitaries who'd been invited aboard. "We wish the first contact between the various races of humanity had been managed in such a peaceful and civilised manner. You must have been shocked when you learned our history."

"All species go through similar turmoils," said the Ambassador, though. "They all grow out of it as they become universally educated. The greatest handicap any society suffers is an uneducated populace, and that is something that you are gradually coming to accomplish. We have no doubt that you will take your place among the great races of the Galaxy in due course."

"And become creatures of pure software, like you," I said.

"If you wish to travel to other worlds," said the Ambassador. "Only machines can do that. The distances defeat biologicals, but machines can slow the clock speeds of their brains so that the journey of a hundred years seems to take less than a day."

"No faster than light travel, then," I said with a smile.

"I'm afraid not," the Ambassador replied. "The universe has rules that are absolutely never broken. Even so, though, many individuals choose to remain biological, being content to remain on their own worlds. There were biological Aquilonians for tens of thousands of years after the first of us uploaded, and there are civilisations that have been exploring the Galaxy way longer than us who still have biologicals to this very day. Every individual can make the choice, to become software, or remain the way they were born, and they can choose to upload, becoming effectively immortal, right up until the moment of their deaths."

"Amazing," said David Hockings. "May I ask how your ships propel themselves in space? Some kind of reactionless drive, perhaps?"

"There is no such thing as a reactionless drive," said the Ambassador, smiling gently. "No matter how advanced your technology, if you're in space and you want to go one way, you have to push something in the other direction. We use ion drives, similar in principle to the ones you use on your interplanetary probes, but capable of generating considerably more thrust, with exhaust velocities approaching the speed of light. I would explain further, but I'm afraid there are laws regarding the transfer of technology to civilisations that aren't ready for it."

"We understand completely," said the Secretary-General.

"May I ask what this is?" I said, pointing to a panel in the wall containing three small holes. "The thing that looks like a power socket."

"That's exactly what it is," the Ambassador replied. "For when we're using a device here, in this part of the ship, that requires more electricity than the device can store inside itself."

"Electricity?" I laughed. "You still use electricity?"

"Of course," the Ambassador replied. "Why wouldn't we? It's a perfectly good way of moving power from one place to another. We use superconducting cables, but other than that you could plug one of your vacuum cleaners into that socket, with the use of a suitable transformer of course, and use it as if you were cleaning your own home. We also use radio to communicate, just like you. Other ways of communicating across great distances exist, of course, but if what you're using works perfectly well, why replace it?"

"Why indeed," I said. "Makes sense." I looked back at the Prime Minister, but he remained silent, as we'd agreed. My job was to ask the questions and look stupid so that he didn't have to, and the other world leaders seemed to have decided to follow his lead.

"In fact," the Ambassador continued, "it might surprise you to know that none of our technologies are very far more advanced than your own. There are only so many ways of putting atoms together, it turns out. Take computers, for example. Our computers aren't much more powerful than yours. There are algorithms we use that you haven't figured out yet, the ones that allow a computer to become fully conscious, but when you think about the size of the neurons in your brain, and the size of the transistors that would be needed to do the same job, you'll see that you already have all the processing power you need to hold a human consciousness." 

"We don't have the ability to read the brain yet, and upload the information out of it," said the European President.

"You have scanning electron microscopes," the Ambassador replied. "It's just an extension of the same technology, extended into three dimensions. Even our power generators use principles that would be familiar to your scientists. We left our antimatter fuel up in orbit, of course. There are laws forbidding the use of antimatter on an inhabited world."

"Matter and antimatter annihilate each other, to produce heat," I said.

"That's correct," said the Ambassador with a nod.

"And how do you turn the heat into electricity, if you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all," said the Ambassador. "The heat boils water, generating steam, and the steam is used to turn a..."

"Steam?" I exclaimed, literally rocked with astonishment. I actually staggered back, almost bumping into the President of China in disbelief. I don't think I've ever felt such a level of surprise, so great that it left me literally unable to think for several seconds. He had to be joking, I thought, and yet there had been a sincerity with which he'd said it that made me believe he was telling the truth. "You use steam to drive turbines?" I said. "You drive spaceships across the Galaxy, and you do it with steam?"

"No better way of generating electricity has ever been discovered," the Ambassador replied calmly. If he was shocked or amused by my reaction to his words, he didn't show it. "We've moved beyond your crude alternators, of course. Our systems are a little more sophisticated,  but we're still converting mechanical energy into electrical energy."

"Using steam," I said. My brain seemed to have become stuck on the fact. Around me, the seven world leaders and their assistants looked equally surprised, but unlike me they had the self control not to totally embarrass themselves.

"Why not?" said the Ambassador, looking puzzled as if wondering what the problem was. "The universe is full of water. It's heavy, of course, but when you've got an almost unlimited supply of antimatter created by gathering starlight, weight means nothing."

"Yes, of course," I replied. "When you put it like that it makes perfect sense. I'm sorry, but I suppose I just assumed that..."

"That we had all kinds of super science that would look like magic to you," said the Ambassador with an indulgent smile. "I'm afraid not. As I said earlier, there are only so many ways of putting atoms together."

He then led the way on, further into the ship. He was going to show us the ship's computer core next, but my mind was still numbed by what he'd said as I imagined a Galaxy full of spaceships travelling between the stars using principles that had been discovered by mankind back in the nineteenth century.

I realised I was lagging when the Secretary-General's assistant gave me a gentle prod in the middle of the back. I gave her a nod of apology, then hurried to keep up with the others.