The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model - Anders, Charlie Jane [4]
“Why?”
However they had survived their Closure, it obviously wasn’t by being super-intelligent. Toku mashed her marrows together, trying to think of another way to explain it so Renolz would understand, and then leave them alone. “You dig up the metals, to make things. Right? You find the rare elements. You invent technology. Yes? And then you die, and leave it all behind. For us. We come and take it after you are gone. For profit. Now do you understand?”
“So you created us to die.”
“Yes.”
“For [industrial exploitation]?”
“That’s right. It’s cheaper than sending machines to do it. Often, the denser metals and rare elements are hard to reach. It would be a major pain.”
Toku hit “send” and then waited. Was there any chance that, having heard the truth, the “Earths” would get back into their little ship and go back home, so Toku and Jon could leave before their careers were any more ruined? With luck, the “Earths” would finish dying off before anyone found out what had happened.
“What kind of [night predators] are you?” Renolz asked.
Toku decided to treat the question as informational. “We are the Falshi. We are from a world 120,000 light years from here. We’re bipeds, like you. You are the first living civilization we’ve encountered in a million years of doing this job. We’ve never killed or hurt anyone. Now will you leave our ship? Please?”
“This is a lot for us to absorb,” Renolz said from the other chamber. “We… Does your species have [God/creator beliefs]? Who do you think created your kind?”
“We used to believe in gods,” Toku responded. “Not any more. We’re an old enough race that we were able to study the explosion that created the universe. We saw no creator, no sign of any intelligence at the beginning. Just chaos. But we’re not your creators in any meaningful way.”
Renolz took a long time to reply. “Will you establish trade with us?”
“Trade?” Toku almost laughed as she read it. She turned to Jon. “Do you see what you’ve done now?”
Anger made her face smooth out, opened her eyes to the fullest, and for a moment she looked the way she did the day Jon had met her for the first time, in the Tradestation’s flavor marsh, when she’d asked him if he liked long journeys.
“We trade with each other,” Toku tapped out. “We don’t trade with you.”
“I think I know why we survived,” Renolz said. “We developed a form of [wealth-accretion ideology] that was as strong as nationalism or religion. Dorfco was strong enough to protect itself. Jondorf is a [far-seeing leader]. We understand trade. We could trade with you, as equals.”
“We don’t recognize your authority to trade,” Toku tapped. As soon as she hit the “send” area of the comm-pad, she realized that might have been a mistake. Although communicating with these creatures in the first place was already a huge error.
“So you won’t trade with us, but you’ll sell our artifacts after we die?” Renolz was twitching again.
“Yes,” Toku said. “But we won’t hurt you. You hurt each other. It’s not our fault. It’s just the way you are. Sentient races destroy themselves, it’s the way of things. Our race was lucky.”
“So was ours,” Renolz said. “And we will stay lucky.”
Oh dear. Jon could tell Toku was starting to freak out at the way this was going. “Yes, good,” she tapped back. “Maybe you’ll survive after all. We would be thrilled if that happened. Really. We’ll come back in a few thousand years, and see if you’re still here.”
“Or maybe,” Renolz said, “we will come and find you.”
Toku stepped away from the comm-grid. “We are in so much trouble,” she told Jon. “We might as well not ever go back to Tradestation 237 if anyone finds out what we’ve done here.” Was it childish of Jon to be glad she was saying “we” instead of “you”?
Toku seemed to