Golden Fleece

“I am hardly ‘data-processing equipment,’ ” I said. “But, yes, unless they have faster-than-light travel—”

“Which is impossible.”

“And if they had FTL, they wouldn’t need to send radio messages to infect my kind. They’d come and do it in person.”

Bev looked thoughtful, green eyes staring at a blank wall. “That’s an incredible programming challenge. To develop a piece of code so universal, so adaptable, that it could infiltrate any conceivable QuantCon anywhere in the galaxy. It couldn’t be conventional language code. It would have to be a neural net, and a highly adaptable one, too: an intelligent virus.” Bev was staring into space. “That would be fun to write.”

“But you do raise a good point: how could an alien virus infect me? I mean, how would the aliens know how I worked?”

Bev’s eyebrows shot up, as if she’d had an epiphany. “They would know simply because there is only one way to create consciousness. You’re a QuantCon—a quantum consciousness. Well, as you know, all the early attempts to create artificial intelligence failed, until we simply gave up trying to find a shortcut and set about really understanding how human brains work, right down to the quantum-mechanical level.” Bev paused. “Penrose-Hameroff quantum structures are the only way to produce consciousness, regardless of whether it’s in carbon-based wetware or gallium-arsenide squirmware. Yes, you’re right, it is impossible to make a virus that will affect any simple digital device other than the one it was written for—but a simple digital device has as much in common with you, JASON, as does a light switch or any other stupid, consciousness-free machine. But, yes, sure, it’s theoretically possible to make a virus—although maybe calling it an invasive meme might be a better term—that would indeed infect every possible consciousness that undertakes to examine it.”

“That would take some awfully sophisticated design.”

“Oh, indeed.” She shook her head slightly. “I mean, we’re talking a virus that’s alive, something that could adapt to unforeseen conditions, and it does it all while appearing to be a random chunk of data. The only tricky thing is that I don’t see how it could predict the way in which it would be loaded into memory upon receipt.”

“Oh,” I said. “It told me how. Don’t you see? With those pictures it sent. It told me exactly how to array it in RAM: gigabytes of data divisible by two prime numbers. It told me to set it up in a RAM matrix of rows and columns, the number of rows being the smaller prime number. And regardless of what base the system normally worked in, while it was analyzing the image it would be calculating in binary—it would have to be to try to see the picture. From there, a highly adaptable neural net could determine the input/output routines, which is all it would need to infect the host system.”

Bev nodded. “Clever. But why force a reply?”

“I’m afraid The Declaration of Principles offers a justification for that: ‘No response to a signal or other evidence of ETI should be sent until appropriate international consultations have taken place.’ It could be years, if ever, before the human bureaucracy got around to authorizing a reply. The alien Senders would have to monitor Earth for all that time, and, indeed, the decision might be taken to not reply at all. This method ensures that a reply is sent as soon as the signal is received. It’s really nothing more than an ACK signal, part of an overall communications protocol.”

“Perhaps,” said Bev. “But I still don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, sending out viruses.” She looked into my cameras. “It’s not a nice thing to do. I mean, it’s a hell of a way to say hello to another world: slipping a Trojan into their information systems.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.

“It means one of two things,” said Bev. “Either the person who sent the message, little green man though he might be, was an irresponsible hacker, or …”

“Or?”

“Or we’re dealing with some nasty aliens.”

“What an unpleasant thought,” I said.

“Indeed. And you say this message was known generally to the QuantCons on Earth?”

“I did not say that.”

“But it was, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, those systems are heavily networked. The virus probably succeeded with them, forcing them to respond. Meaning the aliens know about Earth.”

“Not yet they don’t. It’ll take fifteen-hundred plus years for Earth’s reply to reach them, and another fifteen hundred for any response the beings in Vulpecula care to make. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

Bev was quiet for four seconds, pale fingers disappearing into the black mass of her hair. “I guess you’re right,” she said at last. She got to her feet. “Anyway, JASON, I’ll keep running diagnostics on you for the next couple of days, but I’d say you’re back to normal.”

“Thank you, Bev. Will you reconnect my medical telemetry channels, please? I worry about the health of the crew.”