Time. Stephen Baxter
The small monitor before Emma lit up, and a schematic graph drew itself elegantly on the screen. It was a simple exponential curve, she recognized, a growth rising slowly at first, steepening up to a point labelled ‘now’. Cornelius said, ‘Here is a picture of the growth of the human population over time. You can see the steep rise in recent centuries. It is a remarkable fact that ten per cent of all the humans who have ever existed are alive now. More than five per cent of all humans, Malenfant, were born after you were …
‘But that is the past. Let’s imagine how the future might develop. Here are three possibilities.’ The curve continued to climb, steepening as it did so, climbing out of Emma’s frame. ‘This,’ said Cornelius, ‘is the scenario most of us would like to see. A continued expansion of human numbers. Presumably this would require a move off-planet.
‘Another possibility is this.’ A second curve extrapolated itself from the ‘now’ point, a smooth tip over to a flat horizontal line. ‘Perhaps our numbers will stabilize. We may settle for the resources of the Earth, find a way to manage our numbers and our planet indefinitely. A bucolic and unexciting picture, but perhaps it is acceptable.
‘But there is a third possibility.’ A third curve climbed a little way past the ‘now’ marker – then fell spectacularly to zero.
‘Jesus,’ said Malenfant. ‘A crash.’
‘Yes. Studies of the population numbers of other creatures, lower animals and insects, often show this sort of shape. Plague, famine, that sort of thing. For us, the end of the world, soon.
‘Now. You can see that in the first two cases, the vast majority of humans are yet to be born. Even if we stay on Earth, we estimate we have a billion years ahead of us before changes in the sun will render Earth’s biosphere unviable. Even in this restricted case we would have far more future than past.
‘And if we expand off-planet, if we achieve the kind of future you’re working for, Malenfant, the possibilities are much greater. Suppose we – or our engineered descendants – colonize the Galaxy. There are four hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, many of which will provide habitable environments for far longer than a mere billion years. Then the total human population, over time, might reach trillions of times its present number.’
‘… Oh. And that’s the problem,’ Malenfant said heavily.
‘You’re starting to see the argument,’ Cornelius said, approving.
‘I’m not,’ said Emma.
Malenfant said, ‘Remember his game with the balls and the box. Why are we here now? If we really are going on to the stars, you have to believe that you were born in the first one-billionth part of the total human population. And how likely is that? Don’t you get it, Emma? It’s as if I drew out my ball third out of a thousand –’
‘Far more unlikely than that, in fact,’ said Cornelius.
Malenfant got up and began to pace the room, excited. ‘Emma, I don’t know statistics from my elbow. But I used to think like this as a kid. Why am I alive now? Suppose we do go on to colonize the Galaxy. Then most of the humans who ever live will be vacuum-sucking cyborgs in some huge interstellar empire. And it’s far more likely that I’d be one of them than what I am. In fact the only pop curve where it’s reasonably likely that we’d find ourselves here, now, is –’
‘The crash,’ said Emma.
‘Yes,’ Cornelius said sombrely. ‘If there is a near-future extinction, it is overwhelmingly likely that we find ourselves alive within a few centuries of the present day. Simply because that is the period when most humans who ever lived, or who will ever live, will have been alive. Ourselves among them.’
‘I don’t believe this for a second,’ Emma said flatly.
‘It is impossible to prove, but hard to refute,’ said Cornelius. ‘Put it this way. Suppose I tell you the world will end tomorrow. You might think yourself unlucky that your natural life span has been cut short. But in fact, one in ten of all humans – that is, the people alive now – would be in the same boat as you.’ He smiled. ‘You work in Las Vegas. Ask around. Losing out to one in ten odds is unlucky, but not drastically so.’
Emma said, ‘You can’t argue from analogy like this. There are a fixed number of balls in that box. But the total number of possible humans depends on the undetermined and open-ended future – it might even be infinite. And how can you possibly make predictions about people who don’t even exist yet – whose nature and powers and choices we know absolutely nothing about? You’re reducing the most profound mysteries of human existence to a shell game.’
Cornelius said patiently, ‘You’re right to be sceptical. Nevertheless we have thirty years of these studies behind us now. The methodology was first proposed by a physicist called Brandon Carter in a lecture to the Royal Society in London in the 1980s. And we have built up estimates based on a range of approaches, calling on data from many disciplines –’
Malenfant said hoarsely, ‘When?’
‘Not earlier than 150 years from now. Not later than 240.’
Malenfant cleared his throat. ‘Cornelius, what’s this all about? Is this an extension of the old eggs-in-one-basket argument? Are you going to push for an off-planet expansion?’
Cornelius was shaking his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to help.’
Malenfant looked surprised. ‘Why not? We have centuries. We could spread over the Solar System –’
‘But that’s the point,’ said Cornelius. ‘Think about it. My argument wasn’t based on any one threat, or any assumptions about where humans might be located, or what level of technology we might reach. It was an argument about the continued existence of humanity, come what may. Perhaps we could even reach the stars, Malenfant. But it will do us no good. The Carter catastrophe will reach us anyhow.’
‘Jesus,’ said Malenfant. ‘What possible catastrophe could obliterate star systems – reach across light years?’
‘We don’t know.’
There was a heavy silence in the wood-laden room.
Malenfant said gruffly: ‘So tell me what you want from me.’
Cornelius said evenly, ‘I’m coming to that.’ He stood up. ‘May I bring you more drinks?’
Emma got out of her chair and walked to the window. She looked out over Central Park, the children playing. They were engaged in some odd, complex game of shifting patterns. She watched for a while; it looked almost mathematical, like a geometric form of communication. Kids were strange these days. Getting brighter, according to the news media. Maybe they needed to be.
But some things never changed. Here came a buggy, she saw, crossing through the Park, drawn by a horse, tireless and steady. The world, bathed in smoky, smog-laden sunlight, looked rich, ancient yet renewed, full of life and possibilities.
… Was it possible Cornelius was right? That all this could end, so soon?
Two hundred more years was nothing. There were hominid tools on the planet two million years old.
And, she thought, will there be a last day? Will there still be a New York, a Central Park – the last children of all playing here on that day? Will they know they have no future?
Or is all this simple craziness?
Malenfant touched her arm. ‘This is one hell of a thing, isn’t it?’ She recognized the tone, the look. All the scepticism and hostility he had shown to Cornelius out in the desert had evaporated. Here was another Big Idea, and Reid Malenfant was distracted, like a kid by a new shiny toy.
Shit, she thought. I can’t afford for Malenfant to take his eye off the ball. Not now. And it’s my fault. I could have dumped Cornelius