Why are we sitting here? Corinne wondered as the minutes passed. People strolled by the limo, glancing in vain at its tinted windows. But Joshua seemed almost happy. Despite his protestations, it must be a relief to know he wasn’t insane.
Corinne caught herself whistling tunelessly. It had been far too long, two decades ago, creeping sunward in an overcrowded lifeboat—but she knew this feeling. She was giddy with relief, with danger escaped—
With being a reporter again!
Vid specials took form in her mind. Frankenstein across the stars. Mysterious aliens whispering in the ear of a young Mary Shelley. Entire societies shaped by the myths imposed on them. She had a story, by God! An epic. The mother of all scoops. A certain second Pulitzer. And better still—
“Joshua,” Corinne burst out. “It’s over! Once this news is out, any further move against you would only intensify public interest. We’ll lay low for a few days, while I make discreet arrangements before—”
“No.”
A single syllable, but it made Corinne flinch. That was Astor speaking, no longer the briefly approachable Robyn. Timbre, subtle harmonics—something—about that short word resonated in Corinne’s brain. It was no mere opinion or recommendation. This was a command, more intense even than the usual focused attention of an Augmented.
Did all Augmented have this power over normals? “I don’t understand,” Corinne managed to get out.
“There can be no story.” Beneath Tanaka Astor’s stare, Corinne felt like a bug under a microscope. “In a way, because you are correct. They would take note. They would gain an inkling how much we have discovered. And that must not happen, for these others are no mere storytellers.
“Let them have a name: the Interveners. ‘The Matthews conundrum’ had been obscure. It appears all that has befallen Joshua revolves around suppressing that story. That being so, ask yourself: how did the Interveners learn of his interest? How did they come to know so much about him, down to his allergy to crab?”
“My family knows both,” Joshua netted. “And the people I worked with....”
“Correct.” Tanaka’s emotionless delivery suddenly rang sinister. “Agents within the ICU itself. Where better? InterstellarNet allows trading of mature, proven technologies. The old cautionary tales lose their ability to frighten after all the dangerous experimentation has been done light-years away. Now every argument ever made in the ICU against a technology deal becomes suspect.”
“And every untimely illness,” Corinne added. “Every accident. Every death. Thousands of employees for nearly 175 years. That’s a lot to investigate.”
“Agreed,” Robyn netted. “But first Ir must check out the two longtime aides, sworn to secrecy, Ir left doing busy work in Australia.”
~~~
In recent centuries, working across light-years, the Interveners had segregated intelligent species by technology. In an earlier—much earlier—epoch, the Interveners had shaped the many-times-removed ancestors of ancestors of ancestors of those same species. And between: made what other interventions, as yet unsuspected?
Perhaps more than bad luck had lobbed an asteroid at the dinosaurs.
“Tip of the iceberg” fell woefully short as a metaphor. The Interveners had set their plans into motion long before the first animals crawled onto the land, on Earth or Haven or nine other worlds. On Earth, before there were fish to attempt the ascent.
Plans to accomplish... what? Joshua’s imagination failed him.
Robyn netted, “In time, this story will be told. Ir promise, Corinne, you will be the first to tell it. In time. For now, we dare not reveal to the Interveners that we have learned of them.”
“That’s why we’re still in the car. You can’t be seen with me.” Joshua shrugged. For a moment, at least, it sufficed to be believed. “I must remain disgraced so that you can hunt unsuspected for moles.”
“You deserve better.” Tanaka Astor’s voice hummed once again with that eerie power. She meant them to believe her. She reverted to the encrypted link. “Both of you. Regardless, discovering the Intervener agents comes first. We must do nothing to alert them. Even as we—very discreetly—find ways to work together. To do what? That, Ir do not yet know.”
We. Not the Augmented first person. Joshua netted his private, heartfelt thanks.
Tanaka opened her door. “Once Ir am in the building, summon a driver to return you to the spaceport.”
“The Interveners.” Corinne trembled. “They raised us from the level of jellyfish.”
“True.” Joshua found his eyes drawn to Robyn, found confidence in her calm self-assurance. “And it’s about time they learned we’re not jellyfish anymore.”
[“The Matthews Conundrum” first appeared in Analog (November 2013). The version here differs slightly from that initial publication, mainly in replacing unpronounceable AI monikers with names an audio-book narrator can handle. I should have known better.]
~~~
The easiest decision about what to include in this collection was this: a story from my InterstellarNet saga. Followed by the toughest: which story?
My fiftieth-birthday gift to myself was a sabbatical from the day job. After years writing SF as a hobby and my first sales, I had decided I would finally, seriously, explore the author’s life. I’d tackle an ambitious subject. Several long, thoughtful walks later I homed in on my topic: what if radio-astronomy-based SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence) actually detected something? Realistically—beyond just slowly, given pesky light-speed limitation—how might that scenario unfold? How might civilizations in separate solar systems establish dialogue more extensive than, “Hey, we’re here!” How would people—on both worlds—react? Would either side find reason to keep up a discussion?
“Dangling Conversations” (Analog, November 2000) explored such a first contact, the turmoil that ensues on Earth, and the halting first steps toward establishing an interstellar telecomm network: InterstellarNet. As happy as I was with that story, I found myself wondering what came next. And after that. Eventually, I wondered: what happened once enough technology shared among InterstellarNet members enabled one species to build a practical (if still a real-world, sub-light) starship? And then what if...?
The series-opening novelette “Dangling Conversations,” clearly, was a candidate for this collection. But its immediate sequel, another novelette, also merited consideration. “Creative Destruction” (Analog, March 2001) found its way into Year’s Best SF 7 and, in serial form, was the lone work of speculative fiction published in association with Telecom World 2003 (sponsored by the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, the model for my Interstellar Commerce Union).
Several years and much writing—InterstellarNet and otherwise—after those first two series stories, we come to the tale you’ve just read. “The Matthews Conundrum” raised enough interesting questions to produce its own follow-on. “Championship B’tok” (Analog, September 2014) was then a novelette finalist in 2015 for a Hugo Award. At which point, I doubled down, taking these two stories as the starting point for a novel. InterstellarNet: Enigma, wherein Joshua Matthews, at long last, gets his answers, went on to win the inaugural Canopus Award “honoring excellence in interstellar writing.”
In the end, obviously, I chose “The Matthews Conundrum” as my InterstellarNet representative. I like to think that—beyond being a cool story—it offers glimpses of the richness that is the InterstellarNet saga.29
InterstellarNet stories have appeared in Analog (over the tenures of two editors), Artemis, and Jim Baen’s Universe. These stories, integrated and often expanded, and with extensive new material, comprise the three-novel InterstellarNet arc.