The editors of Nature present their compliments and beg you to forgive this small intrusion. As a result of the German bombing of London during WWII, we have no records of our subscribers prior to 1927, but our surviving records do show that you have been a subscriber to this journal ever since 1927. No other individual subscription has continued for so great a period of time. We are gratified that our journal has sustained your interest for so long and we thank you.
May we ask if you are the original subscriber or if, perhaps, the subscription was originally taken out in the name of your mother or grandmother, and you continued it in her name? Whatever the explanation, it has been our honor to have had a subscription of such great duration.
In this honor we are, however, not completely alone. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the longest magazine subscription is Mrs. Cavendish's subscription to the American magazine Science, which, beginning in 1923, continues to this day. For this reason we should very much like to know if your subscription to Nature began prior to 1923. As you may imagine, we should enjoy beating Science in this matter.
Very Truly Yours,
Adicus Ryan Garton, Senior Editor, Nature
Dear Mr. Garton,
I thank you for your compliments, for it has been long and long since anyone spoke to this old lady so graciously. My subscription to your fine magazine began on Nov. 4, 1869 with the first issue but, sadly, I am not sure I can claim the honor of having the longest individual subscription. The circumstances of my subscription are a bit awkward and blur the distinction between institutional and individual subscriptions. Before I can explain, you need to sign the enclosed confidentiality agreement and mail it back to me.
Since this is a somewhat unusual request I will explain as much as I may. Whether my subscription should be considered individual or institutional depends on the answer to Fermi's famous question. As you know, our sun is a star of a very common type in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars. Stars have planets the way cats have kittens. On Earth life appeared and began evolving as soon as conditions permitted. Thus, spread through the galaxy, there should be millions or even billions of worlds that hold living creatures. Earth is 4 billion years old and has sheltered life for nearly all of that time. If this is typical, then many worlds are billions of years from producing intelligent life and others did so billions of years ago. The appearance, then, is that we live in a galaxy that is home to many vastly advanced races, beings capable of doing anything that is not scientifically impossible.
Thus Fermi's question, since interstellar travel is difficult but not impossible, where is everybody? Why is there no evidence that aliens have ever visited Earth?
The answer to this question is in a sealed envelop which I enclose. In ordinary business practice I would mail you this envelop only after receiving the signed agreement, but my situation is far from ordinary and such precautions unnecessary. Pray believe me: if you open this envelop without mailing the agreement, it will cause much unnecessary confusion.
Sincerely
Miss S. Traveler
P. S. I'll give you a hint as to the answer to Fermi's question. There's a common misconception that the Theory of Relativity forbids faster-than-light travel because ftl travel could involve reverse causality. Actually, there are many examples in physics of things which travel faster than light. They don't violate Relativity because their natures are such that they cannot be used for effective communication, hence no reverse causality.
Dear Mr. Garton,
I ask you to use your imagination. Engineers delight in turning the limitations which prevent them from doing one thing into the means by which they do another. The impossibility of effective ftl communication is often referred to as Cosmic Censorship because it is an absolute barrier to knowledge. Suppose the engineers of an alien civilization used Cosmic Censorship as the basis for a stealth technology. This would involve separating communication and travel, becoming non-observable by traveling faster than light.
The incentives for such a development are great. It would allow them to roam the galaxy, seeing its wonders, visiting other civilization, both those who might prove friendly and those who would be dangerous if they could see us.
Of course, when one goes home from such a trip, one's memories of the trip are subject to Cosmic Censorship, i.e. one has to wait a speed of light time lag for them to catch up. Ditto souvenirs from the trip. While that's a bit inconvenient, if one lives near the center of the galaxy, there are a great many very interesting places only a few light months away. One can recall one's last vacation well before time to book another.
There's also the advantage that, if one has a fatal accident while traveling, one can be taken to a remote planet such as Earth and live a long and full life there, never knowing that anything unfortunate happened.
While there's no way I can be sure about it, I believe that's what happened to me. I arrived on your planet in 1808, and have spent my time since then running a boarding house for aliens. Since my guests are often as unobservable to me as they would be to you, collecting my rents is a rather complicated and difficult process. Since only effective communications are impossible, we have to keep any contact between us below the noise level and thus ineffective. For the most part this means that I talk to my solicitor, who talks to their solicitors, who talks to them. Since the whole chain of communication is subject attorney/client privilege, the noise level is high. Of course, every once in a while, someone makes a mistake, does something that would be an effective communication. Since that can't happen, well, remember that ftl communication is impossible because it involves reverse casualty just like time travel. When an effective ftl communication happens, it triggers reverse causality so that it didn't happen. The timeline shifts at its weakest point, making the circumstances around the communication such that it becomes ineffective. The changes that result can be very confusing and complicated.
Anyway, as far as I know, I am the only individual who reads my copy of Nature, but my invisible boarders might also be reading it. Wouldn't that make it an institutional subscription?
Best Regards
Miss Stella Traveler
P. S. You did sign the confidentiality agreement, didn't you? Without it, something would certainly have happened to prevent this letter from being an effective communication. It's had to guess what reverse causality might do. Why, in an extreme case, you could find yourself no longer being the editor of Nature in London, England, but instead the editor of some weird American magazine.
Richard K. Lyon is a semi-retired research scientist/inventor whose hobbies include collecting pulp SF magazines and writing. In collaborating with Andy Offutt, he did the Tiana trilogy (DEMON IN THE MIRROR, THE EYES OF SARSIS, and WEB OF THE SPIDER) and RAILS ACROSS THE GALAXY for Analog. He has also published numerous short stories and novelettes. A collection of the latter, TALES FROM THE LYONHEART is available from Barnes and Noble, etc.
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