Blade, page 11
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
The Cryptologist had re-engineered Dragon’s philosopher cells and rewritten the courser’s mind. Now as the days passed, with Griffin isolated from the fleet and from any sight of Tio Suthrom’s great ship, she applied all her skill to the conversion of the smaller courser.
The Bio-mechanic watched closely, studying every Maker she designed and every modification she ordered. But he did not understand, not at all, how she knew what changes must be made within the hellishly complex, tangled threads that held the intellect and memory of individual philosopher cells, and the sequence of those changes, and the effect they would have. No simulation of the task ran in Griffin’s library. It was as if she just knew what was required.
But how could she?
An hour came when the most intractable cell lineages were thinned almost to oblivion and the others tamed enough that the Bio-mechanic gained a respite and no longer had to struggle so fiercely on the high bridge to counter a murderous demand to hunt and kill.
He took that moment to complain to her, *I have tracked the changes you’ve made down to individual molecular bonds, but I cannot comprehend how you have determined to make them. Where is the source of your understanding?
Her thoughts had been fixed on the cell field, not on him. She required a moment to shift focus. As she did, he sensed from her, across the intimacy of the high bridge, a sharp edge of amusement. She told him, *You overestimate me. I do not possess such understanding. It is beyond me, as it is beyond you. An intriguing mystery to both of us. It is my silver-endowed avatar who possesses the intellect for this task. She tells me what to do.
Ah, of course.
The Cryptologist had opened the needle and visited Ezo—the only Dragoneer to do so—and there she’d taken on the vast expansive mind of one of the Tanji.
She went on, *We trade subminds in a continuous stream. Her mind guides mine.
*Then she is not you? You are no longer her?
*I am a ghost. I have no access to the computational resources of the silver.
He too was only a ghost. He had only ever been a ghost and he would never comprehend such processes either—a cold fact that roused in him illogical wrath. Why be angry over what could not be helped? But there it was, sudden and undeniable, because while he had failed to change Chenzeme nature, the opposite was not true. He differed from Griffin’s former mistress not in kind, but only in degree, because the wrath of the Chenzeme had gotten inside him too. And now it spilled over into the cell field, generating a wave of alarm and reviving the smoldering argument to hunt and kill.
But then, to his surprise, a spontaneous counter argument arose from within the field:
That was new.
The philosopher cells had always been capable of learning, of course. They would compare what they observed with the vast histories they carried to identify targets, and then debate and simulate, until they had developed an efficient strategy to attack and to destroy. But a cold patience had begun to soothe familiar rage. Cold and curious and aloof from the once all-consuming desire to destroy.
He let that cold curiosity soothe him too, as he continued to watch the Cryptologist at her work. Only peripherally aware of a submind, automatically generated, carrying the experience of these thoughts to the version of himself within the library.
That fully simulated, three-dimensional version.
The pleasure of that existence had not left him. He had begun to use this new freedom to visit places he had never considered exploring before. Like now, walking slowly through a virtual rendition of a temperate rain forest on Prakruti—an experience recorded by Shoran’s son, Mikael. Even in ghost form he could perceive the moist chill of the air, the scent of humus, the slight scuff of each footfall.
Mikael’s feet had scuffed because he’d been wearing boots. In contrast, the Bio-mechanic walked barefoot and he was dressed only in a thin coverall despite the cold—and that wasn’t realistic, was it?
But it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter, because he was still only a ghost and so the form of himself meant nothing.
Even so, even as limited as his existence continued to be, he nurtured a growing desire to share the experience of it with that version of himself aboard Dragon.
Echoing Mikael’s steps, he turned to follow a faint track, half-hidden beneath an overgrowth of ferns, that paralleled a murmuring stream. Low light, here beneath the rustling of spring-green maple leaves, the cold growing deeper as the day waned. The Bio-mechanic delighted in it. He delighted in this new existence. He had gained such freedom! So much, that it felt like a betrayal of himself to keep this new existence secret.
Yet he did so.
Not since the initial conquest of Griffin had his two versions traded subminds. In both his forms, he had assumed separation to be necessary, based on claims made long ago by Griffin’s original crew of Apparatchiks. They had insisted that isolation from their counterparts allowed them to more closely attune to the unique environment of the smaller courser and to its volatile mistress.
But now that the Bio-mechanic had existed aboard Griffin for many ten-days, he discounted this. He believed a more likely explanation to be the desire of Clemantine’s dark twin to keep her dark secrets. He kept up the custom now only because he had secrets to keep and ambitions to hide. Not from his other self, who would be just as delighted. Nor did he fear Urban’s wrath. That one was a pushover. Urban had been persuaded to accept both the Cryptologist and the interloper from Alaka‘i Onyx. It wouldn’t be hard to convince him the Bio-mechanic had a claim on an expanded life too.
Pushing past a last tree branch, he was startled to find himself at a cliff’s edge, confronted by an immense panorama of forested ridges, stacked one after another, running out to a golden horizon. His simulated heartbeat quickened at the immensity and beauty of the landscape, and then quickened again as a great eagle soared past at eye level.
No, it was not Urban’s judgment he feared, but that of the other Apparatchiks. There lay the hazard. They would perceive his difference. They would recognize how the Cryptologist had unlocked his core, granting him an autonomy like her own. And they would deem him a security risk, liable to weight his own survival above that of the fleet—and maybe they would be right.
Chapter
19
Still escorted by Abby and Riffan, Ashok and Tio Suthrom arrived on Dragon’s gee deck. Ashok tabulated sixty-six independent human instances gathered there to greet them. It discerned joyous excitement in the smiles, and words of welcome within the murmurs. Even so, revulsion gripped it. It did not need to extrude its appendages in order to test the dangerously oxygenated air; its surface sensors alone detected an exponential increase in the ubiquity and variety of biological life polluting the local atmosphere.
Acting swiftly, it deleted an urge to shudder. Revulsion was useless. The cohort had already acquired a veneer of greedy lifeforms, microbial in size, lacking intellect, and driven by urges to consume and to trade random information and to reproduce.
Ashok had learned much of such forms from the great ship’s library. It knew them to be mindless as individuals, but adaptive and highly clever in great numbers, and it deemed it inevitable that eventually some among them would find a way into the deep tissue of its instances.
So be it.
Ashok did not look forward to its own demise, but it did not fear it either. Not much. Nor was it much troubled by the knowledge that, because of its exposure, it must physically isolate from all other Inventions throughout the balance of its existence.
Ashok was not a biological; it did not require physical companionship. Information exchange over a communications link would fulfill any need for outside consultation or to keep abreast of and contribute to the doings and direction of the Inventions’ civilization.
It did assign a weighty negative factor to the rot and corrosion that would likely be its future. But even with that, the discovery of the human-marauder hybrid ship and this opportunity to explore its internal habitat made the prospect of a shortened functional lifespan wholly worthwhile.
A spasm interrupted the positive spin of its thoughts as its lead instance, the one with longest exposure to the pollution, abruptly withdrew its legs and contracted into a sphere. Ashok recognized this as a deeply programmed behavior to minimize exposed surface area. Quite useless in the present circumstance.
In the gee deck’s disorienting spin, the spherical instance immediately began to roll uncontrolled along the smooth path from the warren.
This would not do.
Ashok acted first to protect its functionality, editing out the compulsion altogether so that it could not affect another instance. Then it reset the afflicted one, returning itself to standard form.
Tio Suthrom noted the incident, of course. Indeed, from the exclamations, everyone had. But it was Tio Suthrom who dropped into a crouch—as if he needed to be that close for Ashok’s instances to hear him. The heat index of his face was elevated, indicating deep anxiety, and his voice trembled as he asked, “Are you all right?”
“I am adapting,” Ashok answered, inflecting its own voice with confidence, hoping thereby to reassure Tio Suthrom. “Though I underestimated the energy required to operate under the drag of the local centripetal force. I will require more frequent recharging sessions than when I am active within my warren.”
Of the many Dragoneers waiting along the walkway, the one closest to Ashok also crouched. It recognized her from her multiple visits to its warren. Every Dragoneer who visited him had insisted on reshaping the shared avatars to reflect their personal features—a useful behavior as Ashok now recognized all of them and knew their names. This one was Tarnya.
She told it, “Let us know if there is anything we can do to enhance your comfort while you are here.”
“Thank you, Tarnya. My comfort is irrelevant. My purpose is to observe Dragoneers and the many elements of their natural habitat. I ask that no changes be made on my account.”
Tarnya smiled—a little uneasily, Ashok thought. Then she directed her gaze toward Tio Suthrom. “And for you as well, Tio Suthrom. I will show you to the cottage we’ve prepared for you.”
“Go,” Ashok urged him. “Enjoy the company of your own kind and I will enjoy my uninhibited explorations.”
<><><>
In his physical avatar, Urban stood among the other Dragoneers, with Jolly at his side. Together they watched Ashok’s instances crawl the path from the warren and then gradually diverge. Some continued on the path as it wound around the gee-deck, others crossed the pavilion or slipped into shrubbery, presumably to explore the lifeforms dwelling there.
As the last instance passed, Jolly leaned in. He started to whisper a question. “Do you mean to speak to—?”
Urban stopped him with a cautioning hand. Speaking silently, atrium to atrium, he said, *Not here, not now, not aloud. Assume Ashok has exquisite hearing.
Then, having no doubt of what Jolly had intended to ask, Urban went on to answer the unfinished question. *Yes, I mean to speak to Ashok and get us at least a conditional invitation to Hupo Sei.
Simultaneously with this exchange, Urban, as a ghost in the library, confirmed with the Scholar the parameters of Ashok’s visit.
“You are allowing them—Ashok and Tio Suthrom both—only a limited access to the library. Correct? Just as you did with the Narans.”
“Yes,” the Scholar acknowledged. “They will not be able to access any technology more complex than what they already possess and all mention of Verilotus is embargoed.”
“But not of Ezo.”
Urban meant the living moon that orbited Prakruti. Ezo had not existed before the Tanji came together to create it.
“Do you wish me to hide knowledge of Ezo?” the Scholar asked in puzzlement.
“No. We know—we’ve been told anyway—that at least one faction among the Inventions, what Ashok calls the Originalists, is determined to re-create a world for their Inventors.”
“Indeed. The amalgamation they call the Labyrinth being the seed of this world.”
Urban nodded. “I think they would be interested in Ezo. I think they would find it inspiring to know such a thing has already been done.”
Dropping only this seed of a suggestion, he waited for the Scholar to work the rest of it out. It didn’t take long.
“Ah, I see.” The Scholar smiled a hungry smile. “You want them to know about Ezo as an alternative to the clumsy billion-year project they presently envision.”
“Yes. The Tanji couldn’t have spent more than a millennium, maybe two, creating Ezo.”
“Perhaps. But the Tanji knew how to generate and manipulate and anchor a blade.”
“True.”
“You don’t know, and neither do the Inventions.”
“Sooth. But maybe the Cryptologist does?”
<><><>
Clemantine had continued in her self-imposed internal exile, keeping to her cottage or the tiny garden behind it, thinking, meditating, as she sought a new internal equilibrium. Friends visited more often than she liked: Shoran, Vytet, Pasha, even Kona. They brought her news she otherwise would not have heard, since for this period of reflection she had eschewed all artificial connections, isolating within the limited range of her biological senses.
During the day she remained within the sanctuary of her cottage with its privacy screens engaged. Only in the quiet of late night did she emerge to sit alone, cross-legged on a blanket in her little garden, where she listened to the rustling of leaves and the occasional melodic chirping of crickets near and far.
This night was different though. Despite the hour, she heard people on the path, soft voices murmuring. She did not allow herself to wonder about it, but instead focused her mind on slow gentle breaths until at last the unwanted activity subsided, and she felt herself alone under bright starlight.
She raised her gaze. A beautiful night. Not a single wisp of simulated cloud obscured the projected faces of ten thousand blazing stars.
Somewhere out there new life was surely arising, alien life, uncommon but not unknown in simple cellular form, the equivalent of bacteria. But surpassingly rare in the great span of time were those worlds where life found a way to cross the energy barrier that limited the size and complexity of those first tiny cells. And of those worlds that had succeeded: how many had been destroyed by the Chenzeme’s ancient and relentless robotic fleet? And how could she have ever allowed herself to be taken in by that murderous philosophy?
A fresh flush of guilt and shame prickled her skin and she hissed, immediately contemptuous of herself. She had let her mind wander again, wallowing in this dark state, indulging it for too long when she had duties, responsibilities, social obligations—
Glistening motion caught her eye, cutting short the litany of self-recriminations. Clemantine did not flinch. Her hands remained relaxed, at rest against her thighs. But her eyes shifted sideways and there, emerging without a rustle from beneath a head-high camellia hedge, came a plump slug-like creature only a little longer than her hand, eye spots glowing faintly in the dark.
Not a creature, she corrected herself. A machine. Shoran had described this ‘Invention’ well enough; Kona told her the alien device was to be welcomed aboard Dragon and allowed to explore on its own throughout the habitable areas of the ship.
So. It had arrived. But Clemantine did not believe it was on its own. Urban was too cautious for that. He would be watching it, watching this instance, and by extension, watching her.
“Greetings, Ashok,” she said, soft in the night.
The device paused to extend a feathery appendage, waving it slowly in her direction. Some sort of sensory equipment, no doubt. After a few seconds, it submerged the appendage into the gel of its body. Then a small dark oval surfaced beneath its eyespots—in imitation of a human mouth?—and the machine said in a cheerful voice, “Greetings. We have not met prior to this present time. As you have discerned, I am Ashok and I apologize for disturbing your nocturnal rest.”
“An apology is unnecessary. I am pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Clemantine.”
It felt odd to address a machine in this manner. But ‘machine’ was not the correct term, was it? She reminded herself that this alien-made device understood their language and its encompassing culture well enough to prefer the term synthetics. Or in this case the singular, synthetic. Shoran had described Ashok as one entity with nine—or was it ten?—instances.
For the first time in far too long, Clemantine felt a stirring of curiosity. She wondered: Did the number nine have special significance to the Inventions? Did every cohort number nine (or ten?) instances? Was there a practical reason the Inventions refused to re-create themselves by crossing the boundaries of what they deemed the three domains of life: synthetic, informational, and biological?
But it was another question she asked: “Your kind, the Inventions, you have occupied Hupo Sei for a long time, haven’t you?”
“Our first cohort reached Hupo Sei over seventeen hundred years ago. This qualifies as a long time in our reckoning,” Ashok answered.
Clemantine raised an eyebrow at Ashok’s use of an approximation rather than an exact number, no doubt imitating the way most humans would speak. “You’ve learned a lot about humans from your companion, Tio Suthrom,” she observed.
“Indeed. We have learned much from one another.”
