Blade, page 12
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
“And was Tio Suthrom the only surviving human the Inventions ever encountered in your explorations of Hupo Sei?”
“Ah. This question has been asked of me many times and each time I must disappoint the questioner with my answer. Tio Suthrom is indeed the only human we ever encountered prior to the arrival of Dragoneers, and we have mapped most objects within the system and explored every major one. A tiny percentage of these objects continue to support remnant single-cell biological life. Each of these we left untouched to develop or to die as they will.”
Ashok then asked a question of its own. “You, Clemantine, have not yet met Tio Suthrom, have you?”
“I have not.”
“I am observing an intriguing similarity in your two metabolic states, that is quite different from that of others I have met.”
“By what means are you observing my metabolic state?” she asked with real curiosity.
“By the exudate of your breath.” It partially extended its appendage again as if to demonstrate the mechanism.
So, was Tio Suthrom a melancholy pilot? Well, why not? It would surely be a weary, soul-crushing existence to live without human companionship for centuries on end . . . unless of course you were as adept as Urban at editing emotion.
“Perhaps we both need therapy,” Clemantine observed with a bitter smile.
The instance hesitated a moment before it replied. “Therapy. An interesting concept. It says much that your kind requires a means to reprogram and correct flaws whether acquired, or inherent in your original designs. Tio Suthrom would benefit from such therapy. In his present state he tends to become unstable during challenging circumstances.”
“As when he believes he is about to be immolated by a marauder?”
“Yes,” Ashok agreed.
“I think I would like to meet this Tio Suthrom. He sounds very human to me.”
“All too human,” a soft unfamiliar male voice said from the shadows under the cottage eaves.
Clemantine stiffened, but she did not turn and did not get up—and she successfully suppressed an oath that tried to rise to her lips.
“Tio Suthrom,” she concluded with just a hint of irritation.
He stepped out of shadow and into starlight. “If I’m intruding, I apologize. I’m here because Ashok urgently requested that I come.”
“Did it?”
Clemantine found this deeply disturbing, not because she objected to Tio Suthrom’s presence but because he had come too soon—in the very moment she had expressed a desire to meet him.
Had Ashok predicted her behavior? Was she so easy to read?
“I will go,” Tio Suthrom said.
“No, stay.” She wanted to know more of this melancholy pilot. After all, he was someone new. “Come inside. I’ll make tea.”
Chapter
20
Morning revealed to Vytet a significant change: Clemantine had emerged from her self-imposed exile. Vytet came upon her at the dining terrace, where she breakfasted in the company of Alaka‘i Onyx’s grim pilot . . . though in the early light Tio Suthrom did not look so grim as he had when he’d first arrived on the gee deck. Perhaps Clemantine’s smiles had leavened his mood? Something had surely lifted hers. Vytet invited herself to find out what.
“Good morning, Clemantine,” she said softly as she settled onto a pillow opposite the two, at the low table they shared. “And you, Tio Suthrom.”
“Tio is enough,” he said in a low and gentle voice.
Clemantine eyed Vytet with an amused smile, before asking Tio, “Have you met Vytet?”
When he shook his head, she explained, “Vytet, I think, would describe herself as an engineer, though she is so much more. A true polymath, interested in even the most minor and transient phenomena.”
Vytet cocked her head, subjecting Clemantine to a gently mocking smile. “It’s true I am continuously surprised by the creative turns life will take.” She shifted her gaze to Tio. “I visited Alaka‘i Onyx and explored Ashok’s warren, but you weren’t there at the time.”
A nod. “I . . . felt the need to withdraw. It was no easy thing to settle my mind to the existence . . . the reality of other people.” Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Clemantine, he turned to gaze at her, his eyes bright with emotion. “No easy thing, when I had convinced myself I would never meet another human again and that I did not want to.”
Vytet watched and she wondered: Was this a minor and transient phenomenon? Or a seed of trouble?
As if to address this unspoken question, Clemantine said, “The Inventions are averse to biological life, so this is the first time Tio has emerged as an embodied human in a very long time.”
“Since long before the fall,” Tio added.
“Is it then like a new experience?” Vytet asked him. “Every sensation, every desire, intense and fascinating?”
“Not always fascinating,” Tio said. “Doubt and regret being as real as desire.”
His gaze rose, fixing on something behind her.
Turning, Vytet found that Urban had come. He stood, a towering figure, two steaming bowls held in his large hands. A nod, as he met her gaze. Then he knelt, and set one of the bowls in front of her. Steamed vegetable cubes tossed with noodles in a light, spicy sauce. “You come to breakfast,” he chided, “and then forget to eat.”
He kept the second bowl for himself, sitting beside her, seeming calm, only mildly curious as he looked questioningly across the table at Clemantine. She returned his gaze with a slight, secretive smile.
“Urban, it’s good to see you about. You’ve been mostly absent from the gee deck for days now,” Vytet observed.
“Yes.”
That was all.
He began to eat, long chopsticks lifting the still-steaming noodles.
Tio said, “Ashok has finished its survey of the gee deck.”
Urban nodded, empty chopsticks hovering above his bowl. “Sooth. I’ve mapped its movements.” He jabbed at the noodles. “And I’ve spoken to Ashok. I’ve assured it there is no risk of microbial infection here. The Bio-mechanic will make sure of that. Still, it’s uncomfortable and uneasy, and it doesn’t want to stay.”
At this, Tio looked surprised. Vytet certainly was. “Elaborate,” she demanded.
Urban gestured toward the end of the table with his now-laden chopsticks. Vytet looked and was startled to see an instance of the Invention. It pulled itself onto the low tabletop, explaining, “I am not designed for the environment here. Fascinating as it is, it has proven a continual challenge to my structure and altogether unpleasant.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vytet said, resisting an urge to reach out and touch it. Had anyone touched it? She didn’t know.
Ashok said, “I have weighed the possibility of inventing a fresh cohort customized for this environment, but concluded the idea is impractical. The challenge of training such a cohort without access to the full experiential resources of our shared library at Hupo Sei presents a significant risk.”
“It would be naïve?” Vytet asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Why not adapt your own physical aspect?” Clemantine asked before Vytet could pose the question herself. “Re-invent yourself.”
“Could you?” Ashok asked her. “Could you become some other creature entirely? Could your mind adapt to the body of a bird, for example? Or one of the little nocturnal primates that live here in the trees?”
“Maybe. Eventually,” she mused. “It would require a long phase of relearning.”
“Yes. And for me, there would be little gained in the end. I have surveyed your habitat and acquired insight on your biology. There is much left to learn, but such learning can continue through an exchange of libraries if Tio Suthrom is agreeable to this.”
Tio appeared surprised rather than agreeable. “An exchange of libraries?”
“It’s traditional,” Urban said. “Shared knowledge. Shared experience.”
“It will take preparation,” Tio hedged.
“But there’s no hurry, is there?” Clemantine asked, drawing Tio’s gaze and holding it for long seconds in an exchange that further piqued Vytet’s curiosity—and Urban’s too, it seemed, judging by his dark frown.
“Is Tio thinking of staying with us?” Urban asked, directing the question at Clemantine. “It is . . . hard to be so utterly alone and without human company. I know.”
He did know, Vytet reflected. And the generosity of his words took her by surprise.
Tio directed an uncomfortable smile at Ashok. “I have been more fortunate than that. I have not been alone and I did not miss the company of other people. I did not think so anyway.” Another look, traded with Clemantine. “I was wrong about that.”
“There is much for all of us to consider as we look to the future,” Clemantine said, directing her gaze to Ashok. “You for instance, Ashok. I have heard you came to Ryo to survey for hazards. Forgive me if you have been asked this before, but are you Inventions planning to colonize this system as well as Hupo Sei?”
Vytet observed a short series of tiny vibrational waves in the gelatinous matter of Ashok’s instance. A shiver?
“Emphatically no!” Ashok replied with an edge of disbelief. “Hupo Sei is our assigned system. To expand beyond is greedy and dangerous.”
“Really?” Vytet asked, intrigued by this stunning assessment.
“Yes, this is our truth.”
“You must see humans as very greedy, then,” she guessed. “For all the systems we once occupied.”
“Indeed, this is so. It is the nature of biologicals. Synthetics do not share biological drives toward violence, conquest, or the acquisition of territory beyond our immediate needs. We operate within a parameter that can be described as ‘fair share.’ Hupo Sei is our share. It is enough. We will not worry or antagonize our biological neighbors by expanding into their shares, or into an unclaimed share such as Ryo. To do so would be to court conflict, and conflict destroys knowledge and wastes energy.”
“Indeed it does,” Vytet agreed.
Urban leaned forward in sudden sharp interest. “Have you met your biological neighbors?”
“Not directly, though we have set up observation posts on the periphery of Sulakari and are monitoring the evolving lifeforms in its nebula.”
“Human lifeforms?” Vytet asked.
“The life we have observed at Sulakari is not human though likely it is descended from your biological clade.”
Urban again, an intensity to his question: “You did not communicate with what’s there?”
“That is correct. We observe and do not interfere.”
“A tactic we should consider,” Clemantine suggested sardonically.
Urban ignored this, pressing his own questions: “And the Halo? What about it? Have you been there?”
“No.”
“Not even to set up observation posts?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Ashok explained: “Observing from Hupo Sei, it is clear the technology deployed at the Halo is far greater than our own. Certainly, the inhabitants of that system must be aware of us. They could have visited us if they desired contact, but they have not. So we reflect this behavior, and do not approach or otherwise interfere.”
“We did not reflect your silence,” Vytet observed.
“This is true. But your technology is greater than our own.”
“In some aspects, yes,” she agreed. “But your people are so different from anything we’ve ever known before. There is much to learn from one another.”
Clemantine gave Vytet a hard look. “Not all learning is good.” Her gaze shifted to Urban. “Some knowledge is better forgotten.”
She means the Blade, Vytet thought. A disagreement that would not die—and yet, in a rare move, Urban did not take up the argument, instead returning to the previous topic.
“Ashok, what of the other Inventions, those cohorts the Inventors sent to different worlds? Do you know where they are? Or if any were successful?”
“We do not know. The combination of time and distance makes it unlikely we ever will.”
“But by your definition, wasn’t it ‘greedy’ to send so many cohorts of Inventions out to claim and colonize multiple star systems?”
“Indeed, yes, though it was believed the great majority of these missions would be lost to the marauders or otherwise fail. Even so, ‘fair share’ is a parameter of Inventions, not of Inventors. Recall that the Inventors are biologicals, like you—though of a more careful nature.”
Clemantine scoffed at that. “They created you, quickened artificial life, intelligent and independent. That’s inherently dangerous.”
“We have our own quickened artificial life in the Apparatchiks,” Vytet pointed out.
Urban smiled his pirate smile. “We have the Cryptologist too—and maybe she is inherently dangerous and so proves the rule.”
Clemantine fixed him with a sharp, offended glare. He did not seem to care. And if Ashok noted this, it gave no sign, saying simply, “Conflict is natural and to be expected in biologicals.” It went on, “Tio Suthrom, this Dragoneer-Urban has agreed to return me imminently to Alaka‘i Onyx. You and I must then commence our return to Hupo Sei.”
Reluctance weighed in Tio’s voice. “Do you truly wish to go so soon?”
“What point in staying?” Urban asked, addressing not Tio in particular, but all of them. “I know there has been interest among the ship’s company in conducting a survey of Ryo, since we are here. But Ashok has already spent a century and a half doing just that, and has shared the results with us. The Scholar and the Astronomer have assessed those studies, finding them valid—and all confirm our own observations. There is nothing of interest here. Ashok wishes to return home with its discoveries—and it has invited us to go with it and visit Hupo Sei.”
“This is a tentative invitation,” Ashok clarified. “When I have returned to Alaka‘i Onyx I will message the Core Forum, informing them we are coming, and then, Tio Suthrom, we will accompany the Dragoneer fleet through the crossing.”
Urban added, “If in the transit the Inventions decide against allowing our visit, I have assured Ashok we will respect this decision and turn away.”
“I do not think that will happen,” Ashok said. “Inventions are curious by design. For this reason, it will be difficult for the Core Forum to reject such a visit. Still, the danger of it will be carefully weighed, and rejection is a possibility.”
Vytet traded a stunned look with Clemantine. The sudden revelation of this plan, the assurance with which it was presented: together they left Vytet speechless—but only for a moment.
She turned to Urban. “I won’t say I object. I am in fact intrigued. But you are premature. The ship’s company has not heard this plan. They have not discussed it and they have certainly not agreed to it.”
Again from Urban, that sly, knowing smile. “They will.” He picked up his empty bowl and stood. “You should call for a meeting this morning. Ashok has agreed to speak and answer questions before it goes.” Then, with a nod at Vytet’s untouched bowl of noodles he added, “And don’t forget to eat.”
He walked away then, and after a few seconds Clemantine followed him, leaving Tio gazing after her, looking troubled and confused.
Vytet returned her attention to the instance, still at rest on the table, utterly motionless as only a machine could be. “Was it you, Ashok, or Urban who first suggested this visit to Hupo Sei?”
“The suggestion originated with me,” Ashok replied.
Vytet pressed her lips together, thoroughly annoyed at this unexpected answer. So Urban hadn’t directly suggested a visit. Still, he’d been so pleased with the outcome, he must surely have steered the conversation to that end.
“Will you call a meeting of the Dragoneers?” Ashok asked her.
Time had not diluted Vytet’s curiosity. She desired to visit worlds, as many as she could, the alien culture of Hupo Sei being a particularly bright, nay, irresistible lure. It wasn’t hard for her to set aside the expectation of years of study at Ryo.
“Yes, of course,” she answered Ashok. “And I will advocate for the visit.”
No doubt this was the response Urban had anticipated. Vytet did not like feeling manipulated, but wasn’t he right? Ryo was a dead system. Why not move on?
And yet, she found herself wary.
Vytet knew Urban well, knew he would always pursue his own goals and interests. And she couldn’t help but wonder what additional, unspoken motivation lay behind his abrupt resolve to hurry on to Hupo Sei.
Chapter
21
What game are you playing at? Clemantine wondered as she hurried to catch up with Urban on the path.
*Wait for me, she messaged him.
He halted, looking back at her with a flinty gaze.
She caught up with him. Met him eye to eye, her suspicion colliding with his resentment. “We need to talk, Urban. Come home with me.”
“To your house? No, I don’t want to be there. Not now.”
He had been generous to Tio, less so to her, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let it matter. The rift between them was real, and she would make no excuse or apology for having taken what she needed. She set him straight on this, saying, “It’s not Tio I mean to discuss.”
“What then?”
As if there could be no other plausible option? He should know her better than that. He did know her better. He just did not want to have this conversation.
Too bad.
“Walk with me,” she told him in a voice gravelly with latent anger. “And explain to me why you are so eager to visit these machines.”
He set the pace, striding toward the pavilion as he delivered an answer in crisp syllables. “Why shouldn’t I be? We’ve never encountered anything like them before and we’re not likely to again. And what’s the alternative? Should we go on to Sulakari and disrupt whatever new lifeforms are evolving there?”
His pace slowed; his tone shifted. Looking at her, he spoke with real bitterness. “Or are you so eager to make the long crossing to the Sun? That empty system! We could spend mournful years there, paying our respects and contemplating the end state of an all-out war of dimensional missiles erasing worlds, erasing reality.”
