Blade, page 14
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
Four years into the crossing, Urban decided the time had come to secure allies in his scheme to create a world. He waited for a day when the Cryptologist returned to her avatar. He wakened his own avatar from its long sleep in the warren. Then he messaged her, and Pasha too: *I have a proposal to discuss between the three of us.
Pasha replied with instant suspicion: *Vytet’s awake too. Why not her?
Urban assured her, *We’ll discuss that too.
Neither Urban nor the Cryptologist kept a cottage of their own, so they met at Pasha’s home.
Urban arrived last. The opaque gel of the front door retracted to admit him, then closed again. Inside the front room, three cushy chairs surrounded a small round table that held a pretty teapot painted with a pale pink hibiscus flower. Little matching cups accompanied it like outriders.
Pasha, forever slim and slight, leaned back in one of the chairs, hardly filling it as she regarded him, her green eyes skeptical, but curious too—he’d counted on that. Urban returned her gaze, then nodded toward an open window. This drew from Pasha a knowing smile and the window closed; the cottage’s privacy screens engaged.
The Cryptologist looked up from the other chair, rare caution in her blue eyes. Though from the beginning she had taken the form of a petite woman like Pasha, the resemblance ended there. Where Pasha presented as sharp, flinty, intimidating, the Cryptologist went the other way, her manner youthful, coy, utterly non-threatening—a play on her part to put those around her at ease despite her illicit origins and her unfathomed abilities.
Urban knew both women to be exceedingly clever and both knew him well. So it did not surprise him when Pasha revealed that she had already guessed the purpose of this meeting, at least in part.
“This is about a blade,” she said as Urban claimed the empty seat. “It’s the only topic Vytet would object to. And it’s the ambition you can’t put aside.”
“You’re right,” Urban confessed, too aware of the accelerated pace of his heartbeat. He needed to convince them. He thought he could persuade Pasha. But the Cryptologist? She was no easy read. Turning to her, he said, “On Prakruti, after you returned from Ezo, you told me you’d seen the way to making a blade.”
“And I told you I chose not to follow that way,” she answered warily.
He nodded. “I let it go then, because there was no need of a blade, no reason to create one beyond the intellectual interest. But there is a reason now, a reason for you to decide differently.” He held up a hand to stay the expected objection. “Not to make a weapon. None of us cares for that. But as an act of creation.”
They watched him, neither trying to interrupt. They had long ago dismissed the idea of creating a blade. It was on him to change their minds—and he meant to do so.
He leaned forward, his gaze shifting between the two. “This blade would not be for us, but for the benefit of the Inventions. They came to Hupo Sei seeking a world for their Inventors. But when they arrived they found that world gone, destroyed in the manic age of the Hallowed Vasties. Some of them commenced a project to re-create a world by smashing together the remnant architectures of the failed cordon. The Labyrinth has been seventeen centuries in the making—and it still does not have the mass to collapse on itself.
“We can help them. We can make it right—if we teach ourselves how to create a blade and how to use it to make a world in the way Ezo was made. And we can do this with the assurance that the Inventions will never be able to wield a blade for themselves—because a blade requires the use of silver.” He looked at the Cryptologist. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she agreed, looking thoughtful. “I had not considered this before, but the silver is intimately entwined with the biological structure of our neural tissue. The Inventions generate their thoughts in an entirely different way, so it’s doubtful they could ever be infected with silver.”
“Unless they created a biological form for the purpose,” Pasha said. “Tio Suthrom, for instance.”
Urban countered this at once. “We control the silver,” he said, again eyeing the Cryptologist. “You and me and Jolly. Only us.”
“And Jolly does not want to create a blade. Is that why he’s not here?”
It was, but Urban offered only a tangential answer. “Jolly is afraid of what a blade can do. He sees it as a weapon. I see it as the seed of a world. We can do this. We have to—because the Inventions will never be able to do this for themselves.”
The Cryptologist frowned; she shook her head. “We are not the Tanji.”
“You are,” he countered.
She smiled. “Not here. Not by myself.” She leaned back, her gaze drifting. “You are imagining a blade that can be spun out at need and spun back in again. Aren’t you? But it’s not like that. You haven’t begun to conceive the challenge of creating such a thing.”
“But you can see the way.”
“I have imagined many things,” she conceded.
Pasha said, “So have I. I have imagined that what we call a blade is not just one thing.” She looked at the Cryptologist. “Urban already controls two potential blades, doesn’t he?”
Urban tensed, knowing what she meant, having already concluded as much.
“You are correct,” the Cryptologist said. “Each sentient missile contains the possibility of a blade in its simplest form. Like the blade at Verilotus, the bloom of a missile is an intrusion from another reality. But without a dark complement to stabilize it, it immediately evaporates as reality heals itself.”
Pasha nodded, eyes bright at this confirmation. “That dark complement allows the creation of an enduring weapon, one that can be directed and re-used. This is the cutting weapon for which a blade is named.”
“I don’t want to create a weapon,” Urban repeated.
The Cryptologist frowned. “We know blades have been used as weapons. We saw the evidence of it in the megastructure at Volo’s Landing. But I think they must make awkward weapons, difficult to wield. The annihilating missiles are so much simpler to use. No, a stabilized blade would have been conceived as a tool to manipulate matter.”
“The blade and its dark complement,” Pasha said. “A dual blade, locked together.”
“Locked together, creating a stable waveform,” the Cryptologist confirmed.
A rising intensity sharpened Pasha’s voice. “But not always in the same configuration. From the evidence of Verilotus we know the dark blade exudes a kind of gravity, its strength, perhaps, determined by the state of the blade itself? The dark blade at Verilotus serves as the core of that ring-shaped world. But what if it could be made in a more compact form, its gravity concentrated? I have imagined such an anomaly serving as the seed of a spherical world. Stabilized by a bright outer blade, it would draw in matter—enough to create a moon like Ezo. At first there would be just a hot sphere of mass. That ought to require a billion years to cool—though again, from the evidence of Verilotus, we know a time bubble can be generated that would speed the process as observed from outside. Then, when the creation is done, the blade is closed. That is why we saw no blade at Ezo.”
Pasha had described the very act of creation Urban hoped to perform. Yet her words ignited in him a terrible vision. Far easier than creation was destruction—and hundreds of worlds had been destroyed to create the cordons of the Hallowed Vasties. “Reverse the geometry,” he murmured. “Summon into existence a dark blade in a ring around a planet and a small white blade at the planet’s core.”
The Cryptologist nodded. “This configuration would produce an instantaneous burst of energy so extreme the world would blast apart, with the debris drawn outward toward the gravity of the dark blade.”
All throughout the Hallowed Vasties, in every settled star system, whole worlds had been sacrificed to grow the mad ephemeral architecture of the swarms. Prakruti had escaped somehow, but not Earth. The Sun had been stripped of its worlds, every planet that once existed there, consumed.
Hatred boiled up in him. What twisted entity would see more value in dead matter than in the ancient and beautifully integrated complex of life that had evolved on the mother world? That most sacred world.
A shudder ran through him at the horror of such a loss.
“Never again,” he declared softly, looking up, taking in Pasha, and then the Cryptologist. “A blade must never again be used to destroy a world. But to create one, like Ezo . . .”
He trailed off, seeing the Cryptologist shaking her head.
“How long do you propose to stay at Hupo Sei?” she asked him. “To craft a world, even a small world like Ezo, would require centuries at least, more likely millennia, even if accelerated time proves to be a side effect of a blade.”
“But why would it have to be a world like Ezo?” Pasha asked softly, her gaze intense, a white-knuckled fist pressed against her thigh. “For all his faults, Lezuri found the best use for a blade—a permanently stabilized blade. Surely it would be far faster to create a ring-shaped world like Verilotus, with its shallow crust and none of the complications of a molten core and the associated volcanic processes.”
Urban shook his head. He started to object, to say something like, Only Lezuri ever created a ring world.
But the Cryptologist spoke first, and with unexpected enthusiasm. “I have often thought of how such a thing might be done. It is a very interesting challenge. Significant though, that Verilotus remains trapped within a time bubble.”
“I agree!” Pasha said. She stood suddenly, fist still clenched as if to contain her excitement. “The time bubble at Verilotus may well be an unavoidable side effect of the Blade. Perhaps it reflects the flow of time in that other reality. Perhaps a time bubble is generated with every use of every blade, and time flows normally on Ezo only because the blade used to create it is gone.”
“It may be,” the Cryptologist acknowledged. Bright eyed, she turned to Urban. “If this is true at Verilotus, it would be true at Hupo Sei, were we to make a ring world.”
Urban nodded, thinking he had them now, that they were won over by the grandeur of the thing, the wonder of it—to create a living world! But he needed to be sure. “So you believe it can be done?”
The Cryptologist answered. “We know it can be done, because it was done at least once. But can we do it? I do not know, Urban.”
“It would be interesting to try.”
“Yes, I agree it would.”
He found himself breathless now with anticipation. “Then you’ll do it?”
She shook her head, slowly, as if in apology. “It’s not all my decision. Would the Inventions want us to do it?”
“They might,” Urban said. “Ashok’s interested enough that it presented the idea to their Core Forum.”
“Wait,” Pasha said with a scowl. “You’ve already discussed this with Ashok?”
“Of course. If Ashok rejected the idea, there would be no point going on, would there?”
Pasha leaned back, arms crossed, scowling in irritation—but she did not disagree.
The Cryptologist looked troubled. “How much did you tell Ashok?”
“Almost nothing. Just a suggestion that maybe it is possible.”
“They also need to know this would be a dangerous project, an experiment, one likely to fail—with the repercussions of failure unknown. We must make this clear, and then the Inventions must decide if the risk is worth undertaking. I will do nothing without their approval.”
Pasha’s shoulders slumped and she sighed. “You’re right, of course. We’ll also need to present the project to the ship’s company, though not just yet. Not until we work out what is required, and calculate the risk if we can.” She straightened in her seat again. Leaning on the armrest, she looked at Urban. “Wouldn’t you have to create a Cauldron like the one you manipulated at Verilotus?”
At mention of the Cauldron, memories rushed in of the crushing, twisted, incomprehensibly complex dimensions of that place, horrifying when he’d occupied it on his own and worse by far when Lezuri had been there and Urban had felt his identity dissolving into that entity’s greater persona. He had almost lost himself. He shuddered at the memory. He turned his face away, still aware of Pasha, eyeing him closely.
She did not relent, but went on elucidating the challenges he would face if he really meant to do this thing. “And I think you will need to create silver before you can create a Cauldron. Can you do that, Urban?”
The Cryptologist too studied him closely. “Pasha is correct. You must take the lead on this, Urban. I never experienced the Cauldron. You have. Nor do I know how to generate silver. Do you?”
Her question induced in Urban a shivering sigh. Never would he forget the sight of silver leaping from Lezuri’s hands, laddering through the air to envelope him and dissolve his avatar, his ghost barely escaping.
Three deep breaths to steady himself before he dared to raise his gaze and face the two again. He said, “I don’t know how. Not yet. But I saw Lezuri generate chains of silver so I know there is a way. I’ll work it out.”
Chapter
23
The Bio-mechanic haunted Griffin’s high bridge, observing both the infinity around him and the nearly infinite complexity of the courser’s evolving philosopher cells. The Cryptologist had long ago stripped away the cells’ instinct to immediate violence, and she claimed they had learned empathy. But if so, it was an empathy without affection. The Bio-mechanic thought of them as coldly dispassionate observers, fascinated by all things, questioning everything, ever immersed in discussions of significance and possibility—though as an intellectual endeavor only. The philosopher cells remained aloof, ever barren of any capacity for love or grief.
An alert interrupted these thoughts and also the thoughts of that version of him in the library where he worked to refine a molecular map of a minor lineage of philosopher cells. Recently, he had set the data gate to notify him if ever a ghost or a submind arrived there. He had done it out of caution, wanting at least a moment’s warning if Urban or Clemantine or any other Dragoneer came on an unexpected visit to Griffin. So far though he had only received a tedious series of alerts notifying him of the Cryptologist’s all too frequent exchanges of subminds with her core self aboard Dragon. This latest, just one more.
Enough of that, he thought.
He summoned the function into his mindspace and modified it: if not the Cryptologist, then—
*Come see me, she messaged him.
Such a request remained a compulsion to him, though it didn’t have to be. He could change that now. He had that freedom, though not the desire to do it. He wanted to be summoned, to be remembered, to be involved as a useful and necessary presence. And as well, he was curious to know what news she had brought from Dragon.
He instantiated on the main deck of the library, free and full dimensional, barefoot in his dark-green bodysuit, facing her, noting at once a gleam of excitement in her bright blue eyes. A wary gleam.
“What have you discovered?” he asked. “Not another great ship. Not a courser.”
She frowned at him. “I have made no discovery and if I had, those would be poor guesses because in either case, you would have received an automatic alert and would not need me to bring you the news.”
He crossed his arms, scowled his annoyance, and waited for her to speak—as he should have done at the start.
She said, “Pasha and I have agreed to help Urban create a ring-shaped world like the one at Verilotus.”
He cracked a half smile at this jest—then scowled again as he realized she was serious. “You said you would never create a blade.”
“I had no reason to before. But Urban is right that the Inventions need a world.”
<><><>
Alone on the high bridge, the Bio-mechanic meditated on ambition: its value, its expression, and how it defined Urban’s existence. In his youth, ambition had led him to depart Deception Well, leaving neither ghost nor avatar behind him as he set off on a quixotic quest to discover the source of all things Chenzeme. Ambition had led him to hijack a Chenzeme courser, to create a crew of Apparatchiks, to undertake an expedition to the Hallowed Vasties, and now, to create a world.
The Bio-mechanic strove to suppress a low, smoldering anger, too aware that his own ambitions had been solely concerned with the good of the fleet, with the control of Dragon and later of Griffin. Unlike his progenitor, he’d been designed for narrow horizons. But lately his interests had expanded, his horizons had broadened, and under the influence of Urban’s ambition he challenged himself: He dares to re-create a blade. Why then shouldn’t I dare the far lesser feat of re-creating myself?
He knew it could be done. Years ago, as the fleet approached Tanjiri, he had observed the Cryptologist taking shape within her cocoon. She had asked no one’s permission.
He asked no one either. Not even her. And after all, he required only a minuscule part of Griffin’s material reserves.
The moment came. His mind woke, entrapped in the prison of a body. A voluntary prison. He anticipated an initial horror—the Cryptologist had once told him it had been that way for her—but he was the Bio-mechanic. He knew better what to expect, and horror didn’t come.
Instead, his mind flooded with an awareness of bodily processes, the prodigious energy demands, the intensity of the senses. The dullness of thought, his intellect muted.
But he was the Bio-mechanic and he had known to expect that. A biological brain did not possess strata sufficient to support the knowledge and memories he had gathered over millennia. But it didn’t matter because his ghost still existed within the library and its insights would become his with every exchange of subminds.
He breathed within his cocoon, drawing cool air into his lungs, experiencing an intense pleasure from the sensation of a living breath, the biochemical joy of a body reveling in its own existence.
