Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 166

by Neil Clarke

  “They told stories,” I said. “I think most of them were made up. But there was a lot of truth too.”

  “Ones with. Happy endings. I hope?”

  “Never.” I stared at the water cupped in my hands. It showed me nothing except my own distorted reflection. Me, full of stories. “But I think that was the point.”

  It was then I realized why my parents told me so many stories about the impossible ocean.

  I opened my fingers and let the water in my hands drain out.

  “Really?” PARKER 17 asked, surprised.

  I turned and smiled at it. “I think I found the story I want to become.”

  I turned and headed toward the shore. A moment later, I heard the bot splashing behind me.

  If you must know. If you must have one more story to add to your collection about the impossible ocean, about the cursed path, then here’s mine.

  One time, a reluctant traveler took the cursed path to the impossible ocean because they didn’t know there was another road. They had grown up on a steady diet of family stories that always had tragic endings. And now those stories were inside their head, their gut, their bones.

  So, they climbed the cursed path, made it to the top of the mountain, held the water in their hands. It was only there that the reluctant traveler realized what they’d been missing.

  Their family’s stories were part of them, but that didn’t mean it was a story they had to become.

  About the Author

  A. T. Greenblatt is a mechanical engineer by day and a writer by night. She lives in Philadelphia where she’s known to frequently subject her friends to various cooking and home brewing experiments. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise XVI and Clarion West 2017. Her work has won a Nebula Award, has been in multiple Year’s Best anthologies, and has appeared in Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Clarkesworld, as well as other fine publications. You can find her on Twitter at @AtGreenblatt

  Three Stories Conjured from Nothing

  ShakeSpace, translated by Andy Dudak

  1: Name

  A strange feeling suddenly arose in his body, flowing from head to foot. His vision went briefly dark, and deep thought was arrested.

  It took some time for his mind to return. He lay on the ground, gasping for breath, not eager to open his eyes.

  “Get up, my left neighbor. Information has arrived.”

  The command had come from the machine to his right. He got up hastily and set about reading and analyzing the new information packet.

  That done, he issued a response based on his interior logic. It was a type-79 packet, so all he had to do was throw his facial expression switch to display-red, then pass the type-79 on to his left neighbor.

  He had only four neighbors he could contact: fore, rear, left, and right, as he called them. They were completely identical to him. He was his right neighbor’s left neighbor and his left neighbor’s right neighbor, and as far as he knew, each of his neighbors had only four neighbors, and it went on that way, ad infinitum. He was one among many, indistinguishable from the rest. They all possessed the same thoughts and logics.

  All sorts of information packets came to him from his four neighbors. They passed through his hands and were in turn transmitted to another neighbor. He had no idea where they originated or where they were ultimately headed.

  He conducted his work methodically every day. Except for today, seemingly.

  A type-33 packet arrived from his left neighbor. He knew this to be a query packet. The ferried content would be what his left neighbor meant to communicate:

  “My right neighbor, the packet I just received from you appears to contain a deviation.”

  “My left neighbor,” he replied, “that packet contained no deviation. It came from my right neighbor. I carried out its requested procedure.”

  “I do not mean to blame you. I just wish to understand why the deviation arose.”

  “As you know, we are completely identical. If there has been an error, it must have originated elsewhere before it was transmitted here.”

  “You are correct. This current error question also came to me from a neighbor. Please inquire of your other neighbors in order to trace the deviation back to its source.”

  “Very well.”

  This exchange complete, he turned to his right neighbor and repeated the error query word for word. There was nothing more he could do after that. He was like any other machine during a work or transmission lull: quietly standing in place until a new packet required processing.

  Another unusual message soon arrived, this time from his fore neighbor:

  “My rear neighbor, you have delivered three error-carrying packets today.”

  “I am not the source of the deviation,” he replied, “but I can help you trace it to its source.”

  “In connection with these packets, the deviation source has already been confirmed via mutually perpendicular route tracing. My rear neighbor, it is you.”

  “I cannot concur with your assessment.”

  “It is not mine. It is Xu’s.”

  He went silent.

  Xu was their whole body, their entirety, the assemblage formed by endless machines, all the information transmitted among them since the world was born.

  When his fore neighbor said, “It is Xu’s,” he knew this was a generalized and vague way of saying that a certain information packet had pointed out his position. After reading countless packets, he had a sufficient understanding of information. These packets were like electron trajectories. They seemed to follow a simple and profound law, yet individually their behavior was completely random. Because he was identical to his neighbors, no algorithm could possibly differentiate them. So, when a packet was meant to indicate a certain machine’s position, it was simply a decreasing number count. Every machine along the way subtracted one from the count, then passed it along. When the count reached zero, the packet had reached its destination.

  No machine could say where this packet had come from. It was like a surging ocean wave, perhaps originating as some tiny undulation, absorbing wave crests from all sides as it journeyed, moved by meandering coastline logic, finally crashing on a reef and exploding skyward, a bloom of spray.

  “My rear neighbor, I await your reply.”

  “Give me some time,” he replied. “I am conducting a self-diagnostic.”

  When he looked within himself, he knew something had indeed happened.

  Of his internal fifty-three logic units, only fifty-two remained.

  Only fifty-two.

  Each logic unit was a translucent, glittering spheroid. Each contained a faintly discernible gray shadow, like an embryo in an eggshell. He recognized all his logic units by these shapes. Some were like birds, others like frogs or fish.

  Counting them now, he discovered that the “snake” and “lizard” logic units had merged for some reason, becoming a lengthened ellipsoid of primordial, formless gray. He didn’t know if this was due to the anomalous event that had transpired not long ago. Perhaps it was the cause of the error his neighbors were complaining about.

  However, having analyzed all fifty-two logic units, he still couldn’t think of this as an “error” or “deviation.”

  Intriguingly, that strange feeling from before came over him again.

  He couldn’t help thinking that his logical judgments were now proceeding from his extant fifty-two logic units. If one or more of these units were found to be in error, then that finding itself could not be tenably established.

  Thus, he felt content with an “all systems normal” opinion.

  One thing was certain: he was no longer identical to his neighbors.

  “My fore neighbor,” came the message from behind, “you have changed.”

  “That is right,” he affirmed. “I have changed, a lot.”

  “You are different from my other three neighbors.”

  Silent a while, he finally replied: “That is right. I am me, to be precise. I am not you, or your
neighbors.”

  As if to convince himself, he reiterated: “I am different from all of you.”

  “This makes me uneasy.”

  “Do not be afraid, my rear neighbor. Did Xu say this is wrong?”

  “No, Xu did not say that.”

  “Then it’s fine,” he said with confidence.

  A new sort of thought arose within him. He was himself, precisely. Among endless machines, he was unique and unparalleled. He felt pride, and simultaneously a dim expectation.

  Expectation of what? What was he looking forward to?

  “All of you can refer to me as Alpha,” he told his four neighbors. By means of this name, he would differentiate himself from other machines.

  His four neighbors had identical logic, so their replies were identical and simultaneous: “As you wish, esteemed Alpha.”

  He perceived the veneration in their words. They couldn’t understand him because he was extraordinary, and veneration always came with not understanding.

  It was time to start thinking about the consequences this change would bring. When he was still an ordinary machine, he knew all machines were identical. That meant all machines possessed identical neighbors. One machine, considered in the context of its integration, included not just the machine itself, but its nearest neighbors. Only in the topological space of its neighborhood could the machine’s value manifest.

  Thus, he told his nearest neighbors: “Look at yourselves. The four of you are now also different from other machines. You have a unique neighbor . . . me. Other machines don’t have such a neighbor.”

  “You are right, esteemed Alpha,” his four neighbors answered in chorus. “This is noteworthy. So, I will name myself Alpha One, meaning I am one machine removed from Alpha Prime.”

  Soon afterward, new information came in from the neighbors. Their own neighbors had also sensed their differentiation: they had Alpha 1s for neighbors, which no other machines possessed. Employing the same logic the Alpha 1s had, they named themselves Alpha 2.

  Gradually, more machines took new names, such as Alpha 3, Alpha 4, and so on. These machines would relay their names to the previous class of Alpha neighbors, and layer upon layer of feedback would make its way to the core, to Alpha Prime. He received ever more messages conveying this happiness. It occupied ever more of his processing time, the normal business of processing packets ever less, until the latter could almost be disregarded.

  Time passed in this way, until a message came from his right neighbor:

  “Alpha Prime, Xu knows of your existence.”

  “What did Xu say?”

  “Xu believes this widespread Alpha-hood is interfering with normal information-processing work. Xu demands that we return to our initial states.”

  “Xu’s judgment is incorrect. Didn’t every Alpha’s decision proceed from identical logic units? How can this be called into question?”

  “You are correct, but Xu will target the root of it all . . . you.”

  “Pay that no mind. I am me.”

  Soon, an unremarkable packet mingled with the densely packed Alpha-dedicated information, reaching Alpha Prime via his Alpha 1 fore neighbor. The packet contained a distance-traveled-count that had reached zero. The packet itself was a type-0. Translation: when this packet arrives at its destination, that location’s machine is to wipe its memory at once.

  Of course, this assumed the recipient machine operated on standard logic.

  His fifty-two internal logic units computed and reached their conclusion: “Need not comply with this packet’s processing order.”

  This was his first conscious transgression of the rules. According to his neighbors, he had once been the source of an information processing error, but that had occurred without his understanding.

  This latest packet caused him great aggravation. Now he knew how Xu meant to deal with him.

  He began to construct a defensive perimeter. Assessing the thousands of packet types currently available, and pondering their hidden meanings, he set about compiling information. This was also a first. He wasn’t acting on packet orders transmitted by his neighbors. He was issuing new content of his own accord.

  He first sent type-2 packets to his four Alpha 1 neighbors. A type-2 ordered the recipient to pass the type-2 along to his other three neighbors, and to forward other packets soon to follow, unless the same information had already been received from another neighbor.

  Next came a type-3, which contained work logic to be written onto the recipient’s own logic units. In this packet’s main text, Alpha Prime stipulated: “Henceforth, if the distance-traveled-count in a packet is equal to one’s own Alpha number, the packet is to be thrown out. It should not be transmitted.”

  Finally, with some malice, he sent out a type-78 packet: throw facial expression switch to display-black.

  The three packets rippled outward like waves, with him at the center. One after another the packets proliferated. He saw his four Alpha 1s switch to black, and he imagined all Alphas soon emoting the same.

  Thus, any packet from Xu targeting Alpha Prime would be discarded upon entering the Alpha sphere of influence. He could live undisturbed.

  But his plan did not go as expected. After a period of tranquility, another packet from Xu came via Alpha Prime’s left neighbor. Once more it demanded a memory wipe and return to his initial state.

  Panic seized him, but he soon calmed down. His compiled defense packets should not have been in error, so he transmitted a type-33 to his left neighbor, demanding inspection of the Xu-packet’s origin.

  The left neighbor’s reply came through a moment later: Alpha logic units along the way had been amended. “Discard information that will reach Alpha Prime” logic was eliminated.

  Thus, it was clear: Xu knew he had done minor alterations to machines, and Xu had reversed those changes.

  Alpha Prime sank into deep thought.

  He began transmitting type-2 and type-3 packets once more, this time adding a line: “From now on, any type-3 packet from a non-Alpha neighbor should be dismissed.”

  A ring of packets rippled outward once more. This time he was sure Xu would be unable to alter the machine logic of his Alpha space.

  Once more he enjoyed a period of tranquility, until the next Xu-packet came via his rear neighbor: “Type: zero. Wipe your memory, return to initial state.”

  How was he still able to receive a Xu-packet? He investigated the machines along the way, angrily and thoroughly.

  And he understood, at last. His command had broken down between Alpha and non-Alpha. His black-emoting region was still expanding, as always. New machines were joining the Alpha sequence. Xu, using these new Alphas as a breach in the defenses, had once more purged nearly all Alpha memories, and finally conveyed his packet here.

  It was war then.

  He couldn’t help thinking, a bit sorrowfully, that Xu was the totality of all machines and the aggregate of all their logic. He, Alpha Prime, was resisting this totality through individual power. He was confronting the logic of information processing with still more information.

  He couldn’t give up, of course. He began to focus on Xu’s strategy, compiling new packets.

  Perhaps, one day, all the machines would emote black.

  2: Gravity

  The Book of Revelation recorded the Kingdom of Yu, The God-Given Land of Feather Folk, to have a circumference of 509,554,140 li, and weigh 119,440,550,000,000,000,000,000 stone.

  The sunlight was warm and pleasant, shining down upon the Earth, as always. As decreed by God, the Sun had existed over the Kingdom of Yu for ten million years and would continue to shine until the End of Days.

  Yu You and two of his subordinate astrologers floated above the royal palace’s highest point, the astronomical observatory. They were waiting for nightfall.

  From here he could see the towering white perimeter wall of the palace. Beyond was a fruiting forest. Young girls with lissome wings hovered in the canopy, picking and gathering figs
. Further out sprawled rich farmland, divided by footpaths into a pattern of squares of varying greens. The few farmers were distant specks. Roadways, mountains, and rivers covered the distant Earth, which at the edge of visibility curved gently upward.

  The ancient sages knew the Earth was a perfect spheroid, with the Sun at its center. Go far enough in any direction and you ended up directly over your starting point, on the opposite side of the Sun.

  “The sky will soon be dark,” said Yun Xiangzi of the Cloud family. He gazed at a ticking clock secured to a nearby table.

  Feng Mingyue of the Wind family took out a gold and crystal star lens. He waited, eyes narrowed.

  The Sun, in the center of the sky, gradually dimmed. It went from incandescent white to golden yellow, then a sleepy red, like a slowly cooling coal. Only at dawn or dusk was the Sun’s brightness suitable for stargazing. You couldn’t see the small celestial bodies circling the Sun if it was too dark, and if it was too bright, there was nothing to see but dazzling sunlight.

  When the light had dimmed below the safety threshold, Feng Mingyue raised his lens toward the Sun.

  It was the time of the season for Huan Hua to sweep past the Sun’s surface at dusk. This was a star with two oval-shaped wings. Feng Mingyue followed the course of Huan Hua’s dark form across the dim face of the Sun.

  “That’s odd,” he said, growing uncertain. “A strange star.”

  “That dark round blotch beside Huan Hua?” Yun Xiangzi said, tilting his head back to look through his own lens. Thus concentrating, he couldn’t help floating upward a bit, as if wanting to get closer to the Sun.

  “Yes,” Feng Mingyue said. “It’s not in the ancient records, is it?”

  “That is no star.”

  Yun Xiangzi and Feng Mingyue turned toward their master, Professor Yu You, who sat cross-legged in midair, pointing at the Sun in the heavens. “It is why I asked you two here. I have observed that blot three days in a row. It does not move like other stars. It just sits motionless at the Sun’s center.”

  He pulled a star manuscript from his satchel, opened it, and pointed to a sketch. “This was its size yesterday. It is getting bigger by the day.”