He nodded. The machine part made sense.
She took the box back from him. ‘Its mind is empty, but there was a clock still running on one corner of the substrate. Its mind shut down seventy thousand years ago.’
He stared at her.
‘It was found next to you. You were sharing an orbit.’
‘Orbit?’
‘Yes. You were both floating around in space for seventy millennia. You might want to sit down?’
He did. He was trying to work out if he was surprised or not; maybe this thing went straight through surprise and out the other side?
Whatever. He looked away. ‘So where are we?’
‘You’re in the Spin, where you were.’
He nodded, and asked the next question. ‘How many planets are there?’
She laughed. ‘Let me show you.’
She waved a hand, and an image flickered and swelled in front of him, growing until it filled the space.
‘There. The Spin, second generation.’
Familiar, but different … He tried to count. ‘About two hundred planets?’
She laughed again. ‘You should know. There was a map in your head. It’s an excellent map. Two hundred and one planets, and thirty-three suns.’
‘I see.’ He let the information settle in. It had worked … ‘What’s this planet called?’
‘The one we’re on? It’s called Orbiter. We think it was one of the first ones completed in the second construction phase. We don’t know what the name means; it’s an odd sort of thing to call a planet. Actually, we were wondering if you could tell us?’
Skarbo stared at her, and then out at the millions of trees. Then he laughed. ‘I have no idea,’ he said.
Peace Rift Plateau, Sholntp (vreality)
CHVIDS MARCHED UP the path that led to the Peace Rift. She was barefoot, because the softly coarse grass felt good under her toes. A pack wagged gently on her back; food for a day’s journey, and shoes, just in case she changed her mind.
She was nearly at the top. She turned round and looked for Keff.
The thin creature was a hundred metres behind her. She cupped her hands round her mouth.
‘Hey! Keep up!’
And listened, and smiled. The shouted ‘fuck off’ had been faint but unmistakable – but the creature was still following her.
She turned and walked on. She was just about on the thin rock promontory, and the damp, exotic forests of the Rift were opening out below her.
Halfway along the promontory she stopped, swung off her pack and sat down. There was a slim flask in the pack, and she was thirsty.
A few minutes later there were footsteps, and Keff sat down next to her. She held out the flask. ‘Drink?’
‘Fuck off.’
But it took the flask. She smiled at it. ‘When are you going to learn some more words?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Fine.’ It had drunk, and lowered the flask. She reached out and took it. ‘So, this was where it all started for Zeb?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think he guessed?’
‘About what?’
She tsk’d. ‘You know perfectly well. About reality … or not.’
‘Well if he did, he chose to forget it.’
‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘Would you choose to forget it too?’
This time it didn’t answer. She glanced at it sideways. ‘Where did it all start for you?’
It looked at her for a moment, and then looked away and got to its feet. ‘I don’t respond to armchair psychology.’
She nodded. ‘Okay. So, down there. Want to go exploring?’
‘Fuck off.’ But it still followed her.
She smiled to herself. It was progress of a sort. And she had time.
Coda
THE SOUL OF the entity that had never been a bird stared out across the landscape below it and tried to find a point of reference. It had always known where and what it was. Now it knew neither.
But it liked the word soul. It turned to the thing which had formerly been the Orbiter. ‘What am I looking at?’
Nothing, and everything.
‘Very helpful.’ It turned back to the landscape. Not real, that was the first decision. A crawling, shifting palette of colours it had never seen before. Patterns formed, became intensely ordered, and dissolved into other patterns.
Its physical form had had senses and abilities it had not shared with anyone, and they seemed to have been carried over into whatever it was now – but they weren’t helping.
‘Then what am I?’
A cloud of data.
That seemed funny. ‘Ha! I was always that. We’re all always that, even if we keep it in squidgy brains. What else?’
Nothing else, until you choose to be.
‘I see. I take it you’re the same?’
No.
Another pattern, this time dazzlingly complex: a fractal vortex that wound and unwound itself in a granular blur of violet and black.
‘What are the patterns?’
Thoughts. Changes. Permanence. Everything.
It began to see. ‘Everything, happening on nothing?’
Yes. In other words, you are looking at a way of seeing the components of a vreality. They are unreal, but they have meaning.
‘It seems too slow …’
That is because you are too fast.
‘I suppose so.’ It watched the patterns for a while. Then it laughed.
What?
‘I’ve worked it out. All the way up and all the way down, eh? Ha!’
Ha.
The former bird nodded, and enjoyed the fact that it seemed to have a head.
It came down to this, it thought: Can any system simulate something more complex than itself?
The first answer – the simple one – was ‘no’. It was obvious. It thought it could even prove it, by logic alone.
The second answer was ‘it depends’.
It depended on many things. If you wish to simulate a universe accurately, you need something of greater complexity than the universe. Another, bigger universe would be the simplest course.
But, if you want to simulate only a few of the things that are happening in the universe, over a short time, and – crucially – if the thing you are using to do the simulating runs much faster than what it is trying to simulate, then the answer is definitely.
It was all about speed and scale. If you were big enough and fast enough, modelling the life of a small thing like a civilization was nothing.
The Bird examined the possibilities, and felt awe. Slowly it said, ‘Where does it end?’
Below, I assume when quantum effects become a barrier. I believe that there may be worlds near the base of the vreality-stack which are intensely simplified. Perhaps the last layer consists only of one endless thought being thought by a single-celled creature, alone in a two-dimensional space just big enough to contain it.
The Bird shook its head slowly. ‘And that’s what the inside of your mind looks like after a quarter of a million years, is it?’
It has always looked like that. But you should know; you are being modelled in my mind at this moment.
‘The fuck I am …’
Of course. How else could you look in at a vreality, except from the outside?
The Bird shook its head. ‘But you’re a model in a vreality too.’
Yes.
‘Fuck.’ The Bird hopped a couple of times. ‘Head hurts. Fuck!’
Quite.
‘Yes. So, how far up does it go? Guess we’re near the top, right?’
Why would you guess that?
It thought about it. ‘Don’t know. Just seems pretty complex here.’
Perhaps. Or perhaps that is what the thought of a single-celled organism feels like.
‘Oh fuck off.’
I do not think I will miss you.
The Bird blinked. ‘Cutting remarks, eh? Where are you going?’
Not me. You.
�
�Why?’
You can’t stay here. I am hosting you as a temporary favour.
It nodded. ‘Where, then?’
You will learn to navigate the vrealities. You may already have done so, in a former life.
That made it stop. It thought about the implications. Then it shook its head firmly. ‘No. Not a chance. You’ve done enough messing with my head. How do I get out of here? If out is the right word.’
It will do … fly down into the landscape. The rest will simply happen.
‘Right.’ It got ready to spring forwards, off whatever it was perching on. Still perching then; that habit died hard.
Then it thought of something. ‘Hey! Do you think Skarbo guessed?’
Guessed what?
‘Don’t play dumb. This! All of it.’ It swept a wing round – got wings too, it thought.
The vrealities? I doubt it. And lifetimes of contemplation and one great intuitive leap should be enough for anyone.
‘Yes. Not the fastest, old Skarbo! Right. I’m off. See you somewhere!’ The Bird sprang forward. The wings worked like wings and the stuff under them felt like air, and it launched itself into a hissing power dive towards the coloured surface.
It felt joy. It wanted to shout, so it shouted.
‘Haaaa!’ And, just before it entered, turned its head back and yelled over its shoulder: ‘Still not a bird!’
The ghost of the Orbiter watched the surface close over the creature.
Have I done right? it thought.
It didn’t know. And if nothing was real, could there even be something such as right?
It had lived – had thought it was living – its whole life by what it had always thought of as high moral principles. I’m old, it thought. And tired.
It wished it could have seen things as simply as The Bird. Or whatever the creature had really been, and would be, as it went on its next journey.
Whereas the Orbiter was ready for another sort of journey.
Enough, it thought.
It did the last thing it would ever do. It let its mind begin to run down.
A final thought occurred to it. Endings can be the same as beginnings – but the old ship knew it for the lie it was.
Its consciousness faded like a sigh, and was gone.
Acknowledgements
To those who helped and, as this one took a while, to those who waited, and especially to those who did both – thank you!
About the Author
Andrew Bannister grew up in Cornwall. He studied Geology at Imperial College and went to work in the North Sea before becoming an environmental consultant. A specialist in sustainability and the built environment, he presently works on major construction contracts for public bodies in the UK and internationally. He has always written, initially for student newspapers and fanzines before moving on to fiction, and he has always read science fiction. These things finally came together in his novels set in an artificial cluster of stars and planets called the Spin. He lives in Leicestershire.
To find out more, visit www.andrewbannister.com
Also by Andrew Bannister
Creation Machine
Iron Gods
For more information on Andrew Bannister and his books, see his website at www.andrewbannister.com
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press
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