Oceanic

by Greg Egan

  “One giant leap” would be an understatement; wherever the Phites landed on the moon, they would find a strange black monolith waiting for them. Inside would be the means to operate the Play Pen; it would not take them long to learn the controls, or to understand what this signified. If they were really slow in grasping what they’d found, Daniel had instructed Primo to explain it to them.

  The physics of the real world was far more complex than the kind the Phites were used to, but then, no human had ever been on intimate terms with quantum field theory either, and the Thought Police had already encouraged the Phites to develop most of the mathematics they’d need to get started. In any case, it didn’t matter if the Phites took longer than humans to discover twentieth-century scientific principles, and move beyond them. Seen from the outside, it would happen within hours, days, weeks at the most.

  A row of indicator lights blinked on; the Play Pen was active. Daniel’s throat went dry. The Phites were finally reaching out of their own world into his.

  A panel above the machine displayed histograms classifying the experiments the Phites had performed so far. By the time Daniel was paying attention, they had already discovered the kinds of bonds that could be formed between various atoms, and constructed thousands of different small molecules. As he watched, they carried out spectroscopic analyses, built simple nanomachines, and manufactured devices that were, unmistakably, memory elements and logic gates.

  The Phites wanted children, and they understood now that this was the only way. They would soon be building a world in which they were not just more numerous, but faster and smarter than they were inside the crystal. And that would only be the first of a thousand iterations. They were working their way toward Godhood, and they would lift up their own creator as they ascended.

  Daniel left the basement and headed for his office. When he arrived, he called Lucien.

  “They’ve built an atomic-scale computer,” Lucien announced. “And they’ve fed some fairly complex software into it. It doesn’t seem to be an upload, though. Certainly not a direct copy on the level of beads.” He sounded flustered; Daniel had forbidden him to risk screwing up the experiments by slowing down Sapphire, so even with Primo’s briefings to help him it was difficult for him to keep abreast of everything.

  “Can you model their computer, and then model what the software is doing?” Daniel suggested.

  Lucien said, “We only have six atomic physicists on the team; the Phites already outnumber us on that score by about a thousand to one. By the time we have any hope of making sense of this, they’ll be doing something different.”

  “What does Primo say?” The Thought Police hadn’t been able to get Primo included in any of the lunar expeditions, but Lucien had given him the power to make himself invisible and teleport to any part of Sapphire or the lunar base. Wherever the action was, he was free to eavesdrop.

  “Primo has trouble understanding a lot of what he hears; even the boosted aren’t universal polymaths and instant experts in every kind of jargon. The gist of it is that the Lunar Project people have made a very fast computer in the Outer World, and it’s going to help with the fertility problem ... somehow.” Lucien laughed. “Hey, maybe the Phites will do exactly what we did: see if they can evolve something smart enough to give them a hand. How cool would that be?”

  Daniel was not amused. Somebody had to do some real work eventually; if the Phites just passed the buck, the whole enterprise would collapse like a pyramid scheme.

  Daniel had some business meetings he couldn’t put off. By the time he’d swept all the bullshit aside, it was early afternoon. The Phites had now built some kind of tiny solid-state accelerator, and were probing the internal structure of protons and neutrons by pounding them with high-speed electrons. An atomic computer wired up to various detectors was doing the data analysis, processing the results faster than any in-world computer could. The Phites had already figured out the standard quark model. Maybe they were going to skip uploading into nanocomputers, and head straight for some kind of femtomachine?

  Digests of Primo’s briefings made no mention of using the strong force for computing, though. They were still just satisfying their curiosity about the fundamental laws. Daniel reminded himself of their history. They had burrowed down to what seemed like the foundations of physics before, only to discover that those simple rules were nothing to do with the ultimate reality. It made sense that they would try to dig as deeply as they could into the mysteries of the Outer World before daring to found a colony, let alone emigrate en masse.

  By sunset the Phites were probing the surroundings of the Play Pen with various kinds of radiation. The levels were extremely low – certainly too low to risk damaging the crystals – so Daniel saw no need to intervene. The Play Pen itself did not have a massive power supply, it contained no radioisotopes, and the Thought Police would ring alarm bells and bring in human experts if some kind of tabletop fusion experiment got underway, so Daniel was reasonably confident that the Phites couldn’t do anything stupid and blow the whole thing up.

  Primo’s briefings made it clear that they thought they were engaged in a kind of “astronomy”. Daniel wondered if he should give them access to instruments for doing serious observations – the kind that would allow them to understand relativistic gravity and cosmology. Even if he bought time on a large telescope, though, just pointing it would take an eternity for the Phites. He wasn’t going to slow Sapphire down and then grow old while they explored the sky; next thing they’d be launching space probes on thirty-year missions. Maybe it was time to ramp up the level of collaboration, and just hand them some astronomy texts and star maps? Human culture had its own hard-won achievements that the Phites couldn’t easily match.

  As the evening wore on, the Phites shifted their focus back to the subatomic world. A new kind of accelerator began smashing single gold ions together at extraordinary energies – though the total power being expended was still minuscule. Primo soon announced that they’d mapped all three generations of quarks and leptons. The Phites’ knowledge of particle physics was drawing level with humanity’s; Daniel couldn’t follow the technical details any more, but the experts were giving it all the thumbs up. Daniel felt a surge of pride; of course his children knew what they were doing, and if they’d reached the point where they could momentarily bamboozle him, soon he’d ask them to catch their breath and bring him up to speed. Before he permitted them to emigrate, he’d slow the crystals down and introduce himself to everyone. In fact, that might be the perfect time to set them their next task: to understand human biology, well enough to upload him. To make him immortal, to repay their debt.

  He sat watching images of the Phites’ latest computers, reconstructions based on data flowing to and from the AFM tips. Vast lattices of shimmering atoms stretched off into the distance, the electron clouds that joined them quivering like beads of mercury in some surreal liquid abacus. As he watched, an inset window told him that the ion accelerators had been re-designed, and fired up again.

  Daniel grew restless. He walked to the elevator. There was nothing he could see in the basement that he couldn’t see from his office, but he wanted to stand beside the Play Pen, put his hand on the casing, press his nose against the glass. The era of Sapphire as a virtual world with no consequences in his own was coming to an end; he wanted to stand beside the thing itself and be reminded that it was as solid as he was.

  The elevator descended, passing the tenth floor, the ninth, the eighth. Without warning, Lucien’s voice burst from Daniel’s watch, priority audio crashing through every barrier of privacy and protocol. “Boss, there’s radiation. Net power gain. Get to the helicopter, now.”

  Daniel hesitated, contemplating an argument. If this was fusion, why hadn’t it been detected and curtailed? He jabbed the stop button and felt the brakes engage. Then the world dissolved into brightness and pain.

  7

  When Daniel emerged from the opiate haze, a doctor informed him that
he had burns to sixty per cent of his body. More from heat than from radiation. He was not going to die.

  There was a net terminal by the bed. Daniel called Lucien and learned what the physicists on the team had tentatively concluded, having studied the last of the Play Pen data that had made it off-site.

  It seemed the Phites had discovered the Higgs field, and engineered a burst of something akin to cosmic inflation. What they’d done wasn’t as simple as merely inflating a tiny patch of vacuum into a new universe, though. Not only had they managed to create a “cool Big Bang”, they had pulled a large chunk of ordinary matter into the pocket universe they’d made, after which the wormhole leading to it had shrunk to subatomic size and fallen through the Earth.

  They had taken the crystals with them, of course. If they’d tried to upload themselves into the pocket universe through the lunar data link, the Thought Police would have stopped them. So they’d emigrated by another route entirely. They had snatched their whole substrate, and ran.

  Opinions were divided over exactly what else the new universe would contain. The crystals and the Play Pen floating in a void, with no power source, would leave the Phites effectively dead, but some of the team believed there could be a thin plasma of protons and electrons too, created by a form of Higgs decay that bypassed the unendurable quark-gluon fireball of a hot Big Bang. If they’d built the right nanomachines, there was a chance that they could convert the Play Pen into a structure that would keep the crystals safe, while the Phites slept through the long wait for the first starlight.

  #

  The tiny skin samples the doctors had taken finally grew into sheets large enough to graft. Daniel bounced between dark waves of pain and medicated euphoria, but one idea stayed with him throughout the turbulent journey, like a guiding star: Primo had betrayed him. He had given the fucker life, entrusted him with power, granted him privileged knowledge, showered him with the favors of the Gods. And how had he been repaid? He was back to zero. He’d spoken to his lawyers; having heard rumors of an “illegal radiation source”, the insurance company was not going to pay out on the crystals without a fight.

  Lucien came to the hospital, in person. Daniel was moved; they hadn’t met face-to-face since the job interview. He shook the man’s hand.

  “You didn’t betray me.”

  Lucien looked embarrassed. “I’m resigning, boss.”

  Daniel was stung, but he forced himself to accept the news stoically. “I understand; you have no choice. Gupta will have a crystal of his own by now. You have to be on the winning side, in the war of the Gods.”

  Lucien put his resignation letter on the bedside table. “What war? Are you still clinging to that fantasy where überdorks battle to turn the moon into computronium?”

  Daniel blinked. “Fantasy? If you didn’t believe it, why were you working with me?”

  “You paid me. Extremely well.”

  “So how much will Gupta be paying you? I’ll double it.”

  Lucien shook his head, amused. “I’m not going to work for Gupta. I’m moving into particle physics. The Phites weren’t all that far ahead of us when they escaped; maybe forty or fifty years. Once we catch up, I guess a private universe will cost about as much as a private island; maybe less in the long run. But no one’s going to be battling for control of this one, throwing gray goo around like monkeys flinging turds while they draw up their plans for Matrioshka brains.”

  Daniel said, “If you take any data from the Play Pen logs—”

  “I’ll honor all the confidentiality clauses in my contract.” Lucien smiled. “But anyone can take an interest in the Higgs field; that’s public domain.”

  After he left, Daniel bribed the nurse to crank up his medication, until even the sting of betrayal and disappointment began to fade.

  A universe, he thought happily. Soon I’ll have a universe of my own.

  But I’m going to need some workers in there, some allies, some companions. I can’t do it all alone; someone has to carry the load.

  STEVE FEVER

  1

  A few weeks after his fourteenth birthday, with the soybean harvest fast approaching, Lincoln began having vivid dreams of leaving the farm and heading for the city. Night after night, he pictured himself gathering supplies, trudging down to the highway, and hitching his way to Atlanta.

  There were problems with the way things got done in the dream, though, and each night in his sleep he struggled to resolve them. The larder would be locked, of course, so he dreamed up a side-plot about collecting a stash of suitable tools for breaking in. There were sensors all along the farm’s perimeter, so he dreamed about different ways of avoiding or disabling them.

  Even when he had a scenario that seemed to make sense, daylight revealed further flaws. The grille that blocked the covered part of the irrigation ditch that ran beneath the fence was too strong to be snipped away with bolt-cutters, and the welding torch had a biometric lock.

  When the harvest began, Lincoln contrived to get a large stone caught in the combine, and then volunteered to repair the damage. With his father looking on, he did a meticulous job, and when he received the expected praise he replied with what he hoped was a dignified mixture of pride and bemusement, “I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle the torch.”

  “Yeah.” His father seemed embarrassed for a moment, then he squatted down, put the torch into supervisor mode, and added Lincoln’s touch to the authorized list.

  Lincoln waited for a moonless night. The dream kept repeating itself, thrashing impatiently against his skull, desperate to be made real.

  When the night arrived and he left his room, barefoot in the darkness, he felt as if he was finally enacting some long rehearsed performance: less a play than an elaborate dance that had seeped into every muscle in his body. First, he carried his boots to the back door and left them by the step. Then he took his backpack to the larder, the borrowed tools in different pockets so they wouldn’t clank against each other. The larder door’s hinges were attached on the inside, but he’d marked their positions with penknife scratches in the varnish that he’d practiced finding by touch. His mother had secured the food store years before, after a midnight raid by Lincoln and his younger brother, Sam, but it was still just a larder, not a jewel-safe, and the awl bit through the wood easily enough, finally exposing the tip of one of the screws that held the hinges in place. The pliers he tried first couldn’t grip the screw tightly enough to get it turning, but Lincoln had dreamed of an alternative. With the awl, he cleared away a little more wood, then he jammed a small hexagonal nut onto the screw’s thread and used a T-handled socket wrench to turn them together. The screw couldn’t move far, but this was enough to loosen it. He removed the nut and used the pliers, then with a few firm taps from a hammer, delivered via the socket wrench, the screw broke free of the wood.

  He repeated the procedure five more times, freeing the hinges completely, then he strained against the door, keeping a firm grip on the handle, until the tongue of the lock slipped from its groove.

  The larder was pitch black, but he didn’t risk using his flashlight; he found what he wanted by memory and touch, filling the backpack with enough provisions for a week. After that? He’d never wondered, in the dream. Maybe he’d find new friends in Atlanta who’d help him. The idea struck a chord, as if it was a truth he was remembering, not a hopeful speculation.

  The tool shed was locked securely, but Lincoln was still skinny enough to crawl through the hole in the back wall, hidden by junk for so long that it had fallen off the end of his father’s repair list. This time he risked the flashlight and walked straight to the welding torch, rather than groping his way across the darkness. He maneuvered it through the hole, and didn’t bother rearranging the rotting timbers that had concealed the entrance. There was no point covering his tracks. He would be missed within minutes of his parents rising, no matter what, so the important thing now was speed.

  He put on his boots and headed for the irrigation d
itch. Their German shepherd, Melville, trotted up and started licking Lincoln’s hand. Lincoln stopped and petted him for a few seconds, then firmly ordered him back toward the house. The dog made a soft wistful sound, but complied.

  Twenty meters from the perimeter fence, Lincoln climbed into the ditch. The enclosed section was still a few meters away, but he crouched down immediately, practicing the necessary constrained gait, and shielding himself from the sensors’ gaze. He clutched the torch under one arm, careful to keep it dry. The chill of the water didn’t much bother him; his boots grew heavy, but he didn’t know what the ditch concealed, and he’d rather have water-logged boots than a rusty scrap of metal slicing his foot.

  He entered the enclosed, concrete cylinder, then a few steps brought him to the metal grille. He switched on the torch and oriented himself by the light of its control panel. When he put on the goggles he was blind, but then he squeezed the trigger of the torch and the arc lit up the tunnel around him.

  Each bar took just seconds to cut, but there were a lot of them. In the confined space the heat was oppressive; his T-shirt was soon soaked with sweat. Still, he had fresh clothes in his pack, and he could wash in the ditch once he was through. If he was still not respectable enough to get a ride, he’d walk to Atlanta.

  “Young man, get out of there immediately.”

  Lincoln shut off the arc. The voice, and those words, could only belong to his grandmother. For a few pounding heartbeats, he wondered if he’d imagined it, but then in the same unmistakable tone, ratcheted up a notch, she added, “Don’t play games with me, I don’t have the patience for it.”

  Lincoln slumped in the darkness, disbelieving. He’d dreamed his way through every detail, past every obstacle. How could she appear out of nowhere and ruin everything?

  There wasn’t room to turn around, so he crawled backward to the mouth of the tunnel. His grandmother was standing on the bank of the ditch.