Metaplanetary (A Novel of Interplanetary Civil War)

by Tony Daniel

  Philately leveled a particle pistol at San Filieu.

  “Philately,” San Filieu said. “You idiot.”

  Then there was a bright tunnel of light.

  Pretty and hot.

  And then nothing.

  Fifteen

  Sherman watched the hulk of theMontserrat as his soldiers were gathered in. He could not believe that the ship had not surrendered. Had he been in a similar situation, he would have immediately stood down. Someone had told the Met soldiers what was about to happen, and they were surrendering en masse, begging to be taken along on theBoomerang . He supposed he could find room for them. Guarding them would give Theory and the captains a logistics problem, but nothing they weren’t up to. Everyone alive could have been saved, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Colonel, we are receiving a message from theMontserrat ,” Theory said.

  “Put it on.”

  “Colonel Sherman, this is Captain Philately of theMontserrat . I have just killed Admiral San Filieu, but her convert portion is still alive and will not let us leave the ship. I don’t suppose there is anything you can do to get my ship’s personnel off?”

  “Good God!” Sherman exclaimed, then he continued in a calmer voice. “I can’t stop the bomb now, Captain. The reaction has already begun. It is just a matter of time until it overcomes the effects of your isotropic coating.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you have any of the keys to your lockout codes?”

  “No, sir. They belong to the Admiral. This is her flagship. Was.”

  “Give me a moment, Captain,” said Sherman. He changed channels. “Theory, is there anything we can do for them?”

  Theory was silent for a moment. Odd. He must be running through a million options in his mind, Sherman thought.

  “I have only one suggestion, Colonel,” Theory finally answered.

  “What is it, man?”

  “We might be able to override the copying restrictions on their algorithmic portions and bring them all over through the grist as free converts,” Theory said. “I have some new hacking software provided to me by Gerardo Funk, the engineer from Titan.”

  Sherman relayed the idea to Philately. It only took her a moment to reply.

  “Are you sure? We have an immediate self-erasure clause coded into our convert portions. It is supposed to keep us from, well, deserting.”

  “We don’t know,” Sherman said. “But it’s all I have to offer.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then came Philately’s answer.

  “We’re ready,” Philately said.

  “Then come to me,” Sherman said, “and save what you can.”

  The next twenty minutes were filled with such intense activity, that Theory had to remind Sherman that theMontserrat was about to blow. They had got in the soldiers and the POWs, and taken the convert copies of theMontserrat personnel into theBoomerang ’s grist. It had worked.

  And now the ship was away, twenty thousand klicks from the destruction that was building behind them. Sherman turned his ship around, but left enough momentum to aft so that they continued receding from the doomedMontserrat .

  “Thirty seconds, Colonel,” said Theory. They waited and watched.

  “Ten.”

  He felt his scraggly beard, grown thicker now. Soon he might actually be presentable.

  “Five, four, three, two, one—”

  TheMontserrat became a ball of fire, far, far brighter than the sun.

  All was silent, of course.

  The shock wave took out the observational grist, and Sherman’s perspective shifted outward, grist line after grist line. By the time the radiant energy reached theBoomerang , it was only a gentle breaker, rocking Sherman’s ship like a wave on a calm sea.

  The jamming, Sherman thought. It is over!

  “I must call Dahlia,” he said. “And tell her that I still live.”

  “Well,” said a voice behind Sherman in the virtuality. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Sherman spun around, his pulse racing.

  “Calm yourself, my boy. It’s just me,” said Tacitus. The old man held out his hand. “Congratulations.”

  Sherman took a breath and got hold of himself. He reached out and took the old cloudship’s hand.

  “He asked me not to announce him,” said Theory. “I’m sorry for the shock, Colonel.”

  “Quite all right, Theory,” said Sherman. “You’ve been perfect for too long, anyway. Take a break and join us.”

  “Sir?”

  “Let us all sit down for a moment.”

  Three chairs appeared. Sherman found the one with the straightest back and took it. He had always hated mushy chairs. Tacitus lit a cigar, offered one to Sherman, but Sherman declined. It was enough to rest, his hands on his lap. To Sherman’s surprise, Theory took one of the cigars.

  “The merci broadcast of the battle,” said Tacitus, “was a master stroke.”

  “What’s that?” said Sherman. For a moment, he couldn’t remember that he’d ordered it. “Oh, yes.”

  “It very likely got you a government,” said Tacitus. “We were in session, debating a new metaplanetary constitution, the other cloudships and I. There was a bit of fear and trembling. I don’t suppose you’ve heard. Ganymede has fallen to Amés.”

  “No,” said Sherman.

  “But then we saw you fight. And we saw you win,” Tacitus continued. “After you got that bomb into place, we passed the damn constitution with a two-thirds majority. Welcome to the new Solarian Republic, General.”

  “I’m a colonel, sir.”

  “No,” said Tacitus, “you are not.”

  “Well,” said Sherman, “So.”

  Tacitus took a long puff on his cigar. He breathed out, and the smoke wreathed about him, obscuring his face for a moment. Then Sherman could see him.

  “We are putting you in charge,” said the cloudship. “And I believe you’ve got a navy.”

  “When,” said Sherman. “And how many?”

  Tacitus laughed, and ashed his cigar. The detritus disappeared as it fell, and did not dirty the floor of the virtuality. In the virtuality, everything could be cleaner than life.

  “Give me a few days—e-days—and I’ll have your answer,” Tacitus said. “In the meantime, I have a message for you from the Congress of Ships. A question, actually.”

  “What is it?”

  Another puff on the cigar. “What is it, we were wondering, that you might need from us, and what, exactly, were you planning to do?”

  Sherman considered the old man. Was he five hundred? A thousand? The e-years did not matter; Tacitus’s eyes were still young.

  I hope that I will once again have young eyes someday, thought Sherman.

  “I wish you to give me your trust,” Sherman said. “And then let there be war between Amés and me.”

  Appendix: The Metaplanetary Gazetteer

  Download: Update Your Personal Operating System

  Timeline

  Glossary & Guide

  The Basics

  Humanity

  The Science of Cloudships

  Common Terms & Common Knowledge in the Solar System

  Solar System History

  Solar System Culture

  Metaplanetary Geography: The Met & Inner Solar System

  Metaplanetary Geography: Outer System

  Metaplanetary Warfare

  Metaplanetary Characters & Spear Carriers

  Download: Update Your Personal Operating System

  Hello, and welcome to your e-year 3013 internal software update!

  From your interior clock, we see that you’re long overdue for a new version of your personal operating system. The information we are about to download will be transferred faster than the speed of light — instantly, in fact — into your grist pellicle and from there will go into permanent storage in your memory, for recall at will [some delay possible over a 28.8 terabyte modem].

  Wonder what it means?

&nb
sp; We, the human race in all its myriad forms, will soon be entering upon a period of turmoil and transformation. An empire will rise and fall. Democracy will be put to the fire and hammered into an almost unrecognizable form. Low deeds will be perpetrated and it will often seem that evil has the upper hand.

  Heroes will emerge from obscurity. Some will die gloriously, while others will be beaten and broken. It will be a hard time to be alive.

  Yet it will be a time of incredible ingenuity and fervent creativity. New sciences will be born. Great literature will be written. People who would have ordinarily never known one another will come together to face a common foe. Necessity will abolish prejudice, and humans will become brothers and sisters — and, in some cases, lovers — with those whom they would scarcely have acknowledged as persons before.

  Don’t worry. After your complete system update with theMetaplanetary Gazetteer you will understand everything perfectly. You will be ready for the next step on this, your journey to the e-year 3013.

  TD

  Metaplanetary: Glossary & Guide

  THE BASICS

  Met

  The Met is the system of space cables, tethers, and planetary lifts along with all the associate bolsas, sacs, armatures, and dendrites that comprise the human inhabited space of the inner solar system. When seen from a vantage point above the planetary ecliptic near the asteroid belt, the Met shines like a spider’s web, wet with dewdrops, hanging in space between the wheeling planets. The Met is made of cables held together by a macroscopic version of the strong nuclear force. It is infused with grist. Initial construction on the Met began in 2465 C.E.

  The Science of the Met

  By the early 2400s, nanotechnologists had united buckeyball constructions with super-conducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDS) to create a reproducible molecular chain that displayed quantum behavior on the level visible to the human eye.

  The most important behavior that the nanotechnological engineers were able to produce, at least in regards to the Met, is the strong nuclear force. You can picture it as a rubber band connecting two particles. The more you stretch the rubber band, the harder it pulls the particles. When the particles are close together, the rubber band is slack. It is this property of the strong force, operating on a macro level, that gives the Met cables their ability to bend without breaking. Torque forces that would easily separate material made of mere chemical bonds cannot overcome the strong force manifested by the buckeyball SQUIDs, and the Met holds together.

  In fact, there is no known force generated by the turnings of the planets that is even close to pushing the Met’s structural tolerances. If you live or travel in the Met, you are as safe as you are on the surface of a planet (which are, themselves, held together, on the level of the atomic nucleus, by the strong force of nature).

  The Dedo

  The space cable that connects the planet Mercury to the planet Venus. As with the other main cables, it makes a tremendous loop around the sun — in the Dedo’s case, a loop over the solar south pole. The Dedo is traditionally a center of high culture and finance, the “rich” section of the Met.

  The Vas

  The Vas is the space cable that connects the planet Venus with the planet Earth. As with the other main cables, it makes a tremendous loop around the sun — in the Vas’s case, a loop over the solar north pole. The Vas is the most heavily populated portion of the Met, and the most urban in quality. It houses the vast manufacturing complexes of the inner system. The Vas is home to the enormous “lower middle class” segment of the Met populace.

  The Mars-Earth Diaphany

  The Diaphany is the space cable that connects the planet Mars with the planet Earth. As with the other main cables, it makes a tremendous loop around the sun — in the Diaphany’s case, a loop over the solar south pole. The Mars-Earth Diaphany is the most diverse section of the Met, with a spinning bolsa for almost every culture known to humanity. It is also, in a way, the “suburbs” of the Met, with an average standard of living higher than that of the Vas, but not as opulent as that of the Dedo.

  The Aldiss

  The space cable that connects the Earth to the Earth’s Moon. This is the oldest section of the Met.

  Nanotechnology

  The manipulation of materials and processes on a nano-meter level using tiny robotic machines (that is, machines controlled by programming) which are themselves made of only a few molecules. Nanotech was the big technological revolution following the biotech revolution.

  Grist

  Nanotechnological construct that incorporates the Josephson-Feynman graviton detector invented by Raphael Merced. This nano, disseminated throughout the Met, enables instantaneous information transfer over any distance which the nano is dispersed. Grist is also a word used to describe nanotechnological constructs in a general way, whether or not instantaneous information transfer is involved.

  Merced Effect

  The instantaneous transfer of information between locations set at any distance apart by the use of quantum entangled gravitons.

  Merci

  The merci is the union of grist with the old virtual reality “web” to produce an instantaneous medium of communication and entertainment. It takes its name from Raphael Merced, the co-creator of the grist and discoverer of the Merced Effect. The merci is instantaneous and fully participatory (or not, if you decide to voluntarily restrict yourself — for instance, to “watch a program”). The merci is a combination of old time television, the internet, the theatre, music, all manner of performance, virtual reality games, and government.

  Virtuality

  The virtuality is virtual reality within the grist. The Met is, in essence, an enormous quantum computer, with instantaneous linkage through the grist. Distance is unimportant for most actions and thought. Every time is local time. The real “landscape” of the virtuality is the complex interlocking of recognition and transfer protocols, of security checks and system gates and barriers. It is a lot like being in an extremely crowded city with a bunch of skeletons and skeleton keys jostling about. In some ways the virtuality is the shadow of the physical Met and the outer system, but in other ways it nothing like that at all.

  HUMANITY

  Human Being

  As of 3013 C.E., the first year of the war, almost all of us have at least three parts to our make-up:

  Aspect: The biological, bodily portion of a normal person.

  Convert: The algorithmic “extra” computing and memory storage portion of a normal person.

  Pellicle: The nanotechnological grist that permeates a normal person. The pellicle mediates between aspect and convert portions of a person.

  Free Convert

  An artificial intelligence that exists without a biological component. Most free converts are based upon copies of the personalities of historical and/or living human beings, but some are generations removed from this first iteration. All are capable of independent reasoning and action through manipulation of the grist. What free converts can and cannot do is limited by their own programming and by the law. Before the war, there was a form of free convert “apartheid” in the Met. This did not exist in the outer system — although prejudice did exist everywhere.

  LAP

  Large Array of Personalities. If a person makes multiple copies of him or herself and integrates these personalities to act in parallel via the quantum interaction of the grist, you have a LAP. Usually these various personas are copies of an original “person,” and are mostly converts — although it is usual for a LAP to have three or so clones, in addition to the original biological aspect. A LAP can be a conglomeration of many physical bodies, many convert portions, or a mixture of both. The convert portions of LAPs are usually a plethora of programs and subroutines, all under a mediator intelligence which is a complete replica of the human personality, along with whatever virtual controls and calculators are necessary for proper functioning.

  These Large Arrays of Personalities are instantaneous networks, since
they are linked by the merci and the merci operates superluminally. The convert portions of LAPs are usually a plethora of programs and subroutines, all under a mediator intelligence which is a complete replica of the human personality, along with whatever virtual controls and calculators are necessary for proper functioning.

  By becoming a LAP a person can lead multiple lives in multiple locations, all at the same time. He or she might also choose to concentrate all those separate (but similar) attentions on one task or way of life. There are many different ways that LAPs have chosen to exist. The ships of the outer system, for instance, are large-scale LAPs which are essentially, spaceship-and-crew, all in one. Being a LAP in the Met is more like being a subway system or a highrise in a city than being a single person in one. Not everyone can become a LAP. A significant number of people have a psychology that will cause them to go insane during the conversion process. This is normally predictable and is usually avoided. The process of becoming a LAP is quite expensive, as well.

  Manifold

  A fully-integrated, multiply-differentiated LAP with a highly diverse plethora of personalities. A manifold is a LAP of LAPs.

  Time Tower

  LAPs that were the product of some of the first attempts to create a manifold. Rather than being “non-local” in space, as are most LAPs, the consciousness of the time tower is spread over time, so that his or her present can span a decade of e-years or more. The idea was to create a being who could see into the future. Instead, the effort produced a species of utterly gnostic human personalities whose Delphic pronouncements were of little practical use. Many time towers became the prophets and even the “gods,” of offshoot religions, however. Time towers have very odd effects on the grist in their immediate vicinity, and their presence can serve as a form of “firewall” or barricade within the virtuality, preventing — or, in some cases allowing — eavesdropping through the grist. For this reason they were highly valued during the war.

  Cloudship

  Something like a mini-Met in the form of a space ship. Usually one controlling personality inhabits a ship, but some are multiply inhabited. The cloudships traverse the outer system where they serve as bankers and interplanetary transports (although there are also plenty of non-cloudship ships available, as well). Cloudships take the names of various important historical or fictional characters in human history. They consider themselves humanity’s elite, and are often aloof towards everyone else. The cloudships are the major political and economic power in the outer system. Cloudships began to be recognized as such in the 2700s, C.E.