by Paul Anlee
“Wait! What if you don’t come back? What would I do on my own?” Even over the short laser channel, Darya could make out the tremor in his voice.
What could he do if she didn’t come back? He was brand new to the real universe. Though he knew the basics, surviving past the end of his charge cycle would require much more than that. Was it right to abandon him here?
“I’m not going to lie and tell you it’ll all be okay,” she answered. “Maybe this is some sort of trap, or maybe we are being tracked. If I don’t come back or signal in fifteen minutes, return to the recharging station at the crater and turn yourself in. None of this has been your fault. Tell them your story and say you’ll be a faithful and productive Cybrid. Tell them how I tricked you and lied to you. With any luck, they’ll be curious enough to question you.” She shut up before adding, “...instead of just blasting you into dust on sight.”
“Well, if that’s my only other option, I might as well come with you. I don’t belong in this world. They’ll simply return me to Partial status in DonTon. I couldn’t bear going back to being a Partial now. I’m better off taking my chances with you.”
Darya didn’t respond right away. I have to admit, he has a valid point.
She spent a few seconds surveying the landscape around the projected source of the gas emissions as best she could with the available light.
“You’re right. Besides, a second viewing angle will help pinpoint where the gas is coming from.”
She sent him the map she’d constructed, and indicated his route to reach a useful vista. “Make your way along this path to this point,” she said. “It’s a little higher than most of the surrounding landscape. And stick to the shadows.”
“That won’t do me any good if they’re using active sensors.”
“True. But please humor me. It makes me feel better about sending you into potential danger.”
Timothy shot her the equivalent of a Cybrid eye roll. “Again,” he replied, “You must stop being so protective. I’m a full partner in this.”
Darya realized the futility of arguing with his nineteenth-century chivalry. “Okay. I hope it doesn’t destroy your cover story if we’re caught.”
That is, if you are caught—she modified in her own mind. I will be destroyed or destroy myself before I let myself be taken prisoner by Alum.
“Where will you be?”
Darya sent a second route to Timothy’s map. “I’ll try to get to this position. Once I get there, I’ll send you a laser ping and we can compare what we see.”
“Very well.” Timothy moved off to his assigned path. He sent a quick message back. “Be careful. And, Darya…”
“Yes, Timothy?”
“Thank you for this life you’ve given me, however brief it may be.”
“Let’s try to think positively.”
“Stiff upper lip and all?”
Darya laughed; she hadn’t heard that phrase for ages. “Let’s just get into position and exchange data.”
“I look forward to your ping.” Timothy continued outward.
Darya accelerated along her chosen route. She reached the high rim of a crater a few hundred meters from the projected source of the emissions, came to a stop, and peered out from behind the largest boulder she could find. It sheltered too little of her spherical body, but it would have to do.
If there’s a Securitor down there, we’re finished anyway.
She focused her visual receptors into the shadows. She could make out dozens of boulders and small meteorite impact sites. Without the stars behind, she couldn’t spot the source of whatever gasses were present. Maybe Timothy was having better luck from his vantage point.
She sent him a line-of-sight laser ping and was rewarded with a direct connection in milliseconds. “Can you see anything?” she asked.
“It’s dark,” he replied. “I can’t tell if there’s a Securitor down there. Could be nothing but rocks.”
Do I dare try an active probe? If there was a Securitor down there, a single radar microburst would reveal her presence. Then again, if there were any Securitors following them, they already knew she and Timothy were out here. One brief microwave pulse would illuminate every detail in the field and end her uncertainty. It’s worth the risk. I hope.
Darya extended a thin array of antennae as wide as she dared and transmitted a quick, directional pulse into the area between her and Timothy.
The reflected microwaves revealed the plane below in detail and, more importantly, the source of the gasses: a gaping hole in the ground. No, a cave.
“Aha!,” she sent to Timothy. “I took a quick look by radar. It’s just a cave.”
No answer.
“Timothy? Are you there?”
“You might have asked my opinion before you risked giving away your position,” he responded.
Darya felt his rebuke. “I’m sorry. You’re right. We weren’t getting anywhere. I guess I’m not used to working with a partner. I should have asked you.”
“Just so you know, I would have agreed with you, to scan actively.”
“Next time, I’ll include you in the decision. I’m sorry.”
“How deep is it?”
“I couldn’t tell with that short burst. It’s likely a shallow depression with ice at the bottom. I didn’t have enough time to get a spectral analysis. I’m going to move in closer.”
Timothy consulted his data stores on spectral analyses. “Should we try a quick laser pulse to ensure the gasses are natural in origin?” he asked.
“I doubt there’s a Securitor hiding out in a cave. That’s not something they do.”
“And running around on the surface of an asteroid is something Cybrids commonly do?”
“Not too often, no,” she had to admit. “Okay, I guess it’s less risky to run the analysis than to charge down there. Give me a second.”
Darya fired an analytical laser pulse at the gas being expelled from the cave. “It’s 98% nitrogen gas, with traces of water and oxygen and carbon dioxide. There must be a frozen source in there. Maybe when light hits the ice, it warms it enough to sublimate. In any case, there’s no sign of maneuvering exhaust. I think we can go take a closer look.”
The two Cybrids drifted down to the source of the gasses. Darya got there first and was hovering over a black hole with unnaturally smooth edges about twice the diameter of a Cybrid when Timothy joined her.
“It’s artificial,” she said.
“Artificial? Is that good or bad?”
“I’m not sure. I tried a quick peek with active sensors—don’t worry, just a single, weak radar pulse. Nothing came back.”
“So it’s deep.”
“Very. It might go all the way through the asteroid.”
“Perhaps an escape route?”
“Maybe.” Darya entered the hole.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
“We can’t tell anything from out here; I’m going to take a better look. Come on.”
Barely inside, she was already out of range of the weak surface light.
Timothy maneuvered over the hole; a very human fear of climbing into the dark unknown made him hesitate. He activated his directional radar and the walls of the cave sprang into view. He spotted Darya a hundred meters in. The tunnel extended far ahead of her.
“Hey! Turn down those lights!” Darya transmitted from below.
“Oh, right.” Timothy reduced his radar illumination to see only a little beyond her, and followed her down into the tunnel. The smooth, featureless walls slid by slowly at first. As he sensed Darya picking up speed, he accelerated to keep up. Hundreds of meters of tunnel wall sped by. Soon, his weak radar pulses were too feeble to discern the entrance. His world shrank to the narrow tube receding behind him and opening ahead. Darya was the only thing in that world that wasn’t tunnel wall or empty vacuum.
“There’s an opening ahead,” she sent. She slowed down and allowed him to catch up.
Timothy could just make out the en
d of the tunnel a few hundred meters in front of them.
“We can’t have passed all the way through,” he said.
“No,” Darya agreed. “We’re only about twenty klicks under the surface. There’s still a long way to go.”
“So what is the tunnel opening into?”
Darya came to a stop outside the opening. Timothy pulled up behind her. He sensed an empty space but his weak radar couldn’t detect any enclosing walls.
“Where are we?”
The chamber flashed bright for a split second, long enough that Timothy could make out the side walls of an enormous cylinder some ten kilometers in diameter before all was plunged again into darkness.
“Was that wise?” he asked.
“Going in completely blind is a greater risk than gathering some idea of where we are.” She increased her pulse strength and the walls of the chamber became visible once more. Emptiness stretched out beyond the limits of their radar vision.
“What are those structures lining the wall?” Timothy asked.
“Buildings. And that’s the floor. I think we’re inside an ancient asteroid habitat. At one time a few million people would have lived here. That would have been their city,” she said, pointing to the distant structures.
“Is it safe?”
“I think so. I don’t see any signs of activity. I suspect the nitrogen we saw outside is off-gassing what little of the original atmosphere is left.”
“Why would they just abandon their homes?”
“Any number of reasons. Most likely, they moved on to something bigger, a new planet or a ringworld. I haven’t seen any signs of struggle, so I think it was voluntary or, at least, compliant.”
“So, if you think it’s safe, why haven’t you increased your radar illumination?”
Darya answered with a sharp rocket burst. “Follow me,” she said, and headed toward the city, picking up speed and putting distance between them.
“What are you doing?” Timothy asked.
“You’ll see.”
They sped over the empty city. There was no indication of anyone tracking them. It appeared to be empty, as Darya had guessed. Within minutes, they’d passed beyond the far side of the habitat. Following the path of a frozen river that stretched from one end to the other, they jetted toward the rock-filled cap at the far end of the cavern.
Out past the boundary of the city, they found a huge wall. The wall had an entrance, identical to the one that had brought them into the cylinder. They decelerated gently to a halt a dozen meters in front of the bore hole.
“Very well,” Timothy said. “Tunnels lead out of each end of the cavern. Why dim your radar? Don’t you want to see if this leads all the way outside?”
“Yes, but if I were to send a detectable pulse out through there, someone could spot it.”
“Of course; I should have thought of that. They could still be watching closely all around the asteroid.
Timothy stared at the tunnel entrance and thought about their predicament.
“What good’s an exit if we can’t use it to escape? And even if we do escape,” he lamented, “I’m woefully ill-equipped to deal with life on my own outside of Casa DonTon.”
“Maybe it’s not as hopeless as you think,” Darya replied, and moved inside the tunnel. “For one, this can’t come out anywhere near the recharging station. I’m going to follow it to the exit hole and see what’s out there.”
She started forward, but stopped when Timothy didn’t follow.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
11
“This is really well done,” Alum remarked to John Trillian for the third time in five minutes.
Nestled on its own fluffy white cloud, their table was among the most exclusive seating in the beachside virtual restaurant. Perched at the highest point of Vacationland, it looked out on the longest, cleanest, most sparkling beach that had ever existed. Not that it truly existed except in the processing unit of the hosting computer.
Alum beamed. Delightful. And equating battery charging with simulated eating? Inspired. He wondered if the Cybrid brain was set up to recall the biological experience of eating.
He asked Trillian.
The programmer’s eyes stared off into the distance as he consulted his Cybrid code database. “I believe they would experience this exactly as we have. The Cybrid sensorium is remarkably lifelike.”
Glimpsing Alum’s frown, he quickly backtracked. “Of course, I wouldn’t care to speculate about how the Cybrids’ synthetic simulation of consciousness feels to them. I doubt the experience would be at all humanlike.”
Alum relaxed. “Hmph. Even if they produce an accurate simulation of the experience, without a soul, it would be no more than a hollow, pointless exercise.”
Better than anyone still alive, the leader of the YTG Church knew a silicene-based mind did not make the Cybrids any less human than biological beings. His own nervous tissue had long ago given way to the faster processing speeds and increased density of his compact semiconductor neural lattice. But it would hardly be politically expedient to admit that.
The fiction that his own mind retained any biological connection was important to maintain, even with his right-hand man. Although Trillian’s lattice enhancements were extensive, he was still mostly biological and, therefore, would never fully understand.
“Nonetheless, it may have value to the Cybrid population,” Trillian countered. “Mr. Strang seems to think that all this will be regarded positively by the machines. Perhaps it will help them view this Administration more favorably than they presently do.”
“Jared Strang does not have the complete picture,” Alum replied. He suspected Strang was already spreading rumors about the spiritual leader’s “hostile bigotry” toward the Cybrids.
It had only been a few weeks since he’d met with Strang and hinted at some sort of Cybrid entertainment systems to his Director of Human-Cybrid relations. Yet, here it was—Vacationland—already a completed project.
He and Trillian had entered the simulation via inSense within hours of Strang sending him a message announcing its availability.
Initially, Alum was pleased by the developmental efficiency of Strang’s people. Then Strang told him it was all the work of one man, someone outside his group, a systems engineer from Romania by the name of Darak Legsu.
Impressive—Alum had thought. Perhaps a little too impressive. He couldn’t conceive of one person accomplishing all this work on his own in the short months since arriving on the asteroids, not without an IQ-enhancing lattice.
And how exactly did this Darak Legsu come to be working on such a project, anyway? I think an interview with the man may be in order.
Legsu’s Church membership was suspect, as well. He’d only formally joined two weeks before the Eater broke free of its containment. Alum assumed the man must have informally attended his local YTG Church or watched broadcasts for some time before becoming a card-carrying member. He was either one of the luckiest men alive or, equally likely, the opportune timing of his membership warranted further investigation. Alum sent a message to his secretary to arrange a meeting with Mr. Legsu.
“It’s critical that people, real people, see the difference between us and the machines,” Alum explained. “How else can we save that which is essentially and divinely human?
“Now that Earth is gone, it would be easy to give everyone inSense and let them turn permanently inward. The siren call of virtual reality worlds to the human mind make it so easy to retreat from God’s creation. Almost irresistible. Vacationland is the perfect example of how attractive such a life could be.”
“And that isn’t a problem for the Cybrids?” Trillian asked.
“Humans were given free will by their Creator,” Alum said. “We need to learn to apply ourselves, to keep busy and productive.
“Cybrids, on the other hand, were designed by us and fabricated to serve humans. Their construction won’t permit them to be idle more than needed. If t
hey won’t voluntarily follow orders, we shall have to make it impossible for them to do otherwise.”
Trillian considered this. “The Cybrids are certainly kept busy building new colony habitats for us, maintaining them, and so on.”
“But it would be dangerous to leave everything to them while real people wallowed in their inSense experiences. No, wherever possible, humans have to perform their own work, find their own way forward. You do understand that, don’t you, John? Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason; it will lead us to extinction.”
“Yes, sir, Trillian answered emphatically. “Although I don’t think anyone anticipated science and technology directing us toward laziness. Over the centuries, scientists and engineers pushed forward in a well-intentioned quest to make life easier for people, sure. But their goal was always to help free people from tedious labor so they’d be able to turn more of their energy toward development of knowledge and culture. And to worshiping God and praising His benevolence, of course.
“One unanticipated result of technology and automation was wide-scale loss of purpose and an acceptance of powerlessness in a world that a dwindling number of individuals had any ability to understand. Technology became an unintentional force for evil, rather than something to be used for Holy purpose.”
Alum stared at Trillian, mouth agape. Then he laughed. “You never fail to surprise me, John. I didn’t realize you’d studied the sociology of science and technology so intently.”
“I had some free time in prison, before Reverend LaMontagne rescued me and gave new purpose to my life. The failure of society to properly provide opportunities for people of skill and ambition, like me, was an interesting, though perhaps self-indulgent, topic.”
“Indeed,” Alum replied. “In the absence of the proper outlet for expression, people turn to their entertainments instead. Rome proved this; the British Empire proved this; and both the United States of America and the European Union proved this. Success stopped being measured in terms of a life well lived, a sense of accomplishment, and contribution to community. Accumulation of material goods and money became a poor substitute for the gap everyone felt in their lives. Before Earth was threatened by the Eater, that gap was increasingly filled with direct stimulation through alcohol, drugs, or inSense.”