Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1)

by John Meaney

  ‘At any rate,’ Xavier went on, ‘I think Alisha likes your son. So that makes us allies, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I guess it does.’

  ‘Then’ - Xavier reached out a fist - ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘All right.’

  They touched fists once more, then Xavier went to stand on an ellipse. He nodded, then sank out of sight.

  All around, the plaza looked normal.

  So does he know I’m a Pilot agent-in-place? Or am I just a business contact?

  Carl became aware of the smile he was making.

  An interesting problem.

  As always, the stakes were serious because Miranda and Roger were as liable to peacekeeper arrest as he was. But Xavier Spalding was an interesting man, and whether as ally or opponent - well, that was the challenge, wasn’t it?

  He stood there until the aircab descended. Knowing it was owned by a possible enemy, he scanned its systems before boarding, finding nothing.

  ‘Take me home,’ he said.

  After the morning tutorial, Roger felt weak and dispirited. Old Hatchet-Face Helsen had been scathing about their construction of virtual characters in the simulated 1920s Zürich; only Alisha had received praise, for the depth of historical accuracy in the city architecture.

  Once out in the corridor, he headed for a flowdisk that would carry him to the rooftop, someplace where he could think alone about this morning’s work. There was something that nagged at him below the conscious level. There had been perhaps the minutest of dark flickerings around Dr Helsen - that strange phenomenon again - but mostly things had been normal, if you counted intellectual bullying as normality.

  As he stepped on the disk, another person joined him.

  ‘Can I come up with you?’ asked Alisha.

  ‘I . . . guess so.’

  She gave the command - by subvocalization, he assumed - without betraying the tiniest of motions. Then the disk was rising, and in a few seconds they were on the open rooftop. Roger stared across the quickglass campus towers, aware that Alisha’s attention was on him.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her. ‘No, sorry . . . We don’t know each other well enough for questions like that.’

  ‘That’s right. Did your teachers use mindreading as a pejorative term? Meaning that you make assumptions about other folk’s intentions and thoughts by interpreting their actions.’

  ‘Some people use the word that way.’

  ‘And you know how, when someone visualizes an image that’s purely mental, even without holo, their eyes focus on very definite locations in space.’

  Roger let out his breath.

  ‘It’s the entorhinal cortex in here’ - he pointed at his own head - ‘whose spatiotemporal grid creates the geometry of mental images, and I knew that when I was ten years old, so thanks for asking.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Luculenti aren’t as superior as they think. There are people with skills no Luculentus could—’

  He stopped himself.

  What am I doing?

  Did he want to reveal his Pilot nature? Did he want his parents arrested?

  ‘I’m not a Luculenta yet.’ Alisha’s face was always pale; now it was white. ‘I’m not one or the other. And Luculenti are still human, in case you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘All right. Shit. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I have plexnode interfaces, if you’re interested.’ She pulled back her sleeves. ‘Webbed inside my skin all over, but without processing nodes. I’m open to all Skein protocols, far beyond the subset most people use.’

  ‘That’s not my business.’ He felt unsettled by her sharing this. ‘Look, I wasn’t trying to offend you.’

  ‘But it’s like swimming in an ocean with blinkers on, feeling massive predatory shapes moving below you but unable to make them out, to understand what’s happening. It’s like being two years old and overwhelmed by the world, and it’s making me insane.’

  Moving by intuition, he stepped closer and put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘You see things in Skein, but can’t make sense of them.’

  ‘Perception is computation, and I know that you know that, Roger. I’m not trying to belittle you.’

  ‘Right.’ He used his tu-ring to tune his clothing to black. ‘This fabric is reflecting more light, up here on the roof, than a white object would indoors. But you perceive it as black because of computation in the visual cortex, comparing it to the background average.’

  ‘That’s it exactly. In Skein, I can perceive the rawness of things, just as a retina perceives frequency and intensity, but I can’t experience even basic qualia, like the sensation of colour.’

  ‘So it’s frustrating.’

  At some point, he had become aware of just how beautiful she was.

  ‘Look,’ he went on, ‘every Luculentus before upraise must have felt the—’

  ‘We were discussing you,’ she said. ‘And the way Dr Helsen looks at you.’

  ‘Uh . . . We were?’

  ‘Well’ - her smile was intensely cute - ‘that’s what I was leading up to, anyhow. I’d already noticed the way she reacted to you. Hadn’t you felt a paranoid notion that she was out to get you?’

  ‘Yeah, and I notice she likes you. Your architectural reconstruction was splendid, as I recall.’

  ‘But she’s reacting to something you do, or hadn’t you noticed?’

  Roger blinked, suddenly feeling like a neophyte swimmer who’s only just realized how far they are from the shallow end.

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking,’ she murmured, ‘but I know how you’re doing it.’

  It was an old saying from those who knew how to perceive the signals of body language, to distinguish visualization from internal dialogue and other modalities by throat tension, locus of voice, eye motion, fullness of lip and skin lividity.

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘You’re seeing something around her, something that causes you to feel dizzy and repulsed. Your body language is screaming it.’

  ‘Um, maybe.’

  ‘You want to tell me about it, Roger?’

  He stepped back from her.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t.’

  Her expression closed in.

  Shit. Now what have I done?

  Then she gave a tiny nod, walked back to the flowdisk, and descended into the building. Now Roger was alone on the rooftop, just as he had wanted in the first place.

  Except now he felt badly, wondering just how much of an idiot his education and his undeveloped Pilot’s abilities had led him to become.

  She had not dared to move the thing.

  Rashella Stargonier, having pretended to focus her attention on everyday affairs, to work and to sleep - all of this subterfuge-against-self being most un-Luculenta-like - finally returned to the atrium where she had left it on the glass tabletop.

  The null-gel capsule, and the shining old plexcore it held inside.

  I need someone to talk to.

  It was Greg Ranulph, her ecologist-gardener, who had unknowingly caused her to find the buried capsule. But he was an ordinary Fulgidus: the hired help, his doctorates meaning little, certainly not a confidant.

  This being a potentially valuable find, maybe she ought not talk to another of her own kind. Or perhaps that was disingenuous: another Luculentus or Luculenta was competition. The only person she wanted to talk to right now was herself.

  And there were several ways of doing that, undreamt of by the plebs.

  <>

  Beyond the table stood another of her, with an equally ironic smile.

  ‘Instantiation,’ said Rashella2, ‘is different from being born.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Rashella answered. ‘So, you know what I want to talk about.’

  Her counterpart existed purely in Skein, her image holo, with no material body to touch.

  ‘You should
report the plexcore to the authorities.’ Rashella2 smiled wider. ‘And yes, we both know what should means.’

  The artefact was not strictly her private property, regardless of its being cached in the grounds she owned.

  ‘But I might receive kudos if I did make it public.’

  ‘And acknowledge the little man, Ranulph?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Then Rashella2 grew still - not like a breathing human, but frozen - in the virtual equivalent of contemplation.

  ‘Do you remember something I don’t?’ asked the original.

  Between her and the virtual clone there were differences. There had to be, for Rashella2 was an instantiation whose lifetime could be measured in minutes, yet she remained helpful to her progenitrix.

  ‘There’s nothing conclusive. But I wonder about the little man’s intentions.’

  Implying that Ranulph had ulterior motives here?

  ‘You want to provide me with a full stochastic graph of that?’

  ‘What’s the point? You’re going to open the capsule anyway.’

  Rashella looked at Rashella2, and considered debating the point. Instead, she nodded to the surrounding house, and immediately the black nul-gel material began to disintegrate into black floating dust, pulverized by masers. Rashella2 smiled with one side of her mouth.

  Then the dust swept away. Remaining in place was the shining silver cylinder that had once formed part of a Luculentus nervous system, a plexcore that extended the organic brain. It was so heavy and large. Rashella’s plexnodes were tiny, webbed throughout her body, and she normally thought about them only as often as she mused on the mitochondria that powered each of her cells, like those of every other Earth-derived animal in the universe.

  ‘It must be a hundred years old,’ said Rashella2.

  ‘I can use backwards-compatible protocols.’

  ‘So you are going to interface with it.’ Rashella2 stared up, then allowed a flock of tiny shapes to form around her head. ‘My netSprites cannot identify the likely owner, but they can deduce that there is legally secure data related to this whole area. Historic data. At too high a security level for me to even identify it.’

  ‘I’m glad I instantiated you, darling.’

  ‘And I have your propensity for talking to myself, so thanks from me. It’s been the highlight of my existence.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sadness made both their voices heavy, their words somehow viscous.

  ‘I’ll be going now,’ said Rashella2.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Rashella2 dissolved into a virtual blizzard of shards and facets that whipped and rotated through the air and out of existence. Her constituent code would be scattered and absorbed in Skein, as a human’s atoms spill into the universe on death.

  ‘So,’ said the original. ‘Time for that interface.’

  She stared at the shining cylinder.

  <
  {init(){handshake(getProtocol())})>>

  Somewhere - all around, or deep inside her: she could not tell - a hot glow intensified, a growl became like thunder, and the whole world became a maelstrom of stomach-dropping vertigo and whirling sensations, a tornado of chaos.

  Just for a second, spinning fragments of light tried to coagulate, to reform; and a broken, jagged outline of Rashella2’s hand reached out toward her creator, virtual cracked lips attempted to cry a warning; but then the blizzard hit and Rashella2 was gone, dissolved in Skein forever.

  The real Rashella spun then toppled to the polished floor.

  Blackness.

  Except, perhaps, for the distant part of her awareness that tracked the progress of her house drones, who slid from their wall-caches and drew near, then stopped, trembling where they stood, unable to come closer.

  As her universe became a howl of madness.

  TWELVE

  EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD

  Sharp retreated into cover, but not far, sure that the fragrant bushes would hide him.

  He had seen the creature, and remembered every detail: clothed (therefore intelligent), slim and tiny, no antlers, and only a single thumb on each hand. It had made a campsite of sorts, with shining objects that looked crafted. Nothing in his memory indicated that his ancestors had ever come across such a thing.

  And it was alone. Could it be an outcast, a casteless one like himself?

  Casteless.

  So it was time to confront that thought. He had run away, placed himself beyond friends, beyond codes of conduct. Thinking that, he felt his childhood drop away. His northern nomadic forebears had survived; and so would he.

  Strangely without fear, he stood straight up, and headed back directly to the interloper’s camp.

  The creature rose, its head reaching barely halfway up Sharp’s chest. Yes, those coverings were clothing for sure. As the creature’s mouth moved, Sharp’s interior ear detected faint sound, not unpleasant.

  From a shining box, several small insects took flight, and joined their fellows who were hovering above the creature. Were they under its thrall somehow?

  Sharp broadcast his name, pointing at himself with all four thumbs.

  Then he waited.

  Possibly the creature’s face wrinkled. It took a step back. Perhaps it was sick; perhaps it needed time to think. Then suddenly it leaped to the shining box that had produced the insects, and began to gesture at it, using intricate flickering finger movements, while its mouth worked.

  Patterns of light shone above the box. Sharp drew closer. Then a blast of scent made him stumble backward.

  ~SHARP!

  The box had emitted his name. Astounding. It meant the creature could communicate, or might learn to, and that was the answer to everything.

  His answering scent was simple, the fragrance of happiness.

  For here was his opportunity. Casteless and untouchable, he might yet taste knowledge far beyond the long-digested traditions of the Council Elders. The power of novelty was his.

  The thought made him salivate profusely.

  For Rekka, the alien was a brooding ursine presence with watchful amber eyes. It wore a short sleeveless robe, hood thrown back. Seated, its head was level with hers when she stood. It kept still, not because of her beeswarm flying overhead - the alien probably did not understand how dangerous they were - but because it understood her fear, and wanted to reassure her.

  At least, that was how she interpreted its posture and gestures. But how anthropomorphic could her thinking be? This planet’s lifeforms approximated the division between animal and plant kingdoms; and many animal species had a close analogue of spines and jointed limbs, along with bilateral symmetry. In the context of xenoevolution, that made this world almost identical to Earth.

  Still, this alien’s cells bore no DNA - of course - so however Earthlike it looked, she had fundamentally more in common with a centipede or jellyfish, even a fungus.

  Except that intelligence is an emergent property, arising from many kinds of substrate.

  And I’m the alien here.

  Light rain, softer than tears, began to fall. Rekka wiped drops from her forehead, then slowly approached the creature and touched its cheek. Damp fur over hard bone. Then it took her hand in its double-thumbed grip, turned it palm-up, and gave a soft, darting lick, its tongue rasping. She closed her eyes, shuddering, remembering MacDuff: her adoptive parents’ collie, shaking himself indoors after a rainy walk.

  Finally, she opened her eyes and backed away, then returned to her biofact. Light-headed, she worked on the displayed codeframes, evolving aggregates and subtypes, initiating two evolution threads. Soon she would be able to transmit to . . . Whiff, she would call him in her journal. Arbitrarily, she had decided the creature was male.

  I’ve made first contact.

  She hadn’t sought it out; but now it had happened, she needed to work properly. Permanent comms with the rest of t
he team were forbidden - ever since the disaster of Watson’s World, where thousands of enraged creatures, their nervous systems enflamed by radio-wavelength energy, had fallen on the exploratory team - and her reports would be zipblips, delivered nightly, their duration a matter of picoseconds.