The plasma body broke up as her attention wavered. She concentrated again, and this time her gel shape scattered when she willed herself to move quickly. She spent a long time playing with this phenomenon, learning how to extend her will into the gel shape with such exactitude that she could pick up objects. Drawing on the colossal energy around her, she could move the most massive of shapes and had to be careful not to disrupt the gravity pattern of the planets. That had to be left undisturbed, for that gravitational shape would eventually open into her only passage home.
Time, too, felt different in her gel shape. While in the Form, time passed for Gai only a little faster than it would on the range. But in her gel shape, events transpired in the real time of outer space. A day in the Form equaled two hundred and fifty years of time in the continuum. If she stayed in the Form, her whole mission, seven thousand years of continuum time, would elapse in twenty-eight days.
During the hours that Gai spent moving in and out of her plasma body, gas clouds hardened into asteroid swarms, planets cooled, and atmospheres gradually began to clear. The program still had a thousand years to go—four days in the Form—before the molecular fossils they had found could be revitalized. Genitrix suggested that Gai spend that time in her sleepod.
Gai was too apprehensive to sleep. Her scans of deep space, through Saor, revealed that the other Genitrix systems around her continued progressing. Though Genitrix had reported the disappearance of several of the systems during her early wandering, Gai found most to be intact and functioning. Inherent system failures—mechanical breakdowns—the bane of every pioneer venture, could account for the missing Rimstalkers. Communication with those still in place could be done: a time-consuming and dangerous endeavor. The nearest system was over three hundred light years away, and, like most of the others that had preceded Gai and survived, had entered their fifth stroke. Their missions were almost finished. Gai did not want to jeopardize them by broadcasting any overt signals their way. She decided to content herself with listening to the noise of the resonance strokes as the systems earned their way home.
Even seeing that all progressed well with most of the other Rimstalkers, Gai was too nervous to sleep. She used her time instead familiarizing herself with the fifteen planets and the crowds of planetesimals. Each planet’s distinct characteristics emerged from its relative position between the machine bodies of Lod and Saor. Those closest to Lod’s bright form evolved to hot worlds, destined to be desert planets. Those near Saor’s black body congealed to dark, cold worlds.
“Originally,” Genitrix explained, “the lifeform we are reproducing lived on one world. But that planet, somewhat larger than even our largest planet here, had quite a diversity of climates over time. Our gravity net has enabled us to simulate the exact gravity of the original planet on all our major planets even though they differ in size among themselves. Given the necessity for generating magravity to get us back to the range, the best solution to the climatic differences the lifeform knew is to tier the planets, which I’ve done. I’ve divided them, as you can see, into two distinct groups—those near Lod’s sun and those near Saor’s black hole. Would you like to name the groups?”
“Yes,” Gai agreed, moving her Form to the exact center of the system, where space opened wide, uncluttered even by asteroids. “I will name them after my parents, lost to the zōtl. The eight planets and all the asteroids among them that are in Lod’s warm presence I will call Doror after my father. The darker worlds, like the dark windows that were the last I saw of my mother, shall be called after her family name—Chalco.”
*
“Life-soils, birth-seas, offsprings of space
gathered here into worlds
whispering death to our enemies
are named for the love that began us—Chalco-Doror!”
*
“Do I hear an irony in your poetry, Genitrix?”
“That we should name our weapon after what loved us into being? It is an irony we shall not fully savor until we are successful, Gai.”
*
The planets themselves Gai left nameless. She referred to them by their coordinates—except for one: the trigger mass, the planet that had been set to swing in and out of the main system in synchrony with the millennial strokes building the collapse energy. Every thousand years, the trigger mass would return to the empty space between Chalco and Doror and signal the end of one stroke and the beginning of the next. At the seventh stroke, the disassembled launch vehicle would collapse together at that planet. There the sleepod lay, and there Gai always returned after her watchful rounds through the system—for that was as close as she could get to an exit from this universe.
Because the swing planet would eventually focus the implosion that carried them back to the range, Gai named the world Know-Where-to-Go.
She was roaming there toward the end of her third day in space, after the planets had formed crusts and atmospheres, when she saw another figure watching her from a distance.
Through her visor’s memory-link to Genitrix, Gai immediately recognized the glowing figure as Lod’s image. Each machine intelligence had the ability to project its consciousness beyond its physical form and to shape the field-particles of outer space into a plasma body. Lod’s projected shape stood regally tall, fire-tipped, and tightly shaped as poured gold.
When Lod recognized that he had been noticed, he approached, his eyes gempoints of laserlight. “Madam Gai,” he greeted and lowered his head. “I am here to serve you—if you have any use for me beyond my preprogrammed functions.”
“You may call me Gai,” she responded. In training, she had often spoken with machine intelligences and had become used to their formal diction. “I’m a little surprised to see you, Lod.”
“I am sorry. I thought you knew from your training that the machine intelligences could take colloid form.”
“I know that. I didn’t think you would, though—unless I beckoned.”
Lod nodded again, more deeply. “Forgive me, Gai, if I have transgressed. When I sensed Saor in ambulatory mode, I thought to come myself and inform you.”
“What is Saor doing?”
“I do not know, I am sure. He is an independent machine intelligence. His motives elude me. According to my monitors, the system is functioning optimally. There is no reason for him to be stalking about.”
Gai adjusted the sensors of her Form and noticed that, indeed, Saor had projected his consciousness into a plasma shape that roamed the planet closest to the black body that was his Form. “Genitrix—why is Saor in gel form?”
“Saor has logged no intent with me,” Genitrix replied. “Actually, Gai, I think that capability is misplaced among machine minds. You will never find me projecting my mind into the field and assuming plasma shape. Much too sloppy—and slow.”
“Perhaps because Genitrix has no need for that,” Lod ventured. “She is cored on each planet, and her awareness permeates the entire system. It would be superfluous for her to project her awareness beyond her Form.”
“I’m well aware of that, Lod, thank you.” Gai tuned her Form to the blackbody. “Saor—report to Know-Where-to-Go immediately.”
A shimmery shadow appeared beside Lod. In the strong sunlight, the wavery shadow took the shape of a Rimstalker, but it lacked features and looked flat. “What do you want?” Saor asked Gai.
His abruptness startled her. “I want to know why you’re in colloid form.”
“I have that capacity. It is not disallowed.”
“But why? What are you doing?”
“Roaming. I am curious. That is essential to a receiver’s nature. You know that.”
“Is impertinence essential to your nature?” Lod asked, facing the shadowshape with undisguised disdain. “You speak in a clipped tone. You are projecting no dignity at all.”
Saor ignored Lod and addressed Gai. “Am I free to come and go within this system as I please or not?”
Gai used the Form to analyze Saor’s gel body and r
emembered that this was a microfield black body. Whatever it touched would collapse into it.
As if reading Gai’s mind, Saor moved an intimidating step closer. Lod edged between Saor and Gai and glared threateningly into the black body.
“Of course, you’re free,” Gai answered quickly to break the standoff. “We must all work together for this mission to succeed. We are united in that. Are we not?”
“We are so programmed,” Saor replied.
“You do not sound very enthusiastic,” spoke Lod.
“Do you want enthusiasm or efficiency?” Saor asked Gai.
“I want unwavering dedication to our mission,” Gai answered firmly. The antagonism of the machine intelligences surprised her. Functional variance, Genitrix would tell her later. Machine intelligences with sophisticated jobs need flexible minds—real personalities. “We must all do our jobs the best we can. Part of that is keeping an eye on each other. We’re going to be here for a while, so we must cooperate with each other as openly as we can.”
“I have been entirely open with you,” Saor said.
“You could have declared your intent to look around in gel form,” Lod suggested.
“I didn’t know that was necessary,” Saor said to Gai. “Is it?”
“No. You’ll need to be free to fulfill your functions unhampered. But, of course, you will report to me and Genitrix at once if you receive any information relevant to our mission.”
“Of course. May I go now?”
“If you wish.”
The shadowshape vanished. Lod shook his head. “I apologize for my colleague’s impudence, Gai.”
“Forget it. Saor’s job is a passive one. I understand his coolness.”
“I understand it, too, Gai—but I don’t trust him. Perhaps he’s been miswired.”
“Negative,” Genitrix said over the Form’s speakers. “Diagnostics show that both Lod and Saor are properly wired.”
“Thank you, Genitrix,” Gai said. “And thank you, Lod. You may go now.”
“I am always just a call away, Gai,” Lod assured her in a brotherly voice. “Despite Saor’s most offensive indifference, I want you to know that the success of this mission is the very focus of our being. We will give our lives to see that you are victorious.” He bowed and disappeared.
Gai sat for several hours afterward thinking about that exchange and regarding the landscape around her. All of this was invented—the blue sky ruddying into night as the planet turned, the seething clouds, the styptic heat of the sunlight fading into dusk. Even the minds she had just talked to – all invented. And yet, they called themselves lives.
The lives that would eventually exist here when these arid rocks hatched their grasses and forests and the sky lowered its lakes and oceans would also be invented. Everything around her existed as a fabrication, carpentered from energy.
And energy? What was that? Even the best scientists on the range really could not say. Maybe Lod was right, after all. Maybe he was truly alive, living as all energy lives, cumbered by mystery.
Zotl
The Form chimed, and Gai woke. She had been dreaming of training. When she opened her eyes on the rocky terrain of Know-Where-to-Go and the sky bluing and darkening as she whirled about with the planet, she got confused. She stepped out of the Form into her plasma body, and the spinning sky steadied to night approaching dawn.
Though this was her fourth day, the actuality of being here in outer space still seemed odd. Since the launch, she had kept herself busy and had left no time to face herself. That was how she preferred it. But now, with Genitrix, Lod, and Saor performing their functions flawlessly, nothing more wanted her attention and she had nothing to do but wait.
Nothing.
From a ridge, she looked down on her armor reflecting the silver light of the galaxy and red lines of dawn. A feeling of wonder assailed her, as it had briefly when she had first seen the galaxy or when Lod became a sun and the nebula filled with dimensions of light. She had never felt like this on the range, not since before her family had been lost.
The memory of that horror had blotted out all beautiful feelings since. The men she might have loved, the children she might have borne, haunted the loveliness around her. Years of denied happiness stared back at her from the fire-pace of dawn and the silence of the huge stars.
The Form chimed, and she returned to it to receive a message from Genitrix. “Sorry, Gai, but there seems to be some cause for alarm. While you were resting, more than two thirds of the other nearby Genitrix systems have gone out.”
Fear and anger spiked in her. “What do you mean?”
“Saor is not receiving any gravity waves from them. They are obviously no longer functioning.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m afraid so. Apparently, the zōtl have found a way to counter our traps.”
“We don’t know that.”
“The probability of 68 percent of the systems failing through internal mismanagement or faulty programming is frightfully thin, Gai. I think we must assume that the zōtl have overcome our strategy.”
Gai stared up at the sky blinking blue and black, day and night. “There may be a design fault. Many of those systems that went ahead of us were prototypes. A lot of bugs were exterminated before we came up.”
“Most of those bugs were just blemishes, cosmetics. We’re not much different than any of the systems that have shut down.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Just what I’ve said.”
“I mean, what do we do now?”
“I’m sorry, Gai, I can’t think of anything to do. We’re already at full alert. But I thought you should know this about the failed systems.”
“Can we contact the range—alert them?”
“We could. But the energy required would scuttle us. We’d be stranded here forever, no way home.”
Gai stepped back out of the Form into the slower timeframe of space. By the seething light of noon, she paced the stony landscape, pondering her predicament. She came to a lake that someday would expand to a sea, and she touched its surface and watched rings of waves widen away. Light was so slow, just like these ripples—and she contemplated overriding them and using Saor to create a lynk, a wormhole, with one of the now-silent systems to see what had really happened.
“That is dangerous, Gai.” From the glare of sunlight on the water, Lod’s image separated.
Gai looked up at Lod shaped in sunfire standing beside her. In her plasma body, she viewed Lod without the benefit of the Form’s analyzers, and he looked like blinding flames, a clap of lightning too energetic for shape. Outside the Form, her thoughts opened to him though he remained an unreadable flux of energy.
He continued, reading her mind: “If you use Saor to lynk, you will expose him and us to whatever is out there. If there are zōtl, that could be fatal for us. I say, let the zōtl find us. We must not go to them—not, at least, until our trap is ready. We have no bait, and we have yet to find the O’ode, which we cannot even begin to look for until we have the energy for a massive lynk search. And that power will not become available until after Chalco-Doror is fully established. That is two days away. We should wait that long anyway.”
Gai agreed. Before a counterargument could rise in her, she willed herself back into her Form, where her thoughts were her own. From there, Lod looked sleek as metal, naked, bald, and genderless. The fast-running days and nights flashed like a strobe between them. “Tomorrow,” she said to him, “Know-Where-to-Go will complete the first stroke of the cycle—and the resultant gravity pulse will announce our arrival to the whole universe. Perhaps we should take a peek at the others before everyone knows we’re here.”
“We will have another day before the nearest other system hears that pulse. We should wait.”
“I admire your caution, Lod.” Yet the thought of waiting without knowing brushed her insides with ticklish energy.
“Just my program.”
“Admirable neverth
eless. In this case, however, I must override it. If there is a design error, I want to know as soon as possible so we’ll have every chance to correct it. And if the trouble is zōtl, it’s best to know now before they find out we’re here. Maybe we can learn how they overcame the others.”
“Saor may become contaminated and compromised. The zōtl may have virus programs we cannot detect until too late.”
“That’s our risk.” She beckoned Saor, and the machine mind’s black shape appeared before her.
Saor, who listened to everything, already knew his mission. “Lod’s fears are unrealistic,” he said, flatly. “I can’t be compromised without both Genitrix and Lod knowing it. My circuitry and all my programs are open to them. I’m ready to lynk with the nearest system.”
“I urge you to reconsider.” Lod pleaded.
“You’re insubordinate, Lod,” Saor challenged.
“I am not. I am counseling caution—”
“Lod—I have decided,” Gai spoke up. “Saor, you may proceed when ready.”
Saor disappeared.
Gai had Genitrix channel Saor’s perceptions to the Form’s viewer. Static flurried for several minutes as Saor established the lynk. Then, she gazed upon worlds with full atmospheres, blue and marbled with clouds. Flyers sparked in the sunlight between the planets, flitting among the swarms of asteroids. All looked well.
“I’m at Genitrix-18,” Saor’s voice crisped over the Form’s speakers. “Shall I announce myself to the machine intelligences here?”
“Not yet,” Gai ordered. “Tap into communications and let’s hear what they’re talking about.”
A high-pitched gibberish scalded Gai’s hearing, and she shut down the channel. “Genitrix—what is that noise?”
The Last Legends of Earth Page 9