by Jade Kerrion
The astral screen shimmered. Jem studied the cluster of dots, bright red against the dark map of the universe. “I’m not much of a tactician but…”
“…but it looks like they’re trying to create a stranglehold around the Shixar empire,” Kir agreed. His jaw was tight with tension. “I think we’re about to get dragged into an intergalactic conflict.”
“Of course it’s allowed,” Professor Ptera said easily. An astral privacy screen surrounded Jem, Kir, SimOne, and the professor, permitting them to chat privately in the classroom outside the simulation laboratory.
Jem objected. “But—”
“Intra- and inter-planetary relationships, diplomacy, political intrigue are all part of the simulation. Some planets encounter it sooner than others because of their strategic location or their technological advancements, but eventually you’ll all be expected to play the game.”
“Our planet’s not ready for it,” Jem finished the statement that the professor had cut off.
“No one ever is. The question is, now that you know what Atlante is doing, what are you going to do?”
Jem looked at Kir. He smiled faintly. He seemed relaxed as he leaned back in his chair and looked at SimOne. “Given the current rate of change, when is our planet’s technology expected to attain a level useful to Atlante?”
The android, as always, had an answer. “In approximately five hundred revolutions around the star, assuming the current rate of change and eventual domination of the Island of Atlas over the rest of human civilization.”
“And the stranglehold around the Shixar Imperium? How soon can Atlante execute on its plan?” Kir asked.
“In approximately five hundred revolutions around the star. Our planet will be the last to come into its strength.”
Kir nodded. “All right, SimOne. Slow the revolutions down. All the way down. You need to buy Jem and me time to make a decision.”
“Planetary revolutions reduced to lowest setting.”
“Well, who did you want to ally with?” Kir looked at Jem.
Her brow furrowed as she looked at him askance. “We don’t have any information on either of them. Strengths, weaknesses, style of government—”
“I wasn’t planning on becoming part of a galactic empire, but our planet is the linchpin on which Atlante’s treachery turns. Don’t you see? Our planet is the trigger. We can use this information to stay out of an empire.”
“Not big into organizations, are you?” she asked with mild irritation.
“Organization makes me twitchy,” Kir admitted with an irreverent grin. “Shall we flip a coin?”
“You’re reducing the fate of our planet to a coin flip? And who the hell carries coins around anyway?”
“I do, just one for luck and decision making, of course.” Kir dug into his pocket and pulled out a shiny coin that Jem estimated had to be at least a hundred years old. “Heads, we go to the Shixar Imperium and tell them the whole story. Tails, we stay and help Atlante.” He tossed it into the air. It spun over, end for end, reversing direction after reaching the top of its trajectory, and landed in the palm of Kir’s hand.
Tails.
“Best of three,” Jem said immediately.
Kir laughed.
The professor’s deep bass joined the musical tenor of Kir’s laugher. Professor Ptera nodded. “That’s an interesting way of making decisions, Kir. You’ve quickly identified the instinctive answer that both mind and heart already know and agree upon.”
“We go to the Shixar Imperium and strike a deal with them,” Kir said, putting his coin away. “SimOne, please provide the names and locations of the Shixar team.”
“Good luck to the both of you,” Professor Ptera said as they stood up to take their leave. “By the way, come up with a name for your planet soon, if you can. Most of the others have by now.”
“The Shixar team consists of Abek Ovan and Vidi Gubri. They are at the Maha Colony,” SimOne said.
“I know the place. It’s just off campus. It’s a cheap little dive known for oysters of questionable origin,” Jem said.
“All right, let’s go then,” Kir said.
“What are you going to tell them?” Jem asked as they began walking toward Maha Colony.
Kir inhaled deeply. “We’ll tell them what we found out. We’ll show them the map of the universe, and we’ll let them draw their own conclusions. It’s simple.”
Simple was not and had never been a possibility.
Finding Abek and Vidi in the restaurant proved challenging. The sheer crush of humanity was overwhelming. The pictures helped, but only if one could focus on faces through the crowd.
“Over there,” Kir said finally, pointing to a booth tucked into a corner of the restaurant, next to a line of patrons waiting to use the restrooms.
Convincing Abek and Vidi that they had something important to tell them was the next challenge. “We are the Shixar Imperium,” Vidi said with an indifferent flip of her fingers. “We do not discuss our strategy or negotiate with other teams.”
Jem rolled her eyes. Someone was taking the simulation way too seriously. Jem stepped into the silence. “Look, there is a threat against your precious empire.”
Abek laughed. “There can be no possible threat against the Shixar Imperium. We have the highest score among all the teams.”
“For now,” Kir said. “Scores can change and yours will take a dive unless—”
SimOne spoke up. “Hadaly strongly urges you to listen to the information we have to share.”
Vidi looked at SimOne. “You went straight to our android?”
“On a scale of one to ten, Hadaly has a score of ten for listening skills. Your scores are zero point nine and one point five respectively.”
“Wow, there are actually people who score lower than us for listening skills,” Kir murmured in Jem’s ear.
She chuckled.
“Hadaly says ‘Don’t talk. Don’t listen. Just look.’” SimOne projected an astral screen, and then unfurled the map of the universe across it.
Jem had to admit the presentation was effective. The vast holdings of the Shixar Imperium glowed a soft yellow. A single red dot appeared, and then another, and another, until the Shixar Imperium was visibly strangled by a noose.
“And this is us,” Kir said quietly, pointing to the last dot to appear on the map. “The red dots represent planets that are currently hosts to Atlante humanoids and technology.”
“You’re hosting them?” Abek looked sharply at Kir.
“They infected our planet with a humanoid from their world. They have subverted the natural authority and are accelerating the rate of technological change. Within five hundred star revolutions, you’ll find yourself surrounded by Atlante-allied planets.”
“And the rest of these planets?” Vidi asked.
“The rest of the planets are controlled by the central command system. Our planet is the only one among the Atlante-infected planets controlled by a team,” SimOne said.
Abek and Vidi exchanged glances. “All right, what do you want?” Vidi asked, her indifferent insouciance gone.
“We will get rid of the Atlante-infection on our planet in exchange for a guarantee of neutrality,” Kir said.
“You don’t want to be part of our empire?” Vidi asked.
“We don’t take well to structured environments.” Kir grinned self-mockingly. “No, we do not want to be part of your empire. When the time is right, we’d be happy to trade or arrange for extra-terrestrial interactions, but we want to control both the volume and timing of the interaction.”
“What about Atlante?”
“You can deal with Atlante. We’re about five hundred star revolutions from being able to take them on, and if we wipe out the changes they’ve implemented on our planet, we’ll be a lot further away.”
“Fine. We’ll handle the Atlante team,” Abek confirmed. “Thank you. We owe you. We won’t forget it.”
“You’re very welcome,” Kir said si
mply. He slipped out of the booth, tugged at Jem’s hand, and pulled her away. He stepped out of the Maha Colony and breathed in deeply the chill of the night air. “If we wait around for another five minutes, I bet we’ll see them hurry back to the simulation laboratory.”
“And the reason we’re not waiting around is because we have our own problem to fix,” Jem said. “Nice work in there, SimOne.”
“Thank you.”
“All right, so what are we going to do with the Island of Atlas?” Jem asked.
Kir released his breath with a sigh. “Pluck out that humanoid, for starters. I think it’s time to start slowly whittling down the longevity of humans on our planet too. Longevity just gives them more time to get into trouble.”
“We’ve been doing that for a while now.”
Kir turned on her. “Since when?”
“Since Kav drenched the planet.”
His eyes narrowed. “Was it some kind of executive decision you made on your own?”
Jem tripped over her guilt and concealed it behind anger. “Look, you said the longevity compensated for the lack of technology available to convey information from one generation to the next. As technology expanded, I had SimOne trim down the length of the telomeres.”
“Telomeres?”
“The DNA at the end of each chromosome. It controls longevity, among other things.”
Kir shook his head in disgust. “When were you planning to tell me stuff like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like all the unilateral decisions you make about our planet and our people?”
Jem folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you picking a fight now?”
“Because this fight is long overdue. What part of our planet don’t you understand?”
“We can’t make every decision together. The point of having two people on the team is to divide and conquer, to spread the work out so everything isn’t discussed in committee.”
Kir’s eyes narrowed. “You told me you didn’t want me making unilateral decisions. I’ve given you the courtesy of letting you know every time I’ve made a major change in the planet’s direction, and I expect the same, damn it.”
“I tell you all the major things,” Jem snapped back at him.
“You cut their lifespan down from nine hundred and fifty years to one hundred and twenty years, and you didn’t tell me.”
“Perhaps the problem lies in the definition of what constitutes ‘major’ change,” SimOne said.
Jem and Kir stopped and gaped at SimOne. It was the first time she had ever interjected in any argument. It was the first time she had stepped up as a full member of the team, and not just the team’s technological interface to the central command system.
No, Jem corrected herself. The first time had been back at the Maha Colony. If SimOne had not connected directly to Hadaly and communicated the problem, they would still be in there trying to get Adek and Vidi to listen to what they had to say.
Jem looked at Kir. “I’m sorry,” Jem said slowly, choosing her words with care. “You told me longevity compensated for technology, so as technology grew, I assumed you’d be okay with longevity dropping back to more normal levels.”
Kir ground his teeth and looked away. “All right. Fine.”
“Fine? That’s it? Where’s the apology for being such a jerk about it?”
“Jerk?” His eyes widened.
The mere two-inch difference in their heights meant that it was easy to look directly into his eyes. “Yes, you are a jerk.” Jem then turned and stalked away. She heard SimOne following. Three cheers for female solidarity.
Jem did not say anything until they were back in the simulation laboratory. “Pull up a visual of the city on the Island of Atlas, SimOne.”
The image flashed up on the astral screen.
The city was beautiful. It would be a pity to destroy something so beautiful, but this planet was theirs. No one else had any right to subvert it for his own ends.
“What do you suggest, SimOne?” Jem asked.
“The city surrounds a volcano,” the android suggested, her voice calm.
Jem’s eyes narrowed. What a horrible way to die. “Will an eruption take out the entire island?”
“I can make it large enough to take out the entire island, though it will not recall any knowledge that has already diffused from the island across the rest of human civilization.”
“Are there any other alternatives?” Jem asked.
“Raise another civilization to equal strength, and send them to war.”
Jem rolled her eyes. How was that a better idea? She looked up as Kir emerged out of the darkness. “Oh, good, you’re here. We’re about to start a discussion in committee about what to do with the Island of Atlas.”
He winced. “Sorry, I…what did you all decide?”
“SimOne’s suggestion is to take out the island with a volcanic eruption. Just sink it.”
He looked up at the astral screen. His lips thinned into a straight line. “All right, do it.”
“Executing.”
Jem’s gaze shuttled between SimOne’s sweetly placid expression and the image on the screen as an entire island died in a night of fiery terror. She and Kir could physically manipulate the planet in limited ways, but SimOne was the true interface with the central command system that controlled the simulation program. The android could do things to the planet that Jem and Kir could not even dream of, which probably made her the planet’s true God.
Jem squirmed. It was not a comforting bedtime story for the people on the planet. Who would want their lives in the hands of an android programmed to…
Programmed to…what?
Jem’s eyes narrowed as she turned her full attention on SimOne. The android’s role was to interface with the central command system, but what was her goal?
“The Island of Atlas is destroyed,” the android reported serenely. “Some descendants of the Atlante humanoid escaped in ships. Would you like me to destroy the ships?”
Jem looked up and found Kir’s gaze on her. She shook her head and saw in Kir’s eyes that he agreed.
“No,” Kir said. “We’ll let them live for now, but I want you to track them. I want to know where they land and what they end up doing.”
Jem inhaled deeply. “It’s done then. I really hope we did the right thing.”
7
Calling himself the First Emperor after China's unification, Qin Shi Huang is a pivotal figure in Chinese history, ushering nearly two millennia of imperial rule. He undertook gigantic projects, including the first version of the Great Wall of China, the now famous city-sized mausoleum guarded by a life-sized Terracotta Army, and a massive national road system, all at the expense of numerous lives. To ensure stability, Qin Shi Huang outlawed and burned many books and buried some scholars alive.
– Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
* * *
A week passed with few issues, and Jem felt considerably more relaxed and confident when she walked into the simulation laboratory. “How are we doing?” she asked, shrugging off her backpack as she joined Kir and SimOne by their planet. She put her backpack down and kicked it out of the way to keep it out of the orbital path of the red planet.
Kir flashed her a grin. “Still alive. Always a good thing.”
“What are the humans doing?” she asked.
“Keeping busy. Empire building,” Kir said.
“Already?”
Kir shrugged. “I don’t think we can blame Atlante for it. It’s happening everywhere. Something in the water, perhaps?”
“Or in their genes,” Jem said. “You know, I was thinking—”
“Uh oh, should I sit down?”
“Not funny, Kir. I was wondering whether we should be actively intervening as our humans go to war. We could pick the winners and losers.”
“As opposed to letting skill and strategy decide that?” Kir asked.
“You’re the one who believes in luck.”
“Whatever. My point is that we need to start intervening actively. The occasional touch here and there hasn’t helped all that much in directing our wayward humans.”
“What’s wrong with skidding on the edge of daily disaster?” Kir asked. When she glared at him, he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay, all right. What are you suggesting?”
“I intend to take a more active role, at least with some portion of the planet.” Jem’s eyes narrowed when she saw the flicker in Kir’s expression. “You don’t approve?”
“I’m not a big fan of ‘divine intervention,’ especially when we’re not even sure what we’re doing half the time.”
“If we keep sitting back and letting SimOne run the planet, we’re unlikely to ever figure it out.”
Kir looked over at the android. “This isn’t about SimOne.”
“It isn’t,” Jem said. “It’s about us taking charge, as we should.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that taking charge could be about holding back and letting those munchkins grow up on their own and learn their own lessons?”
Jem tilted her head. “No,” she said finally. “Can’t say I have.”
“Look, you do whatever you think you have to on your side of the planet. I’ll just sit and watch the other side play out. It’ll be a good exercise in different management styles.”
Jem smiled. “A contest of sorts?”
Kir grinned back at her. “I should have known it would appeal to you. Yeah, call it a contest. We’ll see where it leads.”
“All right. SimOne, send me a list of human groups that are starting to get acquisitive. I’m going to pick one group to manage.”
“After she picks hers, send me the remainder, SimOne. I’m going to ignore them.”
“This contest will be entertaining,” SimOne said.
Kir chuckled. “Did you ever get that sarcasm module added to your programming, SimOne?”