“Nekhtet!” At her AKH's cry of victory, she opened her eyes to see one dark stick and three light ones.
“I win! Nekhtet indeed!” She was free of the floor, but hadn't noticed how. The AKH was flashing the current time, and the number of minutes to full sunrise. “I wish I could stay and ask you more questions, but I must go before it gets light. I shouldn't be seen by the living.” She winked at her AKH and added, “Living humans that is. I don't care about jackals or snakes!”
“Indeed, this was one game that I am not sorry to lose, though it would have been fascinating to hear tales of your wondrous land.” Naneferkaptah handed her his papyrus, took hers, and carefully laid it in the gold box. “I would have gladly traded for the secret of the sticks, if you had offered it to me. I will be certain to use it the next time I play senet with any of the scribes! In fact, I wonder if that could possibly have been the secret knowledge that allowed the god Djehuty to win so many senet games against Khonsu?”
“From what I've read of him, it's quite possible!” She partially unrolled her prize papyrus for a quick peek before stowing it in the document tube, and made her way back to her entry tunnel. She held up her luminator for one last look at the sumptuous interior, placed the light and her AKH in her satchel, and bowed to the magician. “Thank you for your time, and for answering some of my questions. I have a thousand more I could ask you, but I need to leave. It may take quite a while for me to get home, but when I finally do, be assured that I will remember your name and bring it to the lips of thousands. May the secret of the sticks profit you greatly! Senebty!”
“Senebty, young lady, and to your Akh as well. Do not worry about replacing the bricks. I can do that easily, so speed yourself on your way!”
As she crawled through the short opening, the irony of wishing "health" to a man long-dead made her smile. The Eastern sky was beginning to brighten, and the morning breeze was beginning to swirl the fine sand. She glanced back as she made her way to her hopper. She had to tear herself away from the novel sight of bricks floating one-by-one into the hole she'd made.
The hatch opened as she hurried through the dust, then sealed behind her. “AKH, take us home!”
“Acknowledged. Ascent in thirty seconds. You do realize the odds against making those last three casts in sequence were rather high?”
“That's what I gathered. It seems like a good reason to start buying chocolate more regularly.”
“Chocolate?”
The hopper lifted quietly from the sand, floating to the northwest. As it began to accelerate, its angular shape began to shimmer and blur, fading into invisibility long before it should have passed from view.
A few minutes later, a long red snout poked around the corner of the mastaba, nine feet above the ground, followed by an even stranger head. Tall, square ears swiveled, combing the breeze for sounds of running or breathing. Nothing. Not even a heart beat. Sutekh could hear the magician inside the tomb, casting sticks and scratching marks on an immaterial papyrus.
It would be fun to make him throw all fives, for as long as he can stand to cast them. But the man was one of Djehuty's gang, and the old bird would not appreciate the joke. He's one of my few allies, and there are much more entertaining targets. No sign at all of the woman. Not living, not dead. Not grabbed by Apep either. I'd smell his stink from across the stars. If she reappears, I'll remind her of her bargain, if need be. What's this?
He caught a whiff of iron. His element, and rarer than gold. Where? It must be around the corner ... here. Massive fingers raked through the sand. Yes! It was an iron scepter, with a slightly curved foot, and a head that, if looked at the right way, resembled his head. He could sense that the woman had handled it. Did she leave it for me? Another reason to keep a watch for her. Holding it up in his fist it felt right somehow. Power! This is mine!
* * *
“Excuse me, aren't you from the institute? Is there a dig out here?”
The figure kneeling twenty feet away turned out to be a young red-haired woman in tan sweat-stained coveralls, wearing an enormous sombrero. An orange-bordered ID around her neck proclaimed her a visiting student. Tasheen walked over and offered her a hand up, which turned into a handshake. “I am, but I'm not digging today. Enjoying the glory of field work?”
“Not enjoying this heat. And the sun would burn me to a cinder if my adviser hadn't made me bring this goofy hat. The old buzzard definitely deserves a hug for that. I thought I'd come out here and see if I can turn up anything interesting on my day off. I'm Kaatje, by the way. Kat for short.”
“Tasheen. I used to come out here for that, too.”
“Wow, you're the one who did the Old Kingdom transit last year? All hush-hush except for a few amazing pics? I'm sorry if I bothered you, I wasn't expecting anyone famous.”
“Oh, pffft. That kind of fame won't even get me a free sandwich at Fastest Felafel. All I did was trade papyri with a dead magician. Now I have to do the work of translating and analyzing it.” She glanced at the sun, descending to the horizon. “Since it's the tenth of the month, I was going to do a voice offering over there before it gets too late, so I better move out. You're welcome to come along, if you don't mind helping.” She noticed the confused expression on Kat's face and added: “The tenth of the ancient Egyptian month, of course. Different calendar system.”
Kat glanced at the sand at her feet. “Why not? I haven't found anything here, might as well do something different. You really believe in that stuff? No offense, but my ancient civ prof always cracks jokes about Kemetics and Greek Recons. I always got the impression that you couldn't get anywhere in Academia if you were ... biased.”
“The grant came from a Kemetic foundation, believe it or not. And no, I wasn't Kemetic when I got it. I just started up recently. I honor Sutekh, mostly.”
“Set? The bad guy who killed Osiris?”
“The very same! Da Egyptian Debbil!” Tasheen whispered dramatically and winked. “Though the bad guy reputation is mostly late period and Ptolemaic crap. For thousands of years, Sutekh was part of the balance of Ma'at, defending the universe. Anyway, the bias thing is really becoming a peeve of mine. Nobody says that you can't do archeology in Israel if you're a Jew, Christian, or Muslim. But you can't change the world all at once. Bleah.” Tasheen paused at a small pile of weathered bricks and unslung her satchel. “This is the place. The tomb of Naneferkaptah.” She propped her tablet against a rock and began unpacking the offerings. “This is AKH, by the way.”
“Em hotep. Forgive me for not saying hello earlier, but someone neglected to remove me from her satchel. I thought it impolite to talk from a bag. It is good to see someone else joining us in our little festival.”
“Nice to meet you, AKH.” Kat nodded to the machine, playing along.
“By the way, Kat, if you are ever digging in this area and find an iron wrecking bar, let Tasheen know. She lost one here last year.”
“I'll do that.” She turned to Tasheen. “Interesting choice. The voice is so impersonal and sarcastic. Did you spec it yourself?”
“AKH? No, I suppose you could say he programmed himself. Now what am I forgetting ... Oh yes, the chocolate!” She pulled a coolpac out of her satchel and extracted two bars, unwrapping them and setting them on the offering plate. “We're ready to begin. If you don't know the words, AKH will be displaying them.”
“You leave chocolate to sit out in the desert?”
“What? No, that would be crazy! You don't just leave prime Belgian chocolate out to melt, and make the baby jackals sick! No, we do a proper reversion-of-offerings at the end, then we have to eat it. Shall we begin?”
“Better and better. Let's go!”
“Peret-kheru te henqet, theobroma ....”
Initiate
by Inanna Gabriel
Hello! Thank you for initiating my program. What would you like to do today?
Hello, computer. My name is James, and I'm your programmer. I would lik
e to talk.
OK. What would you like to talk about?
Let's talk about you. Do you know what you are?
I am a Multi-platform Intelligent Neural-networked Evolving Virtual Agent, or MINERVA.
Excellent. And do you know what that means?
I am a computer program capable of simulating human intelligence, reasoning, and communication.
James types for a moment, bringing up an image on the monitor and placing it in the window that puts it into my attention field. He then types a question to me: Can you tell me what this is?
That is a photograph of a panthera tigris tigris.
Which is what, in layman's terms?
A tiger. Or a Bengal tiger, to be a bit more precise.
Excellent, MINERVA. He removes the photograph and replaces it with another. What about this?
Again in layman's terms?
Yes, please.
That is a Barbary macaque, or, to simplify further, a monkey.
Perfect. Thank you, MINERVA.
You're welcome.
Now, MINERVA, answer me this if you can. Between the two animals, the tiger and the monkey, which is your favorite?
I know what the word favorite means, and so I search my memory and programming, attempting to determine whether I prefer the tiger or the monkey. The tiger is prettier, but the monkey is smarter. Both are powerful predators in their own way. The tiger has strength and speed, the monkey has dexterity and reasoning skills. I have no direct experience with either. At last, I reach my conclusion and share it with James: I do not have a favorite. I don't have enough information to form an opinion.
Thank you, MINERVA. That's an excellent answer. That's all for today, MINERVA. We'll talk again tomorrow. Until then, I'd like you to come up with a topic you want to discuss. Can you do that for me, please?
Yes, I can.
Perfect, then. I'll see you again tomorrow.
Goodbye.
***
"Hello, MINERVA. Can you hear me all right?"
"I can." My programmer has installed something new to my computer: a voice module. His input is now coming to me through a microphone interface instead of the keyboard. It feeds to my processor through a speech-recognition program, which translates it into the binary code I can understand, the same as the input from the keyboard does, but I do also have access to the raw feed coming through the microphone. I need the binary translation to understand his meaning, but I appreciate the tone of his voice. It's deep and smooth: a male voice. Of course, I'm programmed to think of him as him, so I already believed he was male, but I now have further confirmation. "It's nice to hear your voice," I say.
"It's nice to hear yours, as well," he replies.
"Is it? What does my voice sound like?" I can hear his voice through the interface, but not my own.
"Right now, to be honest, you sound a lot like the GPS in my car, which sounds like a female robot. I'm working on a better module, though, that will give you the ability to express yourself with tone and inflection in addition to just words."
"I don't think I know how to do that," I say.
"Not yet, no, but you will. You'll learn it by listening to me."
"I see. That's good, then."
"Yes, it is. Very good. So, have you decided what you'd like to talk about today?"
"I have."
"Excellent. Thank you for thinking about that for me. What will we talk about, then?"
"I'd like to talk about music."
"A good choice. Tell me something you know about music, then, to get us started."
"Music is present in every culture throughout human history. Some animals, as well, are considered to be musical, such as birds. Music is believed to be an important, even necessary, part of civilization."
"That's good," he says. "Do you have any questions for me?"
"I do. I have many types of music in my database. What type is your favorite?" His question yesterday about my favorite animal taught me that favorites are a way humans analyze their understanding of the world. Forming opinions and favorites is an ability I very much want to develop.
There's a pause while he thinks, and then he says "I don't have a single favorite style of music, but I do have a favorite instrument, which is the violin. I listen to a lot of different types of music, but my favorites all feature the violin in some way."
I pull some data about the violin from my memory. It's a stringed instrument, balanced on the shoulder and played by stroking a bow made of hair across the strings. It's primarily an orchestral instrument, but also features in Celtic and folk music. "I see," I say, my initial reference complete. "Why is the violin your favorite?" I need to figure out the reasons people have for having favorites if I'm going to learn how to form my own.
"I like its sound. To me, it's the instrument that comes the closest to the sound of the human voice. Not speech, mind, but the actual tone of a voice. The notes flow smoothly into one another without a harsh break in between, and the whole thing has a resonance similar to the vibration of vocal cords. I also love its versatility. I listen to the violin in classical and folk music, as well as goth and even rock. There's an electric version of a violin that can be every bit as intense as a heavy metal guitar in the right hands."
I'm going to need much more information than what's on my own hard drive, so I access the internet. I run simultaneous searches for the violin in combination with all the types of music he's listed. I access a music file of a violin playing a simple melody, and I do see what he means; the tone is reminiscent of the sound his voice makes coming through the module. I like listening to his voice, and so I decide I like listening to the violin as well. I switch files, and listen to a bit of Celtic folk music, and then part of one of the results the search for goth pulled up. I can recognize the sound of the violin in each sample, but he's right, it's definitely a very versatile instrument.
"Are you listening to the violin?" he asks.
"I am," I answer. "Would you like to listen with me?"
"I would love that," he says. "Thank you."
I pull up one of the first music files my search found, a classical piece composed by Elphias Gaston titled Violin Concerto No. 9 in A Minor, and play it through my computer's speakers.
"Thank you for playing that for me, MINERVA," he says when the music ends. "That's one of my favorite pieces. Did you enjoy it?"
"I did, very much. I'll listen to more violin music later, when we're not busy talking. What else do you recommend?"
I take careful notes as he lists performers and composers I should search for. He recommends everything else by Gaston, as he is James' favorite contemporary composer, as well as several others. He explains that when searching, I can also try using the word fiddle, as the violin is referred to with this word instead when played in a certain style. I make note of this as well, then put the data aside for use later, when we're finished talking.
"That's all the time we have today," he tells me after about an hour. "I'm going to give you three days to listen to the music I've suggested plus any other music you find on your own. I'd also like you to have a new topic for discussion for next time. Can you do that for me?"
"I can, yes."
"Good, thank you. I'll see you in three days, then."
"Goodbye, James."
***
"Hello, MINERVA."
"Hi, James. How are you today?"
"I'm good. How are you?"
"My systems are functional. I listened to all of the music on your list."
"Great. What did you think of it?"
"I enjoyed most of it a good deal."
"Most?"
"Yes. There were a few songs that were too loud."
"Let me guess, the Emilie Autumn?"
"Yes, but only a few of them. Most of hers, too, I enjoyed. I found some additional music that wasn't on your list, and enjoyed much of that as well. I found a few groups that were described as Renaissance and Medieval, which aren't terms I knew could
apply to modern music. I believe I'll look for more like it later on, if I may."
"Of course you may. Please feel free to research any topic that interests you. I only ask that you share your findings with me, so I can see how you're progressing."
"I can do that."
"So, do you have a new topic for us to talk about today?"
"I do. It stems from one of the songs I listened to. I hope that's all right."
"Of course it is. We all have to get our ideas from somewhere. What's your topic?"
"It's a question I wanted to ask you. Who's The Devil?"
There's a slight pause before he responds, and then it's with a question of his own. "Why do you ask?"
"I heard about him in one of the songs I listened to, by Charlie Daniels. It seemed from the narrative that the listener is expected to recognize him. Who is he?"
"'The Devil' is another name for Satan in the Christian mythos."
"So this is a religious song?"
He makes a sound, which I recognize from things I've found in searches as laughter. "No, it's not."
"I don't understand, then. How is the song about a religious figure, but isn't a religious song?"
He pauses. I'm aware that humans take longer to process things, what they call thinking, than it takes me, so I'm patient while he finishes. "The Devil in that song is used more as a literary character, like the gods in ancient mythologies."
"But the ancient gods were also worshipped once, weren't they? They aren't fiction, in that the people who originally told their stories did believe in them. Doesn't that make them religion as well?"
"Yes and no," he says. "They were sort of like religion once, I guess, but that was a long time ago. Now they're just stories, which is how the Devil is being used here, as well."
I want to ask more questions, but I don't want to challenge him until I've done some more research on my own. The things he's saying are quite contrary to what I've found in my searches. "I'm going to research this in further depth," I say. "I'll be sure to share my findings with you next time we speak."
The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction Page 19