I hope that you can forgive me. And I hope that some day I can make up for what I did then.
Yours, Leah.
Chan had read it through again and again. After the third time he could have repeated it word for word.
He kept going back to the last few paragraphs. Leah’s words of love bowled him over—and her remarks about the level of communication between her team members baffled him completely. Over the past couple of days he had become convinced that his own team would never work well together. They had too much trouble understanding each other. Well, maybe Shikari, as the Tinker liked to be called, would be all right. Shikari sometimes made perfect sense. So did the Pipe-Rilla, now and again, although neither she nor the Tinker seemed to have the equivalent of facial expressions. If they had some kind of body language for use with their own species, he had no idea how to read it.
As for the Angel, that was mystery personified. The creature had no face, no mouth, no method of communication except through a computer interface. And even that output was often incomprehensible, though Shikari and the Pipe-Rilla understood it (or pretended to).
And this mismatched assembly was supposed to be able to track down and destroy the most dangerous being in the known universe! They would be lucky if the Artefact simulation of the Construct, here on Barchan, didn’t tie them in knots.
They had established their camp down near the planet’s south pole. Until they knew the Simmie Artefact’s location there was no point in enduring the dreadful summer heat of the equator and northern hemisphere. On this third evening, as the dark sands of Barchan gradually cooled, the Pursuit Team settled down to its first strategy session.
The Tinker had increased noticeably in size as the sun set and the air was less scorchingly hot. The central mass contained almost twice as many components as when Chan had first met it, and its response time was painfully slow. The other three waited (impatiently, in at least Chan’s case) while Shikari’s speech funnel made its preparatory wheezes and whistles.
The Pipe-Rilla, S’greela, was crouched next to Chan and nervously stroking her multi-jointed forelimbs along the side of her head. If her performance to date was any guide, when confronted by anything the least frightening she would chitter in horror and terror and run away with great spring-legged leaps.
The Angel at least would not run away. It could not. No matter how intelligent the crystalline Singer might be, it was bound within the vegetable body of the Chassel-Rose and suffered that plant’s extreme slowness of movement. When the Angel wanted to move, the bulbous green body first lifted the root-borers up close underneath it. When they were stowed safely away it could creep along on the down-pointing adventitious stems at the edge of the body base. Chan guessed that if it was in a real hurry it might manage up to a hundred steps an hour.
Which left only the Tinker, Shikari, as a possibly useful ally. But its reaction to danger had already been demonstrated. It at once dispersed to individual components, and they flew away.
The curious thing was that the other three did not share Chan’s worries at all.
“We think that we have a satisfactory approach.” Shikari was finally speaking, slow and ponderous. “The Simulated Artefact lacks circadian rhythms and is indifferent to night or day. But our team is not. We Tinkers prefer to cluster by night, and Chan needs to become dormant. However, S’greela is naturally nocturnal, and like the Chassel-Rose she has excellent night vision. This, therefore, is our suggestion. Angel and S’greela should perform a night survey, seeking the Simmie. Human and self will remain here and rest. If there is no success in the search, then when daylight comes we will reverse the roles.”
The long blue-green fronds at the top of the Angel began to wave slowly in the air. Chan, ready to speak, paused. He had seen that motion before, when the Angel’s computer communicator was beginning its translation. Maybe even an Angel had some kind of body language.
“We agree,” said the translator’s mechanical voice. “However, we propose one difference. We believe that we now know the probable location of the Simulated Artefact. Therefore, the mission for Angel and Pipe-Rilla should be one of confirmation, not of search.”
“But how can you?—” Chan stopped. The ferny fronds were still waving.
“We have completed the analysis of imaging radar records obtained during orbital survey,” went on the Angel. “There are two significant anomalies. One of them is our base. The other is almost certainly the Simulacrum. We request a brief pause, while we perform a confirming analysis. We have stored a copy of the ship’s data record.”
The Angel had answered Chan’s half-spoken question, plus another one about the ship’s records that he had thought but not even started to ask.
Telepathy? Even as the thought came, Chan rejected it. He remembered what Flammarion had told him during a Ceres briefing: “An Angel doesn’t normally think like a human, but not because it can’t. When an Angel wants to, it can put part of its brain into what we call ‘emulator mode.’ Then that piece can be instructed by the Angel to think like a human, or a Pipe-Rilla, or a Tinker of any number of components, or maybe like all three at once. And probably any other creature you care to name, maybe even like a Morgan Construct. And while all that’s going on, the Angel still performs logical analysis in its own way. Whatever that might be.” At that point Kubo Flammarion had seemed puzzled by his own words, and tugged at his uniform as though it had become too small for him.
During Chan’s moment of recollection, the Pipe-Rilla S’greela had unfolded its long, telescoping limbs and was reaching down to pick up the Angel. The Angel had objected to this the first time, protesting that it was quite capable of independent locomotion. But after two minutes of watching the Chassel-Rose’s lumbering progress, the other three had been unanimous. In any travel involving them, Angel would be carried.
Chan watched S’greela now as she easily picked up Angel’s pear-shaped bulk. More and more he was aware of the power in the thin, pipe-stem body. S’greela was gentle, but if she ever chose not to be she could swat Chan like a troublesome insect.
Shikari remained a few feet away from Chan. The Tinker did not speak as S’greela and Angel left in the aircar. It occurred to Chan that he was observing another data point. The others were very economical of words unless he became involved in the conversation; then human-style verbal padding was added for his benefit. They had realized that redundant words were part of human social interaction, as important to Chan as stroking to a Pipe-Rilla or clustering to a Tinker.
Chan stood up and moved across to sit by Shikari. After a few moments he felt the feathery touch of long, delicate antennae on his arms and legs. The Tinker Composite was quietly performing a partial disassembly and rebuilding. Thumb-sized components were leaving the far side of the great clump and re-attaching themselves close to Chan’s body. Within five minutes Shikari was molded solidly against Chan’s left side, touching him all the way from breast to ankles.
He turned his head and stared down at the purple-black vibrating mass. The contact was not at all unpleasant. In fact, that gentle thrumming touch against his skin began to feel surprisingly warm and reassuring. After a few more moments, free components who had not been part of the Tinker Composite when Chan sat down flew across and made additional connections. Soon Chan’s whole body, from feet to shoulders, was embedded in the largest purple swarm he had ever encountered.
He felt very relaxed now, but not sleepy. The pressure around him was just enough to be noticed. But the pilot’s words drifted back to Chan. If a Tinker chose to swarm on something as a means of restraint, it could be formidable. Shikari had its own way of neutralizing aggression.
He watched as a final few components flew in to attach themselves. “Do you feel different, when more units attach?”
There was an experimental whistle from the speaking funnel. “Of course.”
After a long silence, Chan realized that the Tinker had given its full answer. “I don’t mean more intelligen
t. I know that’s true. What I mean is, do you feel that you are a different individual when your size is increased so much?”
The Tinker was silent for an even longer period. “That is a difficult question.” Even its voice was slower and deeper in pitch. “We are also not sure that it is a meaningful one. We are what we are, at the moment. We cannot feel what we were or will be. We will answer your question with a question. Every second, according to information that we have received concerning humans, some of your brain cells die. Do you feel different when those units of intellect are removed from you?”
“It’s not the same. In the case of a human, every brain cell has been there since childhood. We do not add units.” (And brain cells are only a part of the story—should I tell Shikari how recently I achieved real use of my brain?) “We lose cells slowly. But to change, recombine, and add or subtract units, constantly and quickly, as you do . . . it is hard for me to comprehend how you retain the sense of a single identity during a time of major change.”
The Tinker rippled suddenly against Chan’s body. A cascade of about five hundred units flew away to settle on the ground as individual components.
“Like that, you mean?” There was a breathy rattle from the voice funnel, as though the Tinker was practicing a human laugh. “There is more than enough capacity for continuous thought, even when no more than five hundred components are present. Remember, each of the units that form us possesses nearly two million neurons.”
“That sounds like very few.”
“Few compared with a human, or a complete Composite. But compare one of our components with one of your honeybees. It has no more than seven thousand neurons, and yet it is capable of complex individual actions.”
There was another whir of tiny wings as the units came flying back to rejoin the mass around Chan’s body. The voice funnel wheezed, in a more successful attempt at a human sigh.
“We have far to go,” said Shikari, “before we can really understand each other. When first we encountered humans we marvelled at your strange structure. How could intelligence be delegated, to reside in some special chosen group of cells within your body? Within us, each component carries an equal amount of our intelligence. But now much of your thinking power lies here”—Chan felt a gentle pressure on his midriff—”or here.” The touch moved to the calf of his left leg. “What intelligence lies in these parts? What are the thoughts of an arm, or a lung? You will say, none. We cannot comprehend that. Yet we know it is true that a human can be reduced to less than half its size, lacking arms and legs, and have its intelligence continue unchanged!”
“Less than that. There have been successful human brain transplants, and no lessening of thinking ability.”
“Who would believe such a thing, if we had not encountered it?—If humans had not arrived on Mercantor, and proved it to us.” There was a rustle of veined wings, and Shikari settled to a tighter mass. “Intelligence. It is indeed a mystery. But this—closeness and warmth—is without a doubt the best part of intelligence.”
While Chan and Shikari had been talking, full night had arrived. The pursuit team had set up its camp in a clearing, surrounded by the dusty blue-green vegetation of Barchan’s polar region. In the past few minutes the air temperature had dropped thirty degrees. Shikari was like a warm, soft blanket swaddling Chan up to his chin. He raised his head and stared up at the sky. Eta Cassiopeiae’s brighter component had set, and the smaller sun of the binary was not yet risen. STcatlan, home planet of the Pipe-Rillas, was a bright point close to the horizon. Barchan’s dingy little moon sat above it in the sky, a shrunken irregular raisin.
Chan shivered. The night air was still warm. The tremor was one of apprehension. Three months ago he had lived in the quiet cocoon of the Gallimaufries, happy, ignorant, and near-brainless. Leah had shielded him from every danger. Now he was wandering the surface of an alien world, eighteen lightyears from home. He was not sure that he would ever see another sunset. Leah was even farther from Earth and facing much greater danger. By now she would be landing on Travancore, to face not a Simmie Artefact but the real Morgan Construct.
Given a choice, would he go back? Back to his mental vacuum, to the halcyon days of flowers and games?
One man had been the agent for all those changes, including the agony of the Tolkov Stimulator. If Chan closed his eyes ne could see the face in front of him. Esro Mondrian deserved the blame—or the credit—for everything that had happened to Chan.
Turn back the clock? Chan stared up at Barchan’s solitary misshapen moon, and wondered: about Esro Mondrian, about Shikari, about intelligence, about himself.
By the time that the silver spark of S’katlan was sinking to Barchan’s dusty horizon, Chan had an answer. No matter what happened here, he would not choose to go back to his old life. Whatever burden the mixed blessing of self-awareness and intelligence brought with it, he wanted to carry it.
With that knowledge the urge for revenge on Esro Mondrian lost its focus. If the man had earned Chan’s hatred, perhaps he had also earned his gratitude. He had dragged Chan, reluctant and screaming, into the bright wond of responsibility. . . .
Chan drifted away to a mental state that was both remote and infinitely satisfying. His reverie was at last interrupted when the dark bulk of the Tinker stirred against him. He opened his eyes and discovered, incredibly, that a hint of dawn was already in the sky. Where had the night gone?
“Listen.” It was the voice of Shikari, deep and contented as a purring cat. “Do you hear it? The sound of the aircar. The others are returning, and we are sad. Our time of peace and closeness soon must end.”
Chapter 23
Measured on any of the standard scales of human intelligence, Luther Brachis would score in the top tenth of one percent. He always dismissed that fact as of trivial importance. Success in his job was not a function of intelligence. At least three other qualities were far more critical.
They were the three P’s: Persistence, Paranoia, and Persuasiveness. And when Lotos Sheldrake pointed out that persistence was no more than Luther’s word for pigheadedness, and that extreme paranoia was more likely to be a component of failure than success, he just laughed. According to Luther Brachis the fourth important quality, not easily captured in a single word, was the ability to know which of the other three to apply in any given situation.
The first move to counter the strange legacy of the Margrave had been taken even before Luther was carried away from Adestis headquarters for medical treatment.
It was clear that he had been attacked by an Artefact, one that Fujitsu had chosen to make in his own image. It was dead, but there could be dozens more. They might be stored anywhere in the solar system, and they might look nothing like the Margrave. It was quite possible that the Artefacts did not contain any of Fujitsu’s own DNA, though Luther’s own assessment of the Margrave’s personality made him think otherwise. The Margrave surely wanted to be involved in his own revenge, in the only way possible. So Fujitsu would have used much of his DNA, regardless of the Artefact’s external appearance.
Which left the delicate and difficult problem: How could Brachis defend himself against future attacks?
He was now willing to acknowledge the truth of Fujitsu’s claim; the other man’s arm was indeed long, and it was reaching for Luther Brachis beyond the grave.
The case of Earth had been handled easily. Through the Quarantine service there was information on all individuals shipping up from Earth. It was easy to set tracers on every one of them, and make sure that none approached within a kilometer without triggering his alarm system.
But suppose that an Artefact had been stored elsewhere? Two off-Earth facilities had to be checked: the Enceladus catacombs, and the Hyperion Deep Vault.
As soon as Brachis was released from the hospital he set out to examine both possibilities. It was a task that he proposed to carry out personally. Godiva had tried to get him to delegate, arguing that he was still weak from his injury. Brachis would
not listen.
“This gets my personal attention. Fujitsu deserves no less because he is one of humanity’s unsung geniuses. You can come along with me, if you want to.”
Godiva shivered, a trembling of rosy flesh. “Not for a fortune! I’ll travel with you, but I won’t go down into the vaults. All those horrible frozen semi-corpses—and maybe some of them not even real people! That’s not for me, Luther.”
Brachis knew better than to argue with Godiva on such things. He went ahead. The catacombs of Enceladus were relatively small and very well organized. He was able to inspect them from end to end in one marathon session, and at the end of it felt comfortable that there were no future surprises in store for him there. But he knew that the Vault of Hyperion was going to be another matter entirely.
Early explorers of the solar system had more or less ignored Hyperion. The seventh major satellite of Saturn was a lumpy, uneven hunk of rock, whose dark and cratered exterior suggested that it was the oldest surface in the whole Saturnian retinue of moons. There were few volatiles of any kind, little water, and probably no interesting minerals. So it had been a no-hope old explorer, on his last trip out before his lungs rotted and caved, who first explored the Hyperion meteorite craters. Raxon Yang had discovered an odd structure at the bottom of one of them, a ragged-edged tunnel that seemed to zigzag deep below the moon’s battered surface.
Old Yang had nothing better to do. He followed it, down and down: three kilometers—four kilometers—five kilometers, past the point of sanity and past any hope of useful metal deposits. At last, seven kilometers below the surface, he came to the upper face of the Yang Diamond.
At the time he had no idea what he had found. The tunnel at the lower end was only a meter across, hardly enough to wield his instruments. He knew that it was some form of crystallized carbon all right, as soon as his tools found it hard to cut and he made the first assay. But that was all he knew.
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