Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “We believed that direct contact between you and us would be bad for you,” Elyria said, from where she was sitting at the head of the table. “We...”

  “Adam said the same thing,” Master Faye said. “Why do you believe that contact would be bad for us?”

  There was a long pause. “In many ways,” Adana said, finally, “our society is vastly superior to yours. Our society does not, for example, have the obsession with gold that pervades your society. We do not use money...”

  Joshua blinked in honest bewilderment. “How do you pay people to work then?”

  Master Faye shot him a sharp look and then looked back at Adana. “I’d like to know too,” he admitted. “How do you get people to work properly without rewarding them?”

  Adana hesitated. “Our society is very different from yours,” she admitted. “It would be difficult to explain...”

  “Ah,” Master Faye said. He held up a hand. “For future reference, you don’t need to be so arrogant when talking to us. We can understand more than you think.”

  Adana lowered her eyes for a moment, her face flushing slightly. “The Confederation has eliminated mundane drudgery through the use of machines,” she said. “There is no need for any of us to be a washerwoman, for example, or even a bookseller. All of our basic needs are met through technology. It is quite possible for someone to live their entire lives without doing a day of work.

  “Those who want to work can enter any number of interesting jobs,” she continued. “People like myself start studying other societies, seeking the reward that comes from being respected in one’s field. Others go into exploration, or pure research, or whatever they find interesting. There is no need to do anything unless you find it interesting and worthwhile.”

  Joshua rubbed his forehead, trying to understand. He knew how the city worked; Master Faye had lectured him often enough, as well as putting him through practical exercises meant to teach him the ropes. The very lowest level of society – the men who cleaned the streets – had a vital role to play in maintaining the city. Without them, the streets would be filthy; without the farmers, there would be no food; without the doctors, there would be no medicine...

  What sort of society might form if they were freed from such drudgery?

  “It would have unfortunate social implications if this were to become public knowledge,” Master Faye said. Joshua saw Elyria throw him an unreadable glance. “Very well; you wish to study magic. Such knowledge is never cheap. What are you prepared to offer us in exchange.”

  There was a second pause. “Gold,” Adam said, finally. “We can provide you with as much gold as you like...”

  “And make it very difficult for me to use it,” Master Faye said, wryly. Joshua had had problems understanding why too much gold was as bad as having too little gold, but Master Faye believed it to be true. “What else can you offer? Your... technology?”

  He paused. “I know that some of your technology works on our world,” he added. “The Lady Elyria was very informative.”

  Joshua winced as several cold stares were directed at Elyria, who ignored them. “Some of our technology does,” she agreed. “Other pieces of our technology are unreliable here. We may end up accidentally cheating you.”

  She smiled. “We can offer you medical assistance,” she added. “A basic rejuvenation treatment would extend your lifespan for another hundred years.”

  “If the magic didn’t kill me first,” Master Faye muttered. He was skilled at controlling his expression, but Joshua could tell that he was tempted. Even the most powerful magicians rarely lived past eighty. “How do you know that your treatments would work here?”

  The young man, who’d been introduced as Dacron, smiled. “They are biological technology and should work perfectly,” he explained. “Your population does not appear to suffer from the presence of magic in the air.”

  “Some magicians can be driven mad by their powers,” Master Faye said. He studied Adam for a long moment before switching his gaze to Adana. “Wouldn’t extending our lifespans cause problems for our society?”

  “It is a possibility,” Adana admitted, uncomfortably.

  “But one you are prepared to accept,” Master Faye added, briskly. “What do these treatments consist of?”

  It was Elyria who answered the question. “We’d need a blood sample from you to prepare the treatment,” she said. Master Faye’s shoulders stiffened. Anyone else would have been blasted for daring to ask for some of his blood. “Once it is prepared, it will be injected into your body. Barring unforeseen accidents, your lifespan should be extended by at least a hundred years. Some people have been known to live for much longer on one treatment.”

  Master Faye relaxed, slowly. “Asking for a person’s blood is insulting here,” he said, dryly. “Do you know that you can use it to work magic against someone?”

  “Interesting,” Dacron said. “Does that mean that the blood works to identify someone through their DNA, or is there a direct quantum foam link from the blood to the bleeder? Or are they actually the same thing?”

  Joshua had no idea what he was talking about. Master Faye ignored the question.

  “Here is the deal,” he said, calmly. “I will allow you to operate freely in my city, and I will make my apprentice available to you to answer your questions. In exchange, I want one hundred... rejuvenation treatments prepared for people I select. That is the core deal. If you have other things you might want to offer in place of the rejuvenation treatments, I will listen and decide if I want to introduce them to my society. I would also... prefer it if you do not talk about your own society with anyone apart from myself and my apprentice.

  “Should you wish to make more open contact, I will act as your agent,” he added, a moment later. “All of your contacts with other Pillars should go through me.”

  ***

  Elyria was surprised at the intensity of the debate raging between the AIs, Thor, Jorlem and the contact team. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, although it bespoke a level of political sophistication that no one had recognised on Darius. When the Confederation had contacted Fourth Age societies, the aliens had always been concerned about the effect of contact on their own people. Even the ones that had been human, rebuilt after being cut off from the rest of the human race, had been concerned. And they could simply have been absorbed into the Confederation.

  Master Faye was clearly no fool, even though there was something about his attitude that nagged at her mind. Rejuvenation treatments would be a political tool he could use to help secure alliances among his fellow magicians – and even the rich and powerful in his city, if he felt like using it for them. It would cause problems for the locals, though; ambitious sons would watch helplessly as their parents remained in control for years, perhaps decades, rather than dying naturally. There were societies where rejuvenation treatments had led inevitably to civil war.

  In the long run, it might not matter. If they cracked the secret behind manipulating the quantum foam, they could offer Darius’s citizens a better life in the Confederation. Even if they didn’t, they could still start removing them from the planet. Who knew what a magician would be able to do if he or she were brought up in the Confederation?

  The debate concluded a moment later. “Subject to our superiors rejecting the agreement, we accept,” Adam said. “We look forward to working with you.”

  Elyria saw Joshua smile. He, at least, wanted to see what the Confederation could do. And Elyria would be happy to show him, and allow him to show off his talents. They could even take him to the Hamilton, if the Captain would allow it, and see if he could work magic there.

  And if he couldn’t, that too would be interesting. Very interesting.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  “Your horses are very well behaved,” Joshua said. “I hate mine.”

  Elyria smiled at him as the carriage headed out of the city and up towards the hidden base, outside the borderline. A night’s sle
ep had left her feeling better, although it had been broken by a message from the CSC. They had decided to tentatively approve her actions – they’d realised that she hadn’t had any choice – but there was no way her career wasn’t going to take a serious blow. The last person to accidentally expose a Confederation observation team on a primitive planet had never been allowed anywhere near a second one.

  On the other hand, as the AIs had agreed, local cooperation would make it easier to study magic. In the event of their sensors being compromised on the buried shuttle, they’d started making plans to fly Joshua to space – although Captain Thor had vetoed the plan to bring him onboard the Hamilton. A small space station was already being assembled from pieces manufactured by the fabricator. It wouldn’t be anything like as massive as the starship, but it would suffice. Besides, it wouldn’t pose a major security risk.

  “We already had several offers from breeders to use them for breeding purposes,” Elyria said, wryly. There were thousands of questions she wanted to ask him, but she wasn’t even sure where to begin. “Do you think that Master Faye would be interested in more of them?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t offer,” Joshua said, and winked at her. Elyria understood; anyone who couldn’t develop a real rapport with horses wouldn’t want to ride if there was any other choice. The flying carpets would serve as much better transport. “Can you not make something that wouldn’t need a horse to pull it?”

  “We’d have to experiment to find out what works here,” Elyria admitted. It would be relatively simple to put together a car that ran on gasoline, or something along the same lines, but no one knew if it would work permanently. Whatever interfered with modern technology on Darius was curiously selective, but it seemed to learn as it went along. “But we could certainly try to build something for you.”

  She smiled. “Tell me about your society,” she said. “How does it actually work?”

  Joshua smiled and started to explain. Some of it they already knew – Master Faye ruled through force, no matter how benevolent and enlightened he seemed, and he might be unseated at any time – but other details were new. One of them concerned the Booksellers and the Librarians, who seemed to be partly responsible for maintaining civilisation. Most of them were lower-grade magicians in their own right, sworn to their duties. And one of them had been capable of detecting the forged coins. At least that wasn’t going to happen again.

  “I see,” she said, after Joshua had finally finished speaking. A thought had occurred to her. “How many cities actually stay stable for several hundred years?”

  Joshua blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  It was difficult to be sure, but Elyria pressed ahead anyway. “The history book implied that every city eventually ends up with a bad Pillar, someone who rules for his own good rather than that of his people,” she said. “Does that always happen?”

  “The richer the city, the more tempting a target it is for Scions who want to rule,” Joshua said, finally. He didn’t seem to understand. “The city declines under their control until they are replaced by someone more capable.”

  Elyria nodded. “But that happens all the time,” she said, carefully. “There’s no such thing as a truly stable city. It all depends on the ruler.”

  “Of course,” Joshua said, puzzled. “How else could it be?”

  The first analysts had suggested that magic was actually impeding Darius’s technological development. That wasn’t uncommon, at least in principle; worldwide states had a history of trying to suppress technological advancement in the hopes of maintaining stability. In the end, they either decayed away completely and fell into civil war, or someone more adaptive destroyed them, but they could sometimes last for centuries before the end came. There was no reason why Darius couldn’t go the same way.

  But if she understood Joshua correctly, every city on Darius eventually had a bad ruler who tore down everything the locals had achieved while they’d had a good ruler. Warlock’s Bane had had a bad ruler before Master Spark had removed him, and then Master Spark had himself declined until Master Faye had taken over. There was no real stability – perhaps outside of the trading networks – and therefore few grounds for developing a more stable society. Darius was stuck at its current level because the places that might start pushing the level forward were shattered on a regular basis.

  That was odd, to say the least. Pillars ruled and commanded vast resources, at least on the scale of a single world. They even had apprentice magicians under their control. And yet they seemed to hate each other, only talking at a distance, if at all. The worst ones even seemed to wage war on their fellows. In the meantime, the Scions lurked in the badlands, developed their powers and eventually fell on the nearest Pillar. Offhand, Elyria couldn’t remember any other world that had existed in such constant ferment. Even the nastiest civil wars of humanity had ended in an uneasy peace.

  Darius’s recorded history didn’t seem to go back very far at all. Elyria suspected she’d just found out why.

  She looked over at Joshua as they turned off the road, heading towards the clearing. “This will be startling,” she warned, carefully. “Just remain calm and let it flow over you.”

  Joshua smiled. “More startling than magic was to you?”

  Elyria had to smile. “Maybe,” she said. “We’ll see.”

  ***

  The clearing looked unchanged from the last time Joshua had been there, two days ago, although the sense of being watched was as strong as ever. Elyria jumped out of the carriage, leaving the horse standing in the middle of the clearing, and beckoned for him to follow her. Joshua dismounted and walked towards where she had stopped, looking back at him with an expression of wry amusement. He’d enjoyed showing off to her, he knew; she intended to show off a little to him. A moment later, the ground lurched and started to sink downwards.

  Joshua started as they fell. There hadn’t been a single flash of magic to warn him that someone had hidden a trap there... and then he remembered that the Confederation didn’t use magic. A chill went down his spine as they fell further into the ground; if a society had never had magic, what could they do without it? Everything they’d seen suggested that the Confederation was actually more powerful than Darius’s magicians, even if they had caught Elyria easily. They’d never thought to ask just what sort of weapons the Confederation could use...

  There was a dull thump as the lift came to a halt, revealing an object of solid metal buried under the ground. Joshua touched it almost reverently, astonished at the lack of magic running through the structure. He’d never seen anything so big made out of metal... and he couldn’t even see all of it. And then he jumped back as there was a hiss and part of the metal folded back to reveal a door. It was magic, it had to be magic... and yet it wasn’t. Fighting down the urge to pull defensive spells around himself, he followed Elyria into the structure, hearing a very faint humming sound for the first time. The inner room was larger than his bedroom in Master Faye’s house, but it was crammed with strange devices, all more elegant than anything a craftsman could have designed in Warlock’s Bane.

  “What...” He swallowed and found his voice again. “What are these?”

  “Sensors,” Elyria explained. Joshua guessed that they were something like the magic detectors they’d scattered around the city, back when they’d thought that they were being watched by a covetous Scion. “They’ll want to know as much as possible about us before letting us into the rest of the craft.”

  Joshua frowned. “How can they even work without magic?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Elyria admitted. “At least for most of them, anyway. Some of them are so primitive that they rely on x-rays, others are so advanced that they may not even work here. I don’t really understand the science behind them.”

  “How can you use it,” Joshua said, “if you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  Elyria smiled at him. “Do you know what you’re doing with magic?”

  Joshua ope
ned his mouth to object and then stopped, thoughtfully. Master Faye had taught him all of his spells, without – yet – explaining how to push the limits of the possible. It was Scions who did most of the experimentation, ideally several hundred miles from the nearest population centre. Some magical experiments had been very dangerous to anyone too close to the caster.

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted, finally. Another hatch opened up in the far wall. “Where do we go now?”

  “The medical bay,” Elyria said. “They want a close look at you – and at me too, come to think of it.”

  The interior of the structure – the shuttle, Elyria had called it – was strange, so strange that Joshua felt dizzy every time he looked too closely. There was something vaguely organic about the bulkheads, even though they were made of metal; bright light seemed to flare out of nowhere, without even a trace of magic. The handful of other humans he saw kept their distance, but they were all wearing strange clothes that suggested no real sense of style – or decency. One of the women wore an outfit so tight that Joshua could see her nipples clearly through the fabric. He flushed and looked away.

  “They want to look at me?” he asked, more to divert himself than anything else. “Why me?”

  “You have a talent for magic,” Elyria explained, as they passed through another hatch. “There’s a possibility that talent might be something genetic, something inside you...”

  She broke off, realising that her words merely confused him. “We want to know what makes you tick,” she said, instead. “And then we want to see what happens inside your brain when you cast magic.”

  There was a pause. “We’ve seen magicians heal people,” she added. “How do you do that?”

  “We cast healing spells,” Joshua said. They entered a large, brightly lit room with a pair of comfortable seats placed in the centre. Two other humans were standing there, along with a handful of spheres that floated through the air – without magic. He had to fight down a growing sense of unreality. “The spells heal them.”