by James Murdo
“Isn’t anything possible?”
[I like your line of thinking! Let’s discuss that another time. But no, I meant it wasn’t conducive to their well-being in that they morally disagreed with it. They had their reasons. They were heavily religious. None of the offshoots ever deviated from their overarching religious philosophies. They believed there was something beyond real space. Not in the sense of a place like N-SOL space, mind you, but another level of reality, created for and waiting to receive them. Where they might meet their makers.]
“When they died?”
[In a way. They called it ‘crossing’. Death implies the end of life, the nullification of an intellect, whereas they believed the intellect, or whatever synonymous term you might use to describe the essence of a sentient, carried on. Moved into another phase of its lifecycle.]
“Do you think they were right?”
[Err, obviously not. But I don’t know for sure, how can I?]
“What was the integrated communication about?”
[Ah, well all the Bunch’wan levels, aside from the incapable and now-extinct base level, uploaded their final thoughts about whatever it was that interested them. They’re often fascinating, although there’s a lot of rubbish there too. Most of them continually updated them, although their last upload was the only kept record. The communication was integrated upon their ‘crossing’, into a collective record for that species level.]
“And the one you offered to play me was something about… some sort of architecture? That’s what one of the Bunch’wan decided to talk about as its contribution?”
[Hey, there were hundreds of billions of them. Each wanted to stand out, with the possibility of having their communication replayed by subsequent generations. Dissini architecture is a little niche, but it’s also a captivating topic if you know what Dissini actually represents. It’s not even technically architecture, it was a massive–]
“Okay, I understand, maybe another time.”
[You sure you don’t want to hear it now?]
Tor relented, “Oh, go on then.”
[Well, it’s more of what you might call a song, than prose. That’s how the majority of the Ten-Bunch’wan tried to outdo their other-levelled Bunch’wan peers…]
*
Tor’s memories of the other place, where he had come from before being placed within DeVoid, were mostly gone. He now had only the vaguest memories. Objectively, he knew what he had told DeVoid about it, and could ask DeVoid what it had experienced through the cognitional demarcation, but many of the experiences had never properly transferred.
“It’s not like you didn’t tell me it was going to happen. It’s just… I wish I could remember.”
[Don’t worry yourself, there’s more than enough in this galaxy you haven’t seen or experienced. More than you could imagine, ever.]
“This galaxy?”
[Alright, perhaps not this one – who knows what this N-SOL space is. But that only proves my point.]
“But Gil–”
[You forgetting your memories doesn’t mean you’re never going to see her again. In fact, the way it sounded, you almost needed to forget them to realise how important everything else was.]
“I suppose. It just feels… empty.”
[That’s understandable, a whole load of memories have dissolved from your lect and you haven’t been primed to forget you ever had them.]
“Have you ever forgotten anything? Of course, you can’t, you’re a machine-lect… oops, sorry. I mean, a data-lect.”
[Well done, we’re learning, aren’t we? And yes, that’s correct. But it doesn’t mean I can’t empathise with your situation. I can see the changes occurring within your memories, those parts that made little sense to me. Don’t worry, I’m not reading them, well I wouldn’t have a chance without coupling again anyway… but I can understand the process.]
“They’re all gone?”
[Almost. Look on the bright side, you’re practically you again! That’s something to be happy about, despite our current predicament.]
Tor looked around and sighed.
“True… has there been any change out there?”
[No, unfortunately. I’ll let you know if there is. You could always go to sleep in the meantime?]
“Thanks, maybe later.”
*
“How many species, races or whatever, have you actually encountered?”
[They’re often synonymous, those terms.]
“Okay…”
[That’s a tricky question. Many passed the portal I was in command of over the millions of years, but with the ability to communicate over great distances, it depends on your definition of encounter.]
“Communicated with, simply spoken with.”
[Spoken with, in the loosest sense, considering communication between machine-lects is markedly different to you slower biologicals, it’s–]
“What–”
[Don’t take offence where none was intended! Nothing wrong with being slow. Well, I’ve spoken to a great deal. There are different classifications of communication. Do automatic communications count?]
“Erm–”
[And what about communicating with non-sentient instruments created by other races, does that count? Because if that does, then, PHOAW, it’s got to be…]
“Yes?”
[Does it count if they don’t reply?]
“Does that happen a lot?”
[I’ll take that as a genuine question. And the answer is, sometimes.]
“Okay, both with and without.”
[What if it’s a relative of a species that I encountered before, with a common ancestor, but no longer genetically compatible – if you know what I mean?]
“Maybe count both.”
[Although still citizens of the same empire?]
“Look, forget it.”
[No, I’m seriously trying to answer your question, but you’ve got to be specific!]
“What about the Thygo?”
[The species that created Thy?]
“Yes.”
[Don’t you think I would have said? No, they were as new to me as to you.]
“Do you ever think about Thy, and what happened?”
[I’m incapable of not thinking about it. I remember everything, and Thy seemed connected with all of this. I’m constantly analysing what happened.]
“You’re reliving what we did?”
[I am, in a sense. Relax, we had little choice. And besides, the Cross-Prophet agreed it was the right thing to do.]
“Still, it was horrific. And with all this time to think, just waiting, it–”
[I know, you’re focusing solely on the negative aspects, trying to understand them. To rationalise them in your tiny biological intellect. It’s an aspect of biologicals that we machine-lects, and I’m using the term correctly in this case, and Wanderer machine-lects that is, since there’s considerable variation, don’t have to worry about. Not in the same way.]
“What do you mean?”
[Your survival instincts compel you to focus on negative situations, they mean you’re better equipped for the future. Those instincts are important during the evolution of a species, but they also have side-effects. You can overly-dwell, about which there is nothing wrong exactly, but which can cascade and compound until they cloud your entire intellect. It can be important to feel guilt, remorse, and all the other typical biological emotion-equivalents, but there are dangers associated with that.]
“I’m not sure.”
[Come again?]
“Let’s… agree to disagree.”
[Pffff. Fine.]
*
Tor had been asleep for fifty years, with DeVoid delicately removing any signs of the progression of time on his body – restoring him to the state he had been in when they had first met. DeVoid was not as reticent to tinker with Tor on that scale as it had been before, since physical evidence of his strange memories about the other place had all but disappeared. A few subtler further modificat
ions ensured that Tor’s current age was fixed. DeVoid was curious about how long it would take Tor to notice. It did not think he would mind, since everything was reversible.
If Tor wanted any additional modifications, DeVoid would be happy to oblige, within reason. However, extrapolating from all of Tor’s prior indications, DeVoid believed he would choose to remain as unmodified as possible, for the most part. At least until they had managed to find Gil, or given up hope, whichever came first. Tor would want to remain as his sister remembered him.
Tor had been reluctant to sleep, at first, and had instead chosen to spend his time learning. He had asked about the galaxy back in real space, the Wanderers, other civilisations, and many other topics. He had also travelled to other areas within the ship to learn more about the container he was being ferried about the universe in, and engaged in many of the activities DeVoid was easily able to provide for him. They had even competed in some games that were designed for biological and machine-lect opponents, although he had never won.
DeVoid admired Tor’s zeal, his zest for life. However, the waiting had finally got to him, as it would have got to DeVoid too, if it had been less responsible and less averse to sleeping. Since DeVoid had been left to its own thoughts and musings, while vigilantly monitoring the external events for any signs of change, it had continued with its own hobbies and interests.
*
DeVoid’s musings over the Blue Dots in comparison with the rods had progressed as far as they could. Unfortunately, it had not arrived at any useful insights. There were other puzzles to dwell on, although its self-motivation was becoming harder to ignite. It had never experienced such solitude before. While it was ostensibly alone during its time as part of the data exchange, it was plugged into the bulk of the Wanderer information network. This was quite different.
Craft-lects were more capable at dealing with loneliness. The c-automs were supposedly a redundant aspect of their coping mechanisms, although DeVoid realised they were probably not quite so redundant as most craft-lects believed, considering they still used them. It thought about whether the craft-lects simply being told they were better at coping, and that the c-automs were just an ancillary help, effected a lect change that caused them to become better at coping. That type of thinking could rotate in all manner of loops before arriving back at the start. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they were just more prone to engaging in long bouts of sleep, whereas those such as data-lects, especially DeVoid, were more averse to such a waste of existence.
40
GIL
They moved through the Maspero gateway network, jumping from habitat to habitat. Most of them had been worlds, in the sense that Gil thought of them, although some were different. Gil saw Maspero outposts created from clusters of giant asteroids located within enormous asteroid fields, as well as gargantuan lone asteroids, adrift alone amid the emptiness of interstellar space.
Occasionally, habitats took forms that were unclassified or unknown to the Wanderer civilisation, and which the craft-lect told her had not previously been known to exist. Strange, layered, hexagonal structures bordered by shimmering vertices – larger than the flat expanses from One-oh’s memories, and hidden within unknown pockets of clear vacuum in otherwise super-dense nebulae. Then there were the empty regions of space, but with significant gravitational readings hinting at hidden structures.
Other structures the Maspero had either created or settled in were too incomprehensible for her to describe in words, even to herself. To realise that an extinct civilisation had been capable of so much dazzling brilliance, and had still been felled by the sensespace – the infectious entity that she was becoming too familiar with – was terrifying. It helped draw her away from the false sense of near-ease she realised she had been feeling, giving sensitivity to emotions that had become numb. The Maspero had chosen suicide rather than face the sensespace. They had reached the end of what they could endure. Gil, meanwhile, a hitherto insignificant sentient from a technologically meaningless planet, had communed with it consciously and in her dreams. Willingly. If she admitted it to herself, she had almost begun to enjoy it – the thrill of what she might find, the deep secrets she hoped to uncover. She was still confused, but at least she was not unwittingly so.
112 hovered slowly into the room, politely, and Gil looked up, smiling as she recognised it.
“Hello, Gil.”
“112, how are you?”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“No, it’s fine. I was just… thinking.”
“Are you rested?”
“I am.”
The next agreed jump was still a little while away. Usually, they did not stay at one gateway location for more than for the briefest of skirmishes, a few hours at most, afraid of being caught or drawing any awakened sentinels to them. However, this location was safe, and the craft-lect wanted to take advantage of that. Some of the habitats were sensespace infected, some were not. It made no difference to Gil’s ability to open the gateways, although they had no way of discerning where each gateway would lead.
“I wanted to ask you about your biological memories.”
“My… yes, ask me whatever you’d like.”
“Do lapses in your memory, your knowledge that you should have, or once had, do they concern you?”
It was a strange question to ask, even for 112.
“Well, I mean… no… no, not really. It’s normal, for us biologicals. I can’t speak for others, other species that is, but I assume it’s not noticeable.”
“You don’t notice?”
“Well, sometimes you do, but that’s just… annoying, I think. It really depends, we’re probably not built to remember as much as you.”
“You were built differently, though.”
“I… I suppose… but, well maybe… I’m meant to, or I was meant to do something different, perhaps, but…”
“I’m sorry, I have offended you.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just, there are some things I don’t… can’t understand. Why are you asking this?”
“Some research I am conducting.”
“Oh, what type of–”
“It relates to a task with a sibling, nothing else.”
“Who wou–”
“With 289, but it can wait.”
“Okay.”
“Do you require nourishment?”
“No, thank you, why do you ask? I’m perfectly able to–”
“Good, I apologise, Gil, but I must leave. Too many tasks, too little capacity!”
With that, it flashed its plain green aura briefly, before speeding out of her chamber. She hoped 112 and the other lower-level c-automs were not overworking themselves in attempts to prove themselves to their higher-level c-autom peers or the craft-lect.
It was a little odd that 998 was not with her. Before she had dozed off, it had been hovering by her side, as usual. When she had awoken, it was no longer there. She had not called for it, seeing as it was its own business where it went and what it did. It was just rare that she was alone. Upon returning it always politely explained its reasons, which frequently involved accompanying One-oh to part of the ship he had yet to see. That was fair enough, 998 took pride in its work and it was only fair it had the opportunity to display it.
Gil assumed One-oh liked company as much as she did. However, aside from the table-chamber, they rarely met together. Gil was not surprised by this, for the time being. It had taken her a while to explore the ship and One-oh was probably enjoying the same privilege. It was not an activity she needed to be there for, at least, not for the time being. If they had not been travelling through the Maspero gateways, then she might have joined him, but she needed to rest where she could.
She pondered over her own tasks, and whether she was being as diligent as the c-automs were, especially concerning understanding the gateways. The problem was, she was at a loss regarding how to go about it. There were many different gateways to choose from each time, but each choice was es
sentially random. While she could not remember her first attempt very well, as she had been in such a rush, she was confident in locating and using them – but that was the extent of it. Sometimes there were a couple, sometimes there were hundreds. They had not yet visited the same place twice, and both the craft-lect and One-oh had told her it was unlikely they would.
It was not just the gateways she needed to figure out, it was also the sentinels. What they were, what their purpose was. It was fortunate that any sentinels they had come across since their first encounter, had appeared and remained dormant, leading them to question whether their earlier experience was an isolated encounter. Despite that, when they came across any dormant sentinels, they still left immediately.
They only stopped for rests when they appeared before habitats without any signs of sensespace infection, and also bereft of any traces of Maspero artefacts. It was usually unclear what had caused the loss, especially as they were not always empty of remnants or life in other simpler forms, just that the Maspero were no longer identifiably there. Many were barren waste-habitats, but some had functioning ecosystems with vegetation and life-forms that Gil was able to understand, or analogues of such that hailed from different evolutionary paths.
998 told Gil that the craft-lect suspected they were not all Maspero habitats, or that they might have been acquired, in some way, by the Maspero, but never assimilated into their civilisation. Gil was not quite sure what the distinction was. There was also the possibility that the gateways did not only link Maspero habitats together, but those of other ABs too. Either way, it was not yet obvious. The craft-lect updated its knowledge of the Maspero gateways with each new habitat they visited, but there was no discernible pattern to their distribution so far.
The running rate was that almost a quarter of all Maspero habitats were empty of Maspero traces, and therefore safe for stopping at. Most of the journeys through the gateways between habitats took no more than a few years, although for the passengers aboard the ship, they were near-instantaneous.