by Stephen Moss
It was a balance many had misjudged, escaping the bullets of their would-be executioners only to end themselves in a bloody splatter across the dusty plain.
Princess Lamati sighted her own shot. Female Mobiliei naturally had stronger arms than their male counterparts, though weaker legs, but in this version of the world, her arms were preternaturally strong, a concession to her status more than a cheat, she told herself, and she braced her gun with these muscular arms and fired.
She was annoyed for a moment when she heard two others fire at the same time, as she would not know who had actually hit the criminal, who clearly faltered violently after the long guns’ report. She realized quickly that she could query the Prime Mind to find out who had actually hit the target, but as the Glider suddenly veered wildly, flipped, and then impacted the ground with violent speed, she decided that she would rather just assume it was her.
Celebratory shouts were cut short, though, as they watched a figure drag itself from under the shattered frame of the Glider. In the real world the figure would not get very far out on the plain, but in the virtual world he need only survive the fall, and the volley of fire, and he would be deemed a free man.
She turned to Brim, “Brim, come here!”
He did.
“Have the Prime Mind assess the injuries this criminal would have suffered from the fall and the shots. I want them inflicted on the assigned felon in real life before they are released,” said the Princess, with righteous fury. For these were not just games. They fired at virtual representations, but the results would be transmitted back via the chain of planetoid subspace tweeters they were laying along their path.
There was no point, insisted the princess, in Punishment, if the life of a criminal was not affected by the outcome.
But she need not have worried. One industrious captain had withheld her shot, and now she heard as it rang out over the crenellations. She whirled at the noise, then, realizing what had happened, looked over the edge once more.
The figure, far below them, had stopped crawling, and she thought she could make out a small blur of blue blood spreading around its body. She requested and was granted an exception to the visual laws of the simulation and suddenly her vision swam downward, bringing into focus the broken body of the criminal, its legs clearly shattered, and its body now opened to the sun, a glistening hole visible halfway up its torso.
“Well done!” she hollered with genuine emotion. “Well done! Who was that?”
A captain spoke up with a proud smile and Princess Lamati noted the woman’s face. She had favor to give, and this captain would certainly feel the benefit of being in her good graces.
She looked out at the Boneyard. Sometime in the not too distant future, the real criminal in question would be taken without ceremony or audience and thrown from the real Wall, his fate having been decided on this day, countless trillions of miles away. They would be denied even the honor of having an audience as they were tossed, unceremoniously, over the edge, to be but another set of bones among the countless thousands that had fallen before the Wall.
She bristled with pride.
But this meeting was not only for her amusement, she reminded herself. She had other requirements of the gathered group.
She set to with the rest of the Punishment. They were appropriately successful in administering justice, with a couple of lucky survivors getting past their barrage to wander off into the rest of their drab existence. Good, she thought, it kept it interesting for the masses to have a few survivors.
Once the last Glider had been sent from their city walls, she pulled the attending captains in for a more candid conversation. The clever captain who had secured their all-important first kill would have a special role, but she had tasks for them all in the coming Event. She needed to send a message to the Eltoloman, and to delicately begin to feel out some of the other states as well, without the Arbite realizing it.
It was going to take a lot of subtlety, and would involve a good deal of risk. But her orders would carry with them a simple edict. Capture meant self-wiping: immediate, voluntary, and complete deletion. Their houses would be well compensated if they died in the service and protection of her royal self. But not nearly as thoroughly as those same houses would suffer if they put her at risk by allowing their minds to be read by the Arbite.
They knew that this was their mandate, and they agreed with a verve born of an acceptance of their utter lack of choice in the matter. The shrewder among them had even anticipated such a stroke when they were called to spend the day with the princess. That she should surround herself with such lowly souls as themselves could only mean one thing: that she had need for them.
And they were lowly. That was, in the end, the point. They were irrelevant enough in the grand scheme that they would not be part of the upper echelons of the event her representatives were even now planning. They would not suffer the same scrutiny from her peers, and that would hopefully mean that her carefully crafted message would get through to To-Henton, along with a similar message she expected in return.
For in the end, she would be damned if the Lamat Empire was going to share New Mobilius with the likes of the Nomadi Alliance, or any of the other petty states. They had needed their money and their acquiescence when the Union of Minds voted on the invasion. Now those others were needed only to fight, and then to die, so she could divide up the spoils more appropriately.
Interval C: Event Planning
Shtat Palpatum, ever keen to please, had been the only member of the Council proper to volunteer himself for the Event Planning Subcommittee. Thus he now found himself among a throng of representatives, lesser in stature, perhaps, but not lacking either ambition or the requisite vitriol and bile that came with the arranging of such a diplomatic minefield.
While the conversation remained polite on its surface, it was rare that a statement did not carry with it some measure of insult or derision for one or another of the other states represented. It was a happy by-product of his being technically the most senior person there that most refrained from making the Nomadi the recipient of quite as many of those barbs as they might usually be. But even with his status as a shield, Shtat was still finding that his thick skin was being tested by some of the less subtle of his fellow committee members.
The crux of the discussion centered on the seating at the main tables of the virtual banquet, the order of the cuisine to be served, and the various dignitaries that would be seated in the all important first rows around the main tables.
It was a strange thing to bicker over, thought Shtat, as all could, in theory, sit right at the center of the event in a virtual environment, all could share the same view, and all could eat, or pretend to eat, anything they liked. But this was not about what the dignitaries had to look at, it was about who was looking at the dignitaries, and if they were to have a shared celebration, then the right people, the most deserving people, must be seen to be at its head.
“If it will make it easier,” said Shtat, “I can reduce the number of Nomadi present at the main tables. I imagine most of my fellow Nomadi leaders would prefer to have a more esoteric view of events anyway.”
“I am afraid that most certainly would not make it easier,” said the Yallan Corporation representative. “We must all be seen to be represented, or I can tell you that my board will not wish to attend at all.”
Shtat sighed, and was about to reply, when the Eltoloman representative spoke up, “Yes, Mr. Palpatum, as generous as your offer is, I am afraid we must all have an equal number of places at the banquet, or some might be seen to consider themselves … above proceedings.”
Shtat nodded and smiled, though with a growing level of exasperation. He was a patient man, indeed he was known for it, but this layer cake of sycophantism and outright bullshit was testing even his peaceful temperament.
The meeting ran on, and on, and on.
He was profoundly relieved when it eventually drew to an end. It was a curse of their v
irtual world that one could not use biology as an excuse to take a break from a tedious meeting, as you once could in meetings’ original form. But that was behind him as he said his final good-byes and transposed his form away.
“You will continue to monitor the sub-meetings, Colin?” Colin was the unusually casual name the Nomadi Alliance used for their Prime Mind, derived from their word for collective, a symbol of the cooperation that had allowed the nomadic trading races to fend off the ever more amorous advances of the empires, nations, and corporate states they did business with.
“I am monitoring them now, Representative Palpatum,” said Colin, “and will continue to do so.”
In the end, the major parties had agreed to disagree on the last few sticking points, or at least had agreed that those that cared to continue bickering would to do so in a separate meeting, one empowered to argue the final irrelevant details by those long since bored by the punctiliousness of it all.
The main decisions were made, the ones Shtat cared about anyway, and he was actually getting quite excited by the event.
The event would take the form of a grand banquet held during the last hours of their approach to what humanity knew as Alpha Centauri A, a massive star 10% larger than the Earth’s, and 50% brighter. They would while away their last hours before translation enjoying a lineup of food and drink expansive enough to burst the average hippo, but which would serve no actual purpose other than to give catalytic sensation to the copious synthetic and natural psychostimulants and hallucinogens they would all be pumping into their sleeping bodies to fuel their revelry.
When translation came, the grand party would also translate into two plains of dancing, swimming, flying, and no doubt plenty of fornicating in either the simulated blackness of the accelosphere void the fleet would actually be encased in, or a representation of the fractal beauty and heat of the stellar fire they would be passing through in reality. The two realms would be connected by a simulated central sun at the center of the blackness in one realm, and a simulated black hole in the center of the other, through which partygoers would be able to pass through spectacularly and at will at any point during the celebrations.
Even though it would only take them fifteen minutes to pass through the actual star at their stupendous speed, they would have to translate out of real space long before that, and stay there long after in order to survive the steadily increasing power of Alpha Centauri’s particle radiation. And so the Event Space, as it was being called, would actually last several hours, allowing all to explore the two spectacular worlds, and, no doubt, each other as well.
After translation back into reality on the other side of Alpha Centauri A, the event would then reformat back to its banquet format so folks could take a break and get some virtual sustenance during the two hours before the next translation into the star’s twin, Alpha Centauri B, a smaller star, but still 90% the size of Earth’s own, and full of its own unique spectra and beauty that would be waiting for them when the second translation came and the party began in earnest once more.
Shtat smiled as he thought of it all. The second banquet, the second count down, would be a unique time. Not only because of the binary nature of the star cluster they would be passing through, but because, for the first time in decades, they would have something approaching real light. For those that cared, it would mean being able to look at real images of the two stars as they passed between them, not simulations.
What a sight that was going to be, thought Shtat.
“Shall I prepare a communication to the Nomadi contingent regarding the celebrations, Shtat?” said Colin.
“Yes, yes, of course. We want as many as possible to attend,” replied Shtat with unfeigned enthusiasm. He was genuinely excited about the coming event. More excited, if he was honest, than he was for the coming end to their long journey.
“Are any of the admirals available for a conversation?” asked Shtat, thoughtfully.
“I am reaching out to them now,” said Colin. “I am being asked if it is a critical meeting? Three have requested that information before replying.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Shtat, somewhat dejectedly.
“Then only one has replied yes: Marta,” said Colin, redundantly saying the name of the only admiral that usually made time for Shtat at such moments.
“Hello, Representative Shtat,” said Marta, materializing beside Shtat a moment later.
“Oh, yes, hello Marta,” said Shtat, grateful for the response to his request, even if he knew it was more out of pity than genuine friendship.
“I do love your yacht, Shtat,” said Marta, looking around appreciatively at the broad deck of the boat Shtat called home. “I always have.”
Shtat brightened. His yacht was a faithful representation of his own flagship back home, one he had designed himself and which he had been loath to give up. It was the only thing he truly missed about Mobiliei. But he had plans for a new one once they had settled the seas of Earth, and in the meantime this representation was as close to indistinguishable from the real thing as one could hope for.
“Thank you, Marta,” Shtat said, with genuine pride. “She is quite the performer too!”
“Indeed, she is famous for it,” replied Marta with a shake of her muscular arms. “We should hold another regatta. The last one was very entertaining!”
“Yes, yes, I would like that a great deal,” said Shtat, laughing. “Do you remember when the Fral boat capsized! We nearly went over ourselves, we were laughing so much!”
The rules of the virtual regatta leveled all playing fields, much as handicapping tried to, but it was far more effective, in that it essentially just equaled, in absolute terms, the aquadynamic and aerodynamic properties of all participants, leaving only the skill of the individual sailor. Skill which must remain unaided by artificial minds throughout.
Marta laughed with genuine mirth. The Fral admiral was a friend, but his crew had gotten cocky, and the cruel reality of the simulation had left them soaked, clinging to the belly of their upturned ship as the rest of the challengers finished the race.
“He will think twice before he tries that again,” said Marta.
Shtat nodded, then his smile seemed to fade. “Shall we walk the deck?” said Shtat, suddenly thoughtful once more, and Marta nodded.
An artificial crewmember appeared with a cold and bubbling refreshment from below decks, and they both took one, the pleasure they got from the cool draft real, even if the drink itself was not.
Marta was silent as they began to walk the long deck of the boat, letting the man that she and her fellow admirals had voted in as their representative gather his thoughts. They walked along the broad wooden deck, the boat slicing gracefully through the blue-water waves as her full canvas propelled her forward. Her heel was healthy, the breeze was brisk, and she leaned into the seas with the practiced ease of a thoroughbred.
After a while Shtat spoke up over the pleasant heave and sigh of the sailboat’s a cappella song: the harmony of wind and sail, of creaking wood and straining stay.
“Do you ever wonder why, Marta?” he said, quietly.
Marta glanced at the man, not surprised at the question, perhaps, but still uncomfortable at the sudden change in heading.
“Why what, Shtat?” she asked, with a hint of trepidation.
“Well,” said Shtat, after a moment, clearly picking his words carefully, “I am not saying what we are doing is wrong. What we are doing is absolutely necessary, and everything our probes sent back about the current inhabitants of Earth shows that they would most certainly do the same to us, as they have countless times to their own kind.”
Marta did not dispute the layman’s argument for the war, an argument used at middle class-dinner tables all over Mobilius, but she did counter with an amended version of the standard rebuff the war’s many dissenters would usually say at this point. “Of course, they could say the same about us …” and before Shtat could reply equally predictably, Marta went on,
“and of course they would say the same about us, which would only support the argument for them to do the same to us if they had the chance, and therefore … well, you know the rest.”
They smiled, though with a certain sadness in their eyes.
In the end, both arguments were specious. Deep down they both knew that. For both arguments ignored the real reason for colonization, and in so doing became the same exercise in futile banter that had plagued every society that had ever claimed to be civilized in either race’s history. For the real argument was as irrefutable as it was coldhearted: when one party has something another needs, something that the first party will not give up willingly, and the second party has the power to take it from them … they do. They always had throughout history. No matter how much people might strive for civility on an individual level, no state had ever truly earned that descriptor.
Whether it was oil or gold, slave labor or land, history was littered with ostensibly well-intentioned nations doing terrible things to weaker ones. When the invention of nuclear weapons had forced the richer Mobiliei nations to play nice with each other, and back up their words about equality and civil liberties with action, they had come to laud their version of human rights, just as we had. But their definition of civilization was also naturally called mobiliei rights, and thus it did not apply to humans.
Suddenly Shtat blurted, “But that’s just it, Marta. We justify our actions by saying they would do it to us if the tables were turned, because they are so like us. And … they are very like us, aren’t they? The closer we get, the more time I have to think about the whole enterprise. Why would their needs, their survival be any less important than ours?”
Marta walked in measured steps as they approached the point of the yacht’s long, slender bow. Here the motion of the deep blue waves was more pronounced as Shtat’s yacht forged onward, over and through, over and through, across the endless virtual ocean it was always traversing.