Savant

by Nik Abnett

  Published 2016 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-84997-927-6

  Copyright © 2016 Nik Abnett

  Cover art by Sam Gretton

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  For Pops, who just was, and who was content for me, too, simply to be.

  Chapter One

  SHE WORE COTPRO socks in bed in High, and woolpro socks in Low. She could have had the real thing, but it seemed extravagant. She wouldn’t have worn socks at all, but she disliked the sensation of linopro on the soles of her feet, with its faintly spongy finish, and Tobe couldn’t bear the sound of slippers slapping against it.

  It was 05:30 in the morning of an ordinary day, Metoo’s perfect day.

  Service and Requisites were simple, compared with the complications Civilians endured, of checks and balances, of rations and over-supply, of real and pro. She didn’t know, any more, if Civilians used anything but pro. Service was daily, since she’d been with Tobe, rather than Scheduled, and Requisites fell only on mid and end days of High and Low, rather than monthly. She had not been a Civilian since she was twelve. She had not been a Civilian for more than half her life.

  Metoo’s family had been overwhelmed with pride and relief when she had been Drafted. It didn’t matter that she’d been bred to it; there was no such thing as a forgone conclusion. Breeding was one thing, but balance was another. Never-the-less, she had stood in front of her parents, her teacher and her class, aged twelve, her future secured.

  Family pride was not the best of it, the best of it was relief: the Drafted never returned to Civilian life, so there was one less mouth to feed, one less body to clothe, one less mind to... To what? Metoo’s thoughts were suddenly cast back to her childhood, to a time when no one considered the mind. She had not been aware, then, of her thoughts, that they existed, never-mind mattered. Civilians were assessed for physical suitability for various kinds of work, and chipped for education and thought processing. She had been one of them, had been part of a family, but, now, she could barely remember their faces, and seldom thought about them. She was Drafted, and no one she knew had been a Civilian for four years or more. News of the Civilians was old news. She only knew that, if she fulfilled her role, they would endure.

  By 05:45, Metoo was breakfasting on coffee and fruit. She chose her luxuries carefully, but this half-an-hour, alone with her thoughts, meant something to her, so she indulged herself a little. Coffee was scarce, but she grew a good deal of fruit during High, and preserved what she could to last her through Low, supplementing her supplies from Requisites. In the eight years that she had spent with Tobe, first as his Student, and then as his Assistant and Companion, Metoo had never filled her annual Requisites, giving up as much as a third to Stores, that others might enjoy the benefits.

  She was privileged, but she knew it.

  At 06:00, the shower was running at 40 degrees, and the eggpro was cooking. Metoo signed in with Service, the 45 seconds it took, allowing breakfast to be perfectly cooked, ready for Tobe as he finished his ablutions. A few minutes later, she set the dish in front of him at the kitchen counter, and made her way back to Service.

  “It’s the same,” he said.

  Metoo turned, her cotpro sock squeaking slightly as the ball of her right foot rotated on the linopro. She winced, knowing that the sound would bother Tobe, that he might spend valuable time working out the physics that created that particular pitch from the cotpro formula, the wear on the linopro and the speed of her rotation.

  “It’s the same,” Tobe said, again, without looking up.

  He seemed not to be speaking to her, so, Metoo turned again, stepping this time, rather than swivelling, and went back to Service; she’d make up those 15 seconds before his tutorial at 08:30.

  Back on Service, Metoo woke Tobe’s Students, and set all of their Schedules and accounts for the day. It was a Companion’s task, but Tobe’s previous Assistant had burnt out early, and Metoo had been brought in as Assistant before she’d finished three years as his Student. She never learned what had happened to the man she’d replaced, but Kit had been brought back as Tobe’s Companion, after two Lows’ sabbatical, to pick up the slack. He had barely lasted the High before Metoo found herself in the dual role of Assistant and Companion. Had she found Tobe’s requirements arduous, or complex, she might have failed too. In the middle of their second High together, Metoo was fully in charge of maintaining Tobe, and Service had decided that the dual role, however rarefied, should continue until a Pitu was ready to take over as Assistant, and Metoo could become, solely, his Companion.

  TOBE GOT OUT of the shower, rubbed himself down, dropped the towel, and pulled a robe over his head. He never thought that someone had placed the robe ready for him, or that someone would pick up the towel. His thoughts almost never strayed to the domestic, or to Service. He had long since given up signing in, leaving it all to Metoo, except that he no longer had a conscious memory of ever having signed in, or of there being any need to. Service did not exist for him, except when it affected his practice. Metoo bypassed his need to remember it for its own sake, conscious for both of them.

  He sat at the kitchen counter, as he had done every morning for as long as he could remember, except that remembering such things was arbitrary, and, therefore, redundant. He knew only this: it was the same. It was the same today as yesterday, and yesterday it was the same as the day before.

  “It is the same,” he said, not to himself and not to Metoo, but simply because it was.

  “It is the same.”

  THE COLLEGE WAS home to as many as five thousand inhabitants. The Masters, with their Assistants and Companions, lived on the South side of the campus in small apartments, which usually consisted of three bedrooms and shared living accommodation. Master, Assistant and Companion were individually responsible to Service, except in rare circumstances where a Companion would be responsible for running the entire household.

  The majority of the College population was made up of Students at various stages in their educations, and these included all of the Assistants and many of the Companions. The youngest were children of twelve or fourteen, who lived in family groups on the West side of the campus, and shared everything from classrooms to bathrooms in the building referred to as the School. They lived with Seniors: teachers and carers, mid-grade Drafted, who had been through the system before them. Service was taken care of by Seniors, and their routines adjusted to best suit their temperaments.

  As they got older and more independent, and with first stage adjustments to their chips completed, most of the Students moved out of the School. Their education became more specific to their intellectual strengths, and some were assigned to Masters. They also moved into the dorms on the East side of campus, and were responsible directly to Service, although their choices were limited. Food and clothes rations were provided according to need, rather than taste, but Students were free to choose reading material, music and visual stimuli from Service lists. All the Students in East wore buttons, on chords, around their necks. They pressed their buttons to acknowledge Service on the Schedule, just as Civilians did.

  Pitu 3 hit the Service button around his neck to acknowledge his Rouse. He had last hit the button eight hours ago for Rest, and would hit it several times througho
ut the day: at Roll-call, Repast, Recreation, and so on through the Schedule.

  He rolled out of bed, and staggered into the small, shared kitchen, his naked feet slapping against linopro that was so old it had lost any bounce it might once have had. He put the heat on under a pan of oatpro that the Students had been topping up for most of the week. He hoped that it would be warm by the time he’d had his regulation shower in one of the stalls in the communal bathroom.

  Pitu 3 wanted to get back to his room, his only private space. He’d lived in the School for the first couple of years, but was spared dorm-living; Tobe’s Students were given their own rooms. There were eighteen in the block, all small and sparsely appointed, with one shared bathroom and a kitchen. Seven of the rooms were vacant, but could not be accessed by the eleven remaining Students. At least the kitchen and bathroom were less crowded than they might have been.

  Pitu 3 had been Drafted for six years, and had been Tobe’s Student for four. When he had begun, there were fourteen of them, now eleven; the numbers varied. New Students were moved in, and others left. Only two of Tobe’s Students exceeded him in seniority, so he was Pitu 3. He had begun as 14.

  Pitu had left his basic education behind, and his mind had been opened by degrees in the School. In his first year Drafted, his chip had been adjusted eight times, but the jumps in his intellectual capacity were small and unremarkable, impaired by a lack of emotional growth that he failed to recognise in himself, but which made him one of the less popular Students in the School. Later chip adjustments were subtle; the mine had been tapped, and the material found wanting.

  The Drafted began by studying a broad spectrum of subjects, but Pitu’s results for the first year put him squarely in the mathematics faculty, and at the end of his second year he was moved into Tobe’s class.

  To continue as Tobe’s Student for so long was unusual; Pitu had been taking instruction from him for almost a year longer than he had anticipated. His chip had not been adjusted once during that time, and Pitu simply assumed that this was a positive. He wanted to believe that he was finally in preparation for Assistant, and wondered if 1 and 2 were also being monitored. Would they compete for the position?

  Tobe’s class was the smallest in College, it had the biggest turnover of Students, and any number of myths and rumours surrounded it. The younger Students fell into two camps: those who could think of nothing more exciting than working under Tobe, and those who dreaded being transferred in. Pitu just enjoyed the status it gave him. It was true that Tobe could barely tell one Student from another, that his interest in them was minimal, and that they could forget humour and affection altogether, but it was also true that Tobe was one of the top three mathematicians on Earth.

  Thought might be monitored, quantified and adjusted by Service, via their chips, but ambition was not, neither was excitement, nor dread, nor pragmatism, nor interest, humour or affection.

  Pitu stepped out of the shower, worked a small towel under his arms and between his legs until it was too damp to use on the rest of his body, and slung on his robe. He walked back to the kitchen, his wet feet squelching across the linopro, leaving miniature puddles where his high arches didn’t connect with the surface. Ninety seconds later, he was sitting on the cot in his room, his bare feet crossed under his thighs for warmth, cradling a bowl of oatpro that proved to be hot enough, but too thick and gritty.

  As Pitu ate, he cast his eyes over the facing wipe-wall, where he had written his latest calculations, referencing the list of formulae neatly arranged on the left. The work was never-ending. Tobe introduced one step at a time, methodically, but it had been four years, and Pitu had known for at least two of them that the work would not end, not with Tobe, and certainly not with him.

  TOBE AND PITU arrived together for their 08:30 tutorial. Tobe opened the door to his office, and stepped in, followed by Pitu. They exchanged no pleasantries, nor would they.

  The room was a regular cube, three metres, by three, by three. This was unusual among the Masters, most of whom opted for the more visually pleasing three-four-five triangle system, resulting in a room that was low-ceilinged, but with a larger floor-plan. Space was at a premium, and every room had the same volume, but Tobe did not particularly value the size of the space, only its orderly configuration.

  “It was the same,” Tobe said.

  Pitu looked at Tobe, but his tutor did not appear to be addressing him, so he chose not to answer. Tobe usually began his sessions with, ‘Tidings’, which meant nothing to anybody, except that it was a sort of punctuation point that signified a beginning. Neither Student nor Master spoke, nor sat for several more seconds.

  “Tidings,” said Tobe.

  “Sir,” said Pitu.

  Still, they did not sit.

  “Upload Master Tobe’s personal Service files for 05:58 to 06:03. The pitch of the sock, work out why it was,” said Tobe.

  “Sir?” asked Pitu. “I’ll need specified clearance.”

  “Metoo,” said Tobe, turning his back on his Student.

  The tutorial was over. It was 08:34.

  Tobe turned from Pitu, and stepped onto a low ladder that would allow him to reach the highest bookshelves on the left wall of his office. Pitu watched his Master for a moment, unsure of his next move. Tobe rose to the second step on the ladder, and shielded his eyes with one hand, against the light, as he scanned the book titles. Pitu realised that Tobe had nothing more for him, turned, and left the office, closing the door behind him.

  Service sent a tone to Pitu’s button, and he pressed it as he walked away.

  Chapter Two

  SERVICE SENT A tone to Tobe’s flat at 08:34. Metoo stopped stacking dishes, and went to check on it, knowing that it would concern this morning’s anomaly. She was not worried.

  “Metoo,” she said, answering the tone.

  “Pitu 3 will request specified clearance, please allow,” said Service.

  “Very well,” she said.

  Why would Pitu 3 ask for a specified clearance? And why wasn’t he in his tutorial? What was happening? What was wrong with Tobe? The questions flashed through Metoo’s mind, urging her to panic. She didn’t. It was that damned sock. That squeak had sent Tobe off on a wild goose-chase, and Pitu 3 had, somehow, become involved. Metoo breathed more easily; it was nothing.

  TOBE SCANNED THE top shelf in his office for a text that he had not consulted for years. He knew it was there, he could not remember a time when it hadn’t been there; he had studied it in his teens, but his work had long-since bypassed probability. The book should have been third from the right, with a blue cover. The book third from the right on the shelf had a grey cover. He checked the books to either side; both were shades of beige, not distinctly different from the grey book that sat third from the right on the top shelf. He stepped down from the ladder, and stood in the middle of the room. He didn’t move for several seconds.

  “Metoo,” he said.

  IT WAS PROVING to be a strange day, not the perfect, ordinary day that it had promised to be only a few hours earlier. Service would be demanding today.

  Tobe was still standing in the middle of his office when Metoo arrived a few minutes later.

  “Master?” she asked, as she stepped into the room.

  “Eustache, On Probability,” he said, “it isn’t there.”

  “Probability?” she asked.

  “Eustache,” he said, again. “Top shelf, third from the right.”

  What could he possibly want with Eustache?

  Metoo squeezed past Tobe, who seemed incapable of movement, and took the first three steps up the ladder, allowing her to reach the top shelf, just. She slipped the third book from the right, off the shelf, and let it fall into her hand. The spine of the book was grey with age, and the embossed title was so old and worn as to be unreadable, but the covers of the book, front and back, were made of sky-blue book-cloth, preserved from the light, pressed against their neighbours. Metoo flipped the book open, and checked the title p
age, On Probability, Eustache et Henriot.

  She handed the book to Tobe, who looked at the faded spine, and then at the blue book-cloth. He opened the book, and began to riffle through the pages. He had not moved. Metoo watched him for a moment, but decided not to ask. He needed what he needed, and, today, it was this; but what did probability have to do with the squeak her socks made?

  AS SHE RETURNED to the flat, Pitu 3 approached Metoo. She had forgotten to expect him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I’ve only been here a minute or two,” said Pitu 3. “I hit my Service button. The Schedule’s fine.” He didn’t know what was going on, any more than Metoo did, but, in the few dealings he’d had with her, she’d made him feel comfortable. People weren’t generally nice to Pitu, so he liked being around someone whose default setting was kindness. She was one of the reasons he was hoping to become Tobe’s Assistant; she would be a great Companion to work with. This might be his chance.

  “Specified clearance,” she said, opening the door. “Come in.”

  Metoo checked Pitu 3 in with Service, and, having allowed him access, turned to go.

  “I have to check some personal file footage for this morning,” said Pitu 3.

  Metoo turned and looked at him.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  “Footage,” he answered, “05:58 to 06:03.” Pitu wanted to engage Metoo, partly because he seldom had anyone to talk to, but also because she might be able to influence his promotion to Assistant; after all, it had been four years.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked again.