by Tim Pratt
“HUMAN STATUS CONFIRMED. SERVICE ENTRANCE UNLOCKED. PROCEED TO PLATFORM AND DESCEND.”
I pulled my finger out, and the liquid withdrew, disappearing down invisible drains and revealing a platform, flush with the level of the ground. “I think we’re supposed to stand there.” I offered Minna my hand, and helped her step over the lip of the well, then followed her. Drywanu and the others had all fallen to their knees and bowed their heads, and they were making various murmurations. “No, no, none of that,” I said, embarrassed. “We’re just here to help. Please. You can stand.”
One or two of them did, Drywanu among them, but the rest, if anything, only groveled more.
The platform began to descend slowly, and I wished we’d asked for a lantern or something. Minna’s body began to glow faintly, which helped, illuminating a smooth shaft of metal around us. I wondered what we’d find at the bottom.
After two full minutes of descent, we stopped before double doors, which slid open. The large room beyond was dusty, with tubes in the ceiling flickering to provide life, but half of them didn’t come on at all, and half the remainder were dim. The walls were covered with dark screens and blinking lights, mostly red.
When we stepped out of the elevator, one of the walls sort of… unfolded, reshaping itself into a large screen and tilting a control panel covered in dials and buttons toward us. A map flashed on the screen, showing some kind of floor plan, and then a row of the tiles beneath our feet illuminated, blinking on and off in series down the length of a passageway. “PROCEED TO POWER STATION B AND REPLACE DAMAGED COUPLER.”
I looked at Minna, shrugged, and followed the illuminated floor. The hallway was lined with doors, some with round portholes of glass in their centers. Minna peeked into one, and then another, and then a third, gasping each time. “Zax, look, they are full of animals and plants!”
She was right. One porthole showed an aquarium inside, full of flickering fish, from the size of my hand to the size of myself. Another had birds fluttering beneath an artificial sun. There were things like sheep in another, in an underground meadow, and one with something resembling cows in a field, and another with short-eared rabbits hopping around in the grass. The habitats were narrow, but seemed to extend endlessly back, farther than we could see.
We finally reached a door without a porthole, marked with unfamiliar symbols, and it slid open to reveal a wall of… well, fuses, probably, or circuit breakers, or something – there were fist-sized cylinders slotted into holes in the wall, gleaming with glass threads and silver wires. One of them, about eye level, was melted and black, the silver threads dark. “Just pull this out?” I asked the air. “Where are the replacements?”
A drawer slid open to one side, revealing a neat row of fresh components. It took me a minute to figure out how to remove the old coupler – there was a little tab to push to make it pop out – but it came free easily enough once I did, and a new device slotted into its place easily. A new hum began, and the lights in the hallway flickered as some dying system came online. “SERVICE COMPLETE. SUSTENANCE DISPENSER NOW ACTIVE.”
“Let’s go back up and see if the cornucopia works!” Minna said.
“Soon. We should check on a few other things first.” I raised my voice. “Are there any other components in need or service? Or that will need service soon?”
“SEVERAL,” the mechanical voice replied. “SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE HAS NOT BEEN PERFORMED FOR OVER SIX HUNDRED CYCLES.”
“I’m impressed this stuff still works at all,” I said. “The Last Ones built to last. Tell us what needs to be done.”
Minna and I spent the next hour pulling open panels, re-securing wires, tightening bolts, resetting switches, replacing lights, and generally doing what felt like a century’s worth of maintenance all at once. When everything was running as optimally as possible, we dusted off our hands and returned to the elevator.
Then I paused. Things here would run smoothly for a long time, probably, given how well it had worked so far, but what if something else broke after we left? Drywanu’s people wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, and the summoning circle didn’t seem to be much help if we were the only assistance it had produced in all those scores of full moons. “Is there a way to allow non-humans to access this place?” I said. “To let the… locals come down?”
“ALLOWING CHIMERAS ACCESS TO THE CONTROL CENTER IS NOT ADVISED. THEY MAY ALTER THEIR BIOME AND THEMSELVES IN UNANTICIPATED WAYS.”
I considered. It probably wouldn’t be good to let just anyone come down here, especially since the locals were totally unfamiliar with the technology – they might break open the rooms where the animals were bred to get them all at once, for instance, upsetting the artificial ecosystems that kept their populations stable and made them available for requisition from the cornucopia. But we could show Drywanu, and she could show any others she thought were trustworthy – or even tell everyone, if she thought that was the best decision. Giving one person such power was dangerous, but Drywanu was clearly devoted to her people, and part of being a harmonizer is judging how someone might best contribute to society. I thought Drywanu would be a capable caretaker. “Can we create a password that allows access, instead of a biometric test?”
“YES. SPEAK DESIRED PASS PHRASE.”
Before I could think of something, Minna said, “Thank you, Zax” in the language of the chimeras.
“REPEAT PASS PHRASE.”
“Thank you, Zax,” she said again.
“PASS PHRASE ACCEPTED.”
I looked at her curiously. “Why did you make that the phrase, Minna?”
“You do good every chance you get, Zax, and never get much in the way of thanks. I like that these people will thank you forever.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smiling. Her gesture embarrassed me, but it was also sweet. We stepped back into the elevator and rode two minutes back to the surface. When we emerged, there were dozens of chimera standing around the cornucopia. We stepped out, and the liquid silver flowed back over the platform. “How do you usually request things?” I asked Drywanu.
She stepped forward hesitantly, then said, “One slowgrazer, please.”
The fluid in the pool shimmered, and then, slowly, something like a lamb rose up through the liquid, shaking off droplets as it came, then making a small lowing sound. Drywanu gasped, and another chimera – this one covered in fur and taller than me – rushed in and picked the animal up, hugging it, and making sounds it took me a moment to recognize as sobs. “We’re saved!” he said.
Others crowded around the cornucopia, requesting grain, and fruit, and other things, and Minna and I drew back, Drywanu with us. “Once this settles down, we want to show you something,” I murmured.
“The Last Ones made us.” Drywanu looked through a porthole in the underground corridor. “This is known. But they made these creatures, too? They made all this?”
“They started with living things that occurred naturally,” I said. “Then they…”
“Grafted,” Minna said. “Combined things in different ways. Probably at first they made their creations just a little different – healthier, hardier, faster to grow, less needful of food. Once they did all that, they changed themselves, or changed other things, and became more creative, and made you.”
“The Last Ones used to live among us, the stories say. Then they left, to live in the sky, but they would still visit us sometimes. Then even that stopped. They created this place here, to sustain us. They made provisions for our wellbeing, even beyond their time on this world. They wanted to take care of us.”
Like pets, I thought, but didn’t say that. I wasn’t sure she would even understand. People really did love their pets, anyway, even if I was opposed to the idea of intelligent creatures being treated that way.
“Thank you, Zax,” Drywanu said. She chuckled. “That phrase will become the mantra and the prayer of my people.”
“Minna did a lot too,” I said. She’d planted some of he
r store of seeds in the fields to grow into vegetables, because she didn’t want these people to be entirely dependent on the cornucopia, just in case; it turned out the fruits and vegetables produced by the system were seedless, probably to prevent the rise of agriculture among the chimera, but their time as pets was over now. They could develop more freely after we were gone.
“Minna will be revered as a saint as well. For the fields to produce food for us, instead of only grass to feed the animals? That is a true miracle, and one I cannot wait to see.” Drywanu took Minna’s hand and smiled at her, then looked into my eyes with her disconcertingly direct ones. They flashed red. “Is there anything we can do for you, Last Ones? We owe our lives and futures to you.”
“Oh, no, we don’t need–” I said, but Minna interrupted.
“Someone may appear in the summoning circle,” she said. “He looks like a Last One, but he is a… Do you have people here who hurt other people?”
“Sometimes, someone is too angry, or goes mad,” Drywanu said.
“He is like that, he hurts and he might kill, and if he comes with a companion, she is even worse,” Minna said. “You must not trust them, no matter how sweet their words. They will not stay long… but they may ask about us. They mean us harm. It is better if they do not find you at all, but if they do, please do not tell them we came before?”
Drywanu frowned. “We have heard stories of evil Last Ones. I heed your words. But, forgive my impertinence… would it not be better to seal the circle?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When the Last Ones did not wish to be petitioned, in the days gone by, they would seal the summoning circle, enclose it with an impenetrable dome that let neither light nor sound inside or out. Can you not seal it thus?”
I looked at the ceiling. “Can we seal the circle of stones?”
“PASS PHRASE REQUIRED.”
“Thank you, Zax,” Drywanu said.
“EXTERNAL INTERFACE CLOSED,” the voice said.
That wouldn’t stop the Lector and Polly from sleeping their way to the next world, but at least it would protect Drywanu’s people from their malicious impulses.
“I leave it closed until we have need to call on the Last Ones again.” She cocked her head. “But you… you are not exactly the Last Ones, are you? There are many stories about them – their sport, the tribute they demanded, the ways they liked us to… entertain them. Most of us did not like taking part in those entertainments. You have only helped us, and given us the means to help ourselves, and that is not what the Last Ones did. Their assistance always had a price. They never offered us freedom. Who are you?”
“We’re just travelers,” I said.
“We are helpers,” Minna said. “We go where we go, and we help where we can.”
“You are the New Ones, then. I am glad you came. If you ever return here, we will welcome you. All my people will.”
I wished we could return, but at least when we left this place, we would leave with good memories.
Farewells • The Lighthouse • Vast and Cool • Implications • A Gem • Minna the Jeweler
Drywanu took us see the gleaming mirrored dome sealing off the circle of stones, and I was pleased the Lector and Polly wouldn’t be able to harm this place even if they did make it here. Afterward, the villagers made us a feast, and there was dancing, and music, and strange flutes and drums.
After I’d had my fill of revels, I found Minna, and we took a bath in a spring Drywanu showed us as the sun rose. I took the opportunity to refill our water bottles, too. We returned to find the village all aslumber. The chimera were nocturnal, it seemed. Drywanu yawned, and gave us supplies – fresh food, mostly – that we added to our bags. She thanked us about a thousand more times, then bid us farewell and went into a low house to sleep. We were given a room of our own, and we talked a bit, and I updated my journal, and then we settled into a blissful natural sleep, and moved on.
We woke to dawn on an island, perhaps a mile across, with an abandoned, lichen-encrusted lighthouse perched at one end. We decided it was safe to linger here on World 1010. With luck the Lector was stuck in vines or trapped in a summoning circle and all out of serum and gone from our lives forever. There were fruit trees Minna said were compatible with our body chemistries, and we found several nests full of eggs. And once I forced the door and explored the lighthouse we found a lot of dust and decay, but also fish hooks, and Minna was able to produce filament-thin vines to use as line. There was a little protected lagoon full of fish, swimming in clear water (not salty, which was strange; perhaps it wasn’t a proper ocean, but some kind of immense lake), and we bathed and swam and splashed and relaxed. Soon we had a fire going and fresh fish to eat (well, Minna ate kelp and fruit), and we rested with full bellies and watched the waves roll in and out in peace and silence. It was one of the loveliest days I’d had in months.
“This is nice,” Minna said as night fell and unfamiliar stars – always unfamiliar stars – filled the vault of the sky. We were on the beach, by the lighthouse, where we’d sat to watch the sun set. “I wish we could stay longer.”
“I have some stimulants left. Not very potent, but we could do another day. We could both use–”
A bright red light suddenly shot down from the lighthouse, illuminating us in a circle of blood-colored brilliance. “Identify yourselves.” The voice was booming and amplified and came from the lighthouse.
Minna and I scrambled upright. We’d gone into the lighthouse, all the way to the top, and there hadn’t been anyone there, just panels full of mysterious knobs and dials and dark readouts and broken screens, and where the light should have been, a fist-sized gem faceted like a cut diamond. Certainly nothing that looked like it could talk or make demands or hear responses. Maybe it was an automated system?
“I’m Zax. This is Minna.”
“Why are you here?”
“We were… marooned, I guess. We didn’t know the island was inhabited.”
The light pulsed, the color shifting toward purple, then back.
“Designate Zax is an unknown variety of augmented human. Designate Minna is a humanoid of unknown origin.” The light pulsed again, flickering, then abruptly turned white, and spread out, less sharp-edged spotlight and more all-encompassing illumination. “You are unknown variants, but both fall within acceptable tolerances. You are allies. It has been 63,041 days since I received a status update on the state of the war. Do you have any news?”
“We don’t know anything about a war, I’m sorry,” I said.
A moment of silence, then: “It had occurred to me that in the past century and a half the war might have ended. My posting was always a remote one, guarding against an unlikely attack. I feared that all the humans and allied intelligences had been destroyed. I am pleased that some have survived.”
“Are you some sort of machine intelligence?” I said.
“I am a vastcool-class crystal intellect grown on the last surviving substrate harvested from the mind-fall of Year One. As far as I know I am the only remaining one of my kind, as the last of my cohort-mates went offline, as I said, more than 63,000 days ago. There may be others, beyond communication range. Do you know if any of us survive?”
“We aren’t from this world,” Zax said.
“That seems impossible. I scanned you and detected no extra-planetary taint. Unless the void infection has been cleansed? But who would have cleansed it, if the allies fell?”
“We aren’t from a different planet,” I said. “Or, not exactly. Do you know the word ‘multiverse’?”
“A hypothetical universe of universes. Yes. But if they exist, these other worlds cannot be contacted.”
I shrugged. “And yet, I contact them. We’re travelers, sort of. Sort of explorers. And sort of refugees.”
“If this is true, the implications are immense.”
“The implications also are very small and also personal,” Minna said.
“Would you two come to t
he top of the lighthouse?” the voice said. “I recall that humans and allied forms do not generally enjoy being shouted at from above, and I am amplified and on high.”
“We will,” Zax said. “Do you have a name?”
“Vastcool Class Crystal Intellect Three Three Three. Those stationed here sometimes called me Victory-Three, or simply Vicki. I do not object.”
“Pleased to meet you, Vicki,” I said, and meant it. I’d never met a crystal intelligence before, and if I couldn’t appreciate new experiences, my life would have almost no pleasures at all.
We returned to the lighthouse, and made our way up the spiraling metal stairs. The gem we’d noticed before was glowing, now, and must have been the source of the light – presumably it was the body of Vicki itself.
“Please tell me the mechanism of your travel.” The voice was pleasant, here, less booming and mechanical, though I couldn’t tell where it came from, exactly – it emanated from the gem itself, somehow, was my best guess. Minna gazed at the immense gemstone inside its glass cage.
“I don’t really understand the mechanism myself, Vicki. It’s a… medical condition, is the best way to put it. Whenever I fall asleep, I wake up in a different world. If someone falls asleep in my arms, they travel with me.”
“Can you only transport living biological matter?”
I shook my head. “My clothes go with me, my bag, the contents of my pockets… anything relatively small that’s touching me directly. I don’t take chunks of the floor with me, or a building I’m leaning against, or anything like that.”
The gem brightened, then dimmed. “It must be a very difficult life. But I think going somewhere new every day… that would be preferable to never going anywhere at all, ever. Am I a small enough object for you to carry with you, Zax?”
I don’t take on companions lightly. They can never return home, and it’s important for them to understand that. “There’s no coming back if you go with me. I’ve never seen the same world twice, and I can’t control my destination. If we take you with us, you’ll never see this place again, and you could end up someplace much worse.”