by Rayann Marse
Richard turned again. He vibrated with excitement, unable to keep still. "You may all have begun to understand by now, but let's just come out and say it, shall we? Todd and I have known you would be coming for a long while, you see. A very long while, before the two of you," his eyes flicked back and forth between the women, "ever even left Earth. Not because we overheard communications, or even because the Mindseat predetermined that we would be graced with your presence. No; we predicted this by a different means entirely. To make you understand... Well, Todd, would you do the honors? And tell these people what we do here?"
"I would love to," said Todd. He began to walk in place, floating above the pedestal, seeming to move along an invisible treadmill. This sort of motion was not programmed into TIDE units by default; either Richard had put it in, to give his friend a more human range of expression, or else Todd himself had observed the act of pacing and birthed the coding within himself. That sort of self-upgrading was not unheard of in AI's who had been alive for a few years.
"Our first order of business," Todd continued, "is to observe the actions of humankind on behalf of the Menin. We are not here to interfere in any way, or to try and alter the natural course of events. We just watch, listen, and relay information. The Mindseat has been crafting a plan to pay an actual, proper, open visit to you — to us — for a long while, but they wanted to wait until the right time. We have been doing our observation work for all these years, telling them exactly what we see and letting them decide the proper moment to make themselves seen and heard by all of humankind.
"The fact that you, Aurora and..." He stopped, looking at Stella expectantly.
Richard leaned toward the hologram, speaking quietly from the corner of his mouth. "Stella."
"Stella," Todd said and continued pacing. "The fact that you thought that your arrival at the Menin ship was the first interaction between the two species means that we and the Mindseat have done our job properly."
"And we don't think our abduction was the first interaction, either," Richard put in. "There's evidence of Menin-human interaction before us. Perhaps going back a long time. But we never asked about that, and the Mindseat never deemed it necessary to tell us."
Todd nodded. "For all the significance and stock we put into our lives and work, we are but cogs in the hundredth version of some vast machine. A cog at the other end, or even a few feet away, is not aware of us in any way and never will be. And vice versa. But we are all connected, by however much distance, by whatever tenuous means. Connected forever, influencing one another in intangible ways..."
"Todd," said Richard. "Tell the women how they fit in."
"Right. I apologize for going off on a tangent."
"That's okay," said Stella stepping forward. "It's what proves your humanity."
Todd smiled, looking from her to Richard. "I like this one."
Aurora cleared her throat. "How do we fit in, Todd?"
"You're the most recently enacted step in a long, detailed plan," the AI said, returning to his stationary pacing. "The Mindseat understands that the Menin way of life will inevitably have to change. The most likely cause of that change would be interaction with another intelligent race. One such as humanity, with the potential to match them in many ways. So, the Mindseat are choosing to change sooner rather than later, under their own terms.
"The biggest obstacle in this change is to bring the general population onboard with it. So they created a plan, ingenious really, to slowly adapt the public to human interaction. Who has the most power in Menin society? Warrior males. And what does a proper, brave, red-blooded Menin male like more than anything else? Concubines, of course.
"The initial phase was to bring a small group of females, the finest in body and mind that humankind had to offer, into the Menin ship. A group of males would be chosen to meet them and take them in as concubines. Thus, the relationship between Menin and human would be kicked off in a subtle and infinitely agreeable way. Later, after enough time had passed to get the public accustomed to seeing humans around, more would be brought in for more scholarly purposes.
"Eventually, the plan would involve Menin visiting Earth as well. And very publicly. Enough would eventually be sent that a person looking out their window would have a good chance of seeing a Menin walking down the street below them. This would all take place over a period of decades, a gradual process that would still be ongoing when the original planners had long since died of old age. Menin and human alike would be born and grow up in a world shared by both species. It would become a normal thing, something you don't even think about. Of course, this would require that both species change in certain ways. Humankind, too. But, as this would inevitably happen, anyway, and perhaps by less peaceful means, both Richard and I, and the Mindseat, have found no moral compunction about it."
The guests all listened to this without a word, totally transfixed. Ignu looked a little annoyed, perhaps reflecting on the fact that had been used by the Mindseat without knowing about it, but he made no complaint.
"A simple plan, really," Richard said now. "Prone to complications, of course; the transformation of both societies would not be without growing pains. But eventually it would all work out. But life is never as simple as that, is it? Certain... problems have arisen. Todd will explain it all better than me."
The AI had stopped pacing. He now sat in midair, in an invisible chair. "The Mindseat isn't foolish enough to do something so big without having a good idea of its success rate. So... they began planning ahead. Starting with Richard and I, and with other recent colonies, the Mindseat has begun fashioning a grid of information gathering technology, with my artificial intelligence as the brain behind it all. They call it, roughly translated, the Predictive Web. It analyzes events and changes of all types, down to things as seemingly insignificant as a single death. This information is put together, forming a model of future events to a degree of accuracy above ninety-nine percent. Five years ago, we predicted that two Menin males and two human women would be visiting us; we saw this before we even knew about the Mindseat's plan to bring human concubines to their ship. And here you are now. We also saw that you would be exiles, sent to us on the wake of political strife. And that one of you was guilty of a crime of ambition, challenging and killing at an unprecedented rate."
Ignu grinned proudly, raising his hand. Aurora stared up at him. There was deep love etched on her face, an expression Stella never would have expected to see on her.
"Yes, hello," said the AI, acknowledging Ignu with a nod. "You're here with us now, just as the Web predicted you would be. As I said, it's almost perfectly accurate. There is always a degree of uncertainty, but it's so insignificantly small that we can just gloss over it. However... something has changed. We don't know what it is. In fact, we are quite in the dark right now about everything. This one mysterious event, however small or large, has thrown our Predictive Web into total disarray.
"It has collapsed overnight, its predictions smearing out with accuracy ratings of less than five percent. Which means that out of every one hundred wild and surreal predictions it gives us, only five actually make sense and come to pass. It's as though all the hardware involved with the Web — and there is a ridiculous amount of it — has melted down overnight. Gone schizophrenic. I can assure you that this is not the case; I am just as I always have been. None of my files are corrupted. The Web should still be functioning just fine as far as I can tell, but it simply isn't."
"Just one event did that?' Aurora asked. "One little thing?"
"Well, we don't know exactly," Todd replied. "If we knew what the event was, then we would have predicted it in the first place. And if we had predicted it, it would not have had the power to destroy us so thoroughly. It's a bit paradoxical, but there it is. We feel confident that this event, whatever it was, will become clear at some point in the future. But for now, it has scuppered our work entirely. We cannot see what will become of current events, and so the Mindseat is now flying blind, t
hrough unknown territory. They have had to resort to their old, impulsive methods. This has been happening since around the second or third day after your arrival at the Menin ship, which leads us to believe the mystery event has something to do with you. Do either of you have any idea what the event might be?"
Aurora and Stella shared a look. They had ideas, that was for sure. They both started to speak at once, their voices clashing and cancelling each other out. They stopped; Aurora gestured for Stella to go on.
"Well, if you want my opinion," she said, thinking fast, "I think the Mindseat made a mistake. They were able to predict the future up to the point when humans arrived at their ship. But they don't know shit about human psychology. I'm sure it isn't too different, fundamentally, to Menin psychology. But we, Aurora and I, grew up in cultures that are way different. Post-feminist society, where we are allowed and even expected to do just as well in our chosen professions as men. This Predictive Web can't function anymore, because an unpredictable variable has entered the equation. Us."
Richard, hands behind his back and chin tilted slightly upward, had the respectful and confident air of a professor listening to the opinion of a student. He now opened his mouth, prepared to offer a counterargument.
"That may be somewhat true, Stella. But I am a human and, in a way, so is Todd. The Predictive Web has been our main work for the past twelve years, and I think we've done a pretty good job. And, as I've said, we have kept a close eye on humanity. In this age of exponential acceleration, a lot can happen in society in the space of twelve years, but not so much as to render it incomprehensibly different. So, with that in mind, I think the unpredictable element represented by you and Aurora and the others is probably not strong enough to corrupt the Web in such a way as we have witnessed."
Stella, in turn, listened respectfully to him. Aurora watched eagerly, perhaps expecting one of the bursts of attitude she had come to expect from the singer. But none was forthcoming; Stella reserved such outbursts for idiots, the kind of people who dismissed her ideas and thoughts without having something better to rebut them with. Richard's words did not bother her; in fact, they intrigued her, tickling her mind with new ideas.
"I think," Richard continued after a brief pause, "that there is something else happening. My, ahem, social skills are not as sharp as they once were. And they were never very sharp!" He glanced over at Todd, and they shared a chuckle. "But still," he continued, looking back at Stella, "I think you might be holding something back. If you don't mind me saying."
Stella was about to answer and come clean, but Gyrch put a hand on her shoulder and spoke for her. "There have been troubling events on our ship," he said.
Richard's eyebrows went up, and he replied in Menin. "Such as?"
"If the Mindseat has not already told you, it may not be my place to do so. But in the interest of progress, and as revenge for being exiled, I will tell you. The human named Sybil has broken Menin conduct. She has murdered her mate and now is attempting to launch a coup. She has already pulled a few of our females into her cause."
"What does she want?" Richard asked, looking at everyone in turn, hoping someone would have an answer for him.
"We do not know," Ignu grunted. "The Mindseat obviously hasn't told you. Do you think they've told us?"
"Okay," said Richard. "Aurora, Stella, you must know Sybil fairly well. What do you think she's after?"
"Equal treatment," Aurora said without hesitation. "She's stubborn, and she's got strong ideals. I was always afraid she wouldn't be able to set them aside and go with the flow. She can't stomach the idea of being owned by anyone. She wants to stand on equal footing."
Richard nodded. "That makes perfect sense, to me. I can certainly get onboard with that way of thinking. But what about this, killing her mate? Murder is generally inexcusable. Why did she do it?"
Stella shrugged. "Not sure. We haven't been able to get in contact with her at all. I asked the Mindseat to allow me to at least see her, to make sure she was alright, but I wasn't even allowed to do that."
"If she killed him," said Aurora, glancing nervously at Ignu, "she must have had a good reason. Or what she thought was a good reason, at least."
Richard let out a heavy sigh then looked from Ignu to Gyrch. "My friends, my Menin brothers, I have been living among your kind for years and have grown to love you..."
"These are not Menin, these creatures here," said Ignu. "The males walk with the females and hold the hands of the children. They are feeble and useless."
"Pardon me," Richard snapped, "but they are my greatest friends. My family. There's not a 'useless' one among them; each and every one of them works very hard."
Ignu, not used to be talked back to, stared in awe that probably wasn't too far from admiration. But there was also a clear undercurrent of disgust there, and probably a good deal of homesickness.
"Menin have their own way of life, and I will not claim to be of such a high position that I might look down upon them," said Richard. "But facts are facts; Menin males are raised to be violent, forceful, without inhibition. Aggression of all forms is encouraged. It is somewhat inborn as well, an innate tendency, but it's amplified by societal expectations. I don't think any one of us here can say, with honesty, that a human female could be blamed for reacting explosively when tossed into the bedchamber of a lusty Menin male."
Aurora smiled at that as Ignu grabbed her breasts and began fondling them.
"There are exceptions to everything, of course," said Richard, glancing at this public display without surprise. "But from what I hear, this Sybil is not the sort of woman to easily submit to such treatment."
Now he turned off his translator, making no attempt to hide his doing so, and stepped closer to Stella.
"She would have been raped," he said, too quietly for the other translators to hear. "Or near to it. It is not something a Menin ever thinks about; the idea that a female would not want their attention wouldn't even cross his mind. But the end result was the same, a traumatic violation of Sybil's individual rights. And that is why she murdered him. To me, there can be no other explanation. Would you agree?"
Stella, nostrils flaring and neck prickling with heat, nodded. She had never gotten so desperate, herself, but if it had come right down to it she might have tried to kill Agron. That wouldn't have been out the question.
"Right," said Richard. He stepped back again and turned the translator back on.
"A human murders her Menin mate," he said, "and then what?"
"She fled into her ship with a few Menin females," said Gyrch.
"Alright. That is definitely a bit of a wrench in the plan of building a good relationship between the species. It might account for the failure of the Predictive Web, I suppose, but I somewhat doubt it. A murder and an attempted coup is well within the scope of events one would consider possible. Or likely, even. That sort of thing happens again and again, throughout history. It is not rare enough, or strange enough, to constitute such an anomaly. I think that there must be something else. Something much stranger has to have happened..."
Gyrch was about to say something. Stella could feel him tensing up, pulling in a breath to fuel his words. She quickly grabbed his wrist, pinching it hard. He looked down at her, confused, but said nothing.
Aurora, seeing this from the corner of her eye, shot a quick glance of warning at Ignu. Neither of them said anything, either, though they both looked confused as to why they shouldn't.
Stella was touched by this display of trust from the Dutchwoman.
"Alas," Richard said, in the middle of his own pacing, "it eludes us. I just wish something else would happen, something to make it all clear to me... I hate being so in the dark, so powerless. It reminds me of when I was first abducted, when I couldn't even communicate with my kidnappers."
Behind him, the AI nodded along, a look of pity on his holographic face. But was there something else there. A bit of suspicion, doubt, a question that went unasked? Whatever it was, he ke
pt it quiet. Stella nodded her silent thanks at him.
She knew TIDE units well enough to know there was no way the quartet's little moment of clandestine silence had gone unnoticed by Todd. But he was an individual, a personality with his own feelings and desires and motivations, not a thoughtless machine who dutifully recited everything he witnessed to a human master.
Looking at Richard, Stella realized that she couldn't trust him. Not yet.
Chapter Fourteen
There apparently wasn't more to be discussed, and Richard said they could leave, that he had to some work to do on the Web and that it was better if they didn't watch. He claimed that the more conscious minds there were witnessing it, the less certain the predictions became.
Stella, familiar with quantum principles, decided it was a plausible explanation and said so to the others. They left the tower together and went for a long, slow walk along the edge of the bubble.
"One mile in diameter," Stella said quietly, striding along at the head of the pack with Gyrch close behind. "Five thousand two hundred and eighty feet... Half mile radius, two thousand six hundred and forty. Two pi times the radius..." Staring at the sky, past the rainbow shimmer on the skin of the bubble, she made the calculation. "Sixteen thousand five hundred eighty-seven and some change. Divided by the length of a mile..."
She turned her head to Gyrch.
"The perimeter of this bubble equals out to a little over three miles," she said. "About five kilometers. A pretty good running distance. A nice long lap. I used to run, you know. I went for long runs through the city, through the parks. No matter what the weather was like, I ran. Then... I got hurt. There was ice. I slipped, and my right foot went down into this narrow little sewer drain. The rest of me hit the ground hard and kept going. Snapped my shit up pretty good."
She looked around, taking in the frightening, desolate beauty of the place, with its low hanging haze of sky and its dead plains stretching in every direction. "Maybe I'll start again. This would be a hell of a place to run."