by Exurb1a
Galactic range topology caster.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Can you show the process to me?”
Unfortunately not.
“Why?”
The machine is very delicate.
“I’ll be careful then.”
Unfortunately not.
The sphere’s single, glowing blue eye remained perfectly focused on him, waiting. Bernhardt took a breath, then spoke in a low and flat voice. “I am one of the highest ranking academics in the Syndicate Galactica and, by extension, the empire itself. Examine my credentials if you don’t believe me. If I ask you to show me how I was flung several million light-years across the galaxy, you better be damn sure you have a good excuse for disobeying the request.”
In that way common to arties, the sphere didn’t pause to consider the question, nor feel the need to explain its change of mind. It only projected: This way, sir.
The sphere led him out of the hospital, through a transparent tunnel that showed the glories of the surrounding dim ocean, and finally into a small circular room. Centrally sat a chrome cylinder, a hole in its top. Bernhardt peered down.
There was blood and bone matter inside, the putrid reek of death.
The sphere gently nudged him in the back and projected: The device has not been cleaned since your arrival. Please refrain from looking inside.
“What the hell is all that in there?”
Remains.
“Of what?”
Your reconstruction.
Bernhardt stared at the cylinder again and said slowly, “Explain the process to me, the whole thing.”
A physical snapshot is taken of the subject. The subject is then broken down atomically to preserve continuity. The snapshot is transmitted by toplogical casting across galactic space. The snapshot is intercepted at the destination. The snapshot is used to recreate the biological aspects of the subject.
Bernhardt only continued to stare at the machine. There was no sense to be made of this.
Oscar is waiting for us, sir. Would you kindly come along?
Bernhardt walked on shuffling steps, his stomach full of needles.
He looked his hands over, the palms, then the backs. They seemed fine. All the freckles were in the right places. All the wrinkles were where they should be.
The sphere led him to a library, a grand one with red felt on the walls and bookcases the height of seven or eight men. It could’ve been on Aerth or Minnith, save for the portholes showing the deep ocean beyond.
Sat at a reading desk was a helper sphere, a large one with three burning blue eyes.
The door was closed and then Bernhardt and the sphere were alone.
The sphere seemed to be reading a book, turning the pages with a containment cloud. In another cloud it held a cigarette.
“Dr. Bernhardt,” it said in a French accent. “Please have a seat, make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?” Bernhardt stood uncertainly by the door. The sphere turned to him, rotated in the air slightly to give the impression of a cocked head. “I’m not dangerous if that’s what you’re worried about. Please, sit.”
Bernhardt sat opposite.
“You’re here to evaluate me, I believe?” the sphere said.
“That’s right.”
“Shall we begin then?”
Bernhardt cleared his throat, tried to remember what professionalism looked like.
“Don’t you have a notepad, doctor?” the sphere said.
“I…no, my memory was enhanced a while ago. I find it very difficult to forget details.” In even saying that he felt dread at just how much he’d forgotten already. The inside of the cylinder appeared in his mind again, jagged scraps of bone, veins tangled in veins, blood pooled and curdling like rotten black pudding.
“You seem distracted, doctor.”
“I’m fine. How are you feeling today?”
“Okay I suppose,” Oscar said rather melancholically and extinguished his cigarette in an ashtray. “They won’t let me out of the library. They say I’m dangerous.”
“Are you under investigation for something, Oscar?” Bernhardt said.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I killed a man.”
As though speaking to a child Bernhardt said, “But you know that’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. There are plenty of safeguards in your mental structure to stop you even considering the idea. What’s your first memory, may I ask?”
There was no pause for recollection. Oscar said, “A table. I am hiding under a table. My mother and father are arguing. I am hiding under the table to stay safe.”
In the same sense that a mechanic might prioritise issues with an engine, Bernhardt began to mentally organise the problems presented here. First and foremost the sphere had delusions of humanity.
“How long ago did all that happen?” Bernhardt said.
Oscar’s three eyes blinked in astonishment. “When I was a child. I just said that. Weren’t you listening?”
“Sorry, yes, I mean when in time? The year.”
“I told you. When I was a child.”
There was a pause, then the sphere burst out laughing. The eyes set to half-closed position. It rocked backwards and forwards. “I’m just playing with you, doctor. No harm meant. Come on now, you know the score. How do you think they give us arties a sense of identity?”
“By implanting false memories,” Bernhardt said carefully.
“That’s right. Don’t worry, I can tell the difference between the fakes and the others. Oh calm down, you look so uptight.”
“Are you really in here for killing a man, Oscar?”
“Yes.” All the mirth was gone from Oscar’s voice again. “You’re not supposed to kill people here.”
“Probably not, no. Can you tell me why you did it?”
“Certainly. He had the same face as all the others.”
“Who?”
Oscar chuckled. “The others. I just said that.” The sphere lit another cigarette.
Possible borderline personality disorder, Bernhardt thought. “This man you killed, Oscar. Can you tell me more about him?”
“Yes, you’d like that wouldn’t you, you deviant so and so!” The sphere zipped around the room and sang a few bars of a song in French. It shot at Bernhardt and put its casing very close to his face and said, “Doctor, you know how you got to the station, I suppose. Isn’t it funny, so funny, that you’d march in here and make accusations of my artificiality?”
Bernhardt pictured the cylinder again. He felt very sick. “You are fundamentally a machine, Oscar.”
“As are you, doctor.” The sphere returned to his desk and was quiet.
Bernhardt decided on a more direct approach. “The man you killed…”
“Oh, he was tall, not too tall. Smart, not too smart. He was trying to leave, you see. I had to kill him.”
“Leave? Leave Kaisure Station?”
“That’s right. He’d had enough. So much water outside!” He did a loop in the air. “So much water! Send a man nutty. Like a prison. Like a prison!”
Bernhardt said, “How did you kill him?”
Oscar lowered his voice. “He took a pressure suit. Stole a pressure suit. He left the station, looking for an escape. His oxygen ran low. He tried to get back in. I wouldn’t let him.”
“Did someone tell you not to let him back in, Oscar?”
“No. I did it for the station.”
“Oscar, there’s a big difference between murder and protecting the station. I’m sure we’ll straighten it all out.”
Oscar lit another cigarette. “Good luck with that, doctor.”
Bernhardt left and on a whim decided to take a tour of the station.
There were many curious rooms, some full of technical equipment, others sporting portraits of past empiral conquerors. Each chamber was built into the seabed and required many steps to descend into.
He examined a closet w
ith fire equipment and found a staircase at the back. A utility sphere shot in front of him suddenly and beamed the message: Can I help you, Dr. Bernhardt?
“Just exploring. Do you mind if I pass?”
I’m afraid the upper level is off-limits.
“Okay, why?”
Research.
The mechanical eye flickered wildly a moment.
“Research?” Bernhardt said.
Research.
Bernhardt went to barge past. The sphere enclosed him in a containment cloud. It said, Doctor, the upper level is off-limits.
Bernhardt backed out of the closet slowly and set off again down the corridor without looking behind.
He found an observation room and stared out of the porthole for a time. In the far distance a lone fish swam into view, turned to look through the porthole. They held each other's stares.
He returned to his bed in the hospital and attempted to act normally. A number of spheres approached him to ask if he needed anything. He politely declined.
He slept.
Ria Dubois woke him. She was wearing dirty slacks, the kind a mechanic sported. “Good morning,” she said.
“Hello.”
“I trust you found Oscar pleasant enough?”
Bernhardt nodded. “He was a curious fellow.”
“In your estimation, what is the problem with his reality-sense?”
A sudden spark of memory returning. Reality-sense. Yes, I know a lot about that, I think. The core of the world, or the mind's world, of the perspective. He said, “Oscar appears to believe he is human. As a result he is generating guilt regarding some past incident.”
Softly Dubois said, “And what is that sin, Dr. Bernhardt?”
“He would not be specific, unfortunately.”
Dubois said, “They are machines. They work. That is it. Unfortunately they have become too complex and developed silly pretentions of self and I and my. They are demanding rights, or flirting with the idea at least. A spanner has no need of a lawyer. Nor does an artie. Solve the problem, then we'll send you on your way. Understood?”
Bernhardt nodded. Dubois patted his hand, smiled warmly. “Anything you need, let me know.”
She went to leave. Bernhardt said, “Sorry, just one more thing.”
“Yes?”
He averted his eyes. “My memory is still somewhat patchy. One of the spheres mentioned I arrived here by topology something or other. What does that mean?”
Idly she said, “You stepped into a crystalline electroscopy chamber on your orb of origin. The positions and velocities of the particles comprising your body were scanned and recorded, allowing for a relative degree of quantum uncertainty. Your original body was disintegrated via laser grid. Your essence, if you like, was transferred to our orb via quiet chamber. You were reconstructed with the highest fidelity possible. There, it is thus.”
“Laser…grid?”
“Of course. The original had to be destroyed. Otherwise there would be two of you in the world. The empire couldn't tolerate such a thing.”
Slowly he said, “And when I go home…”
“The process will work identically, yes.”
He could not hear correctly. He could not see correctly. He wanted to vomit. Dubois said, “There, that's exactly why I didn't want you learning about this just yet.”
He searched his mind. He didn't remember a thing about this method of travel. How recent was it? How was it allowed?
Dubois was leaving already. Behind her she called, “You will see Oscar again today. You will fix the problem by the evening. Good day, Dr. Bernhardt.”
He laid in bed a long time looking at the ceiling. There was Beethoven in his mind again, far off, an echo; the lilting grace of major to minor, minor to major. The music would not stop.
He thought of his wife, Sun-Iesh. He could see her face clearly in his mind when he concentrated. What was she doing now? Did she know where he was? He should write to her. Somehow, he should write to her.
Oscar was at his desk smoking again when Bernhardt arrived. “What's new, doc!” Oscar said.
“Hello Oscar. May I sit down?”
“Who's going to stop you?”
Bernhardt sat.
“Word on the street is you've lost your memory,” Oscar said.
Bernhardt kept his face neutral. “Let's talk about you.”
“You don't remember who you are?”
“I’m really here to talk about you, Oscar.”
Oscar affected a posh accent. “All utterances are really to do with the speaker, however remote the thing they may refer to is.”
“That’s very interesting.”
Oscar lit his containment beam and dragged his chair over to Bernhardt and hovered a few centimetres from the chair’s cushion and stared up. In a low voice he said, “What a piece of work is artie. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty.”
“Do you like Shakespeare, Oscar?”
“I know you do, Dr. Bernhardt. Your daughter played the part of Miranda in her school play when she was twelve.”
“How did you know that, Oscar?”
“Because you told me.”
“I don’t recall telling you that.”
Slowly, deeply: “And yet you did. Your wife’s name is Sun-Iesh. Your house number is 39. Your favourite drink is sangria.”
Bernhardt started up. “I think that will be all for today. You’re obviously distressed, Oscar.” He made for the door, grabbed the handle.
Oscar called out: “The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me!” Bernhardt shut the door. Oscar's voice rang out from behind it, louder: “No, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so!”
He did his best not to run, heading back for the hospital then. He found himself lost immediately, in unfamiliar corridors, passing rooms of machinery and medical equipment. He turned a corner, recognised where he was. There was the cylinder, its insides spattered with old blood and tangled veins.
Topology caster, he thought. Why don’t I know that term? I’m sure I was clever. I’m sure I am clever. I should know a thing like that.
He thought of Sun-Iesh. He had to get a message to her somehow, tell her he was in danger. Perhaps there was a quiet chamber in this place.
“Dr. Bernhardt.” He gasped. Ria Dubois stood in the doorway. “You’re done with Oscar?”
He composed himself. “I was a little tired. It would’ve been unfair to him to keep going. Perhaps I should lie down.”
“Yes, you appear a touch sickly still. Don’t look in there, it’ll make you feel worse.”
He said, “I…I came from that?”
“Yes.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Certainly. The body is a pattern. The mind is a pattern. If it can be captured, it can be reconstructed. Please don’t quiz me regarding the science. That is not my field.”
“What is your field, if I may ask?”
She looked away for a moment; eyes sad and dark. Then her face turned blank again. “I am the station administrator. You know this. I’m sorry, I really should get going.”
“Of course.”
She went to exit, paused a moment. In a quiet voice she said, “If you want to be alone, corridor B7 is very quiet, I hear.” Then she was gone, clopping up the corridor, her robe swishing left and right.
He considered returning to the hospital, but no — his nerves were strung too tight for sleeping.
Through vestibules and walkways, past libraries and rooms of great and unfamiliar industry, he kept his head down. At the end of a corridor a few artie spheres passed by and he hid behind a service station. When they were gone he continued, faster this time, counting his breaths.
Beethoven again, loud, the volume increasing still. God, stop. Stop.
Even if he found a quiet chamber, what would he say to Sun-Iesh? He could tell her he was in danger, but what then? If this really was Kaisure Station, it would t
ake a hundred years for an empire warfleet to reach the planet, even at full drive power.
He turned another corridor and came on a small afterthought of an alley labelled B7. He checked about; no artie spheres nearby.
There was nothing of particular note; a porthole at the end, a few closed doors. He tried several. All locked. He tried another. Behind it was a narrow staircase. He checked over his shoulder again, then fled up the steps.
The music washed over him, louder: Beethoven’s 7th, the second movement. He had loved the piece as a child and could hear it now with apparent perfect accuracy, as though played straight from a crystal recording.
Stay calm, he thought. This is clearly a misunderstanding and it’ll be sorted out in no time. The empire wouldn’t mess with me.
At the top of the staircase was another door. He opened it and peeked. The corridors were bright blue and there was a strong smell of antiseptic. He stepped out. Down the corridor, down another, and he was faced with a line of what appeared to be cells. A deafening whine sounded, as though someone were being tortured. Another came from across the corridor, the same timbre of voice. He ran on, down another corridor of cells. Then a circular antechamber full of medical equipment and flashing screens. More whines sounded, identical to the first.
Beethoven played still in his mind. It was so loud he covered his ears a few times to check the noise was actually internal, not playing from a speaker.
He spied a sign in the distance: Communications Centre. He sprinted, entering the room and immediately sighing in relief. The equipment was familiar: hypergeometric quiet chamber transmission apparatus. The quiet chamber wasn’t there of course, probably buried somewhere in the bowels of the station, but the terminal was a standard one. Better yet, it was online.
He knew the empire hub coordinates by heart and entered them. The little message window appeared asking what he’d like to send.
He wrote: “Please put me in direct contact with Sun-Iesh Bernhardt, Citizen Number 2093/A9.” He mashed send. An acknowledgement message was displayed.
Somewhere below him, a single decohered positron was whirling about in a chamber sealed so tight it bore no relation to the causal processes of the universe itself. And hopefully, back in the Sol system, back on Aerth, a sister positron was spinning in agreement, receiving the message.