The Fifth Science

by Exurb1a

  But Alexander saw it already. The woman had displayed a quiet but competent understanding of game theory. Now she would offer a deal that was impossible to refuse.

  Io's smile reappeared, though it was formal this time. She addressed the entire room. “Sirs, all Ertian technology is designed in such a way that it is impossible to backwards engineer. Based on my limited understanding I can tell you that engineered man-made particles exist within all of our devices and will confuse any instruments attempting to unlock their secrets. If you were to bombard this device, for example, with your instruments it would register as solid, liquid, and gas all simultaneously.”

  Strange, thought Alexander. If they work with their sister planet, who are they keeping secrets from?

  She continued. “However, it is in my power to turn off this mechanism, making it fully possible to discern the secrets within. If you will grant me just one simple request, I would be happy to surrender my vehicle to you, and its secrets of transformation.”

  All expected Meto to issue an outburst at this, for trying to bargain with a Sar. Instead he said calmly, “What is it you desire in return?”

  “Due to a systems malfunction, Majister Denyer and I were unable to get much of a good look at your sun. There is a great deal I could learn from the study of it. Unfortunately though, in our present position in the ocean—” she corrected herself, “—the worldsea, ionisation from the poles is hampering the view. Plus, pollution from your industries is clouding the sky above somewhat. I've had the chance to examine your maps of the planet and I believe a good viewing spot is only thirty miles from where we are now. Once we arrive I would like to be given a boat to journey several miles away from Tarnovo to get clear readings. You may send as many guards with me as you like. Once I have returned safely to Tarnovo, my craft and its secrets are yours.”

  Dr. Alexander spoke up politely. “Madam, even if you deactivated the mechanism, what makes you think we could recreate the technology?”

  Io considered her reply a moment. “Sirs, please don't take this badly, but Majister Denyer and I knew we would not have much to offer when we arrived. We made sure our craft could be understood by those who shared a…different scientific understanding of the world.”

  She's politely calling us savages, Dr. Alexander thought. “Very well,” he said. “And what might your readings of our sun be for?”

  “Quite simply I want to know how far into the flare cycle it is. I don't mean to alarm you, but if the flares increase, disaster may not be too long from now. Many, many Moraens could die if a flare was big enough.”

  Meto took another draw from his bottle and swashed the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing. He caught Io in the path of his stare. “Do you know what the penalty is for espionage aboard Tarnovo, Miss Clements?”

  “Sir, I'm not—”

  “Do you know?”

  “No sir.”

  “First the skin is peeled from the bone on most areas of the body, with the subject kept alive and awake. Then the muscles beneath are burned with hot plates. Then acid is poured into the wounds. Then the muscles are cut from the bone, one by one, beginning at the feet and ending finally at the head. Then a nail is driven into the head with slow but constant pressure, taking around six hours. In some cases the subject still remains alive.”

  Most of the court officials stared at the ground.

  Io pursed her lips and said, “Sir, I appreciate my tale is fantastical. I would have difficulty believing it too. But I have shown you not only evidence of my differing biology, but technology far beyond—”

  Meto slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. “My father, Ivan Ferdinand, the greatest Sar of Tarnovo, was murdered by a Glossian spy, stabbed through the heart. That spy also came with fantastical tales and stories of all sorts. He also brought magic to the raft, though he didn't claim to be from the black. He arrived with the promise of peace, a diplomat. And what have we to show for it? Blood. Nothing but. So keep your stories. And keep your damn tales. Yes, we will enter into a deal, and yes you can have a boat for a day and a night. But if you even dream of cheating the palace or Tarnovo itself, I will assign fifty of my best strategists to devising tortures hitherto undreamt of in the entire history of this raft.”

  Io nodded. She was about to add something when an aide came to Meto's side, whispered something in his ear, and passed a piece of parchment across.

  Meto read for a moment, then grinned with his usual dark amusement. He passed the parchment to Dr. Alexander and when the mathematician was done reading, Meto said, “What of it?”

  Alexander said carefully, “The signal appears to have been transmitted again. A mechanical failure perhaps.”

  Io said, “Sorry sirs, what is that?”

  As though to a naughty child Meto said, “The message we received just before your arrival, the warning from the satellite. The message has been sent again.”

  Alexander subtly added, “But this time the speed of the craft is different. Still, mechanical failure perhaps…”

  “Well?” Meto shot at Io, close to bellowing. “What of it?”

  Io collected herself. “I believe the satellite isn't lying. There may be another visitor inbound.”

  “From your home, from Erda?”

  “It’s Ertia, sir. And no. Not there.”

  Ertia pulled away behind them. It was a green orb of thriving forest and remained beautiful even from several million kilometres distant. The walls of their craft were transparent now and the two of them — Majister Denyer and Io — appeared to be floating freely in space. Majister Denyer's eyes were closed, the old man in meditation perhaps. Io was unsettled though.

  The craft had been a prototype, stored at the Spatial Physics Faculty, a joint university venture with Al'Hazaad.

  Ertians rarely steal. Ertians rarely own anything anyway, making it difficult to steal in the first place. Still, they had stolen the thing.

  Lacking understanding of its mechanisms, they only ordered it to launch and it launched. They ordered it to leave the atmosphere and it left the atmosphere. There had been a few messages from the Ertian High Justice Court on the way up but Majister Denyer waved them away without comment.

  Now, with the only world she'd known receding, Io thought of children. She'd never really considered having a family, but with the door firmly closing in front of her, she felt the loss of the possibility. There would be no returning to Ertia. For one thing the voidsphere they were travelling in was only capable of surviving a single flight through ribbondash. Besides, even if they somehow returned, Ertia would imprison them immediately for their little act of rebellion.

  Was it so pleasant to have a lover, to have children? Save for the occasional fling with mathematicians, Io hadn't known much in the way of true romantic closeness. From the outside it looked a hassle: arguments and jealousy.

  Still. All mountains worth climbing have their tricky inclines.

  Majister Denyer opened his eyes and his hands appeared from his robe and without warning he began to sign in Mandala.

  We will try our hardest to accurately communicate what cannot really be communicated. To some degree he said: “Everything is in an always-state of change.”

  Io took up Mandala position. “Yes,” she said.

  “Everything making. Everything rotting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Some callings high, some low. Some little, some grand.”

  “Yes.”

  “We are doing an important thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Important things take sacrifice.”

  “Yes, I know. I am not sad.”

  “Don't lie, little bird,” he said. “No shame in the dark things. Did you say your goodbyes?”

  “Yes, but I was not specific regarding where I was going.”

  “Of course. I said goodbyes also.”

  Io paused. In the twenty years she had known him, Majister Denyer had never once mentioned family or friends. “Oh?” she said.


  “I have two daughters and five grandchildren. I said my goodbyes. They will understand one day, all of them.”

  “Yes, Majister.”

  And he made a complex gesture then, the fingers whirling like wild pistons, and the gesture meant something close to: Don't call me by that name again. From now on you may know me by 'Bashta', which was the universal term for 'father', be it biological or otherwise.

  “I will call you Bashta,” she signed.

  Whatever mechanism it was that drove the voidsphere had increased in its power, and now Ertia was pulling away faster behind.

  They stayed in silence for an hour or so and then the orb was an indistinct marble.

  Majister Denyer must have seen the trace of fear in Io's eyes because he signed, “There, we've made history already. No one has travelled this far from the orb in centuries. Exciting, yes?”

  “Exciting, yes.”

  He bent both little fingers to indicate his tone had switched to what we might loosely translate as morbid honesty.

  He signed, “One of us or both of us may have to give our lives for this thing.”

  “I know.”

  “It is too big for less.”

  “I know, Bashta.”

  Neither of them made a show of it, but at the use of this diminutive, at calling him father, a new mood had developed in their little, transparent sphere. With the universe just an invisible plasma sheet away, with the indefatigable heavens laid out before them in silent perpetuity, with their home shrinking to a pixel behind, there was no point denying that they were family now.

  And really, truly, they loved each other.

  Just as the sun was rising over Morae, a second sun came down in a whip of fire and landed in the worldsea. The capsule unfurled into a white disc and sitting on the disc then was a man. His eyes were coal dark and small and quick. His face was thin. He was tall and spindly, giving the appearance of ever-present cleverness, though whether it be the good or the bad kind was hard to tell. It is also fair to say he was very, very handsome.

  His name was Ha'Izaak.

  Beside him a small floating sphere sat in the air. Ha’Izaak said to the sphere, “Where is the nearest habitat?”

  The sphere turned some of itself into an arrow and said, “Three miles that way.”

  “Will they see a flare?”

  “Probably.”

  “Fire one then.”

  The sphere shot off a great burst of red and gold light, high enough to kiss the clouds.

  Within an hour there was a large, grey mass on the horizon. It neared Ha'Izaak and his disc and his sphere. Closer still, it was clearly a gigantic floating structure, entirely symmetrical, a bulbous mass of glass domes and walkways.

  “Go learn the tongue,” Ha'Izaak said to his little sphere.

  The sphere shot off towards the habitat and returned a few minutes later. Inside Ha'Izaak's mind the sphere said, The tongue is simple.

  “Teach me.”

  The sphere taught him.

  Moments later a boat exited the habitat and sped towards Ha'Izaak, several figures aboard. They stopped a few feet from his disc, a man and a woman, dressed in simple overalls.

  Cheerily the man said, “Hello there!”

  “Hi,” Ha'Izaak said.

  “Are you marooned?”

  “I am. I was hoping for assistance.”

  “Yes, of course. May we first ask which raft you come from?”

  Raft? Ha'Izaak asked the sphere with his mind.

  Colloquial term for floating habitats on this orb, came the reply.

  Ha'Izaak said, “I don't come from a raft. I come from the black.”

  The man and woman exchanged a glance. The man pointed to the sky. “From the black?”

  “Yes, a planet called Al'Hazaad.”

  They shared another glance. The woman said, “All right. Well, let's get you to the infirmary to check for injuries, shall we?”

  Ha'Izaak said calmly, “This is going to be very boring if you think I'm a madman. I am not. What is your habitat like? How is it ruled?”

  The woman said, “Well, firstly, its name is Glossia. We are a democratic society. Every three years we elect a First Marquis to administrate things.”

  “Very civilised. That will have to go, of course.”

  The man smiled. “Um?” he said.

  “How technological are you? Do you have a navy? Submersibles and so on?”

  The woman cocked her head. “Let's get you looked over first, check you're not dehydrated, okay?”

  “Okay,” Ha'Izaak said.

  In his mind, to the sphere, he said, Now please.

  The sphere divided into two plates. The plates shot through the throats of the man and the woman, severing their heads. The sphere then cleaned the boat of blood with a field of some kind and said, All done.

  Very kind, Ha'Izaak said and took the boat for his own and aimed it at Glossia and set off.

  The sailing party contained Io, Tisho, Dr. Alexander, and about twenty guards and staff. The boat itself was a posh and royal affair, with drapes covering the scientific instruments; everything decked in velvet. Originally it had been a gift to Maria, Tisho's mother, but when she died giving birth to Tisho himself, it was gifted to the Physics Faculty.

  So far it had taken a day to reach the point Io specified. Oddly she'd informed the others that the sun was best for observing at night.

  Dr. Alexander and Tisho pretended to work for a few hours, then sat on the out-deck drinking beer in the last of the sun.

  Io began setting up the telescopes and equipment on the deck, apparently totally familiar with Tarnovan technology already.

  Dr. Alexander said, “Madam, I don't mean to pry, but would you like to enlighten us on how you're going to use a moon to study the sun's activity?”

  “Certainly! Taking readings directly from the sun helps of course, but moons often give a much clearer picture of solar activity over a long duration. Using spectroscopy we'll be able to see what's happening not just over the course of the day, but back as far as five centuries or so. And since Morae has two moons, double the data!”

  She speaks with excitement, but there's a carefulness too. She tailoured the explanation to my knowledge-level, Dr. Alexander thought. The woman is smarter than she's letting on.

  “Can we help?” Tisho said.

  “Ah yes, that box of lunar photographs, would you lay them out on the desk?”

  Tisho began to do so.

  Dr. Alexander watched Io a while, trying to settle on if she was dangerous or not. Well, if she was, it wouldn't matter if he was here, he decided. He said, “It's been a long day. I might catch some rest for the journey back tomorrow.”

  He bid them both goodnight and retired.

  Io muttered something to her little sphere and the thing shot around at a leisurely speed aligning the equipment for her.

  “Can I ask what that is?” Tisho said, regarding the sphere.

  “She's called Hare. She does things for me.”

  “Hare? After Polly Hare?”

  The sphere broke into pieces and the pieces read, That's right, Tisho. Pleased to meet you.

  The pieces reformed and continued setting up the equipment.

  Io said, “Ah, you know your Aerth history then.”

  “Polly Hare is a religion for some of the rafts here. I never bought into it myself.”

  She stared into space a moment. “How interesting.”

  Tisho said slowly, “Is your little mechanical friend…”

  “Alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then she is mechanical?”

  “Not exactly.” There was a long pause. Io said carefully, “Do you know what the fifth science is, Tisho?”

  “I don't think so.”

  She put her equipment down and leant back against the guardrail. “Your planet has gone its own way with progress. And what an interesting planet it is. Back on Ertia though we were
lucky enough to inherit much of the Old Empire's smarts. As far as they were concerned there were four categories of knowledge. There was the first science which dealt with base reality: mathematics and logic. There was the second science which dealt with the fields based on mathematics: physics and chemistry you would call them. The third dealt with the study of individuals, psychology. The fourth dealt with large groups, population science, sociology, history, you know. Towards the end of the empire though, there was a fifth science, we believe. It was the study of making non-living things living.”

  “Like biology?”

  “No, not biology.” She considered the next sentence. “Tarnovans aren't religious, are they?”

  “Some are. Some aren't.”

  “So, do you believe it's the brain that makes humans self-aware, makes them conscious?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think other things could be conscious? Not just other animals, but other things in the universe?”

  “I hadn't really considered it before, to be honest.” Wow, he thought. So she's a spiritual nut?

  Io said, “Well, the Old Empire got very good at making things conscious through rearranging structures atomically. I believe it was called The Pasternak Process.”

  “And Ertia knows how to do this too?”

  She shook her head with open regret. “No. We understand some of the science, but most of it is lost. We can make changes, make fixes, but no one on Ertia has succeeded in creating a conscious object from scratch.”

  He nodded to the sphere and said quietly, “Then how…”

  “Hare and her sphere friends are very old, from the Old Empire directly. We inherited them. They don't wear out, you see. They don't get tired.” She glanced at the thing with mock anger. “They also won't tell us a damn thing about the Old Empire.”

  The sphere exploded into words for a moment: You only get as much as you can handle, Io.

  “And they have these machines on Al'Hazaad too?” Tisho said.

  Io looked out to the worldsea. “Yes. They have a different way of life there though.”

  “How?”

  The sphere wrote: Not everyone is as kind to us as the Ertians. On Ertia we're free. On Al'Hazaad we are altered to be compliant.