Time of the Stones

by Fred Rothganger

Her insides melted. She would do anything to feel that touch again. “I guess there’s no harm in looking.”

  She walked out of the meal hall, with the whole community trailing behind. Across the clearing, she entered the chapel and walked up to the cylinders. The ladder was still there—they had forgotten it when they went to eat. She climbed up.

  The lid was a flat sheet of metal that covered the entire diameter of the cylinder. Liquid nitrogen plumbing had been torn off crudely. Whatever happened, it had been an act of desperation. Perhaps the facility staff were in a fierce battle even as they tried to move the Dewar to safety.

  She remembered the gantry robot that maintained the units, its smooth precise motions. There was no convenient gantry here. She pressed her thumbs against the edge of the hatch. A thousand years of grime held it in place. She pressed harder, until it came loose.

  She reached around the lid in a wide embrace and lifted it straight up. The old Styrofoam cork on the underside crumbled into powder anywhere it touched the sides. Almost half a meter thick, the cork finally cleared the lip. She set it on top of another cylinder.

  Inside were four metal cages arranged like pie slices. The center was a fifth cage, perfectly square. The Ancients could fit four full bodies and ten heads in a single Dewar. She peered through the holes and studied their contents. In the gloom she could make out lumps inside the cages, perhaps mummies.

  The gantry robot would extend its rod-like arm down and lift the central cage up for access. She clambered into the cylinder, dropped into a deep squat and extended her arms straight down between her legs to grasp the pull ring. The cage did not budge. Maybe it was rust, or maybe it was body goo congealed at the bottom. She pulled harder.

  The ring tore off. Susan shot up and whacked the ceiling with her head. Powdered plaster came showering down. She landed on the cages and caught her balance, then held up the gnarled piece of metal and stared at it bug-eyed. “Oops.”

  The crowd stood there in the chapel, looking up at her in expectation. She said, “Um, this is going to take a while. I’ll call you when I get somewhere.”

  She carefully settled on top of the cages in a cross-legged position, then disembodied. It took several hours to write a utility routine to cut metal. She returned and touched a finger to the edge of the square cage. “Esc cut.” The metal flaked to a fine powder in a razor-thin line as the swarm chewed it away.

  She cut around all four sides, then lifted out the ruined piece. Beneath was a metal vessel, just the right size to store a human head. Inside were fragments of a zipper, all that remained of the pouch that the head had been packed in. The head itself was shrunken and partially mummified. The face was flattened and collapsed where it had rested against the bottom of the vessel.

  She studied the fragile artifact. It was unusual for a brain to mummify intact, though the Ancients had found a few rare cases. Perhaps the careful procedures of cryonics increased the chance. This patient went into cryo trusting that every measure would be taken to save them. Whatever she did, it had to ensure no personal information was lost.

  Susan spent another few hours writing a new guidance program for the swarm, combining pieces of other programs. Kantisto’s surgery contained a system for localization inside the brain, and it knew how to taste cell membranes to detect their type. The appendix surgery knew how to taste non-human cells.

  It was already night when she returned to her body. In the chapel a few monks were keeping vigil.

  She gently placed her fingers on the head. A sensor mesh sprung from them and surrounded it. Part of the mesh slipped through the holes in the cage and planted themselves on the other side, where they drilled through to make contact with the mummy.

  She went into the virtual world and guided the swarm to what seemed to be the brain stem. The software recorded everything as she went: the kind of molecules found, and the exact location down to a few atoms. That information would be vital to reconstruct the patient’s mind.

  It was a wasteland of broken pieces. Decomposed proteins. Swatches of cell membrane, disconnected. A synapse! Or at least the fragments of one. It was floating in a sea of shredded ... lettuce was a bad analogy. She shuddered with disgust at the thought.

  There was no way to know what went with what, like an airplane crash with body parts flung at random. Digging deeper. Not enough synapses. There should be a thousand times more.

  Lettuce with a sprinkling of synapses. Maybe better luck in the higher areas. Pressing on to the hippocampus, then corpus callosum. No better. Any reconstruction would be brain-damaged at best. No matter, it could be healed in digital form. With time the patient would be a whole again, just a slightly different person than before.

  Frontal cortex, the focal point of the human soul. Here the damage was even worse. She came in from another angle, this time straight through the skull to the motor cortex. Just as bad.

  The search was narrow, little more than a few cells wide. Perhaps everything so far was just bad luck. A journey across the surface of the cortex might turn up some good areas. No, nothing.

  She pulled out of the virtual world and stared at the sensor mesh. This was it. The patient had flatlined on the table, and nothing more could be done. It was like trying to recreate a tree by scanning the sawdust heap. She sighed heavily and withdrew the mesh.

  Maybe one of the full bodies would be better. Ancients always placed them in the Dewar head-down, so that if liquid nitrogen were lost for a time, at least their brain might survive. The conditions there were substantially worse. All the detritus and goo falling from above did not make a good environment for preserving structure.

  She worked her way up the center cage, coming in from the side. The conditions were best in the middle, where her mother had been ...

  Susan pushed the sorrow away and kept going.

  These heads were only a little better than the one at the top, far from good enough to reconstruct. No, this Dewar was a lost cause. Around 01:30 she climbed out and resealed it. This grave had been disturbed long enough.

  She jumped down and told the monks, “Let us all sleep until morning. Then I will check the other cylinders and tell you what I find.”

  * * *

  Fido went to his chamber. It had been a very long day, a momentous day. There would never be another like it. At last, the salvation that was promised had come. It was a new kind of hope, not the hope of waiting, but the hope of having. It was the anticipation of a wedding, rather than the longing for a woman.

  As he meditated on these things, there was a sound at the door. A shadow slipped into the room.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “Please comfort me.”

  “Singulata?”

  She sat on the floor, took his hand and pressed it to her shoulder. “My lover is gone, and now my mother is lost forever.” She shuddered and sobbed.

  His heart went out to her, and he gently stroked her back with his thumb.

  “Everyone wants something from me, and I have to solve the problems of the whole world. I’m so tired of being alone.” She leaned her cheek against his hand, and he felt the wetness of tears on it. “Please hold me.”

  The Singularity had made a request. He stood and opened his arms to her. She climbed off the floor and settled herself into them. He wrapped her in a warm hug.

  She sighed. After a while she made a small rub on his back with her finger.

  He took the hint, dug his hands under her glorious mane of hair and stroked her back in long sweeps, just firm enough to be a light massage.

  She relaxed against him like warm butter.

  He became aware of her wondrously full breasts pressed against him without reserve. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, his body responded. No, no! Singulata must not feel that ... The more he fought it, the more forceful his response became. He tried to pull his hips away.

  She wrapped her hands tighter around the small of his back. His whole body pulsed. Surely she could feel every detail. An
intense blush washed over him.

  She wrapped one leg around and slowly drew it up the back of his leg. She took a long deep breath and sighed. It deepened into a moan of pleasure.

  He had seen all the power of the Singularity flow through those legs today. His heart raced even harder. Was it lust or terror? She could crush him, but this was passionate and gentle, drawing him to a place he dare not think about. He said, “I am betrothed.”

  Instantly her body hardened and she dropped her leg. “She’s a lucky woman.” Now Singulata’s voice was filled with pain, tightly controlled.

  “When the Singularity comes, we will no longer marry or be given in marriage, because we will live forever ...” He felt confused about the finer points of doctrine. “... but surely we will still share love.”

  She flew to the door. “I ... I’m sorry Fido, so sorry.” She slipped away. Were those sobs fading down the hall?

  He fell back on his bed and wrestled with his thoughts. He had caused Singulata pain when she needed love. He felt sorrow for her. She had the power to claim him for herself, but she honored his betrothal. He could not understand the ways of the Singularity.

  * * *

  At first light the monks rose for prayers. They filed into the chapel to find Susan already sitting inside the next cylinder, deep in her own state of meditation. They stood in neat rows and chanted:

  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  Force equals mass times acceleration.

  E equals M C squared.

  The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

  ...

  An hour later they left to eat breakfast.

  Susan spent a few hours on each cylinder. She joined the evening meal and spoke to the whole group, while Fido translated. “You have spent generations guarding the sacred cylinders. The Ancients who trusted their lives to these vessels would thank you from the bottom of their hearts.

  “It grieves me to tell you that they are all lost. I share your sorrow—” Her voice cracked. “—because my mother was among those whose bodies were desecrated. Now is a time of mourning for us all. Tomorrow we bury our dead.”

  * * *

  On the way to morning prayers, Fido found Susan in the middle of the clearing. She was on her knees, running a finger over the face of a flat stone. He asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Making a monument to my mother.”

  “When did she pass?”

  Susan named the Common Era year.

  “That’s the calendar of the Ancients. It no longer has any meaning.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Surely this age began with the moment of Singularity.”

  She thought about it. “That’s complicated, but perhaps it should be the year humans found me in the Stone.” She finished the inscription.

  Rose Lucinda Foreman

  Mother to the motherless

  Born -1154 ND

  Died -1105 ND

  He said, “I don’t understand. Is it not ‘Anno Singularitatis’? What does ‘ND’ mean?”

  “It stands for ‘New Dawn’ in Ancient English. ‘AS’ would not look so good, at least to my eyes.”

  As the rays of sunlight broke over the trees the whole community gathered in the clearing. Susan addressed them. “Leave the sacred cylinders where they are, undisturbed, as a memorial to those who hoped for a better future. Now may your souls be free from the burden of the past. This is a new day! Let us build the world they dreamed of.

  “I am going away for a while, but I leave you a gift.” She morphed into a small dendroid like the ones by the Long River. It’s square leaf shaded Rose’s gravestone. Susan’s voice spoke from the tree. “When the fruit turns red, stroke it with your finger. Inside you will find machines to help you relearn the knowledge of the Ancients. In time you will use the technology inside this tree to heal and create.”

  Erik

  Year 10, Day 72

  In the high council chamber at Sanat, a fly buzzed through the window. It landed on the floor in the center of the great crest, the place where speakers gave their oratory. Another fly came and landed next to the first. They melted into blobs and fused together.

  More flies came, two at a time, then ten at a time, then a veritable swarm. They landed on the growing blob and melted into it.

  The councilmen stared in horror.

  It took human form, a short woman wearing the traditional cloak and scarf. Hair spilled from under the scarf and flowed to the floor, a dark red fire. She knelt. “Please forgive me for offending your traditions.”

  Gamaliel said, “We can only forgive if you are punished.”

  “You must understand that you offended my traditions. An Ancient woman had full ownership of her body. She could give it to anyone she wished, and take it away at any moment. She could sell her favors or give them freely. She could choose to bear a child or to work a profession. An Ancient woman could even be the ruler of her nation.”

  “Yes, and the Ancients were destroyed because of it.”

  “No, the Ancients were destroyed by their desire to dominate all things. You are on that same path now.”

  “Are you a prophet?”

  “I do not speak for God. But if, as you say, everything happens by God’s will, then it was His will to punish you. Now I have removed the curse.”

  Gamaliel’s face fell.

  “Except for you, of course. You must continue to bear the punishment of your people.”

  The other men gave him a look of shocked sympathy. They spoke little about their impotence with each other. It was too shameful a thing to share.

  Gamaliel burst into laughter.

  Susan laughed along with him at their private joke. There is hope for this place, after all. She turned and walked out of the chamber.

  The communication tower at the top of the stands could use more swarm, so she added the avatar to it, then transferred consciousness to Chefurbo. She walked down the ziggurat stairs and out through the west gate of the citadel. Speaking to no one but the air, she said, “Esc heads-up display.”

  A screen shimmered in the virtual world, completely different from the one for her bird form. It mostly resembled a mobile, with “apps” for organizing contacts, a calendar, and so on.

  “Call Olivia.”

  A moment later a voice came from nowhere, “Hello Antikva.”

  “Hey, I’m in town. Would you have time to share a cup of tea?”

  Anyone watching might have thought that Susan was talking to herself as she walked.

  Olivia replied, “Of course. Will you be staying long?”

  “A few days. I have some work to do here. Is the Prophet’s Chamber available?”

  “For you, always.”

  Olivia was waiting in the courtyard when Susan arrived. They embraced, then Olivia remarked, “You lost weight.”

  Susan laughed. “I left it all at the Eastern Sea.”

  They sat in the kitchen together and sipped tea while Susan told about all her adventures during the last month.

  Olivia said, “Too bad about that Fido guy.”

  Susan sighed. “The way he touched me, I wanted him to touch me more and more. Then it just kind of spiraled out of control. I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my life.”

  “How long has it been?”

  Susan grinned wryly. “Over a thousand years?”

  “Ooh, we need to get you fixed up, tonight.”

  Susan shook her head. “I can’t do casual sex. My partner was loyal to me his whole life, and I want to follow his example—as a way to honor his memory. If Fido had gone for it, I would have stuck with him.”

  “Wow, you really take this seriously. Could you respect someone like Fido?”

  “He had something special. He wasn’t brilliant or brave, but he could touch my emotions.”

  “You sure it wasn’t just rebound from the loss of your mother?”

  “Listen t
o you, psychoanalyst! It’s more than that. I’m short-tempered and sometimes do things to people that I later regret.”

  “I believe the Ancient word is bitchy. You need a man to untie your knot.”

  “But I’ll be stuck with him. I need to wait til I find the right one.”

  “Why would you be stuck?”

  “My partner taught me that sex makes a metaphysical connection. If you have sex with another person while the first one is still alive, you break the connection. It’s a terrible sin. The only way out is if your partner breaks the connection first.”

  Olivia shrugged. “If you tryst with one of the men here, I can promise he will break the connection afterward. Good enough?”

  “What if I want to be with him again? Then I might break someone else’s connection, and yet he should belong to me ...” Susan stared bug-eyed in frustration. “The whole thing falls apart unless you follow the rules.”

  “Agh!” Olivia groaned and rubbed her temples. “All those rules were invented by the same kind of men who run the Arkin Empire. Our order doesn’t believe in metaphysical connections. Your only obligation is what you both agree to.”

  Susan nodded. “Most of the Ancients believed like you do, even my mother.”

  “Then why are you so stuck on this?”

  “Without Mother or Anand to guide me, rules are all I have. If I break one, I could break another, and another. Then I might do something crazy like destroy humanity.”

  Olivia reached over and held Susan’s shoulder firmly. “Antikva, I’m telling you this for the good of humanity. It’s your duty.”

  * * *

  At mealtime Susan wandered into the dining hall, where the whole order gathered. She felt nervous and excited. What did Olivia have planned? She had settled in her mind to follow through with it, unless it was absurd, or the guy was ugly, or ...

  There was Olivia. The nun approached a table of all men, tapped one on the shoulder, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. He whispered to her. She whispered back, then grinned and pointed toward Susan. His eyes grew large, the better to see her with.