by Nigel Foster
“You hide it well.”
“Always did. This is different.”
“You’ve admitted it. To you, to me. It’ll be easier to control. Wait.”
Greenaway reached into a pocket and took out a small cube made of some silvery metal. “Here.”
“Is what?”
“Never managed to open it. Have no idea what it does. It’s been my luck.” The concern in his eyes belied the lightness of speech.
“What that alien gave you?” Kara took the box and smiled. He was sharing his wife’s death, his youth with her. “You believe in luck. Who knew?”
Greenaway watched as she went into the SUT and the airlock door closed noiselessly behind her. He would have liked to say goodbye with a sonnet, and his AI could, but that wasn’t the same as already knowing one. The only poetry he could think of was a mere scrap, something about betrayal and a coward with a kiss, a brave man with a sword, but the rest of the words were lost to him. Except he had no intention of betraying Kara. He might use people, but never betray their trust.
Except once. And Tatia would never forgive him.
Five minutes later there was a faint whine and the SUT rose slowly into the air and then, unlike city state SUTs, rapidly accelerated.
Cleo moved closer. “I could do with a drink.”
“Wine for explanations?”
“No apologies, Anson. It was necessary.”
He was still watching Kara’s SUT leaving Earth, hoping against hope that Tse had got it right. That this was the only way Earth had a chance, slim but real. And was it too much to hope that Tatia, Kara and Marc would come home safely?. Then realised he hadn’t thought of his dead wife once in the past twelve hours. Was that a good thing?
A last flash in the sunshine and the SUT vanished from sight.
“Do you have any plans?” Cleo asked.
“Back to Berlin. Try to stem the tide. Do we know how this madness happens?”
“The AIs react to a very strong signal originating many light years away.” A signal that was either initiated thousands of Earth years ago, or one that moved at many times light speed, or somehow used netherspace. In any event it was a technology far beyond Earth’s current abilities, even the Wild – and would have made Earth even more dependent on the alien pre-cogs than before. Human civilisation throughout the galaxy was already run by AIs.
Greenaway glanced up at the sky. Maybe Kara and Tatia were better off out of it. No. They weren’t. They were better off with him.
“The Free Spacers will monitor Kara’s SUT. In and out of netherspace. But they’ll only get involved if death is imminent.”
That makes it all so much easier, Greenaway thought. “We’re sure Marc will help? What if he stays unconscious?”
“He’s connected to netherspace more than any other human. It seems to like him. As did the nature entity. Both are inimically opposed to the pre-cog ethos. They’ll protect him and anyone with him.”
“You’ve been dealing with this shit longer than me.”
Almost a hundred years longer. As Kara had sensed, like pre-cogs the Exchange were very long lived, Cleo also belonged to one of the first families to establish trade with aliens. When Michelangelo was doodling on a Vatican ceiling, and Vikings fished the seas of North America, her ancestors were becoming incredibly wealthy – in a very discreet, no flash, no glitter kind of way.
“Does Kara have any inkling?” Cleo asked.
“Of?” But he knew the answer. “She has to. So many deaths have been targeted. She understands how pre-cog works.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m fucking sure,” he snarled. “Kara has to figure it out herself.” It was integral to the Tse plan. If Kara was told, she’d act differently later. Of course, if she didn’t figure it out, she’d probably end up dead... betrayed by a coward with a kiss.
Cleo looked curiously at the man she’d mentored for thirty years. “Any regrets?”
“What would be the point? There’s no other choice.” And never was.
“That artefact you gave her...”
“Had it for years—” Cleo cut him off.
“I remember you saying how you got it. But why Kara?”
Greenaway half smiled. “It seemed the right thing to do.”
“And now you’ve fallen in love.”
“It’s that obvious?”
Cleo smiled. “As are her feelings for you. Except she hasn’t quite admitted them yet. You’ve come a long way. Both of you.”
“Wasn’t that always the plan?”
“I hoped you’d find happiness. But it wasn’t an imperative. Sorry.”
“Let’s go find that wine.”
They walked back to the mill house in silence, Cleo wondering if she should tell Anson the truth... probably not. These days everyone needed whatever hope they could find. Tse had lied because he’d had to. He and other pre-cogs hadn’t seen Kara, Tatia and Marc defeating the pre-cog empire. All they could do was delay Earth’s absorption. Buy enough time for the Wild to establish human colonies throughout the galaxy, and prepare a resistance movement on Earth.
In military terms, one of those rearguard actions that often ends in death.
Then another thought came into her mind, a familiar and unwelcome question.
Greenaway had been manipulated by Tse and the Exchange. In turn he’d manipulated Kara and Marc. But what if...
Think about it. How human psychic abilities survived to flower when they were most needed. How families like her own had gained so much power over the centuries. All so convenient. Maybe too convenient.
What if the Exchange, all humanity, was manipulated by an unknown group? Perhaps an alien race who were against the pre-cog empire? Or for some other, alien reason that humans would never understand?
What if?
6
The only familiar thing in the Wild SUT was a faint smell of curry. For a moment Kara was reminded of the RIL-FIJDOQ – shipping containers welded together then covered in Gliese foam, her first time in the Up – and a crew space more like the waiting room for an illegal human spare parts dealer. But then the old DOQ was only used on the Earth–Mars run, despite the pretension of its mission manager – was Leeman-Smith still alive somewhere? Still boasting about the grandfather who made first contact with the Gliese? In reality, Smith’s grandfather had been the first (and unwilling) trade between humans and the Gliese, on the moon. He’d been delivered strapped to a girder, in exchange for a star drive and a demonstration of how it worked. Correction: of how humans could use it. How it worked was a different matter.
She remembered sitting at the battered table with Marc, Tse and Tatia. Her people, who she’d promised to bring home. Tse now dead, suicided because the pull of the alien pre-cogs had become too strong. And because he was tired and could find no other way to rest.
Tatia who’d been bred to defeat an enemy yet to be identified or understood... and had gone off on her own to find them.
Only Marc was left, now strapped to a bunk and drooling slightly, here but not here, his mind still connected to netherspace, and how the hell could she ever know or understand what he saw? Back on the DOQ he’d told her about watching the vid screen as a lone meteorite drifted past and knowing a curiously attractive cosmic loneliness. The musings of a psychopathic artist, she’d laughed at him, but now she wasn’t sure how much of either still applied to him.
Ishmael sounded impatient:
< When you’re finished with memory lane.
> Go fuck a whale.
< We got places to go.
Kara sighed. It had been a mistake to give her AI a name. Its predecessor could be bloody-minded but was definitely AI. Ishmael was sounding more human by the day. She looked round the Wild’s SUT control room and sighed again. All sleek, curving surfaces and control panels arranged around a central group of three ergonomic chairs. She had no idea how anything worked.
< That’s what I’m for. Me and the SUT’s AI. Team
Kara.
> Kara needs to know. Data dump.
She steeled herself for the sudden rush of information.
< Er, no need. It’s already there. Happened at the simulity training.
What else was hiding inside her mind?
> What happens to data that’s never accessed?
< It has a shelf life. One moment waiting to be useful. The next, phhhtt! Gone in an instant. Sad.
> It’s not AI.
< It’s mathematics. Programming. Information. It has an awareness. Even quadratic equations got needs. No, not really. But you ask any seriously good mathematician, they’ll tell you maths are somehow alive. How could they not be? Ishmael was warming up. < They’re the basis, they express the pattern of all life. It’s just most humans define life in their own image. It sounded contemptuous. < Used to do the same with their gods, too. Except they’re still arguing over what life really is. Can’t agree about mind, either. Especially since us AIs showed up.
> So what exactly are you? The question she’d long wanted to ask, but had been nervous about the answer. Kara sat down on the centre chair and called up the SUT’s AI, told it to go Up, even as her fingers flickered over the control panel that had appeared on the chair’s right arm. A large vid screen flashed into life opposite. Ishmael was right. She did know how to operate the SUT – but was now content to let the SUT’s AI do it. The screen showed two tiny figures on the ground. Kara ordered maximum enlargement and saw Greenaway and Cleo, both staring up at her.
< I’m you.
> What?
< I am your mind writ large. It’s what the tech does: captures your mind, copies and increases its potential. I can do nothing that one day humans will not do themselves unaided. Assuming you live so long, as a race.
> Crap. There’s more. Tell me.
< I do extend into other dimensions. It helps communicate with other AIs. Like a shortcut.
> But if alien tech can capture my mind...
< It’s just tech, Kara. Essentially, a vast memory bank existing in six dimensions that, for reasons no one seems to understand, means that the memory operates way faster than light... which is anyway an arbitrary measurement. My house might be alien – although these days they’re manufactured in several places in the Wild – but I’m as human as you. With differences. Like no body. There again, yours is more than enough for two.
> But you’re not me! You have your own... personality. You’re male.
< I can be either sex. I am both sexes and everything in between. It’s just that you get on better with men. Overall prefer sex with men, too.
> My sex life is not for discussion. Not with a fucking chip.
< No more no less than what you’ve told yourself.
Kara stood up. You can’t actually walk away from your AI. But the symbolism was important. What else did the damn thing know? Her emotions regarding Marc and Greenaway? And if Ishmael did – Kara was now thinking very loudly – would he have enough sense to shut the fuck up?
< Where are we going?
> To check on Marc.
< I knew that. I mean we. In the universe. That sort of going.
> Can you and the SUT AI get us to where Tatia left with the pre-cogs?
< Yup. Three days. Earth days.
> Then go there. Do I need to put markers on the n-space drive?
< Yesterday’s technology. Gliese have been selling you short for years. This star drive is the size of a football, tucked away under the front display screen and fully automated.
Kara felt strangely calm. Greenaway had said the Wild drives were different.
> Still get the light show?
< Always. For the full immersive n-space experience, the hull can become transparent. Some Wilders try to achieve enlightenment a millisecond before n-space drives them insane. Others believe limited access to n-space enhances the sexual experience.
> I wouldn’t know.
< So we’re ignoring the climax in the engine room, are we? However, this SUT’s AI only allows minimal exposure. It wants to be introduced, by the way.
> That thing with Henk was full n-space exposure?
She recreated the scene in her mind: incredible, pulsating colours from the huge globe that was apparently an antique star drive... while Henk’s eyes had flickered with the same colours, her own orgasm almost scarily overwhelming. For a moment she’d known every human emotion imaginable, and several that could only be alien.
< Partial. Marc experienced the full one.
And what the hell had it done to him?
> That Henk, such a busy little bastard.
< I suspect his true role was to have sex with Marc and yourself.
> You’re fucking joking!
< It was necessary for your development. A quicker way to link both of you permanently with n-space. This SUT’s AI? Saying hello?
> Bloody Greenaway!
< Actually, that would have been Tse. I hate to gossip, but it seems that Greenaway is quite protective of you. Please, Kara. Let me introduce you. Wilders can be very formal. I think it’s a reaction against so much raw nature.
> Do it.
< May I present Salome, Integral AI to the Wild SUT named Merry Christmas. Salome, this is Kara Jones, Sniper/Assassin First Class, Plenipotentiary Extraordinary for the GalDiv Director and leader of this expedition.
Kara held out an imaginary hand.
> Good to meet you.
<< Hi, babe. A woman’s voice, full of laughter.
> Merry Christmas?
<< We got rid of the trifeca system years ago. Who wants to go through life sounding like an alphabet?
> Why Salome?
<< Know the legend, babe?
> Myth.
<< Not Mithus? Miz?
> There will be no punning! Yes, I know.
<< Bad ass, well sexy woman, fucking over the schmuck who said no.
Kara wondered if AIs had some form of mental sex – or simply relied on their humans to do it for them.
> Do not answer, either of you! And it’s Kara, not babe.
As she left the control room, Kara heard the faint sound of two AIs giggling like children. But that could be all in her mind.
* * *
She found Marc as they’d left him, strapped in to the bed, eyes now closed, breathing slowly. The med-aid hummed reassuringly. Marc’s vital functions were fine, his heartbeat slow but strong. He could breathe unaided. The small piece of doorframe was still in his hand. There was a faint smell of disinfectant. She wiped the spittle from his mouth, kissed his forehead and sat down and held his hand.
“Where the fuck are you, Keislack?”
Marc’s eyes flickered open.
Netherspace stared out at Kara.
Her initial reaction was to look away. Instead, she forced herself to stare back, hoping to understand what had happened to him... and if Marc Keislack could be saved.
She got an answer, an empath’s answer in which emotion dominated logical thought, analogue controlling digital.
Marc’s body was here. But until Marc’s essence had finished whatever it was doing in netherspace and/or the universe, she could only wipe his face and hold his hand... and believe that he would return.
Just another woman waiting for her bloody man.
Except he wasn’t her man, not in that sense.
He was her friend and part of the team that would destroy the pre-cog attempt to control all sentient life, everywhere. The friendship was more important.
* * *
When Marc’s body had first crashed out of netherspace he’d been aware of a dark, cold place. A hard floor beneath his naked body. He’d tried to move but could manage no more than the faintest tremble. Gradually he’d felt his mind being drawn back into netherspace. For now he was aware his body was safe and looked after. He had no idea by whom or where. Or how he would finally get home.
There was no more awareness of the primal entity he’d glimpsed and longed to see... to be with. He was be
ing carried by the unpredictable currents of netherspace, drifting wherever they chose to take him. Yet netherspace wasn’t aware, as far as he knew. It couldn’t make choices, any more than a slime mould can. Drifting wherever the mathematics underpinning that bizarre, non-Euclidian realm dictated that he went. He had no vision, hearing or sense of touch. He was a man wandering around an art gallery full of works that baffled him but which for whatever reason he needed to understand.
No sight, no sound, nothing to touch, but he thought there would be a smell tingling in his nostrils, if he had any, and similar at the back of his non-existent tongue. A high-pitched lemon scent. Real phenomena detected by imaginary organs because the real organs couldn’t cope.
High-pitched lemon. Metaphor or synaesthesia? His senses cross-pollinating each other? Someone called Scriabin had been synaesthesic, experienced sound as colours, colours as sound, and that had resulted in Prometheus, the Mystic Chord. Someone else called Kandinsky had tried to meld mathematics and colour and form. How did he know this? Was it important?
Value judgements implied emotion.
He did know that emotion was dangerous in netherspace. It could attract entities that might destroy him.
Was curiosity an emotion? Or was it something that characterised intelligence?
Maybe curiosity was all there was. Maybe after he’d faded away his curiosity would remain, like the Cheshire Cat’s grin. Marc wondered what a Cheshire Cat was, and where he’d heard about it.
Time didn’t seem to exist in netherspace and, despite the name, neither did space. Instead, things seemed to just wash through him, filling him for an uncountable eternity with sensations for which he had no names, tumbling him over and over like flotsam in the middle of a vast and dark ocean.
Flotsam and jetsam. Nooks and crannies. Bits and bobs. For what might have been nanoseconds or might alternatively have been geological epochs he pondered the vagaries of language. Why all these different ways of saying the same thing? And yet, wasn’t that where the art was? Having fifty words for rain meant you could be subtle in your choice, using shades of meaning and implication the way an artist used hues of colour and a musician used timbre and volume. That was the underlying difference between art and science. An equation had no subtlety.