Authors: John Meaney
Absorption (18 page)
‘I’m glad I instantiated you, darling.’
‘And I have your propensity for talking to myself, so thanks from me. It’s been the highlight of my existence.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’
Sadness made both their voices heavy, their words somehow viscous.
‘I’ll be going now,’ said Rashella2.
‘I—’
‘Good luck.’
Rashella2 dissolved into a virtual blizzard of shards and facets that whipped and rotated through the air and out of existence. Her constituent code would be scattered and absorbed in Skein, as a human’s atoms spill into the universe on death.
‘So,’ said the original. ‘Time for that interface.’
She stared at the shining cylinder.
<
{init(){handshake(getProtocol())})>>
Somewhere - all around, or deep inside her: she could not tell - a hot glow intensified, a growl became like thunder, and the whole world became a maelstrom of stomach-dropping vertigo and whirling sensations, a tornado of chaos.
Just for a second, spinning fragments of light tried to coagulate, to reform; and a broken, jagged outline of Rashella2’s hand reached out toward her creator, virtual cracked lips attempted to cry a warning; but then the blizzard hit and Rashella2 was gone, dissolved in Skein forever.
The real Rashella spun then toppled to the polished floor.
Blackness.
Except, perhaps, for the distant part of her awareness that tracked the progress of her house drones, who slid from their wall-caches and drew near, then stopped, trembling where they stood, unable to come closer.
As her universe became a howl of madness.
TWELVE
EARTH-CLASS EXPLORATORY EM-0036, 2146 AD
Sharp retreated into cover, but not far, sure that the fragrant bushes would hide him.
He had seen the creature, and remembered every detail: clothed (therefore intelligent), slim and tiny, no antlers, and only a single thumb on each hand. It had made a campsite of sorts, with shining objects that looked crafted. Nothing in his memory indicated that his ancestors had ever come across such a thing.
And it was alone. Could it be an outcast, a casteless one like himself?
Casteless.
So it was time to confront that thought. He had run away, placed himself beyond friends, beyond codes of conduct. Thinking that, he felt his childhood drop away. His northern nomadic forebears had survived; and so would he.
Strangely without fear, he stood straight up, and headed back directly to the interloper’s camp.
The creature rose, its head reaching barely halfway up Sharp’s chest. Yes, those coverings were clothing for sure. As the creature’s mouth moved, Sharp’s interior ear detected faint sound, not unpleasant.
From a shining box, several small insects took flight, and joined their fellows who were hovering above the creature. Were they under its thrall somehow?
Sharp broadcast his name, pointing at himself with all four thumbs.
Then he waited.
Possibly the creature’s face wrinkled. It took a step back. Perhaps it was sick; perhaps it needed time to think. Then suddenly it leaped to the shining box that had produced the insects, and began to gesture at it, using intricate flickering finger movements, while its mouth worked.
Patterns of light shone above the box. Sharp drew closer. Then a blast of scent made him stumble backward.
~SHARP!
The box had emitted his name. Astounding. It meant the creature could communicate, or might learn to, and that was the answer to everything.
His answering scent was simple, the fragrance of happiness.
For here was his opportunity. Casteless and untouchable, he might yet taste knowledge far beyond the long-digested traditions of the Council Elders. The power of novelty was his.
The thought made him salivate profusely.
For Rekka, the alien was a brooding ursine presence with watchful amber eyes. It wore a short sleeveless robe, hood thrown back. Seated, its head was level with hers when she stood. It kept still, not because of her beeswarm flying overhead - the alien probably did not understand how dangerous they were - but because it understood her fear, and wanted to reassure her.
At least, that was how she interpreted its posture and gestures. But how anthropomorphic could her thinking be? This planet’s lifeforms approximated the division between animal and plant kingdoms; and many animal species had a close analogue of spines and jointed limbs, along with bilateral symmetry. In the context of xenoevolution, that made this world almost identical to Earth.
Still, this alien’s cells bore no DNA - of course - so however Earthlike it looked, she had fundamentally more in common with a centipede or jellyfish, even a fungus.
Except that intelligence is an emergent property, arising from many kinds of substrate.
And I’m the alien here.
Light rain, softer than tears, began to fall. Rekka wiped drops from her forehead, then slowly approached the creature and touched its cheek. Damp fur over hard bone. Then it took her hand in its double-thumbed grip, turned it palm-up, and gave a soft, darting lick, its tongue rasping. She closed her eyes, shuddering, remembering MacDuff: her adoptive parents’ collie, shaking himself indoors after a rainy walk.
Finally, she opened her eyes and backed away, then returned to her biofact. Light-headed, she worked on the displayed codeframes, evolving aggregates and subtypes, initiating two evolution threads. Soon she would be able to transmit to . . . Whiff, she would call him in her journal. Arbitrarily, she had decided the creature was male.
I’ve made first contact.
She hadn’t sought it out; but now it had happened, she needed to work properly. Permanent comms with the rest of the team were forbidden - ever since the disaster of Watson’s World, where thousands of enraged creatures, their nervous systems enflamed by radio-wavelength energy, had fallen on the exploratory team - and her reports would be zipblips, delivered nightly, their duration a matter of picoseconds.
For the rest of the day she worked, taking no breaks, save for several quick trips behind the bushes to her latrine. Her progress was incredible, and by nightfall she had the beginnings of conversation in place.
‘Rekka,’ Whiff told her, his voice emanating from the biofact’s speakers. ‘Sit.’
And she did, obeying the command.
‘Whiff? Stand.’
So Whiff did as she asked, rising from his stool.
Success.
This was more than a day’s work, and she had yet to report on it. Her stomach growled. For hours she had been pushing herself; now it was time to eat. On Earth, sharing food with any animal builds trust; but her biochemistry was too different to allow her to share with Whiff.
She went to her ration pack and extracted a container of vegetable masala, wondering if the mild curry might smell enticing to Whiff. After thumbing the pad, she waited five seconds, then peeled back the top. Steam rose as she detached the spoon, and the fragrance was—
Whiff lurched to his feet.
Shit. What’s wrong?
Then he stumbled out of the camp, into the undergrowth and darkness.
‘Hell’s teeth.’
She took a few seconds to direct some of her beeswarm to sweep the surroundings, looking for Whiff. As an explorer she might be a neo, but when it came to coding, she could practically make a biofact sit up and beg. Her bees were smart, and sure to find him.
The masala smelled wonderful, so she tucked in.
Later that night, she lay on the ground in her sleeping suit, watching an arc of small holos: viewlogs from her bees. In the images, Whiff was squatting, hunched as he chewed on raw vegetables, his body language furtive.
Don’t anthropomorphise.
But perhaps she was reading him correctly, and there was some imperative - cultural, medical, aesthetic - that made him eat alone.
In the morning, he would be back. Somehow she knew.
When she flicked the holos out of existence, only the vault of stars in black sky remained, the vastness of the universe cradling all its fragile creatures for the precious seconds of their lives. A feeling of awe carried her into sleep.
Sharp remembered Bittersweet’s childish antics, making fun of poor untouchables eating their vegetables in the open. He’d been embarrassed by his little sister then. Now he realized there was a lesson in the memory - he should think of the fragile creature as intelligent but uneducated, aware but uncivilized.
And so he returned to its - possibly to
her
- campsite. As for her name, it approximated to Sweetash, an internal contradiction that become more pleasing the longer he considered it.
her
- campsite. As for her name, it approximated to Sweetash, an internal contradiction that become more pleasing the longer he considered it.
With the aid of the shining device, they tried to extend their range of linguistic understanding . . . and spent the whole day struggling. Finally, they made a leap in abstraction, moving beyond names, from
Sweetash
and
Sharp
to
you
and
I
.
Sweetash
and
Sharp
to
you
and
I
.
Two words in a day. It would take a long time to learn the art of conversation at that rate.
Sweetash did not eat in front of him, perhaps understanding her mistake. When evening fell, he retreated to his own spot out in the undergrowth, and after eating, he curled up, trembling in the cold. His sleep was strange and disjointed.
On the third night, he slept inside Sweetash’s camp, within the ring of protective devices, wrapped in a cloak that warmed from inside itself. Everything was strange, so different from his village where a thousand subtle scents told him, at any time of day, of others’ presence, of how he should behave.
And there was another kind of onrushing pang inside him, triggered perhaps by the stress of being here.
But the strangest thing of all was Sweetash’s conjuring box, the shining case that could do more than create intelligent insects and broadcast scents. For one thing, it could display disembodied pictures - moving pictures - hanging in the air. The colours were not quite right - perhaps to accommodate Sweetash’s small, unslitted eyes - but he knew what the images were: pictures from inside the little insects’ minds. He figured that from seeing himself and Sweetash, inside one of the pictures, from the viewpoint of an insect that was hovering overhead.
She controlled them, did Sweetash, directing her insects to observe Sharp’s people as they lived their ordinary lives.
But then they ventured further, and showed such sights!
Some images came from parts of Mint City he had never seen - several sequences came from the Librarians’ Enclave, he was sure of it - and then from cities far away, places he could never hope to visit.
Yet it was the ordinary domestic scenes that fascinated Sweetash most. And her reaction to seeing a mother teach her children - the young ones taking delicate nips, their faces smudged with maternal blood - was extraordinary: Sweetash stumbled away, crouched over, and spilled the contents of her stomach on the ground.
Some kind of ritual of her own?
Over the next few days, when they weren’t extending their vocabulary through the device, Sharp and Sweetash watched these scenes of life together, including several Sharings, the expressions of triumphant pain so different from Father’s awful experience. Then it was back among Librarians, watching them work with sand-frames, making little patterned marks Sharp did not understand. And then there was a Convocation, with Librarians from far away, such a mix of fur coloration that he could not understand how they could Share knowledge at all. Except that, in what looked like Sharing ceremonies, no blades were produced. Instead, sand-frames or patterned clay were passed around in lieu of flesh.
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