Dusk (13 page)

As it was not after lights-out, the lab was
not swarming with scientists engaging in interstellar warfare,
ambushing one another with turn-of-the-century tanks, or filling
the moats of each others’ keeps while archers buffeted the
inhabitants with hails of flaming arrows. Only a couple scientists,
whom Cyrus did not recognize immediately by their voices through
the partition, were working on their own projects on the opposite
side of the codex.

Suddenly, Dr. Jang appeared behind Cyrus as
if he had descended from the ceiling like one of the ninjutsu
assassins from the Japanese Shogunate levels in Conquest. “You
playing C.o.t.A. tonight?” he asked as he brushed his bangs to the
left side of his head.

Cyrus didn’t know if he had overlooked Dr.
Jang working silently behind a partition, or if he had been so
engrossed in his own work that he hadn’t noticed Jang come through
the entrance, but he was decidedly unnerved by his own lack of
awareness. “Where in blistering hell did you come from?”

“Ha,” Jang laughed to himself, “unsettled are
we? No worries, I was here when you got here. But I have a
reputation for being practically invisible when I don’t want to be
bothered. My last girlfriend wondered if I even breathed when I was
working. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Well, if you are really that eager to get
trounced tonight, I suppose I could oblige you.”

“Your winning streak can’t last forever.”

“Maybe, but I assure you, it won’t end
tonight, and definitely not by your sneaky,
‘I-don’t-breathe-when-I-don’t-want-to-be-bothered’ hand.”

“We’ll see, Chamberlain. We’ll see,” Jang
brushed his bangs from his face again and stooped a little to look
at the holographic monitor that floated in the air in front of
Cyrus. “What are you working on?” Jang gave him a friendly, but
brusque, pat on the shoulder, “Hope you’re sharpening up your game.
Wouldn’t want to make the champion look like unfledged
pod-spawn.”

Cyrus turned a sharp look at Jang’s hand as
it still rested on his shoulder, grabbed Jang’s index finger as if
his hand were covered in grime, and gingerly removed it. “You know
I liked you more when you were mousy and kept all that lab waste to
yourself.” Cyrus looked him in the eye and returned the smile. “I
was trying to find an equation in an old Feynman book, but it’s
eluding me.”

“Why don’t you ask Feynman himself?”

“You got anymore of whatever you’ve been
inhaling over there invisi-boy? Unless you’re planning on holding
some sort of séance, Feynman’s as inaccessible as all this newfound
skill you plan on using to beat me tonight.”

“Well, for once, you might be right. Feynman,
much like your military doom, are closer than you think,” Dr. Jang
brushed the outside of Cyrus’s shoulder, indicating he wanted him
to move, “Watch and learn, young Novitiate.”

Dr. Jang exited out of the normal interface
into the datadeck backbone. A prompt appeared before them and he
entered the words ‘avatar folder’ on the laser image of the
keyboard on the desk. “You can find this folder in the hierarchical
menu, but this is much faster.”

“What is an avatar?”

A color wheel with colors that alternated in
a pattern as the information loaded appeared in the lower
right-hand corner of the image. “An avatar is an interactive
personality emulator that uses fuzzy logic to convey information in
a more direct manner than any datadeck interface could ever
manage.”

“You know, I haven’t been keeping up with my
tech braniac lessons, so I’d prefer you translate that into High
Common, at the very least.”

The color wheel spun for longer than Cyrus
had ever seen it spin before it stopped. The datadeck hologram went
blank as the speakers in the cubicle asked in a warm, grandfatherly
voice that sounded remarkably like Dr. Villichez, “Whom would you
like to meet?”

“Perhaps, it is better to show than tell,”
Dr. Jang smiled somewhat smugly then turned back to the cubicle,
“Richard Feynman.”

The color wheel spun again, briefly this
time, and the face of a bushy-haired man in his fifties appeared in
the cubicle. Cyrus recognized him instantly. “Good evening Dr.
Chamberlain,” the ethereal Feynman said, “how may I assist you
today?”

For a moment, Cyrus seemed stunned. “Ask your
question,” Jang said, opening his palm toward the bust on the
hologram in front of them.

Cyrus turned back to the image of the
physicist, “I’m looking to configure the comm-sat and the scanning
satellite we’re going to deploy before we land,” Cyrus paused for a
moment, as if he had forgotten something, and then turned to Dr.
Jang, “Will he know what a comm-sat is?”

“He’s linked into the other systems on the
ship, so he should be able to reference them.”

Cyrus turned back to the image of Feynman, “I
need to check my computations against some of your equations for
nanotechnology—particularly your work on density functional theory
and testing of reaction sequences. I couldn’t find them in any of
your works, but I know I’ve read them before.”

Feynman’s disembodied head tilted back as he
sounded an amused chuckle. “I helped spawn the push into
nanotechnology, but I cannot take credit for those equations. They
were developed ten years after I left this world. They were the
works of two gentlemen, a Stephen Walch and Ralph Merkle. They were
awarded the Feynman Prize for experimental work in 1998 for those
equations. I do not believe they have avatars on this system, but I
do remember the equations myself. Here, I will write them down for
you.” Feynman’s head recessed into the depths of the cubicle and a
blank white page appeared between Cyrus and Feynman. The color
wheel appeared again, and when it disappeared, the page filled with
numbers, symbols, and figures.

“I took the liberty of saving the equations
in your personal menu so you can reference them at your leisure,”
Feynman added from behind the formula. “Is there anything else I
can help you with?”

Cyrus looked over his shoulder at Dr. Jang,
“Wow, he even makes facial expressions.”

Before Jang could comment, Feynman himself
chimed in, “It is truly amazing the progress that has been made in
the last five hundred years in quantum computing and
nanotechnology. I personally, am very impressed.”

Cyrus laughed, “This is absolutely ingenious.
Light-years ahead of anything I’ve ever seen.”

A thin, but long smile spread across Jang’s
face. “Thank you,” he said, brushing his bangs to the side yet
again.

“You created this?”

“Well, not by myself,” the color that filled
his cheeks made him look even ten years younger than he was. It was
no wonder to Cyrus why the ladies would have liked him. Jang looked
away momentarily then shook his hair to the side as he turned back
again, “Dr. Villichez is the real genius. His questions and
psychological profiling system are the very backbone of the
software. And the specs for the neural mapping came from Dr.
Winberg. It took us two years just to get the right algorithms down
and to create a development interface to link with Villichez’s
profiling system. Once we finally got ahold of the Agamemnon Drei
Quantum processor, we had the power to actually put it all
together. Then it was just the scanning and compilation of the
database. We would never have been able to get the backing if they
hadn’t been trying to get everything together for this
expedition.”

“I thought the Agamemnon processor was just
barely in the Zwei generation.”

“It was, but they made a special prototype
for integration into the Shipmate system here. It’s a little bigger
than they would ever release on Earth, but it’s about twenty times
more stable.”

“So you worked with Villichez and Winberg
before the expedition?”

“Well, I worked with Villichez directly for
about five years, but Winberg only sent us diagrams and
specifications for mimicking the human brain. I only talked to him
maybe twice during the whole process.”

“So who else do we have stored in this
thing?” Cyrus asked turning back toward the cubicle. He thanked the
Feynman image and closed the program.

“Honestly, I don’t remember, but the datadeck
has the entire Unified Council Library stored in it, and I know
Villichez and his lab mapped over five hundred profiles, both
living and deceased. I’m pretty sure just about anyone of major
importance to the disciplines of anyone on this ship, past or
contemporary should be accessible. If not, someone related should
be able to cross-reference the information into the datastream.
There are also entries for each of us, but our journals and papers
are communicated by other scientists. Villichez thought it was a
little too creepy to have our likenesses when we are present on the
ship, and in the event one of us doesn’t make it to the next phase
of the mission, he thought it even creepier.”

“I agree. It’s stellar, but it’s creepy
enough communing with dead without the potential of talking to
myself.” Cyrus took a moment to ponder the possibilities, “You guys
really went balls-out for us braniacs, didn’t you?”

“Well, that’s what I do. I keep my balls out
just for you.” Jang laughed and ran his hand from his forehead all
the way down the back of his shoulder-length hair. “Besides, I know
we stand a chance of finding out more about young Earth by studying
Asha, but the environment there sounds more like the end of the
world to me. So if I’m going to hurtle through space on a one-way
ticket to probable damnation, I want to take as much information
with me as I can.”

“One-way ticket to probable damnation? Well
said.”

“Thank you,” Jang nodded again, brushing the
side of his nose with his thumb.

“You’re welcome. Sounds a lot like what’s
gonna happen to you tonight if you show up at that grungy cubicle
of yours and log into Conquest.”

“Sounds like someone’s getting a little big
for his britches.”

Cyrus looked down, melodramatically surveying
the waistband of his jumpsuit, “Nah, I think my britches fit me
plenty fine.”

• • • • •

“Your reign of terror is coming to an end!”
Dr. Jang reported across the lab to Cyrus, who ignored the threats
as usual. For the fourth time in as many months, all the
scientists, who for the past year cycle had gathered at night to
play Conquest of the Ages, assembled to wage war. They each sat at
a cubicle showing their own section of the battle in
high-definition holograms as they engaged in combat on an imaginary
battlefield. They all competed for the Paracelsine Cup, a cracked
flagon that Dr. Milliken had stolen from the dinner table one day
cycle and had etched on the words ‘Conquest of the Paracelsus.’ The
last Saturday of each month cycle, they would all assemble and
continue to play until there was only one player remaining. But the
cup had spent the entirety of the four months since its creation
sitting on Cyrus’s desk, holding down the cleaning card the
Shipmate left each week. So far, this night had been no different
than the other nights—each of the players had tried to gain their
foothold in their own territory before lashing out at others, and
Cyrus had constantly moved in with some sort of surprise terrorist
attack to slow down one scientist or another. Today, he had set the
forests Milliken used for building resources ablaze, and he had dug
a moat around Davidson’s farms while he was attacking Jang so
Davidson’s peasants could not harvest food for his soldiers without
wasting time and resources to fill in the moat or build new farms.
Dr. Cohn’s foot soldiers were preoccupied with an annoying keep
that Cyrus had erected in front of his mineral mine specifically to
impede the construction efforts of Cohn’s men and waste their time,
which thanks to Cohn’s bungling, low-level foot soldiers, was being
wasted most effectively.

Cyrus sat in his corner cubicle, quiet and
focused as usual. Cyrus was a little concerned because Jang, who
normally came at him like a Manifest-Destined crusader sacking the
last pagan fortress on the planet, was particularly conservative
for someone so confident earlier in the day cycle. Cyrus kept his
vanguard in his main stronghold and sequestered his champions to a
cave opening he had hidden with an observation tower.

Cyrus played his normal, unpredictable game
with fresh new tricks that somehow, even though they were
anticipated, always managed to surprise the other scientists. Then,
as Cyrus’s cavalry engaged Dr. Milliken’s and Dr. Koresh’s combined
infantries in a heated skirmish, an attack was launched from either
side of his main stronghold. Jang’s infantry had amassed in front
of the castle, had quickly filled the moat, and was now bashing
relentlessly at the gate. From the rear, a battery of ballistae and
catapults buffeted the back wall—an excellent attack, but not
unstoppable.

As a precaution, Cyrus had kept his siege
engines inside his own stronghold and they returned fire on the
engines in the rear. Luckily, Jang’s engines, because of their
angle of attack, could only hit the rear wall of the castle.
Comfortable in his defenses, and preoccupied with smoking Koresh
out of his main fortress, Cyrus sent a small but strong group of
foot soldiers and cavalry to eliminate the annoying engines at his
rear flank.

Koresh’s men had run for the hills, fleeing
desperately with their standard to keep from being eliminated from
the match. It wasn’t until Cyrus realized
where
they were
running to that he also realized it was a setup. And when the
soldiers Cyrus had sent to stop Jang’s siege engines were ambushed
by the men that should have been
operating
the siege
engines, Cyrus realized exactly how much effort had been put into
the set up. On closer inspection, the siege engines were out of
place—two time-periods out of place. They were fully automatic and
only needed two peasants to operate each, rather than the
compliment of four field captains and four foot that they should
have required. No wonder Jang had been so eager. Cyrus was spread
thin from the galvacet monkey chase at Koresh’s fortress, and now,
a good portion of Cyrus’s vanguard was being slaughtered right
before his eyes.