The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (78 page)

Lawrence watched these preparations through Prime Intellect's all-seeing eye, and tried to gauge Caroline's chances of success. In the nearly two hundred years he had been using this Task to screen his visitors, four or five people a day had accepted it. Most of these were weeded out within hours by the sun. Very few people in Cyberspace were in good enough physical shape to swim to the ship, and as Caroline had guessed reaching the ship was the key to survival. Most didn't even try until it was too late. Of those who reached the ship many succumbed to the hazards of the darkness -- they either slipped through the deliberately planted hole in the floor going for the light on level twenty-three, or they succumbed to other hazards in the dark. One had found the flashlight first, but he had been extremely lucky.
Then very few of those who remained were able to fix the computer and fly the ship successfully to his island. There were a number of things wrong with the ship that weren't immediately obvious, and it had a tendency to lose power and crash right after takeoff if certain steps weren't taken. In two hundred years, only a couple of hundred visitors had gotten the ship's power on. Less than forty had managed to fix the computer. And only eight had successfully flown it to Lawrence.
Of those eight, five had been Death Jockey Gaming junkies who took the challenge just to see if they could make it. They congratulated him on constructing an excellent puzzle and left. The others were fans. One of these was a woman who wanted very much to fuck Lawrence, and because she had gone through so much to get to him he did it, though he found the experience flat and joyless. Although he needed the Task to keep himself isolated, he really didn't enjoy abusing people. His heart could only bear so much misery and disappointment.
Nobody had ever tried building a boat before. Lawrence had watched her sit in the captain's chair and brood, and he knew she had figured out the computer was the next step, and had rejected it. It would be surprising if she succeeded, but it was far from impossible. There were no land masses to get in her way, and once she was away from the pole there were steady trade winds. The day would get longer and less severe; the sun was a tiny thing in a highly elliptical orbit. If she chose the right path, she could avoid it entirely until it was at a safe distance.
He wasn't sure what had prompted her to come. At the beginning it had been the two of them, Lawrence and Caroline. He was the creator, and she had been the catalyst. Of course, if it hadn't been her it would have been some other sick person, just as some other computer scientist would have created the magic Correlation Effect machine if Lawrence hadn't. But that twist of Fate had made them two of the most important people in the universe. Prime Intellect still watched Caroline carefully, and brooded at length on her fierce self-destructive streak.
For nearly six hundred years Lawrence had tended Prime Intellect's frozen controls, watching carefully for danger signs. And he still was not sure of its long-term stability.
Now Caroline was coming to meet him, and whatever she wanted he was sure it would not help Prime Intellect's sanity one little bit. But worried as he was, he was a man of his word. He could simply instruct Prime Intellect to swat her down like a bug, hit her with lightning or a tidal wave or simply make her disappear. But having offered up the Task he found himself unable to make himself cheat in such a cowardly fashion. If she made it to him, by whatever means, he would hear her out and deal with it.
And then he would make the planet bigger, so it wouldn't happen again.

Caroline's first day at sea went just as she had planned; she turned the boat broadside to the light, and hid behind her metal shield. But she noticed that the day was shorter than she remembered, and that the sun didn't set directly opposite the point where it had risen. It didn't pass directly overhead. Caroline thought about this and then picked her direction and began rowing frantically. On Caroline's second day at sea the sun barely peeked above the horizon.
After that, she didn't need the shield for a long time.
She watched the sky carefully, memorizing it. She quickly noticed that the pattern was not constant, but changed slightly from day to day, particularly in the fine details. But the broad strokes were always very similar. She was still able to navigate by the pattern, if only by observing its rotation.
She had been in good shape before beginning her Task, and had gotten even stronger with the physical work of assembling the boat. Rowing was hard work, but she was up to the challenge. After a couple of days there were cramps from the never-changing posture, so she began forcing herself to quit every five thousand strokes and climb the length of her boat. She would climb out of the seat, crawl to the bow and touch the tip, then crawl to the stern and touch that tip. Then she would row another five thousand strokes. After ten of these cycles, she allowed herself to sleep.
Eighteen days at sea she began to notice a faint breeze. Twenty-two days out it was enough to harness, and by thirty days it was propelling her quite a bit faster than she could row. The trade wind was predictable and slightly rhythmic; Caroline guessed that it was powered by the sun as it swooped low over the entry pole (she still refused to call it the South pole) and dumped all its energy on a narrow strip of sea. The outrigger tacked neatly, and she continued on the course that she thought would help her avoid the sun.
She made excellent time, crossing the equator of Lawrence's world after only sixty days. But then the winds died down, and she had to row more. Also the sun re-appeared, and while it was more bearable it was also up longer. Caroline shielded herself as much as possible while rowing, but she still tanned deeply over the passing months. Her tattoos had not been designed with such dark skin in mind, and they seemed to fade over time.
In all that time she pursued her goal with single-minded determination, banishing all doubt and all other thoughts from her mind. She feared nothing and when boredom threatened she carefully memorized the pattern of lines in the sky. It took her twice as much time and four times as much work to get from the equator to Lawrence's island at what he called the North pole; her journey was more than a hundred and eighty days total. Caroline couldn't be sure of the exact count because of the sunless period, but Lawrence knew. It was a hundred and eighty-six days, three hours, and fourteen minutes after she left the spaceship for the last time when she grounded on Lawrence's beach.