Riordan nodded. “So robots and computers turning on their users might have a parallel in Ktor history.”
“Which underscores the importance of acquiring additional perspective on Virtua before you seek it directly.”
“Oduosslun made it sound indistinguishable from reality. Is it?”
“I do not know. Indeed, I cannot know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Custodians foreswear direct interface with any form of virtuality, but most expressly, Virtua itself. Under normal circumstances, we are not even allowed to confirm its existence.”
“And that’s all you can tell me about Virtua?”
“That is all I may tell you. The best way to facilitate your inquiries is to commence our journey to the fifth planet of Sigma 2 Ursa Majoris 2 A. Please secure yourself in the couch. We shall be accelerating briskly.”
Chapter Forty-Five
JUNE 2124
ZHASHAYN, SIGMA 2 URSA MAJORIS 2 A V
Riordan watched as the blast covers retracted from Olsloov’s wide bridge blister and revealed the mostly barren surface of their destination: Zhashayn, the furthest moon of the gas giant Sigma 2 Ursa Majoris 2 A V.
Alnduul rose into the lower gees of the diminishing thrust. “We have reached our parking orbit. Your host, Laaglenz, has signaled that he anticipates your arrival.”
Riordan turned, stared at Alnduul’s serious tone. “What’s wrong?”
The Dornaani did not turn to look at him. “I am…discomfited by the necessity that you proceed alone.”
“Why? Is Zhashayn another dangerously neglected world?”
Alnduul shook a dismissive finger at the deck. “Zhashayn is neglected but quiescent. It has a rudimentary biosphere and it maintains its security robotics with local resources.”
“So the residents actually care about the condition of their world?”
“Its residents command more resources than usual,” Alnduul answered carefully, “and insist that their access to the rest of the Collective, and the services upon which they depend, are both reliable and secure.”
Riordan frowned at Alnduul’s carefully oblique reply. “What’s the danger you’re not explaining and that I’m not seeing?”
“There may not be any danger, Caine Riordan.” His Dornaani friend’s gills rippled restlessly. “But Laaglenz is said to be…unusual.”
Damn it. What does that even mean when it comes to Dornaani? “Unusual in what way?”
Alnduul’s lids drooped. “You have been told that Laaglenz is singularly knowledgeable regarding Virtua. Have you been told why?”
“I assume he’s another hobbyist researcher who also happens to be an expert.”
“He may be that also.”
“‘Also?’ What else does he have to do with Virtua?”
“He is a facilitator.” Seeing Riordan’s perplexity, Alnduul added, “Although access to Virtua is not strictly illegal, it has never been authorized as a public resource.”
Riordan leaned back. “You mean Laaglenz is…is some kind of middleman for the black market?”
“Gray market,” Alnduul corrected. “But there is speculation that he procures access to Virtua for various individuals, and for almost all the residents of Zhashayn.” His voice became a murmur. “Although you are unlikely to encounter any.”
“Because they are all hooked into Virtua?” Caine prompted.
Alnduul waved stiff, anxious fingers as he looked away. “Observe particular care in your dealings with Laaglenz. His expertise with Virtua may derive from extensive personal experience within it. Such exposure can change behavior, perspective. Values.”
“So you’re saying not to trust him?”
“I am saying that you should be careful. The shuttle is ready for you. Laaglenz’s proxrov is waiting at the downport with transportation.” He turned to regard Riordan with large, unblinking eyes. “Enlightenment unto you, Caine Riordan.”
* * *
Zhashayn’s downport was perched on the side of a high volcanic cone that afforded an arid but marginally livable biome. Not that the residents cared. The dust-swept concourses were deserted, except for endlessly circulating patrol drones and proxrovs. As Laaglenz’s robot servant prepared their aircar for departure, Riordan wondered what happened when one of the city’s ancient Dornaani slipped away into a coma. Did their personal proxrovs continue to cycle through the same tasks, having no one to check on them and no one to report to? Even as the aircar lifted and the lightless community dwindled beneath them, Caine continued to watch the plodding progress of the dust-caked automatons. How many of them were already executing just such perpetual and pointless errands?
Despite the local investment in Zhashayn’s infrastructure, its biosphere was the least welcoming of any that Riordan had encountered in Dornaani space. The primary, a whitish-yellow F class subgiant, appeared to be the same size as Earth’s own sun, even though it was half again as distant. Its intense rays were slow to burn their way across Zhashayn’s scorched middle latitudes; the moon-world was tidally locked to the ringed gas giant tilting down behind the opposite horizon. Several times during the silent flight, Riordan watched green-white aurorae dance in the gathering dusk ahead, lighting their way to the north pole, the world’s only consistently temperate region.
An hour after leaving the downport, they began descending into the darkness of a valley. The faint light of the perpetual midnight sun cast just enough shadows to reveal that they were dropping toward a cluster of dim, regular shapes: a compound of some kind.
Lights snapped on abruptly, outlining a landing pad, several squat buildings, and a dome. If the aircar had started to slow, Riordan could not detect it. He glanced at the proxrov autopilot, clutched his seat-straps—
—and exhaled when, at only fifteen meters altitude, the small thrusters rotated downward and roared, slowing the aircar to a full stop in less than three seconds.
“Did you enjoy the trip?” asked a nonmechanical voice from the proxrov.
“I found it…exhilarating,” Riordan replied as the car settled gently to the ground. “Am I speaking to Laaglenz?”
“You are. Follow my servant. You will be offered refreshment, a change of clothes, and a circlet that will record your memories. Move quickly. Even though the sun will not go much lower, the air will become uncomfortably cool.”
Riordan removed his straps, started clambering out of the aircar. Well, at least Laaglenz didn’t sound dangerous.
* * *
Laaglenz’s residence—it was the only Dornaani home in Riordan’s experience that warranted the term—admitted only one adjective: eclectic. Although still minimalist by human standards, its outer rooms were de facto galleries of unusual objects either hung on walls or displayed on platforms. A few drew his attention: an ancient, short-handled paddle; the hide of a large, scaled animal; a painstaking model of a mysterious mechanism; holostills of varied planetary surfaces; a parade of small animals and geometric shapes cut from glass or crystal; and finally, a mummified Dornaani—whole, uncovered, and perversely foetal in death.
When Riordan declined Laaglenz’s remotely offered hospitalities, the proxrov led him to a broad descending staircase and produced a heavy control circlet similar to the one Caine had worn during his first experience with virtuality on Zhal Prime Second-Five. Gesturing down the stairs, the proxrov headed back toward the entrance.
As Riordan reached the bottom of the stairs, a Dornaani of indeterminate age emerged from an archway at the other end of the massive underground chamber. “You are Caine Riordan,” he announced. He left no time for Caine to confirm, deny, or otherwise respond. “Your Custodial chaperone may not be contacted while you are here.”
“I have no communication devices.”
“Prudent. All communications are blocked. Nor may you have any recording devices.”
“I presume you have enough for the both of us, particularly since you intend to record my memories.”
“Do not inter
rupt. It disorients me. It slows the exchange. It is unwelcome. Your memories are the least of what I shall be recording. I explain. My existence is without physical needs or foreseeable end. Thus, only the products of a mind remain both important and interesting. In a limited mind such as yours, the greatest value resides in your undiminished capacity for primal reactions. I require your express permission to record your experience of Virtua. Or you must leave.”
Riordan was not surprised by the request. Hell, after having Oduosslun record his memories, Caine presumed Laaglenz’s prerequisite would be at least as intrusive. But this meant agreeing to real-time psychic voyeurism. Which felt like taking a step closer to the ancient rite of selling one’s soul.
As Caine’s consciousness recoiled from that concept, an even deeper reflex summoned Elena’s face, Connor’s and Trevor’s lurking just behind. Her smile—swift, genuine, playful—bore into his heart, conveyed no reproof. If she had been suddenly, magically, awake and in his mind, he knew exactly what she would tell him: to flee, as fast as he could, back to Olsloov, and then across the border into human space, soul and self intact. Because she loved him. Because she loved Connor. And that, ultimately, was why he so loved her.
Caine nodded. “You may record my experience of Virtua.”
“Put on the circlet.” The Dornaani glanced at the cumbersome device. To Caine, it looked more like the lower half of a helmet.
Riordan complied, discovered that it was even heavier than the similar-looking interface he had worn before. “I don’t understand how recording my moment-to-moment experiences will provide you with useful data.”
“It has been centuries since I have been interested in ‘data’ or other discrete items of information that can be argued, proven, or disproven. My interest is in impressions and possibilities, the imponderable maybes of past, present, future.”
“So you have no interest in actual history? Or in contemporary events?”
“Only insofar as they fuel and refine my work as a speculator.” He stressed the word “speculator” as if it might have been a formal title. “The Dornaani who directed you to me have wasted their—and thus, your—time focused upon narrow questions of what, where, when, and even how events transpired. My focus is upon the only question that is truly infinite: why does a thing occur? Why does it not occur differently? Why does each actor make the choices they do? And ultimately, why is each factor in the total causal equation essential to produce the outcome?” One eyelid fluttered briefly. “A true speculator might have to create a whole world to adequately test that question. A true speculator would revel in that labor.”
Riordan nodded. “I’ve been told that Virtua is the ultimate tool for exploring strategic scenarios.”
“Not just for strategic scenarios. For everything. Your species’ speculators fumble about with computer modeling as if they were panhandlers in your American West. With the thinnest veneer of empirical observation and report, they scoop wildly at any current of possible causality. And they call that process ‘research.’”
Walking deeper into the room’s maze of suspended reflective arcs and rings, Laaglenz waved a finger at the vaguely symmetric array. “Virtuality, but Virtua most particularly, leaps beyond guesswork and weakly informed hypotheses. To evolve the analogy of your panhandlers, Virtua does not merely produce gold. It produces the perfect gold that your ancient alchemists called the philosopher’s stone: the only substance that confers perfect knowledge.”
He gestured to a smart couch that had already reshaped itself into a human-friendly recliner. “General virtuality removes guesswork and even live experimentation from fields as diverse as social evolution and genetic manipulation. However, in Virtua itself, all elements and conditions are defined. Consequently, all variables and interactions in the simulation manifest as natural byproducts of the total environment, just as they do in life. You may then alter any baseline value you wish, introduce whatever variable you like, and then test that revised scenario repeatedly. Infinitely.”
Riordan forced himself to sit. “And are Virtua’s outcomes always correct?”
Laaglenz studied Riordan more closely. “Your facial expression is…disapproval? You think we are, to use your phenomenologically infantile expression, playing God?”
“No, but if a deity does exist, then you are certainly trying to duplicate its workshop.”
“A timely turn of phrase, since you require a preliminary exposure to its output. A brief preconditioning interaction facilitates full immersion in Virtua, accustoms you to the intense fidelity of the experience.”
“So what are you going to show me?”
“Show you? Human, it is so much more than that.” Laaglenz stepped out from under the gleaming rings and partial parabolas and waved his hand.
Riordan’s vision blanked. His consciousness seemed to plunge away into darkness and then, at what felt like the nadir of his awareness, sprang back upward.
Upward toward a burgeoning light…
* * *
Riordan threw up a hand against the brightness, discovered his fingers were wrapped around the grip of a weapon: an old-fashioned semiautomatic pistol, the kind that fired brass cartridges. The smells—smoke and a marshy funk—were as full and nuanced as anything he’d ever experienced. So were the voices that were shouting instructions and warnings.
Riordan lowered his hand.
Washington, D.C. Next to the Reflecting Pool. Almost in the spot where Downing had buttonholed him a year ago. But that was where any resemblance to memory ended.
The Capitol Dome looked as if some gargantuan monster had taken a bite out of it. The Reflecting Pool was green with algae, weeds along its margins, runners from the overgrown walkways draped over its sides and down into the water. The grassy margins of the Mall had grown thigh-high wherever it wasn’t pocked by craters. And, vertijets screaming in terminal approach, a sleek black transatmospheric lander was plummeting out of the sun.
“Run!” yelled a woman in a much-patched USSF duty suit. A rabble of tatter-clothed civilians with rifles of every type and epoch sprinted after her, making for the tangled trees. Several disregarded her order, kneeled and started firing at the approaching craft.
“No! Run!” Riordan shouted, and in that moment remembered, This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. But the sounds, the smells, even the salty taste of that bead of sweat on my lip…I can’t tell that they’re not real.
The lander’s braking thrust kicked up dust from the craters the same moment that its chin-mounted barrel swiveled toward the few civilians who had stood their ground with outdated caseless assault rifles and antique shotguns. Riordan, caught between knowing that he could fight alongside them without any actual risk and raw terror of the hovering death machine, experienced a novel mental state: paralyzing indecision.
The lander’s weapon made a familiar grating hiss: a coil gun. Civilians fell. Some disintegrated into upright smudges of dark red vapor.
Riordan felt his hand tighten around the grip of the pistol. There was nothing that he could do for them, no way his weapon could hurt the attackers. And besides, none of it was real. It couldn’t be, he kept telling himself. But still, he didn’t run.
Because that’s what you’d like me to do, isn’t it, Laaglenz ? To show me, by my own actions, just how primitive and easily herded I am. So, no. I’m going to stand my ground. But not against the lander. Against you.
The lander settled and a side ramp lowered. Tall, fit humanoids in full combat armor trotted down in assault crouches, all of them wearing—improbably—knee-length, open-fronted robes. They swept the landing zone with their rifles, and then one of them saw Riordan. The figure stopped, stood, touched the side of its helmet. The reflective faceplate seemed to fold away, revealing—
A Ktor. Even at this range, Riordan recognized the exquisitely chiseled features, the impossibly wasp-waisted decathlete’s build. He could even see the bright amber eyes, crinkling in mortal amusement.
The one next to him swung around, saw Riordan, raised his rifle: another coil gun, from the look of it. But the first Ktor pushed it down with his free hand and, smiling more broadly, spoke into his helmet’s communicator.
A moment passed, during which Riordan reflected. If this was real, they would have gunned me down as a matter of principle. Or reflex. Which meant that Laaglenz was pushing the simulation past the point of believability. That reassured Riordan, gave him a sense of control.
Until a saber-toothed tiger came prowling down the landing ramp, a brightly lit mechanism embedded in its muscle-rippling neck. At a gesture from the leader, the beast—its massive shoulders even with the Ktor’s chest—swiveled its steam-shovel head toward Riordan, lifted its nose to catch the scent.
Riordan’s resolve not to react flitted away like a swift. He brought his other hand up to steady the already-cocked pistol. It was two hundred meters to the nearest cover and, simulation or not, there was no way he was going to outrun a saber-toothed tiger. Which hesitated, uncertain for a moment.
But only a moment. Riordan hardly saw its first long-legged leap in his direction: despite its size, the creature was startlingly quick. It came on, shoulders bunching and releasing, mouth open slightly. Caine sighted the gun, kept it steady and low, wished he’d had the presence of mind to check the rounds remaining in the magazine, and tried not to see an oncoming saber-toothed tiger, just a steadily expanding target.
He held his fire until fifteen meters—he’d intended to hold until ten but, shit, that cat was big!—and then fired steadily. He couldn’t tell if any of the first three shots hit, then a dark patch erupted on the creature’s shoulder. It didn’t even break stride.
Riordan kept squeezing the trigger, even as the creature launched into its final leap, jaws widening, monstrous claws sliding free of their beds, hide spotted red where at least four of his rounds had hit.
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