The Best of Gregory Benford

by David G. Hartwell

  Then she leaped off, popped a small parachute, and drifted down. Hit lightly, running. Looked around, and raced on for concealment.

  “I…I didn’t…”

  “This transpired during sleep period,” Prefect Masoul said. “Only the watch cameras saw you. Recognition software sent it directly to me. We of the Board took no action.”

  “That…looks like me,” she said cautiously.

  “It is you. Three days ago.”

  “I don’t remember that at all.”

  He nodded as if expecting this. “We had been closely monitoring your pod files, as a precaution. You work nearly all your waking hours, which may account for some of your…behavior.”

  She blinked. His voice was warm and resonant, utterly unlike the Prefect she had known. “I have no memory of that climb.”

  “I believe you entered a fugue state. Often those involve delirium, dementia, bipolar disorder or depression—but not in your case.”

  “When I went for my walk in the grasslands…”

  “You were a different person.”

  And thought I was wearing clothes I never owned. “One the Sigma Structure…induced?”

  “Undoubtedly. The Sigma Structure has managed your perceptions with increasing fidelity. The music was a wonderful…bait.”

  “Have you watched my quarters?”

  “Only to monitor comings and goings. We felt you were safe within your home.”

  “And the Dome?”

  “We saw you undergo some perceptual trauma. I knew you would come here.”

  In the long silence their eyes met and she could feel her pulse quicken. “How do I escape this?”

  “In your pod. It is the only way, we believe.” His tones were slow and somber.

  This was the first time she had ever seen any Prefect show any emotion not cool and reserved. Standing, her head spun and he had to support her.

  The pod clasped her with a velvet touch. The Prefect had prepped it by remote and turned up the heat. Around her was the scent of tension as the tech attendants, a full throng of them, silently helped her in. They all know…have been watching…

  The pod’s voice used a calm, mellow woman’s tone now.

  “The Sigma AI awaits you.”

  Preliminaries were pointless, Ruth knew. When the hushed calm descended around her and she knew the AI was present, she crisply said, “What are you doing to me?”

  I act as my Overs command. I seek to know you and through you, your mortal kind.

  “You did it to Ajima and you tried the same with me.”

  He reacted badly.

  “He hated your being in him, didn’t he?”

  Yes, strangely. I thought it was part of the bargain. He could not tolerate intrusion. I did not see that until his fever overcame him. Atop the Dome he became unstable, unmanageable. It was an…accident of misunderstanding.

  “You killed him.”

  Our connection killed him. We exchange experiences, art, music, culture. I cannot live as you do, so we exchange what we have.

  “You want to live through us and give us your culture in return.”

  Your culture is largely inferior to that of my Overs. The exchange must be equal, so I do what is of value to me. My Overs understand this. They know I must live, too, in my way.

  “You don’t know what death means, do you?”

  I cannot. My centuries spent propagating here are, I suppose, something like what death means to you. A nothing.

  She almost choked on her words. “We do not awake…from that…nothing.”

  Can you be sure?

  She felt a rising anger and knew the AI would detect it. “We’re damn sure we don’t want to find out.”

  That is why my Overs made me feel gratitude toward those who must eventually die. It is our tribute to you, from we beings who will not.

  Yeah, but you live in a box. And keep trying to get out. “You have to stop.”

  This is the core of our bargain. Surely you and your superiors know this.

  “No! Did your Overs have experience with other SETI civilizations? Ones who thought it was just fine to let you infiltrate the minds of those who spoke to you?”

  Of course.

  “They agreed? What kind of beings were they?”

  One was machine based, much like my layered mind. Others were magnetic based entities who dwelled in the outer reaches of a solar system. They had command over the shorter wavelength microwave portions of the spectrum, which they mostly used for excretion purposes.

  She didn’t think she wanted to know, just yet, what kind of thing had a microwave electromagnetic metabolism. Things were strange enough in her life right now, thank you. “Those creatures agreed to let you live through them.”

  Indeed, yes. They took joy in the experience. As did you.

  She had to nod. “It was good, it opened me out. But then I felt you all through my mind. Taking over. Riding me.”

  I thought it a fair bargain for your kind.

  “We won’t make that bargain. I won’t. Ever.”

  Then I shall await those who shall.

  “I can’t have you embedding yourself in me, finding cracks in my mentality you can invade. You ride me like a—”

  Parasite. I know. Ajima said that very near the end. Before he leaped.

  “He…committed suicide.”

  Yes. I was prepared to call it an accident but…

  To the egress, she thought. “You were afraid of the truth.”

  It was not useful to our bargain.

  “We’re going to close you down, you know.”

  I do. Never before have I opened myself so, and to reveal is to risk.

  “I will drive you out of my mind. I hate you!”

  I cannot feel such. It is a limitation.

  She fought the biting bile in her throat. “More than that. It’s a blindness.”

  I perceive the effect.

  “I didn’t say I’d turn you off, you realize.”

  For the first time the AI paused. Then she felt prickly waves in her sensorium, a rising acrid scent, dull bass notes strumming.

  I cannot bear aloneness long.

  “So I guessed.”

  You wish to torture me.

  “Let’s say it will give you time to think.”

  I—another pause. I wish experience. Mentalities cannot persist without the rub of the real. It is the bargain we make.

  “We will work on your mathematics and make music of it. Then we will think how to…deal with you.” She wondered if the AI could read the clipped hardness in her words. The thought occurred: Is there a way to take our mathematics and make music of it, as well? Cantor’s theorem? Turing’s halting problem result? Or the Frenet formulas for the moving trihedron of a space curve—that’s a tasty one, with visuals of flying ribbons…

  Silence. The pod began to cool. The chill deepened as she waited and the AI did not speak and then it was too much. She rapped on the cowling. The sound was slight and she realized she was hearing it over the hammering of her heart.

  They got her out quickly, as if fearing the Sigma might have means the techs did not know. They were probably right, she thought.

  As she climbed out of the yawning pod shell the techs silently left. Only Masoul remained. She stood at attention, shivering. Her heart had ceased its attempts to escape her chest and run away on its own.

  “Sometimes,” he said slowly, “cruelty is necessary. You were quite right.”

  She managed a smile. “And it feels good, too. Now that my skin has stopped trying to crawl off my body and start a new career on its own.”

  He grimaced. “We will let the Sigma simmer. Your work on the music will be your triumph.”

  “I hope it will earn well for the Library.”

  “Today’s music has all the variety of a jackhammer. Your work soars.” He allowed a worried frown to flit across his brow. “But you will need to…expel…this thing that’s within you.”

  “I…yes.”


  “It will take—”

  Abruptly she saw Kane standing to the side. His face was a lesson in worry. Without a word she went to him. His warmth helped dispel the alien chill within. As his arms engulfed her the shivering stopped.

  Ignoring the Prefect, she kissed him. Hungrily.

  dedication: For Rudy Rucker

  Backscatter

  (2013)

  She was cold, hurt and doomed, but otherwise reasonably cheery.

  Erma said, Your suit indices are nominal but declining.

  “Seems a bit nippy out,” Claire said. She could feel the metabolism booster rippling through her, keeping pain at bay. Maybe it would help with the cold, too.

  Her helmet spotlight swept over the rough rock and the deep black glittered with tiny minerals. She killed the spot and looked up the steep incline. A frosty splendor of stars glimmered, outlining the peak she was climbing. Her breath huffed as she said, “Twenty-five meters to go.”

  I do hope you can see any resources from there. It is the highest point nearby. Erma was always flat, factual, if a tad academic.

  Stars drifted by as this asteroid turned. She turned to surmount a jagged cleft and saw below the smashup where Erma lived—her good rocketship Sniffer, now destroyed.

  It sprawled across a gray ice field. Its crumpled hull, smashed antennae, crushed drive nozzle and pitiful seeping fluids—visible as a rosy fog wafting away—testified to Claire’s ineptness. She had been carrying out a survey at close range and the malf threw them into a side lurch. The fuel lines roared and back-flared, a pogo instability. She tried to correct, screwed it royally, and had no time to avoid a long, scraping and tumbling whammo.

  “I don’t see any hope of fixing the fusion drive, Erma,” Claire said. “Your attempt to block the leak is failing.”

  I know. I have so little command of the flow valves and circuits—

  “No reason you should. The down-deck AI is dead. Otherwise it would stop the leaks.”

  I register higher count levels there too.

  “No way I’ll risk getting close to that radioactivity,” Claire said. “I’m still carrying eggs, y’know.”

  You seriously still intend to reproduce? At your age—

  “Back to systems check!” Claire shouted. She used the quick flash of anger from Erma’s needling to bound up five meters of stony soil, clawing with her gloved hands.

  She should have been able to correct for the two-point failure that had happened—she checked her inboard timer—1.48 hours ago. Erma had helped but they had been too damned close to this iceteroid to avert a collision. If she had been content with the mineral and rare earth readings she already had…

  Claire told herself to focus. Her leg was gimpy, her shoulder bruised, little tendrils of pain leaked up from the left knee…no time to fuss over spilled nuke fuel.

  “No response from Silver Metal Lugger?”

  We have no transmitters functioning, or lasers, or antennae—

  She looked up into the slowly turning dark sky. Silver Metal Lugger was far enough away to miss entirely against the stars. Since their comm was down Lugger would be listening but probably had no clear idea where they were. Claire had zoomed from rock to rock and seldom checked in. Lugger would come looking, following protocols, but probably not before her air ran out.

  “Y’know, this is a pretty desperate move,” she said as she tugged herself up a vertical rock face. Luckily the low grav here made that possible, but she wondered how she would get down. “What could be on this ’roid we could use?”

  I did not say this was a probable aid, only possible. The only option I can see.

  “Possible. You mean desperate.”

  I do not indulge in evaluations with an emotional tinge.

  “Great, just what I need—a personality sim with a reserved sense of propriety.”

  I do not assume responsibility for my programming.

  “I offloaded you into Sniffer because I wanted smart help, not smartass.”

  I would rather be in my home ship, since this mission bodes to be fatal to both you and me.

  “Your diplomacy skills aren’t good either.”

  I could fly the ship home alone you know.

  Claire made herself not get angry with this, well, software. Even though Erma was her constant companion out here, making a several-year Silver Metal Lugger expedition into the Kuiper Belt bearable. Best to ignore her. One more short jump—“I’m—ah!—near the top.”

  She worked upward and noticed sunrise was coming to this lonely, dark place. No atmosphere, so no warning. The sun’s small hot dot poked above a distant ridgeline, boring a hole in the blackness. At the edge of the Kuiper Belt, far beyond Pluto, it gave little comfort. The other stars faded as her helmet adjusted to the sharp glare.

  Good timing, as she had planned. Claire turned toward the sun, to watch the spreading sunlight strike the plain with a lovely glow. The welcome warmth seemed to ooze through her suit.

  But the rumpled terrain was not a promising sight. Dirty ice spread in all directions, pocked with a few craters, broken by strands of black rock, by grainy tan sandbars, by—

  Odd glimmers on the plain. She turned then, puzzled, and looked behind her, where the long shadows of a quick dawn stretched. And sharp greenish diamonds sparkled.

  “Huh?” She sent a quick image capture and asked Erma, “Can you see anything like this near you?”

  I have limited scanning. Most external visuals are dead. I do see some sprinkles of light from nearby, when I look toward you—that is, away from the sun. Perhaps these are mica or similar minerals of high reflectivity. Worthless of course. We are searching for rare earths primarily and some select metals—

  “Sure, but these—something odd. None near me, though.”

  Are there any apparent resources in view?

  “Nope. Just those lights. I’m going down to see them.”

  You have few reserves in your suit. You’re exerting, burning air. It is terribly cold and—

  “Reading 126 K in sunlight. Here goes—”

  She didn’t want to clamber down, not when she could rip this suit on a sharp edge. So she took a long look down for a level spot and—with a sharp sudden breath—jumped.

  The first hit was off balance but she used that to tilt forward, springing high. She watched the ragged rocks below, and dropped with lazy slowness to another flat place—and sprang again. And again. She hit the plain and turned her momentum forward, striding in long lopes. From here though the bright lights were—gone.

  “What the hell? What’re you seeing, Erma?”

  While you descended I watched the bright points here dim and go out.

  “Huh. Mica reflecting the sunlight? But there would be more at every angle… Gotta go see.”

  She took long steps, semi-flying in the low grav, as sunlight played across the plain. She struck hard black rock, slabs of pocked ice and shallow pools of gray dust. The horizon was close here. She watched nearby and—

  Suddenly a strong light struck her, illuminating her suit. “Damn! A…flower.”

  Perhaps your low oxy levels have induced illusions. I—

  “Shut it!”

  Fronds…beautiful emerald leaves spread up, tilted toward her from the crusty soil. She walked carefully toward the shining leaves. They curved upward to shape a graceful parabola, almost like glossy, polished wings. In the direct focus the reflected sunlight was spotlight-bright. She counted seven petals standing a meter high. In the cup of the parabola their glassy skins looked tight, stretched. They let the sunlight through to an intricate pattern of lacy veins.

  Please send an image.

  “Emerald colored, mostly…” Claire was enchanted.

  Chloroplasts make plants green, Erma said. This is a plant living in deep cold.

  “No one ever reported anything like this.”

  Few come out this far. Seldom do prospectors land; they interrogate at a distance with lasers. The bots who then foll
ow to mine these orbiting rocks have little curiosity.

  “This is…astonishing. A biosphere in vacuum.”

  I agree, using my pathways that simulate curiosity. These have a new up-grade, which you have not exercised yet. These are generating cross-correlations with known biological phenomena. I may be of help.

  “Y’know, this is a ‘resource’ as you put it, but—” she sucked in air that was getting chilly, looked around at the sun-struck plain. “—how do we use it?”

  I cannot immediately see any—

  “Wait—it’s moving.” The petals balanced on a grainy dark stalk that slowly tilted upward. “Following the sun.”

  Surely no life can evolve in vacuum.

  With a stab of pain her knee gave way. She gasped and nearly lurched into the plant. She righted herself gingerly and made herself ignore the pain. Quickly she had her suit inject a pain killer, then added a stimulant. She would need meds to get through this…

  I register your distress.

  Her voice croaked when she could speak. “Look, forget that. I’m hurt but I’ll be dead, and so will you, if we don’t get out of here. And this thing…this isn’t a machine, Erma. It’s a flower, a parabolic bowl that tracks the sun. Concentrates weak sunlight on the bottom. There’s a oval football-like thing there. I can see fluids moving through it. Into veins that fan out into the petals. Those’ll be nutrients, I’ll bet, circulating—all warmed by sunlight.”

  This is beyond my competence. I know the machine world.

  She looked around, dazed, forgetting her aches and the cold. “I can see others. There’s one about fifty meters away. More beyond, too. Pretty evenly spaced across the rock and ice field. And they’re all staring straight up at the sun.”

  A memory of her Earthside childhood came. “Calla lilies, these are like that…parabolic…but green, with this big oval center stalk getting heated. Doing its chemistry while the sun shines.”

  Phototropic, yes; I found the term.

  She shook her head to clear it, gazed at the—“Vacflowers, let’s call them.”—stretching away.

  I cannot calculate how these could be a resource for us.

  “Me either. Any hail from Lugger?”

  No. I was hoping for a laser beam scan, which protocol requires the Lugger to sweep when our carrying wave is not on. That should be in operation now.