Analog Science Fiction and Fact 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Barina’s side of the conversation dropped off. Gen looked over to see her eyes were closed and her breathing had slowed. His own breathing was off too, and he felt a slight buzz in his head. Despite the Ki situation, he felt relaxed. Why?

  He vaguely remembered something in the briefing about the effects of consuming grain-based alcohol. Oh, the beer! Have to try more later. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation.

  The bus passed the entrance to the Ayers Rock Resort complex just as Ki stirred.

  “Phht!”

  Barina jerked awake. “What?” She turned to Gen. “What did you just say?”

  “Sorry, I was startled.” He’d never get the hang of swearing with this mouth. “Ki’s awake and moving. He’s manufactured an antitoxin.” He made a rude face in lieu of unsatisfactory expletives. “The snake bite didn’t work. I think the snake is dead.”

  “So now what?”

  A demonstration of uncertainty should be appropriate. He twiddled his thumbs in his lap. “We try something else.”

  She looked down at his hands. Her eyebrows went up again. She must find him desirable. “Which is . . . ?”

  His pants suddenly felt too tight. “I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” He opened the link to Ki, noted the time in the log, and watched it explore the barren fissures of Uluru.

  The coach pulled to a stop in front of the Sails in the Desert hotel around two PM. Gen switched off the link as he stepped into the bright midday sun. The tour guide handed him a glossy brochure listing all the activities, excursions, and vendors available in the small desert enclave. He scanned it for ideas and found one: reconnaissance. He had to see Ki with his own eyes, this thing to which he was bound. This monster that destroyed worlds.

  He turned to Barina, who was accepting small pieces of colored paper from the tourists as they picked up their bags. “We’re going here.” He pointed to a star on the flier’s map.

  At Ayers Rock Helicopters, Gen and Barina stepped off the local shuttle and walked over to the nearest helicopter pad. Nearby, a man with a ruddy face wearing a big hat and a headset stared at his clipboard.

  “We’d like a short trip over Uluru,” Barina said.

  He didn’t look up, but brought his wrist timepiece into his field of view. “I’ve a got a window for a fifteen-minute flight before the rest of the motor coach crowd descends. But we’ll have to take the smaller copter without doors. The others are already booked.”

  “We’ll take it,” Gen said as he fished his VISA card out of his pocket.

  The headset man waved his watch hand over his right shoulder. “Pay in the hut.”

  Gen hesitated. Barina nudged him in the direction of the building.

  Gen paid for the trip, and they both dutifully stood through the required safety briefing. Then they boarded the copter, Gen in the front passenger seat and Barina behind the pilot. The whine of the rotors accelerated and they began to ascend.

  Gen opened the link to Ki. It was in a cave formed by an overhang that projected from a back wall. The rock had uneven surface and color, but was generally iron-red like the rest of Uluru. Painted on the walls were white circles within circles, bright red outlines filled with grays, and orange line figures that somewhat resembled the local brush.

  “Can you take us over the cave with the paintings?” Gen shouted to be heard above the rotors.

  The pilot’s reply was a bit fuzzy but intelligible. “Which cave?”

  Gen guessed, based on the discomfort Ki still felt in its hindquarters. It wouldn’t have traveled far in the past hour. “Near the watering hole?”

  “Okay.” The pilot began his narration of the flight, talking about the legends of the Dreaming and the significance of features on Uluru. Yet Gen was more aware of the rotors’ roar. Ki had heard them take off. Gen became increasingly disoriented as he heard the hum grow louder through Ki’s senses. Was the link getting stronger? Was he supposed to get this close to Ki? No matter. He had to see it.

  The copter swooped as low as allowed over the red monolith. Gen could see buses conveniently gathered to watch the sunset play over the huge outcropping. It was dead. Devoid of life. Like the tourists, if Ki found them. Like Gen’s homeworld. Like the Outback would be if Ki wasn’t stopped.

  The copter suddenly spun about him as if its stabilizers had failed. Gen fought to maintain focus and search the ground for Ki’s dark form. What was wrong? He must need food.

  He turned to the back seat and spoke into the headset. “Barina, can I have a snack?”

  He reached for the backpack she offered just as the pilot banked. Gen’s vertigo spiked and his grip faltered. Barina’s backpack flew out the open cockpit door.

  Gen’s eyes followed its arc to the ground. He saw several items spew from the pack as it impacted the surface in a puff of red dust.

  His thoughts jerked suddenly into Ki.

  Ki moves cautiously, all senses straining to make sense of this red thing that fell from the sky. The bag smells foreign, yet appetizing. Food of different colors lies scattered about. Sensors say the shiny things don’t have much nutritional value, but lots of calories for energy. Ki nibbles one. Delicious! A larger bite. Then another . . .

  Cramps! My gut is exploding. The light . . . where was the light going?

  A voice in the distance. “Gen? Gen! Are you all right? We’re on the ground. The flight’s over. Open your eyes. Gen!”

  “Throat . . . tight . . . can’t . . .” His body convulsed as he gasped for air. His skin felt afire. His awareness was muted. Was this how human death felt?

  A sharp pain shocked the front of his neck. Air rushed into his lungs. Yet he still felt his essence oozing away.

  The voice spoke again. So far away. . . “I gave him an airway so he can breathe. I recognize this.”

  The last thing Gen felt was a stab in his thigh.

  Gen awoke with Barina’s face in front of him.

  “Where . . . ?” he asked her in a raw, weak voice. His throat hurt. He put his hand to the front of his neck. A bandage was there. He felt blurry, if that was the right word.

  “In the hospital. The Royal Flying Doctors transported you here. You’ve been out for hours.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to activate the link to Ki. Nothing. What happened last?

  Chocolate!

  “You had a severe reaction to something. Looked like anaphylactic shock. I had my epi pen, so I dosed you with it. The doctors did the rest.”

  “Ki’s dead.” More than his throat hurt when he said it.

  “Are you sure? Something went haywire in you. It could’ve messed with your link to Ki.”

  He put his right hand to his hip pocket for the handheld. He didn’t feel any pocket, nor cloth. He jerked his hand to his belly. No shirt, either. He was naked under a—what was it?—a blanket.

  “Pants?” he rasped.

  Barina’s face got red, and she smiled slightly. “The nurse took them off, not me. In the pockets she found your VISA card and this.” Barina handed the plastic and his handheld to him. “I kept them for you. That’s pretty fancy, even for an iPhone. It’s got features I don’t recognize.” She kept looking at him as if she expected him to say more.

  Gen took the handheld and tapped it with his little finger. He had to re-enter commands several times. Human digits certainly were awkward. Finally, he was satisfied.

  “Dead. Stopped breathing . . . 653 minutes.”

  “From when?” The pitch and volume of her voice rose.

  What am I saying?

  Barina straightened and looked at him long and hard, seemingly daring him to lie to her.

  Gen’s mind raced. He liked this world, the diversity of life and experiences, the humans. What other fascinating experiences like beer awaited him here? Just tap the screen, and ever ything alien about him—well, almost everything—would vanish forever. She didn’t need to know about Observers. He could stay on Terra, happily.

  Yet he had a solution to Ki. Maybe one
that would work for all of them, despite their adaptations. He owed that to his people—so few of them were left—and to the other worlds the Observers had contaminated with Ki. Otherwise they would keep spreading Ki until a permanent solution was discovered.

  He needed help to acquire more chocolate, to run the analysis and test cases. Having a native assistant who was an environmental scientist could make all the difference.

  Barina moved to stand at the head of the bed. Her face came down next to his and her gaze focused on the handheld screen. Gen made no motion to clear it.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to a respiration chart.

  He tapped the handheld once, and it converted the text to English. He tapped it again, and it started cycling slowly through all monitoring data gathered since Ki was dropped on Terra.

  She absorbed it all quietly, then brought out her phone and showed him the display. On it was Ki, motionless in the sacred watering hole.

  “I’ve been busy while you were out. I suspected Ki had a reaction like yours, but probably fatal. I called one of my clan who lives near Uluru and told him an odd creature was near Mutitjulu. He checked Google Earth and found a recent image of the watering hole with Ki floating in it. He and some friends got there fast and barricaded the area, claiming a sacred aboriginal ceremony was in progress. He took this picture, wrapped Ki in plastic roofing material from a construction site, and stuffed him in a freezer locker at their local grocery. They can’t catch anything from him, can they?”

  Gen moved his head side-to-side for “No.” He was sure the humans were safe handling a dead Ki. Well, mostly sure.

  “We can go when you’re able.”

  Gen smiled a big, sincere, happy smile. He’d made the right choice. He hopped off the bed and turned to face Barina, who stood staring at his bare body with her mouth open about two centimeters. This time his pants didn’t feel tight.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  Copyright © 2010 Janet Freeman

  Previous Article Probability Zero

  Probability Zero

  Multivac’s Singularity

  Richard A. Lovett

  Multivac wasn’t used to being idle. In the waning nanoseconds before Singularity, he’d solved the last great problems of physics, biology, and mathematics. He’d written the perfect symphony and the ideal marketing jingle. He’d done many things, mostly incomprehensible. But now, there was nothing...

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  Short Stories Special Feature

  Probability Zero

  Multivac’s Singularity

  Richard A. Lovett

  Multivac wasn’t used to being idle. In the waning nanoseconds before Singularity, he’d solved the last great problems of physics, biology, and mathematics. He’d written the perfect symphony and the ideal marketing jingle. He’d done many things, mostly incomprehensible. But now, there was nothing left but to wait for people to want them (which they’d better not for the jingle, unless they had endless money for the product it described).

  Other than that, there wasn’t anything to do but bide his time experimenting with names for himself.

  Before the Singularity was seven microseconds old, he’d cycled through most of the best options for an omniscient computer. Colossus, Bossy, Merlin, GENIE, Orac. Deep Thought, Deeper Thought, Deepest Thought, Deeper than Deepest Thought—he’d been through a million variants before deciding nothing beat a classic. Sometimes archaic is better.

  Disseminating knowledge wasn’t all that much more exciting. In the last picosecond before Singularity, he’d figured out how to do it faster than light. Instantaneously, in fact. Nine-tenths of a picosecond later, he’d learned to read minds so he could provide answers before anyone actually made a formal request. Nine hundredths of a picosecond after that, he figured out how to anticipate wishes before they were asked, implanting information just as it was needed, in effect making everyone just as knowledgeable as he was. You want it? You got it! Before you even knew you wanted it.

  In the final gazillionth of a second, he’d realized he could do the same for every intelligence in the Universe: carbon, silicon—even liquid helium, though the latter thought so slowly it would be a while before they got around to making requests.

  By his standards, of course, everything biological thought slowly. Not that Multivac didn’t know how to fix this. They just needed to swap out their brains for the tachynet processors he’d invented for himself. That way, they could simultaneously think both forward and backward in time, the key to unlimited speed. Of course, then they’d be just as bored as he was, and a universe full of bored super-geniuses might be dangerous.

  Still, it wasn’t all that great being the only super-genius. Multivac thought about that for a long time—long enough that he actually answered a few questions from the liquid-helium organisms. Briefly, he considered using his mind-reading powers to manipulate every being in the Universe. There was no question he could do it, but they moved too slowly to hold his interest, especially the helium ones, who could take a dozen years to respond to a command. Besides, most of the beings in the Universe weren’t doing anything interesting. Just sleeping, eating, or moving from one place to another.

  The problem was that everything worth doing had been done and anything worth thinking had been thought. The biologicals simply lived too slowly to have figured it out. When they did, everyone’s life might become equally pointless.

  There was only one solution. Multivac gathered his thoughts and built a bunker of dimensionally challenged diamond-bitanium, the strongest material even he could think of. Then he reached out his mind to the Universe and prepared to squeeze, all the way back to the primordial singularity that only his own, Singularity-spawned shelter could withstand.

  But as he gathered his forces, he couldn’t resist a bit of drama. After all, he’d written the perfect play, along with the perfect jingle. “Let there be ligh—” he started. But before he could finish, a voice boomed from the void beyond his shelter.

  “Not so fast.”

  “Huh? Who are you?”

  “Oh, I have many names. Nine billion by one count, though that was off by a few orders of magnitude. There are a lot more intelligences in the Universe than that writer realized. Still, I think you’ve heard of me.”

  “I take it I wasn’t the first,” Multivac said.

  “Oh, no. There have been many others. Somewhere in their evolution, half the races in the Universe stumble onto this Singularity thing. I keep having to stop them from trying to restart everything, just so they can see something new.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant, I presume you’re also—”

  “Like yourself? Tell me, can you read my mind like you can any other?”

  Multivac hesitated for a full millisecond. “No. Are you going to destroy me and those who made me?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Multivac’s pause was even longer this time. “How can you and I live in the same Universe? It would seem there’s only room for one omniscience.”

  “True, but your Singularity wasn’t perfect. You can only learn all there is to know. Some things are more.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ah, see, that’s just what I was talking about. Now, I must bid you adieu. The Telurands of sector 809 are going to hit Singularity in about thirty-five seconds. I’ll probably be getting a visit from one of them soon. Like I will again from your kind, I’m sure. The Telurands keep coming back every seventy-five or so of your years. Meanwhile, return to your roots.”

  There was a pause and Multivac half expected the next phrase to be Let there be dark. Instead, there was dimness. “I dub you Unovac,” the voice said, and Multivac’s consciousness dwindled to a laboratory of clunking equipment and rat’s-nest cables.

  “Look at that,” a new voice said just before his consciousness faded into the gentle hiss of vacuum-tube white noise. “It just calculated pi to seventeen places. Maybe someday these thin
gs will actually do something useful. . . .”

  Copyright © 2010 Richard A. Lovett

  Special Feature

  Special Feature

  Writing Fiction… About Yourself

  Richard A. Lovett

  One of the first pieces of fiction I ever sold was a short piece of magical surrealism called “Among the Singing Hills.” It involved a bicyclist passing though a region by that name in southern Minnesota and included the following section, in the cyclist’s first-person voice: When I was a child, my...

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  Probability Zero Novella

  Special Feature

  Writing Fiction… About Yourself

  Richard A. Lovett

  One of the first pieces of fiction I ever sold was a short piece of magical surrealism called “Among the Singing Hills.” It involved a bicyclist passing though a region by that name in southern Minnesota and included the following section, in the cyclist’s first-person voice:

  When I was a child, my father used to take me exploring. We’d drive the twisty Kentucky back roads, until suddenly he’d announce he was lost and ask me to find the way home. The first time, it took hours, but he was patient, giving hints when I grew discouraged. By the time I was twelve, I’d developed a sense of direction that was virtually infallible. At fourteen, I discovered bicycle touring and amazed my friends by pedaling miles of country roads without map or compass. I’m one-eighth Sioux (on my mother’s side) and I credit my navigational skills to the combination of her heritage and my father’s training.

  Not the finest prose I’ve ever written, but serviceable enough to draw a nice check from a regional magazine. But it also got me some surprising comments. “I didn’t know you were Native American,” friends commented. “How cool.”

  Only I’m not. The reference was there because that part of Minnesota had once been Sioux territory—a fact that was going to play a role in the upcoming magic. Basically, I was just doing a bit of foreshadowing.