Recursion a-1

by Tony Ballantyne

  It was too much. He finally began to shiver.

  “It’s too big,” he said. “You’re right. It’s too big. We can’t fight this.”

  Robert turned back to him.

  “Oh, yes, we can. Come on. We can use this ship’s communication devices to upload ourselves. It’s time to go back.”

  Herb wouldn’t have believed it possible to feel bored and terrified at the same time, but somehow he was. Four days had passed since Robert Johnston had first appeared on his ship, and since then they had done nothing. The ship still floated a few hundred meters above the restless silver sea of VNMs, the mechanical remains of his converted planet. Robert Johnston’s mysterious errands caused him to pass constantly between his own ship and Herb’s. Herb had been told in no uncertain terms not to attempt to look down the passageway that linked the two ships, and Herb was sufficiently frightened of Robert not to attempt it.

  Apart from the occasional presence of an agent of the Environment Agency, life aboard Herb’s ship carried on as normal. He spent time preparing elaborate meals and eating them; he played games-chess, Starquest, dominions, bridge-against the ship or alone. He worked out the bare minimum in the gym to stop the ship’s nanny nagging him and he watched entertainments. Apart from the extreme tension that seemed to tie him down to the comfortingly familiar objects of his living room, everything was perfectly normal.

  Except for that time, somewhere in the middle of the night, when he had woken up at the feeling of something being pulled from his head. Herb had sat up in bed and begun raising the room’s temperature out of sleep mode, only to be told by a calm voice to lie down and go back to sleep. Herb had taken one look at the flexible black object hanging like shiny satin from Robert’s hands and quickly obeyed. Robert frightened him.

  Apart from that incident, there was nothing to unsettle him. Nothing, of course, except Robert himself.

  Herb spent one afternoon sitting on the white leather sofa gazing at the open hole in the floor where the trapdoor lay. A son et lumiиre played out around him. He ignored it, increasingly wondering about sneaking down through the trapdoor and into Robert’s ship. What did it actually look like? He had had his ship’s computer retune and recalibrate its senses time after time in an attempt to get a look at it, but with a spectacular lack of success. Whatever Johnston had done to his own ship had rendered it invisible to Herb’s senses. In desperation, Herb had even toyed with the idea of climbing out onto the hull of his own craft in an attempt to get a visual on it, but so far had failed to muster the courage. What if he slipped and fell down onto the writhing planet below? If the drop didn’t kill him, his silver creations certainly would.

  So why had Robert hidden his ship from view?

  Herb suspected it was probably just because he could. Johnston seemed to take a delight in demonstrating his superiority at every occasion. Still, maybe there was another reason…

  The thought of escape had been growing slowly in Herb’s mind. If he could cut the link to Robert’s ship and activate the warp drive…

  There were only two problems, as far as he could see.

  First, how could he be sure that the link was actually broken? How would he know he wasn’t jumping through space with Robert still attached? Maybe that was why Johnston kept his ship hidden. Anyway, there was a second consideration.

  Where would he go? Actually, the second point wasn’t so much of a problem. He knew where he would go: straight home to his father’s estate. Back home to Earth and four square kilometers of smooth, green lawn. His father was rich. In the middle of a tiny country with skyscrapers shoulder to shoulder, all jostling for position among farmland and public recreation grounds, his great-great-grandmother had leveled a patch of land in the middle of the Welsh hills and built nothing on it but a low, tasteful mansion. The rest of the land had been converted to a condition that his father liked to refer to laughingly as “unspoiled”: Gentle slopes and pleasant woodlands studded with lakes, a picture of an idyll that would have seemed entirely out of context with the original surrounding countryside. The whole estate was a grandiose gesture of understatement that inflamed envy and resentment in equal measures: Herb’s father was so rich he could leave valuable land untouched. Of course, the space beneath the land did not go unused.

  Herb’s father was a rich and powerful man. But, thought Herb, was he powerful enough? Could he stand up to the EA? A second thought caught Herb’s attention. Would he want to? Herb quickly suppressed the idea.

  So, he decided firmly, he had a place to escape to. Possibly. But first, could he break the link between the two ships? To achieve that he would have to get a look at Robert Johnston’s ship.

  The answer finally occurred to him, and he gave a slow smile. So Robert didn’t think that he was that bright?

  Maybe he could prove otherwise.

  Herb was listening to Beethoven: the late string quartets, opus 127 to be precise. He had read somewhere that these were considered amongst Beethoven’s greatest pieces, if not some of the greatest pieces ever written, and Herb was damned if he wasn’t going to enjoy them as much as the so-called experts.

  He had set the sound picture so that the string quartet appeared to be playing just over the trapdoor where Robert would emerge into the room. Maybe it would surprise him, but probably not.

  In his head, Herb was rehearsing his plan to get a picture of Robert’s ship. He just had a few words to say, but they had to seem nonchalant. He could not give away the fact that he was plotting something. The idea was actually quite simple. Johnston controlled what was picked up by the senses on Herb’s ship, but those weren’t the only senses Herb had at his disposal. Had Robert forgotten the billions of VNMs swarming below? Each a descendant of a machine built to Herb’s design, and each one sporting a rudimentary set of senses? The question was, how to do it without Robert noticing? And the solution was simplicity itself. Herb spoke.

  “Hey, Ship. I would like a chocolate malt and a hot salt-beef sandwich. And would you do a full scan out to point one light year? Include sensory information from all other public sources. I want to gather as much data as possible for the records. The state of this planet may be germane to any future legal action brought against me.”

  As he spoke, Robert Johnston strode out of the secret passageway. The sight always turned Herb’s stomach slightly. Robert walked up the side of the passageway, perpendicular to the floor of Herb’s ship. As he stepped from the passage to the floor, his body swung through ninety degrees. That last step was dramatic. Robert straightened his hat and smiled at Herb.

  “Full system scan, eh? That reminds me. Now that there is no need for them, I must disable the software blocks I placed on your ship’s senses to prevent them seeing my ship. They must be really putting a hole in the middle of your world picture.”

  Herb smiled sarcastically. Robert pretended not to notice.

  “I see you were about to have a snack. Good idea; I think I’ll join you. You made a good choice. Ship, I’ll have the same as Herb. Chocolate malt and a salt-beef sandwich, hold the meat.”

  He gave Herb an apologetic smile. “I’m a vegetarian, didn’t I tell you?”

  “Are you really?”

  Herb didn’t care. All around him the ship was sucking up its impressions of the immediate surroundings in a bubble point two light years in diameter. Buried somewhere in that set of data would be the images sensed by the VNMs just below him.

  Some of those images would reveal Robert’s ship.

  Herb was beating Robert at chess. He had arranged his opponent’s captured pieces in a circle around the foam-flecked glass that had held his spiced lager. He grinned across the board as Robert frowned while thinking of his next move.

  “Do you want to concede? Again?”

  “Not yet. I feel I learn something just by playing through to the end.”

  “Please yourself.”

  Herb sat back in his seat and began to hum. Robert sighed and moved a piece.

  �
��You don’t want to do that,” Herb warned. “Mate in three moves.”

  Robert sighed again. Just for the moment, the arrogant air had left him.

  “Herb,” he said, “don’t you ever think that there are more important things than winning? Haven’t you heard the saying ‘It’s far more important to be nice than to be clever’?”

  Herb rolled his eyes. “The call of the loser. Okay, have that as your move.”

  “That’s all right. I concede.” Robert knocked over his king and stood up. He placed his hat on his head.

  “Don’t you want another game?” asked Herb.

  “No, thank you. I think I’ll go back to my ship and have a nap.”

  Herb shrugged. “Suit yourself. You know, we’ve been hanging over this planet for ten days now. I thought we were supposed to be going off to war. When are we actually going to do something?”

  Looking a little sad, Johnston gave a barely perceptible shrug.

  “Soon. The first reconnaissance reports are coming back already. We’ll give it another couple of days to see what else we get.”

  “What reports?”

  “You’ll see. Good night.”

  Robert waved good-bye as he stepped into the secret passageway, his body jerking forward through ninety degrees as the new gravity caught hold. He marched away down to his ship.

  Herb watched him go, a feeling of frustration burning inside. Even when he won, Robert had a way of making him feel he had lost. Everything he did seemed intended to highlight Herb’s inferiority. Worse, no matter how Herb tried to fight back, he always seemed to end up losing. Herb wasn’t used to that; the few friends he had made had always been chosen as being just slightly less clever than he was.

  Herb paused in shock. The idea had never occurred to him before. Was it true? He didn’t know if he wanted to think about it. He quickly changed his line of thought.

  The local scan was complete: all the data were stored within the ship. What he needed now was to access the images without Robert noticing what he was doing. Herb had already planned what he would do.

  “Ship, play back the results of the last scan, mapped to a 3-D visual feed in the main viewing area. Random jumps every ten seconds, fifty percent probability space focused around the ship to a radius of ten kilometers.”

  Herb flopped onto one of the white sofas just as the space before him filled with a view of the planet below: silver machines in a restless sea of unending motion. After ten seconds the view flicked to a sky view of endless grey. Another ten seconds and flick, another view of the planet, this time from much higher up.

  Herb sat back, watching patiently. He couldn’t focus straight in on his ship: that would alert Robert’s suspicions. This way, it would seem just like any, everyday, random survey. Sooner or later, the view must fall on Johnston’s ship. Flick, and a shot across the planet’s surface; flick, and a shot into space, the atmosphere fading just enough to show the faint pinpricks of stars beyond; flick, a picture of Herb’s ship, floating in the distance, too faint really to make out any detail. Flick again and nothing but sky. Flick again, and there was Herb’s ship close up and in detail. A white rectangular box with bevelled edges top and bottom. And standing on the roof of Herb’s ship, in the spot where Robert’s ship should have been, wearing the palest blue suit and white spats with a matching carnation in the buttonhole, stood Robert Johnston. He was waving to the “camera.”

  Robert Johnston had beaten him again.

  Herb had risen early and gone into the ship’s gym to work out. He turned off the VR feed as he wanted to concentrate on the basic feeling of exercising the frustration from his body rather than visualize a pleasant run through the country. He ran six kilometers on the treadmill, did another two kilometers on the rowing machine and then put himself through thirty minutes of high-impact yoga.

  After that he staggered, sweating, through to the lounge and called up a breakfast of orange and banana juice, brioche loaf, yellow butter, and honey. Robert Johnston stepped into the room just as Herb was finishing his third thick slice of brioche.

  “Good morning, Herb. Ah, excellent! Breakfast. I hope there’s enough left for me.”

  Robert sat down on the chair opposite and inspected Herb’s meal.

  “Maybe just a few sausages to go with it. See to it, please, Ship.”

  “I thought you were a vegetarian.”

  “Not on Thursdays.”

  Johnston cut himself a slice of brioche and began to eat.

  “Mmm. Good choice. Well, the news is, we’ve received enough reports back on the Enemy Domain to begin your briefing. Once we’ve done that, we should be ready to jump into the fight almost immediately.”

  “Oh good,” said Herb, weakly. He felt a sudden stab of cold fear deep inside. The easy passage of the past few days had made him almost forget the threatened danger of the Enemy Domain. Now the realization of his predicament came rushing back upon him. In just a few hours he could be dead. Or worse.

  Johnston was helping himself to a sausage. “We’ll just finish breakfast and then we’ll begin.” He took a bite and half-closed his eyes with pleasure. “Mmmm! Excellent! Well. I suppose I’d better explain. A few days ago I took a recording of your personality while you were sleeping. I took the liberty of beaming several thousand copies of it into the Enemy Domain. Those personalities have since been living in the processors of the Domain, collecting information about conditions in there. Those personalities who could do so have beamed themselves back here again. I have made a selection of the best of the memories they picked up. After breakfast, we’ll take a look at them. See what we’re up against.”

  He waved his fork in delight.

  “These really are excellent sausages! Maybe just a touch of maple syrup…”

  Herb stared at him. The sick feeling in his stomach had now driven all thoughts of eating from his mind. Despite that, he forced his voice to remain cool and level. “How come the act has changed? Yesterday you were all 1920s American. Today you’re acting like some sort of effete English gentleman.”

  “I like to experiment with personalities. You should try it yourself. That one you’re using at the moment obviously isn’t working.”

  Herb sneered at him.

  “Oh, touchй,” said Robert.

  After breakfast they sat down to share the memories. Robert set a glass of drugged whisky at Herb’s elbow.

  “I don’t need that,” said Herb.

  “It’s there if you change your mind.”

  Robert had opened up a viewing field in the space in front of the white sofa. Once Herb was settled the show began. The scene revealed the ghostly figures of Herb and Robert both rising from Herb’s spaceship and floating up into space. As they rose they began to move faster and faster, the planet beneath them shrinking to a dot. The star around which the planet circled moved into view and began itself to shrink as the two ghostly bodies accelerated through space.

  “I added this bit for effect,” Robert said. He was carefully laying out a white handkerchief on his lap. A bowl of walnuts balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa by his right elbow. Herb gave a grunt in reply.

  On the screen before them, their two ghostly bodies shimmered as if they were moving out of focus, and then, slowly, a second pair of images peeled away from the first. Now there were two Herbs and two Roberts. They began to shimmer again, splitting into four, and then eight…

  “I like this part,” said Robert. “It represents the multiple copies of our personalities that I beamed all the way through the Enemy Domain.” Robert took a walnut from the bowl at his side and placed it in a pair of bright red nutcrackers he produced from his jacket pocket.

  “How long does this go on for?” muttered Herb.

  “Not too long,” Robert replied, pushing a shelled walnut into his mouth.

  The ghostly bodies of Herb and Robert began to separate from each other and suddenly zoom from sight. Bursts of red and green stars accompanied their sudden exit from view
.

  “Warp jumps,” Robert explained.

  The camera picked up on one pair of bodies as they shot through space. They were now approaching a planet.

  “This is part of the Enemy Domain,” Robert murmured. “Watch carefully.”

  Herb gazed into the viewing area impassively. After a few moments he sat up straighter. Shortly after that his hands stiffened on the soft white leather of the sofa, then he reached for the glass of whisky and took a sip, and then another…

  It began simply enough. Robert and Herb’s duplicates were standing on a low hill looking out over a grassy plain punctuated with low mounds. The Robert on the screen turned and pointed out something to the Herb standing next to him, and the camera focused on the horizon. They saw a low, dark shape, rising from the ground like a cancer. Now they could make out something silver in the grass, thin and shimmering in the light like a spiderweb. It was clearly spreading out from the dark growth in the distance, slowly choking the planet. The Robert in the viewing field bent down and pointed it out to Herb.

  “Interesting, isn’t it? It’s got a coating of photoelectric cells all around the outside. This planet is going to be covered by that stuff, and it’s all being powered by nothing more than the sun’s energy. Just imagine if they dropped one of these VNMs on Earth.”

  “It moves too slowly. We’d destroy it in no time.”

  “Maybe.” The virtual Robert shrugged.

  The Herb watching the viewing field, the real Herb, silently cheered his alter ego.

  The view shifted and this time another Herb and Robert were standing on another planet. In this view a group of cows was huddled on a small island of green remaining in the middle of a sea of silver-grey VNMs. The VNMs were eating up the land, leaving the animals nowhere to stand.

  “Are those real cows?” asked the Herb in the viewing tank.

  “Oh, yes.”

  One of the cows slipped and scrambled desperately to prevent itself sliding down the deep brown mud fringing the island, toward the restless silver sea below. There was a stirring at the shoreline, the first flickering of mechanical interest. Despite its frantic scrambling, the cow slipped closer and closer to the silver sea. One machine skittered across the bodies of its brothers and onto the mud, antennae waving, and that was it. Herb looked on in horror as the silver VNMs rushed over the unfortunate animal.