Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  The bookseller shook his hand, nervously. “Welcome,” he said, as he removed a pile of books from a wooden chair and motioned for Dacron to sit down. “This is the only place I can talk to you freely.”

  Dacron looked around, feeling magic fizzing everywhere. “This room is warded, I assume,” he said. “Do you believe that someone will spy on us?”

  “Someone is already spying on you,” the bookseller said. There was a long pause. “You come from another world, don’t you?”

  “... Yes,” Dacron said, finally. He was surprised – and more than a little puzzled. The only locals who knew the full story were Master Faye and his apprentice. Everyone else should know nothing more than that they were rich strangers from out of town. “How... ?”

  “The Guild works hard to keep knowledge flowing around the world,” the bookseller said. “We know that we are not native to this world. Do we come from your world?”

  “It is probable,” Dacron said. They had believed that all knowledge of Darius’s origins was lost. “How did you manage to preserve the knowledge of your own origins?”

  “I can only tell you what has been passed down the ages,” the bookseller admitted. “The story claims that we were hoping to find a new land to call our own. But when we arrived, most of the population went mad. Much knowledge was destroyed in that terrible time, before the first magicians provided a stability, of sorts. The guild had managed to keep the knowledge of how to produce a printing press, but little else. We set ourselves the task of recording all of the remaining knowledge, as well as everything new.”

  “Interesting,” Dacron said, after a moment. Passing information down through history verbally was often subject to information degradation. The written word, on the other hand, tended to survive longer. “How far back do your records go?”

  “We have kept history for over two thousand years,” the bookseller said. There was a hint of very definite pride in his voice. “No one else records history any further back than two hundred years.”

  Dacron thought, rapidly. Simple logic suggested that Darius had to be much older, at least assuming that the colony ship had left Earth during the First Expansion Era. But a ship from that time could never have reached Darius, certainly not without ending its voyage at any of the countless habitable worlds between Earth and Darius. The most logical solution was that someone – almost certainly an Elder race – had transported the ship directly to Darius, probably by creating a wormhole. It was relatively simple to use a wormhole to jump into the future. Thousands of years would have passed during the colony ship’s voyage through the wormhole. Done properly, they might never have realised that they’d been redirected.

  “We know very little about the world we left,” the bookseller said, after a moment. “There were some suggestions that it had been destroyed, but we do not know.”

  “Earth... Earth abides,” Dacron said. The Thule had bombarded humanity’s homeworld savagely during the opening stages of the Thule War. Later, the Confederation had embarked upon a massive restoration project, but defeating the lethal nanotech the Thule had introduced to Earth had been tricky. Even now, there were few settlements on humanity’s homeworld. “How did you know about us?”

  The bookseller looked embarrassed. “I caught one of your people,” he reminded Dacron. “Master Faye should have killed her, or enslaved her; forgery is a very serious offence. Instead, he treated you all well, so I became curious and spied on you. And then I worked out the truth. You found us again, after all those years.”

  “Yes,” Dacron said. He would have to report this development to Jorlem. They’d thought that no one on the planet knew the truth about the planet’s origins. “There is a whole human community out there that will welcome you.”

  “Good, because this world is dying,” the bookseller said. He looked up, sharply. “And you’re in terrible danger.”

  Dacron blinked. “We are?”

  “You are,” the bookseller said. “Master Faye is already planning your destruction. Or didn’t you realise that he was stalling when you negotiated with him?”

  “But why?” Dacron asked. “Why... ?”

  “It always happens,” the bookseller said. “The Pillars destroy all hope of stability. And you are the greatest threat of all to their order.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Dacron took a moment to process all that he’d heard. “The Pillars lash out at the rest of the population,” he said, finally. “That’s why there is no real stability.”

  “Correct,” the bookseller said. “How much progress can we make when society is upended time and time again?”

  That fitted in with what they’d already deduced – and early human history, although that hadn’t included magic. The states that levied high taxes either stagnated or were defeated by their neighbours who became richer after practising smarter economic policies. But the Pillars were effectively all-powerful within their bailiwicks and could wreck them without the slightest hope of anyone saying no. Just because Master Faye was an enlightened absolute ruler didn’t mean that his successor would be the same.

  “You’re saying that he’s planning to attack us,” he said, grimly. “How?”

  “The Pillars don’t work together very well, but they’ll cooperate on something like this,” the bookseller warned. “We think he’s going to recruit a few Scions – lower-level ones, mainly – and send them against you. Those of you who survive the first attack will probably be quickly murdered.”

  Dacron winced. The locals had no idea how much firepower could be unleashed against Darius by the Hamilton, let alone a Peacekeeper planetoid. If worst came to worst, a supernova torpedo would detonate the star and Darius would be vaporised. But he knew that the Confederation was unlikely to reach for the hammer at once, particularly if the Hamilton was untouched. They’d probably fall back, consider what they’d learned and then plan a return to Darius. Master Faye might assume that would be the end of the matter, or... or he might have a plan for striking the starship out of orbit.

  That can’t be possible, he thought, grimly. If magic doesn’t work outside low orbit, they couldn’t even reach Hamilton.

  “They want to keep their little paradise,” the bookseller said. “And we need your help.” He looked up at Dacron, pleadingly. “Can you help us?”

  “We would be delighted to help,” Dacron said, honestly. The Interventionists would be more than willing to help – and as Darius was a human-settled planet, there would be no objections from the Isolationists or the Darwinists. Besides, their best estimate of Darius’s population was little more than fifty million. A couple of cityships could take them onboard and leave Darius behind forever. Indeed, it might be the best possible solution. “But how do you even exist?”

  The bookseller smirked. “There are hundreds of guilds that reach outside the cities,” he said, seriously. “They’re quietly encouraged by us, because they help preserve knowledge, and the smarter Pillars tolerate their existence. As far as most of them know, the Booksellers Guild is just another guild. They don’t see what hides behind our travels.

  “If they knew what we were, they’d wipe us out,” he added. “They seem more inclined to lash out at civilisation with every passing year. We lost a couple of dozen members when a Pillar went mad four years ago. He came far too close to the secret.

  “We think that magic helps to drive them slowly mad. Some magicians go mad right from the start and are either killed or expelled by their fellows. Others start becoming increasingly irrational, prone to lashing out at the slightest problem. Even Master Faye, who is relatively controlled for his age, is growing dangerously unstable. We do not expect Warlock’s Bane to remain the same for much longer.”

  Dacron wondered if there was more to it than that. Could it be that the force behind magic was actively interfering with the society’s stability? They’d heard enough to know that it was rare for Scions to work with Pillars; hell, they didn’t even work together
. But if there was something quietly influencing them from behind the scenes, they’d obey – and they wouldn’t even realise that they were being manipulated. The AIs had certainly manipulated the Confederation often enough. In hindsight, it was clear that the Confederation had been pushed into sending a team to Darius that would move quickly to active operations on the planet’s surface.

  A thought occurred to him and he lifted a hand, waving it around the dimensionally transcendent compartment. “But you use magic,” he pointed out. “You used it against my friend too.”

  “We know a few spells,” the bookseller admitted, grudgingly. There was a long pause, before he decided that he’d better elaborate. “We discovered that the effects of magic can be minimised if several magicians cooperate to cast the spell. The potential magicians we catch before the Pillars detect them are recruited and trained to work together.”

  “And Pillars cannot work together,” Dacron said. If the magic really caused paranoia, each Pillar would be wondering when his ally intended to turn on him. “That is their greatest weakness.”

  He paused, thoughtfully. “And they can’t detect you?”

  “They know that there are some magicians who never really rise above the level of apprentice,” the bookseller said. “Luckily, they just consider us contemptible, rather than a threat. It doesn’t really occur to them that cooperation can produce remarkable results.”

  “So it would seem,” Dacron agreed. “What happened when you arrived on this world?”

  “The population went mad, according to the records,” the bookseller said. “I don’t think the founders of the guild ever really understood what had happened to them.”

  Dacron suspected that he knew the answer. A colony ship from the First Expansion Era would probably have been able to land on Darius, if they were lucky, but taking off again would have been impossible. The colonists might have lost most of their technology overnight, a shocking experience by any standards. Or the magic field might have preyed on them, driving enough of the colonists to madness to destroy what remained of the planned society. And so they’d sunk back to near-barbarism.

  “I need to relay this to my team,” he said, suddenly. “How long do we have?”

  “I don’t know,” the bookseller admitted. “You can warn them now, and then...”

  He paused. “Will you help us?”

  “I believe so,” Dacron said, honestly. “But right now, I have to prevent a disaster.”

  He stood up and stepped outside the cart, testing his implants. They didn’t work. Shaking his head, he walked down the street, trying them time and time again. They didn’t even start to work until he reached the edge of the market, when he picked up a signal from the AIs. A moment later, before he could start relaying his warning, something crashed into him and he fell to the ground, stunned.

  ***

  The blue-green orb floated in the sea of stars, infinitely fragile against the inky darkness of space. Elyria watched Joshua as he stared, understanding the sense of wonder he felt at what – to any citizen of the Confederation – was a commonplace sight. Gas giants were stranger, terraformed worlds seemed oddly artificial, but a living world was home. Darius would always be part of Joshua, whatever happened to him in the future.

  “It’s wonderful,” he said, finally. “I can never thank you enough for this.”

  “You’ve helped us a great deal,” Elyria said. That was certainly true; between Joshua and Dacron, the AIs now had a working ability to propose magic spells. They even had a working simulator. “And how are you feeling?”

  “I’m not sure,” Joshua said. “I’ve never had my body repaired so intensely before.”

  They shared a smile, although Elyria found hers to be a little forced. The AIs had kept her updated on the list of health problems they’d uncovered inside Joshua, ranging from cellular damage to bad teeth. It hadn’t taken long for the nanotech to fix most of the problems, outside the ones in his brain, but she had a feeling that repeated use of magic would simply bring the problems back. The AIs were already proposing biomods that might improve the situation, yet even they hadn’t been able to guarantee that they’d work.

  Somewhat to her alarm, they’d also removed blood, tissue and semen samples from Joshua, largely without his knowledge. Those samples were already on their way out of the system, where they would later be recovered by a Peacekeeper starship – if something happened to the Hamilton. The AIs were being paranoid, even though all of the evidence indicated that magic couldn’t be used away from the planet. Elyria found it hard to blame them.

  “No one has ever tried to create new life on Darius,” Joshua said, and then flushed. “Apart from the standard way, of course.”

  Elyria smiled, more genuinely this time. Joshua had been wowed by most of the technology around him, even though he’d taken it surprisingly calmly, but it had been the AIs that had really stunned him. She wasn’t sure how much of the explanation he’d followed – how could a primitive from a pre-spaceflight world understand hyperspace fields and quantum communications – yet it had clearly had an effect on him. The Confederation saw Darius as magic; their own technology could pass for magic on Darius.

  Joshua had been trying to read files while the AIs guided the nanotech to fix his body, although he’d barely scratched the surface of the information available to any born citizen of the Confederation. Elyria had to admire his determination, even though she knew better than to believe he could comprehend technology as diverse as antigravity pods, life support fields and FTL drives. She had a feeling that part of him wanted to ask if he could go to the Confederation, even if the rest of the planet remained outside. The AIs had noted that his request, if it were made, would probably be granted. They’d want to keep studying him for a long time.

  And probably ask him to father children, she thought, wryly. If Joshua could still sense the quantum foam, even away from Darius, it was possible that whatever little quirk he had was merely amplified on the planet’s surface. Or he could just be picking up the outer edges of the planet’s magic field. Who knows what his children would be like?

  “Master Faye wouldn’t believe any of this,” he added, after a moment. He pulled up his shirt and examined the smooth skin, which had been badly marked by disease years ago. Analysis had determined that it was a very mild variant on smallpox. “Even the best spells can’t prevent the pox from leaving a mark.”

  “Or extend your life too far,” Elyria agreed. In theory, there should be rejuvenation spells, but the AIs believed that they were simply too complex for human minds. Dacron would have to try one when he returned from his midnight excursion. “Would you be interested in trying spells we created?”

  Joshua frowned. “I was always told never to experiment with my own spells,” he said, finally. “I could kill myself, or you...”

  “There is little reason to assume so,” the AIs said, abandoning the pretence that they weren’t listening. Everything Joshua said was going into a file for analysis, eventually allowing the AIs to try to extrapolate his future behaviour. “We have calculated the precise nature of the words you need to work more complex spells. All you would have to do is pronounce them correctly and we could assist with that.”

  Elyria frowned. “What happens if one of the words is garbled, not all of them?”

  “The effects become a little unpredictable,” the AIs admitted. “However, young Joshua has a good memory. We do not believe that he will have a problem repeating the magic words.”

  “Right,” Elyria said. She looked over at Joshua. “We won’t force you into trying any of the magic words they think they’ve invented for you. If you don’t want to do it, it should be fine.”

  She shifted her glare to one of the AI drones. “And you should know better,” she added. “The prize may be extreme, but there are ethical issues involved. Don’t you know that?”

  For a moment, the AI drone looked abashed... and then bobbled its prow in a nod. “We apologise if we pushed
too far,” they said. “However, we feel that the experiments must be carried out.”

  “Just don’t let Master Faye know,” Joshua said. He looked back at Elyria. “How long are you going to stay here?”

  “As long as it takes,” Elyria admitted. It was something Interventionists rarely considered, but then it never took more than a couple of standard years to know a society thoroughly and then start the intervention. They had seriously considered just requesting a pair of heavy transports and then moving half of the population away from Darius. The Confederation would have no trouble settling them on a Ring, or a Structure, or even a handful of Cityships. There would be shock, of course, as they got used to the Confederation, but that happened all the time. It was hardly a problem. “Will you continue to work with us?”

  Joshua looked back at the stars. “I want to see the universe,” he breathed. “Could you take me with you when you go?”

  “We do not believe that the Confederation would refuse you,” the AIs said. Joshua was human, after all, and the Confederation existed for the benefit of the human race. And he was smart enough not to cling to cultural habits that would pose a problem for the integration process. Not that it really mattered; the Confederation was quite skilled at breaking them down. “Do you wish to emigrate?”

  Joshua nodded. “I want to see the universe,” he said, again.

  “And you will,” Elyria said, softly. She looked back at Darius, spinning silently below. “For the moment, it seems we have to return to the planet’s surface. Are you ready?”

  Joshua grinned. “I would need to explain myself to Master Faye,” he said, seriously. “It isn’t unknown for an apprentice to decide that it’s time to become a Scion, but he does have to tell his master before leaving.”

  “You should stay with him until we are ready to depart,” the AIs suggested. “If he believes that you are leaving him, he may become less forthcoming with information.”