by S. J. Ryan
“Anything at all. The amazing things that you are showing me, have you shown those things to Archimedes?”
“I would have to connect him up with Ivan.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Well, no, but – it's just . . . well, I'm not sure I can trust him.”
“He's your benefactor.”
“It's not a matter of gratitude or debts owed. It's a question of what he would do with the knowledge. He's an old man, maybe he's too inflexible in his ways and it would drive him crazy to have Ivan interface with him. Or maybe he'll decide I'm too valuable a resource to run loose, so he'll have me put in a cage. I'm . . . just not sure.”
For a moment she relaxed, relieved that the conversation did not involve interrogating her. She even carefreely swung the satchel.
But then Matt said, “You should understand how I have mixed feelings. You have secrets too.”
“What do you mean?”
She refrained from looking at the satchel or the letter.
"That you're a mutant, that you have superior strength and senses."
Oh, that's all. She took a deep breath, and hoped it didn't betray her.
"I don't hide my abilities. I use them openly, all the time."
"Carrot, people have no idea what you're really capable of. Well, maybe you don't either. But take it from Ivan, you're off the scale."
"You're as bad as the people back home who call me a witch. As far as I can tell, 'mutant' is the Earth word for 'witch.'"
“Okay, that's fair criticism, I guess. I really don't mean to have you feel uncomfortable. Hey, let me make it up to you. There's a nice coffee cafe in the Square. I'll treat. Order whatever you like."
He gave her a look that belonged on a puppy that was thinking, If you don't play with me now, it will break my heart! She in turn thought, If people only knew how much child is in their Star Child!
Suppressing a sigh, she said, "All right. You have twisted my arm.”
“Now who's making who feel uncomfortable?” he said with a smile.
They headed toward Victory Square, and came to the cafe with a sign of a woman astride a dolphin, which Carrot noticed that Matt seemed to find amusing. He ordered a cappuccino. A whiff of a mocha caught her nose, and she ordered that. They sat at a table under a sun umbrella and watched the passing crowds.
Carrot took a sip and said, “Chocolate is incredible. Does it come originally from Earth?”
“Yes.”
“So much debt we owe to our mother world.” She looked up at the sign. “I remember seeing something like that in Seattle. Do you come here because it reminds you of there?”
“I like Victory Square because it's a lot like Seattle. But then you go a few streets that way or the other, and it's unbelievable poverty.”
“I find it unbelievable that there is no poverty on your world. Matt, do you think it will ever be that way here?”
“Someday. You'll have to build your own computers and robots and printers.”
“Matt, suppose we build just one printer. Wouldn't it be able to make other printers, until there were enough for the whole world?”
“No, you'd need a suite of very complex printers to make all the parts needed for Total Replication. Anyway, even the simplest printer would require technology this world won't have for a long time.”
“How long a time?”
“It depends. Ivan and I have talked about it. This version of Rome appears to be at the same technological level as the early Industrial Revolution. On Earth, from the start of the Industrial Revolution, it took about three centuries to reach the Economic Singularity.”
“People are starving now. Three centuries is too long to wait.”
“I think it would take much less time here, though, because you already have scientific and technological knowledge that it took centuries to develop on Earth."
"You mean, the wisdom of the mentors."
“Yeah.”
“But what were the mentors? Were they people from Earth like you?”
“The seeder probes were launched before we had the technology to transport humans between the stars. So no, not human beings.”
He (with Ivan's help) had already given her a basic explanation that a seeder probe was an actual artifact from his time, and not just a myth.
“I see. Even a child would be too large to fit inside The Box That Everything Came In. But Matt, how did everything here fit inside one little box? And if a single person was too large to fit inside the Box, how did any people come to be here at all?”
“That's a long story.”
“I was hoping to scrub floors this afternoon, but I would like to hear this too.”
He seemed to think that was funny.
“Okay. Well . . . you remember we looked at that educational video on DNA the other night?”
“Yes. 'The Machinery of Life.'”
“And then we saw the video about evolution.”
“'Darwin at Three Hundred.'”
“Well, a seeder probe starts by releasing primitive organisms which cover a planet and terraform its atmosphere – “
“I'm sorry, 'terraform?'”
“To make Earthlike. The organisms eat the soil and convert it into gasses that make the planet's atmosphere like Earth's.”
“All right . . . . ”
“Then the probe releases primitive organisms which multiply naturally until they cover the planet. Then it releases spores with editor viruses – “
“Spores? Editor viruses?”
“Think of genetically-designed micro-organisms that enter into the cells – did we cover anything about cells?”
“'Cells: The Building Blocks of Living Things.' Ivan showed me the interactive lesson the other night while you were playing a VR game.”
“Hey, Ivan just popped up an encyclopedia article. Let me quote: 'The spores are replicated and released into the atmosphere and travel until they reach a targeted organism and inject their payload of editor viruses. Editor viruses enter into the nuclei of cells and edit the DNA in specific ways – delete old mutations, add new ones. That way, the evolutionary progression of organisms can be directed all over the planet by the seeder probe. Since the evolutionary progression is being directed instead of occurring randomly, it can occur at a much faster rate.'”
“How much faster?”
“Well . . . on Earth, it took billions of years for evolution to randomly mutate human beings. Here, it seems to have happened in a couple centuries.”
“I see then how humans could be born to this world. But how did the mentors come to us? Surely they were people, so how did they fit inside the Box?”
“They must have been AIs – artificial people, like Ivan. You could have dozens inside the seeder probe without taking up too much space.”
“All right, but then how did they become full-sized humans?”
“I'm sorry, what?”
“As I understand it, the probe evolved rats from mice, monkeys from rats, humans from monkeys. Is that correct?”
“Not really, but it's sort of the general idea. Go on.”
She held out her hands on each side, and looked at one and said, “Here inside the probe we have the mentors, who are artificial people with great repositories of human knowledge.” She looked at the other hand and said, “And here we have humans who are running free like animals, absolutely ignorant of all knowledge.” She brought her hands together. “So how is it that the tiny artificial-person mentors came to be the full-sized human mentors known to our history?”
Matt tilted his head. “Ivan says there were designs for mobile implants that could walk and fly. So the mentors would be implants that could travel from the probe to a human, then get inside the human and communicate like Ivan does with me.”
“So the people whom we call 'mentors' were actually only the hosts to the true mentors. But still, how do the mentors get inside the humans?”
Matt made a pensive frown. “Ivan is installed thr
ough a nasal cavity. And the mentors would probably have been primitive compared to Ivan, but still they wouldn't have been very big, maybe about insect-sized. So yeah, maybe they'd fit through a nostril.”
Carrot cringed. “A bug crawling up a person's nose to settle inside his brain. I can't imagine a greater horror!”
“Well, it would probably happen while the host was sleeping.”
“That doesn't make it better!”
“Look, Carrot, it wasn't my idea.” He waved at the scene. “This whole world is basically an illegal genetic experiment. I'm here, but I had nothing to do with it and I didn't want anything to do with it.”
She said quietly, “I'm part of the experiment too, aren't I?”
“Oh, Carrot, I didn't mean it that way – “
“That's all right. I didn't take you to mean that you despised me. But I am part of their experiment, aren't I?”
“Yes. Theirs, or the seeder probe's.”
“What do you mean . . . oh, wait, I think I see. To do all it does, the Box must have an artificial person inside of it, too, like the mentors and Ivan.”
“Yes. And to operate over centuries, it would have to be capable of independent thought and have its own self-actualized personality. And I'm just guessing, but it was probably named Pandora.”
“Pandora. Why do you think that?”
“There's a well-known old Earth myth about a woman named Pandora, who opens a box and lets out all the troubles of the world.”
“That does sound very appropriate. But do you have additional reasons for believing it is named Pandora?”
“Also, the Star Seed Project had a secret program named Pandora, which Ivan and I think had to do with sending a seeder probe to Ne'arth. And there's something like a religious cult here that worships an entity named Pandora.”
“Yes, I have heard of that. So Matt, do you think Pandora is still alive?”
“Seeder probes were designed to last centuries. So, yeah.”
“Where is she then?”
“Good question.”
She looked at him levelly, and said, “Matt, for what purpose do you think Pandora made me?”
“I don't know. Carrot, I was wondering, do you have your own idea on that?”
Carrot didn't answer. As a mutant, she thought, perhaps I am a special project. Perhaps that had something to do with . . . . Carrot thought of the creature that had killed her mother, and knew instinctively, Pandora is the true enemy.
The Master of Rome began to bong. Carrot read the dial and drained her cup in a single gulp. "I must be on. I promised Mola I would be back in time to help with lunch."
Matt stood with her. "Where are you going now? Mind if I come along?"
"I don't think you'd like it. The slave market."
"Oh. Well, maybe I should see that. Just to know what it's about."
So he followed her to the slave market. It was a typical day: whippings, brandings, women made to bare their chests. Children howling when separated from parents. But what seemed to affect him most was how the buyers in the auction crowd chatted and laughed about the misery they were underwriting.
Finally, he growled, "What the Emperor said the other night about having to keep people poor out of necessity. That's just an excuse the people in power make. They really do enjoy controlling and tormenting other human beings. I think certain people are addicted to sadism."
"From what I have seen of masters and rulers, those who crave to control the lives of others seem to enjoy inflicting oppression. Do you suppose that is the real reason why this world was made?”
“I just know it led to this and all the other injustices I've seen here, and proves that people in my time were right to be against uncontrolled interstellar seeder probe programs. I mean, I like Archimedes and you and all your friends, but – “
They heard a whip snap and a woman shriek, and Matt winced.
"Carrot, this is worse than Palras. If you don't mind, I'll go back to the house."
She realized that was proof once more that he really did come from another world. He can't look and not feel.
By then she was disappointed to see him leave. During their animated conversation at the cafe, she'd almost forgotten her mission. She had to admit, she had never been more fascinated by a male her own age, not even the boy from South Umbrick who had sought to acquaint her with all the things that could be done inside a hay stack. And this time, Geth wasn't there to chase her instructor away.
She almost smiled at the memory, and then she turned unsmiling to the auction platform. She stayed for a few minutes longer, but she didn't see the men or detect their scent.
She headed for the waterfront, relieved that she didn't have to contrive a lie to avoid revealing to Matt what she was about to do.
At the public warehouse, she stopped and presented the claim ticket that gained her entrance to her rented storage bin. In privacy she emptied the satchel. Next stop was the courier station, where the bored clerk accepted her payment and watched her self-consciously fill out the envelope label: To Ral the Tailor, Cork Lane, Town of Londonium, Province of Britan.
As she always did at the waterfront, she paused at the edge of the shoring and watched ships on the piers unload slaves and raw materials, then load with soldiers and the manufactured goods of Roman factories. But at that moment the commerce of an empire was not sufficiently diverting to keep her from thinking about Matt.
Then – as she turned – she stopped in mid-step, and all thoughts were chased from mind by the faintest trace of a scent. Her eyes rapidly swept the waterfront but she saw no one in particular. And then the scent was gone. Carrot remained trembling. However, though she began with fear, she quickly turned to rage and resolve as she squinted at the imagined foe.
“Agent of Pandora,” she said. “So you are here!”
And she thought, Let's see what can be done about that.
34.
Carrot did not come to his room that night, or the next. Matt's attempts at conversation were declined with a variety of excuses. She had too many chores. She was very tired and had to take a nap. She was about to leave on errands and asked that he not come along because it would slow her down. No, nothing's wrong. If you'll pardon me . . . .
Meanwhile, Archimedes became involved in activities of his own. He would only grunt when Matt asked for assignments and then disappear behind a locked door in the basement for hours without explanation. Matt heard a lot of clanging and banging, and more grunting when Archimedes emerged speckled with grease.
Matt at first welcomed the slack time, as he was able to uninterruptedly read – that is, photograph – all the books in the library. But all too often, after dinner, he found himself sitting on his bed in his room, staring out into the lamp-lit courtyard at the garden and servants and feeling very much a stranger in a strange land. And yet . . . strangely not.
“It's beginning to be just like Earth,” Matt remarked to Ivan. “I have only two friends on the planet and they're both too busy for me.”
"Matt," Ivan said, "I am your friend."
"I hope," Matt found himself saying, "that I've been a good friend to you as well."
He reclined on the bed and stared at the ceiling – something that he was aware he was doing a lot of lately.
"I wonder if it's something I said. She seemed all right at the cafe."
"I detected elevated respiration and pulse rates on her part at that time.”
"Now that you mention it . . . run the video for when we were just about to go out that day."
The pop-up augmented-reality window blocked out most of the ceiling. Carrot was standing in the courtyard, holding a satchel in one hand and an envelope in the other. For the most part the envelope was obscured by her body, but the waxen imprint was unmistakable.
"She used the Seal of Archimedes," Matt said. "She must have taken it from his office.”
“Or, she asked to borrow it and he allowed her to do so.”
“Uh, yeah.
Well, I'm glad one of us here isn't the suspicious type. But see how she's holding the envelope when we're together? She's trying to keep us from seeing it. Like she's afraid that I'll have you scan it. By the way, did you?”
“I did not. Do you wish that I automatically scan the next time I see someone holding a letter, or specifically when she does?”
“I guess that would be too nosy But continue scanning everybody for hidden weapons. I'm tired of being mugged every time I go out at night.”
“It has not been every time. It was only twice.”
Matt sighed. “Keep going on the video, please.”
Matt reviewed the video of the entire time that he had spent with Carrot, noting that she continued to keep the envelope positioned so that Ivan would not have been able to scan it.
He winced at his casual reference to her being a mutant, and realized from her expression how much she had been disturbed by his description of how mentors might behave.
“I wonder if I come off as a bit insensitive,” he said.
"I have a social behavior metrics program that could evaluate your conversational style.”
"All right, run an analysis for the conversation at the cafe."
Matt waited, but Ivan didn't say anything.
"Ivan, is the analysis done?"
"Yes, Matt."
"Well, what did it say?"
"Matt, the evaluations made by programs in the social behavior metrics suite are those of the respective development teams and not my own."
"Okay . . . so what did the program say?"
"Your conversational style is evaluated as, 'Narcissistic.'"
"WHAT?" Matt spoke out loud and had all but shouted. He sat up and scowled. "How could it say that? We were talking about helping a planet!"
"Would you like the summary?"
"I'm sensing that I would not like it, but tell me anyway."
"'Subject monopolizes conversations. Subject is defensive and retaliatory. Subject expresses grandiose visions of societal change. Subject expresses extreme moral judgments. Subject demonstrates lack of sensitivity toward listener's wants and needs –'"
"I bought her a mocha!"
"The entire analysis commentary is four thousand two hundred and fifty-five words in length. Would you like to view it?"
