by James Murdo
43
TOR
The ship continued to be guided quickly on its trajectory. It was still difficult for DeVoid to identify exactly where, however towards the centre of the galaxy was the most probable bet. The rods in front of them had remained, always at exactly the same distance from the bow in N-SOL space.
[Tor.]
“Yes? Can you tell where we are yet?”
[No. Something else, actually.]
“What?”
[Another one’s just appeared.]
“Another rod?”
[What else would I be referring to?]
“Where?”
[To my side.]
“Not at the front?”
[My bow, no. Flanking my middle, actually.]
“Okay…”
[That’s where you are.]
“What?”
[It may be a coincidence, but it has a diameter of the same order as yourself, and it appears to be hovering directly over your position.]
Tor looked up.
[It’s going to be too far for you to see, but I can show it on a close-up, if you’d like?]
“Um… is it pointed at me?”
[Seems that way.]
“Oh… how long for?”
[A while, to be honest.]
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
[I didn’t want to scare you.]
“What’s it doing?”
[I don’t know.]
“Maybe… we’re going to turn? That’s why it’s there, to pull the ship…”
[No other rods have joined, I don’t think this will affect our direction. It’s far smaller than the others anyway.]
“Anything else about it?”
[Here, look.]
“Okay… okay, how do I…”
DeVoid projected an image in the middle of the hemispherical chamber, right in front of Tor. He could see DeVoid’s enormous bulk, with the bloom propulsion powerfully flicking out from the back, trailing from its stern. A large collection of rods was concentrated before the ship, facing the bow. The rods trailed into nothingness at the limits of the projected image.
[The bloom is currently ineffective.]
“Why does it look like it’s active?”
[It makes no difference to keep it powered. Quite tricky to turn off, actually. And in any case, I’m monitoring it to see when it has any effect, which it hasn’t, so far. Not since we left real space. Anyway, here’s the rod I’m referring to.]
The image expanded outwards, filling the entire chamber this time so that Tor was enveloped by it. It shifted and expanded into further detail until the rod was the central focus. It was a thin, simple tube. Like the others, just smaller, and as DeVoid had said, positioned directly above Tor. DeVoid had helpfully placed trajectory markings on the image showing there was no doubt that the rod was indeed pointed directly at him.
“It’s so much smaller.”
[It is.]
“What’s it doing?”
[I don’t know. I can’t tell anything about it, same as the others. It’s just like a void where there is a lack of N-SOL space, according to the N-SOL sensors. The–]
“Did you say it’s the same size as me?”
[Same diameter, near enough, yes, but don’t–]
“DeVoid, it’s the same size as me, and waiting right over me?”
[Don’t panic, Tor.]
“It’s pointed at me!”
[Calm down, it’s probably stunned at how uninteresting you are, and–]
“What could it possibly be?”
[Hey, I think I can actually detect something. Wait… WHAT THE–]
The image showed the rod moving slowly down towards the ship, before disappearing. Tor looked upward instinctively, through the topmost part of the chamber, and then scanned around the chamber, but saw no difference. Everything was as it had been before.
“DeVoid?”
[Stay calm, Tor.]
“What?”
[Maybe turn around, slowly…]
Tor whipped his head around and gasped. In the centre of the room was a bright red, semi-transparent sphere. It cast a strange glow, which halted a short distance from it.
“What’s t-that? Where did it come from, it wasn’t there just now!”
[The tube entered your chamber. I tried to stop it.]
“All of it?”
[That’s unclear. It went through me like I was nothing, and ended up as a sphere. I don’t know if this is just a part of the tube, or the entire thing.]
“One of those things is right here? That’s–”
[I’ve encased it within a thick triamond shell, and have a lot of instruments trained on it as we speak. But, full disclosure, it’s not really contained.]
“What do you mean?”
Tor stumbled dizzily backwards, away from the bright red object, but fell to the floor, before pushing himself to his feet again.
[Now you fall over, really?]
“What–”
[I’ll explain later. But for now, just remain calm.]
“That’s easy for you to say!”
[To be fair, Tor, it’s in me. How would you feel?]
Tor’s eyes did not leave the object, which hung in the air calmly, as though it had always been there.
[Come on, you’ve seen stranger things than this! Have you really forgotten your foray into that other place already? Where’s your sense of adventure?]
“That… was… different…”
[Well, obviously.]
“Please, I know you’re only trying to distract me, but… what do you mean it’s not contained?”
[Well, it moved out of the triamond shell earlier, but I’m not sure there’s anything I could do to really hold something like this, in all honesty. It’s not made from any matter I can recognise without the N-SOL sensors.]
“What? This is the tube? It’s red! They were… dark…”
[The triamond case I’ve plastered around it is red. The thing itself isn’t strictly observable, as I’ve mentioned, without my N-SOL sensors.]
“Oh… it’s so… close?”
[Yes, sorry about that.]
“Can’t you move it?”
[It doesn’t appear to want to.]
“What’s it doing?”
[I don’t know. Anyway, the good news is that we’re moving in the same direction as before. Which is hopefully towards the centre. Nothing else seems to have changed.]
“And what? What about this… will it accompany us?”
[What makes you think I know that?]
44
CRAFT-LECT
The craft-lect was concerned. Not about the mission, that could take many hundreds, thousands or even millions of years, but about Gil.
The fact that she was able to operate the gateways with or without the sensespace being present to lend her its pervasive capabilities, the confusion she experienced most times she slept, of which the craft-lect was not as unaware as she believed, other abilities she might possess that could manifest themselves over time, and whether each journey through a gateway put her in harm’s way. She was not at the epicentre of it all, she was the epicentre. The fate of the galaxy.
It was unfortunate that they were near-aimlessly entering gateway after gateway, since it meant they could not predict when they would find information relevant to helping locate the Deliverer, or when they would be able to liaise with Apalu. The craft-lect knew it made no difference to its sibling, it was sure of that since Apalu could sleep until disturbed. However, it wanted to know how it had fared at the orbital, and whether it had managed to unlock some of the secrets of the pulsar spew technology.
There was an added complication with reference to Apalu and their initial rendezvous, which the craft-lect was currently deliberating. One-oh and 998 had come to it with information that was concerning, and unfortunately corroborated its own recent findings about c-autom behaviours. It understood why 998 had asked One-oh for help in approaching the craft-lect with its information
and decided against reprimanding it. 998 had used tools derived from its development of the c-autom task selection mechanism, which the craft-lect had admittedly overlooked.
It was indisputably clear that a certain lower-level c-autom had communicated information through a secretive, external channel, away from the ship – unbeknownst to the craft-lect. The unauthorised external channel had been raised through the axe-haven when the craft-lect had last encountered a data-exchange. That meant that everything up to and including the conversation with Apalu had to be considered suspect. It also meant their current use of the Maspero gateways made them safer than they were otherwise, seeing as their trajectory could not have been followed.
The craft-lect wanted to know what information had been transmitted, and to whom. That would help them determine the possible consequences. The Enclave? Something else? Shortly after its conception and before setting off on its galactic voyage, the craft-lect had created a first c-autom generation, with a minor cull for some replacements. The suspect c-autom was from that first generation and no other c-automs were under suspicion. That made it at least possible that only the first generation had been subverted in some way.
One-oh, the craft-lect and 998 had found no indication that the suspect c-autom had been subverted during its lifetime by the axe-codings, the axe-haven, or anything else the craft-lect had encountered, including the Granthan-lect. Therefore, the subversion was most likely to have occurred at its conception – worryingly close to the craft-lect’s own, at the dawn of the Wanderers. The entity affiliated with the axe-haven, whether that was Enclave-level or not, had caused a subversion so finely tuned it had been unidentified for sixty million years. The potential ramifications were not minor.
It was questionable whether it was a coincidence that the message had been sent so shortly after they had taken Gil onboard. The communication was almost certain to have related to her, the search for pulsar spew technology at the Lenbit Orbital, the search for the Deliverer, the Granthan-lect, the craft-lect and Apalu. It was dangerous.
Both sets of findings agreed that the suspect c-autom appeared unaware of its own actions. Once the craft-lect informed 998 of its plan with regards to the c-autom suspect, it knew 998 was satisfied. The craft-lect intended to insert the lower-level c-autom into a simulation substrate, similar to how it had first communed with One-oh. From there, it would subtly recreate the conditions that had initially caused the c-autom’s prior betrayal, to observe how it acted.
While the possible consequences of the deceit, if left unfound, could have been damaging, there was a benefit. They had found a surviving link to the axe-haven that appeared within the craft-lect’s control. Whatever it was hiding, the craft-lect wanted to find out. It was unfortunate that Apalu had been compromised, but there was nothing the craft-lect could do about that.
*
Before inserting the suspect c-autom into the substrate, the craft-lect examined its worker’s core one final time. It was still unable to find anything spurious. The c-autom looked, and behaved, aside from that one treacherous communication, exactly as it should have. If there was a secondary intellect, another c-autom personality, the craft-lect would have found it. There were none. Among its suspicions, the one that seemed most likely, and the hardest to detect, was that the c-autom was a dual-structure lect.
Dual-structure lects were entities that were perfectly acceptable in theory, but fiendishly difficult to create in practice. Instances of their creation were well known by many of the near-AB civilisations throughout galactic history, and presumably by the ABs if they wanted, although not yet by the Wanderers. The craft-lect could only find references to a host of failed experiments within its databanks, conducted under the direction of the Enclave.
Simply, dual-structure lects allowed for two separate expressions of sentience which emerged from the same fixed components. Many variations to that principle existed, but the basic tenet was that each expression was a perfectly viable, distinct, sentient intellect. Strings of code or other viable media, that supposedly held certain desired functions, somehow interacted with other innocuous pieces in ways that were only activated under specific conditions. It was a puzzle, art. Beautiful, and hitherto entirely unappreciated by the craft-lect.
The problem with creating them was that a typical single-structure lect was difficult in the first place, let alone the construction of a base structure that allowed for two emergences of sentience to coexist – made from exactly the same constituents. It was similar to how prodigy and savant machine-lects could not be created on a whim. True sentience resulted from the melodic blend of constituents resonating harmoniously. Loading pure capacity and ability into an empty chassis did not equate to a machine-lect.
With this possible dual-structure lect, it was not necessarily that there were two separate c-automs or c-autom personalities inhabiting the same strings of code, but that there was one c-autom, and one other machine-lect. Had they been capable of communicating, they might have been incapable of understanding each other. There was no rule regarding dual-structure lect similarities. One of the machine-lects could be many orders of magnitude smarter and more capable than the other.
The craft-lect was frustrated. The c-automs and their cores were something it had believed, up until now, that it had complete mastery over. If it really had found a dual-structure lect, it was unsure what its procedure would be, let alone whether it would be able to comprehend the dual-structure.
*
One-oh pursed his lips and exhaled slowly. He stood in the same observation platform as before. He had been standing still and looking out into the spacescape, but was now turned to face the bulk of the ship. Lights flashed across his face from three c-automs circling around his head.
“This is dangerous.”
[I know.]
“We cannot trust your civilisation,” One-oh said.
[Did we, anyway?]
“That’s true. But we cannot have any further contact. We don’t know the extent of this.”
[I am also possibly affected.]
“We’ve destroyed the axe-haven, which seems to be how it communicated across the data exchange. The axe-codings are gone, and we’ve identified the source of the near-only anomalous activity within your ship over sixty million years, I think we can reasonably assume you’re safe.”
[You’ve said that before.]
“It’s never certain, but–”
[I’m not accusing you.]
“Yes… yes. I know.”
[Gil is resting.]
“Okay… should we begin now?”
[Yes.]
“Where is it?”
[998 is watching over 112 as we speak. I will inform it, and we will begin.]
45
TOR
Tor eyed the spherical void suspiciously – it was very dark. Before DeVoid had removed its triamond casing, the data-lect informed Tor the void had begun to absorb photons. Nothing else at first, except an opacity to photons. After that, neutrinos, gravitons, and a host of other particles that DeVoid did not have the time, or patience, to explain. DeVoid had seen no rationale in keeping it contained within an undoubtedly ineffective container.
“What do you think it is?”
[Oh, I’ve got a million suspicions.]
“And?”
[Nothing provable.]
“Could it be a… an N-SOL entity?”
[A representative from those rods outside?]
“Yes?”
[From a hitherto undiscovered civilisation?]
“Do you think?”
[That created its own universe to hide from the sensespace?]
Tor was excited.
“Yes!”
[Maybe they’ve figured out how to destroy the sensespace and it’s time to help us?]
“Do you really think–”
[Could this be the Deliverer?]
“No, DeVoid! Do you think–”
[It could take us to Gil!]
“DeVoid, tha
t’s incredible, do you really–”
[They could solve EVERYTHING!]
“Yes, maybe they could!”
[HAH!]
“What?”
[YOU ABSOLUTE FLITTING SEMI-SENTIENT FLESHY–]
Tor’s smile evaporated and he frowned immediately. DeVoid was up to his usual tricks.
[DO YOU SERIOUSLY BELIEVE TH–]
“Why, what’s the point?”
[Pfft. Well, if it makes you feel better, that is one of my suspicions about what this dark sphere and the external tubes around us might represent. Just let me know when you’ve thought of another nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine more suspicions before we’re equal. What’s your next one?]
Tor ignored DeVoid’s jibe.
“What happened before? When you said you tried to stop it entering the chamber.”
[Just before you had a little wobble?]
“I lost my balance, yes.”
[Well, you’re slow. Never forget that. Biologicals are frustratingly slow compared to machine-lects, usually. So, when it came into your chamber, of which, embarrassingly at my end, it was immediately successful, I correspondingly flung your chamber deep to one side of the ship.]
“You tried to shake it off?”
[Well that’s as good a description as any. Yes.]
“That’s why I fell?”
[Hah, if only! You fell because your neural synapses have much that could be improved upon and your general rudimentary nervous system is wholly inadequate in catering for shocks.]
“But–”
[I suppose you’ve only got two legs, after all. Although, amongst most terraneous, oxygen-breathing, medium-sized, sentient biologicals, that’s not far off the average.]
“What?”
[I digress. You would have felt nothing as I moved the chamber, my inertial dampeners are fully functioning. Anyway, that was about the point that you looked up, by which time I’d moved you in a few different directions, to say the least. The dark sphere was still as close to you as it was then, but because I had rotated the chamber about you, it was outside of the immediate chamber. So, at first, when you looked up and around, there was nothing there.]
