So now, as Saskia was pouring gravy onto her cauliflower, Maurice wanted to know why Miss Rose, who still had three boiled and three roast on her plate, was just forking up a fourth roast potato with the evident intention of eating it all at once. Where had she got it from? Maurice was mystified: she did this kind of thing every mealtime, and nobody seemed to notice but him.
“You say the Eva Rye was born on the first of August,” said Judy, interrupting his thoughts. “That’s an odd choice of words.”
“No, it’s a good description,” said Maurice. He brought his attention back to Judy. What was it about the way she gazed at him that he found unnerving? It was the way she studied you as if you were an object, he decided. She would stare at you for a moment and then there would be a flicker of recognition in her face, as if she had remembered what you were: a human, rather than just another piece of furniture. And then that spark of recognition would be replaced by a carefully blank expression. Judy knew that Maurice was watching her. She turned to Saskia.
“You’re not eating, Saskia,” said Judy. “Maybe you can tell me about how you adopted the Fair Exchange software. I’ve heard rumors, but nothing concrete.”
Saskia speared a piece of cauliflower with her fork. “Why do you want to know?” She leaned forward so that her face was hidden again by black curtains of hair.
“Because I find the FE system fascinating,” said Judy. “I have never been on a ship without an AI before, and yet…”
“What?” asked Maurice.
“And yet…I can almost feel the presence of something here on board…” Her voice trailed away to nothing.
Maurice, meanwhile, listened to the clinking of the cutlery on the plates. There had been new dishes in all the kitchen cupboards: beautiful, paper-thin white china decorated with delicate black swirls. Saskia looked out from under her fringe. “There’s nothing much to say, Judy,” she said mildly. “Maurice and I were both on Breizh. That’s a colony planet on the edge of the Enemy Domain. The EA were hoping to bring the colonists to term in about six months, and they had brought us humans there to aid in the final transition. In our free time we used to go to this empty port, about four hundred kilometers from the base. We’d borrow a flier to get us there, anything to get out from under the noses of Social Care…”
Maurice grinned. Saskia didn’t seem to care how rude she was. Or had she forgotten that Judy had told them she was an SC operative? It would be typical of Saskia not to pay that close attention to another person, even one who had arrived on the ship in such a strange fashion. Saskia took another tiny piece of cauliflower and swallowed it. She continued in a careless way.
“One night another Free Exchanger turned up and we played the n-strings game. A few of us made the decision to adopt the FE lifestyle pretty much there and then. Michel was our team leader on Breizh, so he became captain. Maurice here and someone else—Armstrong, his name was—were to be security.”
She seemed to change tack in the middle of her sentence without realizing it. “Donny’s wife had just walked out on him and the kids, so he wanted a fresh start. And my life was getting stale. I felt I needed a new challenge. And so here we are.”
Except that wasn’t the full story. Did Saskia really believe her story explained everything? Judy obviously didn’t think so. She was gazing back at Saskia, drinking in her pose, her expressions, all the words she hadn’t spoken. Maurice realized she was noting the slight tremble in the fork as again Saskia finally cut off the tiniest piece of cauliflower and put it in her mouth. Judy had been a Social Care operative. She was able to read the emotions of everyone present and use them as a chart to plot their course to the Watcher’s version of sanity. There was no lying to an SC
operative.
“I must admit,” said Judy, “a lot of that went over my head.” She turned to Maurice, her dead-white face like a lighthouse beam turning towards him. He felt as if all his secrets were being illuminated by that searching expression. Social Care , he thought, they can never give it up. Then he shivered as he noted how her expression changed, and she regarded him once more as just a piece of meat. When she spoke, it was in the tones someone would use to ask the Turing machine to turn on the bedroom lights.
“I don’t understand what is going on on this ship, Maurice. Why is there no AI on board?”
“FE doesn’t allow AI.”
“Why not? Why are you all here, anyway? What is the n-strings game? I’m not sure that you understand yourself.”
You couldn’t lie to that gaze.
“I’m not sure I do,” said Maurice. “Look, as far as I can tell, there are three rules to FE: no AIs, no self-replication, and everything must be paid for.”
“How do you know that? Who tells you the rules?”
“It’s not like that. They aren’t told to you; you sort of discover them for yourself.”
“How?”
“By playing the n-strings game!”
Judy held his gaze, and Maurice felt himself beginning to blush. She can see the way right through to my ignorance, he thought. She knows that I don’t really understand. And Judy just went on and on staring. He felt such relief when she finally spoke.
“Tell me what you think happened on Breizh, Maurice.”
Maurice had never felt comfortable on Breizh. There were nineteen million human embryos buried somewhere deep underground and, especially when it was nighttime, their potential lives haunted him. Even here, in the little town of Raspberry, ghosts haunted the pretty white houses that clustered on the rocky outcrops overlooking the blue sea. He imagined these ghosts streaming up the long ribbons of the bridges that climbed from the shores to the distant grey mountains, seeking their places at the silver machinery that had been driven into the dark crevasses beneath the peaks.
During his work shifts, Maurice followed Armstrong down through dim portals into underground spaces newly cleared of hostile defense mechanisms, and he would feel the ears of those unrealized lives pressed against the walls that surrounded him. He could hear long dormant fingers scrabbling to catch hold of him, reaching out for help.
The empty planet should have been beautiful; instead, the machinations of the deranged AI that had tried to build a second human empire had given Breizh the feeling of a stillborn carcass filled with crawling maggots. Maurice often wondered if the other planets in the Enemy Domain had the same feel.
When they had leave, Maurice joined the other humans and hopped onto a flier, heading far from the haunted mountains to the wild coastline, where he hoped the whipping breezes would blow the ghosts away.
Armstrong and Maurice had gone to one of the cafés that stood in line along the beach in the little village they had christened Raspberry.
“I hope that Douglas hasn’t brought his fiddle along,” complained Armstrong. “We can all play an instrument, and yet we have the good sense not to. Why don’t these people leave the job to the experts? Let the AIs play for us.”
“Exactly,” Maurice agreed. “We get enough of music at school. Here, I’ll get you a beer.” He headed for one of the crates dumped at the back of the room.
There were other people sitting at the metal tables, looking out at the spit of land across the bay, a rugged grey line between the blue water and the freshly laundered clouds in the blue sky above. The Von Neumann Machines had never made it down the spider-web bridge that ran from the AI’s base in the mountains to the coast. The construction of the houses and bars intended to help house the nineteen million had been left half completed.
“Here you are,” Maurice said, handing a beer to Armstrong. They twisted the caps and felt the bottles chilling in their hands.
“Do you know what I feel like doing?” Armstrong said. “I feel like getting drunk. It’s nice to be able to do just that without anyone telling you about the danger to your health.”
Maurice laughed in agreement. “Or having someone discreetly replace your drink with nonalcoholic lager,” he added. “You’ll never manage it,
though. Social Care will be in later on. Rebecca, or one of the Stephanies.”
“Hah! I’ll be too far gone by then. Aren’t you going to join me?”
“Yeah.” Maurice smiled. “I think I might.”
Armstrong gulped down beer and gave a yeasty belch. “I don’t see why not, anyway,” he said, pressing his hand to his stomach. “You won’t get the chance when your tour here is done. Once you’re back on a regular planet, SC’ll be monitoring you day and night. I tell you, what the Watcher is doing on Earth at the moment will soon be the norm on all the other planets. Soon we won’t be able to even think unhealthy thoughts.”
Maurice laughed and gulped down more beer.
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing you.”
For a moment, Maurice thought that the stranger who had unobtrusively joined them at their table was one of the nineteen million embryos. Tired of waiting for its long-delayed birth, it had ripped itself from the ground and made its way into the land of light and warmth. The newcomer was exquisite, gorgeous in an otherworldly way. His skin was the color of lacquered wood; he wore a loose raw-silk shirt and three-quarter–length trousers the color of yellow cream; his hair was braided and beaded and tied back to accentuate his high cheekbones and deep brown eyes. He wore a handwoven bracelet on his left wrist; the straps on his sandals were woven in the same way. He looked cool and relaxed in the warm, beer-scented air of the bar. Armstrong had no imagination, however. He saw the stranger for what he was: just another man and a potential challenger. He leaned back in his chair, allowing his combat jacket to fall open, displaying his oiled chest and flat stomach. He gave the stranger a cold stare.
“You Social Care?”
“No.” The stranger smiled. “I’m the complete opposite. My name is Claude. I wondered if you would be interested in joining us?” He pointed to a group of people sitting at a table at the far end of the bar. “We’re playing the n-string game. Have you heard of it?”
“No.” Armstrong took a gulp of beer.
Claude’s smile widened. “You may enjoy it. It might just change your life.”
Maurice was recovering from his first surprise at seeing Claude. Now, for some reason, he longed to reach out and touch the dappled cream silk of the man’s shirt, it looked so cool. There was something about Claude that fascinated him.
“Why don’t we go over?” he asked. “It could be interesting.”
“You go if you like,” Armstrong said sullenly. He pulled out a tiny template of a knife and a block of carbon. “I’ve got things to do.”
“No, you’re right,” Maurice said. “Let’s just get drunk.” He took a swig of beer. Claude shrugged. “Well, if your friend is too afraid of what he might find…”
Maurice felt deflated as Claude gave him a wink and turned to go.
“Hold on,” said Armstrong. “I never said that. How long does this game take?”
“It varies. Why don’t you come along and take a look? If you don’t like it, you can always go back to getting drunk.”
He moved with an easy grace across the bar, dancing to the rhythm of the waves. The legs of Armstrong’s chair squeaked as he pushed it back across the stone floor.
“Come on, Maurice,” he said, “we’ll take a look.”
Maurice and Armstrong took the last two available seats around the table. He recognized some of the people already seated. Michel, his team co-ordinator, was there, along with Craig and Joanne. There was another man he recognized but whose name he didn’t know. Apparently his wife had left him a few weeks previously: got on a ship and headed back to Earth, abandoning the kids. There had been a bit of a crisis over that one, since the two Stephanies from Social Care hadn’t managed to avoid the breakup. The rumors were flying that one of the Stephanies in particular was in big trouble over that.
“People!” said Claude, raising his hand for attention and smiling around the table. The gentle susurration of chatter ceased as all eyes fixed on the beautiful man who sat in their midst. He had an air about him: he didn’t appear to wait for people’s attention. He simply spoke when he was ready, and everyone listened.
“Now, has anyone here played the n-strings game before?” he asked. “No? Good! Good!” He clapped his hands together in delight. Maurice saw Michel give a puzzled smile at this. Joanne, sitting next to him, narrowed her green eyes thoughtfully.
“Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.”
Claude unfastened the handwoven bracelet from his wrist and held it out in front of him. A heavy silver ring glinted on his little finger.
“This bracelet is made using the basic six plait,” he said. He twisted the bracelet into a complicated pattern and then pulled it apart. Now there were two bracelets. He held the two bracelets together and repeated the twisting movement to make four bracelets. Maurice joined in with the growing round of applause as he repeated the movement once more, to make eight.
“Ah, but it wasn’t a trick,” said Claude, tying one of the bracelets back around his wrist. “These bracelets are formed of cosmic strings. Each strand on the bracelet is a loop of thread pulled from the very weave of the universe itself. They are unbreakable.”
Now Maurice laughed.
“You find that amusing, my friend?”
“I find that impossible,” said Maurice, grinning at Armstrong, who was too busy trying to outstare Claude to notice.
“Really?” said Claude, in tones of polite surprise. “I have been told that it is the same principle as that of the Black Velvet Bands.”
At that a shadow passed across the table, as all those assembled thought of what was happening on Earth. Black Velvet Bands dropped from Dark Plants. They formed silent nooses on unobserved places, and then just shrank away to oblivion. The people of Earth were strangled in their sleep by Black Velvet Bands….
“But we were playing the n-strings game,” said Claude, quickly pulling apart the seven remaining bracelets into their six constituent strands. “Everyone begins with six strands each.”
Maurice watched as the strands were passed around the table to reach where he was sitting. Armstrong took the last six. Maurice put up his hand.
“I don’t have any strands.”
“Then you can’t play. This is the first lesson of the n-strings game. Life is unfair.”
Claude said it with a delightful grin that brought a ripple of laughter from around the table.
“You can share mine,” said Armstrong.
“Your generosity has just earned you ten points,” said Claude. Armstrong beamed. “Not that points mean anything in this game,” added Claude, and this time the table erupted in laughter. After a moment’s hesitation, Armstrong joined in.
“Now,” continued Claude, leaning forward and spreading a wide hand on the table, “I shall show you the basic six plait. Arrange three strands in a line. Cross them with three strands in a perpendicular direction, like so.” The seven other people seated around the table followed the deft movements of his fingers as he began the six plait. Maurice watched over Armstrong’s shoulder as he gamely twisted the n-strings over each other, the tip of his tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth.
Around the table, other people worked good-naturedly on their six plaits.
“Not like that, Michel.” Joanne took Michel’s half-formed plait from him and laid it out on the table before her. “Hold these two strands between your third and fourth fingers to keep them out of the way. Like this, see?”
Claude touched her hand.
“You are very good at this,” he said. “A natural, in fact. Tell you what, why don’t I help Michel?
It will save you being distracted.”
Joanne gave a little smile of triumph and went back to her work. Next to her, Claude whispered something in Michel’s ear. The latter frowned as he tried to understand what he was being told, then comprehension dawned and he made a gulping noise as he picked up his strands again. The six plait really was quite simple, thought Maurice. It w
as just a case of repeating one pattern over and over again to form a spiraling twist from the oddly moving strings. The thing was, Armstrong didn’t seem to quite grasp this. He kept getting the third movement in the sequence the wrong way round.
“Here, why don’t you let me have a go?” suggested Maurice, getting impatient and suddenly gripped by a desire to touch the strange plasticlike material of the strings.
“Hold on a moment,” said Armstrong, turning away from him. “I nearly got it there…”
All around the table heads bent forward as the group twisted and turned the strands. The occasional curse or giggle could be heard as a strand slipped loose or a pattern collapsed. The work was hypnotic, yet strangely satisfying. Outside of the bar, the descending night ran silkily down the spider web of the bridge, swallowing up its long white spans, gradually engulfing also the soft splashing of the waves on the beach. Inside, Joanne came to the end of her plait.
“Finished!” she said, proudly setting her bracelet down before her and looking around the table.
“Very good,” said Claude, but Joanne didn’t hear. She had just noticed Michel’s plait.
“How are you doing that?” she asked. Michel’s plait did not rise up in a spiral, like those of all the others seated at the table; instead it was a flat ribbon, a neatly symmetric pattern seemingly ruled upon it.
“Claude told me how,” explained Michel in tones of quiet satisfaction. “You simply reverse the sequence on alternate goes.”
“Oh,” Joanne sniffed.
“That’s clever,” said Craig from across the table, watching Michel’s fingers closely. “I think I’ll give that a go.”
They worked on for a few more minutes until everyone was sitting breathlessly, waiting for Maurice to finish. Maurice had finally got the bracelet away from Armstrong. Now he quickly twisted the last strands of his plait into place, feeling the strangely pliable material of the n-strings beneath his fingers.
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