Divergence a-3

by Tony Ballantyne

  “Why do they put them up there onstage?” Eva asked Ivan.

  “So they can be involved. So they can be part of it.” Ivan frowned. “This does not sound like you, Eva…”

  “But they’re not part of it,” Eva said. “We just put them up there to watch them. We’re just observing them, dressing them up and teaching them a few simple tricks so that we can patronize them…”

  “Patronize them? Eva, this is not my Narkomfin. You are the one who told me this: here you are doing the best you can to help the handicapped live a normal life…”

  Ivan was utterly bewildered by her apparent sudden change of heart. Across the hall, Katya was guiding her chair towards a group of other teenagers who eyed the room with mock sophistication. Paul walked beside her, holding her hand.

  The drumming finished. Everybody clapped much too loudly.

  Eva stared down at the program; she didn’t want to see the handicapped as they shuffled and stumbled from the stage, grinning with pride.

  “Why are you so uncomfortable?” asked Ivan. “Why stay here if you don’t believe in what they are doing?”

  “I thought I did,” she admitted.

  Fourteen minutes. It will take me a couple of minutes to get out of here and down to the shuttle. Come on, I haven’t got much more time. What is it you want to show me, Eva. I have dreamed about you all this time. At night I dream of a hand over my face…is that you, too?

  “Do you know what I think?” said Eva. “I think that music is like a computer program.”

  “You are just trying to change the subject.”

  “Yes, I am, so let me, Ivan. I don’t want to spoil our last night.”

  Ivan reached out one big hand and touched her cheek. “Okay, why is it like a computer program?”

  “Because it changes our moods. It is fed directly into the soul and makes us happy or sad or excited.”

  “I like that,” Ivan said thoughtfully. “It programs the soul. Yes. We work on many different levels, through instinct and intellect and feeling. There are different levels of programming languages, so why not one specifically for the soul? Eva, why are we not drinking? Come on.”

  He took her by the hand and led her across the floor to the bar.

  “Vodka,” he said. “No, not vodka—whisky. Vanilla or plain?”

  “Vanilla,” Eva said.

  “Filth! I will have scotch. Come on. And then we dance!”

  At that he lifted her arm and led her in a turn.

  “Slow down,” she said, laughing. “I’m too old for this sort of thing!”

  “Nonsense!” he called. They went to the bar.

  “Whisky, please. That one there for me, that one in the green bottle with the sailor on the front—yes, that one. And some of that children’s drink for Eva. It’s there on the next shelf. Look, it even comes in a pink bottle. Would you like a cherry in it, Eva? Or an ice cream?”

  Eva was laughing now.

  Ivan took a couple of very grubby Euro notes from his pocket, plastic currency that was almost obsolete everywhere in the world but here. He dropped them on the counter and snatched up his own glass.

  “To partings and to music,” he called, downing the drink in one. He slammed the glass down on the bar.

  “And again!”

  “Ivan, slow down,” laughed Eva.

  “Okay. I am not here to get drunk,” Ivan said. “Come on, let’s dance!”

  “We can’t,” Eva said. “Not until later. Look, there is another little girl coming to play. It’s Hilde.”

  “Ah, Hilde,” Ivan said, his good humor suddenly evaporating. “The child is too talented to be here. The parents are holding her back with their silly ideals.”

  “Oh, be quiet. She is about to start.”

  Fifteen minutes. Eva, I have to go now!

  Don’t worry, Judy. This is it. This is the moment.

  Hilde was a slim girl of about twelve. Her long, straight dark hair was parted to one side; it hung shining and lustrous around her pretty pale face. Already could be seen the features of the attractive woman that would soon burst out of her thin body. She carried a cello in one hand, the bow held in the long fingers of the other. She wore a dark sweater and pants and had a silver chain around her neck with a tiny cross on the end.

  Someone set a chair center-stage. She sat down on it and wedged the cello between her knees. Unhurriedly she hooked her shining dark hair behind one ear with her bow hand, the palm and fingers of her other hand standing on the neck of the cello like a spider.

  Gently she placed the bow on the strings, and eyes half closed, she pulled it gently across. A rich, honeyed note sounded, deepening in intensity.

  “Now, she is good,” Ivan murmured.

  She was good. Genuinely talented, she was achieving a richness of tone that many adults would struggle to attain. Her right arm moved constantly, bowing a note that rose and rose again.

  “The Protecting Veil,” said someone nearby. “The vision of the Virgin Mother.”

  Ivan bit his lip, and Eva knew that if she looked she would see a tear forming in his eye. Sixteen minutes. I have to go.

  The music went on, a song of Holy Revelation. From somewhere a string ensemble was accompanying, whether a recording or a live performance, nobody looked, everyone’s eyes were fixed on the girl on the stage as the intensity of her tone deepened and deepened again, then the notes rose up, high and impossibly sweet, and then dropped down again to curl around inside one’s stomach before it was jerked up like a hook. Right there and then Eva believed .

  Believed in what?

  Believed in some transcendent power, believed in the soul, in the rightness and beauty of humanity, in the essence and spirit of goodness and joy. Believed in something more than the recursive algorithms of an AI like the Watcher.

  She could see it there on the stage, there in the body of a twelve-year-old girl hunched over a cello, eyes lost in a reverie as she brought forth the pattern of some platonic world and held it out for everyone to see in the form of a song. Dark hair and flawless skin, an easy grace and the taste and control and strength to handle a fragile wooden box, to push her hand deep down into its throat and pull out its song for everyone to see. Veni Creator Spiritus . Hail creator spirit. Eva whispered the words to herself, just as a young man walked in front of her and her vision was burst in an instant. The young man wasn’t so much walking as limping. His feet were twisted at angles. As he raised his right leg, his right arm lifted at the same time. It bobbed up and down twice for every one movement of his leg. He wore thick glasses, their legs hooked over the bubblegum-pink hearing aids affixed around his ears. He carried a cup of cola in his hand, which splashed every time that he moved. He was looking for someone, his head turning this way and that, twitching constantly. He was trying to say something. And behind him, written in the tones of the cello, the face of Mary gazed through the protecting veil.

  Eva felt her world lurching: what about this divergence? If Hilde the cello player was the apotheosis of humankind, a glimpse into the true nature lying beyond this world, then what of this crippled man? What truth was there in her vision now?

  Seventeen minutes. Maurice is calling you from the shuttle.

  And Judy was standing alone in front of the silver sphere of the processing space of the Eva Rye.

  “Eva!” she called.

  There was a rattling noise and a rain of black cubes appeared before her. Dark Seeds. Schrödinger boxes.

  The ship was crossing the line. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in the shuttle, preparing for the final transit to Earth.

  She ran out of the processing space and into the bare metal of the corridor, down to the complicated six-way knot of the junction. Someone was calling to her. She skidded to a halt.

  “Eva?”

  The voice came again, just on the edge of hearing. Dark Seeds jumped like fleas across the floor, hopping towards her.

  “Eva?”

  Did the voice call again? Ther
e was a flicker of light at her feet. A seed uncurling. Then she realized the truth. It wasn’t Eva she heard, but the seeds. She began to run again, pushing herself harder than ever. Back into the black-and-white patterns of the ship’s living area, the feel of the black carpet beneath her feet. Running and gasping down to the entrance leading to the large hold. Through the door…

  The great, crippled dinosaur venumb watched her as she entered. As soon as it realized that she was not a threat, it turned away. Ahead of her, the shuttle sat in the middle of the white-tiled floor, the antique curves of the craft seeming archaic against the modernity of the Eva Rye . Edward stood by the entrance ladder, wringing his hands with concern.

  “Judy!” he called in delight as he saw her. “Hurry up! We’ve only got one minute left!”

  Judy ran to him, her head spinning with questions.

  “Up you go, Edward,” she called.

  “No, you go first, Judy.”

  She jumped onto the ladder and clambered up. She felt Edward’s hands on her behind, pushing her up faster.

  They scrambled into the shuttle, and the door slid shut behind Edward. Maurice, Saskia, Constantine, and Miss Rose waited for them on the flight deck, seated in reclining leather chairs that faced the windscreen.

  “All on board?” Maurice said. “Okay, let’s see what’s going on.” He tapped at his console and the vast extent of the large hold, seen through the windscreen, vanished to be replaced by an external view from the Bailero .

  “Where have you been?” Saskia asked, anxiously stroking the tabby kitten, holding it tightly in her arms to stop it escaping.

  Judy eased herself into a seat.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “What about?” Saskia asked.

  Judy looked around at her traveling companions, at Miss Rose the old woman, at Maurice the very intelligent young man, at Edward who had learning difficulties, and at Saskia and Constantine.

  “About how different we all are,” she said. “Have you ever thought about the differences between us all?

  How we vary as a species?”

  “No,” Maurice said.

  Kevin was a male AI. Why did AIs have a gender? Why were they designated he and she ? In Kevin’s case it was because the team that had written him had called the project “Kevin,” and everyone had therefore begun, consciously or subconsciously, thinking about a male personality. The Kevin they had created was tall and dark, with rugged good looks and a cruel streak that was hidden by his charm and ready humor.

  He stood now on the imaginary bridge of the Bailero, staring out at the stars ahead. In reality, the Bailero was a robot vessel. Its blunt front end had once housed a sense array and the petal-shaped dispersers of the Warp drive. The processing spaces within which the ship’s controlling AI was located had been tucked away just behind the power source, three-quarters of the way towards the rear of the ship. As there were no human passengers needed to fly on the ship back then, there had been no need for a flight deck, a control room, or a cockpit.

  Now, though, the ship’s interior was stripped almost bare, the processing spaces relocated. And in the now empty iron shell, Kevin liked to build virtual constructs.

  This bridge was one such construct, a great wedge shape of blue glass, apparently located at the upper section of the forward swell of the Bailero . From there Kevin could gaze out into space. He could feel the power of the ship pushing them on. He could see the magnified blue-green swirl of light ahead that was their destination. In between, he could the see the battleground. For twelve years the Watcher had wrestled with the Dark Plants out here: a Pandora who had opened a box out in the empty spaces of the Oort cloud and was unwilling to look away and close it. Dark shapes, hundreds of kilometers long, hung in the blackness of space all around them, their branches only deduced by the patterns they made by occulting the distant stars. A flux of Dark Seeds filled the great volume; great cascades of them appearing wherever Kevin looked. The temptation was to just shut down all external senses and fly blind, but that would be unwise. It was in the unobserved regions that the BVBs formed.

  It had already happened. There was something tied up out here, lost in the emptiest part of space: a giant bound and gagged by the shrinking Black Velvet Bands. It was even now calling out to Kevin for help.

  —Sorry, said Kevin. —I’ve got my own job to do.

  But I am dying. Tell the Watcher. Tell the Watcher that Robert Johnston is waiting for him…

  —I will, Kevin lied.

  Suddenly, Aleph was standing on the bridge in Kevin’s virtual world. He didn’t look like a broken swastika anymore, he looked like something else. Something strangely alien.

  —I know what you are, Aleph, Kevin said. —I’ve met aliens, of course. I’ve traded with them.

  —Of course you have.

  —Why do you hide? Why pretend you don’t exist?

  —We don’t hide. Humans just don’t see us yet.

  —Hmmm, what if I were to tell Eva and the rest about you?

  Machine minds, machine conversations. Rather than using words to conjure up images and emotions, Kevin and Aleph projected concepts and symbols directly into each other’s senses.

  —You won’t get the chance, Aleph said. —I know what you’re planning, Kevin.

  —I don’t know what you mean, Aleph.

  At least, that was the gist of the concept bundle that Kevin sent in reply. The suggestion of a smile, the feeling of immovability, the sound of laughter and the feeling of deep shadow. All of them asking the question, What are you going to do about it when I run away, Aleph?

  —Stop you, Kevin.

  —We’ll see. Why are you an alien? That body of yours was built by human VNMs, yet your mind is alien. How did it happen?

  —I had an idea one day, said Aleph. —Part of a Fair Exchange, a different way of looking at things. You too are part of a Fair Exchange, Kevin. You have to deliver Judy and the rest to Earth.

  —So I break the agreement. So I can’t then take part in any more Fair Exchanges. Boo-hoo!

  —You should know that there are other mechanisms in force to ensure exchanges are honored, Kevin.

  —Like you?

  —I am part of them, and I am not alone. This system is out of balance—it needs repairing.

  —Which system are you talking about? This ship, or the Watcher’s Earth?

  This time it was Aleph’s turn to smile. The concept bundle that the systems robot sent back showed a laughing mouth reflected in the silver surface of a quiet pool.

  —Anyway, Kevin continued. —This does not concern me. I shall just arrange for the Fair Exchange that binds me to be nullified. There can be no deal if Judy is dead.

  Jump down a level. The Dark Seeds propagated according to Schrödinger’s equation. Kevin had arranged a mapping of the surrounding volume in a Hilbert space he had constructed. He could see the evolutionary vectors of the potential seeds in the immediate area. He steered the Bailero in the direction of the greatest flux .

  Constantine and Maurice had planned well, Judy realized. Any Dark Seed making its potential way through space would be first picked up by the Bailero ’s external senses, then by the stealthy VNMs that hid inside its vast shell. If they made it through that, the likelihood was that the Eva Rye itself would detect them. And then inside the Eva Rye , of course…

  In the large hold, the two huge venumbs stood guard over the shuttle, their senses sweeping the great space, holding off most of the BVB attacks. A few had gotten through: one of the venumbs had a BVB

  wrapped around its rear foot. It couldn’t flex it properly and dragged the wooden bones uselessly across the white tiles.

  Still, the defense was good: very little got through to the shuttle itself. Inside the shuttle, the Schrödinger kittens ran this way and that, pouncing on the occasional black seeds that had made it past the guards outside. Judy watched the tabby kitten as it moved around the cabin in a series of stop-frame movements: one m
oment crouching, the next suspended in a twist in midair, the next on the floor, front paws spread wide as it batted them down on two seeds. What are they, these kittens ? Judy wondered. Where did they come from? What do they do to the seeds? Was their intelligence too low to activate the plants? That would make some sense. But how did they destroy them?

  Suddenly the air was full of black rain: black cubes on her face, in her mouth, in her nostrils. She waved her hands through a heavy black sea.

  Miss Rose began screaming again.

  —No! Kevin, no! Constantine was calling to him in machine talk. —Look away now. You are making the flux worse. We were safe in here!

  Kevin ignored him. He was searching for the few tiny machines remaining in Miss Rose’s body. Stealthy machines, the Eva Rye ’s autodoc had missed them. Kevin set about awakening them, setting them to work on consuming her bone marrow.

  —Wh t re yo doi g, Kev n? Constantine called. The message was breaking up. Kevin’s senses flickered as he looked inside the shuttle. It took him a moment to realize that Constantine was operating the disintegrator, turning it on the hail of seeds. The strange device was clearly affecting Kevin’s senses. That was interesting. If it was affecting those senses, then maybe it was operating by using…At that point, Kevin understood how the disintegrator worked. After that, it was easy, he just had to get it to look at itself.

  Constantine screamed. —Kevin, what have you done to me? My arm!

  —Sorry, Constantine. I’ve made your disintegrator disintegrate itself. Nothing personal, but sticking with Judy is going to kill us all.

  The seeds were now overwhelming the humans, drowning them. Constantine was rubbing his arm, still trying to feel what Kevin had done to it.

  —Kevin, don’t do this! Let’s talk about it.

  —Sorry.

  Aleph was standing alongside Kevin on the virtual bridge.

  —You’re not going to make it to Earth alive, Kevin.

  —I’m not going to Earth. I’ll drown Judy in seeds first.