Divergence a-3

by Tony Ballantyne

  “I suppose we would, for the right price,” Judy replied dryly.

  “Can you help us at all?” the young woman asked.

  “I think so,” Saskia said. “I’ll see if I can arrange a lift to our ship. You can use our autodoc.”

  “Putting together a crew, are we, Saskia?” Judy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Saskia said. “That’s down to Edward, isn’t it? I’m just helping out for the moment. Do you have a better idea?” She unfolded her console and began to tap at the keys. “I’ve seen Maurice do this often enough,” she muttered. “It can’t be that difficult.”

  Edward stared over her shoulder. “I think you drag the request into the public area there.” He pointed.

  “That’s what Maurice used to do.”

  Saskia gave him a sideways glance, then did as he suggested. Immediately a number of offers to trade appeared.

  “Which one, Edward?” she asked.

  “That one,” said Edward, pointing to a rose-shaped icon that he rather liked the look of. Saskia tapped it, and a face appeared in the console: a young man, good looking, with dark skin and darker eyes. Saskia passed Edward the console.

  “Go on, boss, do your thing.”

  “Hello there, I’m Saeed,” said the man on the console. “Would you like to engage in Fair Exchange?”

  “Yes,” Edward said, “we’d like a lift to our ship.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  Judy was busy counting the people assembled on the stone terrace.

  “Fifteen,” she said, and Edward relayed the number.

  “Fine,” Saeed said, then his eyes lit up. “Isn’t this amazing!” he exclaimed. “Do you understand what’s going on?”

  “No,” Edward said honestly. “I think I preferred it the old way. I miss my old friends. I miss Craig.”

  “Then why don’t you ask if someone will take you to him,” Saeed said. “That’s what FE is for!”

  “Oh,” said Edward, a smile slowly spreading across his face. Not only Craig, he realized, but Caroline, his sister, too. What would it be like back on Garvey’s World? Would everything there have been broken up into spaceships, like the Eva Rye ? But there would be time to think of that later—now there were people here to help, and Saeed was impatient to begin.

  “Well, shall we start FE? Do you still want a lift?”

  “Yes,” said Edward.

  “Okay, exchanging circumstances. There, all done.”

  “That was fast,” Saskia commented.

  “Isn’t it always?” asked Saeed.

  “I think it will be, for the next few days at least,” Judy said. “At the moment, all humans are pretty equal.”

  “And with FE, they should stay that way,” Saskia added.

  The sky was slowly emptying of ships. After a two-hundred-year period of stagnation, Earth was finally developing as it should.

  Saeed’s ship settled in the mud near their stone island and dropped the rear ramp. Other ships did the same nearby.

  Saeed and three other men came down the ramp to meet Edward and the rest of them. Gently, two of them picked up the young woman’s mother and carried her to their ship’s autodoc.

  “Which of you are Najam and Jackie?” Saeed asked.

  Two young women raised their hands.

  “FE said you were going to be part of our crew. Are you happy about that?”

  “I don’t know,” one of the women said. “We’ll have to see.” But she smiled at him as she spoke.

  “That used to be my job,” Judy said, so softly that Edward only just heard her.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Matchmaking. Healing personalities. Now I suppose it just gets thrown in as part of a business deal.”

  She turned to Constantine. “You know what,” she said, “I never really doubted, but now I’m convinced: the Watcher was FE that developed a mind of its own.”

  Edward and the rest of them walked up the ramp into the interior of Saeed’s ship.

  “What is this ship called, Saeed?” Saskia called out.

  “It hasn’t got a name.”

  “It needs a name,” said Najam, one of the two new members of its crew. “How about the Ophelia ?”

  Edward looked around at familiar surroundings. The Eva Rye had looked like this not so long ago. Maybe its colors had been slightly less bright, maybe they had not been so mixed up, but this ship reminded him of Craig. He wondered again at what Saeed had said and decided that as soon as they made it to the Eva Rye he would try to make contact with Craig again. And then on to his home planet—if his family were still there, of course. Then he heard shouting behind him.

  “It’s a robot!”

  “It’s a venumb!”

  “Close the ramp!”

  “Too late, it’s already coming on board!”

  Something big was moving up the corridor behind them: something like a cross between a snake and a Lite train made of lead-colored metal, stamping along on heavy legs. Edward and the rest flattened themselves against the corridor walls of the ship as the thing pounded past. Edward saw the rough-hewn metal sides of the animal sliding by just before him, he smelled mud and cold, felt the floor pounding beneath the great feet that propelled the beast forward.

  And then it was past them. The shaking died away. The rainbow patterns in the carpet swirled as the ship cleaned itself.

  “Where has it gone?” someone asked.

  “Into the large hold,” said someone else.

  “What was it?”

  Judy guessed first. “It’s part of the big share-out,” she said. “It’s these people’s stake in the planet, and it’s going to follow them around until they damn well use it.”

  Time passed. The passengers were taken to the Ophelia ’s living area and offered coffee and sandwiches by the vessel’s proud crew. A buzz of excitement filled the air, but it was cut through with a tinge of nervousness. Everything was changing so quickly.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Edward.

  Saskia glanced across at him. “Yes?”

  “About Judy.”

  Judy and Constantine were chatting together in the other corner of the Ophelia ’s living area. All the while Judy kept fiddling with her console.

  “What about her?” asked Saskia. She seemed so much more relaxed now. She was being taken seriously, Edward realized. The new passengers they had helped on board respected her.

  “What about Judy?” she repeated. They looked across to see her smiling as she tapped away at her console.

  “Oh,” Edward said, regaining the thread of his thoughts. “Well, we did a trade to have her brought here. We thought that we’d get a really good price, because Earth was so dangerous. Instead, we got nothing. But really, we got a good price after all. Look what we did: we set everyone free.”

  “What if they don’t want to be free?”

  The Ophelia settled to land near the Eva Rye . Edward was shocked at the change in the ship’s surroundings. The parkland remained, its neat lines of trees marching through snow-covered lawns, but all else was gone. The parkland was now a little area of order amongst the sea of pock-ridden mud where the buildings of the city had once stood. There were noticeably fewer ships up here in the cold wastes of what had once been St. Petersburg. Already the sea breeze was coming in to reclaim the land. The setting sun cast pale shadows across the desolate scene.

  “Whose ship is it now?” asked Edward, gazing up at the neat swell of the Eva Rye ’s side. It seemed so much more ordered after the collision of colors adorning the Ophelia .

  “I don’t know,” said Saskia. “Yours and mine, I suppose. But I wonder if Maurice still has any claim over it?”

  “I think we should offer a share to Judy and Constantine.”

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” said Judy. “I’ve already made my arrangements.”

  “What do you mean?” Saskia asked, but Edward could already see the third ship approaching. It came out of the g
lare of the sun, floating low over the ground, moving with an easy grace towards them. Perhaps, in the distant past, it had belonged to the same species as the Eva Rye , but if so the connection was tenuous. This new ship must have been upgraded many, many times. It still bore a vague resemblance to Edward’s ship, having a slight swelling towards the front, but that was where the similarity ended. Otherwise, it was long and flexible, moving over the ground like a snake. And it was still getting bigger as it approached.

  Edward realized it was much larger than the Eva Rye . He watched the swollen forward section come to a halt about fifty meters away, its bulk looming above the egglike hull of his own ship.

  “What is it called?” he asked.

  “The Buridan’s Ass ,” Judy replied. “It has some old friends of mine on board, people I knew long ago, back when I worked for Social Care. They’ve been using FE for quite a few years and now they’ve come looking for me.”

  “Are you really leaving us, Judy?” Saskia asked, though Edward thought she didn’t look too disappointed.

  “I am,” said Judy. “Remember, I’m not like other people, Saskia.” She suddenly laughed. “That sounds terribly egotistical, I know, but it’s true. The Watcher confirmed it.”

  “I knew that all along,” Edward said seriously.

  “I think my friends are on that ship, Edward. Some of them I’ve never even met yet. Maybe even…”

  Someone had suddenly appeared out of the newly arrived ship. Edward didn’t see how. They were just suddenly standing there, right below its undulating golden hull.

  “Frances!” Judy called out, and Edward heard real delight in his friend’s voice. He squinted at the figure clad in the same gold color as the ship. No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t wearing golden clothing. She was made of gold. She was a robot, seamless and perfect. Her head was a smoothly rounded bullet shape, and when Edward looked closer he could see that two eyes had been crudely painted on it.

  “It’s okay,” Judy said. “She’s perfectly safe. There are lots of such people out there in the universe, Edward, lots of new people to meet.”

  She was eager now to go, but she paused.

  “Saskia,” she said.

  “Judy.”

  “Saskia, I want to thank you for everything you did for me.”

  Saskia seemed almost embarrassed. “I didn’t do that much for you, Judy. It was Edward.”

  “You did more than enough.”

  The two women shook hands. And then Judy turned to Edward.

  “I wish you wouldn’t go.”

  “I know, but you will be perfectly happy without me.” She laughed again. “This is a new age, Edward. The past two hundred years have been an anomaly. Earth has been held static in a twentieth-century vision of the future, all contrived by the machinations of the Watcher. Now the singularity has taken place, it is time for us to reach for the next stage of development.”

  “But I don’t want to develop, Judy,” Edward said seriously. “I just want to see my friends again.”

  “That’s a good start, Edward, but just remember it’s not enough. It’s not what you’re born with, it’s what you do with it.”

  “That’s right,” said Frances, the golden robot. “And when you stand before your God, then hope you can say this: See, I used every last ounce of talent that you gave me. ”

  “I don’t understand,” Edward said.

  “It just means do your best,” Saskia said.

  Of course I will, thought Edward, puzzled. What else would I do?

  “Look,” Saskia said, pointing. A few Schrödinger cubes lay frozen on the ground.

  “Sorry,” Frances said, “my fault. They’re reacting to my intelligence.”

  “Where have the rest gone?” Edward asked.

  “Gone with the Watcher. It was always his intellect pulling them in.”

  “And where has the Watcher gone?”

  But Judy just tapped her nose, knowingly.

  The sun was setting fast. The Earth will be dark tonight , Edward thought with some surprise. Dark for the first time in centuries. All the lights have gone. What will come to life during this night?

  Edward stood alone on the rear ramp, feeling it vibrate as their passengers’ robotic share in the Earth’s bounty made its heavy way towards the large hold.

  He wondered if the Eva Rye was now the last ship left on Earth. The Ophelia had already risen into the air, to join the sparse few ships that still hung about there. Some of them were lighting up in evening colors, pastel lamps that floated above the empty land.

  Judy and Frances had together boarded the Buridan’s Ass and gone swimming away who-knows-where.

  Edward had a funny feeling looking out over the darkening land. Everything had just melted away. He wondered if it would ever come back. Would anyone ever come and stand here in this spot and maybe throw a VNM out from the ship into the sea of mud below, set it searching for materials, set it replicating so as to maybe build a city here again?

  He dismissed the thought as ridiculous. Why would anyone want to do that?

  That time had passed, evaporating into the night along with all the people who had once walked here. Edward turned to head up the ramp, and then paused for a moment. He turned back to the empty land, falling away in a rosy sunset.

  “Good night,” he said to it.

  eva rye

  “What is life, Eva?” Ivan asked. “What does it mean to be alive, to be human? What is it that makes me able to sit here and speak to you? Do you ever wonder about this?”

  “I used to,” replied Eva.

  “You used to? You no longer wonder? Why not?”

  “Because now I know what life is.”

  She could just make out Ivan’s face in the predawn light. She wondered if he could see her smiling.

  “I can see you smiling at me. You’re teasing me again.”

  “No,” Eva said, “I know what life is, and I will tell you what it is very soon.”

  “When?”

  “When the sun rises. When the band begins playing.”

  The residents of the Narkomfin were gathering in the darkness, smelling of alcohol and coffee and cold sweat. There was low muttered conversation and the sound of metal chinking against metal. The brass band that had performed in the hall the previous night was re-forming; players were blowing into their instruments, warming them up, the valves pistoning in the night. Hands were rubbed together and feet stamped.

  “Why are we doing this?” Ivan asked. “Why do we have to come out here at dawn to sing songs and play music? Why do we not just stay indoors and continue drinking?”

  “Because,” said Eva, “it’s tradition. Anyway, it’s an excuse to keep drinking for longer. That should appeal to you.”

  “Hah,” Ivan said, “I am going to miss your teasing when I return home.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “Don’t mock me,” Ivan said. “Don’t tell me what I will do. I will miss you, Eva.”

  “No, you won’t .” Eva took a deep breath. She had been thinking about this all night and had been too scared of saying it, for fear of making it real. But now was the time. “Ivan,” she whispered, “I’m coming with you.”

  She could hear his intake of breath; she could see the look on his face, the way that he couldn’t help smiling, the way he tried to frown at the same time as he attempted to understand. She could see all of this in the dim light; see it as it gradually gained definition in the false dawn.

  “But why, Eva?” he managed to splutter. “Why have you changed your mind? I thought you didn’t want to go back into that world. You were afraid of returning to the control of the Watcher.”

  “I still am.” She took a deep breath and continued firmly. “But I don’t want, I will not have, the Watcher running my life, even by default.”

  Ivan took her hand, beaming with delight. “Thank you, Eva. Thank you.”

  “You’re crying,” Eva said.

  “Hah, you English! I am
not ashamed of my emotions.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Why change your mind? Why now—why not before?”

  “I don’t know,” Eva said. “There are lots of reasons. I want to see my daughter again. I want to visit her.” But that wasn’t the truth. A vision of the scene in the hall flashed through her head, the handicapped boy shuffling past the golden child. The divergence that existed in humanity, and yet everyone still recognizably human. That was part of it.

  “I…I want to do what I can.” Eva frowned. “I don’t think I can really explain.”

  “That’s okay,” Ivan said, pulling her close and stroking her hair. “There will be time later on.”

  I don’t think I could explain, even later on, thought Eva. I wanted to be free, so I tried to kill myself. The Watcher said it, all that time ago: “You fought for the right to live your life your own way, even if it meant killing yourself.” That’s why he thinks he needs me. Why does he have this yearning to understand freedom and personal responsibility, when all he wants to do is to control us? Will we ever be free to control ourselves?

  There was a yellow glow appearing over the distant hills. The sun was coming. Veni Creator Spiritus. Some of the assembled people were singing those words now, half whispered. Some residents of the Narkomfin claimed to worship the sun as the life-giver. But it was just a pose, an affectation. All of the band now held their instruments, warming them up. Paper music was clipped into lyres. The conductor took his place. The sun was coming.

  Ivan stood behind Eva, his big arms wrapped around her body, and she felt his warmth.

  “They are going to play,” Ivan said. “Go on, tell me, what is life?”

  Eva put her hands on his arms and cuddled him closer to her.

  “Ivan, life is just a reflection of ourselves. We look at something, and see part of ourselves in it, and call it life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that we put life into the objects we see. We look at a kitten and we look at a rock, and if we see enough of ourselves reflected back, we say the object is alive.”

  “Hah, yes!”

  “We look at the sun and we see something warm and living. We put the spirit in it.”

  Ivan tasted the idea. Sheets of paper were now being passed through the crowd. The lyrics to be sung. Ivan took one and held it absently.