Virtual Mode

by Piers Anthony

  We may talk, he agreed.

  "Say, I just realized: you never argue with me. Not really. You point out things, you clarify what I don't know, but you always go along with what I'm thinking about."

  It is true. I reflect your interests, as mine are not of great moment.

  "How can you think that? You're the most wonderful person I've met, next to Darius!"

  True. But I am not wonderful without you. "You're a horse! A horse is wonderful by definition."

  As is a girl.

  "Let me tell you what a horse is to me. I'm going to introduce you to Maresy Doats." She summoned her mental picture of her imaginary friend.

  She is a winsome mare.

  "Well, I never thought of her as having sex appeal!"

  I would have to smell her to determine that.

  She laughed. "So you're just like any man!"

  No. Human males are always interested in reproduction. Horses are interested only when the mare is ready. We do not waste energy. We regard this as more sensible.

  "Well, Maresy is sensible. She always knows what to do. The trouble is, others aren't always sensible, and they don't listen. It's all recorded in my book. For Whom Was That Neigh? It's based on a picture I have of Maresy Doats. Do you want an example?"

  Yes.

  "Now, why did I know you would say that? Okay, here it is. Maresy and another mare were grazing in this pasture. It was the only pasture they had, and there was no other source of food. Just the grass. A tough variety that hung on through the winter. Now, Maresy is smarter than the average horse, and she did some figuring, and realized that at the rate they were grazing, they would run out of grass before spring, and then starve in the winter. But if they slowed down their grazing, and ate less grass, they could stretch it out so that it would last until spring, when it would start growing again, and they would survive. They might be lean, but okay. So it made sense to do that.

  "So she told the other mare. But the other mare just went right on grazing, paying no attention. She wasn't smart like Maresy, and didn't understand anything except eating until she was full. She ate like a horse.

  "So what was Maresy to do? If she stopped grazing, then there would be enough for the other mare, but Maresy would starve now. If she didn't stop, they would both starve later. So should she give up her life so that at least one of them would survive, even though it was the undeserving one? Or should she prolong her own life for a while by continuing to graze?"

  She should kill the other mare, and have enough for herself.

  "But Maresy wouldn't do that!" Colene protested. "She believes in life, not death!"

  But if there is life only for one—

  "Yes. So she's in trouble. I call it the pacifist's dilemma."

  How does the story end?

  "I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see."

  How long?

  "I don't know."

  I do not see the point of this story.

  "It has no solution, but it does have a point. You see, Maresy stands for me, and for people like me, who are smart enough to see that the world—I mean, in my reality—can't go on this way. It is using up all its resources, and when they are gone, it will be impossible to feed everyone, and most or all of us will die. It doesn't have to be that way, but everyone else, like the other mare, refuses to see the problem, and just goes on grazing at top speed. So we will all suffer, when we don't have to, because of the shortsightedly selfish ones. We won't know exactly what happens until it happens, and then it will be too late. I think that's part of what makes me suicidal. I mean, what's the point in hanging on to life, when it's all going to end anyway, too soon?"

  But you are free of that now, with the Virtual Mode.

  "Yes. So I'm not suicidal now, maybe. But I feel guilty for bugging out on my world."

  With the situation as you present it, that is your only choice. You are freeing your world of your presence, so that someone else can survive.

  "Say, yes! That's a good way to look at it." Somewhat cheered, she relaxed, and soon was asleep.

  THEY did start early, as soon as they could see their way. Immediately, the barrens, as Colene thought of this region, were all around them, before and behind. It was as if life had never existed anywhere.

  At first the land was reasonably level, but this changed with realities, and it became so ragged as to be an unkind challenge. Bare stone rose up in twisted contours, and sank into rubble. Tors gave way to pits, forcing them to wind around their edges, slowing progress. Meanwhile the sun rose in the bleak sky and the bright light beat down on them. Colene fashioned a hat from cloth to protect her face and arms, and covered Seqiro's head and neck similarly, fearing damage from the intensity of the rays. They were a strange-looking pair, swathed in coverings fashioned of loose clothing, but there was no one to see.

  Then the land descended. It was a great cavity, so large that it featured its own mountains and pits and convolutions, as if it were a continent in reverse. It extended ahead until the rim of the horizon cut it off.

  Colene gazed at it with dismay. Then she had a revelation. "It's a sea!" she exclaimed. "An ocean! We've come to the end of a continent! A sea without water!"

  All water is gone from these realities, Seqiro agreed. There was nothing to do except descend into it, because her sense told her that Darius was somewhere across this region. "I hope we don't have to cross the whole Atlantic or Pacific!" Because that would be doom; they could not walk that far.

  That brought another concern. "How will we know if it's too far? I mean, if it is, we should turn back, so at least we don't die of hunger or exposure. But if we turn back, when we could have made it across—"

  If we reach what we deem to be half our ability to travel without new supplies, and I still can not detect life ahead, then we should turn back.

  "You can detect life behind us?" she asked. "I mean, you're not just thinking that to reassure me?"

  It is fading, but I can feel that life behind.

  "Okay. If you get so you can't feel it behind, and you still can't feel it ahead, we'd better turn back. That's not the same as giving up; it just means we'll have to find a better way."

  Agreed.

  Yet privately she wondered what better way there could be. They would not be able to go around the barrens the way she had around the hostile bear, because these were entire realities, each one a universe in itself. If there were a million of them, they just had to be crossed, because there didn't seem to be any way to skip over parts of the Virtual Mode.

  Well, if they had to retreat, maybe Darius would be able to find a way from the other side. She was sure that he was looking for her too; he wouldn't have set up the Virtual Mode and then just twiddled his thumbs. They could meet in the middle. So maybe he was coming to the other side of this now, and was thinking about how to cross, and all she had to do was go back and wait.

  But she was more independent than that. She wanted to make it on her own. So she hoped they made it across.

  I echo your sentiment.

  "Oh, was I thinking too close to the surface? I didn't mean to bother you with this!"

  I am becoming increasingly attuned to your mind, so can read more deeply with less effort. I did not mean to intrude. "Oh, no, that's all right, Seqiro! You understand me, the way Maresy did. I don't mind you in my mind. I just didn't want to burden you with my worries."

  You are concerned about survival now, rather than death.

  She laughed, somewhat self-consciously. "For sure, I'm not being suicidal, now that I'm up against possible death! I'm reacting in a disgustingly normal way. I guess that's an improvement."

  You have reason to live now.

  "Yes. Because of Darius—and you, Seqiro."

  But if you lacked these folk, your self-destructiveness would return.

  "I guess it would. I'm no bargain, emotionally."

  If you had not had those bad experiences, you would not have become self-destructive.

 
; "Well, I don't know about that. Those experiences weren't necessarily bad, just different or shocking. I hadn't known how the people lived in Panama; plenty of other people do know, and they aren't suicidal. I did a lot of good at that hospital, and the doctors and nurses aren't suicidal. The rape scene—that I could have done without. But I didn't get beaten up or anything, and I was so drunk I may even have thought it was fun at the time. It sure taught me to be wary of liquor and of men! That camp episode really worked out okay, and word never got back to my folks what had really happened. It taught me not to trust anyone, not with my true secrets, and that was a good lesson." But you trust me.

  "Now, why did I know you were going to come up with that? I guess I am breaking my rule. But I also guess I meant not to trust anyone human. I trusted Maresy, because she's a horse, and horses can be trusted. You're a horse. Trust just sort of comes with your territory."

  I like Maresy. But there are many horses in my reality who can not be trusted. You are as foolish to trust an animal blindly as to trust a human being blindly.

  Colene sighed. "I guess I am. Okay, I won't trust any other animals either. But is it okay to trust you, Seqiro?"

  Me alone, he agreed. Yet do you not also trust Darius, who is human?

  That set her back. "I don't think I do trust him, exactly. I love him, but that's another matter. When he told me of his wonderful magic land, I didn't believe it. I wish I had! So I guess there is danger in not trusting people too. I hope he forgives me!"

  He must have forgiven you, because he set up the Virtual Mode, so that he could rejoin you.

  "Yes, he did that." Then she paused in her descent of a slope. "Seqiro! Is it possible that it wasn't Darius who set it up? But someone else? I mean, how would I know, for sure?"

  If it was Darius, you will know when you meet him.

  "Unless it's someone just pretending to be him, because he wanted an innocent girl or something. Lots of men want young sex-slaves. I really don't know Darius that well."

  I will be with you. I will know his mind.

  "Yes! You will know his mind, Seqiro! You must let me know whether it's really him, and how he truly feels about me. I'm not going to marry him, I know that, but I'm willing to be his mistress and helper if I just know he loves me."

  I will inform you of his feeling for you, if you don't object to my intrusion into your private matters. Understand that I will be partial to his sexual sentiment as well as his emotion.

  "I understand! I want him to want me, every which way from Sunday! Just so long as he loves me!"

  It shall be known.

  They continued into the waterless ocean, which seemed even more barren than the continent, because of what should have been there. A continent could be a natural desert, but an ocean could only be an unnatural desert.

  That brought another horrible realization. "Seqiro! Suppose we reach the next living reality—and we're at the bottom of the sea? We could drown!"

  She felt a wash of panic, and knew that her thought had struck through to his natural mind. It was a horse's nature to spook and run from danger. So it seems. But your intellect suggests that we might simply retreat through the boundary between realities and be dry again.

  "Well, at least we wouldn't be thirsty!" she exclaimed too cheerily. The notion of being suddenly under a mile or so of water terrified her. She realized increasingly that though she had been suicidal, she was quite choosy about the way she might die. Water would be too suffocating, and she didn't like that.

  It would also be crushing. Suppose they were crushed to death before they could retreat? "I think we had better be pretty careful how we cross boundaries," she said, shaken. I will detect the ocean life, which will give us warning. "Not if it's a sterile sea!" For now she realized that the presence of water was no guarantee of life.

  I will flick my tail across them, Seqiro suggested. "But you would have to travel backwards! No, let me take something of ours—here, this kerchief of mine will do—and I'll flick it ahead of me, and when it gets wet, we'll know."

  Agreed.

  They moved on, with Colene ahead, constantly flicking her kerchief as she approached each boundary. It became automatic: one, two, three steps, flick, step, flick and step across, and start over. It was about five of her steps between boundaries, about two feet per step, but she wanted no accident. It would have looked strange to an outsider, but it was a sensible precaution.

  Now she was not sure whether she did or did not want to encounter such an ocean. If they found no water, they might have to walk thousands of miles through this dread desert, and would die of dehydration; already their water supply was diminishing at an alarming rate. But if they did find it, how would they get through?

  Suddenly there was something. Colene clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a possible scream. A light was blinking to the south!

  I see it, Seqiro thought, responding to her thought. A beacon. It seems that we are not alone.

  "But can you detect life?"

  No. But life must have placed it there.

  "Then maybe it's safe to check it," she said. "Unless it's got killer machines or something."

  What would be the point of that?

  "I don't know. But whatever sterilized all these realities may intend to keep them that way. If that beacon picks up a sign of life, it may trigger another sterilization treatment."

  I suspect it can spot us as readily as we have spotted it. I am aware of no harmful radiation associated with it. Is it possible that it simply marks a path through the barrens?

  "Maybe so!" she agreed, encouraged. "There has to be a way through, so maybe someone left markers. If we have to gamble, let's gamble on the positive interpretation."

  Nevertheless, they were diffident as they approached the beacon. It disappeared when they crossed realities; it existed only in one. But it was easy to approach, because of its constant flashing.

  It turned out to be a simple machine: a blinking ball mounted on a thin metal pole stuck into a porous section of the sea floor. At its base was an arrow painted in bright red, pointing east.

  "A direction marker!" Colene exclaimed. "Pointing the way!"

  Could it be your friend Darius?

  "You mean, to show where he's been? Or to find his way back?" She focused seriously on that for a moment. "No, I don't think so. He's from the reality of magic, and this is plainly science. Super-science, I think; that ball's opaque, yet it flashes. It must be someone else. Maybe there's a regular caravan through here, with markers to steer it straight."

  I doubt it. This Virtual Mode has existed only a week in your terms.

  She nodded. "Well, one person, maybe, but not Darius. But it will do for us, certainly; this should be much faster, because now we know where we're going, sort of."

  I agree.

  Heartened, they resumed travel.

  Meanwhile the contours of the bottom of the ocean were a revelation to her. Instead of being flat and sandy, as she had somehow fancied, they were phenomenally more varied than those of the continental land. There were mountains and valleys and rifts and lattices of twisted stone. There were holes so deep they filled her with dread, and slopes so sharp that they resembled walls. One section was like a monstrous banyan tree, with thousands of pillars reaching down to lower platforms, from which more pillars extended on down. Another was like an upside-down mountain with mounds supporting its edges. Elsewhere there were what seemed to be worm holes in myriads, ranging from pinhead to handspan diameter, disappearing into darkness. And the opposite: pencil-thin towers of packed sand, their sedimentary origins showing in streaks crossing the formation. There had surely been water here once; what had happened to it?

  In fact, how could this region have been rendered so dry without disturbing these natural formations? She was able to knock over the pencil towers with her hands; they were not made for sidewise pressure. Any heat great enough to vaporize all the water should have generated savage storms. If some cosmic drain had opened
in the bottom and let it all flow out, there should have been some pools remaining and some gouging as the drainage rivers formed. Instead it was as if the water had simply vanished, without even making any currents.

  Then her bandanna snagged on something. She jerked it back, startled, for to her eye she was merely flicking it in air before a sea of air. She checked it.

  The tip was dry, but looked as if it had recently been wet. Because the water couldn't cross the boundary.

  "Oopsy, Seqiro! We've struck water!"

  The horse stepped up and turned broadside. He flicked his tail. It struck something.

  I felt the liquid, he agreed.

  Colene put up her hands carefully, and felt the air before her. The boundary was icy cold and slick. "Like ice," she announced. "I guess we didn't have to worry about drowning; it's under such pressure we can't get into it anyway."

  I sense no life.

  So it was lifeless water. Some realities had been dried, some frozen, or at least sterilized. The two of them could not continue crossing boundaries.

  This was not exactly a relief. "What do we do, Seqiro? Do we turn back? We can make it from here, at least."

  But if we find a way to enter the next reality, we will have water, greatly extending our range.

  "I don't think so. We can't take it with us."

  We can if we drink it carefully, saving our own water for emergency use.

  "But it must be salt water! We can't drink that!"

  It is my understanding that we can. In my reality we have a technique for filtering impure water through sand to make it pure. We can do that.

  "Or we can evaporate some, and condense the vapor!" she agreed, turning more positive. "But we still have to get up to the top of it, and then what will we do—sail across it?"

  Seqiro sorted through the picture in her mind, of a girl and horse standing precariously on a raft. I prefer not.

  She laughed, humorlessly. "I guess not! So unless there's a big change coming beyond the water-reality, we're sunk anyway, no pun."

  I fear that is the case. But we should try to explore it if we can. If we can find land, and cross more realities, I can quest farther for life.