Time of the Stones

by Fred Rothganger

  “Please transmit your access log.”

  “The log is incomplete. Older entries have been erased from the ring buffer.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “There is no active data link.”

  Susan raised her hand. “Send free-space laser to this point.”

  “Acknowledged.” A dot of red light struck Susan’s palm. The data flowed too fast for human eyes to see the fluctuations, but the swarm captured and relayed it through the network of satellites overhead.

  The others stared in agitation at the strange interchange. Susan walked away without another word, and no one came after her. Perhaps they were more interested in getting their turn at the Stone.

  She slipped out of the inner city the same way she got in, by vaulting the wall. Another night, another back yard in the neighborhood surrounding the citadel. She sat in the corner with knees hugged to chest and digested all the experiences of the day. To make more progress here, it would be necessary to learn the language. How to do that without blowing her cover?

  She disembodied and worked at the console, skimming Celeste’s access log. They frequented the technology recipes provided by the Ancients: metal refining, machining, nuclear power and simple microprocessors. They methodically built up from basic technologies to more sophisticated ones.

  Most of the accesses were fairly basic: math, science, engineering. For each there was an obvious trail leading back to one of the recipes. These people only wanted knowledge to rebuild, not to enrich their souls. Almost no culture—few books, movies or artwork.

  They accessed history of the second and third world wars. Then they looked at encyclopedic articles on weapon engineering. The Ancients did not leave a recipe for nuclear weapons, but neither did they censor the existence of such things. These clever people must have filled in the blanks and worked out the design.

  Back in body, the sound of natives going about their evening in the house lulled Susan to sleep. She dreamed of the attic room in the old farmhouse. Above the antique dresser, the oval mirror showed her reflection. She pointed a finger in its face and spoke with bitter hatred, “I will destroy you.”

  Unperturbed, the reflection replied, “Then you must destroy yourself.”

  Susan woke with a gasp. Stillness of night rested on the whole neighborhood. She had been asleep for nearly two hours, more than enough. Time to solve some problems. First a big change to the avatar, then a new program for the swarm.

  * * *

  “What do you think, Doctor?”

  “Very odd.”

  The little girl sat on the edge of his examining table, dangling her feet. He reached behind her head and snapped his fingers. She lurched and turned toward the sound. He tested the other side. “Her hearing seems fine. She’s alert and curious. Where did you find her?”

  “Sitting on the side of the street.”

  “Perhaps she suffered a trauma and now she’s afraid to speak.”

  “We checked our records. No children reported missing.”

  “There’s nothing medicine can do for her.”

  The officer shook his head. “We’ll put her in the orphanage until her parents show up.” He gestured to the little girl.

  She jumped off the table and took his hand.

  They left the doctor’s office. Now late morning, the streets were quiet. The officer looked down at her. She returned his gaze with those big innocent eyes. Huge eyes ... yet there was something deep and ancient in them, like the piercing stare of an old shaman.

  He shuddered inside and turned away. If there were such thing as a fairy, this is what she would look like. He was not sure if he still believed in the spirits. Many people were abandoning the old ways because of science and technology.

  The Great Leader commissioned the orphanage to care for children whose parents died in battle, or in the factories. It was his way of showing compassion. A group of middle-aged women ran the place. One answered the officer’s knock. “Oh, hello there child. What’s your name?” She waited for a moment, then looked up. “What’s the story on this one?”

  “She’s afraid to speak. That’s all we know.”

  The woman led the girl into the compound and turned her loose to play with the other children.

  * * *

  At last! Susan ran into the yard and searched for a friendly face, someone to latch onto and learn words from. The play area was in the middle of a large compound, as if several lots on both sides of the block had been joined together. Despite this, the play area was rather meager. More than half the space was taken up by the vegetable garden which every house seemed to have.

  Two children held a long rope and swung it around, while several other children stood between and jumped. They all chanted a word each time. If someone tripped on the rope they started over. Numbers.

  Some kids ran around in a game of tag. Susan joined them. After a few minutes they took a short break to catch their breath. A girl, about six years old, came up and jabbered, “Menin ati Pinar.”

  The disguised Guardian patted her own chest. “Susan.”

  Pinar tentatively repeated back the name.

  Susan grabbed a stone off the ground, pointed at it, then made a gesture with her fingers as if they were a mouth speaking. She pointed at the stone again.

  Pinar offered, “Tas.”

  Susan grabbed two stones and held them up together. “Eki tas.”

  Pinar laughed and corrected, “Eki tastar.”

  Susan arranged nine stones together and offered another number. They continued this game until mealtime. She confirmed the numbers and learned the names of several basic objects around the playground.

  That evening the matron showed Susan to a small bed in a crowded dormitory room. The crude mattress and thin blanket offered little comfort to the inmates, but it made no difference to the swarm.

  Some haggling arose among the children, and suddenly Pinar had the bed next to her.

  Susan grabbed a fold of the blanket and held it up. By now Pinar knew the game. They went through several objects around them, including the mattress, bed, floor and so on.

  * * *

  Pinar and Susan worked in the garden, tilling a mound for spring planting. At the end of the row stood a small bush, about waist-high to the girls. Its heart-shaped leaves were dark blue, almost black, with a green tinge around the edge.

  Pinar pointed at it. “Where did that come from? It must be a weed.”

  Under the leaves hung purple berries, about the diameter of a finger. Susan plucked one and ate it. “Mmm.”

  “You’re stupid!”

  Susan licked her lips luxuriously. “These are called magic berries. We eat them all the time in the country.”

  Pinar stared at them nervously, then reached out and plucked one. She dabbed the tip of her tongue, took a nibble, and grimaced. “It’s sour.”

  “Blue is sweet. Red is sour.”

  Pinar tried another one and grinned with pleasure. She reached to take more.

  “Wait. Let’s show the Mothers. Maybe they want a taste.”

  The two girls ran inside and dragged a Mother out. The woman stared at the bush. “I’ve never seen a plant like this. You know better than to eat strange berries!”

  Pinar piped up, “Susan says they eat these in the country. We both ate one, and we’re not sick.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Susan grabbed a big handful of berries and crammed them in her mouth. The Mother shouted and slapped her hand. Susan returned an indulgent purple grin.

  The next morning, after Susan didn’t die, the Mother went out and tried a taste. “Too sweet!”

  Pinar said, “Red is sour. Blue is sweet.”

  The Mother tasted a somewhat redder berry, then nodded in approval. “How do these grow? There are no seeds.”

  Susan grabbed a branch and snapped it off. “You just put this in the ground and it grows. In the country, we give them to our neighbors, so they can have berries too.”

 
; “Hmm ... I know someone who might like these.” The Mother took the branch from Susan and walked back to the main house.

  * * *

  Friends shared with friends, who shared with more friends ...

  From its hiding place in the forest, Susan moved the swarm to the military airfield on the south side of town. She spread Ship’s scales out and covered them with imitation grass. The engine and cryo tank went underground in a cyst. All leftover swarm turned into flies, fanned out and added mass to new bushes.

  The bushes grew so quickly that they could be propagated within a day or two of planting. Friends shared with friends ...

  Susan converted a swath of the swarm forest in the Southern Desert into a jumbo jet. It flew the long journey over the North Pole and down to the city.

  * * *

  The radar operator watched the enormous echo with horror. Must be the size of an entire city block. It slowed until right above them, then vanished into a myriad of tiny speckles. Soon even those disappeared.

  When he saw the first UFO six weeks ago, they said there was nothing out there but his imagination. The truth was out there, so he hitched a ride on the coal train and went to the place where it last appeared on his screen. Strange alien plants grew there, with giant square leaves. He tried to warn people, but they said he was crazy.

  If he reported another UFO, he would probably lose his job. Or, infinitely worse, get assigned to the nuclear reactor. No, he would not say anything about a UFO.

  * * *

  Good work, Ship.

  Ship sent an image of himself on the runway waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... for the order to launch.

  Sorry that was a boring job. As a reward, you can go flying.

  What mission?

  Just fly for the fun of it.

  Joy.

  Sitting on the runway in Southern Desert, Ship summoned the swarm for a fuel-up, then took off. He climbed to the stratosphere, accelerated to a gratuitous speed of Mach 13 and did some corkscrews. All the while, the pleasure of the Creator poured on him like morning sun. After an hour he returned and landed.

  The Creator spoke again. I’ve decided to leave you awake. Don’t go into space, don’t fly low over civilized areas, and don’t run out of fuel. As long as you follow these rules, you can do anything you want.

  But if you’re with me, I don’t need rules.

  There are many things I must do elsewhere.

  Loneliness.

  I understand. When you’re not flying, you can slow your clock so it won’t seem so long.

  Ship sent an image of himself flying and waiting for her return.

  Devolution of Power

  Year 10, Day 173

  Susan stood with the rest of the class, extended her hand in salute to the portrait of the Great Leader, and chanted: “I pledge my heart, my mind, my strength to serve the nation, and to follow the wisdom of the Great Leader.” They sat, and the Mother started another tedious lesson in simple arithmetic.

  Susan found the classes fantastically boring but had to maintain cover. Her mind wandered to sophisticated problems in nonlinear dynamics, while the surrounding children struggled with 2+2.

  Classes were a small price to pay for the information she gathered. She had become reasonably fluent in Biriktil, the language of the nation Birik. The Great Leader’s name was Temujin, though no one called him that.

  Temujin’s father Nurasyl had been a nomadic shepherd. As a child, Nurasyl came upon the Stone high in the mountains and spent years learning from it. When he became an adult, he united the tribes and built the city Biysk.

  Temujin and other intelligent children of his generation dedicated themselves to learning, while parents struggled to support them by traditional means. When Nurasyl died, Temujin became ruler and led them to remake the magic of their ancestors.

  Class recessed for the day, and the children ran into the yard to play. Nearby, some of the older girls jabbered among themselves. “Did you hear? Great Leader is looking for a new queen.”

  “What happened?”

  “No one knows. She did something really bad, and he had to throw her out.”

  One of the girls sighed. “Talk about being set for life ...”

  A Mother walked over and snapped, “You can all forget it. One or two of you may be pretty enough, but he’s looking for a queen, so she has to be smart and polished. Only girls from the university have a chance.”

  “But he’ll take a few concubines too.”

  “He’s looking for virgins in their early twenties. Only girls at the university wait that long to get married.”

  The girls at the orphanage had to take whatever they could get. Usually they were betrothed by 12 and married off by 16—to some guy who could not get a wife anywhere else. The dowry went to support the orphanage. The boys had even less luck. They had to leave by 16 and take up a craft, often at a dangerous place like the foundry or the reactor. Once in a while a boy could negotiate to betroth one of the girls, but he had to work extremely hard to save a dowry, and he could not have her until he paid up.

  That night Susan lay in bed pretending to sleep. The Great Leader’s search for a queen presented an unexpected opportunity.

  Antikva ... Antikva ...

  The voice wafted from somewhere. No one here used that name. It must be the answering system back at Stonehill. Someone was calling on the other side of the planet. She disembodied and stepped into the center of the Stone.

  Revi said, “Where have you been? I thought you would be waiting here for us.”

  “Sorry. I got busy and kind of lost track of time.”

  The Nomads were hauling their things to the glade and setting up camp, as they always did at the start of rainy season.

  Susan noticed Revi’s swollen belly. “Well, look at you. Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “I’ll go get him.”

  “Wait. Just give me a couple of minutes to put on a body.” Susan sent a command to the local swarm to construct an avatar. About five minutes later she walked back to join Revi. They locked arms and strolled to her tent.

  Along the way Revi boasted. “Jozefo is a sweet guy. A bit younger than me, but no one says anything.” Revi shone with youthful skin and figure, thanks to genetic surgery.

  They arrived to find Jozefo and Novechjo hauling the last of their stuff into the tent. Jozefo recognized his old teacher and smiled. “Antikva! Will you come in?”

  They ducked in and settled on the bedding. Susan said, “The rains are late again this year. I fear the climate in this region may be shifting.”

  Revi said, “If we timed our migrations with the weather, we’d still be at the dry-season camp.”

  “How do you time it? You always seem to arrive like clockwork.”

  “There’s a special pile of stones. When the sun lines up a certain way at dawn, we know the season has changed. It’s really simple, but the elders make a big deal of it, like it’s their sacred duty or something. Now anyone can check the date on their mobile.”

  Susan laughed. “I see. There’s a grand ritual that has been rendered obsolete by Ancient magic.” The Baseno word for magic had come to mean technology. The urban people used it almost exclusively in that sense, while the Nomads sometimes referred to shamanistic practices as well.

  “I hope you tell a story tonight. It’s been quite a while since we heard something new.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t stay. The sun will rise soon in the eastern hemisphere. People there will worry if I don’t wake.” Susan pointed at Revi’s belly. “May I take a look?”

  Revi nodded. She pulled up her dress and lay on her back, just like she would for the midwife.

  Susan closed her eyes and ran her hands over Revi’s belly. “A beautiful baby. Do you want to know what it is?”

  Revi glanced at Jozefo. He shrugged. She said, “Sure.”

  “A girl.”

  “Then we’ll name her Antikva.”

  “That’s a terrible name for a young w
oman. If you really must, call her Susan.”

  “OK, Susan it is.” Revi straightened her dress, then snuggled next to Jozefo.

  Susan said, “Would you like to see the baby yourselves?”

  Revi’s eyes widened with wonder. She nodded.

  “Like all new magic, it will take some time.”

  “It’s good to be friends with Antikva. You make such wonderful things that no one else has.”

  Susan’s smile faded.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I just realized what a terrible sin I’m committing. There are millions of humans around the world. How many of them are suffering and dying at this very moment?”

  “Why should you feel so guilty?”

  “The Ancients had powerful medicine, but they did not value all life the same. The wealthy could buy a cure for almost any illness, while the poor were left to die in the gutter. Now I’m doing the same thing. I can move between avatars, but I can’t be everywhere at once.”

  “If you can’t change it, you shouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Kantisto once asked for the magic to heal. If I had listened to him, maybe we could serve everyone.” A picture began to form in her mind. “I could create a kind of room where humans have access to the same controls I use.”

  “How would they know what to do?”

  “The knowledge can be stored in the swarm ahead of time, so someone only has to push a button. But the art of creating that knowledge ...” Susan shook her head. “I don’t think someone like Kantisto could learn it. I need some bright young people to teach. Then they could go teach others. In fact, I know just the place. There is a university in Birik. And maybe the Abbey could add a school of medicine.”

  After an hour Susan took her leave. She parked the avatar in a dendroid north of the Stone. In the virtual world she went to work on new software. The ultrasound for Revi had to be packaged so Kantisto could operate it.

  As the sun slowly sank over the Long River Basin, Susan switched back to the little-girl avatar in the orphanage. She sat up in bed and shook Pinar.