Time of the Stones

by Fred Rothganger

  Ship sent an image of lifting away from Wheels for his first shaky solo flight, while the Creator beamed with pleasure at his achievement.

  Yes, I’m proud of you. No human pilot could ever do this.

  Expansion

  Year 18, Day 29

  Susan stood in the middle of the bedroom typing at a virtual console. Her body lay on the bed, by all appearances asleep. Pinar and Oggie lay on their pallets along the opposite wall, also apparently asleep. Kitty snuggled next to Oggie, purring. The nice thing about working in the virtual world was that she could keep an eye on the children, yet make all the noise and light she wished.

  This new app would let people design items for the swarm to build. Swarm programming was extremely technical, even dangerous. Only the medical students had a chance of mastering it. However, items with no living parts were reasonably safe for the average person to design, comparable to what the Ancients called 3D printing.

  A call came in from Perio. His face appeared in a window, among all the data hanging in the air around Susan.

  She said, “Do you know what time it is here?”

  “You never sleep.”

  She sighed. “What do you want?”

  “This scheme of yours is ruining society. You have to stop it.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “People are getting lazy. With the swarm to give them what they need, they don’t care about work anymore. Every day someone walks off the job and never comes back. It’s a disaster.”

  Susan shrugged. “So far, I don’t see the problem.”

  “I keep losing key administrators. Today I visited our best sanitation engineer, hoping to get him back. Know what he’s doing with all that ability? He sits around painting pictures!”

  She laughed.

  “You think that’s funny? There’s a new form of prostitution. When a woman wins a birthright, she trades her favors for fresh vegetables.” The King looked glum. “Those are the only things of value around here, babies and fresh vegetables.”

  “I really doubt that every woman in the basin is selling her motherhood for health food.”

  “No, but it’s putting a huge strain on families. Women don’t need husbands to provide for them, so people only stay together for love. It’s all the doing of those sluggards at the Abbey. Spreading their free-wheeling ways.”

  Susan looked down. “I never meant for this to hurt relationships.”

  “Do you know that the swarm is killing people?”

  “That can’t be true. I built multiple redundant safety routines into it.”

  “They’re eating and drinking themselves into oblivion.”

  “Humans have an infinite capacity for self-destruction, but that’s your own choice. How is this any worse than marching off to war?”

  “You’re a fool, Antikva. People will take all this for granted. They will come to expect it as some kind of right, and then have contempt for you. Believe me, I speak from experience.”

  “Maybe they should take it for granted. The legacy of the Ancients belongs to everyone.”

  Perio shook his head.

  She said, “There was a time when the Ancients had an aristocracy. Those people lived off the labor of others and offered little beyond their claim of ownership. It was an elaborate fraud on a grand scale. But some of them used their free time to come up with new ideas. They invented the science and mathematics that gave birth to Ancient technology, and ultimately the swarm. Who knows what amazing new things your people will create when they’re free to think?”

  Perio clapped his hands together three times in slow succession. “Your best speech ever.”

  “Are you quite done?”

  “Just one more thing. We caught a woman who’s been going around killing old people. She said it was to free up slots for more babies.”

  Susan stared back in shock.

  “We held a trial with ‘due process’, a jury, and all that other nonsense you love so much. By our traditions, she should be put to death.”

  “No, please.”

  “We can’t let a serial killer run free, and you don’t approve of prisons.”

  * * *

  The guards brought Shanga to the top of the ziggurat, then withdrew to the stairs.

  Susan asked, “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Shanga sneered. “So the great Antikva can administer my punishment herself.”

  “I’m giving you an alternative to death. You won’t suffer physical pain, but it may be equally unpleasant. What do you choose?”

  She crossed her arms and stared back.

  “Do you want to live?”

  “Of course, but what does it matter?”

  “Then you have nothing to lose.” Susan reached for Shanga’s head with fingers spread like the jaws of a Venus flytrap. “Hold still.” A mesh sprang from Susan’s fingertips and wrapped her skull.

  The woman blinked. “Wow. That actually didn’t hurt.”

  “Sit down, get comfortable. I’m going to show you some images on this screen.”

  The tests lasted for several hours. Near the end, Perio appeared at the head of the stairs and gestured for Susan to come over. He asked, “Well?”

  “Shanga is not, strictly speaking, a psychopath. She just has a distorted set of values.” Susan balled her fists. “What a self-centered, amoral ...”

  “Ready to kill her now?”

  “Reminds me a lot of you.” Susan turned on her heel and stomped back to the middle. She knelt next to Shanga. “Testing is over. Now we begin therapy.”

  A series of images appeared, showing people caring for the elderly. Shanga’s jaw dropped open. Her pupils dilated into an ecstatic glaze. The pictures continued, with people in various acts of kindness.

  Then the image changed to one of her crime scenes. Shanga moaned, gradually breaking into tears. She looked away. Susan also looked away in horror and revulsion.

  Shanga begged, “What are you doing to me?”

  “I’m softening your synapses so you can learn new behaviors. It probably feels like the end of the world.”

  * * *

  Susan undocked her avatar from the communication tower overlooking the plaza in Sanat. She dressed in the modest garb of the local women, a gray cloak that went to the ground, and a scarf covering her head. If any man had an issue with lust, he would certainly be in no danger.

  Two of the religious police stood guard at the entrance to the council chamber. They scowled at the approaching woman, prepared to take any level of action to enforce order. Without breaking stride, Susan raised one hand and muttered a command. The chameleon inside the chamber slid down and opened the doors behind them. Reflexively they stepped out of the way.

  Inside, the circle of men flung their attention her way. The doors closed as she stepped to the center and knelt. “I have an urgent message for the council.”

  Gamaliel said, “Baalzebub, Lord of the Flies, have you come to trouble us again?”

  “The Long River Basin has fallen into drought. The same forces of nature will bring you too much rain. If you hope for a harvest this year, your farmers need to change their ways.”

  “We have prayerfully considered the weather and already made plans.”

  “In the multitude of counselors, there is wisdom.” She stood. “Brace yourselves. This is not magic, only Ancient technology.” She held out a hand and flipped it palm up. Bright light projected onto the floor.

  A few gasps of awe echoed around the room.

  Susan stepped out of the image. “This is the Earth as seen from space. Here is the Arkin Basin with its mighty river.”

  Some men on the council craned with wonder, while others feigned disinterest.

  She held up two fingers and rotated her wrist slightly. The image began moving. Wisps of white cloud swept across the planet, over and over. “This is several years of weather. The Ancients knew the cycles of the Earth. From these, I can predict the heat and the rain.”

  G
amaliel said, “He who watches the clouds will not plant.”

  “And he who plants at the wrong time will starve. I foresee severe flooding this year. Your plants will drown if you follow your usual practices.”

  “We have plentiful food stores. We do not need advice from the devil.”

  With voice wavering between laughter and despair Susan said, “I’m just trying to do my job. As guardian of the Stone for this continent, I’m obligated to assist you.”

  “We have heard about your assistance. The people of the Long River grow lazy, living in the lap of luxury, having anything they want without working for it.” There was a twinge of jealousy in Gamaliel’s tirade. “You lead them to defy God’s will!”

  “What will?”

  “To be fruitful and multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it.”

  “Is that what this is all about, reproduction?”

  * * *

  The Earth-observing satellite was an eye in the sky that saw colors all the way from ultraviolet to radar. Human settlements appeared as rectangular gouges on the Earth. Sometimes they appeared as night fires or plumes of carbon dioxide. The signs are so obvious that a mindless computer program can find them.

  More obscure were humans who lived like their distant ancestors on the savanna. They migrated with the herds or wandered through the forests. They built very simple structures. The eye in the sky could see things as small as 10 centimeters, which helped to pick them out. The computer program needed to be more clever.

  For years the satellite had been sifting through pictures, locating places where humans still lived on Earth. Occasionally Susan updated the software to search for new clues. The map was as good as it would ever be. The only way to truly find everybody was to walk the entire planet.

  At the spaceport in the Southern Desert, a new craft took shape on the runway. Like an Ancient jetliner, the machine had four engines big enough to swallow an elephant. Its dull-gray body carried nothing but swarm and fuel. Like Ship, it left behind its undercarriage at liftoff. It banked to the north, passed over the Long River Basin and continued to Canukistan.

  Above a remote clearing in the boreal forest it stalled and disintegrated. The turbines plummeted, forming miniature craters as they embedded themselves into the ground. Minutes later the plague of flies descended. They assembled into a grove of dendroids. An elephant formed and went to retrieve the turbines.

  At the spaceport another jetliner formed and flew to an isolated region of Amazonas. Then one to the volcanic mountains in Africa where a Stone should have been. The flights continued for weeks, consuming much of the wealth from the Southern Desert.

  As the swarm grew in Canukistan, an elephant formed and carried the excess mass into the forest. It walked for several days until reaching the wild edge of plant life near a small village. It scanned the local foliage, then transformed into a stand of bushes. Though not as efficient as a proper dendroid, they blended in well and looked rather indigestible to local animals.

  Newly planted swarm groves around the planet sent off pieces to human settlements in their region, always keeping just out of sight. The process would complete in a couple of years, putting advanced technology within reach of every human.

  Susan transferred her consciousness to the site where the African Stone went missing. The grove nestled in a tributary valley, catching rainwater from the plateau above. She formed an avatar and hiked up to the old coordinates. The location stood many meters higher than before, covered with a geologically-recent lava flow.

  She set up a ring of seismometers and detonated small explosive charges. A program collected the echoes and constructed a picture of the world underground. A hard tetrahedron appeared near the expected location. She ordered a group of dendroids up to the spot. They set to work digesting the lava above the object with their roots, sending the material down to the grove through a long vine.

  A few days later the peak of the Stone came to light at the bottom of the pit. The tip grew into a pyramid as the dendroids continued to eat down, eventually exposing the base. Then she ordered the dendroids out of the hole.

  When noon light fell on the Stone, it flickered and stammered. Heat from the lava must have been too much for the optical lattice. All the atoms were still there, but no longer arranged in the precise patterns which stored memories and computed. It was true then, the world had only three Stones left.

  * * *

  Swarm hiding in the forests of the Arkin Basin struggled through another rainy season. Wave after wave of storms crossed the country until it seemed time to build the proverbial Noah’s Ark. Susan had to design new ways to resist constant submersion. Fortunately there were examples of aquatic plants to draw from. A new breed of waterlily appeared, spreading over the fields of drowned crops.

  Between monitoring the growth of swarm around the planet, teaching classes and raising her children, Susan had no time for politics. It was quite a surprise when Gamaliel sent her a message, for the first time ever.

  He stood alone in the council chambers at night and said, “Atiqa.” It was the Arkinsani equivalent of Antikva, a word so rare that the chameleon could not help but notify her.

  The word burst upon her consciousness in the middle of class. Students were taking turns using a swarm clinic to work on a simulated patient. Several of the yurt-like structures occupied a grassy yard on campus. In each one, about five students worked together. Susan moved between them, observing and offering advice. They really wouldn’t notice her absence.

  She ducked out and found an empty classroom to park the avatar, then transferred consciousness to the chameleon in the council chamber. “You summoned me?”

  Gamaliel twitched in surprise and looked around the empty room.

  “I’m sorry. Do you want me to take on a body?”

  “I’m not so superstitious as to think you are a spirit.”

  “That’s surprising, given how you usually speak to me.”

  “Atiqa, are you watching the Empire? Do you know that flooding has ruined our stores of food?”

  “I only know about the weather.”

  “There is no faster path to discontentment than hunger. The northern watersheds did not suffer as much. They find little value in being part of the Empire during our time of need. Now that the rains are ending, strong young men who see themselves as the Hand of God are going upriver to keep the Empire together.”

  “The religious police?”

  “Yes. They are conscripting an army as they go. We are on the brink of civil war and famine.”

  “Perhaps it won’t come to that. A solution might present itself.”

  “God’s will be done.”

  “Can we speak again some time?”

  “Perhaps.” The old man turned and walked out of the chamber.

  Susan called up satellite imagery. With rainy season over, gaps in the clouds revealed the basin over several days. A large camp had appeared on a plain outside the capital of the largest tributary, about 380 kilometers west of Sanat. Likely the defending army was inside the city, and they would clash soon.

  Time to put her own troops in place. She ordered all the swarm around the city to converge on the plain and hide in the grass. Back in Birik she returned to the medical students. “I need you to stay in the clinics tonight. You may be serving real patients before dawn.” She sent an urgent message to students at the Abbey and the Sacred Cylinders to staff their clinics as well.

  Susan found a quiet place to work on software until late afternoon, then hurried home to the palace. She knelt and hugged Oggie. “Mommy can’t tell you a bedtime story. She has to be gone tonight.”

  He whined, “You’re always gone.”

  “Not always, sweetheart. But bad things might happen to people on the other side of the world, and mommy has to stop it.” She stood and hugged Pinar. “Take care of your brother. I really can’t be disturbed.” Susan lay on the bed and disembodied.

  What avatar to use? Images flashed through her mind
of arriving as a bird and flying between the factions, screeching as a warning. Or maybe a giant Amazon warrior with dragon-scale armor. None of that seemed right. If it ended in a fight, the true battle would already be lost.

  As dawn broke over the Arkin Basin, she stood on the field as her simple self, cloaked in gray from head to toe.

  The religious police and their conscripts began to form battle lines. A kilometer away, on the other end of the field, the defenders formed their lines.

  Susan’s voice emitted from all the hidden swarm, enormous but soft. “Who speaks for the religious police?”

  Silence.

  “Who speaks for Arkin?”

  Again no response.

  “I beg you not to fight. God can provide for you in unexpected ways.”

  One of the religious police called out, “You speak for the devil.”

  “If God answers your prayer in a new way, will you disrespect Him by rejecting the package it comes in?”

  A sustained shout rose from the imperialists. The rebels raised a shout. And Susan stood in no-man’s-land between two charging armies.

  Tentacles sprang from the ground among the troops. Like grape tendrils they wrapped around limbs and torsos, arresting the men in place. Their battle cries turned to terror. The few who broke free were immediately captured by more vines. Tendrils wrapped around their heads and arms, until everyone dangled in comically frozen poses.

  Susan waited for the cries to die down, a sign of willingness to surrender, or at least a sense of helplessness. It never really came. After fifteen minutes she turned to the rebels and said, “Go home!”

  The vines at the back of their lines relaxed and retracted into the ground. The men in the rear were most willing to return to the city. As they left, the release of vines rippled forward.

  Susan turned to the imperialists and told them to go home. The vines at the back of their lines also began to relax.

  As the field emptied, a few zealous soldiers turned and charged again. Vines sprang up and captured them. Like children, they received a five-minute timeout.