Near sundown Revi excused herself, walked back to her tent and collapsed on the pallet. She dozed for about an hour, then felt around the ground for her mobile. She opened a call and whispered, “Hey Antikva, you busy?”
“I always have time for you.”
“I think I’m ready to move on.”
“Oh ...”
“I answer the same questions over and over until I kind of drift away and watch myself talking. I’m so tired.”
“You’ve done more than your share, Revi. Do you need time to say goodbye?”
“My children will understand, and that’s all I really care about.”
* * *
The next morning Revi took her seat near the edge of the glade. A crowd of pilgrims climbed from the guest lodges set in the side of Stonehill. They gradually gathered around to hear words of wisdom.
The crowd parted from behind. A dark-skinned woman in white gown walked forward, with long red hair flowing in the morning breeze. A murmur spread among them, “Antikva.” They formed their hands into the Sign of the Stone: fingertips together and thumbs touching to make a triangle, at face height with head bowed like a gesture of prayer.
Susan walked up and said, “Come away with me, old friend.”
Revi nodded and stood. They clasped hands and walked to the center of the glade, where a triangular mark could still be seen in the rock. Revi lay on her back, and Susan knelt. “Sleep now. The living attend to the present. The dead attend to the past and future.” Susan gave Revi a kiss. “Sleep without dreams. In a moment you will wake in the virtual world.”
Vines spread inward from all directions like the spokes of a wheel. Their tendrils entwined and penetrated Revi’s body. Susan’s avatar melted into them. A bulge in the vines formed a ring around Revi. They mounted up into walls and finally a dome. The chamber sealed itself. A few months later when it dissipated, all trace of her was gone.
* * *
“Welcome to the infamous ‘white room’. Do you remember who you are?”
“Revi ...” She slid off the table and went to the mirror wall. She twisted one way, then the other. “That’s me when I was young.”
Susan smiled. “You can adjust this avatar any way you wish, but I advise people to stick close to what they looked like in life.”
“Good enough.”
“Usually the greeter keeps this brief so you can rest and get used to the virtual world, but there’s something I just can’t wait to show you.” Susan led Revi through a rectangular opening. Immediately on the other side was a balcony that overlooked the Earth. The planet was slowly rotating north to south.
Revi gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
“This is the Earth-observing satellite where we escaped. The other minds returned planetside many years ago. Still, I haven’t put this place back to work for science. Humans have other satellites now, so I just use the vast streams of data to make scenery.”
* * *
Revi rested for a time. It could have been hours or days, maybe even years.
Susan returned and handed her a mobile device. “This is an interface to all the controls here. And of course you can also talk to people with it.”
Revi navigated the screens. “Seems normal.”
“I’d like you to get on the Swarm Policy group. That’s where we manage global behaviors like population control and the communication network.”
“We?”
“Yeah. I’ve been gradually handing control over to humans. Some of the first doctors have been uploaded, so even the programming expertise is there. I do practically nothing these days except offer advice.”
“Why me?”
“Any change to the swarm requires consensus. That’s difficult to achieve, and I want to keep it difficult by stocking the group with people who have moral sense.”
Revi chuckled. “So this is your own private committee for running things.”
“Everyone is welcome. The real difficulty is getting enough people to care. And you should care. The global functions are really the only thing keeping humans from descending back into barbarism. For example, there are heuristics to keep someone from using their segment of the swarm as a weapon.”
“You’ll never be able to think of everything.”
Susan’s shoulders sagged. “No. But I’ve had almost a hundred years to work on it. Someone would have to be highly creative to get past the safeguards.”
* * *
Revi and Susan emerged from the swarm grove and walked up the slope. The Stone in the mountains of Birik had reappeared almost 70 years ago, just after Temujin died. It rivaled Stonehill as a tourist attraction, the only place on Earth where people could see a Stone still in operation. This kept the train station in Biysk busy, along with the hotels and merchants.
It was largely a curiosity, though. Celeste’s knowledge was stuck in a past long gone, while information online was constantly changing and growing. New advances in medicine, science, even art, came out almost daily.
Ogedei stood at the site, dressed in a blue tunic with the golden crest of Birik embroidered on it. Qiz stood next to him, dressed in the traditional form-fitting silk gown and headpiece. Susan walked up, made a small bow, then flew into Oggie’s arms for a hug.
Another train arrived at the stop. Passengers disembarked and started up the path. On the mesa the growing crowd all kept a respectful distance from the Emperor, except for one. Pinar walked up. “Wish you could build an airstrip up here. Ship is not pleased about staying back in Biysk.”
Ogedei embraced her. “Glad you could make it.”
Pinar turned to the others. “I had a great airshow planned. A few supersonic flybys, then a parachute jump right here in front of the Stone. But brother feared it would break my old bones. He didn’t want an accident to upstage him.”
“Indeed. If you acted more like a princess, you might have married by now. You could still get married.”
“Ship is my first love. I don’t need anyone else.”
Ogedei checked his mobile. “It’s time.” He stepped to the middle of the open space in front of the Stone. Dozens of mobiles in the audience streamed his speech to the rest of the continent, and no doubt around the world:
“People of Birik and our neighboring nations, thank you for your attention. I am pleased to announce that the cleanup tasks left by my father have been completed. The nuclear waste in Biysk and at reactors around the continent has been reduced to short-lived isotopes and stored in rock caverns underground. The toxic byproducts of pre-swarm technology have likewise been broken down and captured.
“Now, with a heavy heart, I must announce a death. My grandfather named this nation ‘Birik’ because he wanted to unite our tribes, and my father had a vision to unite the whole world. Time has brought many changes. Some accused me of weakness for allowing parts of the empire to leave peacefully, and for not exacting a price on those who wished to form new alliances. All that remains are a few provinces which claim little more than historic ties to a figurehead.
“I do not regret these choices. We can be united by something greater than military force. We share common friendship and respect for each other as we follow our own paths. As of this day, I am stepping down as Emperor—”
A gasp rippled through the audience.
“—and there will be no successor. The Empire of Birik is hereby dissolved. What few administrative functions remain are no longer needed and will cease. My final edict is that you follow the Treaty of Limitations.” Ogedei walked back to his family and friends.
Susan put a hand on his shoulder. “You did well, son.” She looked around the circle, then turned to the Stone. “We’re obsolete, Celeste. The time of the Stones has ended. Perhaps I’ll wake in a thousand years and see what humans make of the world. I know it will be good.”
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At the end of this book are some extras. For more extras and news, visit the author’s pages:
Blog: http://rothganger.org/fred/blog
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New Dawn Horology
The New Dawn (ND) calendar is used by the modern world, replacing the Common Era (CE) calendar used by the Ancients. Most importantly, it marks the rebirth of civilization. It also introduces several reforms that simplify timekeeping on computer systems.
The start of the New Dawn epoch is not the exact moment that humans made contact with Susan, but rather the winter solstice of the year in which that event occurred. This shifts the ND year by about ten days relative to the CE year. A key innovation is that years are numbered from zero, and years prior to epoch are negative.
The rest of this section summarizes the mechanics of the ND system. It is only of interest to horologists and computer programmers. Everyone else may safely skip.
The ND epoch starts at high noon over Stonehill on the winter solstice immediately before Susan was found. Time is kept in seconds as measured by an atomic clock at the Stone's original location.
Seconds since epoch are expressed in long-count form, independent of days or years. This long-count is the only value suitable for calculating time differences. Year, day and hour counts are merely labels for particular long-count values.
Years are numbered from zero. The year count increments at high noon over Stonehill on the winter solstice. More precisely, the year count increments at the end of the second in which the sun reaches maximum zenith angle while passing over the meridian through the center of the Stone. Years are an integer number of seconds and vary in length.
Days are numbered from zero. The day count resets at the start of each year. The day number increments at high noon over Stonehill, that is, at the end of the second in which the sun passes over the meridian through the center of the Stone. Days are an integer number of seconds and vary in length.
Hours are numbered from zero. The hour count resets at the start of each day (high noon over Stonehill). Hours are 86400 seconds long, except the last hour of the day. Note that “hour”, when used as a unit for expressing time difference (duration), is always exactly 86400 seconds. This means, for example, that adding 24 hours to a given time point may result in a slightly different time of day.
Lunar-calendar artifacts such as “months” are not part of the ND system. Historically, they were a relentless source of difficulty within the much more meaningful annual calendar.
Named seasons are only meaningful on a local scale. For example, the monsoon cycle (wet and dry seasons) plays an important role in the Long River Basin, while seasonal temperature plays a bigger role in Birik agriculture since it is located further north.
In regions under the control of patriarchal religion, such as the Arkin Empire, a seven-day week is still observed. Days retain names used by the Ancient civilization. Strictly speaking, these names were assigned by the Roman civilization, but from the modern point of view it is all Ancient.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my wife Crystal Rothganger for her encouragement and female perspective.
Thanks to everyone who provided literary or technical feedback:
William DeLeeuw
Ryan Dellana, PhD
Precious Goggins
Gregg Leisman
Kenneth Morgan
Edwin Pell
Valerie Santillanes
Ann Speed, PhD
Uval Trubitz
LaMonté Welch
About the Author
Fred Rothganger earned his PhD playing with robots and computer vision at the University of Illinois (birthplace of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey). Now he spends his days at a national laboratory trying to figure out how the brain works. He is building tools to do massive neural simulations on supercomputers.
When he gets fed up with lack of progress in the real world, he writes fantasies about scientific breakthroughs.
Time of the Stones (revision 22)
Copyright © 2019 by Fred Rothganger
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and events are either figments of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Extra Font:
Control Freak, by Graham Meade. Copyright 2001.
Time of the Stones Page 29
