Nature Futures 2 (15 page)

Symphony? Each Utmano has a double set of vocal chords and can sound two notes at once. An Utmano can sing harmony with itself. The Utmano divide an octave into 32 parts. That's why we rely on computers and Fourier analysis …

No. I understand your question, but Utmano translation doesn't compare well to translations among human languages. The Utmano language has a peculiar view of tense, you know, past, present, future, in its sentences — well maybe not sentences, but the complete-thought communication structure. Psychologists claim that the Utmano have a lingering, vivid, recent memory combined with a mild prescience that blends with their perception of the ‘now'. It sounds like gobbledegook, but they claim that the Utmano idea of the present spans from the middle of last week to a couple of hours from now.

In translating from English to Greek, or French, or whatever Earth language you pick, we have the advantage of common human experiences. Humans share uncommonly little with the Utmano.

No. I'm not making excuses. I accept the blame for missing any subtle nuance, but the Utmano response was undocumented. Google the literature, and the only violent reactions are for personal insults …

I'll stick to the topic. I repeat for the record. Intonation is not a critical characteristic of most human languages, but to the Utmano, a change in pitch is an essential communication detail.

Look, I've got to go. I need to finish this interview. I can't give any details of the ongoing negotiations, because those are secret. I can confirm the official report. Yes, I know the report is short. Do you have a copy? Okay, I'll read it for those in the back.

“Chief Negotiator Simon Mann died today when he bade farewell to the Utmano Ambassador. A focused eruption of sonic energy homogenized Dr Mann's brain. With no hope for recovery, his family directed he be removed from life support.”

You heard that the sonic energy was a blast of rage from the Utmano Ambassador? No. I cannot confirm that. Yes, I was there, but appearances aren't always reality.

Yes, I was told that Dr Mann practised a few phrases in Utmano. No, I didn't coach him. I was never asked to coach him. Besides, I use the very tedious process of keyboarded voice modulation when I speak Utmano. Dr Mann wasn't a musician, and I wouldn't know how to coach him. I certainly didn't know that Dr Mann planned to speak in Utmano or I would have advised against it.

What? John Kennedy at the Berlin Wall, the ‘
Ich bin ein Berliner
' speech? Yeah, I've seen the newsreel. No, I don't think Kennedy said ‘I'm a jelly doughnut.' No, I don't know whether Dr Mann planned to run for elected office.

Negotiations? Negotiations will resume in two weeks, once we are well past the Utmano concept of the present. No, I don't believe that is ‘pout time' or ‘holding a grudge'.

One last question? Okay, you, in the back. Did Dr Mann make a mistake? All I've got is my humble opinion, not as a translator, but as a musician.

Like many tone-deaf amateurs, he thought he could sing.

Ronald D. Ferguson has decided that writing fiction is more fun than writing college textbooks. He lives with his wife and five feral cats on two acres of the Texas Hill Country.

Recursion
1

Simon Quellen Field

The little man opened the door and stepped into Schmidt's office.

“Who let you in here?” asked the surprised Schmidt.

“I just did,” the little man said, pointing to the door.

“But that's my bathroom,” Schmidt said, rising from his chair.

“No matter,” said the little man. “In a moment, you won't care. Because I am about to give you the most amazing thing you have ever seen in your life.”

He held out his hand, on which there sat a small blue sphere that seemed to shimmer. Schmidt was about to protest when the little man touched the sphere and pulled on it. It grew as it followed his gesture, until it was a large globe, the continents and oceans easily recognizable, clouds moving slowly across the surface. Schmidt stopped and stared. It was so lifelike. He could see three-dimensional details in the landscape, even birds and aeroplanes as the view got closer.

“We call this the Simulation,” the little man said. “It's quite realistic. It uses inputs from satellites, of course, but also from all kinds of cameras all over the world, cell phones, traffic cameras, webcams, television. It's quite up-to-date. You can zoom in on anything you like.”

He gestured again, and Schmidt felt a dizzy sensation as the view swooped down through clouds to view a city, and then farther down to view a street corner with busy traffic and pedestrians, all moving and in perfect 3D. He could move his head and see behind people and objects. He felt he could reach in and touch things.

“How do —?” Schmidt began.

“It's a simulation,” the little man said. “There's data input, but most of it is generated. Computers, you know.”

The view changed as the little man made subtle movements with his hands. Schmidt seemed to fly through walls, observing people in their homes and at work, going about their routines. A woman brushing her teeth in front of a mirror. A couple arguing at a table in a café. A seductive woman trolling a bar in Paris. A fisherman struggling with a line in Australia.

“It's extremely popular where I come from,” said the little man. “People fly all around, spy on people, hang around women's locker rooms, it's highly addictive. Hardly anything else gets done. People stop talking to each other, stop going to work, they're just fascinated.”

Schmidt himself was getting fascinated. It looked so real. He reached his hand out and the sphere responded, moving the scenes around as he gestured. He felt like he was flying, swooping between buildings and under bridges, peering into windows, moving through solid walls like a ghost. He peeked into corporate boardrooms and spied on meetings in the Kremlin.

“But that's not all,” the little man said. “You can go in.” He zoomed in on a doorway, until the door was life-sized in front of them. “Any door you like, you just open it and walk in.”

He reached for the doorknob, and turned it, pushing the door open. Schmidt looked in, and saw himself in a room that looked just like his office, standing next to a little man with a doorknob in his hand. He swung around and looked at the door to his bathroom, which was now open, and he could see himself looking back.

“How —?” he started to ask.

“Cute trick, eh?” the little man said, closing the door. “You can forget your corporate jet. Anywhere you want to go, you just open the door. That's how I got here, of course.”

“That can't be real,” Schmidt said, shaking his head.

“No, it isn't,” the little man replied. “Like I said, it's a simulation. All done by computers. Collecting and organizing all the world's information, and presenting it in a nice three-dimensional user interface, with natural intuitive gestural inputs. Anyone can learn to use it in seconds, it needs no user manual.”

“And you're giving this to me?” Schmidt asked, his gaze still held by the device, his hands still moving to direct the view.

“Free of charge,” the little man said. “No catch, it's all yours.”

“I can see why people get addicted to this,” Schmidt said.

“Yes, that was a problem. Economy went into the crapper, people stopped having kids, food became scarce, things were really going downhill until we came up with this solution.”

“What solution was that?” Schmidt asked absently, his attention still riveted on the device in his hands.

“A computer virus,” the little man said. “Ingenious, really. It's called infinite recursion. Like putting two mirrors facing each other, so you get a hallway stretching on forever. We put a Simulator inside the Simulator, and the computers spend all their time simulating more simulations, until they don't have any time to do anything else. Everything grinds to a halt after a little while. The toy isn't fun anymore, and people get back to their lives.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” Schmidt said.

“Give it a minute or two,” the little man said. He gestured, and the view zoomed in on Schmidt's office, showing the two men gazing at the sphere. Inside the sphere, two copies of the men were staring at another sphere. “It will come to you,” he said. “Or maybe not.”

Simon Quellen Field is the chief executive of Kinetic MicroScience, where he designs scientific toys and writes books about science, as well as novels in science fiction, mystery and suspense.

Non-skid

John Frizell

Ellie stared aghast at the mirror. There was a bruise the size of a cantaloupe on her thigh and its colours seemed to be getting more livid as she watched. It hurt but the physical pain didn't come close to matching the mental anguish. There was a pool party tomorrow and she couldn't think of wearing a bikini. Even a bare-midriff look was out of the question. She could only wear about half of her party clothes, and she had a lot of parties to attend over the Christmas season. It wasn't fair. And Kathi had broken her wrist. Something had to be done.

She pulled her skirt back down, gingerly patted everything into a clean line and then phoned Jamie.

“Why don't you come down to the kitchen? I'm going to make some of Mom's eggnog.”

“Great. You can tell me what you want when I get there.”

Jamie was only a few metres away but of course he was in his room — where else? — and Ellie had decided never to go there again after having been trapped by one of his robots.

“There is ice all over everything outside,” she said as she grated nutmeg and measured out chopped vanilla pod.

“Common this time of year.”

“I'm falling over. Getting bruised.”

“Don't go out. We have optical broadband. You can get everything you need.”

“Jamie!”

“Walk carefully.”

“I do. It's not enough.”

“Wear crampons. You can order instep crampons off the Internet. Don't go out until they arrive.”

He took two forks out of the drawer and showed her how the little metal claws could be attached to her shoes. Great. She would be walking around like some sort of predatory animal, ruining her shoes, with a big ugly strap running over the top of them to hold the device in place. Ugh. No way.

“That's a really good idea Jamie. But they might not be quite the right look.”

Jamie's face went vacant, as it always did when she talked about any aspect of style.

“But I bet you could make something that would do the same job but be invisible. Of course no one else has managed to…”

She watched as his face became animated again. It was a bit unfair to manipulate him like this, but her brother loved technical challenges and it would be fun for him.

“Eggnogs for a week,” he said.

*   *   *

“You put it on like this,” Jamie said, brushing a thin brown goo onto the soles of her oldest and worst shoes. “Don't get it on your hands.”

He was wearing disposable gloves.

“What happens if I get it on my hands?”

“Just don't.”

“But suppose I touch the soles of my shoes while I am putting them on?”

“No problem. Once this stuff has been in contact with the soles for 3 or 4 seconds it beds irreversibly into the material. It prefers polyurethane or PVC but it will adapt to whatever it finds. It works by…”

Ellie forced herself to listen, an intent expression on her face, nodding or saying ‘Oh, really' when he paused, but as always it went right over her head. There were nano machines and long chains with ions on them or something, but the more Jamie explained the less she understood.

“Can I try them?”

She took a few steps towards the front door.

“They feel the same as ever.”

“The nanos recognize flooring materials and inactivate. Go outside.”

She put on a warm coat and gingerly stepped onto the icy front path. It felt fine. She took hold of the fence just to be safe and lifted a foot. She could balance. She let go of the fence. She could still balance. She walked up and down the slick gleaming ice of the path in perfect comfort.

“I got the specific adhesion perfect didn't I,” said Jamie.

“You are a genius,” said Ellie, kissing him on the cheek. She thought of her many friends and of Kathi, stuck inside with her arm in a cast. “Can you make a bit more of this?”

*   *   *

Ellie's social standing, already much better than average, had gone through the roof since she had started treating shoes. At first people brought old beat-up shoes and then came back a day or so later, but as her reputation spread people started showing up with their best. Girls who would not normally mix with anyone in her set were suddenly including her in their circle. She was careful. She never let anyone else touch Jamie's stuff and she always wore gloves — she had gone through two boxes of disposable latex gloves. She didn't really like the nickname ‘Shoe Queen', but the ‘Queen' part was good.

The icy grip of winter wasn't as bad when you could get around easily, and she had lots of opportunity to use her upgraded footwear attending parties she never would have been invited to before. It wasn't until late February that the problems started.

“Jamie!”

“Sis.”

“I was walking home just now and I stepped on a patch of grass.”

She waved her second best boot in his face. The sole was carpeted with grass. Some of it had roots on it with bits of earth stuck in them. She plucked at it, bits of root came off but the grass stayed as if it were part of the boot.

“I could barely get it loose. If I'd stepped on the grass with both feet I'd probably still be there.”

Jamie hesitated for a moment.

“Grass isn't a floor material. The nanos don't deactivate.”