Paradox (16 page)

//insert

{commentary.provenance = πσ3ç989/Petra deVries/personal.journal/ KMcN}

{ [[Critical event: turbulence-net intensifying]]
[[P(phase-transition) = .979]]
[[Recursion level = 10 exp 32]]

Rivulets of energy. The seed point: an insertion from another continuum, forced into a sea of golden light, studded with black spongiform stars. As the intruder's structure dissipates, the native event-pattern becomes detectable at higher and lower levels, spreading in both senses: expanding outwards, while growing inwardly more complex. Whorls and loops and spirals tighten as the pattern's growth accelerates.

Replication.

In its own universe, there is energy to prolong the pattern's growth. There is a correlation between shifting structures and the sources which might feed them. Selection acts within the pattern. Dendrimers branch endlessly, seeking sources and avoiding sinks.

Perception. Tropism.

It falters at first against antithetical labyrinths, against destructive interference from incompatible patterns. But slowly, slowly, it learns coping
strategies. One by one, defensive patterns fall before its questing tendrils and are absorbed by the growing whole.

No self-awareness.

Not yet.
}

end-insert//

The refectory was noisy, the clamour of hundreds of feeding students bouncing back from its crystalline domed ceiling, ribbed with soaring spars of pine and steel.

“I can hardly hear myself think!” Karyn raised her voice hoarsely above the din.

“Sorry?” Dart grinned. “Can't hear you, it's so noisy!”

“Funny, funny.”

She looked at the black lightning-flash decal on his cheekbone. At school, some of her friends had been suspended for getting A-Life tattoos, and the deletion motes had inevitably left scarring. It had put Karyn off cutaneous decorations—but on Dart, it looked attractive.

Sensei's son.

“Listen,” she began. “Do you—?”

Overhead, a bright macaw flew, screeching, then wheeled back and came to a fluttering landing on its owner's padded shoulder. The young man held up food for it, as sunlight glinted on his silver visor.

“For God's sake,” Karyn muttered. “People have to eat in here.”

Maybe a fifth of the students were from the VL Institute—the ones with visors and symbiont animal companions, or with experimental photoarrays where their eyes should have been—while the rest were students and a few faculty members from the main UTech campus.

“The Via Lucis Institute is right by the physics dome,” said Dart.

“Yeah.” Karyn stabbed at her salad with a fork. “And whose idea was it to meet in here?”

Dart shrugged his wide shoulders.

The macaw screeched loudly. At the same table sat a young-looking
girl with a macaque monkey chattering on her shoulder, and an older man beside whom a black furry animal crouched—either a very large dog or, improbably, a small bear.

“Jesus Christ!” Karyn slowly lowered her fork. “That's why you brought me here, isn't it?”

Dart looked away, his ugly/sexy face momentarily hard.

“Another two weeks,” he said, “and they take out my eyes.”

Later, as they walked across the green campus, she slipped her hand into his. It seemed the most natural thing in the world; at the same time, she felt enervated, and warm all over.

“What's it like?” she asked, as they stopped beside a silver birch.

They sat down together on the grass.

“Almost normal.” Dart tucked his knees up and clasped them. “Everything looks a little flat, a little grey, you know? But the viral insertion was only three days ago.”

“Another few days,” said Karyn, “and perspectives will start shifting.”

“Yeah.” Then he looked at her and grinned. His face was very close to hers. “But you'll still look beautiful, babe.”

It was a magical start to the new year. A noble wedding.

Aleph Hall was immense: a huge spherical interior, punctuated by a lucid crystalline floor low down, closer to the bottom than to the equator. The walls were lined with silver facets, transforming the hall from globe to high-order polyhedron.

On the flat crystalline floor, white tiers of ceramic seating were sufficient to hold two thousand guests, with much space to spare: wide aisles, and a large open area surrounding the monocrystal altar.

By the Lords' standards, it was a quiet affair.

“We do solemnly conjoin our lifepaths in parallel…” Corduven and Lady Sylvana recited their vow in clear, carrying voices, while Lord Velond, presiding, smiled benevolently.

There were exaggerated sniffles and quiet satisfaction among the congregated nobility, dressed in their finest satins, lev-silk confections bustling around hips and shoulders, holo-assisted to display impossible perspectives and paradoxical knots.

Tom, standing stiffly in brocaded tunic and heavy half-cape, watched as the couple exchanged platinum bracelets. Then the new Lord and Lady d'Ovraison, holding hands, bowed to peers and subjects.

Carillons rang—Aleph Hall itself acting as a vast musical instrument—and the floor became sapphire as floating holos tumbled through the air: pastel tricons for Lord Corduven and Lady Sylvana playfully interwoven into symbols for prosperity and budding, a three-dimensional colour-coded pun.

Conflicting emotions washed through Tom. He stood to attention,
sweating beneath the heavy garb, part of the double row of servants lining the route to the exit as Corduven and Lady Sylvana walked past.

Corduven's grey eyes flickered once in Tom's direction, but then the couple were at the main doors, facing the cheering crowds in the cavernous chamber outside.

“Absolutely monstrous.” The white-bearded Lord swigged purple wine. “Should have killed the scoundrel when they had the chance.”

Tom, standing at the wall like all the other servitors who ringed the vast, round, cream-and-white dining-hall, stared at the stellated crystal sculpture at the ceiling's centre. His gaze appeared—he hoped—unfocused, but he was listening, riveted, to the nobles' conversation.

“But Rictos, my dear. Are they sure he was”—the Lady leaned over, featherlike hat flopping forwards as she lowered her voice—“a Pilot? Aren't they all dead?”

“The ones we knew about. This fellow was a trader; seemed legitimate. Only tried to arrest him because a truecast reported the warrant's being drawn up, just a tenday before the event.”

Tom's skin prickled with the implication of paradox, as much as with mention of a Pilot.

“The premises”—the old Lord waited while Tom moved forwards, replenished the empty goblet, then retreated—“were destroyed. Microtak booby-trap. Damned insolence. Had my head of security whipped, I can tell you.” Another swig. “He's damned lucky I let him live.”

“But the escaped suspect—”

A discreet gesture from Jak.

Cursing inwardly, Tom kept his usual bland expression as he walked over. Around them, concentric rings of tables were occupied by increasingly raucous groups of nobles and a few successful freedmen. Dishes from the last course had been cleared away; drinks and sweets were all that remained.

“You're off duty.” Jak wore a diagonal white overseer's sash. He was reporting directly to Chef Keldur who, directing the affair, had been moving between here and the kitchens all evening. “Off you go.”

“The meal's not really over.”

“Early tomorrow, by special request”—he glanced at the central disc-shaped lev-table, where Lord and Lady d'Ovraison sat, along with a majestic Lady Darinia, Lord Velond and the highest of visiting dignitaries—“you're to report to Talefryn Tunnel. The Aleph Hall end.”

“But that's where—”

“Precisely. You need time to pack.”

That's where Corduven and Sylvana are leaving from.

“Pack?”

“Funny,” said Jak, though a smile was threatening to break through his studied irony, “I thought you were supposed to be the bright one.”

There was a message on his room's holodisplay, directing him to Mistress eh'Nalephi's study.

“OK,” Tom said to the empty room. “I'll get going.”

He changed into integral-slipper running-tights and tunic, then pulled light, baggy trousers and surcoat over them. On his way back, he could shed the outer layer and go for a run.

Mistress eh'Nalephi was already sitting in a high-backed chair, waiting for him, when he arrived. Her ebony face was expressionless.

“You're going on a trip.”

“Er, yes. Apparently.”

“It's an honour, young man.”

Tom blinked. “I know.”

Accompanying Corduven and Sylvana on their honeymoon. Great!

“Do you keep a journal?”

“No…”

“Be precise, be positive.” An old refrain.

“I…sometimes write poetry.”

“Really?” A flicker of interest. “Make a copy. Have someone bring me the crystal tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mistress eh'Nalephi.”

“In the meantime”—she handed over a black and orange crystal of her own—“that contains modules sent over by Lord Velond, in addition to some I've drawn up. There'll be no slacking off.”

“Of course.”

“And keep a record of your travels”—a trace of a smile—“in any format. I'll want to see it on your return.”

Tom bowed.

“In the meantime, Lord and Lady d'Ovraison have appointed you co-ordinator and chief translator.”

Tom stiffened. This was news to him.

After reviewing this tenday's work: “It's not the done thing to transport AIs when travelling.” Mistress eh'Nalephi's prejudice was implicit: that translator-AIs were hopeless at capturing nuance.

Tom nodded.

“Also, Tom”—with a hint of disapproval—“you've been granted limited delphic access. A prime duty will be continuously to review the itinerary for safety.”

“I've never seen a truecast,” said Tom.

“Perhaps it's time you did.”

Her chair turned in place: a signal for a pale-blue holosphere to bloom, then coalesce into a panoramic scene.

Flat chequerboard flagstones: a wide boulevard beneath soaring buttresses, glowclusters floating near the marbled ceiling. Along the centre, a shallow toy canal: placid water, fish, decorative model boats.

“Interesting.” Tom walked into the frozen image's centre, like a giant among the insect-sized people. “It's only a simulation. An Oracle
attempting—with expert help—to recreate a forward memory from his or her own future.”

“You think he was there?”

“Maybe…Or perhaps, he saw—will see—just a newscast. But this simulation's more detailed than I thought.”

“So execute it.”

Tom found the correct tricon, gestured, and the scene slid into motion.

A busy day. Thousands thronging the walkways. Lev-carts and skimmers in profusion.

“This must be Primum Stratum, maybe Secundum, of some far demesne—Ah, I see.” Tom reached up to another revolving tricon: it unfolded into a tesseract of explanation.

In the miniature canal, a soliton wave slides along its length, disrupting the toy vessels, spilling them in all directions. The crowds change their motion, halting or stumbling: from above, the people are tiny specks caught up in turbulent flow.

Without bidding, another tesseract, pulsing gold in warning, blossomed into a phase-space of stresses and strains and breaking-points.

On the curved ceiling, high up, a crack appears…

“Fate,” whispered Tom. “Duke Boltrivar's realm, Snapdragon 307.”

…and sudden water spurts out, arcing down to the ground.

He cast an agonized look at Mistress eh'Nalephi. “That's only twenty-four days away.”

The cavern roof explodes open. A white torrent smashes down upon the boulevard, a hail of rushing water and debris, as the subterranean river bursts into the inhabited stratum, and thousands perish.

“No!”

This can't be.

He span the display, magnified, opened secondary volumes depicting
the flood's progress in the connected tunnels and corridors, while tesseracts scrolled through dynamic statistics of death and injury.

A wide hall, filled with diners, as a curling wave comes crashing through…

“We must—”

Children playing with dolls. A girl looks wide-eyed…

“—we
have
to stop it.”

…and foaming water explodes into place, flinging a white-robed doll across the maelstrom's surface as the tiny, plump fingers disappear amid the spume.

“No!”
Tom's hand cut downwards, striking the image from existence. Panting, as though finishing a run, he stared at Mistress eh'Nalephi's impassive ebony features.

“The expectation value noted here is ninety-seven per cent congruence,” she said, “between truecast model and eventual reality. Usually, that means correlated impressions from two or more Oracles. Alternatively, it might be from one unusually eidetic Oracle: some are more talented than others.”

I can't let this happen.

“If we start now”—Tom forced himself to speak softly, calmly—“we can mobilize emergency services, plan evacuations. Get Duke Boltrivar's subjects out of there before it happens.”

She gestured. Beside Mistress eh'Nalephi, delineated in white, pink and gold, the Zimmer transforms hung: the core chrono-relative function-tesseracts.

“If you can point out the flaw in these equations”—her voice was like cold stone—“and save thousands of lives by changing the universe so that bilking” (she meant, acting now to change a predestined future) “is allowed, then please do so.”

Tom stared at her. “But we can't do—nothing.”

Thousands dying.

“Does it rankle that you've not been promoted, Tom?”

“I'm sorry?” Wrong-footed, he did not know how to answer.

“Chef Keldur was once a sub-gamma-class servitor, and has made it to alpha-plus. Maestro da Silva was born alpha-class, and received manumission when he won the Gelmethri Syektor championship. Of course, you're only delta.”

Drowning.

“But the flood, the—”

“You will go far, Thomas Corcorigan. But not if you betray yourself and me with hysterical illogic.”

Tom stiffened as though he had been struck.

“You can't save them.” Her voice softened. “Neither can I. Nor can anyone.”