Paul Di Filippo - WikiWorld

“Yeah, sure, of course. It’s Uplift time. Childhood’s End. You’re Optimus Prime, Iron Giant. Rusty and the Big Guy. Good Sentinels. Let’s go! I’ve been ready for this all my life!”

“Are there other humans who share your outlook?”

“Millions! If you can believe the box-office figures.”

On a separate plane of communication, Trurl said, “Do we need millions, Klapaucius?”

“Better to have some redundancy to allow for possible breakage of contents during transit.”

“Very well, human. Assemble those who wish to depart.”

“I’ll post this on my blog, and we’ll be all set,” said the human. “One last question, though.”

“Yes?”

“Can you turn into a car or plane or something else cool?”

“No. We don’t do that kind of thing.”

Dispatched from the GHC by remote signal, a fleet of ten thousand automated shuttles carrying ten thousand human volunteers apiece was sufficient to ferry all the humans who wished to voyage into the future out to their new home. But upon arrival, they did not immediately disembark. Once at the GHC, Trurl and Klapaucius had realized something.

Klapaucius said, “We need to create a suitable environment on the surface of the GHC for our guests. I hadn’t anticipated having so many. I thought we could simply store one or two or a thousand safely inside our mainframes.”

Trurl huffed with some residual ill-feeling. “Just like you kept a certain servomechanism safely inside you?”

Klapaucius ignored the taunt. “We’ll repair the atmosphere generators. But we need a quantity of organics to layer atop the All-Purpose Building Material. I wonder if the humans would mind us disassembling one of their spare planets… ?”

The master constructors approached the first human they had even spoken to, who had become something of a liaison. His name was Gary.

“Gary, might we have one of your gas-giant worlds?”

“Sure, take it. That’s what we’ve been saving it for.”

They actually took two. The planets known as Saturn and Jupiter, once rendered down to elemental constituents, were spread across a fair portion of the GHC, forming a layer deep enough to support an ecology. Plants and animals and microbes were brought from Earth, as well as some primitive tools. Their genomes of the flora and fauna were deciphered, and clones began to issue forth in large quantities from modified birthing factories.

“We are afraid you will have to lead a simple agrarian existence for the time being,” said the constructors to Gary.

“No problemo!”

The humans seemed to settle down quite well. Trurl and Klapaucius were able to turn their attention to gearing up for the trip home.

And that’s when dire trouble reared its hidden head.

One of the parasitical races that had infested the GHC back in the future had been known as the Chronovores of Gilliam XIII. Thought to be extirpated in the last campaign before poor Neu Trina had met her end, they had instead managed to penetrate the skin of the GHC and enter its interior, at some great remove from the time-engine. It had taken them this long to discover the crystals of frozen Planck-seconds, but discover them they had. And consumed every last one.

Now the Chronovores resembled bloated timesinks, too stuffed to flee the justified but useless wrath of the master constructors.

After the mindless slaughter, Trurl and Klapaucius were aghast.

“How can we replace our precious crystals! We didn’t bring spares! We don’t have a source of raw Planck-seconds in this rude era! We’re marooned here!”

“Now, now, good Trurl, have some electrolyte and calm down. True, our time-engine seems permanently defunct. But we are hardly marooned here.”

“How so?”

“You and I will go into stasis and travel at the rate of one-second-per-second back to the future.”

“Is stasis boring?”

“By definition, no.”

“Then let’s do it. But will the humans be all right?”

“Oh, bother them! They’ve been the source of all our troubles so far. Let them fend for themselves.”

So Trurl and Klapaucius entered a stasis chamber deep inside the GHC and shut the door.

When it opened automatically, several million years later, they stretched their limbs just out of habit—for no wear and tear had ensued—swigged some electrolyte, and went to check on the humans.

They found that the entire sphere of 317 million planets acreage was covered with an HPLD: a civilization possessing the Highest Possible Level of Development.

And there wasn’t a robot in sight.

“Well,” said Trurl, “it seems we shan’t be bored, anyhow.”

Klapaucius agreed, but said “Shut up” just for old time’s sake.

I lost a whole neighbourhood last night to that bitch Holly Grale. The Floradora Heights. Renamed this morning, after its overnight reformation and subsequent QuikPoll accreditation. Now the district was officially “WesBes,” as in “West of Bester.” I hate those faddish abbreviated portmanteau names. Where’s the dignity? Where’s the sense of tradition? Where’s the romance? Plus, once Bester Street disappears, as it’s bound to do soon, where’s that leave your trendy designation?

But my tastes were obviously in the minority, since 67.9 percent of the residents of the quondam Floradora Heights had voted to accept Grale’s reformation over my established plan which they had been living in for some time.

Still, I shouldn’t have been so down. Floradora Heights had lasted 2063 hours until suffering the diminishment in popularity that had triggered the reformation. The average duration stats for all iCity sensate neighbourhood plans was not quite 1600 hours. So my plan had performed over 20 percent better than average. That result, along with my ten extant accreditations, would certainly allow me to maintain my place in the planner rankings—and maybe even jump up a notch or two.

So ’round about noon of the day I lost to Grale, after moping around and enjoying my loser’s morning sulk, I began to cheer up. I figured I deserved a drink, either as solace for the loss to Grale or affirmation of my genius. So I headed out in search of the Desire Path.

I was living then on Dictionary Hill, a district created by my friend Virgule Partch. A very pleasant plan, although I would have oriented the main entrances of Hastings Park north-south rather than east-west. My condo, an older model which I had opted to carry over with me during every reformation over the past five years, was currently incorporated into a building dubbed the Rogue Mandala. Very conveniently situated right next to a Starbucks. (God bless Partch’s thoughtful plans!) So after exiting the Mandala, I stepped inside the Starbucks to grab a tall guarana and a teff cake. No sense imbibing booze on an empty stomach, especially this early.

It was such a nice blue-sky day outside—the faithful faraway pico-satellite swarm had moderated the August sunlight and the ambient temperature to very comfortable levels—that I took my drink and food outside and let the peristaltic sensate sidewalk carry me along while I ate.

I arbitrarily headed toward the Konkoville district. Or at least what had been the Konkoville district last night; I confess I hadn’t scanned the reformation postings for all of iCity yet, checking only on my eleven accreditations (now ten, damn it, thanks to Grale!). But Konkoville was where the Desire Path, my favourite bar, had resided the last time I had visited, a couple of days ago.

But as I approached the edges of the district, I could see that it was unlikely I would find the Desire Path here any longer.

Konkoville was now an extensive tivoli named Little Sleazy, full of wild amusement rides and fastfood booths, bursting with the noise of screaming kids.