Brian Stableford - Asgard's Heart

“Yes,” I said, “but this is silly.”

“On the contrary,” she assured me, gravely. “It may seem to you to be absurd to build a world of experience out of bits of ancient mythologies and literary fantasies with which you had contact in your youth, but it is the perfect strategy for the circumstances. Those fantasies had real meaning for you once, and still do, although you have put them away as childish things. There has always been a private world within your mind—a refuge which offered relief from the oppressive solidity of the world of material objects. That world reproduces the kind of dominion that your personality has within your corporeal body—a power which still has limitations, but lesser ones. The magical world of your ancient myths and folklore fantasies arises out of an attempt to map the properties of the mind onto the properties of the spatial universe. Software space really is that kind of universe, where the personality holds that kind of dominion.

“You are now in a world which can best be understood—which can only be understood—in terms recalling the ideative framework of myths and fantasies. My borrowing may seem unduly confused, but the confusion is inherent in your own memories and your own mind, which can draw with careless abandon on all kinds of source-materials. The point is that these experiences can and do make a kind of sense to you—you are at home here, and when the time comes to act, you will be able to draw on resources other than the reflexes which you learned in order to operate in the material world—resources which are far less likely to let you down.”

“Less likely?” I queried.

“There are no guarantees, Mr. Rousseau. You still have to learn to draw upon those resources, and make the most of them. We are embarked upon a journey into great danger, and we will surely meet enemies. I cannot tell how powerful they may be, or how clever, but they will certainly oppose us with all the strength and cunning they can bring to bear.”

I put my hand on the hilt of my sword, gingerly, not knowing what it would feel like. It felt solid enough, but I knew too much to find that feeling of solidity reassuring. I reminded myself that it wasn’t really solid. Nor was the ship. Nor was I. Nor was the whole vast world in which I was adrift.

“I thought you copied us into an arcane language, so that the hostile software couldn’t get at us,” I remarked. “Come to think of it, I thought there were good reasons why you couldn’t copy yourself, so how come you’re here?” The horrible suspicion began to dawn on me as I spoke that I might have been lured into volunteering for this mission on false pretences.

“What you see before you,” she said, with a disarming smile, “has more in common with one of my scions than with the ninefold being which formerly employed this appearance to speak to you. I am not so much a copy as a redaction. I have no more power here than you or Myrlin, and I strongly suspect that I may have less. I still believe that you have weapons other than the ones with which I have provided you, and that when the time comes you may find a way to import extra power into the appearance of the gorgon’s head which I have added to our arsenal. It is important that you understand this; you may look to me for explanations, but when the battle begins, I am no more powerful than you, and probably less.”

“You’d better give us those explanations,” I said, with a hint of bitterness. “Now I’m here, I have the feeling that we haven’t gone into this deeply enough in our hurried conversations of the past few days.”

“We are encoded in an arcane language,” she said. “It will not be easy for destructive programmes of any kind to attack us—especially if, as I hope, the invaders of Asgard are unintelligent automata. But we must assume that whatever forces are arrayed against us will have some power to react to our presence and adapt to it, with a view to destroying us. I think that we must expect our enemies to break into the frame of meaning that we are imposing upon software space. They will appear as monstrous irruptions of various kinds—I cannot tell what precise forms they will take, but in order to attack us they will have to formulate themselves according to the patterns that we have preset. They will, in effect, have to translate themselves into the symbolic language which we have adopted—a language based in your imagination.”

“I have a depressing feeling,” I said, “that you’re telling me that the things which are trying to kill me are going to do it by turning themselves into the stuff of my worst nightmares.”

“That is a neat way of putting it,” she conceded with irritating equanimity.

“And our friends, if we have any?” Myrlin put in. “They too will have to intrude themselves, in much the same way?”

“If we receive any help,” she agreed, “it will follow a similar pattern of manifestation.”

I looked at the deck where the silent soldiers were arrayed, preternaturally still.

“What about those guys?” I asked.

“Automata,” she said. “Non-sentient programmes, very limited in what they can do. But they will help to defend us when the time comes, and if we are fortunate we may not have to face anything more adept than they are. The enemy may not find it easy to dispose of them.”

I had the suspicion that she was being deliberately optimistic. While we were talking I had grown more accustomed to my bizarre surroundings. I was beginning to acquire a feeling of belonging here. It was as though that peculiar fellow who had elected to make his living as a snapper-up of unconsidered technological trifles in the desolate caves of upper Asgard had all the while been nursing an alter ego compounded out of the fascinations of his infancy: an all-purpose hero equipped to fend off nightmares and confront the gods on their own terms.

It’s sad, in a way, to be forced to acknowledge the desperate lengths to which the human condition forces us to go, within the secret confines of our inmost souls, in search of solace and wish-fulfilment. But I guess our private fantasies are no more unique than our faces, and partake of no more artistry.

In another way, though, our capacity for fantasy is a hopeful thing, because it reassures us that whatever the cold and empty universe does in its mindless attempt to crush our vaulting ambition and make us see how small and stupid we really are, we can mould something better out of our common clay, and rise from our galactic gutter to contemplate the stars.

I stood up straight, staring past the gorgon’s head at the empty sea ahead of us, and wondered what kind of fabulous shore it was that we were trying to reach.

I came out of the interface with the sensation of waking from a dreamless sleep. The filaments had already withdrawn from my flesh, and I was slumped in the chair.

Susarma Lear bent over me as soon as I opened my eyes, and for once her own eyes were warmed with faint concern. It seemed that she was getting to like me just a little, despite the fact that I was not cast in the Star Force’s best heroic mould.

“You okay, Rousseau?” she asked.

I breathed out, and felt the inside of my mouth with my tongue. It was a bit fuzzy, with the merest hint of an unpleasant taste.

“Sure I’m okay,” I told her. “You ever hear a document complain about being put through a photocopier?”

Her eyes hardened again. “You’re a real wit, Rousseau,” she said. “You know that?” I knew it, but it didn’t seem polite to agree, given that she sounded so unenthusiastic about it.

“How’s Myrlin?” I asked, peering round the edge of my hood at the other occupied chair. He was coming round too, and he put up a hand to signal that he was adequate to the task of getting up and getting ready for the next step in our campaign.