Tony Ballantyne - Recursion

– She’s lying. Our secrecy lies in our mundanity, not in elaborate attempts to evade detection.

“Thank you for your observation, Blue,” muttered Constantine sarcastically. The flier’s jerking motion was making him feel sick. Worse, he was still shaken by the sight of the floating building and was unsuccessfully trying to convince himself he hadn’t actually seen it. His one comfort during the queasy ride was that White seemed undisturbed by it. That was the personality Constantine trusted most in situations such as this.

The flier looked like a military model covered with a thin veneer of luxury to hide its true character. The outside paintwork was now white and gold, rather than the dull matte grey or silver of a stealth skin. Constantine’s seat was soft white leather, facing an elegant communications console inlaid with white wood and mother of pearl, but the passenger section seemed just a little too large for these items. In addition, there were too many slots and catches set into the airframe, too many places where crates could be secured or guns mounted. Ahead of him, the pilot’s chair was a mechanical egg surrounded by struts and pneumatic rods, bracing it against forces from every direction. Even the very shape of the flier was a giveaway, squat and maneuverable, rather than affecting the sweeping curves currently fashionable for so many business vehicles.

There was a subtle change to the view as gentle hills rose up from beneath the land. Isolated grey shapes began to flash past, then small clusters, then packs. Kangaroos and camels. The flier had left the lifeless plain for a region where a few animals scratched out an existence.

The pilot sent the craft skimming along a shallow path between the low hills and then spun them around and down and they were suddenly in the midst of the construction site. She decelerated rapidly, touching the flier down near the center of a rectangular patch of mud.

The pilot spoke without turning. “Welcome to DIANA Arcology, phase one. Please check that you have all your belongings before leaving the vehicle.”

The door slid open and bright sunlight filled the passenger section, along with a wave of heat as if someone had opened an oven door. Constantine hesitated for a moment before moving out into the bright daylight. He stepped down onto a plastic duckboard laid over wet red mud. As he did so, the door slid shut and the flier rose and skimmed off in a wide circle before disappearing in the direction from which it had come.

Constantine turned in a slow circle himself. There was no sign of anyone. He was alone, abandoned in the middle of a large rectangle of reddish earth, baking under the hot sun. Already he could feel sweat running down his back. The trail of blue plastic duckboards led to the edge of the mud patch, and he began to follow them. He felt as if he was walking across the surface of a huge red swimming pool. Someone had cut down to a depth of about half a meter and then peeled back the planet’s skin to leave the earth underneath raw and exposed.

– Why hasn’t the mud dried up? It’s like an oven out here.

“That’s a good point, Red,” Constantine muttered. He crouched down and reached one hand toward the muddy surface.

– Careful. There’s something moving down there.

Something broke the surface fast, just as Red spoke; the edge of a silver cylinder flashed brightly in the powerful sunlight before dipping beneath again. Now that he looked closely, Constantine could see that there was a constant bubbling motion just below the mud’s surface. Hundreds of identical cylinders busily crawling all over each other.

– VNMs, confirmed White.-We’re looking at some sort of bounding tank, I think. The mud layer must extend beneath the ground for some distance. It’s acting as a nurturing area for the machines.

– Like a fish tank, said Blue.

– That’s right. It’s a clever idea. It delimits the area upon which the machines can act. It stops them from escaping or converting something that they shouldn’t.

– Do you think it might be a good idea to get off the duckboards? asked Blue.

“A very good idea,” agreed Constantine. He didn’t like the idea of being converted.

– Hold it, said Red.-Something’s happening.

There was a slow sucking noise, and something large and rectangular emerged from the reddish mud. An oversized yellow plastic refrigerator, by the look of it. The door swung slowly open.

– It looks like an elevator. I think you should get in.

Constantine shivered. The interior of the yellow box looked cramped and dangerously short on air. He preferred to stand out here in the blazing sunshine. Nonetheless, he knew that Red was probably right.

“All right, I’m going,” he muttered.

– Rather you than me, said Blue.

Sitting in a chair in the large conference suite, a glass of chilled water at his elbow, Constantine had to admit that it was a clever idea. Building the research center right in the middle of the VNM construction site guaranteed privacy. It wouldn’t be a secret, of course, in today’s world very little was, but anyone wishing to approach the center uninvited would have to go through a tank of hungry VNMs. And anyone trying to slip a stealthy spy leech up close to the center would quickly find that their resources had been converted into building blocks for the new DIANA Arcology. Blue had approved wholeheartedly. The setup did have a certain poetry about it, he suggested.

– And there is something else as well. Did it occur to you that there is a certain Eastern aspect to our deceptions? Lies within misdirections within frauds. We sit here within what appears to be a construction site for an arcology, ostensibly to discuss its real purpose as a Space Colony Preparatory Center, and all the while we are plotting our own deeper schemes.

– Recursion, said White.-Each lie calls for another lie. How far do we have to go until the final deception is revealed?

– And will we ever know that what we find is not just another lie? said Red.

– How trite, Blue said rudely.

Grey, as ever, said nothing.

The meeting began without ceremony. Each member introduced themselves in turn.

“Marion Lee. Chairperson.” A red-headed woman in a severe grey suit, she blinked rapidly as she spoke.

“Gillian Karajan. Oort cloud.” She was an elongated woman with a spacer’s fake tan that somehow managed to complement her fashionable white shift. Silver and gold bangles decorated her arms.

“Constantine Storey.” Constantine added nothing else. He noted Gillian Karajan looking at him inquisitively. The other members of the group showed no surprise at his reticence.

– She’s the one, said Red.-She’s the outsider to this group. Look at the way she’s sitting, nervous, as if she doesn’t belong. I wonder what they told her to get her here?

The introductions continued.

“Masaharu Jones. Mars.” A young man barely in this twenties, full of complacent self-confidence.

“Jay Apple. Orbital.” Another tanned spacewoman, this time with a broad grin and clear, piercing eyes that swept around each member of the group in turn. Introductions over, the group nodded to each other. Marion Lee began the meeting.

“Good morning. For obvious reasons, this meeting maintains no record. Everything that is said must exist in our memories only. Nonetheless, I hereby state that we are now quorate.”

Constantine felt a mixture of excitement and relief. It was true. The moment had finally arrived. His two long years of being alone were coming to an end. Marion had paused for effect. Now she continued:

“I now remind you. The quorum will meet three and only three times. The final decision must be made by the end of the third meeting. That was deemed necessary when plans were first laid down over two years ago. There can and will be no variation from this course of action.”