Tony Ballantyne - Recursion

“Once we jump, we’re like the particle in an electron cloud. The Enemy can map a probability of us being at any point within it. Once we materialize, the wave function collapses and a new set of equations comes into play. AIs have been solving these equations for decades. They’re good at them. They need to be; they’re using them to probe-” Robert paused. “Well, that’s another story.”

Herb nodded blankly. He wondered how long this horrible, twisting tension could be held in by the walls of his stomach. He felt as if it would rupture in an acidic explosion at any moment.

Robert reached into his left-hand jacket pocket and pulled out another VNM. This one was smaller than that machine of Herb’s which had been dropped onto the last planet. The new machine was an odd shape; it twisted around on itself like a Mцbius strip. Robert placed it on the white handkerchief that was still spread out neatly on the sofa next to him.

“So now we play a game of cat and mouse,” he grinned at Herb, “if you’ll forgive the clichй. Quantum entanglement provides for instantaneous communication, so the entire Enemy Domain will know of our position the moment we are spotted. Therefore, we must try and outguess them. We must try not to be seen.”

Herb nodded. They seemed to be doing a pretty good job so far; there was still no sign of Enemy activity. He looked around the room, gazing at the viewing fields that covered the ceiling, the walls and the floor, knowing as he did so how unrealistic it was to expect to see anything out there but stars. Nonetheless, he kept looking. The fear that he would see a fleet of ships swooping toward them could not be shaken. Robert remained unfazed. He continued his lecture.

“As long as we remain within the Enemy Domain, more and more of its ships can jump to place themselves within reach of the expanding spheres of our separate jumps. As the wave front passes them by, those ships will jump to follow it. When we jump again, they will repeat the maneuver. I’m afraid, Herb, we can’t keep this up indefinitely. If we wish to stay in here, then sooner or later the Enemy will catch us.”

He smiled again. “I’m planning on later.”

Herb glanced around the screens. He had been expecting explosions, attack ships, anything but this calm nothingness. Where had the Enemy got to? His voice sounded a little high-pitched as he spoke. “There’s nothing happening. Where are we?”

Robert laughed.

“About three hundred AUs from where we started, just floating in empty space. We’ve hardly moved at all. Despite all I’ve just said, they’ll never think of looking for us this close to our jump point.”

Herb got to his feet.

“I need to do something. I’m going to make a cup of fresh coffee. Do you want some?”

“No, thank you,” said Robert. “It would be wasted on me. Robots don’t care for coffee.” He folded his hands on his lap and continued his methodical scanning of the viewing fields. Herb opened a cupboard in the tiny kitchen and pulled out the coffee tin. He pulled off the lid to the rich smell of chilled air and roasted beans.

“Damn. Only half full. I forgot. The rest will be on the other ship. The replicating engine is set not to reproduce luxury goods.”

Robert said nothing.

Herb pulled a glass cup from another cupboard. “I’ve figured out why you dropped my VNM on that planet we just stopped at,” he said. “You want it to convert the nickel iron sea into copies of itself.”

“Come on, Herb, you can do better than that. What about the VNMs already there? They’ll be trying to convert your VNMs back again.”

“I know. I suppose you’ve got my VNM transmitting the friend code.”

Robert nodded. “I could have done, but I didn’t bother. Remember Lesson One of VNM warfare, Herb: as long as your machines are converting the opposition at a faster rate than they are converting back, you’re going to overwhelm the Enemy in the end. It’s not about initial numbers, it’s about the conversion vector. You want it pointing in your direction.”

Herb spooned coffee into the pot and poured nearly boiling water over the grounds. He nodded thoughtfully.

“I see. But what’s the point? Once the Enemy AI figures out what you’re doing, it will just release a machine a bit faster at reproducing than mine was. They’ll get converted back and we’ll have achieved nothing.”

Robert’s faint smile widened to a big white grin. “We’ll just have to keep the Enemy AIs concentrating on something else then, won’t we?”

He looked back up at the viewing fields. “You’d better hurry up with your coffee. We jump just as soon as this ship hits point one lights.” He checked his watch. “That’s in about fifteen seconds,” he added.

Herb hurriedly pressed the button on the coffee pot and the water shivered in a complex pattern, sending the grounds spiraling to the bottom to be held there. He carried the pot and his glass cup back to the sofa facing Robert’s and sat down, placing the pot on the parquet floor just by his feet. Holding the cup tightly in his hands, he gazed up at the ceiling viewing field. Robert had set a large crimson circle expanding across a 2-D slice of starscape. A gold marker, just off center, indicated their ship’s position. A second gold marker lit up, halfway between the ship and the trailing edge of the bubble.

“The second marker is where we’re jumping to. They should assume we’re somewhere in the crimson circle at the moment.”

“Cunning.”

“I know. But we won’t be able to pull this trick too often, mind. Okay, hold onto your coffee, we’re going to jump…”

Herb bit his bottom lip…

Their reinsertion was accompanied by a series of flashes so powerful they tripped out the vision on the viewing fields. Twice the rear fields dimmed, then the left-hand fields, then the portals in the floor at Herb’s feet. Robert thoughtfully plotted the explosions on a section of the viewing field just above Herb’s head. Ripples formed in the dark surface of Herb’s coffee. As he watched, the tiny waves began to interfere with each other and form a fizzing pattern of brown bubbling liquid. Herb stared at the cup with morbid fascination. The ship must be undergoing incredible accelerations for this effect to be noticeable inside the cabin. He dreaded to think what was happening to the fluids inside his own body. The butterflies in his stomach would have steel wingtips at the moment.

“Got it,” said Robert, animation returning to his face. “Wiped the security net. That took longer than I expected. It’s a good thing we were through here earlier on. There are cut-down copies of my intelligence nested in the processors of a lot of the machinery in this system. Not strong enough to effect a change on their own, but they were helpful in the fight…”

“We were through here earlier on?” said Herb.

“Of course, when we scouted the territory. All those saboteurs we planted…”

Herb felt shaken. He remembered Robert’s earlier demonstration, his simulation of their bodies splitting in two and splitting in two as they sailed through the galaxy.

“How many of us are there?” he asked in a tiny voice.

Robert shrugged. “I’ve no idea anymore. You haven’t grasped it yet, have you Herb? This war is about reproduction. Anything that can make a copy of itself does so, or else it gets swamped.”

Herb sipped coffee without tasting it. He needed something to do to distract himself.

“Herb, if you think the battle we’re currently engaged in looks frantic, you should see what it looks like from Machine Level.”

Robert quickly scanned the viewing fields, his dark face half hidden in the pastel glow of the displays.