Tony Ballantyne - Recursion

She held up her left hand. Constantine noticed the ring on her third finger.

“Oh,” said Constantine. Then, as the full impact of what she had said hit him, he spoke again.

“ Oh. ”

“ Oh is right.” Katie smiled. “Now jump.”

Constantine jumped.

The robot Constantine’s black bag held water, glucose solution, sunscreen cream, and a picnic lunch. There was even something for Herb to wear.

While Herb was listening to his story, Constantine had given him water to suck from a plastic bulb while he rubbed sunscreen into his shoulders. There was a light anaesthetic in the cream, he explained. It felt so good that Herb let him rub cream all over his burned body. When the robot had finished, it pulled a bundle of some material from its bag that shook out into a white jumpsuit. More rummaging produced a pair of white slippers.

Herb nodded thoughtfully as he took the slippers.

“So I’m here to help set up a colony, then.” He frowned. “I’m not sure that I really want to do that.”

“I’m laughing,” said Constantine. “I’m not sure you have a choice. Anyway, didn’t you once want to build a city all of your own? I get the impression that the Watcher likes to play jokes with people. The best joke of all is to give someone just what they’ve wanted.” He paused. “I’m looking thoughtful. You know, this colony is what I always wanted, too.”

Herb stared at the robot.

“How do I know that you’re telling me the truth? This could be just another of Robert’s tricks.”

“I’m shrugging. You don’t know that I’m telling the truth. None of us do. But look at it this way: what I’ve told you fits the facts, and it also explains so much more. For instance: you live on an overcrowded planet. Humans have the ability to travel faster than light, to terraform other worlds. If you had asked me a hundred years ago, I’d have said you would be halfway across the galaxy by now.”

“But it would be silly just to expand recklessly! Surely it’s common sense to take things slowly.”

“Is it? It only seems common sense to you because you grew up with it. One hundred years ago and people would have thought differently. I’m smiling at you.”

The robot’s head was a grey blur. There was no reading the emotions on its face. No wonder it kept telling Herb how it felt.

“You don’t need to attach emoticons to everything you say,” he muttered petulantly. “I can tell what you mean by the tone of your voice.”

“Sorry.”

To his own surprise, Herb suddenly smiled. There was something about the robot Constantine personality that he connected with. It sounded ridiculous, he knew. What could a young man who had spent the last few years of his life shunning other human contact possibly have in common with this robot?

Something occurred to Herb.

“You’ve got a fractal skin, haven’t you? I thought they were just a rumor.”

“Oh, no, they’re real,” said Constantine. “The EA is just keeping them to itself for the moment. I’m smiling enigmatically. Oops. Sorry. Needn’t have said that.”

They both laughed.

The sun was rising into the blue sky again. Herb pulled on the jumpsuit and felt cool and comfortable for the first time in days. He slipped his feet into the slippers. Though the soles were thin, they felt remarkably comfortable on the grey rock. He wondered how they managed to stop the gravel digging into the soles of his feet. Some sort of layered memory plastic, one level rising up to cushion his foot the other falling to press against the ground? He stamped his feet once or twice, experimentally.

“This feels great!” he said.

“Good. We have some walking to do before we get to the site of the colony. I reckon about three hours.”

Herb felt a sudden attack of nerves. “I’m not sure I’m up to this,” he said. “What if I can’t do it?”

“Would you have ever believed yourself capable of what you’ve done these past few days? Come on. The Watcher has had you marked down for this since childhood, just like the rest of us. You, me, even the AI from the colony ship that became the guiding force behind the Enemy Domain.”

He sounded more thoughtful. “Examine any artifact of intelligence and you can see the threads of a childhood running through it.”

He then said something odd. “All those threads, meandering through, like sixteen sheep walking in their sleep.”

Herb stared at him for a moment, trying to understand, but this time he couldn’t be bothered. He waved a hand at the robot dismissively.

“I heard enough of that nonsense from Robert.”

He rubbed his hands together, full of sudden confidence.

“Come on, let’s go and meet the colonists.”

The sun shone down from a bright blue sky; the horizon fringing the great dusty plain suddenly seemed full of promise.

Herb began to walk toward his new life.

After a moment, Constantine followed.

The difference between a zigguratand a pyramid is that the top of a ziggurat is the meeting place between the heavens and the earth. It has steps so everyone may ascend to that meeting point. The top of a pyramid, however, is not intended to be reached physically; it represents instead a mental journey.

The ziggurat constructed at the center of the colony cast a long shadow across the evening plain.

The afternoon’s sweat was beginning to dry on Herb as he loaded the Geep with his tools. Banging the spade on the rocky grey soil, sending clean fresh earth scattering everywhere, Herb felt a sense of quiet satisfaction. When he had first joined the colony he had done his best to avoid any physical work. Constantine had needed to point out to him how unpopular Herb was making himself with the other colonists by insisting that he was merely suited for programming jobs. When Constantine had suggested it, Herb had only grudgingly agreed to help out in the second order terraforming projects, but he was now grateful he had done so. To think that he had had to travel halfway across the galaxy to appreciate how much better an evening meal tasted when eaten in company, with muscles still aching, after a shower and a change of clothes. He wondered if Ellen would sit at his table tonight. Ellen with her short red hair and sweetly sarcastic manner…

The gentle movement he had been hearing behind him gradually impinged on his consciousness. Who was it? Not Constantine; he should still be climbing down from the peak above where he had been checking the microwave relays.

Herb turned round and felt a thrill of the fear that he thought had passed from his life along with Robert Johnston.

Something was emerging from the vegetable patch. Long, silver, very, very thin metal legs were sliding from the mud, raising themselves up into the air, reaching back for a purchase on the rocky ground surrounding it. Herb edged away so that his back was pressed against the plastic side of the Geep. The legs had gained a purchase, and now a silver body was rising from the earth, mud crumbling down its sides, potatoes tangling by the roots and swaying in gentle motion as a silver metal spider lifted itself from the ground. Herb could smell rich earth, but in his mouth was the metal taste of fear.

The spider stepped forward onto the rock, the frictionless surface of its body now perfectly clean.

Herb raised the spade in his cold hands, ready for attack.

“No…I am not here to hurt you…”

The spider spoke in a soft voice, a tired voice. Even after two hundred years of living with them, humans still responded to the verbal cues that machines put into their voices. Herb relaxed a little, held the shovel a little less threateningly.

“Who are you? What are you?”