Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 116 Page 4

  But that left the trio with the urgent task of improving their mountain, and like any corporate problem, there were limits to what was possible. Two of them were artists, and the third was a PhD who looked at the world as a series of cross-bedded sediments and rift valleys. He made suggestions about how real mountains acted, and the artists struggled to weave their vision around rational rules as well as budgetary limitations. Data are not free. Even the smallest data occupy space and demand energy. In other words, numbers need to have homes, and every home costs money.

  I was eavesdropping, understanding almost nothing.

  And they ignored me in that non-insulting way people do when private problems consume them.

  Then I surprised all of us.

  “I can help,” I decided.

  The geologist appeared older than me. Because he hadn’t dialed back his years, or because he wanted to wear the elder role? Whatever the reason, the gray fellow warned, “This isn’t just piling rocks on top of rocks.”

  “I understand that,” I said.

  But he realized quite a bit too. “You work in Billing.”

  The trio might have had hopes, but a quick scan washed that away. I was a bookkeeper, yes, which put me low on every scale.

  Then I offered them a number.

  “Excuse me?” said the woman artist.

  “What are you talking about?” asked her colleague.

  “Your mountain is an indulgence, not a priority,” I said. “But I have a pretty fair sense of what you need in terms of funding. There are departments with extra resources. Some of that fat is going to get eaten in another six hours. Which happens every day. And as it happens, the man you just threw off the mountain controls a division with enough capital to make everything possible. If you approach him now. If you promise him a higher peak and thinner air and far worse weather too.”

  “That’s going to make him happy?” the geologist asked skeptically.

  “Ignore his happiness,” I said. “He knows the rules and never planned to summit. But he expects you to keep him chasing what can’t be caught. So yeah, I believe you should meet with him. Right now. While the memory of his death is fresh in everybody’s head.”

  The sculptors fell into private channels, discussing the possibilities.

  I stepped away, hoping for thanks and getting nothing but one more growl from the geologist. Then he left the mountain by the most direct route, stepping off the cliff to drop back into his office and most trusted chair.

  The sculptors and I lingered in the clearing. But nothing was said between us. I watched the mountain below while their attentions shifted to an impromptu meeting with the mountaineer. Then a few minutes later, winning smiles appeared, and then some infectious, child-like giggling.

  Which was when the new group arrived.

  One glance told me everything. There was no reason to approach these intruders. PinPoint is a juggernaut for a lot of reasons, but particularly because we have a genius for finding genius. Half a dozen of our best were standing in the false sunshine. These people were brilliant at birth and every subsequent technology had added to their cognitive wonders, their insightful motors. They looked ordinary enough walking the mountain, but their true bodies were punctuated with every species of AI link and randomizing generators, plus devices still being tested by R-and-D.

  I have never liked PinPoint’s big guns.

  And that moment only made my biases worse.

  They glanced at me and through me and gave up on me without bothering to learn anything about my little job.

  Then they examined my companions. The woman sculptor was still giggling, hands drawing sculptures in the air while her partner kept his eyes closed—a contrast of styles that made them even more obvious.

  One of the geniuses sighed and said, “Artists.”

  That was all she said.

  Then the others laughed. Not loudly and not cruelly, no. Just a shared little giggle of their own, probably adding to an old joke not worth repeating. And with that, these masters of Creation attacked the next slope, continuing a climb that would last as long as they wanted it to, and that would never be allowed to end.

  Multiple PinPoint divisions worked on SETI projects, each armed with distinct strategies and competitive ideals. But those watching the sky, in whatever capacity, were doomed. Theorists armed with faux-black-holes were first to realize that the universe wasn’t just thickly populated by other intelligences, but that seeing our neighbors and speaking to our neighbors could be as easy as talking to the person holding your hand.

  The enormous news broke on a Monday morning.

  People from sixty busy years of life were instantly reaching out to me. Did I still work for PinPoint? And even if I didn’t, did I know anything? Most of the messages would never earn a personal answer, but everyone who got past the gauntlet of AIs and indifference posed the same question:

  “Do you get to talk to the aliens?”

  If not those words, then at least by implication.

  “Sure, sure. Do you want to chat with them too?” I quipped.

  Good for a gasp and maybe some misplaced respect.

  But I’m not much of a liar. “No, sorry,” I’d confess. “You’re talking to the wrong department.”

  “But you will eventually,” they insisted.

  I didn’t have the clearance to see that future or enough gossip to guess if our geniuses were trading words with anyone. But one technical trouble was obvious, and that’s what I tried to explain.

  “The inflow of data,” I said. “It’s enormous and PinPoint isn’t ready. Nobody could be ready. We’re downloading images and audio and long, long stretches of video, and it’s coming as ancient recordings as well as in real time. From trillions of worlds, close suns and distant galaxies, and despite what you hear about how smart we are and how much smarter our machines are . . . well, we aren’t. PinPoint is an elephant that can drink an entire river. But this is ten trillion oceans, and PinPoint is swimming a million kilometers from shore.”

  I liked that image of water. The first time I used it, and ever since.

  “Oh, but this is so exciting,” my ex-wife said.

  A lady who never got excited about much, I should mention.

  “Even if we can’t understand what they’re telling us,” she continued. “I mean, I love the pieces already posted. That alien with the wings. She’s such a beauty.”

  A million species had wings. So far. Counts were accelerating, and even among the ranks of bookkeepers, it was obvious that the scope and reach of this technology would never allow us to enjoy another lazy breath.

  Spectacles were wonderful, until the spectacles refused to end.

  “I’m proud of you,” my ex-wife said.

  Another thunderbolt in a day of nothing else.

  “I have to get back to work,” I said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Then as if I had any finger in history, she said, “Good job, Colin.”

  For the next eighteen minutes, I was a marvel of cyborg brilliance, shifting funds where they begged to be, leaving people paid in exchange for their devotion to our corporation. And I would have finished my nineteenth minute. Except. Research budgets were suddenly frozen. Everywhere, everywhere. A thousand projects ripped from existence, not a shred of mercy shown. I was told to do nothing, which is an impossible trick for any creature with more than three neurons. This was a day of aliens, yet every starship program had been shelved, all of that frozen money assembled inside one account, access granted only to a freshly assembled team wearing a very peculiar name: The Sagacities.

  I couldn’t guess what that name meant, but that didn’t stop me from trying. And in the midst of all that misplaced conjecture, I received word that the Sagacities were meeting at the corporate headquarters, inside our most secure room, and I was expected to join them as fast as humanly possible.

  “We found her,” one man said.

  To me, apparently, and that’s all he sa
id.

  But the woman beside him refused to accept credit. “No, you’re responsible, Colin. Without you, we could have missed her entirely.”

  I counted faces. Twenty-three people and their perfumed beverages were sharing the conference room. The best minds straddling PinPoint, and everyone was staring at my idiot face.

  “Well good,” I offered.

  Then, “Glad to help.”

  Just before I asked, “So who exactly did I find?”

  “Your great-aunt,” the man said. A small fellow with a booming voice that delivered his news along with an uncomfortable twist of the shoulders. “In fact, we can see Madeline right now.”

  “How’s that?” I sputtered.

  “Live feeds from elsewhere,” was his cryptic reply. Then, “Would you like to see her?”

  I didn’t have time to answer. One long wall dissolved into a street scene. Except the “street” looked more like black satin carpeting than a roadway, and nothing about the native architecture was human. Structures were more grown than built, full irregular blobs and jumbled angles that made at least one man uneasy. A dwarf red star stood fixed to a sky thick with pink dust and glittering machines, and the carpeted street was jammed with aliens. Not one species or ten species, but countless shapes marching and dancing while producing all manner of purposeful noise. And deep inside that mayhem stood one very familiar figure: A woman presumed dead but now leaning against what resembled an upright badger. I spotted her hair, dark as always but longer. Age had done nothing to the pretty face. And with all of the surprises raining down, I was a little startled to find the lady acting chummy with an animal. Maddy never struck me as the sort to keep pets.

  “This is live,” I managed.

  “Not this particular view, no,” the woman offered.

  But the man was in charge, glancing at his colleague with a narrow smile. Then looking at me again, he said, “You were hunting for this person.”

  “I wanted pictures,” I said. “The AIs offered to help, and I let them. But I haven’t heard anything from them in a very long while.”

  “Well, the hunt continued,” he explained. “Several AIs made themselves into experts in that one face, and when the floodgates opened, they were well-trained to find Ms. Furst.”

  “Maddy,” I said.

  Everyone was watching me, nobody talking.

  Utterly thrilled, I said, “So the aliens carried Maddy off to the stars.”

  Maybe these people were having a good day. Several of them laughed, though it wasn’t a joyful laughter, and meanwhile the small man in front preferred to curse, under his breath but with an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm.

  Nobody took the trouble to educate the honored guest.

  “It’s time,” said the woman. She was rather pretty, particularly when she winked at me, saying, “Watch your Maddy now.”

  My Maddy said a few words to her pet. I heard her. Somehow her voice was pulled out of the mayhem, and what I heard was as rich as I had imagined her voice had to be, and every word was incomprehensible. Then the beast lifted his hairless palm, presenting it to the human tongue that licked it twice and twice again. And then he did the same, caressing her hand with a piece of soggy blue flesh that sprang from his exuberant, tooth-rich mouth.

  “They’re kissing,” I guessed.

  “Who cares?” the man said. “But watch what happens next.”

  Maddy dissolved. Without sound or apparent effort, she turned into a puddle of water instantly absorbed by the black carpet. And accepting her absence, the pet that wasn’t any pet walked away on two stout legs.

  “Okay,” I muttered.

  I had nothing smarter to offer.

  “That scene was recorded this morning,” the man reported.

  “Did she just die?” I asked.

  “No, the body was temporary. Woven out of native ingredients. Her mind is somewhere else, presumably protected. And that’s how you travel in the universe. We know this. We’re very much sure. Life moves without going anywhere. By erecting bodies where and when you need them, and then tearing them apart when you decide to leave again.”

  I nodded, asking, “Can you see her now?”

  “Oh yes,” he said, waving a single finger. “This is her real-time feed.”

  The sky turned to darkness punctuated with a few smudges of light, and beneath that emptiness lay a flat expanse of floor. Maddy was in the middle of the floor, wearing nothing. She was wearing clothes on the alien street, and to a fashion-impoverished man, they seemed like unremarkable clothes. But in her new location, wherever this was, she was naked. By the looks of it she was working, testing the bright colors of paint or dye or whatever that substance was that poured out of a thousand mechanical hands that seemed to be doing her bidding.

  I stared at the paint-splattered body until I embarrassed myself, and then I looked at the sky. “She jumped to her world’s night side,” I guessed.

  “No,” the man snarled, the rest of the room nodding in agreement.

  I looked at the prettiest genius. “I don’t understand.”

  With a glance at her boss, she asked permission to explain.

  The man offered a silent shrug.

  “Every feed comes to us wearing a label, a marker,” she said. “Imagine an address larger and quite a bit richer than the contents of every human library. Well, this particular feed is called ‘The Universal Museum of Sagacity.’ At least that’s what our translators have decided to call it.”

  “She was an artist,” I said, gawking at rivers of yellow and white paint wetly shining. “Maddy was Walter Fitzgerald’s first wife. She died in Turkey, supposedly. Except there was a secret about her life, and I don’t know what that secret was. Walter told parts of the story to my mother. Something about the best of us being noticed for our talents, and as a result, being rewarded.”

  I paused.

  Never in my life had so many people stared at me with such intensity.

  Finally I asked, “Why do you want me here?”

  Most of the faces looked at the man in charge.

  He decided to say nothing.

  “It was an offhand comment,” I said. “I asked the engine for help, just once, and now she’s found.”

  “It seems so,” said the growly man.

  “What else can I add?” I began.

  Then before anyone could respond, I offered a second question. “So what other human faces have you found?”

  The man straightened his back, irritation mixed with confession when he said, “None.”

  That seemed unlikely, ridiculous. “Why not?”

  Shrugs were the best response. I was sharing the room with frustrated little shrugs.

  “My mother’s uncle,” I began. “Walter implied Maddy earned an extraordinary honor, but he didn’t share anything about starships and aliens.”

  Eye after eye went vacant. People were talking among themselves, on private channels. Deciding what to do next, maybe.

  “So the aliens liked her art,” I ventured. “They carried her off to their world, and she didn’t age much on board the starship, what with being frozen or having time slow. But she’s awake again, doing her big art projects in this big museum.”

  Nobody seemed to hear me.

  I watched the naked woman throw rivers of ruddy brown across a gigantic floor/canvas.

  “Where is this?” I asked.

  A few looked my way.

  “She’s on a nearby planet,” I guessed. “Or the badger’s stardrive pushes way, way past the speed of light.”

  With a cranky sneer, the top Sagacity said, “No to all of that.”

  “No?”

  “The museum doesn’t sit on any world,” he explained. “It’s a Dyson structure, and we’re estimating it’s a little more than one light-year in diameter.”

  I said, “Shit.”

  “According to navigational markers, what you see floats in a void far removed from every galaxy.”

  “Shit,” seemed
like the perfect word. I offered it several more times.

  “A few hundred years of science,” the man continued, “and we finally realized that distance means nothing. People don’t need spaceships in the garage or transporters in the closet. Because every other world is in easy reach, if you know how.”

  “Do we know how?” I asked.

  Nobody answered.

  “So where is my Maddy?”

  “Probably somewhere close,” he allowed.

  Then the woman jumped in. She was talking to me and everyone else too, promising, “When we find her, we can reverse engineer the technology. And after that, hopefully, we’ll be able to wrench open the sky.”

  The old fellow was sitting upright in his exceptionally fancy, very busy hospital bed. I started to offer my name, but he remembered that and quite a lot more. “God, Colin, you look like your mom,” he said. “But I’m sure you get told that.”

  “And I see your dad,” I offered.

  Baldness is mostly derived from the maternal parent. So the patient’s mother must have granted him that gift, helping his resemblance to his twice-married father. Plus, he was named Walter the Second. “I wanted to go to her funeral, but I was in pretty miserable shape,” he said.

  “Not anymore,” I observed.

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Tubes and more tubes fed Walter’s stout body, surgical wands teasing aged genetics, and if these radical therapies continued unabated, my mother’s last living cousin eventually would be able to leap out of bed and cartwheel free of the room. That young, sturdier than ever, he would inhabit a life no reasonable mind would have dreamed for itself.

  And there I stood, thinking how my mother didn’t live long enough, and despite every goodness inside me, I was ridiculously angry with this lucky man.

  The patient didn’t notice my pettiness.

  Or he politely ignored it.

  With a gracious wave of a meaty hand, Walter said, “Sit, if you want. I’m guessing you’re here to talk about the lady.”

  The bedside chair seemed too close. Better to claim the soft lounger.

  “I barely remember Miss Furst,” he said.

  “The artist,” I said.

  “Yeah, I didn’t know anything about that.”