Spheria (15 page)

“Well done,” he said. “It took me three days to figure this out. Maybe you had a little help from me, but not much.” He took the four red stones he had, attached them to the tip of his legs, and likewise to the mountain. Together, they shimmied over the Rift. From this vantage, they were afforded an imposing view of the darkness below. After taking it in for a moment, they continued, and in no time were on the other side of the mountain. They dismounted by tilting the red rock at an angle, which allowed it to detach from the blue.

Next to the mountain was a small pool of red. Sa∙ma touched each red piece to this, where it stuck fast. He was then able to, with effort, remove his leg. The four chunks sank into the pool, completely hiding evidence of their existence. “This pool is the result of the many crossings that have come before us.” Le∙ma nodded and added her four pieces to the pool.

Chapter 17 - God from the Machine

“Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.” - Marianne Williamson

Jean returned from lunch ready to get some serious work done. Unlike many of her colleagues, a big meal energized her rather than made her want to take a nap. She sat at her computer and donned her virtual reality headset and glove. She placed her other hand on a 3D SpaceMouse, a specialized controller for moving around in three dimensions. It looked kind of like the towing ball on the back of a truck. Around the hand grip was a series of programmable buttons.

Her headset filled with light. She was floating in the center of the world inside the Source. She pushed down on the controller and dropped toward the landscape. Then she rotated it to the right until her view lined up with the Rift, which was the most prominent landmark. It looked like an artificial horizon, except vertical.

Jean pushed the controller forward and flew ahead in the world, staying level with the ground. In this way, she cruised along the Rift until the Polyan Colony became visible on her left. She dropped down more, turned, and crossed the forest until she was at the edge of the Colony. She could’ve jumped here directly using a preset, but she liked to use this entry ritual as a form of warm-up. Unlike most of the other team members, she wasn't a video game player.

The Polyans were constructing a new hive. Three-legged Drones approached pushing loose brown blocks, and two four-legged Builders were stacking them. The structure resembled an igloo, except more pointed.

Jean could see the ghostly outline of her gloved hand floating in the world. She had the desire to grab some blocks with it to help stack them. But she was forbidden to interact with the world in any way. Only the engineers were allowed to, and only away from the presence of any Polyan witnesses. The rule was like their version of the Prime Directive from Star Trek. “No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations.” This prohibited personnel from interfering with the development of alien civilizations, in this case, Polyans.

She lowered her glove and wondered why she even bothered to put it on, since she couldn’t use it for anything other than menus. Even her buttons were configured differently than the others. Theirs allowed selecting objects, raising and lowering terrain, and adding textures. Hers allowed the recording of data. She could take screen captures, record videos, tag a Polyan or a location, or jump around. These actions allowed her to capture behaviors and interactions as they occurred. The computer also had the ability to point out interesting or unusual occurrences. With a click, Jean’s viewpoint could jump to that location as well.

She clicked the preset for the Council Chamber. Her view switched to just over the tallest building in the Colony. Polyans of every number of legs were scurrying about, performing their daily routines. It was always amazing that these beings were ‘alive’ in the sense of intelligence and free will. But it was more amazing that they had, in a short span of time, formed a cooperative and functional society.

Jean entered the Council Chamber, but it was empty. “I guess the six-legs must be taking a break,” she said.

“What?” asked Rash from the adjacent cubicle.

“Sorry, I was talking to myself.”

It was odd that the Leaders weren’t in the Council Chamber. Typically, they just hung out there and talked all day.
They must be taking a field trip or something.

She pressed a button which opened a floating menu of Polyan names. Using her glove, she touched a filter to narrow it down only to six-legged ones. The list shrank to eight names all ending with the suffix ‘sa.’ She swiped her finger down the entire list, selecting them all. Then her view rotated to face the encroaching red river at the edge of the Colony. There she saw eight outlines highlighted in blue.
Yep, a field trip to the river. I wonder why?

She tagged one of them to zoom over and watch what they were doing. But before she could click jump, an alarm appeared in the center of her vision. “Polyan Death,” it said in red flashing letters.

She instinctively hit a different button. Her view immediately zoomed out to the Source. Then it dove all the way back to a different part of the world. It was a bit far from the Colony, in a jagged area of the landscape. In the center of her vision lay the smashed core of a Drone, its three legs scattered near the body. It had apparently fallen off a ledge. Such a distance wouldn’t have been fatal, but it had the misfortune of landing on a pointed brown rock. This shattered the core of the creature, releasing its life energy in the space around it.

Jean wanted to observe its reaction as it was falling to see if, or when, it knew its death was imminent. She positioned her view so she could see the entire cliff from the top to the bottom. Then she dialed a replay timeframe using the controller. The computer began to calculate backward. The sheer amount of data in the world precluded the recording of its state over time. It did allow calculating what had happened from the current moment backward. It just took a little while. In other words, the replay wasn't immediate like on Monday Night Football. As she was waiting for something to happen, something did. Another Polyan came running into view and fell on the cracked corpse.

Jean canceled the replay and instead hit the video record button. She zoomed in to have a closer look. Her screen told her the new arrival was Po∙ni, and the deceased was Ti∙ni. Jean was trying to figure out what Po∙ni was doing. She could make out some faint sounds, so she boosted the volume to hear better. Po∙ni wasn't speaking, but emitting a kind of whine that changed in pitch from low to high over and over. Jean cocked her head to hear better in just one ear, although it made no difference. She swore that it sounded like a sob. Never before had she seen a Polyan display remorse, if indeed that’s what this was. Polyans felt basic emotions, but they never seemed to get attached enough to mourn the dead. Then Po∙ni spoke, which confirmed Jean’s theory.

“Ti∙ni! No! Not Ti∙ni. You're my best friend,” cried Po∙ni. Her sobbing began again.

Jean confirmed the video stream was recording. This was anthropological gold. She watched and recorded. She created several viewpoint presets around the scene and kept flipping between them to make a more dramatic movie. This was the most exciting thing that had happened in weeks.

“Ti∙ni,” cried Po∙ni again. “Please don’t die!” Sob. Sob. Sob. “You can’t be dead!” Sob.

Without getting up, Po∙ni reached out and pulled the three scattered legs back to the body. She attempted to reconnect them, but they wouldn’t stick. A slow and drawn-out whine emanated from her defeated form.

Then Po∙ni raised one leg toward the Source and said, “Gods above, if you can hear me, please help. Please save my friend, Ti∙ni. She’s new to this world and hasn’t learned its ways yet. She is my best friend, and it’s my fault she fell. I forgot to tell her the ledge was in front of her. Please take me instead of her!”

Jean’s jaw dropped. This was way beyond mere remorse. This was recognition and respect for a higher power. The Polyans had their legends about the gods, some of which were based on real encounters. But never before had she seen them ask the gods for help. She had to work fast. Without thinking of the consequences, she acted. It wouldn’t take long before Lee’s improvement prepared Ti∙ni’s Qube for reassignment to a new Polyan.

#

The world around Po∙ni bent in an odd way, almost as if it was curved! She saw something that astounded her. Towering above, on seven large legs, stood a Polyan with a green core.

“Child,” spoke the tall Polyan. “I am Ca∙ro, god of plants, but I have heard your plea and have come to help you.”

Unable to believe what she was seeing, Po∙ni fell speechless.

“Step aside!” commanded Ca∙ro.

Po∙ni attempted to stand but stumbled, then rolled off Ti∙ni’s body.

Ca∙ro leaped into action. She picked up the shattered core of Ti∙ni and rubbed each facet, one by one mending their cracks. Once that was complete, she placed Ti∙ni’s core on the ground. She touched three of her legs to it, one on each leg joint. Po∙ni watched as Ca∙ro’s entire body began to glow violet. Soon the same color was filling the clear cavity of Ti∙ni’s core. As soon as it turned opaque, Ca∙ro grabbed Ti∙ni’s three legs and attached them to the joints. Then she vanished.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Slowly, Ti∙ni’s limbs began to move. Then they moved faster. Ti∙ni lurched over and stood on her legs. She glanced around and saw Po∙ni with a look of disbelief and extreme joy.
 

“Wh-what happened?” Ti∙ni stammered.

Po∙ni ran over and wrapped two legs around Ti∙ni. “Thank the gods! You're alive!”

Ti∙ni looked up at the cliff. Then she saw the pointed brown rock on the ground next to her.

“How?” she asked.

“It’s a miracle,” answered Po∙ni.

And Po∙ni bowed her body and spoke in a whisper, “Thank you Ca∙ro. I'm forever in your debt. May I repay the favor someday when I visit you in the Qubessence?”

#

Jean stopped the video stream. She not only had footage of the best event ever to happen, but the footage would get her fired in an instant. She archived it with the name “Zalisk foraging.” Too bad she’d never be able to tell anyone about the amazing events the file really contained.

Chapter 18 - Prime Directive

“All of us make mistakes. The key is to acknowledge them, learn, and move on. The real sin is ignoring mistakes, or worse, seeking to hide them.” - Robert Zoellick

Dana closed the blinds in her office. The sun was setting, and the glare made reading her computer monitor difficult. She sat back down at her desk and returned to scanning the logs from the previous week. Activity had increased, which was a good thing, although it now took longer to get through it. The trend was showing more and more unusual incidents inside their experiment. This was a sure way to build a strong case for additional funding.

The engineering team always led in terms of productivity. They continued to crank out new routines, geometry, code, and other incomprehensible stuff. It always amazed Dana how much they got done, week after week, with just a few people. Rarely would they fall into a rut where she would have to push them. If she did, they usually responded with some rhetoric about ‘writing code being the equivalent of creating art,’ and that it was unpredictable. She didn’t believe it for an instant. Computers were concrete and well understood; it was just a matter of doing the same things over and over. Needless to say, this week they were true to form, although it wasn’t their best week ever.

What caught her attention, however, was the number of entries in the anthropology log. For the first time ever, they exceeded that of engineering. She opened the list and it was full of videos and notes of unusual Polyan behavior and incidents. They were on the rise. Something was happening in their society, something the researchers did not yet understand, a kind of mind shift. One note from Jean summarized her observations particularly well: