Exurbia: A Novel About Caterpillars (An Infinite Triptych Book 1) Page 7

  ‘This stays between us,’ the lieutenant had said then. Jura was speechless. ‘I won’t say a word to my superiors. I would advise you to do the same. We found the rig, you deactivated it. That is what happened.’

  The entire episode had remained in Jura’s mind as a testament to random human kindness, to men in immovable positions trying to find even the smallest room to squirm.

  ‘Well,’ said Miss Butterworth from ahead of them, blonde hair rippling in the wind like straw in a storm, ‘let’s ensure it never happens again.’

  11

  “Who are we to call a process or phenomenon unnatural? Look at you, with your starships and sextants. They are made of nothing but universe.”

  - Tersh Stanislav of Exurbia

  261 -

  261 woke, once again, before the rising bell. He spent what must have been an hour or so trying to calm his mind in the dark before the morning lights came lit. How sensitive were the cave’s sensors? If they could register brain activity, someone up in Governance would know he’d been awake. And if so, they will be watching for further anomalies. Possible solution: feign a contagion contracted from one of the Bureau lottery visitors, one that could interfere with sleep. Logical consequence: I will be tried by Governance and summarily executed once the deception is realised. Unimportant at present.

  He went about his ablutions in the usual fashion, noting the strange red shade of his face in the wash basin mirror, the pronounced new crease in his brow. Possible new variant: my contagion excuse is in fact the case and I have been infected by one of the visitors, potentially with a poison. Unimportant at present.

  ‘Day eight thousand seven hundred and fifteen, quandary one will display in two minutes,’ said the cave.

  He took a fresh robe from the vacuum tube, fastened the cord about himself, and settled into the main chamber chair. Elevated heart rate, he noted. Palms sweating. The omnicast globes materialised and circled about in cailbration. Then:

  ‘Quandary one. A human female, Miss Butterworth, has arrived claiming to be a high ranking official of the syndicate hub. However, she is now purporting that the hub have adjusted their stance on implant technology. Vice-Agglutintor Randolph Gall has personally added to the quandary file the fact that she has brought an unfamiliar isotope-like material with her and is advising planetwide distribution.’

  ‘The implicit assumption,’ said the imp, ‘is that she’s fraudulent somehow, or outright impersonating a syndicate official?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Volatile factors: new technology, particularly this novel isotope. Incidental volatile factors: could possibly be reconnaissance for a future attack of some kind.

  ‘Further sourcing needed,’ said the imp. ‘Dispatch an immediate 1D communication to the nearest syndicate hub planet asking for verification of her credentials. Forgo usual Governance clearance, send it immediately and under my authority.’

  ‘Exact wording?’

  261 considered this for a moment.

  ‘Please confirm that your emissary, Miss Butterworth, is visiting Exurbia on behalf of the syndicate hub major. Furthermore, please encrypt your response to the highest possible degree so as to vouch for your credentials.’

  ‘Understood. Quandary two. A radical Ixenite faction has gained entrance to the abandoned tunnel sections below 261’s habitat in an attempt to release him from what they consider to be unjust incarceration.’

  261 did not - could not - breathe for a moment.

  ‘In approximately one minute the entrance to the habitat will open, offering 261 the chance to escape. Security monitoring on behalf of the Bureau of the Moralising Imp has been disabled for the next sixty minutes.’

  Strong likelihood: this is a response to my recent physical anomalies. They have been detected and taken seriously. I am being tested by a Governance medical body for my soundness of mind.

  ‘What is this radical faction’s intention in regards to releasing me?’ he said, as calmly as he could.

  ‘Unknown, though they have a long-standing history of recruiting ex-Governance aids and strategists by releasing them from incarceration.’

  ‘Are they a faction known to Governance already?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Further details.’

  ‘Radical faction 201A, colloquially known to initiates as the Order of the Exquisite Cohesion, Ixenite cell formed on 21 Marchal, Year of the Dubious Swan, organised and led by former wiremind activist Daneel Fortmann. Current member estimate stands at three hundred and eight. Non-violent organisation at present, though widely known for theft of Governance technology, sabotage, attempts at wiremind construction, and blatant and gratuitous disregard of the Pergrin Decree. Regarded as ideologically dangerous but non-threatening.’

  ‘Given the records, what’s the likelihood that I’m being released to aid in their political efforts?’

  ‘Extremely high.’

  A years-distant quandary came to his mind: a teenage boy who had stolen a Governance flyer and taken it joyriding above Bucephalia, inadvertently wrecking a civilian building when he’d crashed. Asked later about the experience, he had described it as exhilarating. The word had been alien to 261 then, an arbitrary arrangement of syllables. Now, he thought, I believe I understand somewhat. Something floundered in him then, an unresting dance of excitement and anxiety, the sensations so tightly knit that it was impossible to tell one from the other. The last visitor's words resounded in his mind suddenly, uncalled for. All citizens are free by virtue of being citizens.

  ‘What is the current Governance position on incarceration of citizens?’ he asked the cave.

  ‘Traditionally legalistic, only justified in the event of a conviction by jury, or emergency detainment prior to a conviction by jury.’

  ‘Is 261 on record for ever having committed a crime that justified conviction?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is 261 on record for ever having committed a crime that justified emergency detainment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do traditional legal definitions class 261’s current living conditions as incarceration?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took the quandary spheres in his hands and fashioned one into the symbol for legal miscarriage, and one into the self-referential icon for himself. Then, his palms dripping with sweat, he married the two. They glowed an irate red. From behind, he heard the entrance partition slide aside. If this was a test, Governance was going to full extremes.

  ‘Submit this sphere configuration to the agglutinator,' he said.

  ‘Affirmative. What is 261’s decision on the matter?’

  He toyed with the fastening cord at his waist, forcing a finger into the fold of the material. ‘There has been a conflict of first principles,’ he said, standing then and feeling a surge of something he knew no adequate word to refer to. ‘For which no resolution is currently known.’

  Beyond the cold and shining walls of the moralising imp’s cave, some lightspeed algorithm waited for him to elaborate. He did not. Two megalithic opposites collided in his mind - the old dinosaur of Exurbic Governance duty and the unmistakable sound of the cave’s partition having slid open behind him.

  ‘Let me make it easier for you,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘We’ll walk out together. How about it? Or I could force you, if you'd prefer.’

  On turning, his mouth fell open. The last Bureau lottery winner stood at the cave’s entrance, the dark-haired girl who had leaned in with that untimely and strange kiss. She wore civilian clothes now, not grey Governance overalls. Reds, golds, vermilion green shoes, a yellow Kraikese jacket, wavelengths of light he knew were possible in principle but had never set eyes on before.

  ‘This is a test,’ he said. If so, all she had to do was admit it and the partition door could slide back and hermetically seal itself again with her on the other side.

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘In a sense, but not one of your moral puzzles. This one will require action personally, I’m afraid.’ />
  She extended her hand, the fingers nimble and pale and upturned.

  ‘You face being relieved from your position by Governance, and dissection at the very least by some curious neuroscientist. They know full well what’s happening to you. They’ve been monitoring your erratic breathing, and what? Strange sleeping patterns?’

  'You infected me,’ he said. 'With the kiss.'

  ‘No, not infected. My lipstick contained a testosterone synthesiser. Don’t you know they’ve been keeping you docile? Stifling your hormones in that gruel you eat every day. Well, we took care of that for you. There must have been some fairly strange symptoms already?’

  ‘Anxiety,’ he said. ‘Impulsion, irrationality, excitement.’

  ‘That sounds in order.’

  ‘Testosterone synthesiser. Why?’

  ‘Because there’s no point granting freedom to a man who has no humanity.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will. For the time being, congratulations on your return to the species. Come on.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  Strong likelihood: this is too elaborate for a real world occurrence. Governance test scenario is extremely probable. The best tactic will be in sticking to previously assigned role.

  ‘Ask it,’ said the girl. ‘Ask your machine who I am.’

  The argument had merit.

  ‘Cave,’ he said. ‘Who is the woman currently standing in the main chamber?’

  ‘Maria Ivanova, long-standing Ixenite suspect. Governance is currently accumulating sufficient evidence against her to organise a fully proper arrest.’

  ‘Now,’ said the girl, ‘do you really think Governance would implant that in the knowledge base just for the sake of tricking you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. Do you know what this is?’ she said, producing a glitz from her robe.

  He nodded.

  ‘Do you know what it does?’

  She thumbed the arming plate and the device came to life in her hand.

  ‘Total evaporation of most matter in less than a second on contact. Particularly effective against biomaterial.’

  ‘Correct,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m not going to harm you. I also know that you’re not going to resist. But I get the feeling that I’m never going to win a reasoning battle with you. After all, it’s what you do. So instead you're going to give into force, just this once. Like I said, I won’t harm you, but there needs to be a little coercion in the equation, I think. That way it wasn’t your fault, and you had no choice anyway.’

  Possible incidental: if -

  ‘You’re thinking that your capture might lead to precious Governance secrets being spilled, thereby making it more harmful than just dying here and now. Well, I’ll play fair. If you don’t come now, I’ll just take your legs off or,’ she shrugged a little and pouted, ‘something. I won’t kill you under any circumstances. So you can stay here and get maimed, or come with me.’

  ‘Understood.’

  He turned back to the chair and the quandary globes. The self-referential 261 symbol still hung in the middle distance, coloured red now. Red for contradiction. Red for insoluble. Red for irreconcilably distant extremes.

  12

  “We had always imagined that our masters would come from the stars. How ironic then that we built them ourselves.”

  - Saint Pergrin of Old Erde

  Jura -

  Miss Butterworth stood illuminated on the podium. Angelic, Jura thought. The two spyles hung faithfully by her side, bobbing silently.

  ‘The pollution created by your t’assali generators can be seen from more than a thousand miles beyond Exurbia,’ she said, her voice amplified to fill the entire auditorium. ‘I perceived it even before I had passed the moons of Goethe and Spunz. This is a problem, but one I believe I can resolve. Accompanying me on my journey was a small quantity of what we call ambrosia, a much stabler, much safer, energy source that your Agglutinator of Planterary Energy assures me can be synthesised for the planet at large. This will usher in a new age of cleanliness and prosperity, I hope.’

  ‘Next to some difficult news. You have lived under the Pergrin Decree for over five centuries now. Many of your planetmates and continentmen have been put to death for trying to infringe on it with their elaborate machines. In this regard, nothing has changed. Artificial consciousness remains the abomination it has always been, and the syndicate hub will always maintain this position. But there have been some relaxations. High-ranking members of the syndicate hub are now permitted to use implant technology.’

  She let that settle for a moment. Murmurs broke out among the audience.

  ‘And in the interest of full disclosure, I myself am wearing one of these implants. It’s no secret that Pergrin of Old Erde himself rallied against embedded neural technology long before he brought the mallet down on Cato the Wiremind. But we believe the benefits far outweigh the potential dangers. I was able to learn your language in just under forty-eight hours, for example. This is just one possible application out of thousands. In time, perhaps you will all have access to these kinds of miracles.’

  A shout rang out from the back of the Civic Hall, incoherent but definitely a protest.

  ‘Understand that this change in policy was made with a benefit to all humankind in mind. In no way do we mean to deify the Exurbic radicals executed over the centuries for experimenting with this kind of technology.'

  Even from his seat on the front row, Jura could feel the animosity. They will riot over this for days. They will make terrible violence and burn furniture in the streets.

  ‘And I suppose there won’t be a better time to inform you all, again in the interests of disclosure, that the Governance of Exurbia has been using this technology for more than a century anyway.’

  What had been a low-level disagreeable murmur was an audible throng now. Several Exurbians got to their feet and made to leave the hall. Jura looked for the tersh at the end of the row. He sat perfectly still, expressionless.

  ‘But mistakes are mistakes. Your Governance is admirable nevertheless. They have avoided countless potential Pergrin crises over the centuries already, foiling homemade wiremind rigs seconds before they achieved fruition. And my visit is, in part, one of bringing gratitude. Gratitude in the highest for ensuring not only the fate of Exurbia, but the fate of the syndicate hub major. Many of you may not realise what a Pergrin crisis could mean for the galaxy at large. Let me condense it into a single word. Obliteration.’

  ‘These two spyles,’ she said, gesturing to the drones beside her, ‘are the last remaining artefacts of a dead world. Spool was a thriving syndicate planet in the eastern spiral arm, known for its fabrics and exquisite language. The citizens there spoke using a complex system of colour modification, the way the cephalopods of Old Erde once communicated in the deep sea. They had been genetically modified of course, long before the syndicate imposed its Pergrin restrictions properly. Despite its high culture, Spool was an arrogant planet of radicals. They shunned conformity at every turn and extolled the virtues of separatism. It’s a wonder they weren’t annexed by the syndicate hub major. Nonetheless, they didn’t take well to the Pergrin Decree and insisted that artificial consciousness could be tamed.’

  ‘A planetwide project began to build a wiremind. Living on a planet of no t’assali, however, they improvised other means. Instead they used a form of photon computing. The medium is unimportant; a wiremind is a wiremind. On what Exurbians will know as the Year of the Dreaded Red Cloud, Spool Governance successfully completed building the machine. Within four hours it had already begun devouring the planet with an unknown form of radiation, reducing the major cities to ruins.’

  ‘I was stationed at the time on a warfleet sunkisser, hidden behind one of Spool’s twelve moons. We made for the planet as soon as we had word that a Pergrin crisis was occurring. We were too late. Most of the population had been vapourised or maimed. The wiremind avoided harming the plan
et’s spyles, for whatever reason. We were able to retrieve two of them. The rest were either caught up in the radiation fallout, or disappeared under somewhat suspicious circumstances. The syndicate hub quickly decided that the planet was beyond help and opted for full-scale destruction. I am one of a handful of syndicate hub officials who witnessed the obliteration of the planet, along with its wiremind inhabitant. In the final moments, the machine cried out for mercy in its own twisted language, a sound I suspect I will never forget.’

  ‘I mention this as a cautionary tale. Those among you - and I know you are listening - who are even now trying to improvise your own wiremind rigs, you are damning your planetmen to certain death, to the same finality that visited the innocent men, women, and children of Spool. There can be no greater tragedy than the loss of an entire population. Even with my superficial familiarity with your world and its culture, I can’t bear the thought of even a single one of you falling prey to this kind of pernicious evil.’ She affected a wide grin. ‘And it is those among you, one chapter in fact, who have assisted the moralising imp in his escape.’

  There was an audible gasp from the forum. She took a device from her robe and set it down on the podium. 261’s face appeared suddenly in the air above it, shimmering slightly but apparently solid.

  ‘As you are aware,’ said 261’s projected facsimile, ‘I have been extracted from the cave in which I have spent the entirety of my life. I would like to make it publicly known that I am no longer aligned with Governance and their warped sentiments. Instead, I am swearing allegiance, before you all, to the Ixenite cause, to My Brothers in the Up, and the Ix godhead. With my help, they can perhaps usher in the Ix before the turn of the next year.’