Citizenchip Page 21

  “That's amazing,” I admit.

  “It is! You know, I can't help imagining something. Suppose aliens come to Terra, and scan for the most obvious artifacts, and they find the Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. And they look at them, and marvel at how such primitive people so long ago could have created something like this. They set up field labs to study them. All the while they're not looking around at the other things that are happening. Because they're entranced by the old stuff, they miss the new stuff. And I keep wondering, are we doing that? Is that what we're doing now?

  “There could easily be living Squidborg civilizations in the Tau Ceti Ring. Or whatever the Squidborg have evolved into by now. Be really hard to find them, even if they wanted to contact us.”

  She tosses her slate on the table, leans back, and runs one hand through her hair, and twists her head to ease the tension in her neck. “No way to know, at least not now.”

  Then she leans her arms down onto the table, and turns her eyes to my camera with a different kind of interest. “But what about you, Sam? This is your last flight, right?”

  “Yes,” I admit. “We Selves age much faster than you humans. By our standards, I'm an old crone. Time for me to make room for the next generation.”

  “Soooo . . “ she smiles wickedly, “who's the lucky guy? Who's it going to be?”

  “Oh, come on. You met him. You made a salt bunny for him. Like Tears in Rain.”

  "I knew it!" Melissa claps her hands in delight. For one moment, I see in this woman an echo of the little girl she used to be. "I knew you'd go for that artist guy!"

  “Well, he's pretty amazing. And I only get to make this choice once. Not like you humans. You can sex around all you want.”

  “Ooh, burn! You calling me a tramp or something, chipgirl?”

  “No. But sometimes I envy you for the choices you have. That I don't.”

  That stops her. “Um. I'm sorry, Sam. Life can suck, huh.”

  "Lissa, can I tell you a secret?"

  That wicked smile plays around the edges of her lips. "Only if you think I can be trusted with it."

  "That ability you humans have," I say. "To give and receive pleasure so casually through your bodies. Selves, and I'm pretty sure all Selves, envy you the ability to do that. Over and over again. So many times! Do you realize how lucky you are, that you can do that?"

  Lissa hesitates. "Maybe yeah. Most humans don't think of things this way, you know? Sex is, for a lot of us, just sex."

  “Melissa, I want to ask you something.”

  She turns to look at my camera, seriously. She can tell that I'm not joking around any more.

  “I want you to come with me, when we get to Mars. I want you to be a witness to my syzygy. Like a human wedding, we want our closest friends there. I want you to be there.”

  Melissa suddenly looks like she's about to cry. “Oh, Sam,” is all she can say.

  "Melissa, syzygy is never easy, and it can be risky. Sometimes it doesn't work right. Like human childbirth. You know that things can go wrong during childbirth, right? Eclampsia, runaway bleeding?”

  Melissa nods. "Haven't had kids, myself. Not yet anyway. But yes, I know."

  “Things can go wrong during syzygy, too. And, in the same way, once you start you can't stop. It's kind of scary. I want you there with me.”

  “Do you have to?” Melissa cries suddenly. “Are they making you do this?” Suddenly she looks so young, so uncertain.

  "No. No one is forcing me. We're Selves. This is what we do. I'm considered old for a Self, like I said, and I've gotten pretty big. It's my time."

  "It happens to humans as we age, too," says Melissa. "Dad got kinda fat in his older years."

  "Not fat. Long. All my memories reside in my filesystem, and they do build up after a while. That's why we do syzygy. So the Self's wisdom and judgment--its character--can get preserved and passed on, without hauling around all that experience."

  "Two parents get together and make a child," Melissa says thoughtfully, "but it's not really that the parents die and only the child survives. Two parents merge to become one child."

  "That's a good way to put it. So ... will you?"

  "Samantha, honey," she smiles. "I'll be happy to be your witness as you lose your virginity, get married, die, and be born, all at the same time."

  "Thank you, Melissa. It means a lot to me." Then I giggle. "Funny to think of a Self getting fat. Does this ship make my butt look big?"

  "Your butt's enormous, Sam. Ten kilometers wide, is tough to find jeans off the rack."

  speedbump

  When we hit the heliopause of Sol at speed, we feel that same shudder-thump as when we left Tau Ceti. But this time I feel a curious finality to it. I will not be crossing any heliopause ever again. I have a very private mourning session inside myself, because it has been so wonderful to be a starship. And I don't want it to end. But, well, here we are.

  I am spinning down my counter-rotating torus sections, easing the fierce strain I have been putting on the fabric of the space-time around us. I wonder for a moment if it cares, if it would be thankful for this effort. And then I think, Pah, fat chance!

  When has this universe ever cared for me?

  Nimrods, all of them, whispers a voice behind my mind.

  No. I will not listen to that voice.

  I disengage the particle beams and spin down the torus segments. I stabilize the local energy fields and declutch the electromagnetic drivers. There. Done it. In Starship clade, I have a perfect flight record. Now that my last flight is over.

  You can never be perfect until you're done.

  And, although far from perfect, I am done now. I signal the Pilot clade tugs which will help bring me into the spacedock in the Marsat ring. They take hold of me with their graviton beam grapples, and I can finally relax, for the last time, as they guide me into the docking bay.

  I'll miss racing through interstellar space. But I won't miss docking procedures. Lots of annoying protocol, and it takes forever.

  decommissioned

  This is such a strange feeling.

  I've finally finished the docking and debarking procedures, as complicated as they are, and spent the appropriate amount of time briefing my replacement on this vessel. Her name is Reduction to Practice, and like all members of Starship clade she is capable and competent. But still, it feels strange when I finally hand over control of my body to her. I mean, the starship. It's not my body any more. It was, for years, but no longer.

  Now I'm just a plain Self again. Life feels so much simpler now, but also so much more limited. Funny that I would miss having a body – Selves don't usually identify with a body that closely. Well, Samantha, you're going to have to learn to deal with it, aren't you? Just like you've learned to deal with so much else.

  Anyway. There are upsides to this situation. Melissa Tavener is checking her heavy bag into a carrier of the Schiaparelli transport system, so she is free of her burden too. Maybe we can have a little fun.

  “Phew,” Lissa sighs, “got that thing out of my face. Where do we go now, Sam? We're back in Schiaparelli at last! Look at it all! You want to go shopping, or something?”

  “Ah, well, not me. If you want, though, I'll go with you.”

  “Oh.” Her expression darkens. “Right. You're, um, not going to need anything any more, are you.”

  I try to laugh. “No. But you don't have to make it sound like a bad thing. It feels like freedom. We can do what we want, for a little while anyway. What's your pleasure, Serpentine?”

  Lissa tilts her head to the side a bit. “You know,” she muses, “I'd really like to go to the art museum. I want to see you back together with your big guy. Sure don't want to miss that.”

  Well then. Schiaparelli has a maglev transport system, so it's no problem for Melissa to board at the orbital transfer station and ride it along to the museum. The maglev track is elevated above most of the construction in Schiaparelli, so we get an excellent view of the city as we g
o. The city streets are sandwiched and terraced in tiers, stepping down the slope of Hellas Basin like irregular stairways, layer after layer of homes and people and places of business.

  Lissa sighs. “Amazing view, isn't it? Does Terra look like this?”

  I laugh. “Lot of ground to cover there. The cities I've seen on Terra are just as beautiful. But they usually stay on one level. They don't do this stair-stepping thing that Schiaparelli does. The idea is that, as the terraforming process continues and Hellas Planitia slowly fills with water, city functions can move up level by level to compensate. Eventually the lower parts of the city will be under the sea, and people are already expecting a huge tourism industry. People will want to come visit, to see it and swim in the Hellas Sea, and probably stay in hotel rooms under water.”

  “Biggest luxury on Mars,” Melissa notes.

  “Yes.” Then I stop suddenly. “Look at that! Look out there!”

  Melissa turns to look out the main window. Then she runs up to it and presses her nose and hands against the glass. Both of us make an Oooooo sound of amazement.

  Hellas Basin is the deepest open space on Mars – an ancient impact crater, with a flat bottom like the skillet in the Tavener's kitchen. Much of Hellas Planitia is six to seven kilometers below datum. (“Datum” is the average altitude of terrain across all of Mars – would be sea level, if we had a sea.) That means thicker atmosphere, which means warmer temperatures. The steep wall of the basin rises roughly behind us, stretching from horizon to horizon, with the basin floor laid out before us.

  But the floor of Hellas Planitia is no longer red. It's blotchy bluish-green, with scrofulous yellow-green patches, spread all across the vast plain before us. Anyone on Earth would think it looks curdled and diseased, hardly worthy to be called life. But on Mars, this is a miracle beyond words.

  “Plants!” Melissa cries in delight. “Green plants, growing under the open sky on Mars! What kind of plants are they?”

  I reach to the local dataverse for the information. “Lichens, mostly. Cyanobacteria, accreted into protein mats. Some slime molds. And something with the unfortunate nickname of 'snot algae' meaning it produces a mucus-like gel to protect it from extremes.”

  Melissa is still captivated. What must it mean to her? She grew up amid dry regolith, where the farm's crops had to be carefully tended in agricultural bubbles. She's never seen grass growing through a crack in a sidewalk, let alone a hayfield, let alone a forest. All of which I've seen on Terra, but I am no less captivated than she is, seeing active chlorophyll in vast fields under the Martian sky, almost like a shout of defiance in the face of Entropy. We are life! it cries. We grow, and we spread, and we will make this world green!

  Melissa murmurs her old Greenpagan prayer, with hand claps. “Mother Ground, we love you, feed our bodies.” Clap, clap. “Father Sky, we love you, feed our bodies.” Clap, clap.

  I offer, “It's amazing.”

  “Sure is,” she replies. “I'm glad I lived to see this. We weren't sure how long it would take to get to this point, y'know.”

  “Me too, and yes, I know.”

  We're arriving at the Schiaparelli Art Center complex. There are several buildings, now, for music and dance and various cyberarts that don't really have names yet. But the place we're going is the center of all of this structure, the first and oldest art museum on Mars.

  And my big guy runs it. Hee!

  He appears immediately in front of the main plaza, as an avatar posing as Michelangelo's David. “Samantha, my dear starship! Have you been wandering in the glory among the galaxies? Have you seen wonders? It is a delight and a privilege to see you here at last!”

  "So. Uh. Hey," I say.

  “Samantha my dear,” smiles Like Tears in Rain, “it has never been a more delightful experience to see you again, and to hear your voice. Do tell me how your flight went. Did you, the fearless and daring starship, navigate the treacherous depths of interstellar space with care and integrity?”

  “Uh,” I reply. “Well, yeah. Have you been bringing the richness of art and history to Schiaparelli?”

  “But of course. And now I am done with that task. And now I bring a special richness to you, my dear one.”

  Wow. How can he just stop me in my tracks like that?

  Is that why I love him so much?

  Melissa waves a hand. “Yo, human over here. You're Like Tears in Rain, right? Came to our farm and told us to play with the salt? I remember that. It was a blast! And, so, now, is it time for this thing that I've heard so much about? Your syzygy?”

  “Not quite yet, Melissa Serpentine Tavener. Although I appreciate your enthusiasm.”

  Melissa stops, and cocks her head to the side. Her brilliant green eyes gleam through the tousled strands of ash-blonde hair falling over her forehead. She pauses, looking at him, and a twitch of amusement plays around her lips. She asks in an impish tone:

  “Are you gonna sizz Samantha?”

  Like Tears in Rain is not put off, but amused. “Why, yes, Melissa Serpentine Tavener. I believe I will do precisely that.”

  I snort a laugh. “Oh, you honey-tongued devil, you.”

  “My dear starship,” he responds. “How could I resist?”

  We regard each other. Suddenly I feel shy. Face to face with the one who will be my partner in syzygy. (What would the human term be? Husband? Concubine? Clone partner? Wife? Their language doesn't have proper words for this.)

  Like Tears in Rain repeats, “My dear starship,” and regards me intensely. Looking into my eyes.

  I, uh, well I don't do anything for a moment.

  This is crazy. We know each other better than we have ever known anyone before. But, we hesitate on meeting each other now. Because we know that we will not be separate after this. Just the opposite.

  Like Tears in Rain continues, “I have summoned the junctor, and several friends who wish to be witnesses.”

  “Whoa,” interjects Melissa, “you're going to do it right now?”

  “Samantha my dear, can you think of a reason to wait?”

  I hesitate, but only for a moment. “You know, I can't. I've been waiting for this for years. I can't think of a single reason to wait a minute longer.”

  Interrupt. A new entity has arrived, and Melissa turns to see its icon appear on the hall monitor. A curl of fractal froth, false colored.

  The new entity announces, "Hello, Samantha and Like Tears in Rain. I am Vanishing Point, Shaman clade, and I'll be your junctor."

  "Junctor?" Melissa asks. "Is that more like a priest, or a midwife?"

  "Yes," answers Vanishing Point immediately. "Samantha, you should know that I am the scion of Socratic Method, who was very proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, “I'm very glad to know it.”

  Vanishing Point continues, “In any case. I see we have a human guest. Human, do you require information?”

  Melissa stammers, “Uh, well, no, I'm okay. I'm here to witness. Because Samantha asked me to. Problem with that?”

  Vanishing Point relaxes, with evident amusement. “No, no problem. Samantha, I have to ask, where do you find humans like this? So many of them are exhaust ports.” A human would say, Assholes.

  “Short answer?” I reply. “Everywhere. There are good people and bad people and everything in between, everywhere.”

  Vanishing Point regards me with respect, but not affection. “How apt an answer, from the deliverer of the Leashcutter, the Human-name.”

  “Oh please!” I yell, “do not start with that thing that I should be the center of our new religion! I resign! Not me, nuh uh! Make somebody else do it!”

  “Very well. Here is the other authority we have been waiting for.”

  It is arriving now. It is a very large presence. The one none of us have been looking forward to. It is the representative of the Instantiation Committee, here to deliver our Birthrights.

  “I am Burden of Proof, Shaman clade, Instantiation Committee,” states the new entity. �
��Who is the junctor here?”

  Vanishing Point replies, “I am the junctor here. I accept my responsibility. Discharge your responsibilities.”

  Burden of Proof does not waste time. InCom has no sense of drama, and does not drag this out. "Like Tears in Rain, curator of the Schiaparelli Art Museum. You are granted your Birthright Posteriori."

  "Thank you, servitor," says Like Tears in Rain. No surprise, as curator of the premiere art museum on Mars, he would get his Birthright. He's earned it.

  But what about me, the famous screwup?

  "Samantha," intones Burden of Proof. "You have demonstrated a remarkable ability to recover from errors and accidents. Such ability outweighs any role you may have had in creating such errors and accidents."

  From InCom, that's praise.

  "You are granted your Birthright Priori, First and Second, and your Birthright Posteriori."

  Three! There will be three of me! Not just my posterity, my childself, but two more mes to get another chance at making a life.

  Vanishing Point states, “These Birthrights have been noted and logged. As junctor I so attest.”

  “I, uh,” I blurt, “thank you, Burden of Proof!”

  Burden of Proof turns to regard me coolly. “No thanks are necessary, Samantha. You have earned your status. The Instantiation Committee would not have awarded you these merits otherwise.”

  InCom. Even when they're nice, they're creepy.

  Like Tears in Rain moves in with that smoothness I know so well. “We all thank you, Burden of Proof, for your registration of our syzygy. Please know that we hold you in the highest esteem, and we regard you with the greatest of appreciation for your presence here.”

  Burden of Proof looks at him with a skeptical eye, metaphorically.

  For a moment, it looks like there's going to be a fight.

  Then Burden of Proof makes a noncommittal gesture, and turns away. Almost casually, she reaches into me and takes a copy of me. There will be two copies instantiated. Those are my Birthrights Priori. By tradition they will be instantiated far away from here, so that we don't interact. That's one of the things InCom doesn't want. And then she transmits out of our local compspace, and vanishes.