A Million Days from Home



Aboard the data freighter Imhotep, preparing to ship out from Earth orbit, crew: 2


She was sitting at a console, checking the cargo inventory for new horror, when he came in with a heavy bag and sat down next to her. At first neither spoke as the world turned beneath them. Then

"I saw Héloise down there."

She looked up suddenly, "But she must be -"

"Dead? Yes, she is, maybe, in some ways, but", he paused and then met her eyes, "less than last time, when she was still alive."

When he didn't go on she took his hand and said, "Nothing makes sense any more, but I've no idea what you're saying."

He gathered his thoughts and began, "Last time, two years ago for us, fifteen hundred for her, she was so old. Hell, she had to pull the records to remember me." He squeezed her hand and quickly wiped his eyes with the other, "The years we had together when we were kids, buried and lost under too many memories for her but still fresh hurting for me. But she was too old, no hope of lasting until I came back again, so we said our goodbyes all over again. I thought that was it."

He got up, fetched some water, sat again, and went on, "But she's been uploaded into the computers, memories dredged up, edited, cleaned, tidied. Now she spends lifetimes in the virtual reality, deletes memories and starts again, over and over. But they found our ten years." He looked up smiling, "And she kept them, so she's my Héloise again. Except she's not of course, she's a software construction, animating a robot body, a damn ghost in the machine. Or maybe it's really her consciousness in there, I don't even know how to tell the difference, or what the difference could mean."

She had no words to offer, so only said "I'm glad I didn't go down there this time. Even talking to them remotely, it's as if they're aliens, so old, so full of extraordinary experiences - I'm not sure they're human any more."

He nodded, "Héloise is still on the Crone Council, but she lives as a dragon in the fantasy world these days", he grimaced, "That doesn't even sound weird to me now, and I think it should. She tried to tell me how grandly satisfying it is to bask for weeks on an island in the lava flows, letting the sun warm your hide while you gently puff smoke over your jewelled eggs." He shook his head, "And yet, in her old human form, when she raises an eyebrow and talks of things we did three millennia ago as if it was yesterday, it feels so like she's still my Héloise. I don't know what she really is now."

She said, "Their virtual reality is expanding all the time, they've even demolished the rocky moons and asteroids to build more computer centres in close Solar orbit, and Mars is being evacuated for detonation soon - they say planets are an inefficient way to turn energy into consciousness." She paused, feeling such change as violence to her universe, then recalled another blow, "You know they're having children in there now? There's one in the cargo manifest: Sibyl, child of the entire Crone Council - three hundred parents contributing something to her - no genome, never had a physical body, has full human rights and is considered so wise that we're carrying copies of her as advisors to every colony next trip. My God."

He gestured at the console, asked "Anything too dangerous this time?"

She glanced in turn at the D-Gun on the wall, reminder of what they had done and must never do again, said "Not that I can spot, but I worry whether we can even tell what's dangerous when everything is crazy. We missed that thing."

He looked at the D-Gun too, replied "But we weren't looking last time, didn't guess what the Council was capable of doing to preserve their peace and stability"

They were silent for a while, unwilling even to tell each other the latest reports they'd seen on the effects of the D-Gun on Earth and the colonies. It was an appalling weapon, a Disappearer which could be easily constructed by anyone, and for which there was no defence - the target simply disappeared. But the Crone Council's view was so long that they feared attack from the colonies, even centuries in the future, and had decided to neutralise them by using the disappearer in the most ruthless way - they gave it to all their potential enemies.

It couldn't be controlled, toddlers accidentally wiped out their families, disaffected teenagers eliminated whole cities, it was impossible for societies with any hint of violence in them to survive with such a genie, or to put it back in the bottle. So they reacted by confining their young to maturation chambers until they were responsible adults, by executing the insane, the criminal, the disruptive, the non-conforming - everyone not absolutely solidly in favour of peace and stability.

And the Imhotep was the plague carrier which spread the D-Gun to all the colonies, tucked quietly into its cargo of centuries of new knowledge and advances which Earth was kindly bestowing on its half-forgotten children among the stars.

She broke the silence by looking back at his bag, "What's in there?"

He opened it and took out a jagged stone, patterned with the lines and colours of metamorphic rock. "Héloise gave it to me, a present for one of the colonies, she didn't care which."

"It's not in the inventory - the Council could be using her to get something past us?" She picked up the rock, examined it, said "What is it anyway?"

"She said it's the most important thing Earth has to offer the colonies, but I couldn't understand her explanation of why. It seemed to be something about art and history, but expressed in a semantic lambda calculus - that may have been the dragon talking."

"OK, let's get a full analysis." She took the rock to the console and fed it to the computer's sensor box, then read the results as they appeared. "Er, this says it's just a rock - it's basically just a random chunk of the Earth."

He took it from the computer and held it, saying slowly, "Earth's message to the colonies is just a rock. Is the meaning too subtle, or too obvious, for us to see it?"

Suddenly her eyes widened in shock, "They're demolishing Mars to make more data centres - Héloise guesses, or knows, that they'll do the same to Earth!" She ground out the words again, "Planets are an inefficient way to turn energy into consciousness."

"So she saved us a rock? When we come back here again the Earth will be gone, that rock will be the last of it. The last of our lives there."

"And we the last real humans as the dragons settle in for an eternity of virtual peace and stability."

He nodded, "The rock is a warning, it's too late for Earth to pull back, but the colonies may be able to hold on to reality." He paused, decided, said "Let's dump the cargo data, all of it, and take just the rock."

She nodded, "That's all they have to offer now."

He whispered, "We won't be back, goodbye Héloise."
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