A large anthology of sci.., p.980
A Large Anthology of Science Fiction, page 980
THE ALGEBRA OF EVENTS
Elizabeth Bourne
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The alarms vibrated while I was in the comfort room sharing essence with M’m’shamir. We immediately untethered so I could couple into my duty station. The unthinkable had occurred. In the myriad calculations of probable choices guiding us to colony Whole/Three/Green the sym encountered the chance of failure and slotted it.
Everyone knows that failure is a possibility, just as everyone knows that antawa are accident-prone, and yet the antawas’ ease of use has made them ubiquitous. The risk is worth the convenience. Statistically it is so unlikely as to be nearly impossible for a probability engine to miscalculate. And yet, what is failure but one chance among many, driven by viable choices? The mathematics are beyond me, but I smell that it is so.
Panic tinged the conversation spray in the room containing the probability fields. The sym had been cut from the calculating engine and isolated. There was no question of reconnecting it. The calculation had damaged it beyond repair, and besides, the isolation had been done so quickly the sym’s delicate tissues were discolored with multiple hematomas. I’m no jampiri so I can’t say for sure, but it didn’t smell to me like the sym would survive. All we could hope for now was that the mechanicals worked and that perhaps, the sym had calculated the chance of finding a survivable planet in reachable distance.
I will make these notations as long as I can.
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Holy be the Primes, there is a planetary body within reach. The silq’uy has ordered us into freeze for the duration. It is better than remaining aware, and yet I emit fear, as do all who experienced the probability fail. This is not a planet we would pick for a colony. It is too variable, too extreme with sections of hot and cold, dry and wet. There are too many orbiting bodies. The local star is the wrong color. And the smells will be strange. We will need adaptive devices if we are to make any sense of this planet.
But the atmosphere is breathable, and as long as the bacteria farms remain in good health we should be able to survive, at least for a time. My first task on landing will be to take some of our native bacteria and begin breeding it for resistance and adaptation with whatever the alien equivalent is. Though now, I suppose we are the aliens. That is a very odd thought to smell.
M’m’shamir exudes terror, and asks if lehr could stay in my location. My friends would say this is what comes of sharing with passengers, but M’m’shamir smells enticing in a way no being has for many rota. Even though there is no time for sharing, my vestigial gill nodes flutter when M’m’shamir is close. I welcomed lehr to take comfort in my space, though we will have to part at the freeze. Colonist passengers are maintained in separate pod banks.
The silq’uy agrees a record is important, and has added making notations to my official function. My odor is increased with this honor, though a part of me now worries my emissions will be inadequate. The walls are pulsing. It is time for us to become solid. The ships mathematician will lead us in a conjugation of the perfect irrational to relax us into the proper state for freeze. I almost look forward to it.
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The mechanicals failed to adequately correct for this world’s gravitational pull and our landing went badly. I will never scent M’mshamir again. We lost 30.783% of our colonists as the ship crashed, 10.56% of our crew. The probability engine cracked and raw probability calculations are even now seeping into this world.
Could it be any worse?
27.245% of my being has gone solid with grief, and there are others even more solid. The colonists are useless, seized up as they are in fear. Even the silq’uy is 12.794% solid, a sign that our situation is dire.
But lehr is urging us to fluid activity for the good of the survivors and we are all moving as best we can to repair what has been broken. The bacteria farms, holy be the Primes, are functioning well, and I have suited up already to collect native samples for use. We haven’t yet developed appropriate adaptives for this world, so all I can say is that it smells chaotic and feculent. There is no sense to be found in it, but then I am no translator.
A small group of natives approached—solids! At least on the exterior. The interior was comfortingly liquid, which the ships jampiri claims proves the theory that intelligent life can only exist in a fluid state. After dissecting one of the creatures lehr said that the gelatinous matter in its hard top shell was remarkably similar to our syms. It might, with work, be possible to create a sym replacement. This is good news.
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It has now been forty-eight rota since The Event, and we are exhausted. Much of what we have learned has been shocking. We cannot share information with the natives. We captured some of the solids for testing. They use a vibratory system, and while we can feel the patter of their vibrations on our membranes, it is beyond our translators’ abilities to understand. The native beings do not comprehend our odor-based communication, indeed it appears to cause a strong physical reaction. I myself have witnessed them falling, flailing their extremities, as they expel chaotic smelling liquids from their openings when we scent to them.
Also, this world is hostile to our embodiment and we must wear protective gear outside the ship. That alone would prevent us from feeling vibrations, so is there even a point in learning it? With regret the conclusion has been that this world may be survivable, but we can not stay here.
Against the silq’uy’s orders, our jampiri budded, using a combination of sym and native material as starter. My understanding of how he did this is imperfect, but he successfully implanted buds within the top hard parts of the natives we had in stasis. Miraculously, the buds rooted and his team is monitoring these creatures to see if they survive.
Research into the compatibility between native tissue and sym tissue has been successful. It should be possible to create a sym from the matter contained within the round top parts, but so far native matter will not thrive outside of its container. Even with the best nutrients, even spliced with matter from its native shell, it is not enough to keep this tissue alive long enough to bud. The jampiri s team is still working on it, but this is disappointing.
There is some good news. The bacteria farms have adapted to the native bacteria (thank the Primes there are constants in the universe), and we are able to replenish ourselves with this new mix. Now we have some resistance to the effects of this hostile world.
I know this is an official notation, but it eases me to emit how much I miss M’m’shamir. What started out as a mere temporary sharing now has the overwhelming scent of memory. The two of us might some day have exchanged reproductive material, had there been time. Perhaps there might have been a new embodiment for us to nurture together. I am 7.8% solid with grief. My shipmates are kind not to mention it.
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The alarms vibrated mid rota. Solids were attacking the ship. Do they learn nothing? Again, the ones close enough were iced, then brought inside for study. Again, the ones beyond the ships reach ran from us. After three rota had passed a new solid approached with its extremities outstretched in the way a young embodiment might extend its pseudo pods in play. It made vibrations at us that the translators are sure are attempts to disseminate information.
Doesn’t the act of wanting to communicate indicate intelligence? Perhaps this was the deeply remote possibility that enticed our sym—that such creatures exist—and it could not resist. I comfort myself by tasting the numbers at the edges of this thought.
Our jampiri argued for a trial of one of the made things, communicators he calls them so as not to offend the translators that accepted his bud. There are seven in total. Twice that number failed. Silq’uy agreed. We watched anxiously on gels as our communicator walked stiffly toward the solid. When the solid sensed our communicator liquid ran from its organs of vision. It made very strong vibrations, then fell slapping at the ground. Then a thing we did not understand happened.
The solid pulled a weapon it had hidden beneath its decorative protective membranes and plunged it into our communicators front. The communicator s physical functions have been replaced by hybrids of the jampiri’s workings so it merely blinked. Then the solid sawed at the connecting tissue between the communicator s lower parts and the round hard part on top. (A few of the jampiris team hold this part, connected by so thin a stalk, is a bud. I do not believe this is true. We do not understand how these solids function.) When the native solid sawed the round thing off, our communicator fell. All the while the solid made tremendous vibrations while liquid, salt water the analysis said, ran down its membrane.
Not everyone agrees but I believe the native solid experienced emotion—that it felt the same kinds of feelings I felt when M’mshamir was no more. Except a solid cannot turn solid with grief, so perhaps they turn liquid and that was the meaning of the salt water. I do not know if I am right, but it smells like a constant prime to me. I remain 2.46% solid. I do not think I will ever become 100% fluid again.
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It is now 248 rota since The Event, and 171 rota since the first communicator was field tested. I am very tired. My membrane is thin, and the bacteria farms are no longer adequate to maintain my optimal health. The jampiri advised me to bud several rota ago. Now my own buds are mature enough to take over my assignments, just as the jampiri s buds did 57 rota ago. We do not live as long as we should on this world, but we hope to produce generations of buds, and perhaps someday we will also merge reproductive material again (once tests confirm the local radiation and magnetic fields are harmless). Silq’uy 1-3 (at the jampiri s urging, the silq’uy budded earlier than any of us) says that this will be so. We will remember home. We will return some day.
I hope that is true.
Much has been learned. After many communicators were disassembled, and many more solids taken for testing, we have begun to understand each other. This species has no organ for smell, or at least not one that functions in a meaningful capacity. While no longer surprising, it remains shocking.
Jampiri 1-7 and jampiri 1-2 deduced that the solids communicate through vibrations that are registered and interpreted by a series of small sticks and membranes they call an “ear.” Really, the ear is so tiny compared to their mass it is amazing they can communicate at all.
The top round part was never a bud, but is called a “head,” and the viscous interior a “brain.” They are covered by a membrane called “skin” and additional, removable membranes called “clothes.” Their powers of movement are determined by tissues called “muscle” that levers long, calcinated sticks called “bones.” Instead of flowing, they move like machines with levers and gears and sockets. They are marvelous and repellant.
Silq’uy 1-3 has made an agreement with the solid that controls this clutch. This being has the designation Valmarka. Brain matter from this species will not splice with the sym, at least not once the head is removed. But there is compatibility. Valmarka confirmed this by communicating that soon after we crashed, colors invaded their territory. This confused and frightened them. They believe we are gods. Our sym team deduced that they experience the probability field through their highly developed organs of sight. Called eyes, I think. So many parts to remember.
We must splice sym genes with the living beings. An experiment was conducted on Valmarka, which changed lehr’s reproductive material. Beginning with lehr’s offspring, through careful breeding and an occasional boost of sym genetics, we can create a new sym. It will take time. I will not live to experience that day.
Silq’uy 1-3 has granted my request.
I will take the orb that has maintained what is left of M’m’shamir, mere scraps without enough intelligence to bud. I will ingest lehr. Then we will go outside and dissolve to become part of this strange, solid place. Our genetic material will merge with the small creatures I have always loved: bacteria, molds, yeasts, and so in some little way we will help alter this world. I am glad. Holy be the Primes.
EIGHT SCIENCE-FICTION STORIES
Paul Simms
“IS THE MOON GETTING bigger and bigger?” my three-year-old asked, surveying the horizon.
“No, honey,” I chuckled. “That’s an optical illusion caused by how close it is to the horizon.”
But then I turned and looked.
“PLEASE,” THE ROBOT BEGGED.
“Please kill me.” The robot began to weep.
“Please kill me,” it pleaded. “And use my parts to make yourself a proper reading lamp. It just tears me up inside to see you trying to read by the insufficient light of that dim lamp next to the toilet.”
I tried to ignore its pleas, but in my heart I knew it was right.
“WHY DON’T YOU come up and see me sometime?” the holographic re-creation of Mae West said, as she uncrossed her legs and flashed us her bare beaver.
My mother looked away, troubled. “Is this really the proper use of the technology?” she said.
“Come on, lady—nobody would have loved this more than Mae herself,” the hologram of Mahatma Gandhi said. “And don’t forget: the Bacon Club Chalupa is at Taco Bell for a limited time only.”
“FOR FIVE HUNDRED credits, I’ll tell you his whereabouts,” the bounty hunter hissed. “For a thousand credits, I’ll kill him myself.”
The offer hung in the air, and Kurdt LaRock pondered it, savoring the possibilities. When he finally spoke, both men knew that the decision had already been made.
“A thousand credits, huh?” LaRock drawled. “How much is that in dollars?”
The bounty hunter took out his calculator, and they got down to business.
THE GENE-SPLICERS had tinkered with the DNA, producing a race of warriors who craved just two things: the thrill of battle and the taste of their own feet. They hungered for battle. They literally ate their own feet. None survived to reproduce, and within a few short years they were all gone.
The Gene-Splicers chalked it up to experience, and decided to try harder the next time.
The president whammed his fist on the table. The Cabinet Room went silent.
“This isn’t some goddam B movie, gentlemen,” he said. “This is real life.”
The scientist looked at the floor.
“We have the smartest minds in the world working on this,” the President continued. “The top biologists and astronomers and geneticists. And you’re telling me that the closest anyone can come to identifying this . . . thing is . . .”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. President,” the scientist said. “What we’re dealing with here is the Flying Penis from Venus.”
The Treasury Secretary giggled, and the chief of staff did his best to not join in. But a look from the President silenced them.
“This . . . thing,” the President said. “This creature, this—”
“Flying Penis from Venus,” the scientist said.
The President burst out laughing, and the rest of the room joined him, relieved to release their pent-up mirth.
“I suppose it is kind of funny,” the President said, “in that it’s so improbable. But come on, guys—it’s already killed forty thousand people, so we really have to focus here.”
THE GALACTIC FEDERATION had rejected the Treaty of Agreement. The Outliers had withdrawn their negotiating squadron, despite the best efforts of the Trade Council. And in the Unoccupied Sector a call arose for punishing tariffs on intersystem trade.
Engineer Wilson didn’t know what any of this meant, but he knew that it probably wasn’t good. After two more commercial breaks, the news ticker began to repeat itself, so he turned off his TV and went back to sleep.
HE’D HAD A REAL NAME at one time, but even he’d forgotten it. On the Net, he was known as Captain Fantastic, the Brown Dirt Cowboy—or CFTBDC69, in Net-handle speak.
He plugged the jack into the shiny port in the back of his neck and pressed Enter.
Twenty-six hundred baud of digital packetry surged through his system, and once the nausea—and the euphoria—wore off, he came to and ordered three polo shirts from jcrew.com without even touching his keyboard.
“If this is the future,” he said to himself, “me likey.”
LOOKING FOR GORDO
Robert J. Sawyer
“Order in the court! All rise!” Emily Chiu and the two hundred other people in the wood-paneled room got to their feet. She was a witness, but most of the others had donated five thousand dollars apiece for their seats. Countless millions were also watching the streaming coverage online.
Richard Weisman—portly, with thundercloud-gray hair—entered through a side doorway and strode to the bench. Although the opposing counsels on this Saturday afternoon weren’t actual lawyers—one was an astronomer; the other, a historian—Weisman was a real judge, donating his time, just as the city had donated the use of the courtroom.
The US and California flags that normally stood behind the bench were in their usual places. Emily had pointed out to the reporter sitting next to her that the California one, depicting a big bear, was particularly apt, since today’s proceedings revolved around 47 Ursae Majoris, but she didn’t think the guy got the joke.
Even more appropriate, though, was the third flag that had been added to the right of the other two. Since it was hanging limply, the people present couldn’t make out what it depicted, but Emily had seen the same design flapping in the breeze out front of the Interstellar Communications Society headquarters. Until her first visit there, two years ago now, she’d had no idea there was such a thing as an official flag of Earth, but this was indeed it. In the center was a blue circle, representing the home planet; in back of it, dominating the left side, was a portion of a much larger yellow circle, representing the sun. A smaller white circle to the right stood for the moon.
As Judge Weisman sat down, everyone in the courtroom did the same. “All right,” he said. “We heard opening arguments before lunch. Now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Dr. Plaxton, you may call your first witness.”
