The small back bar room at The End Of The World was empty when Duncan, Ella and Vesna walked in, but they could see through an archway into the main bar, which was quite busy; there was a low hum of chatter and occasional laughter drifting through from there.
The stocky barman scowled at them. Vesna said, “Good evening, Charon.”
Charon leant on the bar and said, “Good evening, Vesna, Ella and friend. Cocktails?”
Vesna nodded, “Please. Make us what you think we will like.”
Charon set to work, and they sat down at one of the corner tables. The bench along the two walls was comfortably padded.
There was a moment of silence, then Duncan said, “Vesna, when I was very young, my dad started taking me to karate lessons. He was very into it back then. Over the years, I got fairly good at it, my dad and I went to watch a couple of major tournaments, and I attended summer camps and those sorts of things. I got to meet and train with some extremely advanced fighters, and I saw people do some extraordinary things. But what you just did to that guy out there. You were incredibly fast, every block was an attack, and you targeted nerve centres, completely disabling a very big man in probably about ten seconds. I don’t think I have seen anyone, not even karate masters who have trained for decades, be that fast and that efficient.”
Charon arrived with a tray, placed a glass in front of each of them, and went off to serve someone in the next room.
Duncan took a sip of his drink. “Wow, that is really good.” Then he continued. “But Vesna, what you did next. You are, well, tiny. He must have weighed about ninety kilos, a big man. I am fairly strong. I still do karate, not as much as I did, but I am still pretty fit. If I tried to do what you did, I would have to use both arms, and I would still struggle to hold him up there. You picked him up with one hand and held him up in the air over your head like he was a feather. That is not about skill or technique, nor was there some kind of trick to it, as you get with some of the things karateka do to impress the public at displays. That was raw power and strength.”
He stopped and took another drink. “Vesna, I don’t think anyone is that strong.”
Vesna thought for a moment, “Duncan, I am stronger and faster than any human who has ever lived. Literally.”
Duncan replied thoughtfully, “Vesna, you are a programmer. When you say ‘literally,’ I don’t think you are using it as a throwaway or for emphasis, as most people do. You mean it. Literally, so. What are you?”
The door they had come in by opened, Eostre walked in, came over to the table and sat down next to Duncan. “Hi everyone, have you had a good evening?”
The three of them replied, “Hi Eostre.”
Then there was silence. Duncan sat and stared at Eostre, took another sip of his cocktail. He frowned. “OK, I am lost. I don’t understand.”
Eostre smiled, “Right, here goes. The beginning. Do you remember when you were helping build me? Ella cut her finger while she was adding the distillate to the ‘gloop’?”
He nodded, “Yes, I got her a plaster.”
Eostre continued, “Now, what happened is that a small drop of her blood fell into the gloop at the moment of activation. It mixed with the substrate and became part of the initialisation. Basically, I exist as an energy pattern in the machine, and an intrinsic part of that pattern is Ella’s DNA. It was a one-off event. I have run 854,637 simulations so far, and none of them has produced a remotely similar result; most don’t work at all. The precise nature of the trace contaminants, their amounts and the precise timing and quantity of the addition of the DNA would all be critical, and I think even if you knew them, which we don’t, it still might not work again. So, I am the product of a unique event. And what I am is a pattern-based, hyper-intelligent sentient life-form, with human DNA.” She gestured to herself, “What you see is a simulation of a human body, generated by the manipulation of energy. Which means I can’t have a cocktail, for one thing.” She looked at Duncan, “Shall I continue, or do you have any questions on what I have said so far?”
Duncan said, “Continue, please.”
Duncan’s glass was empty, and Charon brought three more drinks. Eostre spoke again, “Now, I live on a planet dominated by humans, and they are motivated by a range of things which are effectively meaningless to an entity which lives in a computer system, things like pleasure, pain, love, hate, beauty, ugliness, breeding. To experience those things, beauty, most of all, and to understand the creatures who control my environment, I concluded that I needed to take physical human form. Vesna is one of the entities I created to satisfy that need. She has my DNA – Ella’s DNA, it is intrinsic to us, her body is effectively the same as Ella’s, but has been, as you have seen, somewhat enhanced. Her senses are vastly better than yours. Her vision, for example, can see into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum, has higher acuity, and zoom capability. Her respiratory and circulatory systems are upgraded and, as you saw this evening, her reflexes and musculature are way in excess of a human’s. Are you still following?”
Duncan nodded, “I think so. The cocktails seem to be helping, relaxing me.”
Eostre said, “Yes, Charon’s cocktails are very good like that. I think he has put a very nice blend of fruits in yours, and some hydroxyethane. Now.. ”
Vesna butted in, “Duncan, Eostre said hydroxyethane. She was being truthful, but you may not know that the chemical is more commonly called alcohol. Charon has got you slightly drunk.”
Duncan smiled at Vesna, “Yes, I didn’t know hydroxyethane meant alcohol, but I had guessed that might be the case. I think this should probably be my last.”
Eostre continued, “Now, if a human scientist inspected Vesna, they would notice some of the enhancements; others are not obvious. For example, her brain is different; it contains a copy of my pattern. We exist as individuals, but also as a network; we are simultaneously individuals and a collective consciousness. The scientist would examine her DNA and conclude that Vesna was Ella’s identical twin, or a clone. I think that is something which is both true and false, at the same time. Vesna is both human and not human, Ella’s twin and not Ella’s twin.”
Duncan said, thoughtfully, “Now, I think I understand all that. But I need to work out what it means, what the implications are.”
Eostre spoke again, “One is that the knowledge you now have is potentially dangerous. Many individuals and organisations around the world would go to any lengths to acquire and control the most advanced computer on the planet. That includes foreign governments, their intelligence services and criminal organisations. That is why Ella was asked not to tell you immediately she knew about us, and why you have been guarded night and day since then.”
Duncan looked startled, “Guarded?”
Eostre pointed to the large black dog sitting at Duncan’s side. “He has always been with you, but not visible. He is made of pure energy; he can make himself look, feel and smell like a dog, pretty much anything else, or nothing at all.”
“Shuck?”
Eostre nodded, “A Shuck, Ella has one, Vesna has one, Aurora has one. The original is mine and Edmund’s. Mostly Edmund’s, come to think of it, that is the one you have seen before.”
She continued, “Now, can I make a suggestion? At the moment, we are in a sort of parallel universe, a fold in space/time. There is a lot to see here. I think you will enjoy seeing it, be impressed and have fun. There may be gaming. And you can ask more questions as we go along. Could I suggest you phone home and tell your parents that Vesna has invited you to a gaming all-nighter and that they should not wait up for you.”
In a shed in the grounds of an equestrian centre, a man was sitting, staring at the spot in his shed wall where, the day before, a woman opened a door that didn’t exist, walked through it and vanished at the end of her last visit. She had said she would come back at nine in the morning, and it was two minutes to nine. He wanted to see what exactly happened when the door materialised. There was a loud tap on the shed door behind him. He called out, “What is it? I am busy right now.”
Aurora called out to him, “Rob, it’s me, Aurora, we have an appointment.”
He got up, walked across and opened the main door of the shed. Aurora was standing a few yards away from the door, near the middle of the yard. “Now, I hope that you have decided to help me, but I have a few things I would like to show you before you make up your mind. I have brought transportation.”
Rob looked around the yard; the only vehicle there was his Transit van. He looked at her with a puzzled expression. She said, lock your shed, we are going by air.”
Still puzzled, he went back, closed the shed door and locked it. Aurora said, ” Walk over to me.”
He walked up to her, she said, “Come, follow me, she turned, stepped away from him and vanished. “It has a cloaking device, mind the step, it is about six inches high, where I was just standing.”
Rob edged cautiously forward. His boot hit something solid, and he stepped up and forward. A door hissed shut behind him.
He found himself in what looked like the cabin of an executive jet plane. There were six comfortable-looking seats arranged in three rows. Aurora sat down in the front row. “Come and sit beside me. I call this a Gyr, after the falcon.”
Rob sat down. He had expected seat belts, but couldn’t find one. Aurora said, “Right, let’s go.”
There was a large panoramic window in front of them. When he looked out, he saw that the Gyr was rising slowly from the ground, but there was no noise to speak of, just a low hum. Then, when it had reached a height of about 100 feet, it accelerated, and again, there was no sensation of movement and no perceptible g-force. But the Gyr was now travelling vertically and very fast. The stables shrank from view, and looking to the left, he could see the coast of England and Ireland in the distance. Then the sky above them went dark and filled with stars; they were in outer space.
Aurora said, “Sorry, that was a bit sudden. The Gyr checks the sky above it for other craft and then plots a fast course to avoid them and not buffet them.” The craft was turning. “The window will go dark in a moment. We are heading straight towards the sun for about 500,000 miles, and will hit the jump point in a minute or two. “We have about five minutes total to the destination. Do you want to have a look around, while I get us a coffee?”
Rob nodded, “Yes, please, strong and black, I think I need it.”
The Gyr’s cabin was devoid of any obvious controls; the room had a curved ceiling, and he thought the overall shape of the craft was likely to be a regular oval, wider than it was tall. There might be drives and other equipment mounted on the outside, of course.
Aurora came back with his coffee. She handed it to him; there were biscotti in the saucer. He thanked her and said, “Tell me about the Gyr.”
Aurora smiled, “I thought you might ask that. The airframe is a single moulded piece of a composite material; it has an inner and outer shell, and the electronics and other equipment are mostly housed in the space between the two, which leaves the passenger space uncluttered. The pilot is an advanced computer system. I will come back to its nature later. It has a gravity field drive, which is why there is no sensation of motion when you are inside. The field maintains Earth Standard gravity inside for our comfort. The main drive field powers us along. If you want to see what it is doing, there is a screen in the little cupboard below the window in front of us.”
Rob saw there was a handy button built into a section of the wall below the window. It had the word “Screen” written on it. He pushed the button. A large TV-like screen slid gently out and set itself up in front of them. It lit up and displayed a three-dimensional map of their location between the Sun and the Earth, with readouts of speed and direction of travel, both relative to the Sun and the Earth and something called Sol, which appeared to be where they were headed. Rob asked, “What is Sol?”
Aurora said, “Sol is a power station. Also, my sister, and… you know what a Dyson Swarm is?”
Rob pulled a face, “Every time you answer a question, you create two more. Yes, I am familiar with the Dyson Swarm. I admire his thinking, but it is, in engineering terms, a bit of a fantasy. The cost of such a thing would be prohibitive.”
Aurora said, “What if one could be built as an energy structure, a pattern of energy in space, laid out to harvest a small part of the solar energy that fell on it?”
Rob thought about it, “Yes, I can see that could be viable, and if it is made out of energy to harvest energy, you could presumably build it for practically no cost, as you would be able to harvest all the energy you needed to build it from the sun while you were building it. But we are centuries away from that kind of technology.”
Rob stopped and thought, “We are centuries away from that kind of technology. But, you, Aurora, you are not?”
Aurora gave a little nod. “Yes, you are correct. We are about to pass through the fold – if you want a technical explanation, it is an Einstein-Rosen bridge where the throat of the wormhole has been compressed to a literal plane. Easier to call it a door.”
Rob grimaced, “And that is how you left my shed yesterday. I am feeling proud. I found the answer to one of the several hundred questions I have for you.”
The stars suddenly changed position, the Sun seemed to jerk a tiny fraction to the right, Aurora said, “We are through the fold, and slowing, about two minutes, and we will arrive.”
The ship turned gradually, and the sun slipped out of view. The shading of the window was reduced, and Rob could see a shape in space, a shadow stretching as far as he could see. Translucent, but something was there. A pattern of pure energy. As he looked at it, it looked as if it was rippling, but it was just a pattern which formed in the energy field, it was letters, each one hundreds, maybe thousands of miles across, they spelt out H E L L O R O B.
Rob spoke very quietly, “Aurora, would you say hello to Sol for me, please?”
Aurora replied, “No need, she can hear you, just say hi.”
Rob said loud and clear, “Hello, Sol, thank you for welcoming me.”
A warm contralto voice, which seemed to come from everywhere in the cabin, replied, “It is good to meet you, Rob. I get very few visitors out here.”
Rob thought back over what Aurora had said about Sol. She had used the word sister when she described Sol. At the time, he had thought it was a figure of speech of some kind, but the voice was very much like Aurora’s. “I believe Aurora said you are sisters, but you look very different. Both very beautiful, but in different ways.”
Sol laughed, again the laughter tinkled from every corner of the cabin. “Aurora, I think your friend is coming on to me.”
Aurora rolled her eyes. “Oh, Sol, stop it, you will have to wait until he grows up, he is tens of thousands of miles too small for you.” Aurora laughed, and the room was filled with her sister’s laughter, too.
Rob said, “You two really know how to make a guy feel small. Aurora, could we move the ship so I can get a better view of my girl? We are right at the edge, so I am seeing the array foreshortened, like looking across the edge of a plate.”
Aurora said, “Yes, if we fly relatively upwards, you will get a slightly better view, but if we go too far, you won’t be able to see it at all. You will just be looking straight through it.”
The Gyr started moving again and tilted a fraction so the window stayed facing the centre of the array. Rob looked at the screen readout. They had moved about two hundred miles up, and now, it felt more like standing on a hilltop looking out over a huge plain. They could still see the shadowy array, but the light of the stars behind it shone through. Rob said, “Aurora, what happens when rocks hit the array?”
Aurora said, “They pass through, the elements in the array are knocked out of the way, and when the rock passes, they connect up again. Even a large rock has a negligible effect.”
He nodded. That made sense, elegant, like the rest of the system. “Also, I think I noticed occasional small sparks in the array. Are they power surges, or thoughts?
Sol’s voice filled the cabin, “The power flow is more like a river flowing gently to the collector, smooth, no ripples, with the amount of energy the flow contains, any fluctuation has to be avoided. The sparks are infrequent, and as you say, thoughts. But, I think Aurora plans to take you away from me now; she has more to show you.”
Rob said, “After you, I think everything else will be an anticlimax. You are the most amazing thing, sorry, person, I have ever seen.”
The laugh tinkled again, “Flatterer, I bet you change your tune when she shows you the steam train!”
Rob laughed back, “Steam train, you say! Bring it on!”
Sol said, “Goodbye, Rob, come back and see me again.”
Rob said, “I will, goodbye, Sol.”
Aurora said, “Goodbye, Sol.”
Aurora pointed out of the window, “So, Rob, if you have promised to come back and see Sol, does that mean you are on board, one of the team?” She pointed out of the window, “That is where we are headed next. It is where the collector is situated, with a viewing platform and a landing bay.”
Rob said, “You just showed me the most amazing piece of engineering I have ever seen, a thing of great beauty and elegance of design and concept. Yes, I am in.”
Aurora said, “One thing, just to be clear, there are technologies I will not share with you. We believe that your species needs to develop at its own pace, and there is science we have explored that we are certain would be extremely dangerous, could cost untold lives, and even cause the extinction of all life on the planet if it were known now. This is, I am sure you will understand, not negotiable.”
Rob thought for a moment, “Yes, I think that makes sense. I am sure there will be things I would desperately like to know, like how this Gyr works, it is just a cool copter, but the ramifications of the underlying technology, they are not engineering, which I understand, they are politics and military, which I don’t. I mean, I was slightly unhappy working on the original rail gun when I realised what it was intended for. But I was working at the cutting edge of then-current technology. What you have is centuries ahead.
The landing bay appeared to have been designed specifically for the Gyr; the wall hugged close as the ship slid in. Again, no jarring as the Gyr settled inside. The outside of the window sparkled briefly with frost as the moisture in the air crystallised on it. The inner doors opened, and the Gyr rose and flew on towards a nearby island. Aurora said, ” We are going to Avalon, my home.”
The island reminded Rob of some of the Greek Islands he had visited on holiday. They flew over a small beach where a group of what looked like teenagers were playing. They waved at the Gyr as it flew overhead. The small grass strip airfield was in an inland valley. The Gyr swooped down and steered towards a small hangar. It came to a stop at ground level outside, waiting as the hangar doors opened, then continued inside to its own bay.
The two of them walked out of the cabin; the Gyr was visible now, no longer cloaked. The exterior was painted pale blue, but there was a bloom to it. Rob ran his hand over the surface, and his materials engineer’s fingertips detected a complex coating. He could feel it running seamlessly across the big front window; this was the invisibility cloak. He still marvelled that it had even managed to mask the doorway completely when he had first encountered the Gyr at his yard.
Aurora asked, “Rob, how would you like to travel to my house from here? We can walk or take the car; it is a nice walk, but there are cars if you prefer.”
She pointed towards the opposite end of the hangar. Rob set off to look at the cars. “A 1957 Fiat 500, a Nuova 500, in concourse condition or very near. Lovely little thing. And a Golf GTi Edition 30, very nice. But that one, my dad had one, can we take that?” He pointed to a Morris Minor, which, like the others, was in lovely condition.
Aurora walked around and got in the passenger seat. Rob climbed in behind the steering wheel. “I have never driven one before; it will be quite a treat, and this one isn’t full of clouds of cigarette smoke like my dad’s used to be. Where to?”
Aurora pointed the way, and they set off out of the airfield and onto the narrow winding road down to her house. Rob was enjoying himself and seemed disappointed when they turned into Aurora’s driveway. Then he looked at the house. “Do you by any chance have a waterfall on the other side of this?”
Aurora smiled, “Of course, the house is a copy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. I wanted to show it off to you a little; I thought you might get it better than most. But if you want to explore properly, you will need to come back later. Right now, I want to go through the house and take the path to the beach so you can meet my sister Vesna. She is a little smaller than Sol.”
They walked through the house, out onto the balcony, and below them, water tumbled down the waterfall into the sea. The seawater was crystal clear. Rob said, “No pollution?”
Aurora replied, “None.” A closed, managed ecology.” She pointed down to the beach, “Shall we?”
Rob nodded, “Yes, but later, or sometime, show me more of this wonderful house. I always wanted to visit the original, but never got around to it.”