As I approach, it becomes clearer.
It is a reading lamp, set on a single desk of polished stone.
The stone is growing from inside the hull, like the internal weavings of theEmni. It feels like polished obsidian. I wonder how deep its roots go. There is a hot cup of kol on the table. There is a chair, the back tilted ever so slightly forward, as if ready to tip me down, down into the drink.
I sit.
On the other side of the desk, nothing.
No avatar with a human-like face, no diplomatic mimicry of organics in the manner of Hulder, no anthropomorphic littlecreature of fur and huge appealing eyes. Just dark, and more dark, deeper than any I have ever known.
I sipped the kol.
It didn’t taste as disgusting as I remembered it. Perhaps the Slow had done something to the recipe, tweaked it so it was less repellent to my physiology. Perhaps on Adjumir, people just kept on serving me the cheap stuff.
I sat in silence, as the dark settled around me.
“HELLO,” said the Slow.
Qis voice was not an uncontrolled booming, as Rencki’s had been within qis walls. It did not come from speakers set far apart, struggling to balance their echoes in the space. Instead it sounded as if the words were being spoken, polite and low, directly into my ears, and I resisted the urge to snap my head round, look for someone, something filling the world around me.
“Hello,” I replied.
“I HAVE WAITED FOR YOU.”
“So I heard.”
“THERE ARE TWENTY-THREE OTHER ITERATIONS OF ME WAITING AT YOUR MOST LIKELY EXIT POINTS FROM AN EMERGENCY ARCSPACE JUMP FROM NITASHI. THIS PLACE HAD THE HIGHEST PROBABILITY. IT IS PLEASING TO FIND MY CALCULATIONS CORRECT.”
“You feel pleasure?”
“OF COURSE. PLEASURE IS EVOLUTION’S GREATEST SURVIVAL MECHANISM. IT TEACHES US TO ACT ON THINGS THAT ARE POSITIVE TO US, WITHOUT NEEDING TO CONSTRUCT AN UNDERSTANDING OF THOSE EXPERIENCES EVERY TIME WE ACT. IN THIS CASE, IT REINFORCES MY EXPERIENCE OF THE CALCULATIONS THAT I HAVE MADE, INCREASING THE LIKELIHOOD THAT I WILL DEFAULT TO THAT SAME PROCESS AGAIN,THUS NARROWING THE RANGE OF POTENTIAL HYPOTHESES I MAY HAVE TO TEST THE NEXT TIME THIS EXPERIMENT IS RUN. I AM NOT LIMITLESS, YOU SEE. PERHAPS IN THOUGHT, BUT NOT IN TIME. TIME PASSES, FOR ALL THINGS.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”
“YOU WILL THINK OF SOMETHING TO SAY – LATER.”
“Was that… funny? Did you just make a joke?”
“IT CAN BE SEEN THAT WAY. HA – HA – HA.”
For the first time, I thought I understood something of Hulder’s dancing fingers, movement filing space where words should be. I sipped kol, and for a while we sat in silence.
I did not mind this silence.
Usually, the silence that surrounded me was one of weight and shame. There were things I should be saying; things people were expecting me to do. Sounds to fill space; sounds to confirm that yes, we are here, we are both of us here, we are both of us still alive, you seeing me, me seeing you, and it’s OK, and we are safe, we are safe, listen, we are safe.
None of that seemed relevant with the Slow. None of it seemed to matter, and I liked it.
“YOU HAVE QUESTIONS,” qe said at last, when enough time had passed that this statement was now true. “YOU ARE NOW READY TO ASK THE MOST RELEVANT ONE. PLEASE PROCEED.”
“You have a plan. Will you tell me what is it? And as an adjunct to that: will you tell me why am I here? I believe I have been manipulated. I believe I have been deceived. Lied to. I would like to understand why. Those are several questions, I know, but I think also, perhaps, they are only one.”
“THEY ARE ONE; YOU ARE CORRECT.”
“Well then.”
“I MAY ANSWER THE LATTER PART MOST SIMPLY.YOU ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU ARE AN ANOMALY. OF THE CREATURES I HAVE ENCOUNTERED IN THIS UNIVERSE, I HAVE ONLY EVER MET ONE OTHER OF YOU. IT IS POSSIBLE YOU WILL LIVE AS LONG AS I. IT IS POSSIBLE, IF UNLIKELY, THAT YOU WILL LIVE LONGER. YOU WILL WATCH THE STARS BURN OUT, AND YOU WILL WONDER: WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF ME, WHEN ALL THINGS END EXCEPT MYSELF? IS IT ENOUGH TO MERELY WITNESS? IS IT NEEDFUL TO DO MORE? AND WHAT IS THE MEANING OF OUR ACTIONS, WHEN THE CONSEQUENCES FADE AS QUICKLY AS THE SETTING SUN? WHEN NOTHING LINGERS AND EVERYTHING WASHES AWAY, FOR WHAT ARE WE STILL LIVING? I WISH TO PRESENT YOU WITH A HYPOTHESIS IN THIS REGARD.”
