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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO
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OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO"
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OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO'
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OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO"
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OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO'
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OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO
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| There Ain't No Justice |
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| #118 |
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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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- Metamorph -
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Chapter 04
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by Arifel
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IV
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`You know when you put a stick in the
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water and it looks like it's bent but
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it's not? <pause> That's why I don't take
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baths.' - Steven Wright
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travelling through the solar system at about half the speed of light
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isn't anywhere as near as exciting as it sounds. it wasn't until we'd
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got there before i wondered what would've happened if we'd run into
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something on the way; if our bodies had been in real space, there would
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have been an impressive explosion. they would have been able to see it
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back on earth.
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my best estimate told me we'd be within mass-sensing range of Neptune in
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around ten hours. during that time, Lydya and i hung onto each other,
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occasionally swapping information at the phenomenal rate of high-speed
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computers, but mostly just working on private projects and cataloguing
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information, because there wasn't a great deal to see. i'd known that
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the asteroids were nothing like they were portrayed in popular science
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fiction (i.e. thousands of huge rocks bumping off each other) but even
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so, we went right through the `asteroid belt' without even seeing one.
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the planets were disappointingly distant, the best being Saturn, a wan
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orange blob with faint visual discontinuities around its middle.
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i continued to work on my sculpture-project, discovering a new potential
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power-source in the process, one that could utilise raw silicates. the
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seed device, the precursor of millions of such, was about the size of a
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large grain of rice, a radially symmetrical, five-legged precision
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instrument; almost as intelligent, in its own single-minded way, as a
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beaver and just as rapacious in its appetite. i was quite proud of it;
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dark grey, translucent three-jointed legs, tiny rasping teeth on the
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underside, its upper body doubling as a nanogravitic transmitter plate
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and a remote mass-sensor. i imagined it, having been tossed at an
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asteroid, its legs scrabbling for a hold on the bare rock; eating its
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way in, extruding fine hairs composed of complex silicate compounds as
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it ate, weaving them into microscopic effectors and linear motors,
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forging the tiny reaction chamber that formed the heart of each of these
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devices, assembling the cell-sized distributed processors, copying its
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stock of instructions into its offspring and then setting it to work.
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the entire reproductive process would take about two hours. within
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forty hours, there'd be over a million of them.
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once that number had been reached, there'd be enough of them to form a
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networked intelligence about as smart as a single human, albeit limited.
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by that time, they'd've crawled over the entire surface of the object
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and would have a detailed map of it. they would project the largest
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possible cube inside that shape and would begin carving away the excess
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rock, converting it into yet more sculptors. once the cube had been
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exposed, they would polish the surface atom-smooth and then carve the
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designs, digging in to a depth of one hundredth of the cube's total
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width. having completed the project, they would link together to form
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as large a grid as possible and begin searching for another target, any
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nickel-iron-silicate body between two and ten kilometres in its longest
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diameter. they would keep looking until they found one, then they'd
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push off towards it, consuming the bodies of about two percent of their
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number in tiny exposions in order to reach the new target. once there,
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they'd begin again.
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i tossed up between the idea of having them stay together and
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`swarming', or separating into smaller groups, and decided on the
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latter, because it would mean a wider distribution. as a fail-safe, i
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built in a self-destruct command that would explode each one if it
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received a particular sequence of nanogravitic pulses, a binary
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representation of the phone number - a prime number, incidentally - of a
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house i used to live in. if they were damaged, they would have to be
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broken beyond the point of inactivity before being unable to act on the
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self-destruct sequence. i wasn't going to have the little fuckers get
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out of control and do something stupid like eat the earth.
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i'd been spending a bit too much time thinking about them; Lydya noticed
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how quiet i'd been and asked me what i was up to. when i showed her the
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designs, she grinned with approval and made some suggestions.
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`firstly, you might like to consider this,' she transmitted data for a
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three-jointed leg much like my design, but with subtle differences that
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made it more resilient, stronger, and allowed a greater degree of
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motion. it was obviously the result of many years' worth of trial and
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error. `the only other change i would make would be to give them the
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capability to recognise their own work. otherwise, they'd complete a
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block, fly away from it, scan for another target, spot the rock they'd
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just left, fly back and carve another block out of it, two-thousandths
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smaller. Personally, i think the upper limit on the diameter of their
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targets should be one hundred kilometres.'
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`but that would allow them to work on Deimos - and most of the smaller
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moons -' she nodded.
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`anything larger than that is likely to have a significant degree of
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volcanic activity at its centre, which would slow down the project if
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your nibblers burrowed down deep enough to expose the core.' i
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pondered.
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`if they did, say, reach the moon - seven hundred and thirty four point
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nine by ten to the twentieth kilograms - you'd need two point nine three
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nine six by ten to the twenty-third of them - they'd've eaten the whole
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moon in just under seventy-eight hours.' I thought about it some more.
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`If they encountered material too hot to deal with, they'd back off, try
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to go around it. Eventually, it'd cool to the point where they could
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eat it. Admittedly, that would take quite a while with an object as
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large as Luna, with that degree of vulcanism...'
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`the easiest way to find out would be to build the seed device and toss
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it at an asteroid,' she sent. `Unfortunately, we won't be anywhere near
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Jupiter, or you could use one of the smaller moons. There's always - '
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abruptly, she stopped sending; she signalled that we should deactivate
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our drives. we did so, hanging in open space, nothing around us to
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indicate that we were within the confines of a solar system; the hard
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stars glaring at us, without the twinkling effect caused by atmosphere.
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Lydya was slowly scanning the view, utilising some sense that i hadn't
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been given yet. one hand reached out, her index finger touched my
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throat and a capillary-sized needle penetrated my skin. she gave me a
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few mils of fluid containing chemical data, which my body interpreted as
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a construction template, plans for the sense she was using. there was a
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warning to use the device in passive mode first time; i looked over the
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docs while my body built a resonator-plate on the outside of my skull,
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between my eyes. It was some kind of neutrino-sensor; when i activated
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it, i saw hundreds of neutrino sources in the general area of the
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asteroid belt, far off to our left. i switched to visual, saw nothing,
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added maximum magnification and every enhancement trick i knew; the
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projections of probable shapes from passive data showed an even dozen
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shapes, jet black elongated arrow-heads. they were clustered around
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something shaped like a large grey pumpkin, which wasn't emitting
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neutrinos. either another ship, or an asteroid. i glanced at Lydya. She
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glanced back at me.
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`Do you want to go over and take a look?'
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`i don't know. they can't be human... i assume that they aren't from
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this solar system, therefore they must have some kind of FTL capability,
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therefore they could have visited earth before this, but have chosen not
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to. i suppose they're just observing...'
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`and I expect they wouldn't take kindly to having their cover blown.
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we'll leave them alone for now, but i'll put it about on the Net that
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they're here. someone else might want to come out and say hello, if not
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on the behalf of humanity, then on our behalf.'
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we continued on our way, hugging closely and combining our fields,
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turning slowly as we sliced through space like a shell dropped into a
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fish-tank.
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my calculations, based as they were on observations made by humans
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(which had been, in the past, less than accurate), proved to be spot-on.
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after spending nine hours and fifty-six minutes in the half-field, we
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were forced into real space by the presence of Neptune's gravity well.
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we opted for a high orbit, after examining the frozen, muddy-looking
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depths of Neptune's atmosphere, and began casting about for the moons.
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Lydya was mildly annoyed.
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`According to NASA, Neptune is only supposed to have two moons. I can
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see at least seven.' I tracked the faint mass-stirrings caused by their
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far-cast orbits, pointed to the largest.
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`That'd be Triton. The next smallest should be Nereid.' Lydya nodded,
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and held out her hand. I tilted my head to one side.
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`Come on. I've thought of a new way of getting around.' i took her
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hand and she drifted off without any apparent reaction, no controlled
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combustion, no visible tossing of mass overboard.
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`I'm impressed! Is this the reactionless drive that Pournelle and his
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friends used to go on about?' she snorted.
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`Nothing that simple. I've been thinking about this one for a long
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time.' We moved towards Neptune's horizon, moving as close as we dared
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for a slingshot which would throw us directly at Nereid.
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the place turned out to be unremarkable. even under a high level of
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visual enhancement, the terrain was dull, dark grey rock, not even
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methane ice to jazz the scenery up. it looked like earth's moon, except
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more so. more jagged mountains. less craters. the sun was a
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glittering marble-sized star, casting insufficient light to read by
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under ordinary conditions.
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Lydya led me over the surface in an orbit almost low enough to touch
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some of the higher peaks. it was fun. in the meantime, my imagination
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had begun to work overtime. it was always the way; in the past, i'd had
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some of my best ideas when i wasn't in any position to act on them. i'd
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changed my mind about the lunar mining robots several times; at one
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point, i wanted them to construct replicas of washing-lines - Hill's
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Hoists - on the larger asteroids. my latest design called for something
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about the size of a soccer ball which would gradually reduce an asteroid
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to thousands of stone sculptures, each one a perfect replica of a
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crushed coca-cola can, aimed and fired off so that they'd eventually end
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up in earth orbit. anyone who examined them could estimate that the
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cans had been crushed by a left hand belonging to a young girl. i'd
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given serious thought to trying some cheap form of mass-conversion, to
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have the cans made of aluminium instead of nickel-silicates, but that
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would have been overdoing it. or would it? oh, why not go all the way?
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i'd have to make sure that the aluminium produced by the device had the
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right amount of impurities.
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`here.' Lydya sent. we were passing over a flat plain; not the result
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of volcanic action - this area had been cleared manually in a circle
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about twelve kilometres in diameter, easily spotted from orbit (as close
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as we were, we'd almost missed it), and at the centre, a jet-black
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column shaped like the Washington Monument, four kilometres tall. it
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had obviously been dug out of something else, sculpted and planted here.
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i did some radar soundings, saw that it had a central column of
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something crystalline, maybe diamond, that extended about eight hundred
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metres under the surface, branching out like the roots of a tree. not
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that there was any wind to blow it over.
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Lydya let go of my hand and i floated above the plain, drifting slowly
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towards the column. it seemed as if there wasn't any gravity; my
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back-processor said Nereid's was about zero point zero zero zero two
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percent of earth's. i'd fall, eventually, but i wouldn't hit very hard.
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the monument was about seven hundred metres across at the bottom,
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perhaps three hundred at the top, where it narrowed to a pyramidal
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point. on each face of this pyramid was a symbol, or a pictogram made
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of a golden-copper coloured metal set in to the black stone; a vaguely
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left-slanting blob with three irregularly-shaped legs below it, curving
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to the right. it meant nothing to me.
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as we got closer, i could see inscriptions carved into the side,
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reaching from the ground to about a quarter of the way up. they were in
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various scripts, various sizes; as we got closer, i recognised Chinese,
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Thai, cyrillic, roman characters; towards the bottom, there were
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Egyptian symbols, rows of cuneiform and some other more obscure systems
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of writing. the characters were about twenty centimetres in height.
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i reached the face of the monument, absorbed my velocity with my hands
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and ever so slowly began to fall to the moon's surface, about a
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kilometre below. when i had the chance, i hooked my fingers into the
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inscriptions and levered myself down, reading some of them as i passed:
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FOR GOD, KING AND COUNTRY
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GERVAISE DE SELCHESTER
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THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1197
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ULRIIKA * 604
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GJE 1982
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JOANNA GUERIN 1441
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JOHN B GARVER, JNR.
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THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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1952
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P NEE
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M POS
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M NEE
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P POS
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the next was merely a hand-print, a good thirty centimetres across, and
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below that a row of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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Lydya waited for me to finish my descent; she pointed to the first
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inscription at the base, done in a script that wasn't immediately
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recogniseable to me. below it was a smaller line of cuneiform; below
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that, Chinese characters; below that, Greek letters, and below that, in
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English:
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I WHO WAS FIRST TO BECOME AS YOU SEND MY LOVE AND SYMPATHY - HEPELE
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near the base were some shards of black stone, about the size of a
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fingernail. i picked up a few of them, passed some to Lydya, then
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practised making marks on it. whatever it was - some collapsed form of
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obsidian - it would take something diamond-hard to make any imprint in
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it. Lydya had already formed a point on one of her fingernails and had
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jumped up, to write her name at the top of the list. it took about
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twenty seconds for me to crystallise a diamond point out of spare carbon
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sufficiently well supported for inscribing work. once it had formed, i
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tested it, found it adequate, and then i jumped also.
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i was going to put a quote from Hassan I Sabbah, but i saw that someone -
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possibly the Old Man himself - had already used it. i free-associated
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for a few seconds, and after floating past Lydya, who was still at work,
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i carved in fifteen-centimetre tall lower-case Triumvirate:
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i feel more like i do now than i did a while ago - Arifel, 1994
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i thought Zippy the Pinhead would be proud of that one.
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i floated back at arm's length and allowed myself to float down to see
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what Lydya had written:
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Dark, but still, I crave light. Lydya Farradine, 1994
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i don't know what possessed me to do so, but a few seconds after
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finishing reading this, i felt an urge to climb up. it wasn't an
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undeniable compulsion, but it did get stronger the more i tried to
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ignore it, so i gave in to it and climbed to the top of the monument,
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Lydya close behind me. when i'd reached the apex, the symbol glowing
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bronze-gold before me, i reached out tentatively and touched it. i felt
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a faint voice somewhere far off, like someone speaking at the bottom of
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a stairwell. i jerked my hand back and the voice stopped.
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Lydya joined me and together we touched the symbol. the voice was
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slightly louder this time, and with concentration, i could make out what
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it was saying. we listened, completely absorbed:
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once upon a time, it happened that there were a number of races
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capable of interstellar travel. of those, four were most
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prominent: the Parkry, hive-structured, insect-like, rigidly
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defined socially and dedicated to a program of continual
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expansion to all worlds that they could inhabit or modify easily;
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the Sthelane, who had never expanded their civilisation beyond
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the one world they evolved on, but nevertheless travelled far,
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exchanging information with as many different species as
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possible; the Akhaga, a name which covered a loose conglomeration
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of races united by their dependence on governance by a primitive
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artificial intelligence, and (a note of pride crept in to the
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voice here) the Moridani, a species given to adapting to
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different environments by self-modification.
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at that time, distribution of the secret of faster-than-light
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travel made the practice of interstellar war possible. the
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Parkry spread further afield until their borders touched those of
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the Akhaga and the Moridani; those races then defended
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themselves. the resources of the Parkry which had previously been
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devoted to expansion in all directions became focused on the
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Moridani/Akhaga borders, while the Akhaga began recruiting nearby
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races to their cause, sometimes accelerating primitive species
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through several evolutionary stages to the point where they could
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be of use in interstellar warfare; soon, the three-sided war
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became a five, then nine, and eventually twenty-three-sided war
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as races expanded far more rapidly than usual and declared
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independence. many of these races were destroyed, their
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territories either absorbed into the seemingly unstoppable Parkry
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advance, or rendered uninhabitable.
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the Moridani called a meeting at a neutral point. representatives
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of most prominent races attended and while no agreement on limits
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for Parkry expansion (the main reason for the meeting) was
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reached, consensus was that something had to be done. while the
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others debated, a sub-set of the beings at this meeting - three
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Moridani, six of the Akhaga and one Sthelane - met in secret and
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devised a plan for an artificial intelligence more extensive and
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powerful than any previous system. in direct contravention of
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established rules concerning such devices, they gave it only one
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directive: maintain peace in the galaxy, by whatever means
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possible. they gave it access to materials and machines by which
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it could expand itself; they placed the complex on a world far
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outside any disputed territories, sat back and waited for a result.
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the device, named Coordinator, did nothing beyond minor expansion
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of its hardware systems for some time; it was busy re-designing
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itself. while its creators were occupied with the continuing
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wars, it dug out the centre of the planet it had been placed on
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and began construction of a small fleet of ships, to be manned by
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a race of beings the Coordinator had designed from scratch;
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implacable, supremely capable warriors whose home planet was a
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moon of a nearby gas giant, Bythe.
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these beings took control of the warships and went to the centre
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of the Parkry territories, killing as they went by the simple
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expedient of forcing any nearby asteroids down onto the planets
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occupied by the Parkry. whenever Parkry attack-craft encountered
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these ships, the result was inevitably one-sided; no Parkry ever
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survived the conflicts. the Bythians' ships were a magnitude
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faster and more powerful than their opponents.
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within a year, the backbone of the Parkry's empire had been
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broken. their forces became more desperate, more inclined to use
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suicide tactics against their opponents, to no avail. the Bythians
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began spreading a virus which altered the Parkry at a genetic level,
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inhibiting the production of the warrior class.
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the Moridani and the Akhaga congratulated themselves, but then
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found themselves under attack from the Bythians, directed by the
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Coordinator who now saw them as a potential threat to galactic
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peace. the Akhaga rapidly folded under the Bythians' attack,
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splitting into their dozen-or-so component civilisations. the
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Sthelane seemed to vanish; their homeworld was abandoned. the
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Bythians left Sthelanar alone, after incurring serious losses
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through traps left there.
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the Moridani put up more of a fight; they were hampered by a need
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to defend their territories against an enemy who had nothing to
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lose by complete destruction of the battle-ground. every move the
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Moridani made was predicted and countered by the Coordinator,
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||
whose talent for invention and discovery soon outstripped the
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||
Moridani's level of technology. forced back to their last two
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systems, the Moridani scattered to the edges of the galaxy,
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individuals hiding out on previously unexplored worlds, often
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among developing civilisations. the scattered Moridani maintained
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communication by a method the Coordinator couldn't trace, and
|
||
watched helplessly as the Bythians gained control of one system
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after another, enforcing a limit on technological advancement
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||
that would permit nothing higher than interplanetary travel. at
|
||
this time, the original series of Edicts were drawn up; the Laws
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||
of the Dominion, which proscribed /any/ faster-than-light drive
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||
other than that provided by the Coordinator; artificial intelligence
|
||
of any kind; nanotechnology of any kind; stellar engineering of any
|
||
kind. several other minor limits were also enforced, such as
|
||
restrictions on virtual reality, genetic modification and
|
||
self-replicating machinery.
|
||
|
||
at this time, the Coordinator formed the structure of the
|
||
Dominion; in the Moridani language it was known as the Circle
|
||
Within the Circle, or `Nos-a-Nos'. this became generally known as
|
||
the NoSanNoOs.
|
||
|
||
(an image formed in my mind, hearing this: a dark red circle surrounded
|
||
by a second circle broken into seventeen irregular, radial segments.)
|
||
|
||
the structure was thus: at the head, the Coordinator, which was
|
||
later known simply as the NoSanNoOs Associative-Processing
|
||
Artificial Intelligence, or NAPAI; next, a series of smaller
|
||
units, known as NAPAISubs, one for each planetary system in the
|
||
dominion. below this, the territories were governed by
|
||
representatives of the races occupying the worlds, or if this was
|
||
impractical (or if the race refused to cooperate) by a team of
|
||
Bythians. many places below this were occupied by the remnants
|
||
of the Parkry, who had been forced into a non-violent attitude.
|
||
|
||
the pattern developed so: a Bythian scout would enter a system,
|
||
check for signs of intelligent life, ascertain the level of
|
||
intelligence and whether or not the race was a threat to its
|
||
immediate neighbours. if this was the case, the race was contacted
|
||
and offered the benefits of the Dominion; free faster-than-light
|
||
travel to anywhere in the occupied part of the galaxy; food
|
||
resources more than sufficient to feed even the most densely
|
||
populated planet; access to the galaxy-wide information net and
|
||
free energy management to maintain a consistently high level of
|
||
quality of life. most civilisations, caught on that difficult
|
||
border between space migration and collapse through exhausted
|
||
resources, agreed; the few who saw through the NoSanNoOs' offer
|
||
were soon convinced by a show of strength from the Bythians.
|
||
|
||
occasionally, the Bythians found existing interstellar
|
||
civilisations; in most cases, these races were convinced that
|
||
their opposition was more powerful, and that war would be
|
||
impractical, wasteful and could only have one result. any races
|
||
stubborn enough to fight were easily defeated, since they were
|
||
operating under the same drawbacks as the Moridani had been.
|
||
|
||
occasionally, a race within the Dominion was found to be too
|
||
difficult to control; either they refused to accept the
|
||
NoSanNoOs' limitations on their technology, or the ongoing
|
||
analysis of their race by the NAPAISub revealed that they would
|
||
become a significant problem some time in the future. such races
|
||
were exterminated wholesale; the homeworld was bombed out of
|
||
existence, and any individuals of that species running loose in
|
||
the Dominion were rounded up and executed.
|
||
|
||
the voice fell silent then. we glanced at each other; what did this
|
||
have to do with us? just then, i thought of the ships we'd seen on the
|
||
way out; Lydya's expression confirmed that she was thinking along
|
||
similar lines... no. it would have been too much of a coincidence.
|
||
|
||
|
||
you, chosen to undergo the Change, would be declared illegal
|
||
under NoSanNoOs rule. you have two options; you can run and
|
||
hide... or you can fight. i, Saranaxio-Feylen-Nadawi-Kenak,
|
||
Moridani warrior; i made your Change possible. i first visited
|
||
your world and gave this gift to Hepele, priestess of the Mother.
|
||
you are my children. i urge you to fight; not for my sake, not
|
||
for your own sake, not for the memories of so many who have
|
||
fallen to the NoSanNoOs but for all those who are to come.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<20> <20><> <20> <20> <20><> <20>
|
||
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<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> TANJ Mailing Address <20> <20> <20> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD>
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<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> Seaside Hts, NJ <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
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<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> 08751 <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
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TANJ Distribution List: Send mail to talmeta@cybercomm.net to be
|
||
added to the TANJ-DL!
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||
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