Memory stick

Last night I had a request to write a piece set in the far future, say, a thousand years from now. The problem I have is the starting assumptions. Does the world reach technological singularity or does everything wind down due to environmental degradation? Well what follows are two short stories about the same character.

Memory stick

The swell was immense. In the great troughs of the waves nothing could be seen but blue sky above, on the crests, the watery world we floated upon was revealed. An even score of worthy ships rode the seas. Full three masters surfed down the flanks of the great mountains of water, sleek cutters struggled to maintain forward momentum before breaching the crests. The watch, up high, kept count of our fellow travellers, sometimes a whole vessel could be seen on another peak, sometimes only the very tip of a mast, or nothing at all. Horizon to horizon the ocean pitched, the wind blew up some froth, but no breakers were observed. The relentless wind drove us onward. Six hundred and seventy souls on this undulating aquatic terrane. The voyage only ten days old.

Vernon, the Diagra’s chief mage, was my master. In the years ahead he would be my teacher, mentor, and ultimately, predecessor. His influence had procured and provisioned this adventure with no explanations given, only demands. He alone knew the true reason for this venture, only he could make un reasonable demands.

It was not rare for ships to leave the port heading to head west as we were. It was also not rare for little convoys to leave together. But, it was unheard of that someone as powerful as Vernon to be in the crew. Why, he could have transported all of us in one blink to anywhere in the universe. He had gained access to the highest levels of knowable knowledge. He was, in effect, a god. Yet he denied any desire to exploit this power (myself excluded).

A few years earlier, I think I was about 10 or 12, I had asked him why he didn’t want to be king. His reply changed my young life 'A good question boy', he crouched down to my eye level, took both my hands in his and fixed his eyes upon mine. I fell into the universe, or that is how it felt, tumbling out of control as whorls of gas and pin lights of starts swirled around. Through will I gained control and began to soar through the spectacle that unfolded. I understood the wholeness of what I saw. For many months or maybe years I roamed alighting on suns, conversing with strange beings and becoming at one with the other souls let loose in the cosmic soup. This reality ripped apart and there I was staring at Vernons face as he crouched in front of me.

'Very good boy. You are to be my servant. You can take that as a very great honour, you are to be the first and last that I apprentice'. I didn’t argue, In reality I couldn’t talk. So it was done and my life is what it has become. Of my family only my mother was concerned. My father, then the king of Aranta, already had five heirs older than myself so I was mere background noise of no import.

I later found out that that little holding hands trick he did would only work on a 10^th order freak and that, not my privileged ancestry, got me the job. It would take a full fifty years before I achieved the right of freedom once more.

Vernon was about 300 when I first met him, although he would never really specify his age. In looks you might judge him to be perhaps fifty, but a very healthy fifty. In nature there could be no guessing. I deduced this number from historical records of some of the places and names he dropped from time to time. That and the fact he often referred to his mother by full name, My great grandmother some 16 generations past. Now this might have been a rouse but it did fit with a lot of other things I gleaned from the family history.

His demeanour switched from sullen adolescent to that of the highest lord during the course of a sentence. The forgetful professor, was his most common mode. I don’t think it was actually forgetful but more of a lack of concern with the goings on of the temporal world.

His powers were immense and to my young eyes unlimited. He could wink at a person and ensure a long healthy life. At a thought an illusion of his liking would spread across a kingdom. Literally night to day stuff. He never manipulated matter that much, it was just as easy but he said that meddling with human existence was more than enough. And so it was his influence that had created the first stable society on the planet. He did answer to the higher authority and in due course so would I. We all serve.

The one weakness that Vernon had was his deep affection for mechanisms. He employed a team of craftsmen for almost the duration of his time on Aratna. Specifying this, pointing at that, developing what he termed the future. Apparently I was to be the last of our particular profession.

I did take on the team after he passed on, his interminable visits after that time ensured his work continued. It was painful drain of my time: training, coaching, attending, funerals, picking new apprentices, lobbying provisions, it distracted me from my main task. But that was my contract.

Ah, I see I have been distracted from my story, yes there we were, I a young boy just sprouting hair on my chin on the deck of a pitching vessel with my 300 year old master. I had been in his charge for only a few years at the time and new a lot about assembling gears and cogs but little of magic. I had digested a thousand books of lore, read a million letters and had mastered though distance but had no experience of the world outside my fathers’ court or Vernons workshop. Life onboard a fleet ship, crewed by some of the hardest cases in my fathers navy, was educational.

The weeks drew on and my education continued. Petty illusions and mind touch were my tasks, that and cleaning up after Vernon. He assured me that humility was my real lesson. And looking back he was right. I also sat in at the daily meetings, the captain updating the days progress, the state of rations amongst the fleet, our remaining duration and the like. Truly boring stuff that even I could deduce with my limited powers. I am guessing Vernon already had completed the voyage a hundred times over in his mind. But still we attended the ritual and Vernon played the interested interloper.

Why didn’t we just emerge at the destination? It would have been a lot quicker and a lot less stressful for all involved. He had a plan and he wasn’t telling me. I couldn’t even begin to deuced the reasons.

Finally, after six weeks at sea the watch called land. The crew gathered at the rails and sure enough, as our sturdy vessel peaked on the swell, the distant coast was revealed. Vernon conferred with the captain. Maps and diagrams were drawn and a new course was plotted. A vector almost parallel with the new coast line but gradually closing the gap. The crew just wanted to make land fall, to feel real ground below their feet and drink fresh water. Vernon gave strict instructions that all magical activity was to cease. The message of the new course was given to the various captains and the instructions to cease and desist was spread amongst all wizards on the other ships.

That night the clear sky and fair winds that had marked our voyage collapsed into the most violent storm I had ever experienced. The ocean was a seething mass of pitching waves and white water. Lightning cracked from the heavens. I remained huddled against the bulkhead in Vernons cabin while he was on deck overseeing the mellay.

By morning all was calm under the grey sky. One ship and fifty crew were unaccounted. Two of the other ships were severely damaged. In the calm our reduced armada re-grouped and repairs effected. We tried our best to patch up the injured but with out utilising the healing charms our efforts were next to useless. Vernon ignored the many pleas steadfastly refusing the use of magic.

By that evening a four more of the crew had been laid to rest. Temporary masts had been fitted to the two damages vessels, rigging and sail repairs were well underway. Our voyage continued.

Finally after skirting the coast for another two weeks we turned for shore. A huge natural harbour of untold beauty came into view as we rounded a head land. Dense green forest, tall trees, a fast flowing stream and untold game were ours to be had. It was as if we had been delivered to paradise. Quickly shore teams set up our temporary base. The crew were eager to experience dry land after so long at sea. Vernon had his private tent set up in an area on the slope just above the rest of our encampment.

He called me to his tent. Inside he had set up the usual array of his paraphernalia – Mechanisms hung from the ceiling, a collapsible office had been erected on one side and his bed, complete with a mosquito net sat on the other. He sat at the desk with a plane black box in front of him.

'Thus far you have been a spectator in this game, now you must take you place at the table'. He was always full of this sort of talk. He opened the box and withdrew a contraption. I recognise the mechanism as a difference engine but with the input dials adjusted by a form of compass I had never seen. And then ignoring his previous sentence he set to work adjusting the delicate device as if I did not exist.

After a time and some muttering he released a latch which had held the pointer. The pointer swung through the hemisphere of its movement. The gears and cogs below whirred obediently and fell silent as the compass point decided on its final direction.

'There'

'There what?' I replied

'Can’t you fathom the machine and the significants of the reading?'

'It is the direction and distance to something?'

'and time' he added.

So if the output was in standard measures the ‘something’ was about 2000 measures directly inland from or location but at a declination of 45 degrees. The when was ten days away.

'But what?'

'The centre will be there then'

'The Core of Existence?'

'What else could I mean and do not refer to it as The Core of Existence. Those are the words of the uneducated. I would expect more of you'

The myth went something along the lines that the source of all that was was momentarily available on our plane of existence. This point contained ultimate knowledge.

‘I plan to use the centre as a doorway to the next plane of existence. You must understand that it is not a magical device but an artefact. My life work has been to understand its essence and now is the culmination of that work.’

‘I see.’ Although in reality I still didn’t have a clue about what he meant.

'Ah my young apprentice I see you don’t’. I guess he didn’t need to use PSI to see through my ignorance.

He then went on for about an hour describing the intricacies of Boolean algebra and the representation of reality using differential equations, probability and massive matrix operations. I did understand the fundamentals – I was a good student but I failed to grasp what he was driving at.

I guess suspect he was gloating and desperately needed someone to boast to, someone who could appreciate the cleverness and perseverance. To bad his best option was a pubescent apprentice.

Finally he pulled it all together for me. ‘So as you can clearly see it is possible to simulate an entire universe with what ever parameters you desire given a mechanism with enough capacity to represent the state of the created universe. The boundary is tricky but by observing the partial state overflow it becomes possible to interrogate the system from within the simulation. Further…..’ I glazed over once more. Was he saying we were the simulation?

End of part 1