Mostly it was done like that; through Minds, AI core memories and innumerable public storage systems, information reservoirs and databases containing schedules, itineraries, lists, plans, catalogues, registers, rosters and agenda.
Sometimes, though, when that way – the relatively easy, quick and simple way – was closed to the inquirer for some reason, usually to do with keeping the inquiry secret, things had to be done the slow way, the messy way, the physical way. Sometimes there was no alternative.
The vacuum dirigible approached the floating island under a brilliantly clear night sky awash with moon and star light. The main body of the airship was a giant fat disk half a kilometre across with a finish like brushed aluminium; it glinted in the blue-grey light as if frosted, though the night was warm, balmy and scented with the heady perfume of wineplant and sierra creeper. The craft’s two gondolas – one on top, one suspended underneath – were smaller, thinner disks only three storeys in height, each slowly revolving in different directions, their edges glowing with lights.
The sea beneath the airship was mostly black-dark, but in places it glowed dimly in giant, slowly fading Vs as giant sea creatures surfaced to breathe or to sieve new levels of the waters for their tiny prey, and so disturbed the light-emitting plankton near the surface.
The island floated high in the breeze-ruffled waters, its base a steeply fluted pillar that extended a kilometre down into the sea’s salty depths, its thin, spire-like mountains thrusting a similar distance into the cloudless air. It too was scattered with lights; of small towns, villages, individual houses, lanterns on beaches and smaller aircraft, most of them come out to welcome the vacuum dirigible.
The two slowly revolving gondola sections slid gradually to a halt, preparatory to docking. People in both segments congregated on the sides nearest the island, for the view. The airship’s system registered the imbalance building up and pumped bubblecarbon spheres full of vacuum from one lot of tanks to another, so maintaining a suitably even keel.
The island’s main town drifted slowly closer, the docking tower bright with lights. Lasers, fireworks and searchlights all fought for attention.
‘I really should go, Tish,’ the drone Gruda Aplam said. ‘I didn’t promise, but I did kind of say I’d probably stop by…’
‘Ah, stop by on the way back,’ Tishlin said, waving his glass. ‘Let them wait.’
He stood on the balcony outside one of the lower gondola’s mid-level bars. The drone – a very old thing, like two grey-brown rounded cubes one on top of the other and three-quarters the size of a human – floated beside him. They’d only met that day, four days into the cruise over the Orbital’s floating islands and they’d got on famously, quite as though they’d been friends for a century or more. The drone was much older than the man but they found they had the same attitudes, the same beliefs and the same sense of humour. They both liked telling stories, too. Tishlin had the impression he hadn’t yet scratched the veneer off the old machine’s tales of when it had been in Contact – a millennium before he had, and goodness knew he was considered an old codger these days.
He liked the ancient machine; he’d really come on this cruise looking for romance, and he still hoped to find it, but in the meantime finding such a perfect companion and raconteur had already made him glad he’d come. The trouble was the drone was supposed to get off here and go to visit some old drone pals who lived on the island, before resuming its cruise on the next dirigible, due in a few days’ time. A month from now, it would be leaving on the GSV that had brought it here.
‘But I feel I’d be letting them down.’
‘Look, just stay another day,’ the man suggested. ‘You never did finish telling me about – what was it, Bhughredi?’
‘Yes, Bhughredi.’ The old drone chuckled.
‘Exactly. Bhughredi; the sea nukes and the interference effect thing or whatever it was.’
‘Damnedest way to launch a ship,’ the old drone agreed, and made a sighing noise.
‘So what did happen?’
‘Like I said, it’s a long story.’
‘So stay tomorrow; tell me it. You’re a drone for goodness’ sake; you can float back by yourself…’
‘But I said I’d visit them when the airship got here, Tish. Anyway; my AG units are due a service; they’d probably fail and I’d end up at the bottom of the sea having to be rescued; very embarrassing.’
‘Take a flyer back!’ the man said, watching the island’s shore slide underneath. People gathered round fires on the beach waved up at the craft. He could hear music drifting on the warm breeze.
‘Oh, I don’t know… They’d probably be upset.’
Tishlin drank from his glass and frowned down at the waves breaking on the beach which led towards the lights of the town. A particularly large and vivid firework detonated in the air directly above the bright docking tower. Oos and Aahs duly sounded round the crowded balcony.
The man snapped his fingers. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Send a mind-state abstract.’
The big drone hesitated, then said, ‘Oh, one of those. Hmm. Well; still not really the same thing, I think. Anyway, I’ve never done one. Not sure I really approve. I mean, it’s you but it’s not you, you know?’
Tishlin nodded. ‘Certainly do know. Can’t say I think they’re as, you know, benign as they’re cracked up to be either; I mean, it’s supposed to act sentient without being sentient, so isn’t it actually sentient? What happens to it when it’s just turned off? I’m not convinced there isn’t some sort of iffy morality here, either. But I’ve done it myself. Talked into it. Reservations, like you say, but…’ He looked round, then leant closer to the machine’s dull brown casing. ‘Bit of a Contact thing, actually.’
‘Really?’ the old machine said, tipping its whole body away from him for a moment, then tipping it back so that it leant towards him. It extended a field round the two of them; the exterior sounds faded. When it spoke again, it was with a slight echo that indicated the field was keeping whatever they said between the two of them. ‘What was that… Well, wait a moment, if you aren’t supposed to tell anybody…’
Tishlin weaved his hand. ‘Well, not officially,’ he said, brushing white hair over one ear, ‘but you’re a Contact veteran, and you know how SC always dramatises things.’
‘SC!’ the drone said its voice rising. ‘You didn’t say it was them! I’m not sure I want to hear this,’ it said, through a chuckle.
‘Well, they asked… a favour,’ the man said, quietly pleased that he seemed finally to have impressed the old drone. ‘Sort of a family thing. Had to record one of these damn things so it could go and convince a nephew of mine he should do his bit for the great and good cause. Last I heard the boy had done the decent thing and taken ship for some Eccentric GSV.’ He watched the outskirts of the town slide underneath. A flower-garlanded terrace held groups of people pattern-dancing; he could imagine the whoops and wild, whirling music. The scent of roasting meat came curling over the balcony parapet and made it through the hushfield.
‘They asked if I wanted it to be reincorporated after it had done its job,’ he told the drone. ‘They said it could be sent back and sort of put back inside my head, but I said no. Gave me a creepy feeling just thinking about it. What if it had changed a lot while it was away? Why, I might end up wanting to join some retreatist order or autoeuthenise or something!’ He shook his head and drained his glass. ‘No; I said no. Hope the damn thing never was really alive, but if it was, or is, then it’s not getting back into my head, no thank you, I’m sorry.’
‘Well, if what they told you was true, it’s yours to do with as you wish, isn’t it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, I don’t think I’ll take the same step,’ the drone said, sounding thoughtful. It swivelled as though to face him. The field around them collapsed. The sound of the fireworks returned. ‘Tell you what,’ the old drone said. ‘I will get off here and see the guys, but I’ll catch up with you in a couple of days, all right? We’ll probably fall out in a day or two anyway; they’re cantankerous old buggers, frankly. I’ll take a flyer or try floating myself if I feel adventurous. Deal?’ It extended a field.
‘Deal,’ Tishlin said, slapping the field with his hand.
The drone Gruda Aplam had already contacted its old friend the GCU It’s Character Forming, currently housed in the GSV Zero Gravitas which was at that point docked under a distant plate of Seddun Orbital. The GCU communicated with the Orbital Hub Tsikiliepre, which in turn contacted the Ulterior Entity Highpoint, which signalled the LSV Misophist, which passed the message on to the University Mind at Oara, on Khasli plate in the Juboal system, which duly relayed the signal, along with an interesting series of rhyme-scheme glyphs, ordinary poems and word games all based on the original signal, to its favoured protege, the LSV Serious Callers Only…