Toby and the others were welcome to try them out, and often did, but she took no interest in reports of their success. It was pure mathematics. It had to work. She took that part for granted, and left the boring stuff to Toby and the others who needed the practice.
She also had no qualms about working problems too complex even for her through Seventeen. The computer seemed to take to her as much as it had to Toby. Indeed, it told her, it was very difficult to distinguish between the two in the way computers did; it was like distinguishing between two halves of the same individual.
She was fascinated by this. “Explain.”
“A partial merger was commanded to be placed as part of master maintenance,” it told her. “It is not a true merger, because that would mean you had the same thoughts and were mentally identical, but it is a file classification that is unique. It is an interwoven file structure. All things that attract him to another you are. All things that attract you to another are him. Your odors attract him and his you. You like precisely the same foods, dislike precisely the same foods. Your world and family views are the same. You have identical values and priorities, large and small. You may argue over a point, but given identical information you will reach the same conclusions. You have his tastes in music, art, decor, and he has yours. You are totally sexually and emotionally compatible, which might mean complementary, only with each other. Your egocentrism is opposite his. You have his ego, he has yours, so each of you is at the center of the other’s world. You look, act, dress, exactly as he wishes; he looks, acts, dresses, exactly as you wish. This is unique. You are absolutely compatible. You can never be otherwise. It is locked in.”
She hadn’t known this before, although both of them had suspected something of the kind. “Are there any disadvantages to this?”
“Many, but few that you will ever perceive. There is a danger. This relationship cannot be changed, but you are not immune to change. If either of you changes, the other will change to maintain the exact balance. Both you and he are constantly changing, as all living things are, inside and out. The adjustments are always made. If he were turned female, you might be turned male, or be reoriented to believe the new Toby was wonderful, or vice-versa. If you were given cloven hooves and a tail, he would either also take on that and like it or he would be reoriented to think the additions were perfect. In essence, although not quite literally, if one of you is hurt, the other also feels the pain. You are bound together. It makes you vulnerable. Be particularly warned. If one dies, the other will die as well.”
She considered that. “Advantages other than the obvious? Technical advantages?”
“Joy is also shared and transferred. Each of you knows when the other is depressed and must what is needed to snap the other out of it. It is impossible for either of you to lie to the other, although you’re both free to lie to anyone else. Your mind and his mind are quite different, but each of you knows exactly how the other’s mind works. Both of you are extremely powerful and talented in your assembly and control of programs. Combined, your limits are quite small. With his landscaping knowledge and your mathematical and programming abilities combined in one, it is quite likely that you could actually create and maintain aa significant-sized area of the grid. You have done your theoretical models, but never really tried it. It is possible that you could create your own small Anchor to order. Together, your power approaches that of this remote amplifier and might be capable of canceling out an attack on your creation.”
She was stunned by this. Their own little Anchor, exactly as they wished . . . “How large could this place be? And how detailed?”
“You—or at least Toby—know the command code sequences for autoprogramming. Given sufficient detail in coded form, all necessary supporting detail could be interpolated and supplied, as with the large Anchor programs.”
She considered it. “So if we wanted and could visualize the same fairytale castle, high on a hill, with bright blue skies, fleecy clouds, a virgin river and waterfall below, and a forest filled with all that would be needed to sustain us, and fed that to you as consistent command code, you could interpolate the rest.”
“Yes. You would of course have to import some larger life forms if desired, those for which no inert code exists, but various birds and insects and even necessary microorganisms would be supplied to keep it in balance.”
“Hmmm. . . . What about fish in the river? Some salmon or mahimahi?”
“Sorry. Only algae, plankton, and certain other elementary life forms are available. The programs for water breathers as such were never sent here, because they needed to be transshipped from Earth in a water environment and no one had authorized the expense. Digitizing on Earch was impossible, as you know, because of the lack of sufficient power. However, I do have a selection of frogs, beaver, muskrat, and other marine creatures. We have repeatedly requested shipment of these programs, but because of the lack of major water bodies requiring them and the recalculated ecosystems not making them necessary to the overall chain, the word from Earth has always been that it was not worth the expense at this stage and was low priority until the quadrant programs were run.”
She knew the likelihood of that in the foreseeable future. The leaders were scared of the big programs. All twenty-eight would have to be coordinated and run at once to get the proper balance, and the remaining Flux might be insufficient to supply what the top echelons needed or wanted. They wouldn’t terraform completely until the population of Anchors was knee-deep. Still, it was a disappointment. She had grown up, like Toby, on an island surrounded by ocean—hers much smaller than his, to be sure, but the sea was in their blood.
So godhood was not absolute but rather subject to bureaucratic and budgetary considerations. It was a little bit of a letdown, although not much.
“Seventeen—all of the people here with kids who had those kids after developing this interfacing sensitivity have found that their children also seem to have this. Is that inherited?”
“It is. Of necessity, the minor modifications were made in master maintenance. As physiological changes, they are inheritable, although unlike you this sensitivity can be changed, enhanced, or eliminated by program call.”
“You mean—nobody can take away Toby’s and my sensitivity to this, but someone could take away Christine’s?”
“Yes. Becasue the program is hidden and not subject to external analysis, it could not be removed by direct computer manipulation alone. However, if someone who also possessed this program and was more skilled in it, or stronger in it than the other, a command to remove would work.”
“Is there any way to make a sensitive’s program permanent without the emotional rush that means lack of control?”
“Any program may be countermanded or rewritten by someone who has more sensitivity or far better training and control or both. The computer receiving the two would resolve the contradiction in favor of the stronger, since the weaker signal would be perceived as spurious—perhaps an echo of another operation far away. The same would apply to an imposed program versus resistance to it. You could, however, impose a program on yourself that could not be changed or altered. To do this you would write the program and make the command calls normally, but add a set of nulls in a random pattern and then establish a mathematical tapeworm which would erase those nulls upon completion of ‘run.’ You would be unable then to change your own program. Someone with more strength and control, however, could still read the program, and while they could not alter it, not having the proper sequence of nulls, they could transfer it to themselves by command using the same procedure.”
“The locals already call our direct programs spells. I suppose that would be a curse, then.”
“Not really, for it would have to be self-imposed or voluntarily reimposed on the one removing it. A curse is a program with a negative or undesirable effect. This sort of program is neutral in that respect, and is useful in stabilizing direct energy to matter transfers such as the land you spoke about, so they would remain relatively stable even if you were away.”
She had been maintaining a handwritten book which she had playfully labeled her “Grimoire.” In it she had sketched out lengthy mathematical models of various types of programs and classified them under the old terms. There were “Miracles,” “White Magic,” “Black Magic,” “Curses,” and other such headings. The ancient magics had been basically psychology, trickery, illusion, misdirection, conditioning, and the like, but this was the real thing. Toby had long ago noted that it seemed that the fate of science and learning was to make sorcery respectable.
And in a world where magic seemed to work, sorcery was fun only if you were a sorceress.
The Soviet ship came in unannounced from Colony Sixteen up the line, which was only slightly unusual, but their request to talk to someone high up in New Eden was quite new, and the fact that the ship was full of people heading inward, toward Earth, was unprecedented.
When they heard what the Soviet spokesman had to say, they arranged very quickly to put him on via satellite to all seven directors and all area commanders.
It had started as far up the line as humanity currently went, at the still undeveloped and prototypical Nueva Hispaniola colony at position Twenty-one. Supply and personnel ships came through at least once a month, passing through each position including New Eden’s, the Soviets at Sixteen, and the Chinese at Nineteen. The Chinese had encountered a problem with the last Hispanic shipload; its upline gate had refused to send the ship, stating that it was receiving signals that all three Hispanic Gates were occupied. The Hispanics always had one ship on their end for inbound, one ship for outbound from Earth, and a third Gate kept clear in case of problems.