Halfway down the ramp, Justinian realized he was alone.
Arent you coming, Leslie? he said, turning to face the
grey smudge of the robot who was watching from just inside the ships doorway.
The robots voice was apologetic. Sorry. I cant get a grip on the mud with these feet.
A grey blur of movement was the robots arm pointing to its foot. It was difficult to make out anything for sure about Leslie through his fractal skin, the ten-centimeter region around the construct that could neither properly be described as robot, nor the rest of the world, either. Leslie claimed that it served as a cordon sanitaire; Justinian darkly suspected it was just another excuse for avoiding work.
Fine, he said sharply, walking quickly back up the ramp. Ill go alone. You stay and watch the baby.
Justinian dumped his son into the robots arms, then slipped and slithered his way out onto the red mud, the bright light and dark red surroundings making him feel as if he was still dreaming. Iridescent patterns bent and warped as he placed his feet on the slick surface, splashing up reddish drops that slipped rapidly from the frictionless surface of his clothes. The rich organic stench in his nose matched the farting of his feet in the mud. Up till now Justinian had visited fourteen pods around the planet, and this one was in by far the most unpleasant location.
The AI pod rested in a little indentation in the bank. It seemed almost unchanged from its dormant state: a smooth fluorescent green kidney bean the size of Justinian, had he taken it into his head to curl up in the fetal position there in the stinking mud. Three Black Velvet Bands had wrapped themselves around its surface and a few Schrödinger boxes were scattered across the mud before it.
Hello, said the pod.
Hello, Im Justinian.
Hello, Justinian. The pods voice was eager, like a child fascinated by the world. Have you seen these little boxes? As soon as you take your eye off any of them, they jump to another position. But as long as you are looking at them, they stay put.
Ive seen them, said Justinian, fed up with the pod already. He had been conducting interviews all over the planet, asking the same questions over and over again, each time receiving exactly the same answers. It was getting tedious beyond belief. For this pod, of course, it was all new.
Do you know what they are? it asked. Theyre amazing!
Theyre called Schrödinger boxes, Justinian said carefully. The pod wasnt fooled.
Ah! So you dont actually know what they are either. Maybe you can tell me about these bands wrapped around my shell. Do you know what they are, or do you simply have a name for them?
Justinian was too tired to be insulted. Besides, it was all part of the script.
We call them Black Velvet Bands, BVBs for short, he replied. Look, Ive got one in here.
He pulled the plastic rod from the thigh pocket of his passive suit and waited a moment for the pod to scan it.
Very interesting, it said. Where did you find it?
The plastic rod is a table leg. One of the other colonists found the BVB wrapped around it as they were sitting down to breakfast one morning.
One of the other colonists? How many are there now on Gateway?
Still just a hundred. And me, of course.
Justinian gave an involuntary shiver as he said these words. It reminded him how far he was from home, and Justinian felt doubly alone. Here he was, standing on a remote mud slick, lost on a planet that floated between galaxies, and yet he felt himself an outsider to the only group of humans for millions of light years. The bright blue belt of M32 rose into the dark sky behind the pod. The Milky Way was a monochrome rainbow in the other direction.
Justinian rubbed a finger across the fuzzy surface of the BVB and wondered at the strangeness of this place. As far as he was concerned, reality was a force that diminished the further one traveled from home: the hundred colonists were treading in a place of dreams where nothing worked as it should. Neither should it be expected to.
The pod spoke in a thoughtful tone. I dont remember anything about BVBs. I wonder why that is?
Probably because they werent known when you were conceived. They were only discovered on this planet.
Justinian crouched down before the pod, looking for external sense cluster formations. There seemed to be nothing. That implied the pod was still operating on internals. Just like all the other pods, in fact.
BVBs are similar to the Schrödinger boxes, he continued, his hands glowing fluorescent green as he felt the rubbery surface of the pod. Red mud squelched under his feet and he grabbed onto the pod to maintain his balance. BVBs only form in spaces that are not being observed, and then they immediately begin to contract.
How do you know? the
pod interrupted.
How do I know what?
How do you know that they begin to contract immediately if the space in which they form is not being observed?
Justinian smiled wearily.
Good point, he said. I hadnt thought of that before. He was struck by how much like children the AIs here on Gateway had become. Innocent, but with a sharp eye for detail.