hard as it really would be? Everyone makes it sound so easy to die in these stories. Oh, the character says, I have a version of myself seventy million clicks away in Mindspace. But it's me, the me here and now, the only me I know, who's about to die. I have no connection with that other me. I think the only people who could do it are the people who would be willing to end their lives even if they had no backup."
I couldn't sleep. I wasn't the future brilliant writer I thought I would be. I was a thinker of shallow thoughts. I had to be saved in secret and I didn't have the courage to admit it. I clambered down from the bunk.
"What's wrong?” Gale asked.
"I can't sleep. I'm going to take a walk."
I hoped she'd offer to join me, but instead she told me how beautiful Santa Fe was at night, that a walk would do me good. While I walked, I imagined that when I got back she'd offer me a massage to help me relax. In one version, we end up relaxing into each other's bodies. In another, she slips on clothes so I won't get the wrong idea, and her hands, which I imagine as skilled and powerful, send me to sleep.
The room was silent when I got back. I listened to her breathe and realized she was truly asleep.
In the morning she asked me, “Are you feeling better?” and she sat next to me almost like a protector.
Esner walked by, patted the back of my head, and told me it was hard to be the first one to go, and then he sat down by Gale. Tensi, who was serving food, watched him. Yesterday, he'd helped her in the kitchen. Esner wanted to talk about the story Gale discussed last night with Sonisa, the one about the world where the one-person-one-child limit was not observed.
"That wasn't your submission piece,” he said.
"No,” Gale said and she smiled. “I haven't written it."
"Yet,” he said. “What you mean is you haven't written it yet.” He smiled, but the smile was more awkward punctuation than anything else. “What fascinated me was that you wanted something different. Change. Back before the end of Earth, there was a whole fiction devoted to change. They imagined how we'd live on other worlds. How we'd travel there. You haven't read any of that, have you?"
"I don't think so. I read Alone ."
I think most of us had read Alone . It was set before Minds had torn apart Jupiter. A world augmented with engines used Jupiter's gravity to accelerate out of the solar system. But it wasn't going all that fast, so over time people forgot they were on a world and thought it was the universe.
"But,” I said, anxious to be too much on the edge of the conversation, “that story is designed to make us feel content with what we have. We have the other worlds. We know where we are.” I felt like a bit of a hypocrite. I was certainly happy to be where we were. Sure, I loved the stories of fighting the Minds, but that didn't mean I wanted to go back and restart that war. There had been a thousand worlds. When raiders from Haynlayn went and blew up some part of the Minds, the Minds retaliated by picking some world that was not Haynlayn and destroying it. Eventually a small armada of human ships laid siege to Haynlayn to put an end to the war.
I looked to Gale to watch her nod; I no longer felt like a hypocrite.
Esner said, “No. I mean written way before then, before the Minds. It might be important to your fiction. If you're willing, I can help you get access."
"Did their stories predict the Minds?"
"What do you mean?"
"At some point,” Gale said, “they had to figure that machine intelligences would grow tremendously powerful. What did they think of all that?"
"Well, they imagined humans more involved in the process. People would be augmented. They might have new biological capabilities or connections with the machine intelligences. They did think there would be computers who'd save their entire personality. They imagined they'd get new bodies and record their old minds on the new bodies."
"So their stories encouraged
I couldn't sleep. I wasn't the future brilliant writer I thought I would be. I was a thinker of shallow thoughts. I had to be saved in secret and I didn't have the courage to admit it. I clambered down from the bunk.
"What's wrong?” Gale asked.
"I can't sleep. I'm going to take a walk."
I hoped she'd offer to join me, but instead she told me how beautiful Santa Fe was at night, that a walk would do me good. While I walked, I imagined that when I got back she'd offer me a massage to help me relax. In one version, we end up relaxing into each other's bodies. In another, she slips on clothes so I won't get the wrong idea, and her hands, which I imagine as skilled and powerful, send me to sleep.
The room was silent when I got back. I listened to her breathe and realized she was truly asleep.
In the morning she asked me, “Are you feeling better?” and she sat next to me almost like a protector.
Esner walked by, patted the back of my head, and told me it was hard to be the first one to go, and then he sat down by Gale. Tensi, who was serving food, watched him. Yesterday, he'd helped her in the kitchen. Esner wanted to talk about the story Gale discussed last night with Sonisa, the one about the world where the one-person-one-child limit was not observed.
"That wasn't your submission piece,” he said.
"No,” Gale said and she smiled. “I haven't written it."
"Yet,” he said. “What you mean is you haven't written it yet.” He smiled, but the smile was more awkward punctuation than anything else. “What fascinated me was that you wanted something different. Change. Back before the end of Earth, there was a whole fiction devoted to change. They imagined how we'd live on other worlds. How we'd travel there. You haven't read any of that, have you?"
"I don't think so. I read Alone ."
I think most of us had read Alone . It was set before Minds had torn apart Jupiter. A world augmented with engines used Jupiter's gravity to accelerate out of the solar system. But it wasn't going all that fast, so over time people forgot they were on a world and thought it was the universe.
"But,” I said, anxious to be too much on the edge of the conversation, “that story is designed to make us feel content with what we have. We have the other worlds. We know where we are.” I felt like a bit of a hypocrite. I was certainly happy to be where we were. Sure, I loved the stories of fighting the Minds, but that didn't mean I wanted to go back and restart that war. There had been a thousand worlds. When raiders from Haynlayn went and blew up some part of the Minds, the Minds retaliated by picking some world that was not Haynlayn and destroying it. Eventually a small armada of human ships laid siege to Haynlayn to put an end to the war.
I looked to Gale to watch her nod; I no longer felt like a hypocrite.
Esner said, “No. I mean written way before then, before the Minds. It might be important to your fiction. If you're willing, I can help you get access."
"Did their stories predict the Minds?"
"What do you mean?"
"At some point,” Gale said, “they had to figure that machine intelligences would grow tremendously powerful. What did they think of all that?"
"Well, they imagined humans more involved in the process. People would be augmented. They might have new biological capabilities or connections with the machine intelligences. They did think there would be computers who'd save their entire personality. They imagined they'd get new bodies and record their old minds on the new bodies."
"So their stories encouraged
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