Divergence

over the space where the pilot would stand during the daytime. A man, a woman, and their child would sleep at night in a space so small they couldn’t stretch out but would have to curl around each other like spoons. They literally couldn’t turn over in their sleep, it was so small. And in the morning they would lift that bed board and then use the space beneath it to cook breakfast.”

She smiled slightly, registering the smell of onions. Then she fixed Ivan with an intense look.

“And I was struck by the way people were forced to live in such dreadful conditions by the prevailing economic forces of the time. There was land available for all, for food and space, but it wasn’t shared out equally. People had to sleep—that’s what really struck me— sleep like that, because that was the way the country was run then, with everyone seeking to find work and make a profit to survive. And that was because humans are destined to compete with each other, and that’s because of the way they evolved, and…and…and suddenly it struck me that, in a way, it’s written in the fundamental makeup of the universe that matter attracts, and molecules replicate, and life evolves and competes, and one of the means of such competition is profit. Just think of that, how capitalism and the rise of the big organizations are as much a part of the inevitable consequences of the big bang as are atoms and stars and life itself.”

Ivan moved his lips, tasting the idea. “I suppose so,” he said.

Eva was staring at the Narkomfin, at its grey walls made colorful by the laundry looping from the windows to dry in the late-afternoon sunshine. She saw the ruined silver bones of the defeated venumb that had once tried to claim the building. She gazed at the distant mountains, purple and blue, and so rough and wild and unlike the rest of the world, covered as that was by the creeping sanitized surveillance of the Watcher.

“It makes me wonder,” said Eva. “Could we stand back and look at the commercial company that operated those barges and think that that particular macro structure was as much a part of the universe as a white dwarf.”

“What has that got to do with the flower?” asked Ivan. “What has that got to do with Katya and you and me?”

“It means that your leaving me is inevitable, Ivan. Do not blame yourself.”

…and you looked for life on the ship, Judy, and you found something, something located at the very core of its being. In its bones, you might say.

The FE software. Do you remember? It feels alive, but it’s not living; and you wanted to know what it was. It is here on the ship; you can feel its actual presence. Lying on your bed, you sent your thoughts off through the ship, but you lost it at that strange knot of converging corridors. It is something that your mind cannot touch. The FE software is like life without motion—the essence of life, but unchanging, a cloud of ink moulded in a Perspex block.

It doesn’t move, it doesn’t defend itself, and yet your thoughts drifted off, drifted off into this dream. You’ve dreamt of Eva before, Judy—why is that? And now you must wake up…

Judy opened her eyes to see the stars rising higher and higher into the night sky, like stacks of silver pennies thrown into the air. Her eyes adjusted, and she saw it was just the black lacquer of her ceiling reflecting the myriad yellow flames of the little candles burning around her bed. The FE software? It wasn’t life—but, then again, life took on so many forms. Life took on so many forms.

And what was life, anyway?

maurice 2: 2252

Maurice played his clarinetwith his eyes half fixed on the screen of his console. It was unusual to have three FE ships within range of them at once, and the thought that maybe he should wake Saskia and tell her wove in and out of his thoughts in time to the music.

The silver plastic felt warm and alive under his fingers; he could feel the patterns of resonance change in the space around him as he played. The air of the little hold seemed to be dancing, ripe with melody. For the moment, Maurice felt at peace in the funny little space where gravity had been set to make maximum use of the available surfaces. Black-and-white rubber tiles lined the floor, the four walls and the ceiling. He didn’t hear Judy coming up behind him. “That sounds nice,” she said. The music died, and the hold reverted to an empty space scattered with the thin cargo the crew of the Eva Rye had managed to acquire. The life seemed to pass instantly from the goods ranged in the crates that were stacked on the floor, the ceiling, and the walls, all held in place by the six-directional gravity. In the ensuing silence, the crystal glasses packed in foam pellets no longer sang, the green apples that lay in neat nests of paper lost their bloom. Only the piles of colored pebbles remained happy, glinting in the light.

“No, don’t stop. Go on,” Judy urged, sitting down heavily on the crate next to Maurice. Her voice sounded whispery and thin.

“Are you okay?” Maurice turned to peer at her pale face. Even through her white makeup he could see how drawn and uneasy she looked.

“I’ll be fine,” Judy said, sitting up straighter.

“You’re not fine now, though,” Maurice replied. “Come on, let’s go to the living area and get you something to drink.”