The crew of the Eva Rye looked at one another, puzzled.
“Let’s get back to the point,” said Judy.
The Bailero Warped towards Earth, a silver and gold collection of curves that swept in and out on each other in pleasing symmetry. There was a joke to the design of this ship, one understood only by AIs of sufficiently advanced intelligence: the shape of the ship was that of a man, but warped through a Riemannian transform thought up by the AIs behind DIANA. No human had spotted the connection yet, but of such subtle conceits the Human Domain was constructed.
Inside the Bailero, the sleek black-and-white teardrop of the Eva Rye sat lightly on the blue-frosted interior, looking like the last pea left in the can. Its main entrance ramp had been lowered to touch the cold metal of the host ship, and a stream of silver VNMs totally encircled the black-and-white ship: Kevin’s domain trying in vain to assert its mastery over the re-formed vessel. Occasionally one of the VNMs would venture up the ramp, only to be beaten back by some invisible force. Trailing behind the Bailero, unnoticed yet by anyone save Aleph, two more systems repair robots drifted, following the signal that was being transmitted from the FE software that lurked at the heart of the Eva Rye: a signal that pulsed out for hundreds of light years all around. It was a simple message. It is Time.
“Maurice, what do you think?”
Maurice was staring up at the irregular pattern in the ceiling, lost in thought. He sat up in his seat and leaned forward, elbows on the desk. Judy was watching him dispassionately—did she guess his suspicions? He told a lie.
“Me?” he began. “I’m wondering about how the Eva Rye came back to life. Where did the code for the FE software go when the ship was split into lots of little VNMs?”
“Is this relevant?” Saskia asked. “We are talking about whether or not we should accompany Judy.”
“Maybe it’s not relevant. But—” Actually, now he came to think of it, it was an interesting point. Where had the Eva Rye gone when it had been turned into VNMs? And therefore where had the FE software gone? It needed a large processing space on which to run. It couldn’t have continued to exist after being broken up into lots of little spiders.
“I don’t know how it was done,” Maurice said. “How could FE software continue running when there was no processing space to support it? The Eva Rye was destroyed, split up into thousands of spiders…” He was thinking aloud now. “But just suppose it worked backwards. Just suppose there was some software that could run on its own, software that didn’t need hardware, or software that could form a supporting mechanism spontaneously?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Saskia said.
Maurice slumped back in his chair and went back to staring at the ceiling. Is that what FE was? A piece of code that could spontaneously form the mechanism on which it ran? You could use it as a wrapper for anything: a sound, an idea.
A soul?
“Where does FE come from?” he asked again. “It just seems to have appeared at the edge of human space. Twenty years ago no one had even heard of it.”
Judy understood. “Are you saying that maybe it just formed itself?”
The silence was broken by another voice. Earth was calling.
In the past five years only point three of one percent of the people that have entered the Earth system have left it again. Do you really want to come here? You are approaching a quarantined zone. Please change your course now.
Everyone turned to Judy. She folded her arms, looking determined.
“I told you,” she said. “I will go to Earth on my own.”
“No way,” Saskia said, glancing at Miss Rose again. “We stick together. I’ve learned my lesson. Edward, what do you say?”
They all looked at Edward, who had splayed his big hands across the glass tabletop.
“I think we should get something to eat,” he said decisively. “We haven’t had breakfast yet.”
They made their way to the living area. On Edward’s suggestion they set the viewing fields to enfold them with an external view from the Eva Rye . They ate scrambled eggs and smoked bacon in a blue ice cavern that was slipping between the stars, diving towards the dark center of the Earth system.
