Divergence

“Hmm,” Saskia said thoughtfully. “Maurice,” she said suddenly, “maybe you were right. Where does FE

come from? Aleph said that FE was the idea of some old guy from history.”

Judy had stopped what she was doing in order to listen to the conversation.

“I don’t know,” she said pensively. “I have tried to feel the software, but there is something so strange about it. I think Aleph is mistaken here. I get the feeling that we are dealing with something that is far older than humanity.”

In the deepening silence that followed this announcement, Maurice looked at his console.

“Fair Exchange will be completed in five minutes,” he announced.

Miriam had finished her breakfast. She placed her fork on her plate and scratched her side awkwardly.

“Listen,” she said. “In about one and a half hours’ time you will be entering the quarantined zone. There are things in there waiting for you; they’ll have locked onto your ship already. They will have even locked onto your individual personalities.” She paused, letting this sink in.

“Our individual personalities?” Edward said.

“You don’t all have to go to Earth. Why don’t some of you come on board the Uninvited ?” Miriam looked deliberately at Miss Rose.

“Why not, Miss Rose?” asked Saskia. “You’ll be safer there.”

Miss Rose shook her head. “I don’t think so, dear. Do you know why I’m here?”

There was a shuddering crash at the end of the table as one of the Uninvited dropped her fork. Miss Rose smiled at the redheaded woman suffering from cerebral palsy.

“I have my moments, too,” she sympathized. “Senile dementia. It’s odd, isn’t it? How we can build self-replicating machines and travel between the stars and yet we can’t cure conditions that are as old as human existence itself.”

Miriam nodded in agreement.

Miss Rose folded her hands around one of Saskia’s, holding it in the lap of her white shift.

“When the first symptoms appeared, when I first began to forget things and to repeat myself, it was suggested that I take a cruise. That was Social Care again.” She turned to Judy. “What is it about you lot?” she asked. “The halt and the lame, you want to shift us all off planet. Out of sight, out of mind, is it?”

Miss Rose’s voice had begun to crack. “Edward, be a good lad and get me some water.”

Edward returned with the glass. She took a sip.

“I never liked space,” Miss Rose continued. “I never wanted to travel. And yet there I was on a ship. Passing through the Earth Domain. Embarrassing people by asking them their names over and again, like each time I met them it was for the first time. Embarrassing myself. And then we met the Changes . An FE ship. I don’t think Social Care knew what FE was at that time, otherwise they would never have let their crew come aboard. We got chatting. They asked me what I wanted.”

Maddeningly, Miss Rose paused to slowly sip her water again.

“And what did you say, Miss Rose?” prompted Saskia.

“I said I didn’t want to continue like this,” Miss Rose said. She placed her glass on the table. “I said I wanted to do something important.”

“And what did they say?”

“They consulted their FE software,” Miss Rose said. “It said I could have what I wanted.”

“And what did you have to give in return?” Maurice asked.

“Me. I was sold as cargo to the Changes . And then I was sold to the Yellow River, and then I was sold to you.”

She turned around to Miriam. “And that’s why I think I will remain here on the Eva Rye,