Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

'Yes?'

'You're wanted in the grove.' The boy pointed to the little stand of trees that spread out to embrace the left side of the government building within the curving sweep of its glass shell. Some kind of commotion was happening over there, with the paths blocked by security people and something tall and broad being trundled through the foliage.

'Hmm.' He strolled in that direction. Various small crowds were clustered around speakers in the gardens; all were being very careful to avoid trampling on the flower beds, knowing as they did how rare gardens under gravity were in Virga. Other knots of people were arguing or conspiring in various corners.

The page led him past the grim security guards and under the trees. A number of people were talking up ahead; he heard shouted orders, the sound of creaking ropes. Rounding a bend in the path, they came upon a sight that made the page stop dead and swear under his breath. Keir grunted, but not because the bizarre vision was unfamiliar to him. Quite the opposite.

'Chen, can you explain this madness?' It was Admiral Fanning. He was standing with his arms crossed, tapping one foot impatiently on the gravel path. Next to him was a young, handsome officer in resplendent dress uniform who looked agitated and tired.

'We sent Travis here to the emissary's country and now he's back--with this!' Fanning nodded past his officer to where a work gang was just finishing their moving operation.

Keir whistled appreciatively. Forgetting to answer Fanning, he walked up to the base of the vast oak tree the work gang had trundled into this intersection. It towered over the young trees around it, its twisted branches and thick sheets of leaves dark and wild-appearing next to their manicured perfection.

The oak's extensive root system was contained in a tangled metal structure that sprouted six thick metal legs. These in turn rested on several wheeled, wooden carts that were bowing under the strain.

Coils of metal and brightly colored plastics wound up the trunk of the tree. Thousands of intricate glittering shapes perched motionless among its branches. Its base sported many arms and sensing devices, all unmoving.

A grimy man in coveralls with a set of shears in his hand was staring up at the immense, unruly thing. 'It needs a trim,' he said.

'Touch it and you die,' Keir said quickly. When the man glared at him, he added, 'I'm not threatening you. I won't kill you. It will.'

Something else was being wheeled out now. It was a statue of some kind, much smaller than the oak, smaller than a man, in fact. 'What about that one?' the gardener asked. 'Can we touch it?'

Keir glanced at it. 'Yes.' It was clearly a morphont, nothing at all like the creature towering over him.

Fanning and Travis had come up behind him. Keir spared the officer a sympathetic look. 'Traveling with these two must have been a nightmare,' he said. 'I'm glad I wasn't with you.'

'You know what these things are?' asked the admiral.

'Yes. It seems your man Travis gained us a very powerful ally while he was away.' When Fanning continued to look puzzled, Keir pointed to the tree. 'This.'

He walked up and reached out, but didn't quite have the courage to touch one of its massive legs. 'It's an oak.'

'I can see that.' Now Fanning was just annoyed.

'No, I don't think you can. The oaks are one of the most powerful species in the arena. They're aggressive, relentless, generally hostile to animalia...' He saw Fanning's look, and smiled. 'Look at the legs. Look at the sensing nets, the power units. This oak is a tree wedded to an artificial intelligence with mobility, weapons, dexterous arms, and an internal Edisonian engine for designing whatever it may need.'

The admiral was still shaking his head. 'But all a tree needs is--'

'Air, soil, sunlight, and peace and quiet, yes. And if you deprive this fellow of any of those things, he'll hunt you down and obliterate you.'

'But ... but why? I mean, why should the artificial mind care? I can see what it has to offer the tree. But what does the tree offer it?'

'Something no AI has by itself,' said Keir. 'A four-billion-year-old will to live.'

He could see that the admiral still didn't understand. And if he didn't, then explaining the awesome reality of the oak to the rest of the delegations was going to be a problem. Even AIs that controlled tremendous resources never lived very long, because their will to live was an add-on; it wasn't ingrained into every cell, into their most fundamental design parameters, the way it was with evolved life-forms. This oak gave the AI attached to it an anchor, an endpoint for any why it might ask about itself. The oak had no possible purpose beyond its own duration, and that was exactly what made it valuable.

'Admiral, you're looking at the great secret that divides the morphonts and the virtual. The virtual take everything as raw material for their creativity--even their own memories and identities. They have no root. They have no attachment to the physical world or any piece of that world. This oak does. It is its embodiment that makes it like us. That is what makes it our ally...'

He trailed off, hand still raised to nearly touch the oak. Being in the presence of the oak was bringing back memories. He remembered an oak visiting Brink, shortly before he'd de-indexed himself. Something about a warning ...

'Chen?'

He blinked and looked to where Admiral Fanning was frowning down at the other visitor. It sat on its little wooden cart, glittering tail coiled around its front paws, staring enigmatically into the distance. He could see the faint white strands of nanofiber that tied together its sculpted iron muscles and limbs.

'It's a cheetah,' he said, walking up to it and looking into its gigantic green eyes. 'A beautiful piece.' He glanced at Travis. 'You've seen it in motion.'

The officer nodded. 'Admiral, it talked. It's a new emissary from the ... the people who contacted Maspeth.