The Mind Pool

Keep your fingers crossed for me, Chan, wherever you are. I love you, and I’ve always loved you since you were a baby. I can’t forgive myself for running away and refusing to speak to you when you were on Ceres with Tatty. But it was awfully hard for me to admit that I don’t own you any more.

I hope that you can forgive me. And I hope that some day I can make up for what I did then.

Yours, Leah.

Chan had read it through again and again. After the third time he could have repeated it word for word.

He kept going back to the last few paragraphs. Leah’s words of love bowled him over — and her remarks about the level of communication between her team members baffled him completely. Over the past couple of days he had become convinced that his own team would never work well together. They had too much trouble understanding each other. Well, maybe Shikari, as the Tinker liked to be called, would be all right. Shikari sometimes made perfect sense. So did the Pipe-Rilla, now and again, although neither she nor the Tinker seemed to have the equivalent of facial expressions. If they had some kind of body language for use with their own species, he had no idea how to read it.

As for the Angel, that was mystery personified. The creature had no face, no mouth, no method of communication except through a computer interface. And even that output was often incomprehensible, though Shikari and the Pipe-Rilla understood it (or pretended to).

And this mismatched assembly was supposed to be able to track down and destroy the most dangerous being in the known universe! They would be lucky if the Artefact simulation of the Construct, here on Barchan, didn’t tie them in knots.

They had established their camp down near the planet’s south pole. Until they knew the Simmie Artefact’s location there was no point in enduring the dreadful summer heat of the equator and northern hemisphere. On this third evening, as the dark sands of Barchan gradually cooled, the Pursuit Team settled down to its first strategy session.

The Tinker had increased noticeably in size as the sun set and the air was less scorchingly hot. The central mass contained almost twice as many components as when Chan had first met it, and its response time was painfully slow. The other three waited (impatiently, in at least Chan’s case) while Shikari’s speech funnel made its preparatory wheezes and whistles.

The Pipe-Rilla, S’greela, was crouched next to Chan and nervously stroking her multi-jointed forelimbs along the side of her head. If her performance to date was any guide, when confronted by anything the least frightening she would chitter in horror and terror and run away with great spring-legged leaps.

The Angel at least would not run away. It could not. No matter how intelligent the crystalline Singer might be, it was bound within the vegetable body of the Chassel-Rose and suffered that plant’s extreme slowness of movement. When the Angel wanted to move, the bulbous green body first lifted the root-borers up close underneath it. When they were stowed safely away it could creep along on the down-pointing adventitious stems at the edge of the body base. Chan guessed that if it was in a real hurry it might manage up to a hundred steps an hour.

Which left only the Tinker, Shikari, as a possibly useful ally. But its reaction to danger had already been demonstrated. It at once dispersed to individual components, and they flew away.

The curious thing was that the other three did not share Chan’s worries at all.

“We think that we have a satisfactory approach.” Shikari was finally speaking, slow and ponderous. “The Simulated Artefact lacks circadian rhythms and is indifferent to night or day. But our team is not. We Tinkers prefer to cluster by night, and Chan needs to become dormant. However, S’greela is naturally nocturnal, and like the Chassel-Rose she has excellent night vision. This, therefore, is our suggestion. Angel and S’greela should perform a night survey, seeking the Simmie. Human and self will remain here and rest. If there is no success in the search, then when daylight comes we will reverse the roles.”

The long blue-green fronds at the top of the Angel began to wave slowly in the air. Chan, ready to speak, paused. He had seen that motion before, when the Angel’s computer communicator was beginning its translation. Maybe even an Angel had some kind of body language.

“We agree,” said the translator’s mechanical voice. “However, we propose one difference. We believe that we now know the probable location of the Simulated Artefact. Therefore, the mission for Angel and Pipe-Rilla should be one of confirmation, not of search.”

“But how can you? — ” Chan stopped. The ferny fronds were still waving.

“We have completed the analysis of imaging radar records obtained during orbital survey,” went on the Angel. “There are two significant anomalies. One of them is our base. The other is almost certainly the Simulacrum. We request a brief pause, while we perform a confirming analysis. We have stored a copy of the ship’s data record.”

The Angel had answered Chan’s half-spoken question, plus another one about the ship’s records that he had thought but not even started to ask.

Telepathy? Even as the thought came, Chan rejected it. He remembered what Flammarion had told him during a Ceres briefing: “An Angel doesn’t normally think like a human, but not because it can’t. When an Angel wants to, it can put part of its brain into what we call ‘emulator mode.’ Then that piece can be instructed by the Angel to think like a human, or a Pipe-Rilla, or a Tinker of any number of components, or maybe like all three at once. And probably any other creature you care to name, maybe even like a Morgan Construct. And while all that’s going on, the Angel still performs logical analysis in its own way. Whatever that might be.” At that point Kubo Flammarion had seemed puzzled by his own words, and rugged at his uniform as though it had become too small for him.

During Chan’s moment of recollection, the Pipe-Rilla S’greela had unfolded its long, telescoping limbs and was reaching down to pick up the Angel. The Angel had objected to this the first time, protesting that it was quite capable of independent locomotion. But after two minutes of watching the Chassel-Rose’s lumbering progress, the other three had been unanimous. In any travel involving them, Angel would be carried.

Chan watched S’greela now as she easily picked up Angel’s pear-shaped bulk. More and more he was aware of the power in the thin, pipe-stem body. S’greela was gentle, but if she ever chose not to be she could swat Chan like a troublesome insect.

Shikari remained a few feet away from Chan. The Tinker did not speak as S’greela and Angel left in the air- car. It occurred to Chan that he was observing another data point. The others were very economical of words unless he became involved in the conversation; then human-style verbal padding was added for his benefit. They had realized that redundant words were part of human social interaction, as important to Chan as stroking to a Pipe-Rilla or clustering to a Tinker.

Chan stood up and moved across to sit by Shikari. After a few moments he felt the feathery touch of long, delicate antennae on his arms and legs. The Tinker Composite was quietly performing a partial disassembly and rebuilding. Thumb-sized components were leaving the far side of the great clump and re-attaching themselves close to Chan’s body. Within five minutes Shikari was molded solidly against Chan’s left side, touching him all the way from breast to ankles.

He turned his head and stared down at the purple-black vibrating mass. The contact was not at all unpleasant. In fact, that gentle thrumming touch against his skin began to feel surprisingly warm and reassuring. After a few more moments, free components who had not been part of the Tinker Composite when Chan sat down flew across and made additional connections. Soon Chan’s whole body, from feet to shoulders, was embedded in the largest purple swarm he had ever encountered.

He felt very relaxed now, but not sleepy. The pressure around him was just enough to be noticed. But the pilot’s words drifted back to Chan. If a Tinker chose to swarm on something as a means of restraint, it could be formidable. Shikari had its own way of neutralizing aggression.

He watched as a final few components flew in to attach themselves. “Do you feel different, when more units attach?”

There was an experimental whistle from the speaking funnel. “Of course.’

After a long silence, Chan realized that the Tinker had given its full answer. “I don’t mean more intelligent. I know that’s true. What I mean is, do you feel that you are a different individual when your size is increased so much?”

The Tinker was silent for an even longer period. “That is a difficult question.” Even its voice was slower and deeper in pitch. “We are also not sure that it is a meaningful one. We are what we are, at the moment. We cannot