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Betrayals: Sixby Steve Bowers |
(Extracts from Encyclopaedia Galactica Human (Anglic) Revised 299th edition
Utility Fog
A quantity of micro or nanoscale robotic units which link together to form an apparently fluid mass, which can exert force upon and transmit information to any object or entity contained within. Utility Fog can be used to reproduce any real or imaginary object or environment, reproducing shapes, textures, colours, and temperature, and can display any image required, although much utility fog replicates the appearance of thin air transparent to a range of visible wavelengths (this illusion is sometimes less convincing when viewed from a distance).
Nanotech utility fog is not self-replicating.
This useful material can be used in spacecraft or space habitats to replicate gravity, or to provide an environment, which allows greater control over movement in zero gee.
Hyperfog
Hypertech utility fog as used by high singularity beings is independently intelligent, and can replicate itself using atmospheric or other available materials very swiftly. This replication will increase the volume of the hyperfog and also the available processing power.
The foglet entities in the Nimbus culture usually utilise hyperfog bodies.
Hyperfog can be useful in mining and terraforming operations but can only be controlled successfully by transapients that have processing power superior to that of the hyperfog itself.
Unlike ordinary utility fog it is highly resistant to subversion by infiltration or virus attack.
Zero minus two hundred eleven years
The last section of the Arkab Prior B Cable Tubeway to be completed was that connecting Ñadi Ring to its neighbours in 8754. A thousand years later the millenary of the completion of the inter-ring transport system was marked throughout the necklace with holiday and carnival, but Ñadi Ring was the focus of the celebration. For three whole days the central luminaire was dimmed, and the skies above the temperate rainforest habitat were filled with firework displays, holographic presentations, and induced aurora.
Extending a hundred kilometres out from the luminaire along the port axis was the Spindle, a hundred-metre thick zero-gee construction connecting the luminaire to the Cable. Both the luminaire and spindle were glowing gently, the colours shifting from infra-red to far ultraviolet, and many of the celebrating people below were able to perceive the full beauty of the extended rainbow of colours above their heads.
Further away the Cable Tube way itself was in bright sunlight, rotating once every seventy minutes with the stars. The millions of Sitka spruce and Douglas Fir in the forests were also illuminated
with a specially produced glowing bionano film in the same colours, which compensated for the fact that rainclouds often hid the sky.
Washed into the puddles, the luminous goo glowed and swirled.
Covering the party for Nklace NarrOcasting were hundreds of reporters, selected to represent the dozens of human races and modifications that made the Necklace their home, and also the many
intelligent uplifted animal species (like the various species of Neodolphins, for instance). A wide selection of human-friendly robot reporters also made their contributions.
'This rain will bring on my dodgy knee again,' said 78erek, who was a steely grey Dormbot reporting on behalf of the Non Coersive Zone robotic population.
'These lousy MPA matter compilers here can't get the recipes right. I'm a martyr to my joints in wet
weather.'
"You'll live, Erek; now give over complaining for just for a minute. Here comes the River Dwellers procession." Max stood at his maximum stable height, recording for the benefit of any vec viewer
who might access his file in the future (actually there were no real-time viewers tuned in to his programme at that moment, a common but slightly discouraging occurrence in narrowcasting).
Standing tall, Max resembled a besom broomstick, and it was because of this resemblance that his particular design of fractal bush vec had adopted the nickname `brushbot'.
He wondered for a tenth-second or two what all the other brushbots were up to instead of tuning in to his narrOcast, then twinkled dismissively and went back to watching the water dweller parade.
Augusta was watching the parade nearby with her friend and fellow NarrOcaster Selenn Tiyy, a tall, thin lowgrav New Martian, who was always eager to encounter new and unusual species of humanity.
"There, `Sta, look! I told you there would be mermen!" Selenn enthused. "They are even bigger than I expected… by space, they are nearly as big as killer whales. I wonder if these lot are bodyguards for the Golden Dolphin, or just a few wanderers far from Zennor."
The reporters stood on a raised platform above the river edge, a few hundred metres from Lagosh Town Centre and the small, quaint harbour there. The specially constructed platforms were provided with an ornately carved roof projecting over their heads to keep off the intermittent rain; the breeze however came straight through the open sides of the platform, so they were wearing thermostat jackets- Tiyy had hers switched off, as she didn't mind the cold too much.
There were several thousand of the wooden grandstands along the river, covered in tiny lanterns, and the river itself was smeared with the luminous goo. Curving in and out of the river were three,
no four large humanoid shapes, with long whale-like tails, and stern looks on their faces, the Greater mermen. These people were not the largest of the aquatic human species, but the great Mega clade of mermen had not yet been seen in the waters of Arkab Prior.
Augusta began, "I think I can see- yes, there is a small Fog cloud coming, and that probably
means-"
"If it's not the Golden Fluke, it will be one of the other Barboro dolphins… I wonder?"
"So, now you are jumping up and down to see the provolves as well, eh, Selenn? I thought these talking animals gave you the creeps."
"Well, dolphins are practically human, well, all the provolves are people, I suppose… sort of, anyway. They are lovely creatures, `Sta, don't you think?"
"Yes, absolutely, lovely people; but don't ever let them hear you call them human." Augusta folded her arms and looked upriver.
By now the two women were reporting live to an audience of several hundred
people (at least they had a few more real-time viewers than their two robot associates), and the files they were recording could be viewed later by thousands more. All the while they adopted the common `caster practice of talking naturally, living the moment rather than attempting to over-analyse events for the viewer.
If anything they saw piqued a client's interest, the experience could be replayed over and again, and if required could be cross- referenced with online information software and any amount of
background information accessed.
Upriver a small hazy cloud could be seen, progressing toward them on the luminous water, almost invisible but shimmering in the fine rain. Within the mist could be seen a multi-coloured school of
dolphins, swimming high into the air, supported by utility fog. Sometimes the dolphins would disappear into the real river surface, making a subdued ripple, then swim up again into the supportive technological fog as if it was just an invisible extension of the
water.
Augusta accessed her identification software, indispensable in such a diverse civilisation. The smaller dolphins were uplifted common porpoises, and Susu river dolphins. In the centre of the group, swimming in mid air at a stately pace, was the famous Golden Fluke, most revered of the keterist cetAI who came to Arkab from the from the planet Barboro before the Biovirate War.
"Yes, Selenn, that's her. Chwrrii Nashira. So glorious… She seems to look right into you, somehow."
"It crosses my mind that you are a closet Keterist, `Sta."
"Oh, don't be so baseline."
Max leant over like a twiggy broomhandle and whispered, "Augusta, excuse me a moment?"
"Sure, Max, what is it?"
"I don't know why, but I'm not getting any real-time viewers at the moment. Is it something I'm doing wrong? Does nobody love me any more?"
"Well, I've got over a hundred, as many as I've ever had since that kidnap
thing. Have you asked the server?"
"She won't get back to me, which is strange. I'm still connected to the net, but nothing works."
"I think I'm still connected, let's give it a go- hang on-"
Frowning, she subvocalised her call signal to the NarrOcast news server.
~Yes? came the reply.
~Just inquiring on behalf of Robot Max Handy- he can't contact you at the moment.
~I am detecting his signal, but no words or images. Get him to do a systems check.
~Confirmed. Gienah out.
On the river, the cetaceans and cetAI were passing out of site, and another near- invisible utility fog cloud drifted towards them, with a group of what looked like large cephalopods looping in and out of the water-fog surface.
"Oh, no, not Squid, I despise those arrogant creeps." Selenn leant forward, to look at the darting figures. "No, wait, hang on;
Sorry, everyone. I'm talking nonsense here, these are To'uls, I think, or probably, er, To'ulmorphs or whatever they are called."
The exotic shapes supported in the transparent mist were indeed To'ulmorphs, representatives of the local intelligent alien species.
Shaped like a four-armed octopus (hence the alternate name, "quadropus") these creatures were citizens of a Venus-like world a thousand light-years away, on the outer edge of Mutual Progress Alliance space. Augusta focused on them, and her identification software (still activated-damn) told her that these were Earthlike Environment Adapted To'ulmorphs, as an unadapted To'ul would have exploded in the low Earthlike pressure of Ñadi ring.
Of all the twenty-one species of intelligent alien so far contacted the To'ul were closest in temperament to humans, and many adopt human form as Homorphs and join in various Terragen societies. On the other hand, (or tentacle), some To'ulmorphs are in fact human bodymorphers who have voluntarily adopted the quadropus bodyform
=
click=
A little too much information for my baseline brain, Auguste thought.
"No fault found," said Max. "It's a puzzlement, for sure."
~Hello, NarrOcast? Gienah again. Handy has no systems problems, but he still can't contact you.
~Unusual. Ask him to record his submissions for later narrowcasting.
Incidentally, do you suppose one of you could wander down to the Forestry development centre in Irma Town to find out about an ongoing incident involving an infestation of small animals over there?
Augusta turned to her brushbot companion and spread her hands
wide.
“Seeing as you can't get any contact with the server, why don't you take a look, Max?"
"Eh, ok. What did they say, unusual animal phenomenon? Right up my street. Do you want to come, Erek?"
‘If I must, I suppose so. I apologise to the viewers, but I have been called away to investigate an extremely interesting wildlife incident. If you want you can follow this exciting development- no, there they go. All gone. Ah, well, perhaps I'll see you later.’
"Don't worry, Erek, perhaps we will find a robot interest story out at the Tree surgery or whatever it is."
The ambling, limping three-legged dormbot shuffled off, following the brushbot which rolled up the pathway into the small town.
Just as the two robots reached the top of the path Augusta saw something small and reddish scamper across the path behind them… both robots froze, and the larger dormbot swivelled its head array to follow the tiny creature. Max started to roll rapidly up the lane and soon disappeared out of site.
"What is all this about, Selenn? Shall we go and have a look too? - Could be a scoop of some kind."
"Well, you are the one for scoops, after all that hoohah on Elsirac Ring."
"Not any more; I think I've learnt my lesson now."
Selenn looked down at her tattooed friend. "Which is?"
Her tattoos morphed and displayed text on the space between her neck and collarbone used by Scrabo humans for important messages and sarcastic comment.
~Scoops bad. Run other way.~
They turned back to watching the water festival. A troop of selkies, seal-like people with grey shiny fur, came along next, with a small low bank of utility fog a metre thick, upon which the seal people rested, waving their flippers. They looked as if they were floating a metre above the river, except when they nosed down into the fog and descended into the water. The nearly invisible high-tech material twinkled and shimmered in the near darkness, and a new effect was starting to appear now; black wriggling shapes like eels could be seen, swimming through the fog and making intricate patterns around the seal people.
"That's new, the wriggling type effect, isn't it? Not sure it works in this light," Selenn sniffed.
Further down the river and around a wide bend all the water dweller groups that had gone before were mingling in a riot of luminescence and colour, and a fireworks display was starting. Augusta and Selenn, together with most of the thousands of spectators in the wooden grandstands, started to wander downriver themselves, to the harbour area where the dolphins and mermen would no doubt mix with the crowds. Ah, well, another party; thought Augusta. The life of a citizen zar is hard.
Walking up the lane towards Lagosh town centre at the same time as a small silent group of people, men and women, Augusta idly started to speculate on their peculiar appearance. The very fact of their boring normality convinced her that they were in fact alien To'ul creatures, altered physically to resemble human beings; such entities had acquired the name To’ulhumans. No self respecting citizen zar of the Arkab Prior Necklace would dress in sober business suits for a celebration, and conform so rigidly to the baseline human stereotype. Besides, they tended to walk with their arms extended sideways, as if they were still floating in the dense To'ul atmosphere. The only distinguishing mark was pointed ears; some bioform designer’s idea of a little joke, no doubt.
At the top of the small rise they met Max, rolling back like a fractal sphere covered in red sparkles.
"Come and look at this shit- it's really weird!"
"Have you found your mysterious wildlife incident, Max?"
"It's pretty bizarre, so brace yourselves… did you see that weasel a few moments ago, as we were walking up
here?"
"Yes, a weasel? Was that what it was?"
"That's right – over there, look, but don't go any closer."
In the corner of the VTL landing area were hundreds of moving shapes, chasing each other in a fascinating dance..
small, weasel-like creatures running in circles in the dim multicoloured light from the forest. The robot Erek was slowly approaching the mass, then suddenly several weasels broke loose, and foamed around his metal legs. Finding nothing there to interest them, they started to snake across the concrete, in a tight phalanx, moving closer to the small group of human onlookers.
The people standing nearby, including Augusta and Selenn, began to back away, then to scatter as the
swarming mass of creatures approached them.
As they ran up the road, the two reporters passed a small group of To'ulhumans who looked at them curiously.
"Come away from here, you don’t want to go any closer, the little bastards have gone
crazy!” Selenn said to the alien group.
The shortest of the To'ulhumans turned its head vaguely towards Augusta and raised its arms slightly.
‘What is bastards, what is crazy.’
"Oh Binah- bust my backup- come on!" She tried to drag two of the human-formed aliens away from the scrabbling creatures. Soon one of the aliens had weasels swarming up its leg. The homorph continued to look blank. Auguste and Selenn pulled the other aliens away with difficulty, but the unfortunate victim was soon covered in small furry mammals to the waist. Erek span around on his three legs, picked the alien up, shook it for several seconds until the animals had all been dislodged, then walked rapidly up the road carrying the
humaniform alien high above the ground.
The To'ul continued to look around calmly.
"You are carrying me," it said in an even tone.
"What is happening with all these animals, Max? Any ideas?"
"Nothing like this in my internal files – can't reach the server – can you still get through to NrrOcasting control, Augusta?"
"Not a whisper. Some damn weird thing is going on."
From the direction of the harbour celebrations a hefty cyborg strode confidently up on oversized metal legs. His (or her) forearms split open to reveal a collection of equipment, including several gun barrels, which this metal and flesh person began to fire towards the dancing swarm of small furry creatures.
The creatures danced on, ignoring the pellets.
The cyborg now aimed for the middle of the swarm, and the tiny animals began to explode in a rapid chain reaction, blowing the cyborg off his (or her) feet.
"A mobile bomblet swarm; these aren’t animals at all!"
Max said, in an amplified voice.
"*I knew that was going to happen!*" said the cyborg, in a surprised and electronically distorted voice.
The bomblet swarm scattered into the trees, occasional detonations lighting up the night.
In a ragged group the reporters, robots, puzzled aliens and a crestfallen cyborg made their way down towards the harbour and the festivities. Things were getting noisy, and fireworks going off in profusion.
Billows of utility fog stood unattended in alleyways and between buildings, but the fog clouds all seemed to be infested with wriggling graphic forms that did not look healthy. Small groups of citizens were examining the diseased foglets.
‘Hello, this is entertaining,’ said the sardonic voice of Erek the robot behind them.
‘I'm getting an attack of squiggles now.’
On his thorax display screen could be seen a display of convoluted graphic worms. Erek rotated his head 360°, said
‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh,’ then went slack.
All around the harbour most but not all of the robots and cybernetic entities were collapsing or wandering around in random patterns.
“Max! Speak to me! What is doing all this bizarre stuff? What?” Augusta grabbed Max and shook him; the brushrobot flashed once or twice, then began to twinkle normally.
“Alright, it’s alright! I’m all right. Calm yourself; use an antianxiety shot, Augusta. You will need to be calm. Do it now.“
“Uh- good idea. Done. Did you get that, Selenn? Antianxiety, now. What’s the point of paying for self-medication if you never use it.”
Most of the crowd by now had taken Max’s advice and were far less agitated, no longer shouting and waving their hands about helplessly, but simply observing with detached amusement. Soon two or three large crowds had formed, people reassuring each other verbally because all net communication had now failed. On every building and structure all the advertising and information displays were infected by the wriggling helical graphics, which were menacing yet inexplicable. The subverted robots and robots slowly ceased twitching and stood still. Still occasional fireworks exploded, lighting the harbour.
A commotion arose somewhere and the crowds were spurred into movement once more as a large confused herd of deer, horses, swine piled into the main square, running, stumbling, kicking, squealing, knocking over frozen robots. Soon everyone that could was huddled into doorways and against walls to avoid the animals, which ran back and forth aimlessly, some draped in flags and bunting from somewhere.
“More mad animals? Nothing makes sense.” Selenn was scared, and no amount of self-medication could keep her calm now.
“There must be a pattern – " Max was speaking rapidly, a sign that
he was deeply troubled. "This seems to be some kind of terrorist
attack. These mobile helixes in the 'Fog are an a-life virus I think I've heard
of before; I believe they are called Cryptonaughts, but I can’t search on the net for more information-“ a pig ran up to them, rolled over and scrambled to its feet, somehow now facing in the opposite direction. It shot off into the darkness.
“Perhaps these animals are just more bomb robots, but they just look like
panicked animals to me. Those little exploding animalbots are probably spooking them and
driving them into town."
"It is as though someone has been planning this attack
for a long time.” Augusta was clenching and opening her fists repeatedly, but was unaware of her actions. “There had been rumours of attacks today, but nothing specific that I remember.”
“It never damn well is anything specific – that’s all part of the game.” Selenn muttered.
Now a further bizarre nightmare appeared, as banks of infected utility fog crawled out of the harbour. Suspended helplessly in the fog were mermen, sealpeople and To’ulmorphs, and the fog suddenly scattered the sea-dwellers onto the dry stones of the town square. This at least caused most of the panicking animals to scatter off into sidestreets, but many deer and horses remained, some attempting to graze on the town hall lawn. The waterdwellers floundered about unsupported as the fog dissipated, some yelling in indignation.
Somehow the fireworks were increasing in intensity as the distant figure of the Golden Fluke rose out of the water, surrounded by the lesser dolphins, and slowly approached the Town Square hard by the harbour. The dolphs were supported in the air by their own ultra tech fog, which was apparently immune to the helicoid attack. The more advanced fog used by the dolphs was capable of replicating at astonishing speed by altering the properties of the surrounding air molecules on an atomic level. Long arms of this powerful material were now reaching forward, spreading over Lagosh Town Square, scooping up the floundering water dwellers, and the dolphs swam backwards and forwards in a reassuring fashion.
This display of confidence and invulnerability dammed the flood of panic that had been rising in the square, and Augusta, Max and Selenn cautiously walked forward to examine the quiet and dark dormbot Erek.
"He is in standby mode- I don't think he has been harmed."
"Hello, can you hear me, Erek, you can boot up now, and I think it's all over." Auguste said, trying to find a working ear port or eye lens on the inert machine.
"Hmm. I’m not so sure, ‘Sta. I keep seeing those little wormthings everywhere in the shadows-
are you sure they are all gone?" Selenn nervously held her hands over her face.
“I am not sure of anything right now; but no-one has been hurt as far as I can see. It is all like a practical joke- or perhaps a diversion of some kind.” Augusta rubbed her chin, still looking for the beard she wore when she was a man. “I wonder if the main event is about to begin.”
The Blessed Fluke moved forward until she was above the centre of the town, and all eyes were focused on her.
Then, there was a gasp from hundreds of throats at once as a single thin thread or snake of helicoid material wound its way though the air and surrounded the golden dolphin. Somehow the dark squiggles in the air began to shape themselves into words and letters, characters which began to flicker too fast for the lesser minds watching from below, but the great transcendant Nashira was fast enough, and she did not like what she read.
She flipped over, then again, and soon was rotating faster and faster, no longer a sea mammal but a spindle in some great nightmarish spinning machine. The message was spinning and keeping pace with her, and this time Augusta and the others flung themselves flat- there was a dangerous energy in this spectacle in the sky that seemed about to explode.
At last five groups of bright stars appeared in the sky, rapidly descending after the twenty minute journey from the Luminaire control centre. The stars each split into six craft, and thirty grey cylinders marked with the symbol of the Ñadi Ring descended into Lagosh town simultaneously. The local seraphim had arrived, and the infested utility fog was sluiced away by their immune defence equipment, looking like countless snaking fire hoses shooting blue water.
. One cylinder grew long thin legs and spider-walked over to the golden dolphin, now on the grass.
Although Nashira had stopped spinning, she now had no external fins or flippers, and was a simple ovoid shape, lacking even eyes. The Ñadi seraphim touched her gently with a thin outstretched leg, and the familiar shape appeared again…up darted the Fluke, arced into the river, and was gone.
Augusta and Selinn sat up, and throughout the town people realised that the Gods had finished their little game.
--------------------
This episode was rather a scandal and a mystery at the time wasn't it, cousin Librarian? The local defence mechanisms all paralysed, and a response time of what? - fifteen minutes - from the Lamp? A baseline prim culture in a museum could have done better.
I agree, unfortunately. The Ñadi ring hyperturing has since retired to explore virtual worlds in the Prior B sunfarm. In er defence the communications net was progressively dismantled by the cryptonaught attack and had already ceased to function when the fun started.
However, all that sound and fury caused no actual casualties, unless you count
the exploding animalbots, and a number of injured wild horses and swine that were destroyed later.
A behaviour modification virus had been distributed by aerosol from a number of hobbyist microlight dronecraft a week before, inducing a compulsion in many mammals to swarm, and also to home in on a pheromone imbedded in the subverted utility fog.
Yes, the virus was traced to – excuse me while I consult your files-
My files are your files during this investigation, cousin Bailiff, with a very few exceptions, of course.
-Thank you. Ah, here it is. The animal subversion virus was distributed by inclusion into the decorative luminous goo used for celebrations of the millenary. The viral strain has been identified as 7g9il Lyssavirus, developed jointly by No Machines! and the Society of Ludd in 7986 during the Keter- Biovirate war. Nasty anti-machine fanatics, human supremacists who can't accept that the Keterists won.
You will also see that they were working with a clade of pernicious self-evolving artificial life who sometimes call emselves Hope Springs Eternal, a species of cryptonaught. Yes, ridiculous name for a dangerous crew. The Springs cannot exist in the real world, but manifest as helical worms in graphical environments, and are ideally suited for subverting utility fog. How these two disparate groups were drawn together I have not been able to discover.
Any of the Cryptonaughts could have come in contact with Handy and/or Gienah at any time during this event, which might even have been the reason for the entire charade.
I would suggest that the attack was aimed at the Blessed Nashira, and the fact that she suffered no apparent ill effects hid the real state of affairs. The mysterious pictograms recorded by the narrowcasters in the subverted fog resemble the ones seen on Gienah's body during the latest attack on the Fluke, which was very nearly fatal to both of them. No doubt the two were complementary in some way and part of a larger plot, also involving perhaps the chemocracker attack two days ago.
Hmm. Each attack would have little effect by itself, but the memory of the inexplicable graffiti would remain in the infallible memory of the Fluke, and perhaps bring about her downfall. This is beginning to make sense.
Yet we cannot tell when Gienah was subverted until we receive the information from the dead memory storage facility, which will be two days from now. Shall we adjourn for a while?
Indeed not. We should continue this investigation with all haste, in my opinion. The mind and body of the Scrabo nearbaseline will stand up to our probing for several more days before we have to rebuild him… and even then we may learn much in the process. Continue!
