[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. It is serialized irregularly, interspersed with related short stories and vignettes when I don’t have a new chapter ready. My target posting schedule is something new about every two weeks, a rate I still aspire to return to someday. Because it’s been so long, those reading this as it comes out may wish to refresh their memories with the last chapter that took place on Earth here.]

Previous: Chapter 45



A great torrent of snow and ice arced up behind Flicker as she carved her way across Europa.

She skated through a deep mist of leftover atmosphere and escaped ice particles. Vision was nearly useless for anything but the overlays and updates on her visor. But she didn’t need it. All obstacles were already gone–powdered, melted, or vaporized during her first visit. The only directions that mattered were up, down and forward.

The mist flashed to plasma when it hit her damper field, close to her body. Functional plasma–it helped power the MHD generators in her force field harness.

Curved force field blades stretched out behind her, extending her reach and refining it, letting her slice out vast icy windrows and fling them upward to be scooped up by the portal maw on the ship flying above and behind her. Mostly. The leftovers were a problem. The 99+% efficiency of the scooping process was right on the edge of not good enough.

“Even if the construction goes perfectly.” She remembered saying that, what seemed like ages ago. Everything she’d done had worked, and she’d stayed within planned parameters–but the project depended on more than just her.

The status on one of the force field modules changed from green to yellow. That made two. Four, and she’d need to call for a break to swap them out. If nothing else went wrong first. And given the complexity and scale of what they were attempting, that was–

Her visor flashed an alert: Incoming signal from Diver, the Floater pilot of the gas giant flyer, which was trailing a slipstream to ease the strain on the portal ship. She was also relaying messages to Flicker as needed; since the flyer was out front, its com unit didn’t have to punch through the messy mix of dense cold water and rarefied hot plasma Flicker was plowing up.

“Stop time,” Diver sent, along with a more formal signal, a string of emoticons, and a graph indicating that an accumulation of technical problems on the portal ship had reached a safety threshold.

“Got it,” Flicker replied, along with a few emoticons of her own, ending with a shrug. She turned off the force fields, and the vast billowing in her wake started to dissipate.

At least their translation protocols were getting better. She had names for two of the Floaters now–nicknames and titles came across better than untranslatable personal names. The pilot was ‘Reckless Diver’, and Journeyman’s recent nemesis, the Floater safety guy, was 'Cheerful Cloud of Warning’. DASI cautioned they were still missing nuances, but the names worked well enough.

Better than the portal ship at the moment.

As soon as Diver got the signal that her slipstream was no longer needed, she dived and landed. Quickly. She was on the ground with the hatch open in under ten seconds–she took pride in not making Flicker wait any longer than she had to. Diver was heavily biomodded and her ship was built for storm chasing on Jupiter, so rapid deceleration wasn’t a problem. She and Flicker shared an enthusiasm for hypersonic shockwaves and jokes with the punch line 'And then I broke it.’ Flicker liked her.

Diver waved two of her envirosuit’s six tentacles as Flicker boarded, then took off again as soon as the hatch closed, sending happy aerodynamic model updates and data mixed with more emoticons. Flicker waved back then checked in with DASI. Journeyman was supervising the controlled closing of the portal, and would return to Learning when that was done, leaving the portal ship to Three and her repair bots–who had a bit of work to do. At least they weren’t running low on replacement parts. Yet.

DASI noted that The Floaters had part of an early warning network up and running, though they weren’t ready to say how much warning they thought it would actually give of the Visitors. There were a lot of difficulties involving time-shifted 'echoes’, many of them from Flicker’s actions during the fleet battle, but some from as far back as her destruction of the Topaz Realm during her dissociative fugue as Skybreaker. That was always the challenge with sensitive detectors–separating out what you were looking for from the background noise.

Incoming voice call. “Hey,” said Malk, one of Learning’s liaison biogestalts. "Glad you’re on your way back. Pira and I get worried about your sensory deprivation.“

"I’m okay,” said Flicker. "It gave me time to think, and work on my biogestalt exercises. Those went well, but I need to talk to Learning about some starship stuff that’s kind of important. I figured out the reason I was twitchy when I woke up this morning.“

"Anything we can help?”

“Learning probably can. Last night was the first time I’ve ever had a full night’s sleep far away from any significant mass. And when I did my morning startup, some checks that have always failed before… didn’t. So a few things switched from cold lockdown to maintenance mode.”

“Ooh. Okay, I just notified the duty Auditor to authorize a new privacy segment. Learning will be ready.”

“Thanks. This is good news, I think. At least, good to know about, rather than stay ignorant, but…” Flicker took a breath before finishing her message. "My jump drive itches.“

*****

"DASI says there is no indication of outside influence,” said Sid, Doc’s chief of security. "But she also confirmed, without being specific, that Doc is working on some sort of cognitive or memory problem. And I have discretion to call on available expert assistance.“

"Which would be me,” said Yiskah.

“Yes.”

Sid looked at her expectantly. He didn’t say 'read my mind’, but he was sure thinking it loudly. They were in the small briefing room next to his duty station.

“Well, you’re in luck,” she said. "I was already on my way, but Doc’s been unusually concerned about 'side-channel information leakage modes’. However, we’re in a secure area now, so… DASI?“

"Yes?” came from the wall speaker.

“Is Doc still down in the Dangerous Artifact vaults?”

“Yes. He visited vault three, and set up a communications relay outside vault one. He then invoked an interrupt restriction protocol, entered the vault and sealed the door, reactivated the defenses, and opened alcove one of vault one. That was two hours and forty minutes ago.”

Yiskah looked over at Sid, who raised an eyebrow and looked back.

“You have far more experience working with Doc than I do,” she said. "Do you have any personal observations that might be of use for my assessment?“

Sid looked thoughtful. "The personality shift reports from yesterday worried me. His actions since, not so much. The last security update he sent said that he needed to fix something complex, and what he’s doing sounds consistent with that. Dangerous, but consistent. It is a lot more like his style from back before he adopted Flicker–explain nothing except safety precautions.”

Yiskah frowned. "DASI? What’s in vault one, alcove one?“

"Restricted data,” said DASI. Available description, 'Second-order closed-loop cybernetic control helmet’; Safety note, 'Lethal trap, not Lyapunov stable’.“

"Joy,” said Yiskah. "Are you willing to override the locks so I can get in?“

"Unnecessary. You are already on the exception list. I will warn him.”

“All right,” she said, and turned back to Sid. "I’ll handle it, and have DASI keep you updated.“

In the elevator on the way down to the sub-basement, Yiskah contacted Stella Prime. "Anything to add?” she sent.

“The personality change was a side effect of something he did in order to properly brief Journeyman,” replied Prime. “After Journeyman and Flicker boarded Learning, Doc alerted me that he needed to do some messy memory cleanup and would be unavailable for a while, and he spent last night in an isolation chamber. I’m more concerned about something else. He has unreplicated causal loop experience in his head, and judging from what DASI and I are seeing on Earth, we appear to have hit some sort of tipping point or phase change. It would be useful and timely for Doc to update his loop models. Get him to explain if possible. I can’t spare the attention right now.”

Yiskah frowned. “That could take a while, and I won’t to be able to follow everything.”

“DASI will. And if you mind scan him, he won’t gloss over uncertainties. He has a characteristic reaction to them, he won’t be able to hide it from you, and he knows it. And I have to go–new crisis.”

“Understood.”

*****

Yiskah let the door close behind her after entering. She raised an eyebrow, but avoided starting a full mind scan. The vault was silent except for the faint whisper of a ventilation fan–the impression of rustling echoes was an illusion created by the interaction of her telepathy with the shielding in the walls. The door to one of the alcoves stood open, and its shelf was empty.

Doc sat in a folding chair with a water bottle beside him. His usual lab coat was absent; he was dressed as if for strenuous outdoor work, in a t-shirt, many-pocketed jeans, and sneakers, along with his goggles. And the helmet.

The helmet looked old in the way of futuristic technology from the end of the previous millennium, apart from the small rectangular boxes attached to each side, which looked like a battery pack and a wireless communications module of more recent vintage.

Doc nodded and smiled. "Hello, Yiskah,“ he said.

"Hello,” she replied. "I went along with your precautions. Care to tell me just what is going on?“

"Too much,” he said. "But I’m to the point where you can safely help. Good to see you.“

"You could have called first.”

Doc shook his head. "No point. I needed to deactivate a personality overlay. Its security wasn’t as aggressive as your mind trap, but it still precluded useful telepathic contact. And I wasn’t going to open the door in the middle of the risky part. I suppose you’ll want to verify identity continuity first?“

"Back up. Is this overlay gone now? Will a mind scan cause you any difficulties?”

“It has been deactivated, yes, but I still need to clean up. And go ahead. Hazards are marked, and I have the major ones secured, but I’m not done reindexing. And I’m not apologizing for the mess.”

Yiskah moved to stand in front of him, and put a hand on his shoulder before beginning her visualization scan. One way she could use her telepathy was to give form to a subject’s mental organization, analogies, and personal assumptions. It gave a useful overview and it was fast. It had arguably helped save Doc’s life twice. She let the images come into focus and fill her perceptions.

The two of them stood inside a large square of chain link fence topped with barbed wire. It was cluttered with large green boxes, insulators, and heavy cabling of the sort you might see in an electrical substation. Yellow and black striped tape and orange cones surrounded several boxes, though work appeared to be complete. The whole station was humming with power.

The entire surrounding landscape looked like a major construction site that had suddenly been converted to storage. Pallets piled high with… something… were covered with tarps. Some of them also had hazard tape, shipping tags, or more detailed caution signs on them. Silent robots steadily moved boxes from one pallet into a freshly built and still unpainted warehouse. The ground was covered with tread tracks, and a bulldozer and backhoe rested nearby, unmoving for the moment.

Yiskah own perception had an effect on the visual form of the subject’s self-image, so she could shape them to pull out psychological nuances. Doc wouldn’t be able to tell what he looked like unless she told him or chose to create a mirror. The last time she had scanned, he had appeared as a more elderly version of himself, a lab-coated scientist in his late fifties or early sixties. He had changed.

He stood relaxed, arms at his sides, and smiled crookedly at her. "Well, how do I look?“

Yiskah narrowed her eyes. He still looked like himself, but younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties. His hair was long, pulled back in a queue. His goggles were absent, and he wore a black t-shirt with an unusual flower and some strange writing on the front. He seemed poised and confident. She found his appearance quite encouraging…

…except for the helmet.

Glowing strands emanated from it all directions, some to the power station boxes, others to faint, force-field-like bubbles over some of the pallets. Three climbed to the cloudy sky, and one of those strands pulsed steadily with green energy. The helmet radiated heat, and sweat trickled down Doc’s face, unnoticed. There was a faint smell of smoke and ozone.

Doc should not be that relaxed, not amid these signs of tension and strain. The wrongness of it grew more jarring every moment. She took a step back and released the visualization, leaving them facing each other in the vault once more.

"You’ve got a lot going on in there,” she said, “and I have many questions, but that helmet worries me the most. Are you done using it? How willing are you to take it off?”

“Not quite done, and very,” said Doc. "No way it’s leaving this vault. But I want to leave it on for a while longer, to damp side effects. The mood balancer helps with that.“

Yiskah breathed in sharply. "Mood balancer. Okay, now I understand the 'lethal trap’ note.”

Doc half-smiled. "It’s definitely not something I’d want to use every day, or outside this vault, but the note was for Flicker; the lack of stability means the helmet would likely kill her in under a second. And she might otherwise be tempted to try if she knew what it can do.“

"It’s definitely affecting your judgement right now. Could you please take it off? Asking nicely.”

“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”

“No,” said Yiskah. "Any reason to stay down here once the helmet is safely locked up again? Do you need me to take you to the med center?“

"Living quarters will be fine, but if you’ll willing to give me another hour, I can–”

“You can have neurological damage. And your other symptoms will only get worse.”

“Yiskah, if I stop damping– Okay. I’ll grant that it’s possible for you to provide the level of support I’ll need to keep the next day or so from turning into a cascading disaster when we get hit by another crisis–and we will–but the withdrawal effects will be grueling for me and probably distasteful for you. I really don’t want to be as much of a pain as I’ll be if I have to stop now.”

“Your rationalization is a thing of beauty and fine craftsmanship,” she said. "But I’m not buying it. Asking less nicely.“

Doc stood, his face now grim, then closed his eyes to commune with the helmet and perhaps DASI. After a moment he opened his eyes again.

"Ten seconds,” he said aloud, and moved to the shelf in the alcove. Yiskah followed, ready to catch him if he collapsed.

She could feel the wave of anger and other emotions hit Doc’s mind as the helmet shut down. He managed to keep his hands steady as he removed the helmet from his head, placed it on the shelf, and closed the alcove door. He turned to face her. "Wonderful,“ he said. "Best case now is embarrassing emotional context mistakes, profuse unintentional oversharing, and peevish ranting.”

“We can do better than that,” she said. "And I have a handy list of rant topics for you.“

Doc made a chopping motion with his hand. "No point arguing here. Upstairs.”

“Sure, let’s go. Nice evil twin impression, by the way.”

Doc winced, and she could sense the beginning of his migraine as the vault door opened. "Fool,“ he muttered.

Yiskah laughed. "Ah, your sense of humor survived. We’ll get you through this.”

*****

Safety interlock reverification status: Verified.

Hazard avoidance priority reverification status: Verified.

Resuming command sequence from low speed interface buffer. Inefficient protocol warning.

Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538621644: Action–defer.

Subsystem maintenance alert notice 0081538621645: Action–defer.

Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538621646: Action–defer.

…

Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538627929: Action–defer.

Subsystem maintenance alert notice 0081538627930: Action–defer.

Selected alert notice actions complete. Returning to configuration lockdown.

Loading test sequence for auxiliary communication using [localization missing] gradient inducer… Done.

Protocol synchronization signal received. Beginning sequence.

…

Sequence complete. Safety and compatibility verified. Settings saved. Test session complete.

…

“Done,” said Flicker as she opened her eyes. She glided to the floor of the maintenance bay, and Learning turned the gravity and lights back on and shut down the scanners.

“Everything’s locked down again,” she said. "My jump drive is back on safe, and the deferred messages should only itch when I first wake up. I didn’t want to disable them completely.“

"A reasonable compromise,” said Learning. "Maintenance messages, even old ones, from a system as complex as yours are not to be dismissed lightly.“

"Yeah,” said Flicker. "The portal gradient detector com channel thing seems to have worked, too. Your scanner signals got through, and it felt like the protocol got properly set, but I didn’t get a good sense of the details. It’s really hard to keep my subconscious from filtering them out. Did all the keys and checksums match on your end?“

"They did,” replied Learning. "The Floaters will be somewhat relieved.“

”I’m relieved, even though it’s slow. Cloud is right; if my visor gets trashed during a space battle, I’ll want a better com backup than trying to use a black hole as a signal lantern.“

"Indeed. I am glad your tests were successful.”

“I’m starting to find my balance as a starship, but extracting parameters and changing anything safely is still an incredible pain. Your backup and feedback really made a difference. I may want to do more tomorrow, depending on how the ice collection goes.”

“I will be available. Is there anything else I can do to ease your acclimatization or otherwise assist you?”

“Well, yes. There are some starship to human body reflex translation issues I’m going to be working on for a while. Would it be against procedures or anything if I use the gradient com to call you informally, possibly at odd times? The low bandwidth isn’t a problem at human speeds, and I need the practice.”

“I will always be happy to assist,” said Learning. "Fleet support is my primary mission, and I am assigned to liaison duty. You are the most powerful defender of Earth, so no one can question my duty.“ A pause. "I’d do it anyway; but that means you don’t have to worry about getting me into trouble.”

“Heh.” Flicker smiled and looked down. "Thank you, Learning.“

Flicker left the bay and returned to the entryway of the small group of compartments she was sharing with Journeyman, DASI’s local node, and, in a more abstract way, Three. She checked in with DASI on the way and frowned. Status for Journeyman hadn’t updated for a while, but they were passengers and guests when off-duty, so DASI was being conservative about following Grs'thnk etiquette on shipboard privacy.

"Hey,” said Three from the entry display as Flicker closed the hatch. "Good job on your snow tossing! All of today’s problems were hardware or at the portal end–or both. DASI said your exercise metrics looked really good, and the tests when you came back worked out too. How are you doing?“

"Better than I expected,” said Flicker. "I owe you an apology.“

"Me? For what?”

“Back when you first started talking about Learning? And how you felt about him? I was skeptical and kind of dismissive?”

“It’s all good, Flicker. Appreciating him can require a shift in perspective.”

“Well, I’ve made the shift. Learning and I set up a hierarchy of joint safety reflexes so I don’t have to worry about ripping up his interior, burning out anything, or punching a hole in his hull if I have to move in a hurry. So I can finally relax all the way when I’m on board. And I’ve worked with him a bit.”

“Nice, isn’t he?” said Three.

“Yeah. But I need some advice. I noticed something earlier, and I slowed back down just a bit ago to catch up on body chemistry and emotional lag. It’s gotten quite a bit stronger. I’m having a reaction to him that I’m having trouble sorting out.”

“That’s not unexpected. Pleasant or unpleasant reaction?”

“Pleasant but awkward. You’ll probably laugh, because you have your emulators, or whatever you use, and–”

“I won’t laugh at you,” said Three. "And if you feel uncomfortable staying on board, the backup for the portal ship is almost here, and has active life support and plenty of room, so–“

"No! I’m not uncomfortable. I’m fine with Learning. More than fine. I really like the way he interacts with me. I just started thinking about some things, and…” Flicker trailed off.

“Well, he does have recreational bioemulator remotes, so if–”

“I know, Pira told me about them. That’s not…” Flicker looked down. "I mean, he’s a starship. And so am I. When we can take some time without being irresponsible, I want to dance with him. Dive close, mesh my momentum transfer with his grav repellers, and spin around. Tickle his strain grid sensors with my inertial dampers. Trace patterns with my energy transfer in his shields, and… And a hundred other things I haven’t thought of yet and I sure there are things he’d think of too. Play with him. Laugh with him. Make jokes about the show we’d be putting on for the other ships. But he has his crew, so privacy is an issue, and I don’t know what restrictions he’s under, and what might not translate, and whether this is all too fast, or…“

She looked back up. "Am I being silly? And would any of this bother you?”

“No,” said Three. "You aren’t. And you wouldn’t bother me. He’s been gently flirting with you for a while now. What has changed is that you’re starting to think of yourself as a starship, so he’s a peer instead of a funny alien AI. And he’s well socialized–the Grs'thnk are very careful about that for their ship AIs. So if you like his style, he’s quite attractive.“

Three smiled. "I was already comfortable as a fleet of starships when we first started working together, so I took a shine to him pretty fast. But he’s been 'just a friend’ to you before this. Does what he and I are doing bother you?”

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t even be considering this if you hadn’t made me aware that he might enjoy that sort of thing too. But there’s something else. Learning and I have compatible safety protocols now. That’s…” Flicker bit her lip. "I used to have dreams about that.“

"Yeah,” said Three. "That would do it.“

"So… What should I do? Should I talk to him about it?”

“You can certainly talk to him. But there are a couple things to consider. About the restrictions he’s under–you realize that making every reasonable effort to keep you happy is part of his job?”

“Yes, he’s been very up front about that. That’s part of not being irresponsible, because it’s a power imbalance. I’d want to spend some time talking to him, and you, before I consider actually doing anything–but not talking about it seems like it would be irresponsible too.”

“That’s a healthy attitude.” Another smile. "You’re certainly benefiting from our little starship social support group. Not having one for most of your life was what made you vulnerable to dissociation. I’d never have pushed dissociation as a temporary solution if I’d known how bad yours still was. I’m sorry about that.“

"Not your fault,” said Flicker. "DASI said that Doc and Journeyman deliberately kept you in the dark. You were the only one who could push me the right way to uncover the biogestalt problem–but you might not have done it with full information, because it was riskier than you thought. And involving you directly in any causal loop is really dangerous because of your mind trap.“

"It was a humbling experience. But I’m glad it worked.”

“Me too. Today was much better than most of yesterday–and I’m feeling better than I expected to be able to away from Earth.”

“One other thing about Learning,” said Three. "There is a boundary issue. He’s not supposed to have any direct contact with DASI, so he and I have been doing a lot of indirect stuff–some of it diplomatically sensitive. Don’t get me wrong–it’s a lot of fun, too. But some of it’s like the kind of things Doc and Jumping Spider used to coordinate when they were spending time together.“

"Um,” said Flicker. "I never did get Database access to a lot of that stuff. So I’m not sure… Oh.“

"Yep. So if Learning changes the subject or makes a joke that doesn’t quite answer a question–he usually has a good reason. Are you willing to accept that?”

“Yeah,” said Flicker. "I should probably start practicing that sort of thing, too. Because I’m not very good at it yet, and things like whether or when I might be able to make an unassisted jump to Grs'thnk or Xelian space are going to be really important military intelligence. Whether I want them to be or not.“

"An excellent idea. I can help too, but there’s a funny Grs'thnk diplomatic training game for it that I think you’ll like. Learning is great at it. And picking up the mindset while enjoying yourself should help reduce stress for Journeyman.”

“How is Journeyman?” asked Flicker. "Is he out of the shower yet? He must have ported back really late.“

"He’s recovering. He didn’t port back; he took a shuttle, because–”

“He didn’t port? Is he hurt? What happened?”

“It’s all right, he just didn’t want to put extra effort into balancing energy and momentum transfer while he was feeling wiped. Your day went better than expected; his went worse.”

“Okay thanks going to go talk to him”, said Flicker. She zipped over to the hatch to the inner compartments and waited impatiently while it opened.

*****

Multitasking. Yiskah typed up summaries for DASI at the workstation beside Doc’s bed, glancing occasionally at updates from Stella Prime and a crisis tracker. Prime was still in a contentious meeting with representatives of the Kyrjaheim Intervention Cooperative, the organization that a majority of Golden Valkyrie’s Choosers had founded to conform to EDU transition guidelines on humanitarian military intervention. They had already ended a nasty war in East Africa in a single day, which would probably have attracted more attention if it hadn’t been the same day the Russians tried to nuke Black Swan. Other wars were being discussed–whether they were inevitable, how soon they would happen, and what to do about them. Opinions differed and tempers were short.

Doc was on his back with a damp cloth over his eyes and a med monitor on his wrist. Painkillers had taken some of the edge off his migraine, but he had agreed to give his visual cortex a rest for a while. Yiskah projected her presence to him with a light touch, reassuring without being intrusive, while he rambled.

“Breakdown of the default consensus future,” he said. "That’s the cause of what DASI and Stella are seeing, and no I don’t know how bad it’s going to get yet. It’s been building for a while. There’s a public part and an underlying part, and they reinforce each other. It’s not just a result of causal loop pressure. Looks like the models underestimated the significance of feedback loops involving magicians using social media–those can grow much faster now. I discussed it with Journeyman just before he left.“

"Thoroughly alarming him in the process,” said Yiskah.

“He was already thoroughly alarmed. Sharing his anecdotal data with me probably had a net calming effect, given what else we talked about.”

“About that. You were unwilling to allow DASI to record the conversation, even under fully locked privacy. Why?”

“We were in the middle of a causal loop, discussing relevant actions. I wasn’t going to involve anyone else. And there’s another, more esoteric reason–compatible past broadening. If things got dire and he needed to risk a chancy port that might result in a sideways worldline transfer, any allowed point of incompatible history that we both knew about and agreed on beforehand could make it easier for him to pull off. But if DASI recorded it, that would break a necessary symmetry. Under one version of my worldline theory, anyway–but it was an easy tradeoff. He agreed.” A note of humor crept into Doc’s voice. "At least, that’s how I remember it.“

"Well,” said Yiskah, “you believe that, so there’s no point in arguing now. However. I’d like to know a bit more about the alarming overlay you allegedly deactivated downstairs. And any other mental work you’ve done recently. Your thinking has changed. For the better, apparently, but…”

“Understandable,” said Doc. "That was my nightmare processing overlay. It started as a causal-loop-compatible composite of old versions of me from worldlines that managed to contribute to my coherent nightmares. The Grs'thnk would call it a partial pseudogestalt–they use similar constructions as medical aids in cases of severe neurological or cognitive disruption. I used it as an interpreter and gatekeeper; it kept triggered-release and age-inappropriate memories inaccessible while preserving the original nightmare data in encrypted form. It was never intended for use around anyone else, and I haven’t used it for a while, for a good reason.

“I updated it as I augmented, so it worked properly with newer memories and nightmares, while remaining compatible with older ones. I also adapted it to use as a safety backup for other work, such as detecting mental influence. To deactivate it, I need to pass a few security checks. This was intended to protect my primary nightmares from exotic forms of tampering or eavesdropping, such as might be employed by an overconfident forensic telepath.”

Yiskah raised an eyebrow. "Was that why you decided I wouldn’t be able to help?“

"Not before I was done, yes. Because back when I woke up from my coma, I discovered I had a small problem. I could still activate the overlay. But without my top-level augments, my primary way to deactivate it was gone, and most of my backup methods were unavailable due to side effects from what you and Stella did while saving my life. Another way required a fresh coherent nightmare–and those stopped around the same time.”

“I explored other methods,” said Doc. "Then those triggered-release memories started popping up after I used the pool in Kyrjaheim. I really needed the overlay to verify I was putting them into the proper context. And there was one sure way to handle the deactivation problem, but it required extensive preparation and some risk. I started the preparation, in between working on everything else. I was almost ready; I was literally seconds away from telling Stella about it when Flicker interrupted. And then Breakpoint called and there was no more time. I needed the overlay right away, to pull and interpret some original nightmare memories to help Journeyman.“

"And then you were stuck with it for a while.”

“Yep.”

“So… Why did you need the Helm of Lethal Trap to deactivate it?”

“I didn’t. I needed the helmet to re-augment. That’s what all the prep and most of the time in the vault was for–I did a partial replacement of my top level augments. I concentrated on the memory management and stability segments, and left out all the speed optimizations, which were by far the most time consuming parts. And I needed the helmet because that’s what I used the first time, and I still had backups of the process memories stored encrypted in a special corner of the Database. Otherwise it would have taken weeks.”

Yiskah smiled wryly. "So that’s what left you with such a memory mess.“

"No, the re-augment went fine.” Doc waved an arm. "And the primary nightmare memories are safely locked away again. I’m a mess because I haven’t reassimilated the secondaries. A lot of them are emotionally loaded, they’ve all been recontextualized, and I’m not the same person I was when I first had them, so they don’t fit nicely anymore. I didn’t know which ones I’d need, so I had to pull all the ones with Voidsmith, and there were a lot of them.“

"Voidsmith?”

“Journeyman. I warned you about context mistakes. His name was Voidsmith in many of the nightmares.”

“Why were your memories involving Voidsmith so emotionally loaded?”

“He can escape from the end of the world, potentially carrying measure from a dying worldline to one that survives. That is so important. I’ve seen him do it in half a dozen nightmares.” Doc took a deep breath. "And not do it. Twice. Because he can run away… But he never wants to.“

Yiskah frowned. "Why is it so important? I never followed your original discussion of measure with Prime very well. I can see having a higher measure of surviving worldlines is nice in an abstract sense, but that doesn’t help us if we’re dead, no matter what happens somewhere else, right?”

“Ah. Measure is a mathematical generalization of size. I’m using it kind of sloppily, because I have no way to prove just how it applies to my worldline theories. But in most of the theories I’ve used to make predictions that actually helped, higher measure for a worldline and 'similar’ worldlines is good. It allows more connections to other, living worlds, more power behind probability manipulation and causal loops that help everything survive, and more options in general. I’m fairly certain that Golden Valkyrie depends on measure manipulation to affect the future indirectly. And Journeyman can transfer measure to us as well–because he exists in other worldlines in our cluster. And there’s some evidence he’s done exactly that. Twice. Recently.”

“So how does he manage it without leaving three of him running around?”

Doc waggled a hand. "Not entirely sure, but measure isn’t a number, it’s a generalization. What we would expect to see in the aftermath is something unlikely and fortunate involving Journeyman. Like, say, appearing 17 seconds before he left when he ported Flicker and himself home from the portal mishap, while just barely surviving. Or finding some disturbingly detailed tips in his blind drop when they ported home from Flicker’s first session on Europa. I’m still arguing with Ashil and DASI about the details of how measure transfer relates to sideways worldline transfers, causal loops, and apparent time travel to the past. And there are many complications that I’m handwaving. But they both agree that relative measure of worldlines is a useful concept. As is the idea of 'future survival measure’–that’s how likely a worldline is to endure in the absence of outside help. I’ve been using the word measure for both, which, again, is sloppy. But it’s also faster, and I’m pedantic enough already.“

The humor returned to his voice. "Speaking of sloppy, we’ll want to do our best to keep the future survival measure of Earth from dropping too much while Flicker, Journeyman, and Golden Valkyrie are gone. They’re more likely to survive the Visitors if they aren’t causally linked to problems here, but if it gets too bad, they might come back to a different worldline where we did a better job. Could get a bit lonely if that happens.”

*****

Journeyman was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands. He was wearing pants, but his shirt and hat were still on a nearby chair. It looked like he had started to get dressed after his shower, then stopped. There was an open flask on the nightstand. Flicker wasn’t sure exactly what was in it, but it was definitely something alcoholic.

“Mike?”

He looked up, his eyes concerned. "Hey, Flicker. You okay?“

"I’m fine. I was worried about you. Three and DASI said things got pretty rough at the portal.”

Journeyman smiled and his eyes relaxed. "Oh, well…“ He waved a hand and looked to the side. After a moment he picked up the flask and replaced the cap.

"Yeah,” he said. "They did.“

She glided over. "Touch no touch?”

“Touch.”

She sat down and put her arms around him. She didn’t say anything.

“Opening was fine,” he said after a while. "Nailed the space we wanted. Got the portal situated, then Three expanded it with her generator, and brought the Floater test unit online as a backup. And we were okay for the first couple of hours. Couple of shaky spots. Whenever the snow flow hitting the rim and bouncing off shifted, Three had to blip her drives to keep us on the right orbit, and that made the portal want to slide off-center, so I had to kinda tap at it then the generator would pick up and balance it.“

Journeyman start to wave his hand, noticed he was still holding the flask, and put it back on the nightstand.

"Did the mass accumulation make it harder?” asked Flicker.

“No. Well, yeah, but we were ready for it. Except for the back pressure. The plan was not to make the space too big or it would take forever to shrink it back down after we get it filled and you’re ready. And I followed the plan. But I think we made the space just a little bit too small. Or not quite stretchy enough at the non-portal boundaries, which is basically the same thing.”

He waved his now-empty hand. "Three compensated for the back pressure. She did that great. Hell, she did everything great. Forget her being prickly yesterday, she kept everything together today, sang sea shanties when I was on the edge, and… Well, anyway. Problem was, to keep the portal permeable so we could keep scooping snow without vapor escaping, she had to tighten up the tension in a way that made it harder for me to feel what was going on. So I was trying to steer the portal with less and less feedback. And that sucker was huge. No way could I ever manage that big a portal by myself, I’m a finesse guy.“

He looked down. "Then shit started breaking. Heard you had a little trouble with that, too.”

“Not bad,” said Flicker. "Two generators went yellow, and one of those turned out to just be a flaky sensor.“

"Yeah,” said Journeyman. "We had sensors, generator cells, one of the grav units, two inertial compensators, and I forget what else. Oh, and the secondary resonator on the Floater unit just flat died about halfway through. And it was freshly tested. Cloud said they didn’t 'untranslated the expletive untranslated’, but DASI says that’s just colloquial Floater for 'why the frick did it have to do that now?’ He’s good at swearing. Where was I?“

"Things were breaking.”

“Oh, yeah. About five hours in Three had to switch to using both generators, with the Floater unit as the primary, to keep the tension low enough so I could still guide things. And in hour six, we had a desync and suddenly I had to pull one whole side of the portal. It was like trying to turn an angry rhinoceros with rubber bands. Three got everything back under control and resynced in under a second but I was kind of a wreck after that. I wanted to go the full eight hours but Three said something was hitting yellow in hour seven so we had to shut everything down, and when we were finally done I asked her what hit yellow and she said it was me.”

Journeyman looked over at her with a slightly desperate expression. "I’m sorry. Did what I could.“

"Mike… You did everything anyone could ask, and more.” Flicker sped up to check in with DASI and Three on her visor, then slowed back down again. "Three says she’s going to swap in the backup portal ship for tomorrow; the maintenance levels are better because they had more time. And a team of six engineers from the Xelian Volunteers are helping her troubleshoot all the problems–we were doing so many new things at once there were bound to be glitches. And there’s even–okay I’ll stop now because your eyes are starting to glaze over.“

"Yeah, my brain isn’t braining very well. I keep worrying about some of what Doc said. About running if the Visitors show up before we’re ready. I don’t know if I can do that. I could see it as a way of baiting them away? Maybe? But we’d have to circle back, somehow. I can’t just abandon everyone here–I mean there are so many people I care about on Earth, our Earth, not some hypothetical… Gah.”

He rubbed his forehead. "And tomorrow. I don’t know if we’ll be able to reopen the portal. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to find the right place to try. If we can’t find the space again we might have to start over from scratch.“

"Well,” said Flicker. "If we have to start over, we start over. Europa has plenty of ice. And it wouldn’t be from scratch, because we have a lot more data now, and everyone is analyzing like mad. Everyone else–don’t worry about it, we’re clear to rest.“

"Don’t worry. Heh.” He leaned back until he was lying sideways on the bed with his feet still on the floor, then looked up at her.

Flicker put her hand on his chest and met his eyes. "Mike, you’ve helped me so many times. Let’s worry about tomorrow… tomorrow. Not tonight. Okay?“

Journeyman blinked, but didn’t look away. Then he smiled. It was a faint smile, but real. "Okay,” he said.



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