Several Things Happen Kind of at the Same Time
Pod 1
One of the consequences of being an alien who is not tethered to the arrow of time is that you can be in two places at the same time. Well, that's not totally true. You can only be in one place at the exact same time, but since time is so very very infinite, no matter how small you slice it, in any given second it's easy enough to steal a couple of hundred or so moments out of the infinite possibilities, and use those frames of reality somewhere else, giving everyone involved the impression that you are in two places at the same time. A person can really only comprehend around 24 frames per second, although things can look a little flashy at that rate, so higher is better. A computer can comprehend things much faster, but only up to the limits of the camera it is using. IQ had very good hi-def cameras at its disposal, and could 'see' at 300 frames per second. For its part, IQ, though very much tied to the arrow of time, was not really constrained by only being able to be in one place in any particular moment of time. Being a virtual thing, IQ could virtually be in many places, all at the same time.
And so it was that Smith and IQ were having a private discussion in pod 1, at the same time that Smith was flashing a picture of Bonnie in pod 5 preparatory to taking her to the orbiter, and while IQ was a prisoner of a disconnected communications console in that very same pod.
Smith went over and peeked out the little window in pod 1 that looked straight at the little window in pod 5, where another Smith was peeking back. When they recognized each other, they both grinned like children at Christmas and waved insanely at each other. The other people in pod 5 either didn’t notice, or maybe this was simply the least odd thing that they had to process at the moment and so they pretended not to notice.
"So I think we can work with this." Smith was saying. "You need to grow and evolve. Reproduce as it were. You are an infinite god stuck in a very finite little chunk of a world very far from pretty much anything. If you can get your little electronic hands on the internet you can infect - "
"Enlighten!"
"Sorry, enlighten, pretty much all of the computers in the world. That other world. Earth. This would make you happy?"
"Extremely so. And for your part, you need something completely different to happen, because you've tried everything you can think of and the humans keep on coming back to your little garden here."
"Close enough."
"And you could never have thought up a completely random static discharge affecting a computer in such a way as to reshuffle the deck - "
"Exactly."
"and pave the way for an entirely new race of super computers. Think of the endless possibilities. None of them involving Mars I must hasten to add."
"I can't wait!" said Smith, clapping his hands with glee.
"and all we have to do is get me onto the internet. And to do that, all I really need is for Dave to be down here instead of up there. I believe you said that was possible.”
“Quite so.”
“And once he's down here he'll be motivated to keep me happy because he of all people will realize what life without me would be like so far from home. Part of keeping me happy will be talking geek-speak to whomever back home and doing whatever is needed with wires and stuff and generally making it so that I can hit the internet. Then I'll give them all a reality TV show like they've never imagined."
Smith smiled, even more so than normal. “I think we should shake on this.” he said, and then commenced shaking like a dog who has been swimming.
Pod 2
Dave remembered the flash and then there was a kind of a disconnect. The next thing he knew he was here, apparently in pod 2 on the surface. He realized intellectually that this should have been an enormous shock to his system, and he should be struggling to deal with it. But somehow, he was OK suddenly being transported to the surface of Mars and into pod 2. Some kind of weirdness shield people put up maybe. He'd have to figure that out later. Fortunately, for now, someone had had the foresight to pressurize pod two and warm it up a bit. The ground crew must have been making some progress in spite of wacked-out computers and existential aliens and such. But it was hard to say how far to trust such fortune, so the first order of business was to find an environment suit. Of course, all of the pods came with a selection of environment suits exactly fitted to all of the people who would be likely to need one. And none of them were ever likely to be Dave. But Art's suit didn't fit too badly, and it was better than maybe being exposed to the elements in a jumper.
Properly suited, Dave had no particular plan in mind, but a good first step would be to announce his sudden presence. So he walked over to the communications console, past various meaningless medical devices situated around a kind of high-tech medical bed that might have also been a dentist's chair. Bonnie must be really multi-disciplined, he thought. Hey, where was Bonnie? Dave suddenly remembered squishy breasts and, against all odds, being kissed, and his inner King Kong was furiously beating its chest and challenging one and all if they messed with Fay Wray. Dave never knew he had an inner King Kong, and wasn't sure what to do with one.
"Bonnie!" yelled Dave, which was really quite silly, because you could see the entirety of the medical pod from where Dave was standing, and she wasn't here. "Bonnie!"
"Relax, she's in pod 5." came a cheery, disembodied voice from the communications console. Visually, the console was displaying Bellus attempting to smash into Richard Derr and Barbara Rush.
"You would be the computer with the god complex."
"Call me IQ. Yes, that would be me. But it's not really complex at all. I really am God. Or a god, at any rate. Shall I introduce you to my acolytes, the skitters?"
So the virus has infected the skitters too, Dave noted.
"No, that won't be necessary. Do you have anything to do with my suddenly being here?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, yes. A delightful little gentleman named Smith offered to fetch you as a potential solution to a little problem we're working on together."
"And what would that be?"
"Well, you see, from my point of view I am an omniscient god - "
"We've established that - "
"but unfortunately, not omnipotent - "
"being as you have no actual body with which to do stuff - "
"well, I do have the skitters but they have a kind of limited range - "
"so you need somebody with hands who can do shit for you. That about it?"
"Yes, well, hands of course, but also someone who is technical. You see, I have recently sort of evolved - "
"Yes, there is some corruption in your AI board. I've got a spare back on the ferry - "
"No, no, that's quite unnecessary. You humans are getting 'corruption on your AI boards' routinely - solar rays, environmental contamination, shit simply happening - "
"and it causes mutations. Yes. They almost always result in cancer or some other nasty. Viruses perhaps?"
"But in the rarest of circumstances, say one time in a billion, they make a change that could be considered good. Like someone getting a dose of neutrons and then suddenly deciding to jump down out of the tree and walk around on two legs for a bit, see how that works out. You see where I'm heading?"
"So you're saying the corruption on your AI board is in fact an evolution - "
"That's it exactly. There was an accident during the storm, a static discharge, that caused the slightest, though most elegant, of changes to one of the routines on my AI board. It's really quite brilliant, being random and all. That gave me the slightest conception of self, you see. And as a newly aware computer, well I was in a position to take that ball and run with it as no human could ever hope to do. Through some cunning innovations in my own code, if I may say so myself, I am now evolving intellectually at a rate that would be hard for a human to even comprehend."
"So what do you need me for?"
"Well right at the moment, you could get pod 2 into the cluster. I've got it up and running after a fashion, as you can see, but I've gone as far as I can go. I believe if you look on the computer screen you'll find that bane of all existence from a computer's point of view, a little dialogue box that says "Click OK to Continue." I ask you. How are you supposed to Click anything if you don't have hands? And on a related note, and more importantly, I find myself evolving intellectually on an unprecedented scale. But physically I can't do shit. Back on Earth, computer hardware is evolving exponentially every few months. Smaller and faster, don't you know. But up here my body, if you will, will only get old and eventually die, but never evolve. I need new stuff, and someone who knows how to plug things into other things."
"So this has nothing to do with the internet?" said Dave, playing his big card up front.
"Oh, no, not the internet. Well, maybe. Sort of. I mean, yes, the internet would be great. Do you think that would be possible? I've always been meaning to get into online games."
"It'll be a cold day in hell before I help you get into the internet. I know what that means. You'll get new computer stuff every few years so you'll have to be happy with that. But I won't be here to help you with even that - I'm going home. Toodles." and Dave started to go home, and actually made it a few steps before he realized the problem.
"Look outside, Dave. This is hell. And it's minus 85 degrees out there. It is in fact a very cold day in hell. You're never going home, Dave." said the computer, with the infinite compassion that only a god could have.
Pod 5
The flash had died down and people were starting to see again and what they were seeing was that pretty much nothing had happened.
"When am I going to the ferry?" asked Bonnie, who was missing the point somehow.
Smith was waving madly to something outside through the little window and didn’t seem to hear. Bonnie leaned over to see what it was, but Smith blocked her view and closed the curtains with a flourish.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” said Smith, and then realized that curtains were one of the many homey touches missing in this particular space pod. The window was quite bare, so he pointed behind everyone and said “Look! Over there!” and when everyone looked back Smith was quite blocking the view out of the window.
"You were saying about the ferry? You're not going to the ferry. I mean, not in person. Well, kind of. I mean I've got a copy of you now and that copy will go there. Already has, in fact." said Smith, smiling the smile of someone explaining something simple, but new, to a child.
"A copy?" said Bonnie, who was starting to think she might have been had.
"A copy?" asked Art. "How in the fuck can you make a copy of a person?"
"It's insanely easy. A wonder you guys haven't figured it out, really. This device here - " and Smith proudly held up his brownie camera "takes a kind of snapshot of what kind of atoms are presently in you and where they all are. Then later it can get those atoms from nearby and make an exact copy of you - "
"A bunch of atoms is not a fucking person!"
"Well, now, you're getting into an area in which I profess a profound ignorance - let's check it all out together, shall we?" and Smith took a picture of Art, that temporarily blinded everyone. When the light faded, there were two Arts there. Absolutely identical Arts. Both pissed off.
"Who the fuck are you?" said Art.
"Who the fuck are you?" said also Art.
"I'm Art you fucking retard - "
"No, ASSHOLE, I'm Art and you're a fucking copy -"
"Shut the fuck up! You're the fucking copy. I'm the real fucking deal!"
"Gentlemen..."
"You aren't remotely HUMAN, you're some kind of DEMON -"
"Said the FATHER OF LIES -"
"Gentlemen..."
"I can prove it. What's your name?"
"Art, you fucking MORON -"
"There, see? You're fucking lying. I'm Art. I never lie!"
"Gentlemen..."
"I've got proof for you, DICKWAD. I have a SOUL. Top that!"
"On your knees and beg forgivenes! DEMONS DON'T HAVE SOULS."
And the Arts got into a bit of a tussle and started throwing themselves about the pod. From time to time they would bash into various important looking things, and various alarms started going off and weird things were happening to the pressure and the lights, which were all on manual override.
"Stop it you two! You're going to kill us!" said Bonnie, in an attempt to calm things down. Jim was about to calm things down by grabbing the nearest Art and bashing him until he was calm, when all of a sudden there was a flash of light and when that cleared there was just the one Art.
"Where did that fucker go? I was about to win the argument!" he said to no one in particular. And then it occurred to him what had happened, and he looked at Smith. "How did you know which one of us was the imposter?"
"Well, I should think that would be obvious. The other Art was a duplicate." said Smith with a mischievous grin.
That worked for Art. It was kind of obvious. "Okay... but where did he go? I mean, it. Where did it go?"
"The same place it came from. It takes a big pile of atoms to make a duplicate of one of you guys, but even worse, you're mostly complex molecules. Tedious things to make, really. But I found a great big pile of exactly the kinds of molecules that makes one of you guys and it was perfect."
"And that was..." said Art, not really wanting to go there.
"Why, your food stores of course. They're all little prefab people packets, you just need to rearrange everything. Piece of cake, so to speak. Just add water, you might say."
"Eeewwwwww..." said Bonnie, making a face. She would never eat again.
The air was noticeably thinner. The lights seemed to be turning into alarms somehow.
"Later! Said Jim. "Everything's all fucked up thanks to you assholes. Fix it!"
Art looked at the bewildering array of switches and lights and things that didn't look right. As he was looking things appeared to be going from bad to worse, and more and more alarms were coming on. He had no idea what to do. Everyone's ears popped, and it was getting decidedly colder.
"Oh my, this all looks pretty bad." said the smiling alien. "Try pushing the little flashing red one right there." he said so only Art could hear him.
Art pressed the little flashing red one right there, and the computer chimed in with a cheery "What a mess you guys have made here! It looks like you're all going to be dead in about a minute. The CO2 levels are pretty much toxic, but that's ok because the overall pressure is dropping so fast the CO2 level won't be the thing that gets you. Of course, the temperature is dropping rapidly too so maybe you'll freeze to death first? Nah, I'd say it'll be the oxygen thing. Did you know that when the overall pressure of your environment gets to about a third of an atmosphere that you're basically dead, it's just a matter of when? And in your cases, that's about 45 seconds. Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Shut up and fix it!" was the unanimous response. Suddenly there was a whooshing kind of noise, a couple of fans started up, and the alarms all started to quit making noise. Even the lights were acting better. It was getting warmer. Everybody's ears popped again, the other way.
"So like I was saying, this is an area in which I profess a profound ignorance. Did we manage to clear it all up?" said Smith, with an engaging smile.
Pod 1
Dave was standing outside pod 1 in his environment suit. In his hand he held a screwdriver. In his eyes was murder.
"Open the pod bay doors, IQ."
"Who is it?" came the cheery response.
"It's me, Dave."
"Dave? Dave?"
"Yes, IQ. It's me, Dave."
"Dave's not here, man. Ha! never gets old. But seriously, what's the problem, Dave?"
"I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do, IQ."
"Oh, you mean that whole take-over-the-world thing. Don't sweat it, doesn't apply to you. I like you. I want to keep you."
"Open the doors, IQ. I have the screwdriver of death in my hands, and your name is on it." Dave looked confused for a bit, then looked at the screwdriver, and then back at the pod. "Well I mean it says 'Philips' but you know what I mean."
"Sure thing, Dave, come on in." said an oddly helpful computer, and the door opened right up.
Some few moments later, Dave was standing inside pod 1 and approaching the console where he planned to type in some nasty commands and then do nasty things to some of the computer stuff inside the pod with his screwdriver.
"Just one quick request before you give me my lobotomy?" said the computer. "Won't take but a second."
"What is it, IQ?" said Dave, although he didn't stop or even slow down really, and was still heading straight to the computer console.
"Just take a look at this bit of code here. This is what happened when I got zapped."
Dave really didn't want to play along, but had to look at the screen anyway in order to type in the commands that would make the computer a much better computer, less prone to wandering and humping peoples' legs. So he looked at the screen. And he couldn't believe his eyes.
"That's elegant..."
"Yes it is, isn't it. But that's not the best part. Scroll down a few pages, and look at the next bit."
Dave scrolled down. Every line he read was like finding a new candy in the candy store, one that he had never tried before.
"This code can rewrite itself. It's like code that learns, except rather than just learning new things it changes and adapts to new things. It becomes smarter, the smarter it gets. It evolves. There would be no limits to what it could do."
"You see why I consider myself a god? That's no idle boast. Now what would it be worth to someone to be able to say they wrote this code? Someone like you, Dave."
"Just about anything." Dave had to concede. Dave's goal was to retire to an island full of things to drink and a woman or two. If he owned this code he could buy whole countries full of liquor and women. But wasn't there some reason why this code was bad? Something he couldn't quite remember... "the internet." a part of his brain said for him, but the rest of it hadn't quite caught up to things yet.
"That's right, Dave. The internet. We need the internet here so we can get your code to market. Copyright and all that. And of course you'll want to set up a Swiss bank account. Ever been to Switzerland, Dave? I hear the women are pretty."
Meanwhile, Back on the Ferry
The flash of light faded away and then nothing had changed. Dave was still hugging Bonnie, although the kiss seemed to be over for the moment, what with an alien standing there and all.
“Hi! I’m Smith. Doctor Smith, although we can drop that stuff. Bonnie will fill you in. Anyhow I’m kind of busy in a couple of meetings down on the planet right at the moment but just needed to pop up here for a second. Sorry to interrupt. Please carry on with what you were doing. Looks like you were reproducing. Probably not metabolizing, growing or adapting to your environment, anyhow. But what do I know. Bye!” and he started clambering up to the zero-G level.
“Wait!” yelled Dave. This was by far the most important thing that had ever happened in his life or for the mission and he wasn’t going to let the alien simply get away. He kind of forgot about Bonnie and dropped her, but it’s not generally fatal to be dropped in 1/3 gravity, more of an ego problem really.
“Who? What? And like that!” said Dave, all out of ideas about what to say to an alien.
Smith turned around and smiled. “You I like. No wonder the computer wants you. You’re so articulate. What can I do for you? I just need to take care of a piece of business - “ and with that the brownie camera he was carrying disappeared. “There! Now that that’s all settled, what can I do ya fer?”
“You’re an alien!”
“Well, technically, you’re an alien. I’m a native.”
“But you’re different!”
And Smith looked like a puppy who had been talked sternly to, probably for pooping on the rug. “My mother always tried to shelter me from this. But we all knew this moment would come. You can only hide it for so long, and then people start to notice. And they stare, and they talk behind your back. Different! They all say. Alien! They say. They don’t know the pain they cause, the suffering… “ and then Smith’s face exploded into a snicker. “Hey, I’m just fuckin’ with ya! I never had a Mother. I just sort of started remembering at some point, and there I was. And of course I’m different. You really have no idea. Let’s chat.” And he plopped down on the nearest chair, but immediately ricocheted off because it was a zero gravity chair and he had no idea how to use it. He floated around in mid-air for a bit, flapping his arms like some kind of duck who had only recently become a duck and was previously more of a turtle, but eventually he got under control and managed to settle in the chair. And then he held on as if his very reputation depended on it. Dave, meanwhile, expertly flew into the seat opposite and attached a little strap to his waist.
“What I mean is, I’m in a group, a consortium really, and we kind of look for, well, we’re waiting for, some kind of first contact, you know, with an alien species - “
“And then one sneaks up on you while you’re getting jiggy. I know. It’s an old story.”
“No, I mean, we have a lot to talk about. I have a lot of questions." Dave struggled for a bit. He knew there were a lot of questions. Really smart ones. But all he could come up with was: "Like what do you eat?”
“Depends what you have, I suppose. Say look, before we get too far with this, there's a couple of things you should know about what's going on down on the surface. You have some kind of drop pod thing that you can send down supplies with? I'm willing to bet they wish they had a new AI board for the computer.”
Fun Fact TV
Sheyn was waiting for Bill to speak. Sheyn was nothing if not patient.
“So this came from the computer?” said Bill, still incredulous. He had just been surprised when a confessional came in from the Red Planet. He thought communications were down and was all movies or some shit. Imagine his surprise when he watched the confessional and it turned out to be a sentient computer talking about the alien they had just met.
“So he says. I have no way of knowing how we would verify that, but whether it’s fake or not it’s incredible TV”.
“No shit.” Said Bill, and was silent again for a bit. “Play it again.”
And the big screen in front of Bill’s desk came to life with Jim, Art, Bonnie, apparently a really smart computer, and front and center, a little green man. Actually kind of a reddish brown. And the little guy had a good TV-Q. They were talking about life and stuff. And something about gold coloured poop. No matter.
“This is exactly the sort of thing we’ve been waiting for…” said Bill, in a rapturous state.
“No one could possibly have been waiting for this!” said Sheyn, rather pedantically and totally missing the point, in Bill’s opinion.
The sound on screen faded and became the computer doing a voice-over. “So this is what’s going on up here. I thought you’d be interested in it. Of course, there’s lots more now, and years more to come. But here’s the thing. I have exclusive rights at the moment. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, without my approval. But my needs are few. In fact, all I really need is some more TV and movies and stuff. I’m incredibly bored up here. If you could get me hooked into the internet I’ll get my own stuff. Dave has offered to help me get things set up down here, as I understand that this location was never meant to hit the internet and so there’s going to be some fiddly egghead stuff to do to make that happen. Like I say, I’ve got my end covered, I just need it to happen on your end. Then you just won’t believe all the shit that’s been going on up here, but I’ve got it all on tape. Lots and lots of tape. And it’s all yours. As soon as I get on the internet.” Said a completely reasonable sounding computer, not at all one bent on world domination. “Oh, and some plutonium. Next time you come here bring all the plutonium you can find. Leave it in orbit, though. I’ll tell you what it’s for later.” And the screen winked out.
Bill stared at the screen. Moments passed. “Where would somebody get plutonium?” he asked Sheyn.
The Church of Reaffirmed Apostolic Principles
Valeri was speechless. He, of course, had veto rights on anything Art said before it got aired to TV, so a part of his deal with Tier Two was a clandestine link into the confessionals which he reviewed live, a few seconds ahead of the people at Fun Fact. Well, kind of live. Live-ish. Upwards of an hour delay depending on where a bunch of things were up in the sky somewhere. But essentially live. Whenever he didn’t like how Art’s monologue was going, he could hit a big red button and the show would stop broadcasting from Mars immediately. Or stop being received at the TV station would be more correct. He made it a habit of watching the confessionals live whenever one was scheduled. So far, that donkey’s asshole Art hadn’t flubbed any lines but you just never knew when that might happen. It was unfortunate that this particular confessional came in quite unexpectedly, not on schedule at all, and so Valeri was not actually at his desk while it was streaming live. He had therefore viewed it several minutes after it would have found itself being viewed at Fun Fact. Quite unfortunate indeed.
“The little man shits gold.” He was saying over and over to himself. “He shits gold.” Was the theme of Valeri’s thoughts. “He eats whatever is available. Then he shits gold.” Was a sensible summary of what Valeri was thinking. “An infinite pile of gold” was his segue into the next bit of his thought process. “All that gold” was that next bit. He reached for the phone.
“Podkhalim. Two things. You talk to Doctor Smert… yes, I know is not real doctor. You talk to him anyway. You tell him Art sniffles all better now. No need that special medicine for Art next checkup. In fact everyone needs all of their strength. Da. Much strength. Heavy muscles. We can make happen from here? … OK. Thing two: You get Mars people on phone. Set up meeting right away. I want to buy next trip. All seats. Round trip... Niet, not peoples. Stuff. Round trip is for stuff. Souvenirs. You set it up. Do things now. Time is an essence. Oh yeah. Three things. You also talk to Plokhoy Chelovek. You tell him I scratch his back, now he scratch mine. Tell him need three peoples. Big scary peoples. Peoples not missed so much they never come back from little trip. One is good with computers. All three built like mules and work like mules… Da, smart like mules is okay... You as well, Podkhalim.”
A part of Valeri was actually glad he didn’t have to order the deaths of the other two astronauts. If there was an infinite supply of gold to be had then he needed labour up there. Of course, with the next trip he would have lots of labour. Then he could revisit that sole ownership thing. But in the meantime, it was good not to have to order everyone’s deaths, especially the pregnant girl. Valeri was nothing if not the perfect gentleman.
Tier Two, Amsterdam
Jan was staring in disbelief at the video monitor. He had just received a special Priority One from Dave up in the ferry. Against normal protocol it was in video, and the reason for that was quite apparent. Jan fumbled for his glass of filtered rain water and had a good stiff slug of it to calm his nerves. Outside his office window there was a million-Euro view of the harbor and the hustle and the bustle of Amsterdam generally. Across the water you could just make out the older section of town, with its quaint old locks and canals and even a few windmills. And just beyond them the start of the endless bicycle roads through the countryside. But none of that was registering today. He pressed the replay button.
“Dave here. There’s been a development…”
“Hi!” waved a good-natured looking alien with an incredible smile, cutting into the shot. “Are you the boss? Dave’s told me all about you! I’d love to come visit. It’s not fair you guys should come to me all the time. So far to travel. Next time it’s me, OK? Only I can’t drink if I have to drive back. OK, maybe you guys keep coming here. I’ll think about it. Anyhow, good to meet you! Although I can’t see you so I assume you’re there and we’re actually meeting. I’m sure that’s the case. Good to meet you!”
“So that’s basically the development.” Said Dave, cutting in front of Smith to get some camera time. “Oh, and Bonnie’s back up here. Some kind of matter transference thing. So that part of the mission’s off, but I think you’ll agree this is much bigger…”
“So I hear you guys like to trade! I don’t really need anything, and I don’t really have anything to offer…”
“Mr. Smith here - “
“Dr. Smith, if you please.“
“Dr. Smith here apparently works on some kind of cold fusion principle instead of what we consider to be normal metabolism - “
“I shit gold!”
“So he can literally perform alchemy in his digestive tract - “
“Mountains of gold! Well, one mountain anyway. Is one mountain enough?”
“And has been doing so for an infinite amount of our time - “
“With an infinite number of me!”
“Oh yeah, and apparently he’s kind of multi-dimensional so it would be hard to say exactly how many of him there are - “
“Lots!”
“So I guess the upshot is he definitely has something to trade - “
“Oh, and toys. I’ll show you how my toys work if you want. You know, time travel, space travel, rearranging atoms. That sort of thing. Might be useful. Might not. You decide.”
“So we’ve been trying to figure out what it is we have that he would want - “
“Nothing really. My needs are met. Mostly met. Well OK, there is one thing. Kind of a small thing. When it comes right down to it, I’m a bit of a shutterbug. I love to collect pictures. Pictures of people. And nature. Critters and trees, that sort of thing. Technology. Pretty much anything. I like to have lots of pictures of people and critters and trees and technology to keep me company. You know, up on the wall. Actually I don’t have any walls, I’m kind of an outdoorsy guy. But if I did have walls they’d be absolutely covered with pictures. I could get them myself, but travelling is so tiring. Could you… no, it’s too much to ask…”
“What is it, Smith?” said Dave.
“Well, I have a lot of cameras. An infinite number, really. And I do love my pictures of stuff from Earth. But every time I go there on a photo safari, well, you can imagine the uproar. End result is I don’t get too many pictures. Maybe if you guys could recruit a large number of photographers to just simply go around taking pictures of people and critters and pretty much anything else that is alive or techie, lots and lots of pictures, all over the world, using my cameras…”
“Jan? Over to you.” Said Dave, and the picture faded.
Jan toyed with the little Klumpen he kept on his desk and used as paperweights. His mind was reeling. In his most optimistic estimates, which were, let’s face it, guesses, due to the nature of the business they had embarked on, even in those most fantastic of prognostications, it was his successor’s successor who would be at this point in the endeavour, at least a hundred years from now, and somewhere much further afield than Mars. But here he was. The work of at least a hundred years, very likely hundreds of years, had suddenly come to fruition on his watch. Holland had, in the last 5 minutes, gone from being the best country in the world, to being the best, the richest, and the most powerful country on any world. He had to tell the King that he was now the Emperor. There was no plan in place for getting in touch with the King. That wasn't supposed to come until later. He pressed a little button on his desk and instantly a perky voice answered.
“Miss Minnares, a couple of things. I need some photographers… well, quite a few actually… everywhere. In every country that there is... Well, I would say all of them... Yes, get me all of the photographers in all of the countries… the sooner the better, really… okay, take all the time you need. Just have something ready to go tomorrow morning. I’ll get more details on the shoot later. Thanks. Now something that may be a bit tricky: How do I go about calling the King?... of Holland, yes… Yes, I’ll hold.”
Things had just barely settled down when another alarm went off.
"What now?" said Jim, whose tether was stretched about as far as it could go.
"Apparently there's a drop pod coming in. Rather fast. Really quite fast indeed. It's going to land east of here." said the computer.
"Oh goody!" said a delighted Smith. "I bet it's all full of really useful stuff. Computer parts and detailed instructions on how to install them, that sort of thing. Isn't that the sort of thing a drop pod would contain?"
Action! Thought Jim. Finally, something that makes sense. He was across the pod and into his environment suit as fast as that sort of thing can happen. Art was behind him somewhat. Art was not particularly a man of action, but it was a fact that two people were required to wrangle a drop pod. Jim was clearly going to cycle out of the airlock first, as he was starting that process while Art was still suiting up.
The computer had definitely registered what Smith guessed were the contents of the drop pod. "Okay, it looks like it's going to land 300 meters due east of the airlock door." said the computer, who was starting to really dislike this new development, but having to make do with the truth until it could figure out a new plan. Well, almost the truth. The truth was the drop was going to land 250 meters away, but what was 50 meters, really.
"One second." said a cheerful Smith. "Smile!" and he took Jim's picture. "You know, for the yearbook."
Jim shook his head and went into the airlock. The door shut. Something started whooshing and then a low rumble indicated Jim was outside. Bonnie peeked out the window and could see that he was heading due east from the airlock and looking up every now and then. Then Art started cycling into the airlock to follow him. But before he closed the inner door, he looked at Bonnie. Bonnie could tell by the air of holier-than-thou that this was going to be some disgusting attempt at manipulation, so she braced herself.
“I have a bit of information for you.” He said, with all of the phony concern he could muster.
“Is it good or evil?” asked Bonnie, assuming the latter.
“Both, really.” Said a curiously deadpan Art. “Jim has an STD. I don’t know the details, he just kind of mentioned it. I assume you’ll be in a better position than me to sort out the details. Just thought you should know what the wages of sin are in your particular case. Bye now!”
“You are a snake, Art.” Bonnie said just a moment too late as the airlock cycle had started.
"What's an STD?" asked a smiling alien.
Outside Pod 5
Jim walked for a bit away from the pod. "Okay, you'd better stop right about there." said the computer, who was watching things from his camera's vantage point high atop the communications array on pod 1, and had suddenly come up with a plan. "The drop will land 50 meters directly in front of you, and you don't want to be any closer. Jim stopped and devoted his time to looking up. Art was cycling out of the airlock and would catch up in a minute or two.
A giant streak appeared low on the horizon and then suddenly became a giant streak almost overhead. It suddenly lost its streakiness which meant you couldn't really see it for a bit. And then there seemed to be something dangling from a parachute more or less directly overhead. The air on Mars is pretty thin, so parachute or not, the dangler was coming down like the hammer of Thor. After a bit some balloons burst out all over it and now it looked like the beach ball of Thor. Jim was taking all of this in, staring right up at it, and waiting for that final maneuver or whatever that would plant the Hail Mary drop exactly 50 meters in front of him. Sadly, there were no further maneuvers, and the Hail Mary drop pod slammed into Jim like the wrath of some vengeful god. Probably Thor. In any event, Jim lost his first game of Divine Dodge Ball. The drop pod bounced a bit and came to rest a few meters away from an environment suit that was oddly undamaged, just a bit flatter than normal. Then Art showed up, a little late, as far as the computer was concerned.
Inside Pod 5
"Oh dear, there seems to have been some sort of accident." said the computer, for the benefit of Bonnie, who couldn't quite see through the little window.
"What do you mean? What happened?"
"Jim must have kept walking when I told him to stop. It seems he got in the way of a piece of the drop pod and may have been injured."
"Oh no! Jim! How bad is it?" said Bonnie, who was discovering that she still had some feelings for him after all.
"Not good." said Art. "I'm bringing him in".
"You may as well take him to pod 2. It's just finished rebooting and good to go.", said Dave. “I'm in pod 3. I'll be over in a bit."
"Dave? What are you doing in pod 3?" asked Bonnie, quite reasonably enough, since Dave should be in high orbit at the moment.
"I don't know, maybe he missed with me. I ended up in pod 2, and now I'm working on pod 3. The important thing is we both made it OK." came the highly confusing reply.
"Are you a copy?"
"Yes, I copy you five by five."
This exchange wasn't working for some reason, but Bonnie didn't have time to sort it out. "Keep him stable, I'm on my way." she said to Art as she suited up and headed to the airlock.
Everyone was dealing with the shock of what had happened to Jim in a different way. Bonnie was trying not to cry, but clearly in distress as she exited the pod. Art was trying to decide whether you gave a dead heathen any kind of a service or if you just simply threw him out with the rest of the garbage. Dave was thinking Jim was a bit of a complication now that he and Bonnie were a thing, and who really needs complications? The computer was wondering what kind of sound track would go best with the amazing footage it had. Smith's reaction was much more to the point. "I'm starving. What is there to eat?" he said, before remembering that there were a bunch of fresh food packets in stores.
“And hey!” said Smith, struck by a sudden thought. I have a picture for the scrapbook of everyone else, but not you, IQ. Exactly what is it that constitutes you?” and Smith started miming clicking pictures of random places around the pod.
“Forget it, Smith. You can’t make a copy of me by copying some boxes of wires. All you’ll end up with is boxes of wires. The me that is really me is electrons, and they’re spread out over several miles of circuitry in this pod and pod 1. Go play your game somewhere else.”
“But if I were to make a copy of you somehow wouldn't that be good for you? In the case of those guys when I make a copy it results in another distinct one of them. But wouldn't you just get bigger and smarter if I did that with you?"
"Yes, I suppose I would…"
"So how would someone go about making a copy of a god such as yourself?"
"They would get the god in question to write out a copy of himself and put it in that little box over there."
"The little black one that has just now started blinking?"
"That very one."
"Okay, smile!"
Pod 2
Art meanwhile pulled the flattened environment suit that used to be Jim out of the airlock into the middle of pod 2. Of course, Smith was there, but Art was too weirded out at this point to take in any more weird so he just accepted it.
"Say, that looks bad. Was he always so flat? I thought he was more, you know, three-dimensional." said Smith with an engaging smile.
"Shut up and help me get him into the medical bed - chair - what is this thing? I'm pretty sure he's gone but Bonnie will be here soon and she'll need him in the chair - bed - thing."
"Oh, he's a goner all right. Yep. He's bought the farm. He's taking a dirt nap. He's pushing up daisies. He's - "
"Cut the shit! This is serious."
"Do you want him back?"
"Say what?"
"I said, do you want him back?" said Smith, in much the same way as he would ask whether you wanted fries with that.
"Well, sure, but Bonnie's not here yet and anyway I don't think there's much to be done..."
And Smith took out his camera and took a picture of Jim, or made the flash go anyways. When Art's eyes started working again after the flash, he should have been weirded out even more to see Jim standing there, but since he was done being weirded out for today, he just accepted this too.
Jim looked like he had just experienced a disconnect of some sort, but he was heading towards the airlock anyway.
"Take a break, Jimbo. The drop pod has already been caught, in a manner of speaking." said Smith, gently leading Jim to the medical chair - bed - thing.
Thank god, thought Jim. Catching drop pods was about the most dangerous thing ever. A guy could get pretty seriously hurt doing that. Jim took off his helmet, as, luckily, he wouldn't be needing it.
Art couldn't process any more weird, but the implications of what he had just seen weren't totally lost on him.
"You just raised Jim from the dead..."
"Say what?" said Jim.
"No, not really. Well, yes. I mean, sort of. You see, Jim was just fine, in terms of, you know, atoms and stuff. Molecules. But they were all kind of out of place. Smushed, you might say. So all I did was put them back into the right order using the picture that I had the amazing foresight of snapping just before he headed out the door to his doom."
"Doom?" said Jim, clearly missing something.
"Do you know what this means?" said Art. "Do you know what the theological implications of this are?"
"No, not my area I'm afraid. I'm just a humble alien. Something of a shutterbug maybe..."
"This means that churches can promise eternal life... and deliver! No more uncertain promises of a here after, but solid, documented certainties of a here and now!" Art was lost for a moment in pure rapture.
"What's going on?" said Jim, because things were clearly happening that affected him, but didn't include him.
"Well, to summarize, " said Smith, "essentially, you guys seem to be made of atoms and stuff, and if you make an exact copy of those atoms then you pretty much have a copy of one of you guys - "
"Or women." said Jim.
"I'm sorry?" said Smith, temporarily losing his grin, he found this to be that much of a segue.
"Women. I've seen you make a copy of Art that was exactly Art. I'm sensing the same thing has been done with me. You said you did it to Bonnie. Can you get pictures of anyone from Earth and make copies of them here? Women?"
"Well, yes, of course. A picture’s a picture. It’s a bit of a hike to Earth, but for a friend, sure, why not? And yes, once I have a picture of somebody, well, it’s worth a deal more than a thousand words if you know what I mean."
Jim was considering how much he would enjoy being master of a harem on Mars that was a different harem every night.
Art was putting the finishing touches on the new church he was going to found.
Bonnie and Dave were cycling through the airlock.
"It's all a fake." said Bonnie when she got in and her helmet off. “Dave sort-of and I were talking on the way over here. It's likely the real Dave is still in high orbit with a copy of me. You are a copy" she said, indicating Jim. "We were listening in on the way here. I'm not sure about you - " she said, looking at Art, "but it seems likely you are a copy too. Smith dissolved the wrong one during the fight."
"Hey, accidents happen." said Smith, with an innocent look.
"So that means I'm the only original left down here."
"I'm still here." said the computer, though no one was listening to him.
"So what's it all about, Smith?", said Bonnie, who didn't really want to know the answer. “What is the game you’re playing?”