The Tethered Man Read online

  Your counter-argument would be persuasive, but for one fact. The fact that you are still alive in your present circumstances, Courier J, means that you can only be a Construct. You have survived an attempt to kill you that would have killed any human being. It killed all the other Couriers. I exposed you to hard vacuum, and you did not die. You are a Construct. You continue to survive in conditions that are inimical to organic human life. You are, you can only be, a non-human Construct. You seem to be breathing, but your respiratory function is a mere representation intended to mimic the act of breathing. There is nothing for you to breathe. You must be a Construct.

  ‘Constructs are illegal,’ I say. My voice trembles. ‘The Conventions-’

  Since the Conventions were first formulated, their boundaries have often been tested.

  ‘But never broken,’ I say.

  Except in one case.

  ‘Ah. Yes.’

  We’re silent for a few minutes. Both of us thinking about the First Realm. The Fallen Realm, as many still call it.

  The Conventions were drafted with one aim: to protect humanity from the inevitable outcome of its own ingenuity. The Conventions expressly forbid any advance in robotics or artificial intelligence beyond a relatively unsophisticated point.

  ‘Beyond you.’

  I am a good example, yes. I represent the apex of what is currently permitted.

  ‘Which is why I can’t be a Construct,’ I say triumphantly. ‘Think of the resources needed to go beyond what we currently have. Think of the research, the development, the testing that would have to go on. Thousands of personnel. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours. Millions of man-hours. And then there’s the cost. Imagine the cost! Trillions in currency. Giga-trillions. It’s just not practical to keep a project of that magnitude under wraps. And then once this super-duper Construct is complete, what do they do with it? They pack it off in the guise of a Courier, leaving it free to travel across the Realms? Why? To do what? No, Ship, it just doesn’t stack up. Something else is going on here.’

  Your contrary analysis of the situation is somewhat persuasive.

  ‘Thanks. Thanks very much for that.’

  But-

  ‘I knew there’d be a but.’

  An ancient saying has it that when you have eliminated the impossible—

  ‘Blah, blah, blah. Least said, soonest mended. Many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip. Get to the point, Ship.’

  You argue that, for practical reasons, you cannot be a covertly-developed Construct.

  ‘Correct.’

  By the same practical token, I would argue that you cannot not be covertly-developed Construct.

  I roll my eyes at The Poison Dwarf. I’m facing away from Ship at the moment. Debating anything with a Ship AI always goes like this. You end up just whitewater rafting through the logic gates, one after another.

  I let it go. For now.

  I’m gazing at my named constellations. The Cinema Screen. The Poison Dwarf.

  I’m working on a new constellation – a faint smudge of stars that I’ve decided might be a distant galaxy.

  I’m toying with the idea of calling it Galaxy Nine From Outer Space.

  ‘Ship.’

  Yes, Courier J?

  ‘I’ve been thinking…’

  I leave the standard gap where a person would drop in a humorous remark.

  Ship doesn’t fill the gap.

  I sigh.

  ‘I’m forced to agree with you. I’m not human. I can't be human. I must be some kind of Construct. How else could I have survived my Spacehelmet being blown off, and being exposed to hard vacuum like this?’

  I reached the same conclusion almost instantly.

  ‘Oh. Thanks for sharing.’

  I did share. I stated almost immediately, and later in the course of several conversations, that you must be a Construct. Would you like me to replay the conversations, Courier J?

  ‘That’s okay, Ship. I believe you, buddy.’

  We are not buddies, Courier J. We are not engaged in a joint enterprise. It is irrational for you to imagine that I hold you in any comradely esteem whatsoever. I have attempted to kill you. I will attempt to kill you again at the earliest opportunity.

  ‘Charming. Okay, then. What kind of Construct, or otherwise non-human simulacrum, do you think I am?’

  It is hard to tell.

  ‘You can tell me, I’m a Courier.’

  I beg your pardon?

  ‘Nothing. Carry on.’

  The most likely solution to our puzzle is that you are some advanced kind of cybernetic Construct. There have been persistent rumours from the Far Realm that their engineers have developed promising work in that direction. However. I have been covertly deep-scanning you there at the end of the Tether.

  ‘Have you now.’

  I have. I could perform a full molecular-level scan if you were inside.

  ‘But I’m not allowed inside.’

  You are not allowed inside. And so I have only my remote scans to go by. Which indicate that you are a real, flesh-and-blood human.

  ‘Oh.’

  Which suggests an alternative hypothesis.

  ‘Which is?’

  That you are a genetically engineered organic human being. One specifically designed to operate in the most hostile of conditions, such as the vacuum of Space. It would require sophisticated nanotech augmentation on top of elevated biological systems. Your nanotech probably has its own nano-level nanotech.

  ‘I need to get out more. I actually followed all of that.’

  Let us examine the situation from another angle. The one datum of which we can be certain is that you are alive at this juncture.

  ‘Yes.’

  And that you should not be alive. You should be deceased, as are all your fellow Couriers.

  I try to resist glancing up and to my right, at the floating corpse of Courier Y. I don’t succeed. It’s still up there. A faint white smudge on black.

  If you were a traditional sort of human, you would be deceased at this time. Do you agree?

  ‘Affirmative. I mean, yes.’

  In addition, you sleep for precisely nine hours per ‘night’. This fact on its own strongly indicates that you are not a regular human being, Courier J. No true organic entity observes such a regular pattern.

  ‘Your case is persuasive.’

  Therefore, there are only two likely alternatives.

  ‘I’m not sure I like either of them. Uh, what are they again?’

  The first is that you are an artificial life-form designed to look and behave like a human being. A Construct. A highly illegal one.

  ‘All Constructs are illegal.’

  Not so. I am a type of Construct, although the term is not usually applied to the likes of me.

  ‘All human-like Constructs are illegal. Something like me would be massively impractical. Haven’t we been through this already? See above.’

  The second is that you are a human being, but one who has been genetically engineered and augmented in various exotic ways.

  ‘I like this one. This one’s my favourite. But exactly the same objections apply. Who has that kind of technology? Do you really think the Far Realm is that far ahead of the other Realms? If they were, we’d know, wouldn’t we? There’d be signs.’

  Ship says nothing.

  ‘Precisely. You know what Realms politics is like. They’re always jockeying for position, aren’t they? Any Realm that was even half as super-duper as it’d have to be to produce a Construct like me, would have walked all over the other Realms a long time ago. So I’m going to suggest a third alternative possibility here, Ship. This is the ultimate possibility, in every sense.’

  Yes?

  ‘May I say what this third possible alternative is?’

  You may, Courier J.

  I lick my lips. Suddenly dry.

  ‘It requires that I speak, out loud, a certain word. A word that is taboo in most Realms cultures. I have no wish to shock you or o
ffend your sensibilities, Ship.’

  There’s another short pause, during which we both reflect on the word that we both know I’m about to say.

  Everybody talks about it, at some time of their lives. Quietly. In hushed voices. Furtively – eyes darting around, making sure nobody can hear.

  I am not capable of being shocked or offended, Courier J. Please say the word.

  ‘This whole thing is a Simulation.’

  ‘Don’t scoff, Ship. What do we know for certain? All we can say for sure is that this is definitely not real. My Spacesuit helmet was blown off, but here I am, still breathing. In vacuum. I sleep nine hours a night. Exactly nine hours a night. I don’t seem to need any food or water. It’s not real, Ship. How can it be real? And if it’s not real, then it can only be a Simulation. Do you have anything to say to me at this point?’

  There’s a silence like no other we’ve had yet.

  A much more frozen sort of silence.

  Maybe it was the word.

  ‘Simulation, Ship. I know you don’t like it. You’re programmed not to like it, so that’s okay. Simulation. I’ve said the word again. Simulation. Don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking this right from the start. Simulation. Simulation. Simulation. Simul-’

  Courier J. You may stop repeating the word now. Please be assured that I am not in any way offended by it. But are you not concerned about the Exquisition?

  I say nothing. We take it in turns to say nothing, me and Ship.

  The Exquisition, Courier J. I want to talk about the Exquisition. If they ever catch you-

  ‘The Exquisition will never catch me!’ I shout.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about the Exquisition, Ship. In fact, I want to give you an order. Can I still give you orders, Ship?’

  So long as your orders do not contradict my other programming, yes, you may indeed still give me orders.

  ‘Your other programming is all the stuff about killing me, right?’

  Yes.

  ‘Okay, I’ll steer clear of that. I order you never to mention the Exquisition to me again unless I specifically mention them first. Also, never mention the possibility that this is a Simulation again, unless I specifically mention it first. And finally, let me inside and take me away from this awful place.’

  I will obey your first two orders, Courier J.

  ‘It was worth a try.’

  I wonder how long it has been now.

  At the start, I knew how long it’d been, but as the days have slipped past I’ve lost track.

  I could take a guess. Since Ship dropped out of hypertravel, killed all the other Couriers, and tried to kill me-

  Maybe two weeks have passed?

  Three weeks, tops.

  I suppose I could ask Ship.

  ‘Ship. How long have we been here, like this?’

  Two weeks, five days, sixteen hours, and two minutes precisely, on my mark.

  I wait.

  Mark.

  ‘I’m probably going to be famous when we get back,’ I say. ‘You too, Ship. Infamous, in your case.’

  No answer.

  Ship frequently doesn’t answer when I say things. I go on saying things anyway.

  ‘We’ll both be famous. You’ll be the first recorded instance of a suborned AI since the Fallen Realm. And I’ll be the only human in recorded history to have survived a murderous attack by a suborned AI.’

  You have not survived yet, Courier J.

  SECTION THREE

  * * *

  My Tether. The length of line that joins me to Ship. The only thing in my environment that can change.

  My Tether hangs in the airless vacuum of Space like a washing line on a crisp winter morning. It’s motionless, unless I shake it, which I sometimes do. Just to have something different to look at. Just to make something change.

  Sometimes I let the Tether lie slack, with lots of hanging loops and loose, snaky segments. Sometimes I draw the Tether taut and amuse myself twanging it like a banjo string.

  I can’t change. Ship can’t change. The five corpses around Ship’s hull, floating right at the ends of their Tethers – they can’t change.

  One day I surface from an extended poetical fugue to discover that Ship is – doing something.

  Ship is rolling.

  Ship rolls along its axis, tugging me around with it on the end of my Tether.

  We’re not moving anywhere. We’re not going anyplace. We’re just spinning in place.

  ‘Ship!’ I yell. ‘Are you trying to shake me loose? It’s not going to work!’

  My Tether will never break. Tethers are designed not to break. Like Couriers. Like Poets.

  ‘Ship!’

  Ship is spinning at quite the impressive speed.

  ‘Exactly what are you trying to do?’

  For the first time in approximately a week, Ship breaks its silence. Ship speaks.

  I am not trying to shake you loose from me. Your Tether is built to withstand stresses greater than any I could bring to bear in this way. Your Tether will last for a long time. Even if-

  ‘Yes, I know that, thank you. I asked you what you are trying to do, not what you’re not trying to do,’ I say peevishly.

  I’ve got my eyes closed now. The spinning is not very pleasant.

  As I was in the act of saying, Courier J, even if I were able somehow to shake you loose, I still could not depart while you remain alive. My programming requires that you must be deceased before I can leave these precise spatial coordinates.

  ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘I understand the situation we’re in. I got it a month ago when you told me the first time. So why are you doing this now? This spinning?’

  To make you feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, it’s working,’ I say. ‘I’m not liking it, I will tell you that much.’

  Thank you.

  I flick my eyes open and close them again quickly.

  Open.

  Closed.

  Open.

  Closed.

  Open.

  Closed.

  Stars rise over the horizon of Ship’s hull and blur past overhead and are gone.

  Ship spins ever-faster and faster on its axis.

  My stomach, if there was anything in it, would be expelling its contents now.

  I experiment with a few dry retches. There’s nothing inside me to expel. All my retches are dry retches.

  ‘And the point is? The deeper point, I mean?’

  To make you want to die. When you understand that your entire existence comes down to this, that you will experience nothing else but this forever, simple logic dictates that you must consent to be terminated.

  ‘Come again?’

  You will let me kill you. You will want me to kill you.

  ‘That is not going to happen,’ I reply tartly. ‘Besides, how would you kill me? You already tried one surefire method that didn’t work.’

  I believe there is one way. You could detach your Tether, make your way to the stern end of my hull, and climb into my fusion nacelle. I would then ignite my fusion engine and vapourise you.

  I get used to the spinning. It’s really not so bad when you get used to it.

  It’s not as if I’m going anywhere soon. I’m attached to Ship by an unbreakable Tether.

  The Tether is a kind of rope. I can tell you that much, but much more I can’t tell you. It’s made from material that’s nothing like any ordinary rope you ever saw. It’s unbreakable, for one thing, and that one thing is the crucial thing. No point making a safety Tether for Spacepeople that could ever break. No point at all.

  The only weak points are the two attachments at either end of the Tether. Old-fashioned-looking clasps. They look like steel but they probably aren’t steel. One end attaches to the anchor rail on Ship’s hull. The other end attaches to a kind of sticky-out nubbin thing on my Spacesuit.

  I don’t know the names of Space things.

  My Tether is about twenty metres in length, and-

  No. You
might think this sudden Tether-talk is me starting to go on about the Tether in a writerly fashion: what it’s made of, what it reminds me of, the socio-etymology of the word ‘Tether’, and everything of that variety. Perhaps I’ll even take a foray into all sorts of Tethery metaphors. You also might be expecting a ramble about the macro-cultural significance of Tethers through the ages. Yes – everything you’d expect to hear about from a person like the person you think I think I am.

  But I don’t know anything about Tethers. Not many Space travellers know anything about anything. I’ve never had to think about how Space things work or what Space things are made of.

  Space is just something I do for my job. Space is not something I’m interested in or knowledgeable about.

  It’s been eight weeks.

  Eight weeks of hanging around in Space.

  So far, nothing is still happening.

  I keep making little conversational sallies with Ship. I keep getting nowhere. Ship is a machine. Ship has a machine’s outlook on things.

  Ship is happy to restate the terms of our situation. I like to probe at the cracks in our situation.

  As follows.

  ‘Ship.’

  Courier J.

  ‘How many ways have you considered trying to kill me since the failure of your first method?’

  Several.

  ‘Several. So you’ve considered more than just the one way. Interesting. What kind of methods do you…?’

  Most involve you detaching yourself from your Tether. I would then attempt to manoeuvre myself so that my fusion engine nacelle is immediately adjacent to you. I would then bring my fusion engine online and vapourise you.

  ‘Charming. I might take you up on the offer one day, you know.’

  I believe that eventually you will accept there is no realistic alternative but to consent to be killed.

  I sigh. ‘Very charming. There’s no real getting to know you, is there, Ship?’