The Last Human Read online

  “You’re right. I did say,” she concedes. “It’s just that right now I have to…” She has to…what? She has to waste the next six hours of her life wandering the station, imagining what could have been? Or she has to seize an opportunity that will never come again?

  Well, when you put it that way.

  “I have to go see someone,” says Sarya the Daughter, and instantly that feeling in her chest shifts. It’s not uncertainty now. It’s…well, it’s not exactly peace, but it’s something like it. This is what a Human would do, because she is a Human and it’s what she just decided to do. Done.

  “Is it your friend who loves stories? Do you think I could meet her? Because if I could just have a quick conversation with her I think I could—”

  “No, he’s—” He’s what? She has no idea. “It’s just someone who wants to meet me.” That’s safe enough.

  “Does he like stories?”

  “I’ll be sure to ask,” she says. She glances up and down the unfamiliar corridor. “But you know what I need to do first?”

  “Um—”

  “I need to find out how to get to Dock A from here.”

  “Well,” says Helper, sounding unenthused, “I’m a little busy. I’ve got a lot of dead members of a certain extinct species to track down.”

  “You know what?” says Sarya, adjusting her strategy instantly. “I just remembered. He does like stories. He especially likes stories about Humans.”

  “Really? How come all your friends like stories about Humans?”

  She deflects Helper’s suspicion with skillful ease. “You know, I’ve never thought to ask.”

  “I mean, that’s fine, of course—whatever plots your orbit, I always say. And if people want stories, well, I’m not named Helper for nothing!” The voice is picking up already as the primary motivation takes hold. “Let me just whip up a route for you, and…here you go!”

  In the center of the empty corridor, a diagram begins to unfold. Sarya expected a simple map, but her new unit has a way of making the mundane beautiful. This area is unfamiliar, but most of the jumbled asymmetry she knows as well as her own blades—hands, whatever. Their shapes take form before her, from the administrative sections to the arboretums where she spent most of her childhood to the arcing promenades that lead to her own residential section. A brilliant red ribbon begins at her feet and threads through the crash of architecture, from this point down to this freight elevator, from there under the concourse to—

  “Wait a minute,” says Sarya. She expands the map with one hand and points with the other. “Why is this part missing?”

  “What do you mean?” asks Helper.

  “Right here. This is—I was literally right here like eight minutes ago. In this big empty spot. There’s a giant observation deck right here.”

  [Shrug], says Helper without a body, the tiny Network message floating up through the very blank space that Sarya is staring at. “Maybe you’re confused,” it says. “I requested that map with your registration. If there’s no data, then there’s nothing there.”

  Sarya stares at the map floating in the center of the corridor, at the emptiness barely a hundred meters from her, and realizes: this is what she’s supposed to see. This is what the station is supposed to look like to someone at the bottom of the intelligence scale. That blank spot is the control hub, the place where low-tiers like her aren’t supposed to be. As far as low-tier Sarya the Spaal is concerned, it doesn’t exist at all.

  “You know what?” she says quietly. She eyes a utility hatch across the corridor. They can’t keep her out of there, no matter how low her tier. “That’s okay. I’ll just…I’ll go the way I know.” She reaches for the virtual switch that will end this conversation.

  “But I just—”

  “Thanks again, Helper,” she says, aware that she is completely failing to hide the bitterness in her voice. “You’re special and unique and I value what only you can do.”

  “But—”

  And the channel is closed. Helper might sulk for a few minutes, but no intelligence can resist its primary motivation for long. It will be cranking out research by the time she’s home. She, on the other hand, has places to be. With a grunt and a Widow curse, she heaves the hatch open and slips into the dark bloodstream of Watertower Station.

  Clanks, hisses, roars, the arm hair–raising vibration of ten thousand grav systems, the sound of water and atmosphere through pipes—every noise that doesn’t occur in the silent corridors of Watertower has been packed into the black gloom of the utility areas. Sarya watches as her Network unit begins work mapping the area, spreading its glowing lines over every invisible surface and assigning icons to passing drones. Already she is relaxing; this is so much better than the darkness she remembers, back when she first discovered these passages. It’s also, she is quickly realizing, so much bigger. The farther the lines spread and the more symbols appear, the more obvious it becomes that she has never had the faintest idea of the scale involved back here. The air is absolutely thick with Network registrations. There are thousands of them, tens of thousands, a virtual river of intelligence roaring by above her with each individual droplet marked by a glowing icon.

  She folds her arms and leans back against the invisible wall, staring at the torrent of virtual light above her. So many intelligences, and every one of them sub-legal. Walking around the silent corridors of an orbital station, it’s easy to forget that a legal tier is a rarity. Most of the intelligences on Watertower—in the Network as a whole—are too low-tier to receive legal rights. For every citizen above the threshold, there are dozens or hundreds of utility intelligences like her own Sarya’s Little Helper. Not all of them are bodiless, either. Here behind the walls of the station, in the darkened utility corridors, in the crawlways and tunnels and suspended bridges, Watertower Station teems with helpers, so to speak. Every one of these tens of thousands of drones contains a low-tier intelligence, a one-point-something whose primary motivation lines up perfectly with its assigned job. They are simple minds, but they are thrilled with their lot and they just can’t wait to tell you about it.

  [Recycling is just going to love these], says a three-meter flying transport, raising the hairs on Sarya’s arms as it rushes by above her on low-grade gravs.

  [Personal record, here I come!] says another, whipping past in the opposite direction and missing the first by centimeters.

  [Hello again, Sarya the Daughter], say a half-dozen messages from all directions. These particular drones have probably never seen her before, but they know she has come through here. They have friends—if that’s the right word—who have met her. They’re probably talking about her right now, in simple little messages floating out between these simple little minds, little requests and responses regarding a certain Sarya the Daughter. This continual communication is handy—and it’s surely the reason she’s never seen a collision in her life—but it certainly makes things more complicated for the occasional higher-tier mind who might visit. It’s not like talking to Helper. You can’t just lie to one and then tell the next one something completely different. No, you’ll talk yourself into a corner doing that. Instead, you have to treat the whole thing as one giant organism. Even if a single member is a bit of an imbecile, taken together they’re surprisingly intelligent.

  She watches the icons multiply until her Network unit finishes its analysis of the space. Now the image is complete, a skeletal three-dimensional map that stretches upward level after level, each one filled with thousands of drone registrations that spiral through Watertower’s circulatory and nervous systems in a vast dance of beauty and perfect order and—

  Sarya unfolds her arms, pushes herself off the wall, and walks directly into traffic.

  A wheeled cart whirs to a halt out of the darkness, its front bumper nearly touching her knees. Behind it, icons shift and colors change as other drones stop
and redirect in a wave that spreads steadily upstream. Still, there are no collisions. Each one responds to its environment and sends information to its fellows. Routes are changed. Timelines are updated. It all takes place near-instantly, and without any kind of central oversight. That, as the teacher once told Sarya, is the magic of collective intelligence.

  [It would make my job so much easier], says the infinitesimal part of the station’s circulatory system that is parked in front of her, [if you weren’t standing there.]

  “What are you carrying?” Sarya asks the cart, nearly shouting to be heard over the noise.

  [Medical waste], it answers. [I’m vital to a clean Watertower!]

  Sarya moves out to let it pass. It moves on with mingled messages of [relief] and [joy] while she steps into the path of the next one. “What are you carrying?”

  [Miscellaneous nutritional supplements!] it replies. [Class F44. I’m told they’re delicious.]

  She allows this one to pass as well—Class F44 is lethal to her, after all—and repeats.

  [Laundered utility suits], says the next cart. [Radial body styles. Very stylish.]

  Here we go. “Wait a minute,” she says, reading the cart’s registration via her new Network overlay. “Are you Unit W-66861?”

  [How did you know that?] gasps the cart.

  “The Unit W-66861?”

  [I’m…pretty sure?]

  “No way!” says Sarya, stepping back. “I’ve heard of you.”

  [You have?] says the cart. An innocent [wonder] floats up through the tangle of icons and grid lines.

  “Of course I have!” Sarya says. “I’ve heard you’re the fastest cart on this side of the station.”

  If a utility cart can look confused, this one does. But Sarya knows that it has instantly warmed to the higher-tier mind currently gracing it with conversation. It’s really not difficult to gain a low-tier’s trust. [Really?] it says. [Who told you that?]

  “Oh, everyone knows it,” Sarya says. “We, um, high-tiers talk about you guys all the time. We’re super interested in…utility carts.”

  [You are?]

  “Definitely. And you know what?”

  [What?]

  She leans in, as if sharing a secret. “I’ve made a bet with…a friend. I say you can get to Dock A in under twelve minutes, and my friend says you can’t.”

  [Who says I can’t get to Dock A in under twelve minutes?] asks the cart, incensed.

  “Well, I don’t want to name names,” says Sarya. “But I’ll tell you what. You take me to Dock A and I’ll time you. Then I can tell my friend if you really are as fast as, um, we’ve all heard.”

  [I’m ready!] says Unit W-66861, nearly vibrating with exhilaration. [Get in, get in, get in!]

  It’s all about motivation. Everybody wins.

  Sarya tumbles into the cart, landing in a pile of neutral-smelling garments. It’s a little quieter in here, thanks to their dampening effect, which means now she can place her hands behind her head and relax a bit as the cart accelerates through the darkness. She takes a deep breath of industrial scents, gazes up through a vast flood of intelligence, and finds herself wondering what it’s like to be a part of something. Just look at this: tens of thousands of drones, working together as a single organism, accomplishing things that no one unit could hope to achieve in its wildest tiny dreams. And here she is in the center, carried through their midst and yet…separate.

  Alone.

  But that won’t always be true. It can’t be. She is a part of something, she just hasn’t found it yet. The galaxy is a big place; it could be full of Humans, each of them hidden away or concealed in plain sight like her. There could be hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of them. Parents and children, friends and mates, lovers and enemies, each one part of something bigger.

  I know where you came from.

  And soon, so will she.

  (“Welcome to Network!” revision 5600109c, intelligence Tier 1.8–2.5, F-type metaphors)

  WELCOME TO THE COMMUNITY!

  By now you have likely heard the term tier many times in discussions of the Network and its workings. Since an understanding of this concept is vital to all potential Citizen species, a quick primer follows below. As a rule of thumb, just remember that each tier multiplies the previous by twelve. For example, a two is approximately twelve times as intelligent as a one, a three is one hundred forty-four times a one, and so on.

  For information on how your species was evaluated, please see the attached packet on [Intelligence Testing]. If you believe you are exceptional for your species, you may request a personal test through your species’ Network liaison.

  Tier 1: Baseline. This tier contains pre-culture sentient beings who have developed abstract intra-species communication, tool use, and other markers detailed [here]. Ones enjoy special protection above wildlife, but they are not eligible for Network Citizenship and its accompanying rights and privileges.

  Tier 1.8 (“Legal”): At this point, a species becomes eligible for Network Citizenship and all that comes with it. (Interestingly, the most common tier in the galaxy is a 1.79, as this is where most helper intelligences are manufactured.)

  Tier 2: YOU ARE HERE. Unless artificially accelerated, most species progress through the twos during their first few thousand years of spaceflight.

  Tier 3: At twelve times the intelligence of the previous tier, a three can accomplish by intuition what would take a two many hours of concentrated thought. In fact, a two’s first exposure to a three is often marked by intense fear or a sense of eeriness, as a three can easily make connections that do not occur to a lower mind.

  Tier 4: This tier is typically achieved only by large group minds. A four is uncanny to a three, and godlike to a two. Though most lower minds have never conversed with a member of this tier, fours are far from rare. Group minds, in fact, appear to be nearly the rule as species advance.

  Tier 5: Most planetary intelligences are fives. Typically such an intellect has members numbering in the billions, all in constant mental communication. The intellectual power of a five would be mind-boggling to a two, should the five condescend to speak with the two in the first place.

  Tier 6+: You may be wondering: what is above the fives? The answer is: no one knows (or at least no one who’s saying). Though there have been major evidence-gathering efforts by lower intelligences, all have come up empty. Admittedly, this lack of evidence may be evidence itself. It is safe to say that if higher minds exist, any inquisitive lower minds are seeing exactly what those minds intend them to see.

  So there you have it. Now you know enough to say hi!

  “This area is closed for maintenance of its surveillance systems,” says the voice of Dock A. “Please return in fourteen minutes.”

  Sarya stands with her back against a closed hatch, blinking in the light. It’s been a while since she’s been here, but it’s familiar enough once her eyes adjust. It’s always obvious which parts of Watertower Station are the oldest. They don’t have the smooth curves, sound-absorbing coatings, or—judging by the way her feet stick to the floor here—properly motivated cleaning crews. They are usually more cramped than the newer areas. Dock A, for example, is barely a hundred meters across and not even half that up to the buttressed ceiling. The double hatch that takes up the entire far wall is probably the same size as the ones in all the other docks, but here it looks gigantic.

  These older areas are also more cluttered, and not necessarily because they lack crews. Usually the clutter is the crew. This maze of machinery stacked on this side of the dock is made of the oldest, cheapest, and/or lowest-tier drones. This is the absolute bottom layer of Watertower society. They lie dormant, waking just long enough to scan her, emit a message or two, and go to sleep again.

  [Hello again, Sarya the Daughter.]

  [Would you like something loaded or unloaded?]r />
  [If you are waiting for the next ship to arrive, that won’t be for a while.]

  But as far as real intelligence goes…the dock is empty.

  Sarya’s boots squeak on the sticky floor, and the jingle of her utility suit rings like an alarm across the deserted dock. She’s been here before—many times, on her exploratory missions through the station—but she’s never seen it without intelligences rushing about their various duties. There is nearly always a ship or two here, atmosphere-docked for a repair or waiting for cargo that can’t be transported through vacuum. But now the place is dead and hollow, the only sounds coming from her own slow steps.

  It awes her to know that Observer arranged for this. That’s the only possibility. He’s pretty important here, obviously, as a major client. He had to have arranged for this meeting at the highest levels of Watertower, to clear out a space this size. Or—hell, it makes her smile—but a mind like Observer’s could have made this happen without anyone actually knowing. Maybe he arranged for everyone to have the day off at the same time. Maybe he caused a sudden arrival at Dock B that required all hands. Or—well, she can’t think of anything else off the top of her head, but she doesn’t have a couple billion minds to focus on the problem. If she did, dreaming up coincidences and accidents and schedule changes to clear out a little room like this would be hatchling’s play.