The Whole World Is Broken
Ben Darrow
Copyright 2011 Ben Darrow
Cover images available on jasonsart.com and dudziak.com
The first indications of trouble came to Tench as he sat upon a broken spar of the antenna tower. It was a place he went when the whispers grew too strident and the need for stillness and solitude became imperative; an ideal sanctuary, just high enough to escape the hubbub of the city built into the tower’s base, but safely below the haunts of the Iron Goats, who might or might not welcome him. The blunted stub of the spar commanded a magnificent view of the Tenbor Dish, with its mosaic of farms laid out upon the gently sloping valley floor. At night, one could look up at the riot of stars crowding each other from horizon to horizon.
Tench somewhat preferred the night skies of his ancestral homeworld, which lay much further away from the galactic core, offering a less congested view of the heavens. But that sky could only be seen in the Verch, the last place he would go to seek tranquility.
On the day in question, Tench was gazing out over the Dish and thinking of the magnificent portents it must have received, long ago when the great ship was spaceborne. Some of those messages might linger in the deep spaces of the Verch, and he sometimes considered going in search of them, but it was a foolish idea, and no good reason for braving the Verch’s treacherous profundities.
When he grew tired of his musings, Tench called for a boat to meet him at the lake that surrounded the antenna.
“Boat,” he murmured into his mutterband.
The band whirred softly for a moment and emitted a piping reply:
“Temporarily unable to comply. This response is characterized by regret.”
Tench scowled at the peculiar phrase. It roused his memory, stirring up wisps of recollection from his training, or possibly from his childhood. He ignored them.
“Bot.”
“All bots are currently engaged in Priority One tasksets.”
The definition of Priority One had become vague, but it was still reserved for catastrophe, and Tench heard no sirens. He wondered if there was a problem with the communications grid.
“Entity.”
The band replied with a mocking raspberry. “The Entity? You want the Entity? The Entity has better things to do than to talk with the likes of you!”
Tench grimaced in disgust and tore the mutterband from his wrist. The problem was obviously in the band itself; the Tenbor Entity would never instruct a device to respond in such a rude manner, particularly not to Tench. He would have the thing repaired or replaced.
Tench stood and looked out over the lake. A small bot was hovering within earshot – a melon-sized sphere with spidery arms dangling beneath.
“Bot!” Tench cried, waving his arm. The bot bobbled listlessly for a moment, blinked a sensor at him, and then wafted over.
“Yes-yes, ssssir?”
Tench experienced a tang of fear. The bot’s speech indicated severe malfunction or distress, and he had not heard a bot use the word “sir” for more than fifteen years. Tench gave the bot a wide grin in an attempt at encouragement and spoke slowly.
“Hello there. I need a boat. Do you think you could get one for me?”
The bot rattled its arm-tips together nervously. “A boat, a boat, a boat you say?” it babbled. “Indeed. The little barque of your soul. Your kingdom for a boat! A sacred vessel, built from the chrysalides of ancient queens. Oh sorry!” the bot shrilled. “Sorrysorrysorry. This last reference drew from the culture of a species other than your own. SORRY!” The final apology, delivered as an air-splitting shriek, left Tench with a painful drone in his ears.
“That’s perfectly all right,” Tench reassured the deranged machine. “Forget the boat. Let’s you and me go to my farm, where I have many diagnostic glyphs. They may be of some help to you. What do you say, bot? Yes?”
“Boat, boat, boat, boat,” the bot hummed tunelessly, spinning in a slow circle. It jerked to a halt and whirled its primary sensor array towards Tench. “Please state your identity.”
“My identity?” Tench asked in surprise. “Can’t you see me? Hear my voice?”
The bot rotated on a diagonal axis. “Yes,” it said mournfully.
“Then how can you not know me? Bot -- what is wrong with you?”
The bot turned upside down and clenched its arms convulsively. “I am so sorry,” it wailed. “So very sorry. Please -- please state your identity, just this once. Please?”
“Tench,” he muttered, with a mounting sense of dread.
The bot righted itself instantly. “Tench!” it cried joyously. “Splendid! Capital! You can help! Bring it back, Tench! Bring it back!” The bot pushed itself against Tench like a playful kitten, buzzing all around his shoulders.
“Stop that,” cried Tench, struggling to keep his balance. “Stop it!”
The bot danced away into the air, singing “Tench, Tench, Tench, Tench, Tench.”
Tench began the climb down into the antenna city, cursing furiously in order to distract himself from the whispers, and their silken chants of despair.
* * *
Tench saw a thousand signs of disjunction as he made his way home.
Elevators within the antenna failed to respond to spoken commands, requiring the passengers to pry open dusty panels of buttons, labeled with names that had long since ceased to be relevant. Tench visited several levels before locating the docks, which had apparently been devoted to Heavy Particle Filtration in happier times. He got a ride across the lake from a grain barge which had been pressed into service as a ferry.
“Will you be able to set things right, do you think?” the captain asked Tench.
Tench kept his eyes fixed on the far shore, away from the passengers. “I don’t know what’s wrong yet,” he lied.
“I hear the crowns aren’t working,” mentioned a Flzigig passenger, her spines quivering in agitation. “We won’t be able to enter the Verch.”
Tench held his breath for a moment, waiting to feel relief, or further dread. Neither emerged from his confusion. “Probably for the best,” he replied, still looking away. “I doubt the Verch is safe right now.”
“I was going to finish the Decameron tonight,” lamented the captain. “Now I shall have to wait.”
“That was a book,” Tench pointed out. “You can read it.”
“No, I was referring to the Hrang work of the same name. It was composed specifically for the Verch.”
The passengers went on to discuss many malfunctions, both significant and minor, but Tench held himself apart from their exchanges. He played over the errant bot’s words in his head, letting the nagging recollections emerge into a full symptomatic analysis, but refused to consider the enormity of his diagnosis. Instead, he forced himself to think of workarounds and short-term solutions, of equipping the bots for autonomous operation and establishing central controls for the Dish’s food and power systems. He ignored the whispers, which reminded him of the true cure, and the price it would likely carry.
* * *
Tench’s farm, to his great comfort, was neither burning, nor erupting with screams, nor suffering from any other overt crisis. On the contrary, it was as orderly as ever. Simple bots hovered over the gently sloped fields, seeing to the needs of the burgeoning spring growth. Tench stopped one to inquire after its health.
“Status.”
“My link is disabled. I am operating on backup logic Tench-7. My current cognitive integrity is sixty-seven percent of nominal.”
Tench rubbed his chin. Sixty-seven percent for such a simple bot was very good, given the circumstances. But at least four of the Dish’s medica
l bots would need to be at ninety before sunset. He tried to remember the racial makeup of Tenbor’s population: Humans were the third most common, and Strirks the most common of all, but what came second? And what was the percentage of Strirks -- ten, perhaps twelve? Tench massaged his temples with a sigh. He would need to verify that the medical bots carried templates for every species in the Dish, a task which would take hours.
Byx and Merinel came out of the rambling farmhouse to greet him -- Byx running happily to be caught up in his arms, Merinel walking behind, the relief in her dark eyes tempered with concern.
“Daddy, Daddy!” cried Byx, as Tench tried to disentangle her from his neck.
“Byx, honey, you’re getting too big for Daddy to carry all the time,” admonished Merinel.
“That’s okay,” smiled Tench, giving Byx a kiss on the forehead.
“Daddy, the Endity won’t talk to me no more,” Byx pouted.
“Won’t talk to me any more,” corrected Tench.
“Won’t talk to me ANY more.”
“The Entity is very busy right now, squirt.”
“But I like talking to the Endity!”
“I know, squirt, but right now it needs to do some other things.”
“What sorta things?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Tench.
“When will it be done?”
Tench closed his eyes, unable to concoct a comforting lie. “Byx,” suggested Merinel, “Why don’t you go help House with dinner?”
“OK,” chirped Byx, leaping down from her father’s embrace. “House is silly today!” She dashed into the farmhouse.
Tench held Merinel close for a moment, twining her braids around his fingers. “House is silly?”
“Twenty-two percent sillier than nominal,” Merinel replied. “It’s been reciting nursery rhymes all day, which Byx finds delightful.”
“Seventy-eight’s not bad. And I can keep it above seventy.”
“It’s not a priority,” whispered Merinel. “I tried to call you. You turned off your band.”
“It’s broken.”
Merinel laughed softly. “Tench,” she told him, “the whole world is broken.”
* * *
That night, Tench worked on the medical bots until their speech was flawless and they tested at ninety-five; he then stayed up until dawn installing auxiliary logic cores in the Dish’s most vital systems, until he had created enough infrastructure to prevent Tenbor from dissolving into chaos while he slept. He slept for three hours.
The next day, he spent the morning reinforcing the autonomy of the water system, which ensured that the lake at the antenna base drained away as fast as it was filled by the rivers coursing down the seams of the Dish’s massive segments. He also saw to it that the rivers themselves would remain swift, drawing their waters from a vast reservoir deep with the ship’s labyrinthine interior. In the afternoon, he verified that the largest passages to the interior remained sealed tight against whatever denizens of the deep might come wandering up, as news of Tenbor’s plight spread. Tench spent the night seeing to the air circulation systems of the antenna city.
With the crowns dead, Tench worked through the helm, a baroque interface which covered his entire head, feeding him images and sounds and responding to his words and the movements of his eyes. It was a static, lifeless way to experience information, and the glyphs he crafted were drab and dull compared to those he could evoke within the Verch. But the skills he had mastered in his youth, amidst the storied domes and towers of Mecantrion, were more than sufficient to the task. The whispers rustled within his mind, feeding on his fears, but they were muted by the continuing neural drone of exhaustion.
Tedious as it was, he soon learned to welcome the drudgery of the helm as an escape from the people of Tenbor, who expected much more of him than the mere resuscitation of their environment. They came to him with more challenging requests, looking to him for reassurance, or for guidance, or to resolve any one of the tiny disputes that had begun fissuring through the community. It made him want to shout at them, to revile them, to blot himself out of their memories and their gratitude.
The greatest champion of Tenbor’s cohesion turned out to be Merinel, and her talent for letting panic wash over her and dissolve. It was the same talent that had allowed her to get close to Tench, many years ago, and save him from the demons he had brought to life within himself. Tench had never discovered what Merinel did with the panic, whether she channeled it into the hull or burned it away in some secret fiery corner of her spirit, but it had worked on him and it was working now on the terrified residents of the Dish.
On the third day a magnificent bot arrived from Mecantrion, which did a good deal to lift people’s spirits. It was a stately ellipsoid of luminous gold, embossed with the ancient symbols of the Crew, and it spoke in a voice that thrummed with regal confidence.
“People of Tenbor: do not despair! Your plight is not unknown to the Crew, nor shall it be ignored. As I speak, Lieutenant Y’Phroum braves the perils of the interior to secure rapid transport to your troubled slopes. Y’Phroum is known to many of you as a man of courage and compassion, and he remembers you well; as he bade me deliver this message of encouragement, his cilia trembled. I took the liberty of consulting a psychobiological compendium and confirmed that this response was indicative of powerful emotion. Rest assured, Y’Phroum will not flag in his efforts until Tenbor is restored!”
This drew cheers from the crowd, and for some hours the bot spoke reassuringly to those who were distressed, allowing Merinel to rest and Tench to slip away to the depths of the antenna city, where he focused his efforts on safeguarding the connection between the antenna’s pharmaceutical processor and the feedstock vats in the interior. When Tench finally removed the helm, sweating and shaking from fatigue, he found the bot hovering respectfully nearby.
“Ens--”
“Just call me Tench.”
The bot blinked its sensors before continuing. “As you like, Tench. I am General Administrative Unit 78-D-4006-Omicron, at your service. Y’Phroum wished me to assist you in any way possible.”
“I’m all right.”
“I commend your dedication, but I can discern your condition well enough to discount that statement. You are suffering from exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and malnutrition. Furthermore, I will venture to surmise that your psychological state is equally attenuated.”
Tench wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Uh-huh. What’s your logic?”
“I run Septet Pinnacle Crimson.”
Tench put the helm down. He knew better than to argue with a Pinnacle Crimson; they were too aware of their own cognitive strength. He had once been censured, in Mecantrion, for devising a glyph to render them humble – a glyph to which Unit 78-D had clearly never been exposed.
“Well then, how do you propose to assist me?”
“I am perfectly capable of maintaining Tenbor’s systems in stable working order. You have a wife and child, do you not? Go and spend time with them. Engage in biological pursuits.”
Tench laughed sharply at the condescension, but did not bother to protest. “OK, bot, it’s all yours. There’s an algal bloom in vat 7-N.”
“I am already aware of it,” replied 78-D, its indicators winking serenely.
Tench climbed out of the antenna’s bowels into the sunlight again, noting the activity throughout the Dish. Everywhere he looked he saw people and bots transporting food and supplies, going through the motions of a drill that the Entity had insisted on running every other year. Some of the younger inhabitants, who could not remember a time without the Entity, were enjoying themselves, treating the unusual activity as a marvelous game.
Tench knew better. The drills had lasted a week. This might go on forever, assuming Tenbor was lucky enough not to attract the attention of a less desirable patron.
The Iron Goats, in a rare display of solidarity, had dismantled several sections
of catwalk from their airy domain, and these had been forged into makeshift bridges by the largest of the maintenance bots. Tench walked along one of these, suspending himself from the handrails when the wake of a passing vessel sloshed over the metal grille of the floor. Tenbor was becoming as it had been in his childhood: an improvisational work-in-progress, representing the best efforts of several thousand men, women, and beings of less determinate genders to carve a niche of sensibility into an otherwise lunatic world.
Halfway across the bridge a bot was pulling up sections of the grille and folding them into a series of rhomboids. Tench chanted a phrase that shut down the bot’s logic, and automatic backup systems propelled the now-mindless machine to a repair depot.
This was the sixth such incident that afternoon. The Tench-4 logicset was proving inadequate to the challenge of prolonged autonomy. Tench raised his still-unreliable mutterband and instructed the repair depot to install malfunctioning bots with Tench-11, a marvelously reliable composition which would leave them almost incapable of self-directed activity.
The repair depot acknowledged his request in a sing-song falsetto, but otherwise seemed stable.
Tench returned to the farmhouse to find it deserted, to all outward appearances, but he soon came upon Merinel sprawled across a sofa, hovered over by a protective Byx.
“Shhh,” Byx admonished him. “Mommy’s sleeping.”
“It’s OK, squirt, Daddy’s going to sleep too.”
Tench eased himself beside Merinel, who fluttered into half-wakefulness. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“What brings you here?”
“General Administrative Unit 78-D-et cetera. He told me to engage in biological pursuits.”
Merinel laughed softly. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, the usual. Food, sleep, coitus,” he said, cautiously glancing at Byx, but if she suspected the word of any significance, she gave no indication. “Family bonding.”
“Well,” murmured Merinel, “At the moment I can only offer you items two and four.”
“S’okay,” he replied, falling rapidly asleep.
* * *
Tench woke two hours after midnight to the rattling of his mutterband, which was babbling excitedly. The speaker, judging by her popping staccato voice, was an Illiazyk, and Tench could barely make out her words.