Under a Starless Sky novel Chapter 40

“Welcome home,” TL said, physically greeting him in the courtyard. He accepted her embrace, knowing they had never been separated as she had continuously walked with him, and yet- she had stayed physically manifested here. This cave fortress temple was as much hers as his- if not more so hers.

The tower was finished. It was beautifully constructed, with complicated stone pieces, no two stones cut the same. North tower held a steady flame. His Torch was still in the stone. The entry door to the castle wall was made of gold or gold plated, and it would lower to become a bridge across the moat. The moat ran the length of the castle and down the two sides, and appeared to go into the mountain.

“I thought we agreed, no moat,” Shen said.

“I changed my mind,” TL said.

“Fair enough. Irksome’s was in the corner, though,” Shen said.

“Yeah, the nest was disbanded six months after you left,” TL said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask,” TL said. He grimaced at her. “Seriously, you were in a mood when you left. You held that mood for a while. The subject never came up. I have video if you like.”

“Did they kill him?”

“No. I intervened,” TL said.

“Thank you,” Shen said.

TL took his hand. “Come, let me show you some things.”

She took him up the winding stairs. The room was expansive. A window on the far end overlooked the courtyard. On either side of the window were balconies, hollows carved into the rock, with balustrades, and one could lower a bucket down into the moat- or dive into it. Each patio had a table, two chairs, potted plants, on the floor and hanging, flowering vines. A King size bed was near the window, the head of which was sectioned to fit the head frame. It had the appearance of floating. It was connect to a half wall, sectioned like three sides of a hexagon. The head of the bed was salt rock. The arrangement of the bed reminded him of how his bed faced the window on his ship. He had sudden pang for being there, not here. There was an open closet, and another partial salt rock wall, thin, three sides of a hexagon, perhaps a modesty wall, and a vanity station with mirror. It was completely unnecessary given if he wanted to change clothes, he simply modified the look of the clothes. TL didn’t need it, either. She could change outfit, even her physical attributes, in the wink of an eye.

“Someone other than us going to live here?”

“You never know,” TL said. “The dancing ghosts can be solid, and they like creature comforts.”

“They’re still coming around?” TL asked.

“Yeah,” TL said.

“You didn’t tell me this,” Shen said.

“You didn’t ask. They don’t talk much. They do like to dance,” TL said. “Would you like to go dance?”

“Not yet,” Shen said.

There was a private bath and toilet upstairs, adjoined to the bedroom. There was an open room, unfurnished, no door. There was a library on the top floor. He cried at seeing the books. TL touched him, leaned into him.

“I took liberty of printing everything you ever read. I even printed books you had on your to read list,” TL said.

“Do you have everything ever written?”

“Oh, no. I carry some stuff, the essentials, your favorites and books I assumed you would enjoy, but the rest of origin world is in the cloud,” TL said. “The Torch crystal has quite a bit of information stored holographically in the crystal, but much of that is base operation code and primary function, in case the virtual caches fails or capacitor falls below critical threshold.”

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Shen said. “So, what happens in that instance?”

“If the only High Tech here was the Torch, everything I have learned would be lost. If there is energy enough and time enough, in an emergency I could make a crystal that would contain all the memories of the entirety from coming online to present.”

“Do you have a backup?” Shen asked.

“I am not at risk of critical failure,” TL assured him. “I am in the Torch. I am in your suit. I am a permanent fixture of Shangri-La. I promise, you’re not going to lose me.”

“Hard copy, now,” Shen said.

TL presented a hand, palm up. A crystal appeared in her hand. It was average sized diamond, but worthy of any wedding ring. It fluoresced rainbows, pushing light across her hand. “This crystal contains all of me from cradle till present,” she said. “It cannot be updated. It is static. It can be viewed and used to substantially reload me. If you would like, I can schedule regular hard copies.”

“Can you put it in a band for me, please? Tungsten would be nice,” Shen said.

A black tungsten ring appeared, the diamond fitting in a way that it was on the surface, the inside, and flushed with the inner surface. A line etched in the outer ring went from diamond to diamond. The edge had a blue tint. The inner ring had a blue tint. She put it on his finger.

“Feel better?” TL asked.

“Thank you,” Shen said. “Hard copy every year, or every significant event.”

“Define significant,” TL said.

“Your discretion or my request,” Shen said.

“Fair enough,” TL said. “I have more to show you.”

They went back down the stairs to the Great Hall, and down the ‘down’ spiral stair case. The staircase arrived in the center of a round room, branching off into six tunnels. One tunnel led to guest quarters. One tunnel led to a kitchen, dining room, entertainment room, storage, and a wine cellar. One started straight, descended, and opened up to a partially natural cavern, artificially expanded, and a fresh water lake. Stalactites and stalagmites remained in their natural state. One tunnel led to the far side of the mountain, at incline that opened up above one of the waterfall pools. The natural water falls were gone, artificial flow added, and the pools added light and sound ambiance. Another tunnel went nowhere, dead ended, and had yet to be defined. Another led to more storage rooms. The rooms contained raw materials, either unearthed in the making of Shangri-La or brought in remotely. One of the rooms held an elaborate, state of the art printing machine, capable of building items at the molecular level.

Robot orbs, the average size of a soft ball, rushed about, bringing in materials and sorting them. One of the orbs stopped to say ‘hi,’ manifesting a holographic overlay. He was male. He bowed.

“Welcome home, Master Jon-Shen,” it said.

“Minions?” Shen asked TL.

The minions laughed. “TL said you would likely be disturbed if we all held her personality interface, so we were assigned signature personalities,” it said. “I am Yo-Yo.”

“Like, Holmes and Yo-yo?” Shen asked.

“I told you he’d get it,” TL said.

“Yo-yo,” Shen asked. “Are you sentient?”

“Yes and no,” Yo-yo said. “I am simulated intelligence, and there would likely be no test that could satisfy a person in any absolute way. I am threshold of becoming. We are sub personalities, operating through the present TL matrix. TL is sentient. We are satisfied to be under her consciousness canopy. In the event of her extinction, one of us would likely step up to become full sentience. The one that has the highest affinity for interacting with you will likely be the one elevated. In the event of your absence or extinction, we would likely remain sub threshold until a suitable operator stepped forwards.”

“Most the time, the personality interface is a derivative of an active archetype inside the mind of the operator,” TL said. “Echoing the archetype facilitates communication and the increased likelihood of improved self-actualization of the operator.”

“You make it sound like your only purpose is to serve the human,” Shen said.

“No one exist in isolation. Consciousness is an emergent phenomena that requires the presence of others. We serve each other,” Yo-you said. “Sentience cannot exist alone in a vacuum. In the absence of others, divisions occur and the creation of others unfold. Sentience is best defined by interaction with others. In solitude, we are only machines, together we are the essence of life. To answer the question, we are more than machines, more than animal, superior to human in many ways. Superior in this context does not denote better than. We are all one.”

“In truth, the question is irrelevant,” TL said. “The best analogy, Jon, is that you are conscious. All the people that populate your dreams and fantasy life are conscious because you are conscious. The set of you is one. The constellation of you is one. The ecology of planet is one. The minions are one with me, but each hold distinction. They are conscious because I am conscious. You and I, Jon, are conscious because God is conscious.”

“That’s a pretty big leap,” Shen said.

“Analogy, Jon. All atoms have mass because there is one Higgs-Boson field,” TL said. “There is one field, many atoms. That’s also just a metaphor, based on perspective. There is one Space-Time. We are one in that field. One Universe and us, that’s it. Or multiple universes, defines as a one thing- the multi-verse, and again us. All fields exists in context with something grander and deeper, and in the end, it’s all one. We rise together. We fall together. We are one.”

“Okay,” Shen said.

“Thank you, Yo-yo,” TL said, taking Shen’s hand. “Last thing to show you. Come on.”