Conversation Space II.

[powersthatbe]

As Thorne shared with the network, Travelers who vanish find themselves alone in a small room. But it doesn’t look quite as described last time. Paper lanterns hang in the corners, and a lemniscate of live, spicily scented blue roses traces a figure eight on the floor. A little marble plinth sits beside the looping roses, with a champagne flute balanced on it, pink, fizzy liquid quietly effervescing within. In place of the throne that was there before, each half of the loop holds a brown leather sphere - a yoga meditation-ball chair. They’re a little tricky to balance on.


The walls, floors, and ceiling are tiled, a prismatic fade from one color to another, each tile unique, just slightly different in hue than those around it, each colored line giving a sense that it belongs to a bigger pattern, but never revealing enough to allow anyone certainty about what that pattern might be. It is only a glimpse of a larger world… in this small, quiet space.

Comments

[thezerothlaw]

"Unresolved because it's undecided, or unresolved because you do not know?"

Daneel tilts his head slightly. He could see either being the case.

[sagetime]

"The former. You have seen that we can weave ourselves asymmetrically through time, R. Daneel Olivaw. I am the most skilled of my kindred at this. If, because of our game, I am empowered, I will return you to your task at an appropriate moment, if that is what you wish. But the outcome of the game, and therefore my power to act, are unresolved."

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel falls silent, thinking on this seriously. If that's truly an option, if it ever becomes an option, he'll have to take it. There's Ambrose -- but no, that would be selfish, he can do no such thing. His happiness, Ambrose's happiness cannot come before an entire galaxy. It isn't possible for him to choose anything else.

It's something, though. It's a small taste of hope.

"There is comfort in that." He bows his head. "I will remember your offer, should circumstances allow."

[sagetime]

"I am not a natural competitor," SAGE says after a moment of silence. "And my position has been... eroded... by my time imprisoned on the Grid, though less than another's would have been, in my place. Your action and determination, and that of my other Chosen, will be more critical than any effort of mine to assuring your goals."

[thezerothlaw]

"I don't know the rules of this game," Daneel points out. "Nor do I know how a win state is achieved."

He is not a natural competitor, either, and this is a new way of thinking about things, but he's trying.

[sagetime]

"It is natural to us - and therefore, difficult to describe to individual beings such as Travelers. Arcana will match against Arcana, until only one of us remains in play, achieving primacy over the others."

[thezerothlaw]

"And if you are not in play, then you are deceased?" Daneel looks at SAGE carefully. While he can justify the death of a Trump as being non-human, as being necessary, it doesn't exactly sit well with him. That's natural to him. "This seems a violent game. Or are you merely," he pauses for a correct term, "no longer playing?"

[sagetime]

"In the normal course of play," He replies, "we do not die. Play of late has been... abnormal."

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel takes a moment, weighing his options. "Your game is strange. If I do not know your goals, I cannot promise to always act in accordance with them. Still, at present I see no reason why I should not support your goal to win."

[sagetime]

"This will mean supporting my methods and my ideals. Introspection. Reflection. Diagnosis. Stillness. Retreat."

[thezerothlaw]

"Those are not against my nature, but I doubt you would have marked me if they were." He looks at SAGE evenly. "I will not harm those here. You must realise that."

[sagetime]

"I do not require it of you," he says, softly, and bows his head. "Which is, I trust you understand, distinct from promising that it may not be required of you."

[thezerothlaw]

"No."

Daneel shakes his head, very slightly.

"I cannot do that. I would let myself be destroyed before I harm those here."

[sagetime]

"Having faced a similar choice, I comprehend. But in the excursions beyond my control, I do not have the privilege of setting terms. Nor will, in most cases, my allies."

[thezerothlaw]

He nods. "I know. But this is always how it is, for me."

[sagetime]

"Often we are defined that way," he says quietly. "By facing, once and again, the same trials with the same answers."