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

[powersthatare]

The flowers smell real enough, look real, their petals perfect.

[thezerothlaw]

Too perfect to be real, perhaps, but that is true of many things in liminal space, and he assumes this is one more facet of liminal space.

Daneel waits, not thinking to take a seat.

[powersthatare]

From around the far side of the meditation ball, a solemn-eyed, immature white wolf paces, stepping delicately over the flowers and pacing around Daneel, sniffing at his ankles.

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel looks at the wolf evenly. It's been a long time, but he remembers the Grid well enough. He remembers those blue eyes, in another face. He remembers how things went.

"Do you speak, in this form?"

[powersthatare]

The wolf thumps his tail, presses his nose (cold but dry) against Daneel's leg, then thumps his tail twice more.

[thezerothlaw]

Speaks in the way of wolves, perhaps. That's not exactly helpful. But still, Daneel has questions, and he must ask them, and he's not sure when or if he'll ever again have a Trump face to face like this.

"I am here," he says. "You elicited a promise to serve from me, though I was not myself. If the cause is just, I cannot complain about such a thing. Yet I have important tasks behind me, a galaxy of humans that I am responsible for, and the skills I needed to accomplish them have been taken from me. It's... difficult to think of."

Someone else, someone human, might be a bit frantic. Daneel is calm as ever, though clearly troubled.

[powersthatare]

The wolf contemplates him for a long moment, then repeats the precise sequence of motions - tail thump horizontal against the ground, nose against his leg, then tail thump twice more.

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel just looks at the wolf, for a long moment. He sighs, a soft sound.

"You don't have answers for me." Either he can't answer, or he won't, but either way, it comes to the same thing. "But you must be aware of the situation. You have so much power. You must be able to do something."

[powersthatare]

He thumps his tail, prods with his nose... and then sits still.

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel closes his eyes for a moment, thinking.

"Then why have you brought me here? Do you merely want to confirm your claim on me?"

[powersthatare]

The wolf looks at him again for a long, silent moment, and slowly the light in the room shades to silver blue, the lanterns glowing, bright spheres barely confined behind their paper screens. There is a wet, tearing sound, and the wolf's fur begins flattening into pearlescent white slime, the wolf shuddering beneath it...

The process lasts nearly a minute, and looks both painful and aesthetically unpleasant. But at the end of it, it is not a wolf who stands before Daneel.

[sagetime]

"No, R. Daneel Olivaw. There is no need for such reinforcement. But verbalization... has become a more complex process for me."

[thezerothlaw]

Daneel watches that process without looking away, or even without blinking. It looks all sorts of wrong, and the end result looks human enough for it to be disturbing for him. Still, he needs to see this.

"I see," he says. "In that case, perhaps I should apologise for compelling you to do so."

[sagetime]

"It was within my power to choose silence," he points out. "I judged it discourteous. Though it is possible you will care for my answers less than my silence."

[thezerothlaw]

"I would rather have the answers than my present ignorance," Daneel answers. "This is true even if the truth is not what I would wish it."

How can he judge the proper course of action without a complete set of data, after all? He needs to know.

[sagetime]

"You wish to know of the world you left," SAGE acknowledges. "However, I cannot tell you its fate. That is... unresolved."

[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."