Recursion Read Free Page B

He had passed from one world to another. He sat down heavily on one of the sofas and put his head into his hands.
    “Will you tell my father?”
    “You will have the opportunity to do that yourself. You will have access to a public comm channel. That’s a basic right of any intelligent being.”
    Johnston continued to manipulate the viewing field. Stars began to move across it. He appeared to be searching for something. Herb said nothing. He began to run his fingers over the soft white leather of the sofa, enjoying the sensation of luxury while he still could.
    Johnston paused in his search and glanced toward him. “Don’t you want to know how long your sentence is?”
    The thought that a finite sentence made any difference to his current circumstances hadn’t occurred to Herb. The thought of going to the Oort cloud was too big. Coming back was too remote a possibility, be it in ten or a hundred years’ time. He just shrugged.
    Johnston grinned as he brought the stars’ movement to a halt.
    “That’s an unfair question, of course. We don’t know the answer. How long will it take for you to atone? Only the EA knows. We don’t get that many cases of planetcide—one a year, if that. I’d guess your sentence would probably be more than your natural lifespan. We’d probably have to take an e-print of your consciousness.”
    “Are you deliberately tormenting me?” asked Herb, a feeble twist of anger gently uncurling in his stomach. Johnston turned toward him again with an approving smile.
    “Good. You do have some spirit, don’t you? No, Herb, I’m not tormenting you. I’m just trying to impress upon you the seriousness of your predicament.”
    There was a silence, and Herb had the first inkling that maybe his fate wasn’t yet decided. He paused, wondering if he dared hope otherwise.
    Eventually he had to speak. “Why?” he asked.
    Johnston grinned in response. If Herb hadn’t known better, he would have thought the other man was pleased with him.
    Johnston had finally found what he was looking for. He set the viewing field to full locale. Herb was floating in interstellar space on a white leather sofa. A star rushed toward his face, growing in size. It veered to one side just before hitting him and a smaller, darker object swam into view. A planet with the size, and the apparent intent, of a fist now hung in front of Herb’s nose.
    “Take a look at it,” said Johnston. ‘I’ve enabled the tactiles.’
    Herb reached for the planet and turned it around in his hand, the rest of the universe spinning around the room in a dizzying pattern of lights as it maintained the correct orientation with Herb’s viewpoint. The planet was a grey featureless sphere, like an old ball bearing Herb had once seen in a museum.
    “What is it?” he asked, fascinated. As he stared at the object in his hand, the surface of the planet seemed to ripple slightly.
    Herb frowned. “Those ripples must be hundreds of kilometers high. What’s going on?” As he spoke, an answer occurred to him. For a moment he had thought he was looking at his own planet, the one that seethed just outside the door of his ship. Then he had noticed the patterns of the star field.
    “It’s the remains of another planet, isn’t it? Someone else has done what I’ve done here.”
    Johnston’s smile loomed in the blackness of space, his teeth glowing blue in the reflected starlight.
    “A few people, actually. Oh, don’t look so disappointed, Herb. I thought you were sorry for what you’ve done. Look at that planet, though. Look at the way it’s writhing in your hands. Think about the sheer power behind those machines. Just compare them to yours.”
    “Mine were designed to build a city. Raw power is all very well—”
    “Oh, Herb. Don’t be so sensitive. I was only making a point.”
    Herb bristled. “Not necessarily. As I was trying to say, power isn’t everything. It all comes down to the design of the original machine. If that hasn’t