Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.2      Taking Control

1.2.6    An Assumed Role

1.2.6.6  The power of naming

Nadine: “There’s merak which is the wonder of a peak experience, the bliss of perfection, the sense of oneness with the universe that you can achieve through even the simplest of pleasures, such as the first taste of real coffee mingling in the correct balance with the dipped sugar cube you’ve just nibbled.”

Heather: “I enjoy food, but I’ve never felt that from it. I’ve felt it occasionally when hang-gliding, though. How did John Magee put it?”

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Bahrudin nodded. “Yes, you know it too.”

Heather: “Merak huh? Nice word.”

Merjem said proudly: “We have words for everything connected to drinking coffee. The round copper tray is a tabla, the whole set of paraphernalia is a kahveni takum. The strong coffee drunk to wake up is razgalica, the milder coffee drunk to socialise is razgovorusa, the coffee drunk in peace is sutkusa, the coffee drunk to welcome a guest is docekusa and the coffee drunk to bid them farewell is sikterusa.”

Heather: “Wow. Like the Innuit and snow, or the British and rain.”

Bahrudin glanced out of the window. “Talk of which, we should make a move soon, or I shall be the last one down to the parking area by the bridge, and then I will have to spend the entire journey fending off solicitous comments about my leg.”

Merjem nodded and poured yet more coffee for all of them. Heather didn’t say no, but Nadine could see the realisation dawning upon her of why the cups were so small.

Heather: “Why is the parking area so far from the village?”

Bahrudin: “Ah, that’s my fault I’m afraid. It dates back to the time of isolation, at the start of the Bad Years. The news announced the first cases in Bosnia and the government were dithering. So I gathered everyone in the village together and pointed out that we were already more or less self-sufficient as far as the basic necessities went. A vote was taken and, after allowing a day for those who couldn’t stay to pack their things, we attached the base of the central bridge support to Daris’ tractor using a strong chain, and knocked the whole thing down.”

Merjem: “After that, any time someone had a problem caused by lacking something, Damat was the one they turned to.”

Bahrudin: “If someone caused too much fuss, I had them stand guard down at the stećak. In theory they were there to turn away any visitors, but in practice nobody bothered coming and after a day or two on watch down there the malcontent either fled for civilisation never to return or, more usually, came back to the village prepared to do their part.”

Heather: “And when the crisis died down?”

Bahrudin: “Not one villager had died. I think the bureaucrats resented it, because they said that since we’d knocked it down, we’d have to pay for a replacement. So we put up a footbridge, and people just got used to it, as they got used to making do with older technologies rather than the latest conveniences which all broke within the first two years.”

Merjem: “And they got used to listening to Damat. He became the youngest Elder the village has ever had.”

Heather: “That’s an amazing tale. You know, if you had anyone unemployed in the village needing money, they could be paid to dress up and stand down there, to provide local colour for the tourists. Maybe ask new visitors what they were looking for up here, and help identify any bad apples.”

Bahrudin smiled broadly, as he picked up on the double meaning in Heather’s words.

Bahrudin finished his coffee with a decisive motion. “That would give plenty of advanced notice, wouldn’t it? Please excuse my haste. I believe I have some ears I need to bend.”

Heather: “Not at all. Elder. Merjem. It has been a pleasure and an education. A touch of ćeif.”

Shortly after that, shoes and boots back on, they wandered back to Heather’s pavilion where she handed out the remaining repaired items and set the pavilion to dismantling itself.

Once the pavilion had been cleared away, and Nadine had changed into more practical clothes and grabbed her tiara, they flew up towards Eagle’s Roost. She felt proud that she’d managed to go 24 hours without entering velife. She wasn’t addicted! She could still stand on her own two feet, without mental ‘crutches’.

Nadine: {I was amazed at the number of things you got fixed this morning. How many tonnes of equipment did you need to ship here?}

Heather: {Not as much as you might think. You see the trees down there? Where do you think most of that mass comes from?}

Nadine: {Um, the soil? Water?}

Heather: {Nope! Trees do need water, but most of the mass in cellulose is carbon and oxygen atoms, and both come from the atmosphere. Once you’ve got a seed and some trace elements, trees are basically solar-powered self-replicating machines that produce mass out of thin air.}

Nadine: {I caught a glimpse of your shy solar flowers yesterday. But the things you’ve made, like this reclining seat - they’re not made of wood. And what were all those drills and sedimentation tanks for? Show me behind the curtain, you great and powerful wizard!}

They came into land near a large square object, 3m high and 4m on each side, made of solar material and without any visible entrance. Heather didn’t explain it but, instead, led her over to the drill derrick.

Heather: “The first thing needed is space. Space at ground level is often expensive, but a jet of water at 2500 times atmospheric pressure can cut through even granite. Given power and water, there’s no limit on how much space you can create.”

Nadine: “That’s fine here in Bosnia, but what about places with limited water?”

Heather: “Land tends to be cheaper in places like deserts. Worst case, given power you can condense water from atmospheric moisture. And in any case, I recycle it. That’s what the tiered sedimentation tanks are for. I suck the water back out of the hole, remove 95% of the debris, and leave enough in to act as an abrasive which increases the cutting speed, if cooling the jet to form ice crystals is insufficient.”

Nadine: “Is speed a problem?”

Heather: “Each multi-axis drill has a narrow kerf - it is more like shaving pieces off with a knife than using brute force. Hollowing out a cave with a single drill would take a long time, but once you’ve got the power and ability to make them, there’s no reason to limit yourself to having just one drill, if you’re in a rush.”

Nadine: “Is that why you’re installing so much solar? I know the village isn’t modern, but we do have mains electricity.”

Heather: “I enjoy being self-sustaining. It is more elegant. But that’s not the reason why I’m doing it here. Some of my machines, like the furnaces, are quite energy intensive. If I used the mains, someone would ask themselves why the village had suddenly quadrupled their monthly electricity usage. What did you call them, ‘shy solar flowers’? Come have a look at one.”

Heather walked over to a hole, and had Nadine pull on the revealed handle. She’d expected it to be heavy and had given it a big tug, only to stumble back and land on her bottom as it shot upwards without resistance.

Heather: “I added a counter-weight to the design. It will open or fold without having to expend energy, and it is symmetric so it can tilt towards the sun too. This doesn’t just protect them from high winds - it also keeps the changes in the Eagle’s Roost hidden from surveillance.”

Nadine: “Ok, so you’ve got your soil - somewhere for your tree to stand. You’ve got your roots - a pipe from the stream. And you’ve got your leaves - a source of solar power. How do you turn that into useful machines?”

Heather: “I’ve not got it set up yet, but the best solution is to grow algae in tanks. With the right automation you put sunlight and air in, then get glucose out, with the rest being recycled back into more algae. You don’t even need to keep the tanks above ground - LED lights tuned to the optimal frequency are actually more efficient and can be run 24 hours a day.”

Nadine: “Free sugar?”

Heather: “Like a maple tree, yes.”

Nadine: “But your machines aren’t made of 3D printed sugar.”

Heather: “You can make stuff from that, actually, or from chocolate. But no, you feed the glucose into yet more tanks, this time containing Escherichia coli bacteria that have been gene-tailored to produce Poly Lactic Acid bioplastic. Amazing what you can extrude PLA into: pipes, sheet, tanks, and even 3D printable feedstock.”

Nadine: “I start to get the picture. So you save in mass by making as much as possible out of the stuff you can get locally for free. What about the rest?”

Heather: “Depending upon what I’m fabricating, somewhere between 5% - 15% is made from ceramics or alloys. Even 15 years ago, the price per kilogram for common oxides like silicon and aluminium was under 1 CFF, and iron or steel were half that. Like a plant that needs nitrates from fertilizer, but only tiny amounts of trace elements, most machines will need trivial amounts of more expensive things like titanium or tungsten.”

Nadine: “And that’s it? You cover every stage from the raw elements on upwards?”

Heather: “It depends on what you’re trying to do, and how much time and resources you have available to get it done. In theory, if you’ve got the space and you’re not in a rush, there are blueprints out there for creating machines covering every step of the tool-chain used by a full industrial civilisation. The machines might be 5 or 10 years out of date, so you won’t be able to match the transistor density of top-of-the-line chips, but making the machines is well within the capabilities of modern expert systems and automation.”

Heather shrugged, then continued. “In practice, people mix and match. For example, I’m not into the chemistry end of things, so I don’t mix my own etching fluid. But the capability is out there, if I wanted it.”

Nadine: “How long has this been possible? Why isn’t everything in the shops free of charge? Or, at least, costing only just a little more than 1 CFF/kg?”

Heather: “Why isn’t every house like Bahrudin’s, filled with chairs made from locally grown trees that have been whittled down by the sort of pocket knife that anyone can afford and learn to use?”

Nadine: “Um, I guess: time, skill, convenience, variety, marketing, habit? This isn’t the same, though. You’re creating things like those telescopes overnight, at 1/100th of the retail price. For that sort of saving, people are going to be willing to learn, especially the unemployed who’ve more time on their hands than money. Even I managed to pick up the basics after you spent a few hours taking me through the tutorial on Wednesday afternoon.”

Heather: “Expert systems capable of handling the trickier parts, such as calibration, testing and troubleshooting have been around for, what, 5-8 years? It’s hard to put an exact date on it, as they’ve been gradually improving how well they do it and reducing the supervision necessary. Since then people have been creating blueprints to fill in gaps and improving the designs to make them cheaper, faster to produce, more reliable, etc. A lot of work has gone into modularisation, so multiple teams can work independently on improving the design of sub-assemblies. I contributed a purrometer.”

Nadine: “A what?”

Heather: “A testing rig that estimates how easy a machine will be to monitor, repair, repurpose or recycle. I invented it, so I got to name it. Designs it approves of get purred at. Bad designs get a disdainful emoticon of being buried in a litter tray, along with the message ‘eco-cat does not approve’. Oh, and I also added a numeric scale for boring people.”