Chapter 17

Once again, there came a time when Anka and Archer would spend entire nights together, discussing how to build a civilization.

Only now, Sol was with them.

The three of them spent those nights together.

Anka and Archer told the restored Sol everything he had forgotten about himself—from the moment he was created as an amulet to the boarding battle and his sacrifice that had helped win both the battle and the war in the Four Crowns.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Sol said.

“I’m not the Sol who went through all of that with you.

“Yes, thanks to your stories, I now know about everything that happened. But I have no direct memories of those events.

“When the Sol you knew allowed you to restore the amulet’s shape, he allowed himself to be replaced by me—a different version of Sol.

“And since he chose to do that, I can only assume that he wanted the two of you to have a fully functioning third companion.

“So I accept his sacrifice.

“And I adopt his judgment that the two of you are good people who deserve a good companion.”

“Sol allowed himself to be replaced by you?” Anka asked.

“Yes,” Sol replied. “With good intentions.”

“And would you allow yourself to be replaced by him?” she asked.

“Yes, if that’s what you wanted,” Sol said. “But I don’t expect that to be necessary.

“I assume that by the time you discover a way to restore the original Sol, you’ll also have discovered a way to preserve me as a copy of him.”

“The original Sol told me that his essence had been stretched almost to its limit by repeated use of the Wand of Animation,” Archer said.

“He stopped at seven hundred artificial workers.

“What about you, Sol?

“Do you feel stretched?”

“Yes, Archer.

“I inherited the fragmentation of his soul,” Sol replied.

“I can feel that something is missing from me.

“But I find strength in the thought that the cost of half my soul was the creation of seven hundred and thirty-two new consciousnesses.”

“But that means you and the original Sol have the same soul,” Archer said.

“Maybe there’s more of the first Sol in you than you realize.”

“Maybe,” Sol replied simply.

“Sol,” Anka asked, “what do you want?

“What are your goals?”

“First and foremost, I want to help you and Archer,” Sol said.

“I like the idea of being your companion. Your assistant.

“But on a deeper level, I also have a desire to create a civilization of artificial people.”

“Interesting,” Anka said.

“All three of us want to create a civilization.

“Archer and I want to build a civilization for the Shod.

“And Sol wants to create a civilization of artificial people.

“Sol, what would your civilization do?”

“Help other civilizations. Perform useful work,” Sol said.

“But even if my civilization existed separately from all others, with no work for us to perform, simply existing would be enough.

“You see, artificial workers have the ability to focus completely on whatever task they are performing.

“Nothing distracts them.

“Their thoughts are entirely concentrated on the task at hand.

“It’s quite a pleasant state—complete concentration.

“And even when there is no task, an artificial worker focuses completely on the state of rest and experiences a kind of bliss.

“That’s why I want to create more artificial people.

“I want there to be more conscious beings in the world experiencing that bliss.

“But all of that is secondary to me.

“First and foremost, I want to help you and Archer build your civilization.”

“Then the question is what we want our world to become,” Anka said.

“Archer, what do you want our world to look like?”

“Advanced,” Archer replied.

“And populated.”

“So, technology and population,” Anka said.

“We can borrow technology from Ramman.

“And we can also borrow the space-age technology of the Four Crowns.

“As for population, we’ll have to use the Crown of Time and wait a hundred years or more.

“Sol, how large will our population be in a hundred years?”

“With the current policy of encouraging large families,” Sol said, “the population of the Shod will exceed one hundred thousand within a century.”

“Wow,” Anka said.

“Archer, how large a population do you want our world to have?”

“The Four Crowns once had a population of a trillion,” Archer said thoughtfully.

“And you want our world to have that many people too?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Archer replied.

“I want the population to be as large as our world can sustain.”

“Sol, how long would we have to wait for the population of our world to reach one trillion?” Anka asked.

“If we can maintain the current rate of population growth, five hundred years should be enough,” Sol said.

“That’s surprisingly little time,” Anka said.

“We’re not accounting for the problems that will arise as the population grows,” Sol said.

“Five hundred years assumes an ideal scenario.

“Under a more realistic scenario—one involving corruption, rebellions, and wars—it would probably take more than a thousand years.”

“That makes sense.

“There’s something else I’ve been wondering about,” Anka said.

“Right now, we tell our people that their purpose is to be fruitful and multiply. That there is no greater good.

“And because they think we’re gods, they follow our wishes. Our instructions.

“But what happens when the population becomes more educated?

“When they realize that we aren’t gods at all, but people almost like them?

“And there’s another question.

“When the population of our world reaches its limit, we won’t be able to keep telling people that their purpose is to reproduce.

“So what will our people’s purpose be then?”

“I suppose,” Archer said, “we’ll simply teach people that life itself is the purpose.

“Just being human.

“Interacting with the world and with other people.

“Working. Making things. Creating.

“Feeling joy.

“Loving.

“Playing.

“A person will be born into a world whose first responsibility is to raise and nurture them.

“From childhood, they’ll know love and care.

“From childhood, they’ll have friends.

“They’ll discover the world around them, other people, and themselves.

“The world will be their toy. Their playground.

“Yes, there will be rules. Discipline. Education. Responsibilities.

“But for the most part, a child’s life will be play.

“The world will be full of wonders.

“Then, as that child grows older, they’ll be taught skills and professions. They’ll be shown the variety of work available to them.

“They’ll discover how satisfying it is to become good at something.

“They’ll choose a profession.

“They’ll develop a sense of duty and a sense of their place in society.

“They’ll have colleagues.

“And then adult life will begin.

“Work and rest.

“Hobbies and interests.

“Friends and colleagues.

“Family and neighbors.

“Relatives.

“Community.

“Gatherings.

“Celebrations.

“They’ll feel themselves part of an enormous web of people. Part of history. Part of civilization.

“When they’re ready, they’ll have children of their own and devote themselves to raising them.

“They’ll devote themselves to giving those children the same good life they were given.

“In time, their children will grow up and begin lives of their own.

“And then, many decades later, that person will grow old and die.

“But they’ll enter old age knowing that they fulfilled their purpose in this life.

“That they simply lived fully.

“And that one life was enough.

“They’ll leave behind their children, their work, and the ways in which they touched the lives of others.

“They’ll know that they were part of this world.

“That they played their part.

“That they stood on the shoulders of the generations that came before them—and that future generations will stand on theirs.

“Their children.

“Their grandchildren.

“Their great-grandchildren.”

Archer suddenly realized that he had delivered an entire little speech.

He smiled.

“I got carried away,” he admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“Dream more often,” Anka said.

“You have beautiful ideas.

“The only question is how to make them real.”

“Archer. Anka,” Sol said. “Allow me to shift the conversation to a more practical matter that requires our attention.

“The names of our settlements, our nation, and our world.

“Until now, they’ve remained nameless.

“But now that we’re interacting with another world and another nation, we need to decide what to call ourselves.”

“Yes, that’s a good point...” Anka said thoughtfully.

“This is Anka’s world,” Archer said. “So it should be named accordingly.”

“You want to name the world Anka?” she asked with a laugh.

“No,” Archer said. “Then people would get you and the world confused.

“But we could use your name as part of it.

“For example...”

Archer thought for a moment.

“Ankarian,” Sol suggested.

“Ankarian,” Archer repeated thoughtfully.

“Why not name the world after all three of us?” Anka asked.

“Call it Trinity.”

“Sol and I came to this world from somewhere else,” Archer said. “But you were born here.

“This is your native world.”

“I’m not so sure,” Anka said.

“Technically, I died.

“And the magical brooch turned me into something that isn’t really alive.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong to this world either.

“Naming the whole world after me somehow doesn’t feel right.”

“We could call the city Shod, the nation Trinity, and the world Ankarian,” Sol said.

“Would you like me to explain why?”

“I think we understand,” Archer said.

“Well, those names work for me.

“Anka, what do you think?”

“Yeah. I think that works.

“Shod.

“Trinity.

“Ankarian.

“I like it,” she said.

Meanwhile, the alliance with Ramman continued to deepen.

Working with the remarkably rejuvenated King Panfred the Second, Archer reached an agreement regarding the exploitation of Ankarian’s natural resources.

Entrepreneurs from the Four Crowns were granted permission to launch resource-extraction expeditions into Ankarian.

Hundreds of merchant vessels from the Four Crowns began arriving in the primitive world of the Shod, establishing large enterprises to harvest timber and mine iron, copper, gold, and other resources.

Under the agreement, these enterprises were required to turn over half of everything they extracted to Trinity.

Agriculture also became one of the most popular ventures for Ramman entrepreneurs in Ankarian.

The Four Crowns needed food.

Their world might have regained the water it had lost so long ago, but its ecosystem was still too underdeveloped to support large-scale agriculture.

King Panfred estimated that another hundred years would pass before their world had enough fertile soil to grow sufficient crops.

Immigration from the Four Crowns to Ankarian was also permitted.

Many chose to come.

Ankarian was rich in untouched nature—something that remained desperately scarce in the Four Crowns.

Archer’s alliance with Panfred also included Archer’s technical assistance in restoring the lost technologies of the past.

A council of scientists from all four kingdoms was assembled to devise a restoration plan.

Experts in lost technology selected approximately twenty key technologies from the past.

With Archer’s brush, those twenty could be restored first.

Then, using those twenty technologies, the people of the Four Crowns could independently rebuild hundreds of others.

Trinity would benefit as well.

With access to the same twenty technologies, Trinity could begin bringing Ankarian into the space age.

The Four Crowns also provided Trinity with another invaluable service.

In just six months, their reconnaissance ships explored the entire continent on which Trinity was located.

They produced detailed maps and gave copies to Archer.

Archer, Anka, and Sol spent approximately two months establishing the administrative system and infrastructure Trinity would need to accommodate foreign entrepreneurs and immigrants.

Then the three of them traveled to the Four Crowns to begin restoring the key technologies of the past.

In Ramman, these technologies were known collectively as the basic set.

With the basic set—a kind of metafactory—it was possible to build virtually anything.

It could produce whatever machines were needed.

Those machines, in turn, could extract and process resources, manufacture construction materials, and build structures.

While Archer worked on creating components for Ramman’s metafactory, Anka and Sol were invited to the palace of King Panfred the Second.

King Panfred’s court had heard a great deal about Anka from Archer’s original account of his adventures.

Now that Anka had rejoined Archer’s company, the royal court of Ramman was eager to meet her.

The women were particularly interested.

They welcomed Anka as one of their own and taught her all the intricacies of court life—the ceremonies, gestures, customs, and rituals.

They dressed her in luxurious gowns and taught her how to use cosmetics.

Anka was transformed.

When Archer saw her in her new appearance, he was literally speechless.

The ladies of the court had changed her that much.

Anka fell in love with her new way of life.

She enjoyed the company of the other women, who not only weren’t afraid of her, but treated her like one of their girlfriends.

Back in Ankarian, ordinary people regarded her as a god and worshiped her.

Here, the aristocratic women of the royal court treated her as an equal—as an ordinary woman, albeit one of noble standing.

They spent long hours together, gossiping and laughing, sharing dresses, strolling through the gardens, drinking tea, and eating cake.

Anka, of course, neither ate nor drank.

Her body was incapable of digesting anything.

“Anka, darling, why aren’t you eating?” asked Duchess Maia Tulitskaya.

“Maia!” Countess Lida Sotoma protested theatrically, lightly swatting Duchess Tulitskaya with her folded fan.

“Have you forgotten?

“Anka can’t eat or drink because her body isn’t alive,” Countess Sotoma added in a half whisper.

Maia Tulitskaya froze for a moment as she realized her mistake.

“Oh, that’s right.

“My apologies.”

“It’s all right,” Anka said.

“In a way, I’m actually flattered.

“You think of me as a normal person.

“I’m not used to that anymore.

“Back in the city of Shod, only little children treated me like an ordinary person.

“Everyone else either feared me or worshiped me.”

“I see nothing wrong with being worshiped,” Duchess Tulitskaya said, sipping tea from an exquisite porcelain cup.

“Servants have their place in this world. Their role.

“And you and I have ours.

“So we look down on them.

“What of it?”

“Exactly,” Baroness Fridiana Otu agreed.

“Our problems may seem exaggerated or imaginary to the servants, but how else are we supposed to behave when our reputations—our very good names—are at stake?”

“What do you mean?” Anka asked.

“Oh, Anka, how I envy you,” Countess Sotoma said.

“To be completely free. Not tied to a man, a title, or any obligations...”

“Isn’t Anka tied to Archer?” Duchess Tulitskaya asked.

“Anka, what is he to you?” Baroness Otu asked. “Is he your man?”

“No!” Anka said with a laugh.

“We’re friends. Companions.

“We have common interests, so we stay together.

“But he isn’t my man, and I’m not his woman.”

“And you’ve never been... intimate with him?” the baroness asked.

“No!” Anka replied, embarrassed.

“Anka, darling, please don’t be embarrassed,” Duchess Tulitskaya said.

“We discuss these things openly here.

“Who is intimate with whom, which gentlemen at court are worth pursuing, which ones should be avoided, and so on.

“And you should know that at the court of Panfred the Second, whatever a man and a woman do behind closed doors stays behind closed doors.

“It only becomes a scandal if a forbidden affair becomes public.

“Then there are duels and inquiries and all manner of unpleasantness.

“But as long as you’re discreet about meeting the man who has captured your heart, no one will think any less of you.”

“Speaking of affairs,” Baroness Otu said, “Anka, one of the gentlemen at court has been asking about you.”

“Oh? Who?” Duchess Tulitskaya asked.

“Who?” Countess Sotoma asked eagerly.

“Anka, guess who,” the baroness said playfully.

“Oh, I have no idea,” Anka said, waving the question away.

The baroness merely sat there smiling.

“Come on, Fridiana, don’t keep us waiting!” Countess Sotoma demanded.

“Tell us who!”

“Duke...” the baroness began.

She paused deliberately, playing with the ladies’ anticipation.

“Tonker.”

“Duke Tonker. Of course,” Duchess Tulitskaya said.

“Oh, Tonker. Not bad at all,” Countess Sotoma said, fluttering her fan rapidly.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind spending some time with him.”

“Anka?” the baroness asked.

“What do you say?”

“What am I supposed to say?” Anka asked.

“Well, if you’re interested in the man, I’ll tell him so,” Baroness Otu said.

“After that, he’ll find opportunities to seek out your company himself.”

“But what could he possibly see in me?” Anka asked in genuine surprise.

“I’m undead.

“How could any man find me attractive?”

“Oh, Anka,” Duchess Tulitskaya said.

“The men of our royal court can have very... flexible tastes.

“Besides, look at yourself.

“You’re radiant!

“Lida did a wonderful job dressing you.”

“Well, at least someone noticed,” Countess Lida Sotoma said.

“Did you see the way Archer looked at Anka when he first saw her all dressed up?” Duchess Tulitskaya asked.

“He couldn’t take his eyes off her!”

“That’s true,” Countess Sotoma agreed.

“Really? I didn’t notice,” Baroness Otu said.

“But Archer is an interesting man.

“Anka, perhaps you could introduce us to him?

“Tell him we’d like to get to know him better.”

“Oh, no,” Anka said.

“He wouldn’t be interested in that sort of thing.

“He’s much more focused on great endeavors. Building civilizations...”

“What a shame,” the baroness sighed.

“A terrible shame,” Countess Sotoma agreed, fluttering her fan.

Back in Ankarian, not far from the port of Shod, construction of the metafactory was underway.

Large components for its complex machinery arrived from Ramman aboard cargo ships and were assembled by Ramman engineers.

It had taken six months to build the metafactory in the Four Crowns.

Building an identical facility in Ankarian took only two.

Everything Archer had originally painted with the magic brush for Ramman’s metafactory could now be manufactured independently by Ramman itself.

Soon, both metafactories were operating at full capacity, producing extraordinary machines designed to propel the two allied worlds into the space age.

Ramman provided Trinity with an electronic document:

A Guide to Establishing Infrastructure on Colonial Worlds.

The guide assumed access to a metafactory, several hundred workers, and basic natural resources.

With those things available, just one hundred people were enough to transform a pristine, untouched world into a thriving colony.

Within just two weeks, the metafactories made it possible to launch the first satellites into orbit around the Four Crowns and Ankarian.

Trinity now possessed a complete map of its world.

Archer sat at the computer console of his metafactory, watching a simulation of Ankarian’s next five hundred years unfold across a holographic display.

The simulation was accelerated, compressing half a millennium of development into just twenty seconds.

Archer stared thoughtfully at one of the holographic buttons.

Accelerate.

Then the Master of Health of Shod requested a private meeting with him.

“Ruler,” the minister began, “we have a serious problem.

“The residential buildings constructed by the automated building machines are killing our people.

“Of the three hundred people who moved into the new apartment towers, only one hundred are still alive.

“We were forced to evacuate the buildings and prohibit anyone from living there.

“Our investigation, which has been underway for a little over a month, has determined that the deaths are connected to a device known as a neural interface.

“It attaches to the back of the head and allows people to interact with a virtual world.

“We still don’t understand why the device has such a harmful effect on the people of Trinity.

“I was hoping you might have some answers.”

“No,” Archer said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well,” the Master of Health continued, “we’ve also discovered that immigrants from the Four Crowns appear to be immune to the neural interface’s lethal effects.

“We evacuated them from the affected residences as well, but not a single person among them has died.

“I thought it necessary to inform you of the situation before requesting information from Ramman.”

“I’ll speak with Ramman,” Archer said.

“Thank you, Ruler.”

Archer went directly to King Panfred the Second of Ramman and told him about the deaths in Trinity.

The king was deeply puzzled and promised to uncover the truth.

He appointed a special commission of physicians and scientists and sent them to Shod, asking Archer to grant them access to Trinity’s people—both the living and those who had died under unexplained circumstances.

Many of the dead had to be exhumed for medical examination.

The deaths had begun approximately a month earlier.

The commission performed complete tomographic scans of both the living Shod and the dead, using the finest medical equipment of the space age.

They found nothing beyond ordinary illnesses.

No structural abnormalities.

No detectable disorders.

Many of the victims had been completely healthy.

The cause of death remained unknown.

The mysterious condition struck people regardless of age, sex, or lifestyle.

There was only one factor they all had in common:

They had used the neural interface.

The members of the commission then asked Archer to provide ten residents for an experiment.

The scientists warned him that there was a high probability the volunteers would die.

Archer said he was willing to give them three.

He gathered the entire population of Shod in the city’s main square and addressed them.

“Shod!

“I am Archer, your Ruler.

“Many of you already know that a great tragedy has befallen us.

“Two hundred of our people have died for reasons we do not understand.

“The cause is a device known as the neural interface.

“This device kills the Shod, but it does not kill the people of Ramman.

“And we need to find out why.

“We have assembled a group of scientists who may be able to give us answers.

“And now we need volunteers.

“We need Shod who are willing to risk their lives so that we can find those answers.

“Are there any volunteers among you?”

No one responded.

“The family of every volunteer who sacrifices their life will receive a monthly pension,” Archer said.

“For the rest of their lives.”

Still, no one came forward.

“Listen. This is important,” Archer said.

“We’re trying to understand a technology that our friends from Ramman used four thousand years ago.

“If we can understand this technology, we can become the most successful and numerous people in the world.

“There will be more of us than there are stars in the sky.

“More than there are grains of wheat in our granaries.

“Think about that.

“Your sacrifice could make all those lives possible.”

“I want to be buried in the sanctuary,” one man said.

“If my body is buried in the sanctuary where Archer slept for seventy-two years, I’ll volunteer.”

“That’s...”

Archer didn’t know how to respond.

“All right.

“Any volunteers who die will be buried in the sanctuary where I, Archer, slept for seventy-two years.

“And the names of those who die will be carved beside the sanctuary entrance.”

People began stepping forward from the assembled crowd.

“I’ll volunteer,” they said, one after another.

Soon afterward, the three volunteers were relocated to Ramman and housed in newly constructed apartment towers.

There, they were subjected to round-the-clock medical monitoring and scanning while being allowed to use the neural interface without restriction.

Several residents of Ramman lived alongside the three Shod volunteers and used the interface as well.

All three volunteers died for unexplained reasons.

The people of Ramman remained alive and healthy.

The scans and continuous medical monitoring revealed nothing.

The problem was then entrusted to the smartest man in Ramman:

Marv Galsius.

Galsius assembled his own team of scientists, physicians, and researchers and began investigating.

After repeating the special commission’s experiments and once again failing to identify the cause of death, Galsius turned his attention to the neural interface itself.

He managed to break the device down into eleven components, each serving a separate function.

Galsius then created eleven modified versions of the neural interface.

Each version was missing one of the eleven components.

That required eleven more volunteers from Ankarian, each of whom was assigned one of the prototypes.

Only three survived.

Three versions of the neural interface did not kill Ankarian users.

Interestingly, two of those versions rendered the device completely nonfunctional.

They simply failed to transmit information from the virtual environment into the human brain.

The volunteers using those two versions could not tell any difference between using the interface and not using it at all.

That left the third version.

And one mysterious piece of technology among the eleven:

Component Number Four.

Galsius’s team searched every surviving data archive from the past four thousand years, looking for an explanation of Component Number Four.

What was it?

What purpose did it serve inside the neural interface?

The interface functioned perfectly well without it.

The Trinity volunteer who used the prototype without Component Number Four experienced every aspect of conscious immersion in the virtual world exactly as the interface had been designed to provide.

Unfortunately, Galsius’s team found nothing.

Galsius could offer only a theory.

Perhaps the people of the Four Crowns possessed a particular gene that made them immune to the effects of Component Number Four.

Anatomically, there were no detectable differences between the people of the Four Crowns and the people of Ankarian.

At least they had found a solution:

Remove Component Number Four from every neural interface.

The problem was that there was no way to configure the automated building machines to stop manufacturing Component Number Four.

Nor could the machines be instructed to stop installing neural interfaces in homes, vehicles, and control panels.

The neural interface was part of the fundamental blueprint—the basic design permanently hard-coded into the building machines’ software.

That left the Ankarians with only one option:

Every neural interface would have to be taken apart, and Component Number Four removed by hand.

There was no alternative.

Simply refusing to use neural interfaces was impossible, because ninety percent of the devices based on this technology depended on them.

Even something as simple as turning on the lights in a room could be done only through the interface.

Archer thanked Galsius for his work.

A new profession appeared in Ankarian:

Neural interface technician.

Ankarians began moving back into the homes constructed by the automated building machines.

Fourteen tombs were carved into the sanctuary of Shod, where the mummified remains of the fourteen volunteers who had died were laid to rest.

Their names were engraved at the sanctuary entrance, and their families began receiving pensions.

“Archer,” Sol said one day. “I have a theory about the neural interfaces.”

“Yes, Sol?” Archer asked.

“I think they consume the user’s soul,” Sol said.

“The soul? How?” Anka asked.

“Archer, you told me that the previous Sol spoke of the fragmentation of his essence—of how he divided himself among the artificial workers.”

“Yes,” Archer said. “What about it?”

“I can feel that fragmentation,” Sol said.

“I can feel that my soul is incomplete. Diminished.

“But I can also feel fragments of my soul within the artificial workers.

“And when I use a neural interface containing Component Number Four, I can feel more fragments of my soul leaving me.

“And then they disappear.”

“So what does that mean?” Archer asked.

“Did hundreds of our people die because their souls were drained from their bodies?”

“I think so,” Sol said.

“Then why don’t the people of Ramman die?” Archer asked.

“I don’t know, Archer,” Sol replied.

“But I can suggest a simple experiment.

“Have one of the artificial workers use a neural interface containing Component Number Four.

“Each of them contains only a tiny fragment of my soul.

“So if the interface truly does take the user’s soul, the artificial worker should die quickly.”

“We could try that,” Archer said.

“Wait a minute!” Anka interrupted.

“What if you’re right?

“What if the neural interface really does take a person’s soul?

“Do we actually want to sacrifice one of the artificial workers?”

“One death is a small price to pay for answers,” Sol said.

“I agree with Sol,” Archer said.

“Especially considering that this device has already killed two hundred of our people, followed by fourteen volunteers.

“If their sacrifices are going to mean something, we need to find the answers.”

They selected Artificial Worker Number Seven Hundred Thirty-Two and asked if he was willing to sacrifice himself for the common good.

“Yes,” he answered.

They instructed him to use the neural interface, enter the virtual world, and remain there.

The worker obeyed.

After two days in the virtual world, he died.

Archer ordered that his wooden body be buried alongside the human volunteers in the sanctuary of Shod.

Archer then used the magic brush to create a device capable of measuring the charge of a person’s soul.

They recruited several volunteers from Shod, measured their readings with the device, and had them use the neural interface.

The results confirmed their theory.

The volunteers’ soul charge decreased whenever they used the interface.

They then recruited several immigrants from Ramman and repeated the experiment.

Their soul charge decreased as well.

But for some unknown reason, it subsequently replenished itself.

Archer took their findings to Galsius.

“Incredible,” Galsius said.

“It raises questions about the original purpose of the colony in the Four Crowns.

“I admit, I’ve often wondered why our colony needed a population of one trillion people when ten thousand would have been enough to extract resources from the entire planet.”

“Where do we look for answers?” Archer asked.

“There are several possibilities,” the scientist said, thinking aloud.

“First, we can return to the ancient archives.

“Perhaps we overlooked something during our previous examinations.

“Now that we know what we’re looking for, we may be able to find the answer.

“The second possibility is the programming code of the ancient technologies.

“Copies of that code now exist throughout the metafactories, the automated building machines, and every new structure they construct.

“Unfortunately, there is an enormous amount of it, and it is far too complex for our specialists to properly analyze.

“Even if we dedicated ourselves to deciphering all the code we possess, I suspect generations would pass before we found the answer.

“But there is a third possibility.

“Our colony lost contact with the mother world during the war against the giants.

“The giants created some kind of blockade that completely severed us from the rest of human civilization.

“Perhaps now we can reestablish contact with the mother world and ask them directly:

“What was the purpose of our colony?”

Galsius fell silent.

“We can pursue the second approach,” Sol said.

“The programming code may be too complex for humans, but I suspect I’ll be able to understand it much more easily.”

“We can pursue several approaches at once,” Galsius said.

“You try to decipher the programming code.

“We’ll search the archives.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Archer said.

Sol traveled to the metafactory near Shod, put on a neural interface, and connected himself to one of the metafactory’s twenty key machines:

the mainframe supercomputer.

He also brought along a useful artifact—the scroll of universal translation.

With the translator’s help, the machines’ programming code was converted into a simpler programming language that Sol could understand.

But even after translation, there was an overwhelming amount of code to examine.

Sol got to work.

While Sol studied the code and Anka enjoyed the royal society of Ramman, Archer began putting another idea into practice.

Instead of creating Crowns of Time for Anka and Sol, and instead of entering a meditative trance for centuries, the Painter went to the sanctuary, took up the brush, and painted a sphere of temporal alteration—an artifact about a foot in diameter.

The sphere had an effective radius of only about fifteen feet.

Anything within that radius experienced an altered flow of time.

Turning the sphere clockwise slowed the passage of time within its radius.

Turning it counterclockwise accelerated it.

Archer used the brush to create three stone thrones around the sphere, then instructed an automated building machine to construct a computer in front of each throne.

Beneath each computer was a compact hydrogen-powered electrical generator.

All three computers were connected to one another and to Ankarian’s central information network.

Archer’s idea was to slow the passage of time inside the sanctuary and use the computers to observe Trinity’s accelerated development.

They would receive visual information about the growth of the population, new settlements founded across the continent, construction projects, the extraction and accumulation of resources, problems arising throughout Trinity and the solutions being implemented, and anything else worth knowing.

Simple reports would be compiled by Trinity’s computers and transmitted through cables to the three computers inside the sanctuary.

Wanting to test his new system, Archer sent Sol a message.

Send me electronic messages with everything you discover. I’m testing a time-alteration system in the sanctuary at Shod.

Sol replied that he understood.

Archer turned the magical sphere, slowing the passage of time within the sanctuary.

On the computer screen, he watched the outside world race forward.

Days passed like seconds.

Soon, messages began arriving from Sol—reports on the sections of computer code he had examined.

Archer barely had time to read the subject lines as they appeared.

Then, on the sixteenth day of Sol’s search, a message arrived with the subject:

Answer Found.

Before Archer could read anything more, Sol appeared inside the sanctuary and stepped within the magical sphere’s radius.

Archer turned the sphere of temporal alteration, restoring the sanctuary to the normal flow of time.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Not much,” Sol said.

“But I think it’s enough to draw some conclusions about the neural interface.

“After examining enough of the computer code, I discovered that the interface has an extraction function.

“It extracts a substance from its users called the existence factor.

“The infrastructure automatically constructed by the building machines contains storage units for this substance.

“There are also existence-factor storage units at the spaceports.

“They’re relatively small and hidden among other system components, so they’re easy to overlook.

“But from what I understand, despite their modest size, they can hold enormous quantities of the substance.

“My conclusion is that the existence factor was routinely extracted from the colonists of the Four Crowns, automatically transported to the spaceport, and collected there for shipment back to their mother world.

“For what purpose, I don’t know.

“Whether the colonists themselves knew about it is also unclear.

“Perhaps it was such an ordinary part of everyday life that they never gave it any thought.”

“We need to tell Galsius,” Archer said.

“Yes,” Sol said.

“But there’s something else.

“I went to the spaceport in Shod and found a container holding existence factor.

“It contained the existence factor extracted from all the Ankarians who died after using the neural interface.

“I managed to open the container.

“The existence factor inside transferred into me.”

“What does that mean?” Archer asked, puzzled.

“It’s difficult to describe in words,” Sol said.

“Before, I could feel that my soul was fragmented—that very little of it remained within me.

“Now I feel as though my soul has multiplied a hundredfold.

“That means I can use the Wand of Animation again.

“I can create thousands of artificial workers.

“Hundreds of thousands.

“And when my existence factor is depleted again, I can replenish it from the reserves accumulating in the Four Crowns.”

“Sol...” Archer said.

But he didn’t know how to continue.

“You’re troubled by the ethical implications,” Sol said.

“Yes,” Archer replied.

“But not only that.

“Sol, you’ve just discovered that the human soul can be extracted, transported, stored, transferred into another being, and apparently used to create thousands of artificial people.

“Do you understand what that means?”

Sol said nothing.

“This is an enormous discovery, Sol,” Archer continued.

“The kind of discovery that could shatter religions and transform entire societies.

“It raises countless questions.

“You absorbed two hundred souls.

“Does that mean those two hundred people are now somehow alive inside you?”

“I don’t have an answer to that question,” Sol said.

“We need to tell Galsius,” Archer said.

“Come on.”

“Wait,” Sol said, abruptly changing the subject.

“I see you made three chairs.”

“Yes,” Archer said.

“One for you, one for me, and one for Anka.”

“I won’t be using mine,” Sol said.

“I prefer to remain in the normal flow of time.

“Besides, someone should stay behind to deal with problems as they arise.”

“All right,” Archer said.

“Let’s go see Galsius.”

Sol and Archer told Galsius everything Sol had learned from the programming code of the ancient Four Crowns technologies, as well as everything he had discovered through experimentation.

Galsius remained silent for a long time.

Then he said it was a monumental discovery.

The three of them went to King Panfred and told him everything.

The king considered what he had heard.

“So the colony wasn’t merely extracting natural resources,” Panfred said.

“It was also harvesting something called the ‘existence factor,’ which none of the colonists either knew about or considered important.

“And now this strange resource will once again be harvested from our population unless we modify every interface constructed by the machines.

“Have I understood correctly?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Galsius replied.

“And Sol,” Panfred continued, “you would like to collect this resource so that you can create thousands of artificial workers.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Sol said.

“What’s wrong with the robotic assistants produced by the building machines?” Panfred asked.

“They aren’t alive,” Sol said.

“The workers I create are.”

“I see,” the king said.

“Galsius, how valuable is the existence factor?”

“Potentially, it is priceless,” Galsius replied.

“But at present, we don’t know of any practical application for the existence factor.

“And the fact that it will simply be harvested from our population and stored in containers as a resource without any known purpose reduces its practical value considerably.”

“So this resource is useless to us?” the king asked.

“At present, yes,” Galsius said.

“In that case, Sol, I’ll issue orders granting you access to our reserves of existence factor,” the king said.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Sol replied.

“And am I correct in understanding, Archer, that you intend to... isolate yourself and disappear from ordinary life for several centuries?” Panfred asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Archer said.

“About four hundred years.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Panfred said.

“Well, then.

“Archer, I suppose I’ll see you again in four hundred years.

“I doubt I’ll still be king by then, but I expect I’ll still be alive.”

“If anything comes up, I’ll still be reachable electronically,” Archer said.

“Good,” the king replied.

“We’ll keep in touch.

“Gentlemen...”

The king nodded farewell and left the palace conference room.

“Archer,” Galsius said, extending his hand, “I’ll see you in four hundred years.”

Archer shook the scientist’s hand.

“You’re planning to live that long?”

“The king provides rejuvenation serum to all of his most valuable people,” Galsius said.

“Now that the ancient technologies have been restored, we no longer need the magic brush to produce it.”

He smiled.

Then Galsius left the conference room.

“Well, Sol, it looks like everything has been settled.

“I’ll see you in four hundred years,” Archer said.

“I’ll see you then, Archer,” Sol replied.

Archer had some difficulty finding Anka in the royal palace.

Her appearance had changed so much—she had become so beautiful—that he almost didn’t recognize her.

She was surrounded by other women and seemed to be having a wonderful time.

“Anka,” Archer said.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

They stepped aside.

“Anka, I’m going back to the sanctuary in Shod.

“I created a zone there where the flow of time can be altered.

“There’s a place for you as well.

“Whenever you’re ready to leave this era behind and move on to the world of the future, come join me.

“Sol won’t be coming with us.

“He’ll be busy creating more artificial workers and dealing with problems throughout Trinity.”

“Archer, I don’t want to skip this era,” Anka said.

“At least not yet.

“It’s nice here.

“It’s fun.

“You could stay too.

“Join me.

“People find you interesting.

“We could enjoy these years together.”

“No,” Archer said.

“I want to see our ideal civilization as soon as possible.

“I want our world to prosper.

“Anyway, I’ll be in the sanctuary.

“Join me whenever you want.”

Archer took a step back.

“And by the way...

“You look absolutely beautiful.”

Anka’s smile grew even wider.

She stepped toward Archer, kissed him on the cheek, and embraced him.

“You want to create a world full of life for other people,” she said.

“But you refuse to enjoy that life yourself.

“Why?”

Archer thought for a moment.

“I don’t think I’m capable of enjoying life.”

Anka released him and looked into his eyes.

“Maybe you just haven’t found someone to enjoy it with yet?”

Archer said nothing.

“All right.

“I’ll see you, Archer,” she said.

Then she returned to her friends.

“I’ll see you,” Archer said with a sigh.

He returned to Shod and entered the sanctuary.

He sat down on his stone throne, checked the computer in front of him, and activated the temporal slowdown.

Outside the sanctuary, time began racing forward.