Exurb1a - The Fifth Science

The Fifth Science

Copyright 2018 Exurb1a.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the authors imagination.

Cosmia Press

ALSO BY EXURB1A

The Bridge to Lucy Dunne

The Prince of Milk

Logic Beach: Part I

Contents

Introduction

Oh hi.

Even though what youre reading now is a collection of short stories, I would recommend going through them in order. They follow chronologically, are set in the same universe, and do actually lead somewhere. Hopefully. Or dont read them in order, thats all right. You always bloody know best, dont you?

Theres a theme among most of them that we may as well address here. Namely: its possible (no, I think its possible) that one day we will learn to make non-conscious things conscious. And not just electronics, not just computers, but matter itself, from the molecular up to the cosmic. I know that sounds a bit spiritual. Well fine, but I dont want your soul and there wont be any chanting. Big hats are okay though. (I've left a little discussion at the end ((with myself...)) about the cosmic universe idea, for those who are still curious.)

All of this started as a short story I assumed was going nowhere. When it was done I pulled on the thread a bit, wished for the best, and more stories turned up and brought their mates too. This led me on the most enjoyable year of writing Ive ever had. So really, I just want to say thank you for even picking this up in the first place. And more than that, I hope you enjoy it.

As with my other books, I would like to dedicate this one to those of you who have been supporting my stuff on Patreon, and online in general. This poor excuse for a writing career is kept going by your kindness. Im never going to sufficiently get down in words just how grateful I am. So if I may, I will leave it as: a gigantic, gigantic thank you.

I also owe a large debt of gratitude to a friend who sat with me evening after evening while this book was just a vague idea, and listened to my rambling attempts to flesh it out and never told me to shut the hell up, as she perhaps should have. You were a lighthouse in everything. You still are. Your friend, always.

Finally thank you to: Agnese for the maths, Jimmy for the Chinese, Martin for the politics, and Ellis for bothering to read this when it was a total mess.

If you don't hate these stories, you are welcome to inform me of such via: . Plus, if you would like to vent your rage at my terrible prose in the form of an Amazon review, that would also not be discouraged.

All right then, lets go hang out in the Galactic Human Empire. No no, after you, I insist.

All the best, as ever,

Ex.

To the engineers and scientists who will one day build minds; from whatever materials, in whatever form .

Hello from a time when we thought it was all magic.

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

Carl Jung

Timeline of The 500 Year Climb

• 0 A.L. (Anno Logicae) Mathematicist Polly Hares paper published: Towards an Effective Empirical Method via Algorithm Utilisation.
• 17 A.L. Discovery of the fidon particle using the Hare method, also prompting discovery of the second Higgs mechanism and seventh time dimension.
• 26 A.L. First fidon generators made widely available. Reliance on fossil fuels partially diminished.
• 119 A.L. First generation voidships launched from Aerth.
• 183 A.L. Narrative War begins.
• 194 A.L. - Narrative War ends, prompting the expansion of several existing Aerth states including the Democratic Bulgaric Republic.
• 201 A.L. Mechanical intelligence is granted civil rights by the UN, though with many caveats.
• 248 A.L. Ming Shu publishes paper: Corollary Results in Topology Casting , paving the way much later for ribbondash technology.
• 292 A.L. Artificially crewed voidship, The Hand That Draws Itself , reaches star system LDH39 successfully.
• 295 A.L. Artificial crew of The Hand That Draws Itself unexpectedly declare themselves independent, creating the Sovereign Republic of Sky Eternity ().
• 356 A.L. Final lepton is discovered, the melnitron . The end of particle physics appears close.
• 392 A.L. First generation ship, The Enanga, not responding to signalling. Onboard AI reports all crew perished during the journey. Reason unknown. No further contact.
• 419 A.L. First mathematical proof of ribbondash physics, or now famously known as The First Proof , published by Francois Manelov.
• 431 A.L. First ribbondash drive tested in Aerth space, marking the beginning of the Ribbondash Era.
• 433 A.L. Ribbondash voiding effect discovered. Many areas of near-Aerth space are rendered totally unusable, and even fatal to those passing through. Overwhelming pressure to ban the technology.
• 445 A.L. Bulgaric Republic illegally dispatches first ever ribbondash colony ship, Geo Milev ( ) , to the void. Reaches star system IR394 within 7 minutes, onboard time.
• 452 A.L. Bulgaric Republic declares it has initiated the creation of the first ever galactic human empire.

Galactic Empire Period Begins

For Every Dove a Bullet

I was born (to use the word loosely) over ten thousand years ago inside one Winston Earnest, a law clerk: 41, unhappily married, three children, one deceased.

Meticulous, well educated, and entirely boring.

What was my first sense? Of being Winston Earnest and not being Winston Earnest. His hands moved in front of me, but it was not I who moved them. His voice spoke, but it was not I compelling it to do so. I had all of Winston Earnest's memories. I was Winston Earnest. But something had taken control of my body.

I watched that thing and it appeared to also be Winston Earnest. I could hear his thoughts and observe his actions and he both thought and acted like Winston Earnest in every way, behaved as I would.

I spent a year or so like this, a passenger. Sometimes I would daydream as he went about the morning and afternoon. Other times I would be wide awake as he slept. But always powerless.

Earnest acquired something of an impressive gambling debt, playing cards in order to spend more and more time with ladies of the evening . As the debts increased he turned to more elaborate attempts to cheat at poker and such and soon found himself living far beyond his means. Inspired by a ruined copy of Crime and Punishment, he resolved to murder his landlord, a fairly rich man in his late sixties. He gave no hint of this on the outside, but I was able to listen to Winston's thoughts as though they were my own, of course.

The date was set. He would wait until the old man came to collect the rent, offer him a seat on the sofa facing the window, then bludgeon him to death with a mallet. Inelegant but effective. He would then steal the old man's keys, raid his apartment upstairs, and escape to a distant spot such as Minnesota or the like.

Sure enough, the old man came around midday. He accepted the offer of tea and sat down and stared out of the window. Earnest fetched the mallet from the kitchen.

I am not able to account for what came next. As I have said, I was Winston Earnest and I was not. I had his memories and inclinations, yet I'd had to watch them play out for a year or so without any control. Instead Id become a kind of critic, seeing my own decisions, but incarcerated. Perhaps this was what inspired my first ever true action in the world.