Recursion

Johnston interrupted his thoughts. “We need to get up to where the spaceships are. I’m guessing that building is a space elevator.”

“Oh.” Herb bit his lip thoughtfully. “You said we were spying. What are we looking for?”

“Lots of things. Size of Enemy resources, possible intentions, possible weaknesses, but mostly we’re looking for a way back.”

“A way back? I still don’t understand how we got here.”

Before Johnston could answer, the humming noise was heard again, only closer. A yellow pod with black stripes appeared in a gap between two buildings, only a couple of hundred meters away. It rotated 360 degrees on its axis and then moved off again, vanishing from their view among the forest of towers.

“What was that?” whispered Herb. “It looked like a giant bumblebee. I think it was looking for us. Should we hide?”

“I don’t think so,” said Johnston. “Not yet anyway. Now…look at that. That’s interesting.” He pointed to the building next to them.

Herb gazed at it, puzzled. “I don’t understand,” he said. “It just looks like the entrance to a shopping center.”

He was led by Johnston to a wide portico. It was too high, of course, like everything else in the Necropolis. Away above them, a silver-grey pediment seemed to melt into a colo

Johnston seemed delighted, however. “It does look like a shopping center, doesn’t it?” he said. “Now doesn’t that suggest something?”

“Yeah,” muttered Herb. “This would not be a good place to ask for a refund.”

The strangeness of his surroundings was making Herb light-headed.

“Was that supposed to be fu

“You’d be astonished how rarely I think about such things.”

Johnston gave him a withering look.

“No, I don’t,” Herb said, chastened.

Johnston stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Now that changes things considerably. This is not what we were expecting at all.” He lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

The humming sound rose in volume so quickly that Herb instinctively leaped forward to grab Johnston’s jacket. He caught a flash of yellow and black reflected in the glass before him as a bumblebee pod whisked down the street behind them.

“It’s seen us,” he gasped.

Johnston shook Herb’s hand from his sleeve.

“Don’t be so silly,” he said, then pointed into the atrium. “Come on. We’re going in there.”

Herb didn’t know whether to feel relief at avoiding their pursuer or fear at entering the eerie mall. Johnston seemed completely unconcerned about either. He placed a hand on one of the tall glass doors and pushed gently.

“Stuck. I should have guessed as much.”

Herb could see that the doors were not so much fused together as imprints in the front of the building. They seemed to be one piece of glass that had not managed to separate in two. Wondering what Johnston was going to do next, he suddenly found himself standing inside, right in the center of the atrium, looking up at the high-vaulted ceiling. Silver metal creepers hung above his head. Like everything outside, the building’s interior had the look of stretched and melting toffee. Herb’s mind caught up with events.

“What happened there?” asked Herb, astonished.

“I readjusted our position to be inside the building.”

“How? Hyperspace jump?” Herb was impressed despite himself. “I didn’t think anyone was capable of that degree of control.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Johnston. “Haven’t you realized yet that we’re not really here? Do you think I’d bring our physical bodies into the Enemy Domain? Now come on, we need to get our report back to the EA.”

“What report?”

“The report confirming the fact that the Domain contains-or will contain-civilians. Haven’t you wondered where they’re going to come from?”

“No.”

Johnston gave an exasperated sigh and walked on, past the squashed retail units that surrounded them, heading toward an arch at the rear of the atrium. The walls back here seemed to have melted drastically; they hung down like great folds of cloth. Herb gazed uneasily at the narrow corridor beyond the arch. If he didn’t know better, he would have said they were walking into the building’s throat.

“Are you sure about this?” he murmured.

“We’re heading for the space elevator, right? This is a shopping mall. How do you think the shoppers are going to get here?” Johnston rolled his eyes. “Hyperspace jumps?”

They passed through the arch, Herb’s uneasiness passing along with him. A high-ceilinged hallway lay beyond; four unmoving escalators disgorged from subterranean depths grasping its walls with long metallic strands.

Herb swallowed hard. He didn’t want to risk descending an escalator. At the same time, he didn’t want Johnston to know he was frightened.

“Okay,” he stammered, “which one should we take?”

Johnston was staring at the patterns engraved on the nearby wall.

“If this diagram is a map, as I think it is, I would suggest that escalator over there. If it’s not a map, then you’ll be an extremely privileged young man.”

“Why?” Herb asked, mystified.

“Because you will have been present on the occasion when, for the first time in my life, I was wrong about something.”

Before Herb could reply, Johnston had moved quickly to his chosen escalator and started to descend, his shoes clicking brightly on the polished metal steps. Herb took a deep breath and followed him.

The escalator went a long way below ground. Herb had to concentrate on keeping up with Johnston. Herb had never attempted to be any fitter than the minimum level that the EA’s exercise program instilled in him; indeed, he tended to look down on those pursuing extra fitness as an end in itself. All those wasted kilojoules. He could understand the fact that Johnston was in better condition. What he found galling was the way that the brilliant tapping of Robert’s feet gave the impression he was dancing down the steps.

He was begi

“What is it with this place?” Herb gasped as he clattered on down the steps.

“Haven’t you figured that out yet?” Johnston called back to him. “This whole city is the result of a faulty VNM. You get this happening sometimes with large-scale VNM projects. Maybe errors in the original machine’s design didn’t show up until the nth generation. Or sometimes a machine reproduces badly at the start of the process, and then you get faulty machines making copies of themselves. History lesson, Herb: that’s what happened back on Earth with the first major VNM-built arcology.”

“I wouldn’t have thought I’d need to tell you about this,” Johnston snorted. “Given what you did yourself, you should know all about badly designed machines.”