Moonbound

by Robin Sloan

I could not work this place out. I could not even form a theory. It was a mash-up, a pile-up, not so much anachronistic as everything all at once. Of course, the Anth had always lived like this. Encrypted phones alongside incense sticks, coruscating networks alongside printed books. Nothing was ever erased.

First, I imagined myself a detective, but as the clues compounded, I felt more like a dreamer.

It was a gesture so dorky, so full of romantic wonder, that it built a bridge for me to cross. Yes, it’s only because this boy believed in foolish stories that this story of mine could begin. Brave, curious, morbid, romantic; I liked him more and more.

When you’re alone, even a hateful companion is: a companion.

The castle and the village, in their strange familiarity, could only be illusions. The real future was the bugs revolting against the spiders, and the bees riding through the winter on a mighty mobile base.

“Famous to the bees! I’d rather be anonymous and alive. What luck you have.”

“I have three words for you—a powerful incantation, learned at great cost. Are you ready?” Ariel was ready. “Worry about yourself!”

It was beautiful, and it filled me up. There was still a world. There was a Roos Gangleri to enjoy it. After everything, the wild went on. Of course it did.

“You suggest that the dragons, in their hearts, have a particular preference,” said Kate. “A bias toward … plot.” This was right. I knew it was right. I knew, because that same preference is in my heart. Without it, I couldn’t write this down. I couldn’t pick and choose what to describe, couldn’t strategically withhold information for your benefit. Without that preference, I could only vomit data.

If the robot had opened the way with kindness, then they had sealed the deal with the essential glue of friendship: long hours together, doing nothing much.

As small as a civilization’s end, as great as a seed’s germination.

This chronicler had left subjects behind; the whole world was its subject. Here, at last, was the third person. Omniscience!

“There is surely some cosmic titan who regards the affairs of our planet just as pitiably as you do the caterpillar’s belly. Is this titan wrong?”

The sun was hot, but the air was cold: one of the planet’s great combinations.

How luxurious, to have a small god narrate your audiobook.

Just as we can move up or down, side to side, we can also move along the axis of … softer, or scratchier. More stylish, or less. This insight was the foundation of the great shopping algorithms of the Middle Anth.”

With every possible story laid out on the table before him, Ariel discovered he didn’t really care about any of them, and returned the sheaf glumly to the librarian.

“Yes, it is all. Let the scholars dive into obscurity. Let the beavers and their adversary squabble over the atmosphere. It’s all just intolerably small. I will discover what else is out there, at last.”

The Wyrm’s hard-earned lesson impacting meteor-like in the forty-three-million-dimensional terrain of thought. The ballistic shock of education, which, at its best, provides the realization: life can be different. It does not all need to be cruel effort.

Real history could only begin now, with choices made not from fear or necessity, but from curiosity and solidarity.

The fearful did not act; the fearful hoped nothing happened at all.