The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

No. This all ends in the destruction of whatever fragile little society they are building down there, in what is left of an ocean ecosystem we have been systematically destroying on an industrial scale for centuries. It ends with us wiping out yet another species. And this time, we will be wiping out a species that has a culture. It won’t be extinct...

“Yes,” Mínervudóttir-Chan said. “It will ...

“Neanderthal. The Denisovan hominins. Homo naledi. Homo floresiensis. Homo luzonensis. This isn’t a list of our ancestors: it’s a list of the toolmaking, culture-bearing species of humans we wiped out. Everywhere we have encountered someone we could communicate with, someone we could learn from, share this planet with, we have murdered them. We could have learned from them, grown with them, cooperated. But instead we bashed their skulls in, stabbed them to death, drove them out of the fertile lands into deserts, where they starved.”

“The evidence is clear enough. We can only guess at the massacres we committed as a species before history, in the great dark backward before we could record our lives—but we know well enough what has happened in more recent times. We have plenty of evidence of that.

What we cannot assimilate, we destroy.

Yes—I know what humans do. Yes. I am sure of what humans have done, every time we have encountered another conscious species, or even a culture different from our own. We hate rivals. Competitors. Every time one has emerged, we have destroyed them. I know very well, Ha, what will happen when this ‘soap bubble,’ as you put it—this delicate membrane I have managed to build around this precious place—is punctured. And that is why I am here—because we are running out of time.”

Running out of time for you to scrape the data you need from them.

Independent systems, exploring without a mind to guide them …

Evrim stood up from the table with a jerk. Their chair clattered to the floor. “How could you let this happen to us?”

“Oh, Evrim,” Mínervudóttir-Chan said. “If I were as powerful as you’ve built me up to be, I would have been able to stop this. And to stop the sun from rising as well.”

“I never thought you were powerful,” Evrim said. “The only people who think you are powerful are the ones who watch you on the feedstreams or read your press releases. I know you better than that, Arnkatla. Remember who I am— I know you. I’ve always known you were weak. Powerful people know what they are doing, and why. All you know is how to do things. How to make minds. How to keep pushing at the boundaries. But you don’t know why you are doing it. So all you make are more accidents. More mistakes. And now it’s finally catching up with you. Now I see it. You can’t stop what is happening to DIANIMA. So you fled. You didn’t co...

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan swept a hand in an arc around her. “No. This is my world, Evrim. These islands. The octopuses. And most of all, you. The greatest mind I have ever built. I came here to make sure that, ...

“You never have only one reason for doing anything,” Evrim said. “I know you. There is some other reason. The...

“We all accept the responsibility for killing other things. And even for killing people. That is what it means to be alive. Killing is what our existence does on this planet. All we have—everything we use to live—is taken from someone else. If you think otherwise, you are nothing but a naïve child.”

Trapped. That’s what Altantsetseg was: trapped in this way of looking at everything … as endless conflict. Still fighting the Winter War. It was written on her flesh.

Ha threw her arms around Evrim, hugging Evrim close, then released them. “You are extraordinary.”

Evrim blinked.

“Sorry,” Ha said. “I got...

“No, don’t apologize. It’s just—well, nobody has ever done ...

When Ha looked up, she saw Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan watching them. She recognized that look: A scientist watching a test subject. A...

“That is what I want to know. What to do. They tried to kill you, didn’t they?” “They did,” he wrote. “They believe I care about what they are doing. I do not. What I care about is only this place. The republic. They can do what they like—just not here. They killed fifteen other people trying to get to me.” “The autofreighter accident.”

Hard to fornicating maneuver.

“How long?” Evrim said. “How long have you been betraying DIANIMA for?” “Always. Since before I even worked for DIANIMA. Since just after the Winter War. Since before the war, perhaps.

It was my time as a nun there in a lamasery that saved me from falling apart—from becoming what you think I am. They saved me. Since then, I have always been with them.”