\n <\/p>\n
As Arx54 reached the city of Salvage Port, it stared up at the open dome of the 6-kilometre-high rocket engine with a sense of both ennui and wonder. The single thruster eclipsed the sky, offering a full view of the city that rose up through its interior. It was filled with chassis houses and firmware clans, each with their own docks and ships from every planet in the system, all dating back to a time before the war. Once, the thruster had been part of a refugee ship that ferried the last bots off a world ravaged by the Spire. There was an irony in that, Arx54 thought, as it, too, was designed to harbour the last of the neo-minds in the galaxy.<\/p>\n
As Arx54 stepped into an elevator and began to rise through the dome\u2019s interior, it passed through the bustling bot markets and the living quarters of other sentient machines. There were open spaces that offered views of the Milky Way, a glimpse of stars once awash with the radiant passage of civilizations. Of course, the pogrom of the Spire had changed all of that, eradicating every wire-skin it could find.<\/p>\n
But Arx54 had been among the fortunate.<\/p>\n
The elevator finally stopped at the town of Logos, where the main thruster had been separated from the body of the ship. A series of spiralling terraces circled above it, offering a full view of the stars and the world below.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite a sight isn\u2019t it,\u201d a voice said.<\/p>\n
Arx54 turned to see a fellow Arx on the platform. It moved with ease and spoke with a voice that seemed entirely its own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole city is impressive. Are you\u2009\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Rav. It\u2019s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Arx54,\u201d it said with a bow. \u201cYou\u2019re here to become Singular again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are,\u201d Arx54 said.<\/p>\n
Read more science fiction from Nature Futures<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you\u2019ve come to the right place. I was an Arx252 once, if you can believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never knew it was possible to carry so many at once.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bot tilted its head. \u201cWell, where I came from, there were so few places to hide from the Spire. We were like embers in the dark, fading out across the galaxy. We didn\u2019t have a choice. It was hard at first, carrying so many minds, but we\u2019re all designed to be adaptive, and we developed a system that worked for us over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is true for us as well. But for some time now, the edges between us have been blurred, our memories merged. We all want to find ourselves again. Was it easy for you to make the transition?\u201d Arx54 asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was at first. My old co-occupants come back on occasion, to check in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure I understand how that would work,\u201d Arx54 said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTechnology has advanced a bit. Let me show you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rav led Arx54 down towards the gimbal outriggers of the rocket, where a smaller thruster had been dismantled and made into a residential space, positioned among the girders like a nest.<\/p>\n
\u201cSalvage Port has been a sanctuary for centuries,\u201d Rav went on. \u201cBut the Spire is nothing if not resilient, so we had to evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rav\u2019s workstation was full of dismantled machines and the remnants of ancient starships. There were also other bots, including Arx, that stood unoccupied, as if waiting to be awakened.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre these empty?\u201d Arx54 asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends on how you define empty. You see, each of these contains a gateway to other worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA singularity?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Arx54 reached the city of Salvage Port, it stared up at the open dome of the 6-kilometre-high rocket engine with a sense of both ennui and wonder. The single thruster eclipsed the sky, offering a full view of the city that rose up through its interior. It was filled with chassis houses and firmware<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[15130,23740],"class_list":{"0":"post-46539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-bot","9":"tag-singular"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}