1        Soul Bound 1.3      Making a Splash 1.3.4    An Adroit Pursuit 1.3.4.5  Invisible hands

Bungo answered Wellington's question without even a pause for thought: {Nimrod the Mighty Hunter? Of course we remember! Running around outside, learning how to flick the wrist with the accelerometer on it to throw a virtual javelin? Best lecture ever!}

Bulgaria winced a little.

Alderney: {The one where he chose which animal to target? Yeah, I thought the games worked pretty well considering how last-minute most of the code was. I pulled an all-nighter with Tomsk, working on the animal animations and behaviour models. I'm still not convinced we made the coordinated lioness hunting behaviour scary enough - it should have been a velociraptor ambush moment.}

Kafana shook her head: {I ended up being eaten; I was so petrified, all I could do was stare at the amber eyes getting larger and larger. And yes, Wellington, I remember the two factors. I guess that, to the lioness, I looked the most Advantageous player to pounce on because their brains found it easy to Predict that I'd continue to 'freeze' given that my initial reaction had been neither 'fight' not 'flight'.}

Bungo, who'd brought down one of the two scenario boss monsters by catching a javelin she'd dodged and re-throwing it in a single motion, looked smug: {It's all in the reflexes.}

Bulgaria frowned: {It's all about evolution. Predators that are even slightly better at predicting their prey and not being predicted by their prey, will pass down those advantageous genes to their more numerous offspring. Prey that isn't the first to get eaten, because they are just slightly better are predicting the predators and not being predicted by them, get to survive another year and pass their advantageous genes onto the next generation of prey. Whether you are a predator, prey or both, even tiny improvements in how well you understand and model your surrounding world and its inhabitants, compared to how well they do that, tends to have a disproportionately large impact upon the selfish survival of your genes.}

Wellington: {Right. To the genes controlling the design of our brain, those brains having a capability to understand 100% of the world is only desirable to the extent that capability delivers a survival advantage. And that applies to even non-terrestrial sapients from worlds with magic, provided the design of their brains was subject to evolutionary forces.}

Alderney sounded interested despite herself: {Like Soul Bound? What about worlds like Tolkein's Arda where deities created species without using guided evolution as their tool?}

Bungo: {Elves were basically immortal, weren't they? Rinfindiel would know for sure, but I'm guessing that even by the end of the Third Age, there had been too few generations for evolution to have had a significant influence upon their cognitive capabilities. They might have been varelse - forever outside the range of minds our empathy can emulate.}

Alderney: {Only if the minds designing them were also varelse, or if non-varelse minds can create varelse ones.}

Was Alderney now arguing against her own former position? Even for her, this seemed unusually disconnected. Kafana muted the chat channel and dropped Alderney a private message: {Alds, how's life back at Stedding Delphina? Are preparations for the jamboree at the hectic stage yet?}

Alderney sent her a private reply, trying to sound perky: {Yeah, pretty hectic. I want to gift each stedding at the jamboree with a copia gang capable of churning out my resource transport and retrieval 'delphins', and eventually integrating their economies into one world-spanning Greater Pod. But don't worry that I won't be in Soul Bound for six hours a day and will miss recording our adventures for broadcast. I'll just miss a few night's sleep instead, and I'm used to that!}

Kafana to Alderney: {When did you last get a full night of unaccelerated sleep?}

Alderney to Kafana: {Umm.}

Kafana to Alderney: {How about we try something new? You go offline and we pass on a request from you to your vessel. She then records her experience of today and gets to try out the fun of being in charge - being the director who decides which bits of her day she'll dream for you. And in return you agree to spend the time that's she's asleep this afternoon sharing every bit of dream she's selected for you, and when you broadcast your record of you experiencing her dreams, you credit her as the director/producer. Think she'd enjoy being the first vessel to ever get that?}

Alderney to Kafana: {I think I'll take you up on that offer. She'd enjoy it, and if nothing else it will be novel and discussion of it will broach new audience sectors. But why "unaccelerated"?}

Kafana to Alderney: {Bungo spoke to me about the standard of product testing required to get medical approval. Until we've verified that accelerated sleep has the same long term effects as unaccelerated sleep, our working assumption should be that it doesn't. In other words, you should try to get a full night's rest while not wearing a tiara, at least once a week. I certainly plan to, and I was the one who had an expert system create the feature. If you're allowed to care for me, then I'm allowed to care for you. Fair?}

Alderney: {I can't argue with that. Nighty night!}

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She gave Alderney a parting hug as she paused to scribble a note, then unmuted the channel.

Kafana: {I've persuaded Alderney to log out and get some rest. She's gone, guys. Where are we at?}

Vessel-Tomsk: {We're half-way to High Master Giovanni's violin-crafting workshop.}

Wellington: {We'd just categorised systems into four groups by how predictable our brains find them, and by the survival advantage their predictability offers, and were half-way through to covering the evolutionary implications of that upon the apparent effectiveness of mathematics at modelling the systems we've come to think of as being important, and how effective we should expect them to appear to us.}

Bungo: {That's where your mind reached, Wellington. You left me back with the elves, wondering if people living in a world where they really can receive guidance from deities like Mor and Cov are just as likely to fool themselves into believing lies that they find convenient.}

Bulgaria pointed: {Talking of which, I was enjoying watching that gondolier over there.}

Vessel-Alderney: {I've just arrived. Hi folks. Why are we whispering?}

Time to take charge! She drew herself up straight.

Kafana: {Welcome, Alderney. Spirit-Alderney has left a note for you in your stash. We're whispering because some people keep talking about stuff Cov thinks would disturb most Covadan if they overheard us. Bungo, Wellington - maybe continue your conversations on The Burrow, where Spirit-Alderney can take part when she wakes up?}

She looked at the man Bulgaria was pointing to.

A skinny gondolier, whose thin ill-kempt hair emphasised the unfavourable size and angle of his ears, was brandishing a scrumpled piece of paper in the face of a well-fed bewigged merchant wearing a spotless pearl-buttoned uniform. The merchant looked distinctly unimpressed, and continued attaching a board showing the day's prices to the wall of his chandlery.

Without turning around to look at him, the chandler spoke: "Gonzo, be reasonable. I have to raise the price I charge for brass forcola. It wasn't cheap to get them enchanted to adapt to each gondolier's height and rowing-style and I've only a few left in stock. Naturally the cost of replacing them is going to be affected by the disaster at the TGM foundry, and I'm just passing that cost onto the end consumer. I'm not a noble charity, you know. Why should I be the one to absorb the loss and go bust?"

He finished screwing and carefully wiped all traces of having performed work from his hands and uniform, using a square of chamois that hung at his waist which he kept for that purpose.

Gonzo's voice was more grating than ingratiating: "Menaboni, you're a persnickety cheeseparer. You don't have to raise your prices now. The forcola you have in stock are ones you purchased before the disaster. And what about my expenses? I lost my gondola to a Nessie! Why should I absorb all the cost of insuring myself against an increased chance of attacks by Bel? Do your part. Sell me five dozen candles at trade, and I'll resell them for you to the fancy-pants Carnivale-crowd wanting to hire nicely lit gondolas from which to watch the parade float down the Canalasso."

A couple of Ruffo's Rats wandered over to watch. They were taking a break from inspecting the 'duty-paid' seals on cargos, but were still easy to identify by their pale blue padded gambesons

Menaboni: "Let you have them on credit? I'd rather trust a passing pigeon. I notice you didn't mention that your gondola was found intact, tied up outside the Lobster Pot. I bet the upstanding citizens visiting the Arsenal for Carnivale won't trust you either, and that those candles will end up in the hands of your pals at the Night Market. And if you think the price I'm charging for brass forcola is unreasonable, my competitors will be glad to sell you a traditional one carved from walnut. There's only a five week waiting list; you're free to take your custom to them - I won't miss the sight of your face."

Gonzo's face, with three missing teeth and a pointy red-veined nose, was admittedly on the homely side; however he showed no hesitation at invading Menaboni's personal space, standing close enough to leave flecks of spittle dripping off the pearl buttons.

Gonzo: "It's daylight robbery, that's what it is. They warned me about you; said you'd petitioned Lord Ruffo, asking for a tax to be put on windows, on account of natural sunlight being 'unfair competition' for candle-makers. I know my rights!"

Kafana realised that the paper held tightly in Gonzo's fist was a rolled up poster, which he was now whirling like a mace, nearly knocking the wig off Menaboni's head. Menaboni exploded in anger, hardly noticing his second far more non-descript customer as they thrust a handful of coins onto the counter next to the chandler before hurriedly walking away with their purchases.

Menaboni: "That's a lie; you take that back, or I'll ensure that every chandler in the Arsenal blackballs you for a year and a day. Rights...ha!"

Bulgaria quietly sighed in admiration: "What an artist."

Bungo sounded puzzled: "Menaboni?"

The bolshy derelict turned unrolling the poster into a performance, and started reading aloud the right to "justice" that he claimed he now had.

Bulgaria shook his head: "No, the irrepressible Gonzo. We better get out of here, before he starts calling for strike action. I get the feeling that he could keep this up for hours. He probably won't stop grabbing people's attention until his fellow smugglers have run rings around the Rats and finished stealing that poor chandler blind. Never mind the rope and candles in his store - he'll be lucky to be left with his wig."

He led them away from the canal-side Low Market, and into the backstreets of the Mercato district.

Wellington: "Poor? As part of my Trader profession, I've developed a vision skill that goes beyond Appraise; it shows the effect of the push of Smith's Invisible Hand upon the flow of goods, currency and ownership in a market. According to it, Menaboni is the wealthier of the two."

Vessel Alderney: "Interesting. It sounds similar to the flow of reputation, belief and rumour that gossip quests have been training me to see. According to that, Gonzo is the powerful one because of his control over how much wealth Menaboni has and, more subtly, how that wealth gets used."

Kafana thought about what she'd learned recently about healing and bauplans: "Maybe reality is a matter of perspective? Like a forcola that is worth what they both agree it is worth?"

Tomsk: "I don't like that. There's right, and there's wrong."

Bulgaria: "I also think some ways are better than others. In the same way that the Ránists say that behind every legend there's a single soul who has been reborn time and time; and some songs telling the story more accurately than others. But they also say that all those songs, even the most inaccurate ones, contribute towards shaping that soul's destiny in its next reincarnation, if the the song if powerful enough to spread and influence people's beliefs."

Bungo: "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

Vessel Alderney: "What are Elves? Is Bulgaria one of them?"

Bungo: "Yes." Wellington: "No." Kafana: "Who can say?"

Vessel Tomsk, sounding more like a captain interrogating a suspect with every word: "Bulgaria? What do you have to say?"

Bulgaria, still carrying the heavy load of wrapped timbers, gave them a subservient bow.

Bulgaria: "Gentle Lords and Ladies, I'm please to say... we have arrived!"

He placed his burden by the entrance to Giovanni's workshop and held out an expectant hand as he stood next to it like a good stevedore.

She almost felt guilty on seeing his sour expression when none of them tipped him as they walked inside.

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