Free Recursion by Tony Ballantyne

The CEO turned to smile and pose for pictures. She was wishing she had worn a thicker suit. Okay, so they had deliberately scheduled the activation ceremony for early morning when it was cooler, but the Nullarbor plain was meant to be hot , for fuck’s sake. She had to clench her teeth tightly to stop them chattering as she smiled.
    Eventually, the photo call was over, and she could head back between the sparse bushes, the reddish sand scratching at her soft blue leather shoes, and enter the presentation area. Someone handed her a glass of thin champagne and she took it with a smile. “Get me a fucking cup of hot fucking coffee,” she muttered under her breath.
    She held up the glass and smiled brightly. “Good morning. Today, we can all feel privileged to be attending this incredible and historic event. Today, we can look back over five thousand years of human history, and reach out with the finest sieve imaginable, and garner the very best of human achievement, bringing it together here in humankind’s mightiest achievement to date. Using the very latest in self-replicating technology, we…”
    The crowd stirred: she was losing them. Fuck the speechwriters, what did they know? She hadn’t got to her present position by rehashing other people’s words. She did what she knew best and went with her instincts.
    “Ah, to hell with it,” she said. “You know what this is about. Let’s build a city.”
    She raised her glass and took a sip. Out on the arid soil the machines began to stir. The assembled crowd drank their thin champagne and looked on at the unfolding scene: five cylinders scratching in the sand. How could the start of something so momentous appear so dull? It didn’t seem right at all.
    Soon they began to drift away, bored when they realized nothing much was going to happen out there. As they did so, the engineers and the workforce moved in. The sun rose further into the empty sky, beating down harshly on the minuscule activity below. Minuscule activity at the moment, maybe, but growing all the time as the machines began to reproduce.
     
    A huge metal tree marked the Source. Pastel lights moved back and forth over it, dramatically picking out its colossal shape in the clear night. The trunk was composed of five thick strands twisting around and in and out of each other to form a thick plait. Four of the strands were a dull grey; the fifth, bright silver. The trunk itself emerged from the flagged ground and rose forty or fifty meters into the air before untwisting itself to spread its five branches high over Constantine and Mary’s heads. These five branches then each split successively into two and four and then eight strands, blossoming into a huge, feathery, treelike effect.
    The harsh white stars twinkled at them through the sharp outer branches. Constantine was so taken by the sight, he felt as if he had forgotten to breathe.
    “It’s like something out of a fairy tale,” he whispered.
    Mary nodded dreamily, and Constantine continued. “We walk around this place and we think we know what it is, but it’s too big to hold in the mind. We need something like this to remind us what this place is all about. Thank you for bringing me here, Mary. Thank you.”
    Mary swayed slightly as she gazed upward into the air.
    “In memory of the five original VNMs that were used to construct Stonebreak,” she said. “I’ve heard that the fractal effect at the end of the branches was incredibly difficult to achieve back then.”
    Constantine merely nodded.
    “Don’t you notice anything odd about the branch directly above us?” asked Mary.
    He looked up to where searchlights flitted back and forth, causing the shadows cast by the metal twigs to dance like leaves blowing in the wind. He stared at the branch above him. It did look strange, now that Mary mentioned it. Not misshapen as such, not even melted…He searched for the right word.
    “It looks odd. It reminds me of something.”
    She didn’t answer