Free Fool's Experiments by Edward M Lerner Page B

everpresent labyrinth. It soon localized its position to a spot in its inherited map.
    Position and topology imply path.
    The traveler sped without misstep through the maze to the farthest region ever attained by any of its ancestors. That location, it turned out, was very near the goal.
    For the first time, a descendant of that original, primitive entity successfully traversed an elementary maze.
    There was never any doubt that this being would be chosen to reproduce.
    The ability to run the maze bred true; three generations later, all descendants of that first successful creature could quickly solve the labyrinth. Differences did exist in the time required to navigate the well-trodden path, due to the varying computational techniques employed. They had, after all, been spawned via externally enforced mutation.
    Generation four came into being in a new maze. The new entities could not surmount the solution encoded in their very fabric, the memorized certainty of the structure of a suddenly vanished universe. Butting futilely against the first unexpected barrier, not one turned into the adjacent open passage.
    Just as a human may retain a useless appendix, some entities contained the vestigial, but deactivated, capability to blunder about randomly, to explore, to construct a bit map of their suddenly unknown surroundings. In the new maze-universe, this obsolete skill became, once more, essential.
    A Power infinitely above the beings mutated them, then mutated them again. And again. In the tenth generation after the move to the second maze, a random mutation reactivated an entity's vestigial mapping talent.
    In the twenty-third generation after the move, an entity solved the new maze.
    In the twenty-eighth generation after the move, 811 of 1,000 beings successfully ran the maze.
    The next generation, again 1,000 strong, came into existence in yet another maze-universe. Twelve of the thousand successfully navigated this third labyrinth.
    The Power that had built the beings and the universes looked down at its creations and saw that they were good.
     
    The generations ran each new maze faster than the last, despite the steadily increasing complexity of the labyrinths. Several times, consecutive trials yielded all ten allowed winners before the five-minute timer had elapsed. Back-to-back successes came ever more frequently, and then were joined by occasional triplets.
    Before long, a generation with fewer than ten winners became the exception. The average length of a string of successes grew to four, then five, then six. As the ever-more- capable entities raced through each new maze, the duration of the average trial became ever shorter, fell to scant seconds.
    The Power that watched over the labyrinths had its own innate logic. Upon the tenth consecutive occurrence of a foreshortened trial, it was clear that a milestone had been reached. Evolution had wrought a true-breeding algorithm for solving any two-dimensional maze.
    It was time for the investigation to advance into its next phase.
     

 
CHAPTER 12
     
    Fran Feinman nervously twisted a lock of her straight black hair but otherwise showed no signs of her husband's recent death. As though worried what impression her casual garb and sunny living room conveyed, she tipped her head toward the chaotic family room. "It's hard to retain a funereal air around that. I thank God for the twins every day."
    "I'm so glad the boys are doing okay," Cheryl said. Her words sounded empty, but she never knew what to say on a condolence call. It suddenly struck Cheryl: She hadn't talked with Fran in weeks. Some friend I am.
    Cheryl was more flustered for coming with an ulterior motive. "Fran, I meant what I said at Ben's memorial service. I'll be happy to take Josh and Scott for a weekend. Whenever you'd like."
    "Thanks, but I don't think any of us is ready yet. Going to school and work is tough enough."
    They listened for a while to the boys' play. Doug found his tongue first. "Mrs.