mortal is as mortal does

[imeanforever]

Promise is looking for dewdrops. She has just learned to candy them herself - it's not hard, if she does it in her own tree instead of in the field. So she's brushing the droplets into a little wooden cup. They blend together but she can separate them out again later.

Comments

[ending_of]

"It is an infinite plane divided into two sections by an infinite straight cliff. Newcomers who are judged very unlikely to make trouble for one another are sent to the upper half, everyone else to the lower. Every person is supplied with a residence, where new instantiations of destroyed objects periodically appear. I am pleased with the residential and transit systems, and with the rule I formulated to prevent dust from accumulating on surfaces. My domain has existed for a very long time and there would be a considerable amount of dust if it were allowed to accumulate."

[imeanforever]

"Why do you sort people like that?"

[ending_of]

"At the time I implemented that change, it was still possible for people to come to me with complaints, and someone suggested it as a way to separate out a section of the population who would be unlikely to have any complaints to bring. It worked very well for that purpose."

[imeanforever]

"But don't the rest of them still have complaints occasionally?"

[ending_of]

"Yes, but those complaints are dealt with before they reach me."

[imeanforever]

"Oh. How?"

[ending_of]

"I did not principally design the system and do not pay attention to the details," she says. "If you would like to learn more, you can travel to my domain when I return."

[imeanforever]

"You don't pay attention? Why?"

[ending_of]

"The daily activities of residents in my domain do not interest me very much. Do they interest you?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, yes. They're going on forever, after all."

[ending_of]

"You may investigate them as much as you like."

[imeanforever]

"I might want to do this before you add more mortals than you may already have to it."

[ending_of]

"The inhabitants of your mortal world are unlikely to be woken and sorted very soon after I begin collecting them," she says. "The backlog is large."

[imeanforever]

"If I don't like how your dead mortals are being managed can I go to you with complaints?"

[ending_of]

"It has been a very long time since the current system was designed. I will not be annoyed if you propose alternatives."

[imeanforever]

"How likely are you to implement them?"

[ending_of]

"I will implement them if they seem like improvements. I will not implement them if they seem likely to annoy me."

[imeanforever]

"All right. I'll go start a second gate to your world, but I need a geographic feature to aim at."

[ending_of]

"My tower is the most distinctive feature of my domain. It is the tallest object on the plane by a wide margin."

[imeanforever]

"That will do."

Promise goes out again. Promise comes back again.

"That one settled right away, compatible harmonics," she says. "We could go there now and come back to check the other gate later."

[ending_of]

The administrator thinks about this, and then stands up. (Ugh. Walking.)

[imeanforever]

Promise shows her to the gate and leads her through. It goes to the ground at the base of the tower.

[ending_of]

Now they are not there anymore; they are instead standing in the room at the top of the tower, surrounded on all sides by a single curved glass window. There is an armchair off to one side. The administrator sits in it.

"What hazards are you subject to?" she wonders.

[imeanforever]

"What do you mean?"

[ending_of]

"Would it be inconvenient for you if a resident here learned your name, in the same way that it would have been inconvenient for me if a resident of your world gained access to mine in some way? I would not like you to be inconvenienced in that way while you are here."