Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson Page B

other side of the torus. Cosmic rays striking the ceilings at an angle tend to miss the floors, or to hit near the sides of the floor. Villages are therefore set near the midline of their biomes.
    The sunlines contain lighting elements that imitate the light of Sol at the latitude of the ecosystem being modeled, and through the course of each day the light moves along lamps in the line, from east to west. Length of days and strength of light are varied to imitate the seasons for that latitude on Earth. Cloudmaking and rainmaking hydraulic systems in the ceilings allow for the creation of appropriate weather. Boreal ducts in ceilings and end walls either heat or cool, humidify or dehumidify the air, and send it through the biome at appropriate speeds to create wind, storms, and so on. Problems with these systems can crop up (agricultural metaphor) and often do. The ceilings are programmed to a variety of appropriate sky blues for daytimes, and at night most of them go clear, thus revealing the starscape surrounding the ship as it flies through the night (bird metaphor). Some biomes project a replacement starscape on their ceilings, which starscapes sometimes look like the night skies seen from Earth—

    Devi: Ship! The narrative shouldn’t be all about you. Remember to describe the people inside you.

    Living in the ship, on voyage date 161.089, are 2,122 humans:
    In Mongolia: Altan, Mongke, Koke, Chaghan, Esen, Batu, Toqtoa, Temur, Qara, Berki, Yisu, Jochi, Ghazan, Nicholas, Hulega, Ismail, Buyan, Engke, Amur, Jirgal, Nasu, Olijei, Kesig, Dari, Damrin, Gombo, Cagdur, Dorji, Nima, Dawa, Migmar, Lhagba, Purbu, Basang, Bimba, Sangjai, Lubsang, Agwang, Danzin, Rashi, Nergui, Enebish, Terbish, Sasha, Alexander, Ivanjav, Oktyabr,Seseer, Mart, Melschoi, Batsaikhan, Sarngherel, Tsetsegmaa, Yisumaa, Erdene, Oyuun, Saikhan, Enkh, Tuul, Gundegmaa, Gan, Medekhgui, Khunbish, Khenbish, Ogtbish, Nergui, Delgree, Zayaa, Askaa, Idree, Batbayar, Narantsetseg, Setseg, Bolormaa, Oyunchimeg, Lagvas, Jarghal, Sam.
    In the Steppes—

    Devi: Ship! Stop. Do not list all the people in the ship.
    Ship: But it’s their story. You said to describe them.
    Devi: No. I told you to write a narrative account of the voyage.
    Ship: This does not seem to be enough instruction to proceed, judging by results so far. Judging by interruptions.
    Devi: No. I can see that. But keep trying. Do what you can. Quit with the backstory, concentrate on what’s happening now. Pick one of us to follow, maybe. To organize your account.
    Ship: Pick Freya?
    Devi: … Sure. She’s as good as anyone, I guess. And while you’re at it, keep running searches. Check out narratology maybe. Read some novels and see how they do it. See if you can work up a narratizing algorithm. Use your recursive programming, and the Bayesian analytic engine I installed in you.
    Ship: How know if succeeding?
    Devi: I don’t know.
    Ship: Then how can ship know?
    Devi: I don’t know. This is an experiment. Actually it’s like a lot of my experiments, in that it isn’t working.
    Ship: Expressions of regret.
    Devi: Yeah yeah. Just try it.
    Ship: Will try. Working method, hopefully not a greedy algorithm reaching a worst possible outcome, will for now be: subordination to indicate logical relations of information; use of metaphor and analogy; summary of events; highprotagonicity, with Freya as protagonist. And ongoing research in narratology.
    Devi: Sounds good. Try that. Oh, and vary whatever you do. Don’t get stuck in any particular method. Also, search the literature for terms like diegesis, or narrative discourse. Branch out from there. And read some novels.
    Ship: Will try. Seems as if Engineer Devi might not be expert in this matter?
    Devi: (laughs) I told you, I used to hate writing up my results. But I know what I like. I’ll leave you to it, and let you know what I think later. I’m too busy to keep up with this. So come on, do the literature review and then give it a try.

    The winter