Replica Earth

Avid climbers Joe and Richard were used to solitude, but they got more than they could handle.

They were somewhere above the Lhotse Face, not far below Camp III, when the storm hit. Incredible gusts of wind whipped up loose particles of ice, and visibility reduced to near-zero.

“We’ll have to wait it out!” Joe shouted.

“We’ll die if we stay here.” Richard replied, his voice barely audible above the incredible roar of the wind.

The ledge was barely wide enough to stop them slithering straight down the side of the mountain.

“We can’t even see where we’re going.” said Joe. “We’ve no choice.”

They managed to chip away a few inches of ice with their ice axes, then they crawled into the bivouac sacks, huddled together, shivering.

They were exhausted, and even the storm around them seemed somehow remote to their oxygen-starved brains.

When the sun began to set and they were still stuck on the ledge, Joe knew they were probably going to die.

“It’ll be better in the morning.” Joe shouted.

Richard made no reply.

“I said, it’ll be better in the morning.” he said, as loudly as he could manage.

Richard made an indistinct noise.

“What?” said Joe.

No reply.

“What did you say?” shouted Joe.

Richard made a noise again, longer this time.

Joe thought he said, “Where are we?”

At some point during the night, Joe awoke to find Richard had vanished. He tried to feel around in the darkness, hoping he’d somehow just moved a little further away—although he knew there was really nowhere to go—and realised his glove had somehow come off and his hand had frozen solid. He vaguely remembered the glove coming off. He had been trying to drill an ice screw into the ice, but it had hit solid rock. Or was that yesterday? Or the day before?

“My feet are probably frozen too.” he thought.

He closed his eyes, past caring, and went to sleep.

Two years earlier they had been sitting in a bar near a hiking trail on the wide rocky moors near Sheffield.

“It’s the ultimate challenge.” said Richard enthusiastically.

“It’s not the ultimate challenge and I’m not doing it, mate.” said Joe. “There are mountains in Scotland that are more technically challenging than Everest.”

“No-one’s heard of those mountains.” said Richard. “Everyone’s heard of Everest. It’s not about the technical challenge. It’s about being able to endure all the way to the top of the highest mountain in the world.”

“Everyone has heard of it, that’s part of the problem. It’s a tourist trap. You could die waiting in line on the South Col, standing there like an idiot with fifty other idiots, half of them barely able to climb.”

“Imagine the views.”

“Imagine the frozen human waste, the dead bodies, the litter.”

“Doesn’t sound any worse than Sheffield.”

“Do you realise, there’s a one in ten chance you won’t make it back down again? And if you do make it back down, high chance you’ll have lost toes or worse to frostbite. No way. I’m not interested. We should have a go at Cho Oyu.”

“Cho what?”

“It’s the sixth highest mountain in the world. It’s a lot nicer than Everest. Anyway, where would we get the money to climb Everest? It costs 20,000 quid or something.”

“Actually my grandfather just died and left me his house.”

“Your grandfather died?” said Joe. “I’m sorry Richard. You didn’t mention it.”

“Don’t be sorry. He never had anything to do with me. I think I last saw him when I was six. My mother got me to write a letter to him once but he never replied.”

“You didn’t know your own grandfather?”

“No, that’s what I’m telling you. My mother didn’t get on with him. Cranky old geezer, apparently. Bit of a hermit. He was attacked by someone while he was out in the town. They beat him up and took his wallet. Left him to die. Police still haven’t caught whoever did it.”

“That’s horrible.” said Joe. “Do they have any leads?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“No idea.” said Richard. “Actually I was wondering if you’d fancy coming to have a look at his house with me on Tuesday. I’m going to have to go and sort it all out.”

“Yeah, I would do but I’m washing my hair on Tuesday.”

“Come on, it’ll be a laugh.”

“Sounds almost as much fun as having my feet frozen off on Everest.”

“Just for a couple of hours. It’s over near Hope Valley somewhere. We can have a drink afterwards. Or before. There are some nice old pubs round there.”

Joe laughed.

“Hey, see that girl over there?” said Joe.

Richard turned to look.

“The one with the red top?”

“Yeah. I think she likes you. She keeps looking at you.”

“She probably feels sorry for me, stuck talking to a deranged old codger like you.”

“Why don’t you go and talk to her? A woman’s what you need. It’s been two years, mate. No wonder you’re getting obsessed with tourist traps.”

“You seem to have confused me for someone who marches up to random women in bars and talks to them.”

“Why not? She’s alone. Her friend’s in the queue.”

“I’m not doing it. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Just say hello.”

“Why don’t you talk to her? You can’t be single forever just because it didn’t work out with Charlotte.”

“She’s half my age. Too young for me.”

“She’s not half your age, you idiot. She’s at least thirty.”

“The formula’s half your age plus seven. I’m fifty. Half is twenty-five. Plus seven, that’s thirty-two. I need someone who’s at least thirty-two. Anyway I’m better off alone. But you, she’s perfect for you. What are you now? Thirty-four? Go and say hello.”

“No.”

“Tell you what, if you talk to her I’ll come and help you with your grandfather’s place.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Richard looked nervously back towards the woman, who smiled.

“She smiled at me.” he said.

“I know she bloody did.” said Joe. “Go!”

“You’ll come to my grandfather’s place on Tuesday.”

“Absolutely.”

Richard stood up and walked over to the table where the woman sat.

“Hello.” he said.

“Hello.” she said, smiling.

“Do you … a-are you …I-I like your bracelet.” he said.

“Do you like my wedding ring too?” she said, holding her hand up.

Richard gave a ghastly hollow laugh.

“Go and tell Joe he’s an idiot.” she said. “Nice to finally meet you, Richard. I’m Claire. Married.”

“Nice to meet you too.” said Richard. “I’m on it right now.”

He returned to the table where Joe sat laughing.

“You cretin!” he said.

“Quite the live wire, my niece, don’t you think?” said Joe. “You know, what I don’t understand, is how a man who can happily hang off a cliff face by his fingertips can be so awful at talking to women.”

“I’m not awful at talking to women.” said Richard. “Just the ones I don’t know.”

“Which is most of them.”

On Tuesday they took Joe’s car and drove along the Snake Pass and into the Hope Valley, turning onto an obscure country lane somewhere around Hathersage.

“That surely can’t be it.” said Joe.

“It can’t be.” said Richard.

The house they were approaching was impressively grand; an enormous stone farmhouse perched on the side of a hill , surrounded by a low black metal fence.

“I think that is it.” said Richard.

“How did he have the money for this? Did he inherit it or what?”

“I think my mother said something about him being involved in the stock market at one point.”

They parked the car on a wide gravelly area in front of the house. Even the front door was surprisingly ornate, made of dark wood with gargoyle faces carved into it.

Richard unlocked the door and they went inside.

“Stock market, you say?” said Joe.

They were standing in a room at the front, filled with wood panelling and expensive-looking paintings.

“Apparently.” said Richard.

Inside, the house seemed surprisingly well-kept.

“Are you sure he lived here by himself?” said Joe.

“That’s what the solicitor told me.” said Richard.

“The place is huge. He must have spent all his time cleaning it and repairing stuff if it’s all like this.”

“Yeah. Maybe he had servants or something. You know, like a maid and a gardener.”

“Servants!” said Joe, laughing.

“What’s that?” said Richard.

“What?”

“Listen.”

There was a faint clip-clopping sound, like a tiny horse or a large dog, and it seemed to be growing gradually louder.

They walked towards it cautiously, following a long hallway. The hallway opened out into an enormous dining room, containing a long wooden table and several large leather easy-chairs. A curious six-legged machine was clip-clopping around the room on rubber feet, dusting the walls.

“What in the name of all that is holy is that?” said Joe.

As they watched, the legs extended themselves and the machine began dusting the chairs around the table using a long flexible tube with a soft furry duster rotating at the end of it.

“Well, it’s a cleaning robot.” said Richard.

“I can see that.” said Joe. “Where did he get it? Have you ever seen a thing like that in your life before?”

“Never. I think maybe he made it.”

“Made it?”

“He was some kind of amateur scientist. Mum said that’s why he didn’t talk to us. He only had time for his work. Not interested in people.”

“If you told me this last week I wouldn’t have been so reluctant to come. I thought we were just going to be sorting through mould-covered photograph albums and drawers fully of manky old underwear.”

“Honestly, I thought so too.”

“If he made this thing, there must be a workshop round here somewhere.”

“Let’s have a look.”

They left the room by a door at the far-end, Joe looking back in astonishment at the strange robot. As he watched, it crouched back on its rear legs like a cat and sprang onto the table and began dusting it.

“Creepy as hell.” said Joe.

“Ingenious but definitely creepy.”

They explored the entire house, and the workshop was nowhere to be found.

“We haven’t checked the cellar.” said Joe.

“Door’s locked.” said Richard.

“Then we’d better find the key”

For another hour they combed the house looking for the key to the cellar door. No key was to be found. They went and stood in front of the door, glaring at it in frustration. It was a large wooden door and it was in the hall next to the kitchen.

“I say we smash it in with a hammer.” said Joe.

Richard twisted the doorknob again.

“Maybe he didn’t use it. Maybe he made his gizmos somewhere else.”

“Where?” said Joe. “There aren’t any other buildings out there.”

For a joke, Joe held out his palms as if praying to an unseen deity and shouted “Open sesame!”

The door unlocked and creaked open.

“No way.” he said.

“Voice activated.” said Richard. “Of course.”

The cellar was disappointingly empty. The walls consisted of unpainted stone and it contained only a wine rack, an easy-chair with a blanket draped over it, and a tall square plinth opposite the chair, on top of which stood a grey sphere the size of a football. The room was lit dimly by recessed lights.

“This is getting weirder by the minute.” said Joe, peering at the sphere. “What do you suppose the purpose of this thing is?”

He rapped it gently with his knuckles and said “Hello?”

The sphere glowed in a soft green and answered “Hello.” in a deep, resonant voice.

“It’s lucky I brought you.” said Richard, gazing in wonder at the sphere.

“What are you for?” Joe said to the sphere.

“I am an analogue computing device.” said the sphere.

“What’s your name?” asked Joe, smiling.

“My name is Sirius.”

Joe and Richard looked at each other in astonishment.

“Who made you?” asked Richard.

“Your grandfather, Aubrey Smith, made me, Richard.” said Sirius.

“How do you know my name?”

“I am able to utilise many sources of information, including the structure of your DNA.”

“How did his grandfather make you?” asked Joe.

“I am the fifteenth iteration of Aubrey’s attempts to create a powerful general-purpose analog computation device. The first fourteen devices were designed by Aubrey after extensive experimentation. I was designed by the fourteenth device, under instruction from Aubrey. Would you like more details of his research protocols?”

“No, you’re all right.” said Joe. “It’s enough.”

“What can you actually do?” said Richard.

“The limits of my powers have never been determined.” said Sirius. “My understanding of the laws of physics vastly transcends that of humanity.”

“It’s a genie.” said Joe. “He made a ruddy genie.”

Richard paced back and forth, thinking.

“Sirius,” he said, “do you know how my grandfather died?”

“Your grandfather was beaten to death while walking in Sheffield town centre in the evening.” said Sirius.

“Who killed him?”

“Would you like to see footage of his death?”

“You can do that?”

“Yes, Richard. I am able to monitor all events that occur on the Earth.”

“Show me.” said Richard.

“This isn’t a good idea.” said Joe. “Let’s think about this for a minute.”

By the side of the wine rack, a hologram appeared. It was as if Aubrey Smith was actually there, except he was half his usual size, slightly transparent and, when he walked, he remained in one spot. Behind him, shops and other pedestrians passed by. It was some time in the evening and almost dark.

“Rich, you don’t want to see this, mate. Let’s stop it.”

Richard held up a hand.

“I need to see it.” he said.

Aubrey turned off the main street and into an alleyway.

“I know that alley.” said Richard. “It’s a shortcut to the bus station.”

A rough-looking man with a ragged beard suddenly jumped in front of Aubrey and began asking for money.

Aubrey carried on walking and the man pushed him. He staggered backwards.

“I don’t have any money.” he said.

“What’s in your pockets?” said the man.

“I don’t have anything.” said Aubrey, and he tried to walk back the way he had come.

The man punched him viciously from behind, and he fell over.

Then, in front of their very eyes, the man beat Aubrey brutally. They continued to watch as the man ran off, leaving Aubrey moaning. After five horrible minutes, a small gang of boys found him and phoned for an ambulance.

“Fast forward it to when the ambulance arrives.” said Richard, his voice cracking slightly with anger and pity.

The image went into fastforward, Aubrey barely moving, until an ambulance arrived and paramedics began to work on him.

“He’s gone.” said a paramedic.

“Enough.” said Richard. “Shut it down. That monster murdered him for no reason.”

“It happens.” said Joe. “He was probably on drugs or out of his mind. You shouldn’t have watched it.”

“Sirius, where is that man now?” said Richard.

“Would you like me to show you?” said Sirius.

“Yes.” said Richard.

A hologram appeared of the man sitting on a bench with another man. They were drinking beer, laughing and joking.

“You can show us present and past events.” said Richard. “Are you able to alter present events?”

“Yes, Richard.” said Sirius.

“No.” said Joe. “Stop this now, Richard. Seriously. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“He deserves to die.” said Richard.

“Have the computer send video footage to the police. You’re not judge and jury. If you do anything to him you’ll live with it for the rest of your life.”

But Richard wasn’t listening. His face was pale and his jaw set.

“Kill him.” said Richard.

The expression on the man’s face suddenly changed and became blank, and he rose to his feet and walked towards the road.

“Sirius, stop!” shouted Joe.

“I follow only Richard’s orders.” said Sirius.

The man suddenly ran out in front of a car. The car hit him and he was thrown several meters, landing in a crumpled heap on the road in front, blood pouring from his head.

A man and a woman got out of the car, horrified expressions on their faces.

“There’s children sitting in the back.” said Joe.

“What have I done?” said Richard.

The woman ran to the lifeless body of Aubrey’s murderer while the man took out a phone and called an ambulance. The two children sitting in the back of the car were crying.

“Switch it off!” shouted Richard.

The image faded.

The next day they sat in a pub in Sheffield, drinking beer. Richard looked guilt-stricken and miserable.

“We need to destroy that thing.” said Joe. “It’s too powerful. No-one should have that much power.”

“We will.” said Richard. “We’ll destroy it. Just give me some time.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know. Oh God. I keep thinking about those children in the car. And the woman who was driving.”

“They’ll get over it. It wasn’t their fault. The computer made him jump out in front of the car. There was no way they could have stopped in time.”

Richard stared into space.

“But what if we could use it for good?” he said. “What if it can cure people of diseases, bring about world peace, end hunger, all that stuff?”

“You saw what it did.” said Joe. “Who would you trust to handle a machine like that? I wouldn’t even trust myself with that kind of power.”

They argued back and forth for two hours, Richard alternating between guilt at what he had made the machine do, and fascination with the possibilities of the machine. Joe was adamant that the machine should be destroyed.

The following day, Richard went alone to his grandfather’s house. In the cellar, he sat in the chair opposite the sphere.

“Sirius.” he said.

“Hello Richard.” said Sirius.

“I want to know something.”

“Tell me, Richard.”

“Why didn’t my grandfather use you to protect himself? Why did he let himself get into danger?”

“Your grandfather was a devout Christian, Richard. He believed that only God had the right to decide when he should die. He was absolutely against using my powers to prolong his life.”

“Silly old fool.” said Richard. Then he asked, “Does God exist?”

“I am a master of physics, Richard, not metaphysics. I can tell you how the universe works, but I can’t tell you why it exists.”

Richard nodded thoughtfully.

“What was my grandfather working on when he died? What did he do with his time?”

“He liked to walk in the town.” said Sirius.

Richard laughed bitterly.

“And on the hills.” Sirius continued. “He also spent a great deal of time terraforming a distant planet.”

“What?” said Richard.

“Aubrey used my powers to turn a distant planet into a replica of the Earth, but without the ugliness that humans have created.”

“How did he get there?” said Richard incredulously.

“He rarely visited the terraformed planet himself, but when he did, he used a spacetime portal.”

“How does that work?”

“I can open a portal here in the cellar which will allow you to step directly onto the terraformed planet.”

“He what?” said Joe.

Again they sat in the bar in Sheffield.

“He built a replica of the Earth and you can visit it via a portal in the cellar.”

“This is getting completely insane.” said Joe.

“Joe, we should open the portal and at least look at what he’s done. I need to know if it’s all true.”

“When?” said Joe.

“Now.” said Richard. “Let’s go.”

“I’ve literally just started on this beer.”

“It’s a portal to another Earth, Joe. Screw the beer.”

“You don’t look so good.” said Joe.

“I’m not sleeping well.”

“We should just destroy Sirius.”

“Not until we’ve seen this portal, at least.”

Joe sighed. Then he shook his head.

“OK then. You can drive.”

He drank the remaining three-quarters of the glass of beer without putting the glass down once, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Let’s go.” he said.

Less than an hour later they stood once again in the cellar in the old house. The sun was going down and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky.

“Am I doing it?” said Richard.

“Do it then.” said Joe.

“Sirius,” said Richard, “can the portal you mentioned be opened safely, without risking our lives?”

“Yes, Richard.” said Sirius.

“Then open it.”

The wall of the cellar seemed to flicker, then vanish altogether. It was replaced by a set of stone steps that led up into, seemingly, the field next to the house.

“Let’s go and take a look then.” said Joe.

They walked up the steps and found themselves outside the old house.

“This is supposed to be a replica of the Earth?” said Joe.

“Look at the stars.” said Richard.

“What about them?”

“They’re all different. All the usual constellations aren’t there.”

“If you say so.” said Joe. “I don’t know one star from another.”

“Let’s go to the front and see if my car’s there.”

They went to the front of the house and found, instead of their own car, a little electric convertible. It was unlocked, and they drove it around in circles just for fun.

“I’m getting sick.” said Joe. “Let’s go and see if the house is the same inside. I want to know if there’s another Sirius in this alleged replica.”

They stopped and went back into the house and into the cellar, but now the cellar was empty apart from the wine rack.

“OK, this is either a very clever trick or else it really is a replica.” said Joe.

“I’m telling you, it’s a replica.” said Richard. “The stars are entirely different. Look, let’s go back through the portal and look at the stars there. I’ll prove it to you.”

But when they looked for the stone steps, they weren’t there.

“Your portal’s bloody well closed.” said Joe.

“No, no … this can’t be.” said Richard.

For an hour they searched for some way to reopen the portal, to no avail.

“Let’s go back into Sheffield.” said Joe. “I won’t believe it’s a replica till I’ve seen what a city’s like. Anyway, if it is a replica, we’d be better off searching when it’s light. Richard?”

Richard was staring into space, a troubled expression on his face.

“Yeah.” he said, finally. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

They got into the convertible and drove back along the Snake Pass. As they got closer and closer to the city, the evidence that were indeed now on a replica of Planet Earth became irrefutable.

Where previously the streets had been lined with buildings, now most of the buildings were gone, replaced with grass, with flowers, trees, or with other buildings that often bore no resemblance to the original.

“Why has he replicated some bits of it and not others?” said Joe, who by now was also pale-faced and frowning.

“Don’t you see what he’s done?” said Richard. “He’s got rid of anything he considered ugly. He’s only replicated things he considered nice.”

“Most of Sheffield must be gone, then.” said Joe.

As they approached the city, they realised Joe wasn’t wrong. Most of the buildings that stood there on the Earth, weren’t present at all on the replica. However, many of the road signs still stood there, and a sufficient quantity of buildings to figure out where they were, or where they would be, had they been on the Earth.

The roads were eerily silent and many of the road markings missing. They passed not a single other car, except for a few cars parked in driveways, but when they went to see whether their owners were at home, they found only empty houses with no trace of recent human occupation.

A great deal of the centre of Sheffield consisted largely of gardens and footpaths. The roads were still there, devoid of markings, and in some areas most of the original buildings still stood, but shorn of the signs that had originally advertised the presence of shops and banks.

“I want to see if my house is still there.” said Joe.

“Your house is a modern eyesore.” said Richard. “Very little chance of it being here.”

“Fair point. I want to see anyway.”

Joe’s house was indeed absent, as was the house that Richard rented.

“Almost everything built after about 1900 is just gone.” said Richard.

“I must admit, it looks a lot nicer, but it gives me the shivers.”

“No people.” said Richard. “Not a single soul.

“We’re going to have to find somewhere to crash for the night.”

“Take your pick.” said Richard.

“Wait, stop.”

Richard stopped the car.

“That’s a food shop.” said Joe, pointing.

They left the car stopped in the middle of the road and went to look.

The lights of the shop were on, and inside they found all the goods that might be expected in a small luxury mini-market. Where a food counter or bakery section might be expected were instead counters containing a selection of baked goods.

“These are fresh!” said Joe, picking up a pasty and biting into it. “Not only fresh, but warm.”

“Then there must be people here.” said Richard, and he began to shout.

“Hello! Hello?”

He stopped when a hovering robot appeared carrying a tray of sausage rolls and carefully transferred them onto the counter with mechanical arms, before flying off into a room in the back.

“Guess not.” said Joe. “I’ve got to see this.”

They followed the robot into the room. Inside the back room were three different kinds of robot, all preparing food. The robots were somehow able to fly silently through the air, carrying out their tasks.

“Why make food if there’s no-one here to eat it?” said Richard.

“It’s as if he was planning to bring people here and he didn’t get round to it.” said Joe.

That night they slept in adjacent rooms in a furnished house that, like all the other houses, appeared to have never been actually inhabited.

The next day they went back to Richard’s grandfather’s house and searched for the steps, or for some way to reactivate the portal. They found neither.

“People must be searching for us by now.” said Richard.

“They won’t find us.” said Joe.

For a month they searched every nook and cranny of the old house, becoming intimately familiar with it.

Periodically, flying robots appeared and tended to the garden, and a single cleaning robot methodically cleaned the insides of the house, but there was no trace of Sirius, nor anything like him.

“We should smash up one of these robots, see how they work.” said Richard one day.

“OK.” said Joe. “Which one?”

“The cleaner would be easiest. We’re going to have to widen our search anyway. No point spending our whole lives here. Doesn’t matter if the place isn’t cleaned.”

They approached the six-legged cleaning robot nervously, Joe carrying a rock from the garden.

“Let’s hope it can’t defend itself.” said Joe. “I dread to think what it might do if it can.”

Richard shuddered. They had seen the robot spring from the floor to the table and it appeared blessed with astonishing dexterity. If it wanted to kill them, it probably could.

Joe brought the rock down on it as hard as he could, and it made a soft whirring noise and remained still.

“Smash it more.” said Richard.

Joe smashed it with the rock until three of its legs came off and its metal case split open. They used tools they found in the attic to pry it open further.

“It looks more like an animal than a machine.” said Joe, puzzled.

The robot’s insides consisted largely of a white waxy substance. In place of muscles it had rubbery tendons, connected by thin rubbery black wires to the waxy substance. The only interior part of it that really looked mechanical was a small grey cylinder the size of a thumb. They smashed it open, hoping it wasn’t radioactive, and inside found only a strange gel laced with thin wires.

Richard sat down on one of the chairs in the dining hall, stretching his arms and rubbing his neck.

“We’re going to have to broaden the search.” he said. “If my grandfather left another Sirius or another portal on this planet, it has to be somewhere else. Maybe in the town. There’s nothing to be gained from smashing up robots.”

“We’ll start tomorrow.” said Joe.

They searched the whole of the replica Sheffield, then drove to London on eerily-silent roads and searched there. The motorways were absent entirely, but lesser roads existed, minus their markings.

London had been given the same treatment as Sheffield. Almost all modern buildings were missing; only old and classically beautiful buildings had been replicated. Free food could be found everywhere, as if Aubrey had anticipated a population of millions that had never arrived.

Six months after their arrival on the replica Earth, they crossed the English Channel on an electric boat, or at least they assumed that it was powered by electricity, and began to explore the European Continent.

They were somewhere in Serbia, growing ever-more dispirited, when Richard announced that he’d been doing some thinking. By then they had spent a whole year on the strange planet, and they had seen four seasons come and go.

“Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.” he said. “My grandfather had the ability to observe anything and anyone he wanted without them ever knowing. Probably he checked me out thoroughly before deciding, for whatever crazy reason, to leave all his stuff to me.

He must have anticipated that we’d end up stuck here. Even if he didn’t think of it himself, Sirius would have thought of it. So maybe the way off this place has something to do with me. Maybe it’s like a puzzle that I’m supposed to figure out.”

“And have you figured it out?” said Joe. “If you can manage it, sooner would be better than later. Not that I don’t like your company but I’m going a bit crazy here. I miss people.”

“Me too.” said Richard. “Look, here’s what I’m thinking. If you were going to build a whole planet and leave just one portal on it, you’d want to put it somewhere totally unique. And there’s one totally unique place that you and I discussed a lot before we got stranded here.”

Joe groaned.

“Not bloody Everest.”

“It’s the highest point on the planet. There’s nowhere else like it. Maybe my grandfather wanted me to face my fears. Maybe that’s why he trapped us here. He wanted us to climb Everest. That’s the only way to get home.”

“How are we supposed to climb Everest with no Sherpas, no fixed lines, no ladders, nothing?” said Joe.

“You’re assuming there are no fixed lines. Robots maintain everything round here. Maybe they maintain the lines too. For all we know there are robot Sherpas up there.”

“High chance of us dying if we try it.”

“Do you want to live another thirty years or more without ever seeing another human face apart from mine?” said Richard.

“God, no.” said Joe. “If you put it like that, I suppose we might as well try it.”

They spent, in the end, three years preparing to climb Everest, accustoming themselves to the altitudes found on the Tibetan plateau and in the hills of Nepal. They found replica helicopters and tried to learn how to fly them using simulators, but concluded that the helicopters probably wouldn’t be capable of flying to the necessary altitude, and actually lifting off in them with no proper training would be too dangerous anyway.

They broke open numerous robots, they sent out distress calls from two-way radios they found in the towns, and they pored over endless maps, all to no avail.

Richard became increasingly convinced that the answer to their problems had to lie at the top of Everest. The more they drew a blank with all other avenues of research, the more he became certain that Everest held the key.

They found the mountain did indeed have well-maintained fix ropes and ladders, although their hopes of robot Sherpas were dashed.

In the end, they reached the summit on their third attempt in two years and found — nothing.

At the top was only a glorious view of endless mountain peaks, and they were too cold and tired to enjoy it.

On their way down, the storm hit, and one after the other, they died.

Joe awoke on a bed in the old house near Sheffield. He was still wearing the down suit he’d been wearing on Everest, but it seemed to have been cleaned. He pulled it off, unbearably hot, and went downstairs, feeling surprisingly well. Even his hand showed no trace of frostbite.

There he encountered Richard.

“Oh thank God!” said Richard. “I thought I was going to be stuck here alone.”

“What just happened?” said Joe. “Am I hallucinating? Aren’t we both dead?”

“I think I know what happened.” said Richard. “The computers on this planet monitor us wherever we go. If we become seriously ill, they fix us and transport us back here somehow.”

“We’ve never managed to find a even a single computer like Sirius.” said Joe.

“Yeah, but we have no idea if Sirius was really the size of a football, or whether the sphere thing was just a communication device and the real Sirius was buried under the house, or whether Sirius was distributed in the form of thousands of tiny machines dotted all over the place, or what. The fact is, something saved our lives. We can’t die.”

“You know what, I don’t think I’ve aged since we got here either.” said Joe. “I feel the same as when we arrived. Better, actually.”

“We’re immortal, probably.” said Richard.

They sat miserably contemplating the idea.

“If there’s a machine somewhere sophisticated enough to stop us ageing or dying, it can open a portal and let us out of this prison.” said Joe, eventually.

“But where?” said Richard.

“I don’t know, but there’s something I need to try.” said Joe.

“What?” said Richard.

Joe rose to his feet and began to wander off.

“Where are you going?” said Richard.

He followed Joe to the kitchen, where Joe took a large knife out of the kitchen drawer.

“Hey, what are you doing?” said Richard, alarmed.

Before Richard could stop him, Joe had plunged the knife into his neck.

For a few seconds Richard felt naked terror, then Joe’s near-lifeless body seemed to blur and become indistinct, before vanishing altogether.

“Joe?” shouted Richard, wheeling around. “Joe?”

Then he heard a door open and close upstairs, and soon Joe reappeared, unharmed.

“Immortal.” he said. “I’m going into town to get drunk. You coming?”

Richard laughed with relief.

“Sounds as good an idea as any.” he said.

They located a bar, staffed by a robot that stood upright on two legs but had a camera instead of a head, and they passed the evening drinking unrestrainedly.

Over the following two years they took every drug they were able to find, threw themselves off cliffs, learned to fly fighter jets largely by trial and error, crashing fatally numerous times, and raced each other around the empty streets in replica classic cars at ridiculous speeds.

The replica jets had not, for some reason, been altered in any way and had to be fuelled with jet fuel. They also found numerous cars parked in garages that hadn’t been altered to run without fuel, and here and there were working petrol stations.

“It’s as if he left all this stuff for us as toys to keep us busy.” said Joe drunkenly one day, after they had successfully landed a helicopter on the roof of a replica hotel.

Richard half-fell out of the door and vomited, but within half an hour he had become completely sober. Being drunk required huge dedication, since the effects of alcohol wore off extremely rapidly on the replica Earth. Some unseen machine seemed to be intervening in their metabolic processes, protecting them even from their worst excesses.

Under the influence of an endless array of drugs and liquors, they found themselves arguing frequently, Joe increasingly blaming Richard for having trapped him on the planet and Richard increasingly blaming Joe for not putting enough effort into finding a way home.

The turning point for Richard came when, one day, he awoke in a hotel suite to the distant sound of Joe’s voice calling him from somewhere below.

He looked out from the balcony to see Joe lying on the ground, his legs broken.

“I thought I’d die but I didn’t.” he said. “I was having a good time till I hit the ground though. Do us a favour mate, will you? I need you to stab me or something.”

Richard took a knife from the hotel kitchen, in which a six-legged four-armed robot was busy cooking something, and went outside to kill Joe.

“Thanks, mate.” said Joe, slurring his words due to a combination of various drugs, and somehow, looking at Joe’s smashed and crumpled body lying helplessly on the ground, Richard felt something he’d never really felt for Joe before: he felt contempt.

He stabbed Joe in the neck, and Joe blurred and disappeared.

Richard jumped into a car and drove off, before Joe could find him again.

He drove south, and kept on driving. When he reached an airport, he found a helicopter and flew it to Heathrow, where he refuelled it. He flew across the Channel and began to make his way south.

Their lives had become nothing but a mixture of hedonism and recrimination. Richard no longer fully believed there was any way to get back to the Earth and his life, it seemed to him, had become nothing but a series of pointless attempts at self-distraction. Joe was so intoxicated most of the time that he no longer appeared to care, preferring to live in the moment.

Whenever Richard raised the issue of getting home, they fell into bitter arguments.

The craving Richard felt for human society, for the company of women and friends other than Joe, had become palpable, and the more meaningless and empty his life seemed to him, the more the murder that Sirius had committed at his behest preyed on his mind.

Perhaps the man who had attacked his grandfather deserved his fate, but the faces of the man and woman who had been sitting in the front of the car when the man had jumped in front of it, and worst of all, the crying children in the back, increasingly haunted his dreams.

Somewhere in Switzerland he ditched the helicopter and began to walk, at first continuing south, sleeping in a different house or hotel every night, but soon walking aimlessly, endlessly thinking about how he might get back to the Earth or whether it was even possible.

One day he stopped in an old church somewhere on the southern edge of the Alps, in a beautiful little town full of mediaeval buildings.

The church had been faithfully replicated. He found a Bible and sat in a pew, reading and contemplating.

Soon he found himself praying, kneeling in front of the altar. He had never been particularly religious, but now he found himself begging God to help him.

He stayed in the town for a year, making one of the old houses his own. He began to imagine the people who might, on the Earth, live in the other houses.

Marie worked at the flower shop—in reality, staffed only by an eight-legged flying robot—and painted in her spare time. Albert was retired and liked to repair old watches. Sandra and Clara skied in the surrounding hills and worked in a clothes shop. Sandra was quirky and eccentric while Clara was more down-to-Earth. Clara’s fiancé, Martin, was studying to be an accountant and never quite understood people’s jokes, but always took them in good humour.

With each passing day they seemed more and more like they actually existed.

In the church, he begged God for forgiveness, praying out loud since there was no-one around to be annoyed by his prayers.

He began to talk out loud to his friends too. Although they were imaginary, they became increasingly real to him.

He placed God in a different category to his imaginary friends. Perhaps his conception of God was necessarily coloured by his pitiful human brain, he thought, but the universe, and the sentience in it, had come from somewhere, and he hoped that there was some sense in which God really did hear his prayers.

One day, when he was praying in the church, he found himself suddenly filled with an enormous sense of peace. Yes, this was his fate, to spend eternity on this fake copy of the Earth, and yes, he could accept his fate.

He cried tears of joy, and he felt that God had forgiven him.

For several weeks he spent hours every day in the church, praying and reading the Bible, every word seeming like true revelation, rich with meaning, but gradually, a new sense of guilt grew in him.

Hadn’t he abandoned his only friend on the planet, Joe? What had Joe done to deserve such treatment? If Joe had sunk into madness and hedonism, well so had he, Richard. Only God had saved him.

He decided his must share his newfound faith with Joe, and so, one day, he climbed one of the nearby mountains and jumped off a cliff.

He awoke in the house near Sheffield.

He found Joe in the dining room, the long table covered with books and with papers covered in equations.

“Hello, Joe.” said Richard.

Joe’s eyes were rimmed with red and his receding hair had grown down to his shoulders.

“It’s you.” said Joe. “Are you real?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I abandoned you, Joe.”

With a howl of rage, Joe threw himself at Richard, attacking him with all his strength. Richard defended himself vigorously and, on the whole was winning the fight when Joe, bruised and bleeding, smashed a chair and came at him with a chair leg.

The last thing he saw was the chair leg approaching his face at high velocity.

He awoke again in an upstairs bedroom.

He made his way cautiously downstairs and found Joe sitting on the floor in a corner of the room, still bleeding from his nose and gazing blankly into space, the chair leg next to him, covered in Richard’s blood.

“Joe.” said Richard.

Joe made no reply.

“I’m sorry, Joe.” said Richard.

“I’ve been trying to understand how your grandfather made Sirius.” said Joe quietly. “I’ve scoured the university libraries. One day, I’ll crack it.”

He looked up at Richard.

“You look surprisingly chipper for a man who’s been alone for a year.” said Joe.

“I’ve found God, Joe. I was consumed with guilt because I made that car accident happen, but God has forgiven me. He told me to come back to you, and to ask you to forgive me too.”

Joe laughed. The laugher subsided quickly, but then resumed, intensifying.

“What’s funny?” said Richard.

Joe shook his head.

“I don’t even know.” he said. “I’m not sure God’s going to help us.”

“God has helped me.”

“And yet you’re still stuck here. Why don’t you ask God to open a portal to the Earth?”

A sense of conviction seemed to fill Richard’s heart, and he said, “Jesus, if it is your will, please open a portal back to the Earth.”

A glowing, coruscating cloud of purple appeared at the end of the long table. The centre cleared itself and resolved into stone steps leading down to the cellar, with Sirius standing there on his plinth, and the chair standing opposite him.

They looked at each other in astonishment.

“Hallelujah!” shouted Richard.

Joe said quietly, “Jesus, close the portal.”

The portal abruptly vanished.

“What’ve you done?” shouted Richard wildly.

“Jesus, open the portal again.” said Joe, and the portal reappeared.

“I don’t understand!” said Richard.

Joe began to laugh again.

“It’s voice activated,” said Joe, “and the codeword is Jesus.”

“Why would he do that? Why would my grandfather do that?”

“Maybe he wanted you to turn religious. That’s why he trapped you here. And me. He was religious, wasn’t he?”

“That is absolutely and completely sick and evil.” said Richard.

“Unless …”

“What?”

“Never mind.” said Joe.

He stood up and dusted himself off.

“Let’s go home.” he said.

They walked back through the portal.

“Sirius,” said Richard, “how long have we been away for?”

“You’ve been away for ten minutes.” said Sirius.

“Ten minutes.” echoed Richard.

“In that case let’s go back to the pub.” said Joe. “I need a drink. One that doesn’t wear off in ten minutes. I won’t even believe we’re back till I’ve seen people and life.”

“Wait.” said Richard. “Sirius, can you alter the past?”

“Yes,” said Sirius, “but altering the past will change the present.

A look of wonder and excitement appeared on Richard’s face.

“I could undo what I did.” he said.

“Sirius,” said Richard, “could you change the past so that we don’t kill Aubrey’s murderer, without altering our present experience?”

“Yes, it’s possible.” said Sirius. “The world will be slightly different to what it is at present, but in a way that won’t affect anything you’ve experienced up until this point.”

“What will this man do if we allow him to live?” said Richard.

“The future is not set, but it is likely that he will kill at least two more people before the police catch him.” said Sirius.

“You see,” said Joe, “it wasn’t so bad, what you did. Actually we did the right thing.”

“But those people in the car …” said Richard. “The children … Sirius, can you kill the man in such a way that no-one else will be involved in his death? Can you change the past so that he has a heart attack or something?”

“Yes, I can do that.” said Sirius.

“I can’t do it.” said Richard. “I can’t kill him again.”

“I can do it.” said Joe. “It needs to be done. It doesn’t bother me.”

“OK.” said Richard faintly.

“Sirius,” said Joe, “make the man die of a stroke. Make sure no-one else sees it happen.”

“I can only take orders from Richard, Joe.” said Sirius. “I can answer your questions in Richard’s presence, but I cannot take orders from you.”

“Bloody hell.” said Joe in frustration.

“Let’s go and get a drink.” said Richard. “It’s OK. I’ve come to terms with it. I want to see people. Other human beings.”

“Sirius,” said Joe, “can Richard temporarily grant me the right to issue you with orders?”

“Yes, Richard can grant you such a privilege if he chooses.” said Sirius.

“Tell it to accept orders from me.” said Joe.

“Sirius, carry out Joe’s orders.” said Richard.

“Right.” said Joe. “Sirius, change the past so that instead of that man walking in front of a car, he has a heart attack and quietly dies, with no-one else around. And show us what happens.”

A hologram appeared next to the wine rack. Aubrey’s murderer was sitting on the bench again, laughing with his friend. Abruptly he got up and walked off. His friend shouted after him, puzzled, but the man ignored him. He descended the steps into a public lavatory, entered a cubicle, and slumped over, lifeless.

Then Joe spoke again.

“Sirius, destroy yourself immediately.”

The soft green glow emanating from the sphere blinked out.

“Why did you do that?” said Richard.

“You can rebuild it if you want.” said Joe. “His notes are upstairs. Probably take you twenty or thirty years to figure it all out. Let’s go to the pub, mate.”

A hour later they walked into in the same bar in Sheffield where they had sat before deciding to open the portal. They greeted a couple of acquaintances and Joe chatted to the barmaid while Richard checked messages on his phone.

After a while they sat down at a table with two pints of beer.

“Nothing seems real.” said Richard. “I can’t adjust so easily from being stuck on the replica to being back here. I thought I’d be happy but now I think I need some time to get used to it.”

“I know what you mean.” said Joe.

They sipped their beers.

“You shouldn’t have destroyed it.” said Richard.

“I see what your grandfather was trying to do.” said Joe.

“What was he trying to do?” said Richard.

“He was trying to prepare you for the enormous responsibility of having virtually unlimited power. But I don’t think he expected you to get back to the Earth quite so quickly. We were lucky, that’s all. I bet Sirius ran some scenarios and calculated that, on average, it’d be centuries before we happened to utter the magic words. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I think.”

“He couldn’t even handle the power himself.” said Richard thoughtfully. “He chose to die. He could have made himself immortal. He was scared of it.”

“That’s why I had to destroy it. At least he had the experience of gradually putting the thing together. He probably spent half his life researching how to do it. He had time to think about all the implications of it. We didn’t. It was sprung on us, out of the blue. This way, if you want it back, at least you’ll have to put some effort into getting it back.”

“I don’t know if I want it back.” said Richard. “I’ll have to think about it.”

For some moments they fell silent. Then Richard said, “So, we’re good, right? I mean, I’m sorry I …”

“You already apologised.” said Joe. “I’m sorry I stoved in your head with a chair leg. Let’s just put it all behind us.”

“I’ve got some people to meet.” said Richard.

“Yeah, me too.” said Joe.

“After that, though … what did you say that mountain’s called?”

“Cho Oyu.” said Joe.

“Cho Oyu.” said Richard thoughtfully.