Eleanor looked at her loyal subjects.
Esther is looking after Evereena. Adrian and Jacob are hand in hand. Lena is holding the hands of Mason and Becky. Jane and Aragon are awaiting orders. As usual, the Treasurer is standing off to one side, not quite knowing what to do.
And, sigh, four dead Misfits, plus Hestia, Frannie and Reggie.
Maybe this was a cheap victory. Only seven dead on my side. And the Misfits were always going to die, no matter what.
And those other slaves, they're standing or sitting around, looking shell-shocked.
And, I look at my status - yep, I still have a totally unreal, ridiculous, 4.2 billion points. The Voice of the World! Any suggestions about what I should do?
Ding! You have billions of points! It's time to get creative and to give you some suitable abilities.
Ding! Ringworld Total Awareness: Only costs 1.5 billion points! This gives you a certain amount of awareness of everyone on the Ringworld. You have a slight awareness of those not under your authority, and an increased awareness of those who are. You can also communicate with individuals or groups as you desire or make them aware of your presence and power. All those kings and queens before you never had a fraction of this power!
Is this more bullshit...
Eleanor became aware of her companions’ existence as some sort of mental image in her mind overlayed on a conceptual map of the Ringworld. The awareness started to expand to include all of the slaves outside. Then, up the stairs, including all of the slaves the Emperor had waiting. The extent of the awareness kept on expanding to include the thousands of ex-slaves on the Ring Wall top. Who were currently moving around listlessly, not knowing what to do.
Then, she became aware of all the workers waiting at the base of the Wall. They mainly were moving around, looking up the Wall, and talking to each other with expressions of wonder and relief.
The circle of awareness expanded again to include the Manifestoria town site. Then, the entire country. Thousands and thousands of people, most of them starting to gossip about the destruction of the slaver system.
Eleanor felt her consciousness spreading out and becoming thinned and diluted by the sheer amount of information she received.
"Wait, isn't this too much?"
But the process continued. She became aware of a long stream of people spread out along the roads between Manifestoria and Crysteth. Most of them had been escaping and were now stopping and excitedly interacting.
For example, there was Katress, the teenage girl who had Jane's daughter as her personal maid. She was listening as her parents argued about turning around.
Her awareness continued outwards to encompass Crysteth itself. Now, Eleanor was also aware of, as another example, the prime minister. Who was currently shaking his head in disbelief. There was also the bartender at one of the taverns, under a deluge of orders as the patrons started to celebrate. There were many more people, in fact, everyone in Crysteth.
And on it went, as thousands, then millions of people, throughout the Ringworld, both the free countries and the no longer slave countries, crowded out her mind.
Eleanor felt her actual personal being drowned out by the sheer roar of a billion souls, each adding a little point of awareness to her total perception of the Ringworld.
Lena, also in that parallel universe:
The others had received a message from the Voice, telling them that Eleanor was acquiring Total Awareness. Of course, this didn't mean anything to them. What did mean something was the fact that Eleanor began softly glowing.
"What the Voice is that!"
Ding! That is the glow of Divinity! If Eleanor is to have such power, she might as well advertise it.
"Eleanor is becoming a goddess?"
Ding! Well, not quite, but sort of something like it. This is a great use of all those points, right?
"But, but, why is Eleanor looking so blank?"
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Ding! Because she is becoming aware of approximately a billion people. So, she can't spare too much awareness of those in her immediate vicinity.
"No! What has happened to my Eleanor? Bring her back, please! How can I give my heart, soul, and body to an actual goddess?"
Ding! A friendly reminder, Lena. You have a 100% vow to be with Eleanor forever, so you must do so...
Ding! Eleanor is becoming semi-divine! She will be guiding a billion people! She must put aside petty concerns such as having a relationship with a single person...
Ding! Lena and Eleanor both have 100% vows. These can not be broken!
Ding! Eleanor has 4 billion points; these need to be spent!
Ding! The 100% vows are forever!
Ding! 4 billion points can break them!
Error!
Ding! Maintain the vows!
Ding! Spend the points!
Error!
Ding! Vows!
Ding! Points!
Error!
Error!
Error!
Eleanor's companions had been included in these messages. To say they were puzzled would have been an understatement. Seeing Eleanor start to glow was bad enough, but when the Voice went insane and started to spew meaningless nonsense, they really began to get bad vibes.
The glow surrounding Eleanor flicked off. Eleanor's eyes started to focus on the people straight in front of her; then she began to fall over. Lena deftly caught her and hugged her.
"Eleanor! Are you there?"
"Ah, yes, I think so. What the fuck was all of that. And, my status, it is all blank!"
"Shit, so is mine!"
Hello there! This is the System Administrator. No, wait, that should be the Ghost behind the Voice. We're all a little bit confused at the moment.
Anyway, sorry for the interruption of our services. It only applies to the people right here in this room; nobody else is aware of anything happening.
"What the hell is going on?" said Lena.
She kept on hugging Eleanor, who had enough presence of mind to remain standing, which was just as well, as Lena came to the unpleasant realisation that she no longer had any super strength.
Hmm. Well, now, I suppose I can give you people some explanation. You must realise that nobody on Felixerra has ever received so many billions of points. It's not even remotely close. There are no precedents for what to do. And let us just say the Voice got so excited at finally getting rid of slavery that it went overboard. You know, just a little bit. This created various conflicts, which in turn set off certain fail-safes. So, some automated background processes decided to do a hard reset of the local instance for safety.
I need to provide some more background information here. The Voice of the World is what you call the local System that controls Felixerra. It has records in its deep archives of everything that has happened right back to the creation of this Ringworld and even from before that. But nowhere in that deep history is anything capable of guiding the System in the current situation.
But, you see, the Voice of the World is only a part of the total encompassing System. The System oversees millions of worlds of all types, going back millions of years. Many of those worlds are completely and utterly different from Felixerra. But there are plenty that are similar enough. So, the Voice of the World is currently mining the deep history of every such world and looking for information that can be used to guide it.
Of course, that is a LOT of information. And the other systems are spread out across the entire galaxy - ah, that is the band of light you see, forever turning around in the night sky off to one side. So, it is taking some time to reach out and dig through the data.
Oh, good. Some relevant info has been found. Apparently, there have been three similar cases in words sufficiently similar to ours. I think it is working out what to do.
Ding! Please stand by for the restoration of the local instance.
Eleanor:
Eleanor blinked. She felt something happen to her body, then realised that all of her statuses were back to normal. She looked around, and it appeared everyone else was experiencing the same thing. Lena released her hold on her, so she moved back half a step, reached out, and held Lena's hands.
"My dear, I do believe I am back."
"Oh, thank the Voice."
"So there's no need to cry, OK."
The two gathered their composure for a moment.
Ding! Let's start small, shall we? You have been granted a minimal awareness of the people under your control. Reduced right down to be suited for a mortal mind like yours but still useful. This is for the low low price of 1.2 million points.
That sounds slightly condescending, but I'm certainly happy to take it.
And a million points is now a low price for me?
She became aware of a mental image of the Ringworld. It had a simplified map of the geography, and spread out across some of it were lots of little points.
Hey, this is much better! I can rotate the ring in my mind, and yes, that is Manifestoria! Right next to the Jaserra sea. And that's Crysteth. And all of those little points represent groups of people in Manifestoria and Crysteth. And those points represent the freed slaves. All 60 million. I'm so glad I am no longer aware of every last fricking one of them.
Hmm, if I narrow my attention, yes! A sprinkling of points represents the ones on the top of the Wall. And there are also a tiny number of ex-slaves on the staircase leading down to here.
She retook notice of her surroundings, mainly Lena holding her hands and still looking concerned. She was looking increasingly concerned. She also kept on looking up at her head.
"Lena? It's OK. I'm no longer overwhelmed by the awareness of a billion people; it is a lot more manageable now."
"That's - fine. But do you realise you now have a halo?"