Gunslinger Moon by Holly Lisle

Author:Holly Lisle [Lisle, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62456-043-9
Publisher: Holly Lisle

Chapter Ten

Jex

I’ve lost track of real-world time, and I need to find out how what I’m doing in the game world correlates with what’s going on in the real world.

So as soon as I’m on the boardwalk outside Bill’s Dry Goods store, I say, “Save and quit game.”

And I find myself back in Bashtyk Nokyd’s room.

I take care of my necessities. Shower, shave, void, eat.

“How long have I been playing?” I ask Hirrin, who looks up from scanning the notebook.

He shrugs. “An hour? No more than that.”

So game time runs faster than real time.

“Any success?” Hirrin asks.

“A little,” I say. “I’ve located the B or F Principle. When I go back in, I’ll be applying it, and hoping to find out what Faster Horse or Bigger Gun means. How about you?”

Hirrin sits down across the table from me. “I’m learning a lot. The old man’s notebooks are full of questions he asks himself. And then questions he asks about the questions, and then little ideas he writes down that answer little pieces of the questions. And then all of a sudden he’ll write down an example of something in the real world that demonstrates a piece of the answer to the main question he’s asked.”

Hirrin gets something to eat from the reconsta dispenser. It smells good, but nowhere near as good as Long Tall Ted’s campfire cooking.

He starts into his meal. “Going through and seeing him work, seeing him develop his ideas and test them against reality, throw out anything that can’t be proven in the real world, and then refine the ideas into a principle — it’s like being taught how to think. How to think better, anyway. It’s changing me, allowing me to look at what was wrong with my first life, and to see why it was wrong.”

“That seems contradictory,” I say. “If Nokyd insisted on reality being the standard by which his ideas passed or failed, why would he test them in a video game?”

Hirrin considers before answering. “At the front of every notebook, he writes this little reminder to himself. ‘If your theory can’t withstand the test of reality, your theory is wrong. If your question can’t withstand the test of reality, ask a different question.’”

I look at him, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

“You’re asking the question, Why did Bashtyk Nokyd play a video game to test his theories? If he could not test his theories by playing the game, that wasn’t why he was playing the game. You’re asking the wrong question.”

This makes sense. But it raises a new problem. “Then why was he playing the video game?”

“I’ll bet that’s the right question.” Hirrin sighs. “It’s a pity no one asked him.”

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