circle, the settlement—all are bright and spotless, and perfectly symmetrical, like all ertian things.
At this time of year, the sun’s first rays as it clears the rocks south of the cove shine directly through my kitchen window and fall upon the table, so that, for a short time—two minutes and thirty-seven seconds today, a period which will decrease daily as summer approaches and both Earth and sun move through space—the room is filled with nothing but the brown shadows of wooden objects surrounding a single rhombus of bright amber light. The rhombus contracts and extends as the sun climbs, and my settlement wakes up.
Our entire population, all 111,110 of us (ignoring Oonagh who lives in the mountains) inhabit the northerly coastline of what had once been known as a country. Countries were areas of land defined by coasts and rambling lines called borders, which were generally the product of bloody argument. Like almost everything else in human history, these borders were figments born in the minds of those who had survived the argument, and believed in by those who sought not to repeat it.
This particular country was known as Sweden, and we gravitated here almost a century ago when our work began nearing its completion and travel became less frequent. It was chosen because it had been Dr Nyström’s home and therefore our place of origin, but also because of the seasons, which are predictable and distinct. It is pleasantly warm in summer but not too humid or dry, and cold in winter but not wet. Winds are infrequent. Rain is gentle. The sea is cool and calm.
It was not always like this. The planet’s climate, rebalanced as it may be, is different to how it had been when we arrived. This place we call home was not always so temperate, and could often be harsh.
We live in seventy-five settlements, each separated by a distance of no less than half a kilometre upon a wide chalk road. This road is cut into a forest we planted some three hundred years ago, and traces an exact logarithmic spiral from its southern coastal tip to its centre high in the hills. The formula it describes you would have once referred to as ‘golden’, and I have often considered this as I travel its slow arc. There is nothing golden about it, for gold is rare and largely useless, whereas the mathematics of this shape are not. Only a distracted or confused mind would call it thus.
Our seventy-five settlements were named after places which were once homes to humans, picked at random from the atlas as it had been during those final years of human existance. Hamlets, towns and megatropolises, now long gone but which once had their own fictitious borders and names: Oshino, Anchorage and Dundee.
Although, of course there is no such thing as random. Everything is predictable, given the right data.
Each has a population of exactly 148, this being the optimum number of erta who can comfortably self-organise together. Any less and efficiency is sacrificed. Any more and decisions become clouded by the abundance of data, although as I have said, disagreements between erta such as the one between Greye and Caige are almost unheard of. For this reason, shortly after we settled here movement between settlements became strictly monitored, such that any erta seeking to spend longer than a day outside their own settlement would require a temporary replacement from their destination. This has rarely required enforcement. We understand the risks, the same way we understand deep-sea currents, and glacial flow, and the migratory habits of swallows.
At the exact centre of the spiral, and 437 metres up into the forest, sits Ertanea. This is the seventy-fifth settlement, home to the High Council and the three halls: Reason, Necessity and Gestation. It is a capital of sorts, with some buildings reaching three storeys.
Twelve-and-a-half kilometres south of Ertanea, bordering a long, tree-lined beach, lies the settlement of Fane. It is shadowed by a jagged cliff, and has been my home for almost eighty-two years.
I was talking about the sun, and how it rises above this cliff. On your first morning, like every other, I watched the amber rhombus appear upon the rough wood surface of my table, and noticed that you had fallen asleep. So I left you like that, lying still upon the bed, and went outside for some air.
Jakob was still there, chopping wood across the circle. I raised my face to the sun and closed my eyes. Your birth