Asgard's Heart by Brian Stableford

heated up?" I
asked. "The macroworld must have been in trouble for a long time, to judge
by the condition of the upper levels. Hundreds of thousands of years—maybe millions.
How come the power got switched off now?"
    "The balance of power between the beleaguered
masters of the macroworld and the destructive entities must have been in a
state of equilibrium," she said. "Perhaps there had been a stalemate,
lasting for what you would consider to be vast reaches of time. Perhaps, on the
other hand, there has been ceaseless conflict in the regions below, with the
balance of power constantly changing. We suspect that this worldlet, and others
like it, may have been sealed off at some time in the distant past, and that we
were deliberately hidden away, for our own protection. When we were provoked by
what we learned about the existence of the greater universe to begin more
adventurous exploration of the deep levels, we may have unwittingly exposed
ourselves to the hostile attention of the destroyers. Our first encounter with
them did, indeed, come near to accomplishing our destruction.
    "The second contact, in which you played a
crucial role, probably began as an attack by the 'giants,' but this time there
was an intervention by the masters of the macroworld, possibly undertaken at
considerable risk to themselves. They may well have saved us from destruction,
but they
    could
not establish any direct communication. Only you managed to make any kind of
sense out of the contact, and I believe that you were quite correct to construe
what happened to you as a desperate plea for help.
    "Perhaps as a result of their foray in our
support, the masters of the macroworld have lost further ground to their
enemies, and that is why the power-supply has been interrupted. We erected what
defences we could against attacks in software space, but—perhaps foolishly—had
not expected anything so crude as a straightforward physical assault. The
surprise factor gave the destroyers a temporary advantage that they should
never have been allowed, and we have all suffered in consequence. We have now
sealed our boundaries against further attacks of either kind, but we do not
think that we are sufficiently powerful to resist indefinitely the assaults of
a superior power. Steadfast defence may not be adequate to the demands of the
situation. That is why it seems imperative that we make contact with the
masters of the macroworld, and why you must give us what aid you can."
    It was a pretty fine speech, and a good story too.
With the fate of the macroworld hanging in the balance, how could I possibly be
so churlish as to refuse to have myself copied? On the other hand, if the
battle was taking place on such a monumental scale, how could an insignificant
little entity like me possibly make any difference?
    I didn't ask. I already knew what the Nine had elected
to believe. Supposedly, I had a weapon: Medusa's head. There were, of course,
little problems like not knowing what it was, how to use it, or what it was
supposed to do, but I had it. At any rate, the Nine believed that I had it.
    "You live in software space," I said, rather
feebly. "It's your universe. I can't even imagine what it would feel like
to be a ghost in your kind of machine, or what the space I'd
    be in
would look like—if look's the right word, given that I'd presumably have an
entirely different set of senses."
    "That would depend entirely on the kind of copy
which was constructed," she said, eager to reassure me. "Any copy
would, of course, have to retain the essential features of your personality.
Let us say that it would need to be topographically identical, but that there
would still be a great deal of flexibility in regards to its folding. The manner
in which you would perceive your environment would depend very much on the
pattern of your own encryption. Just as the world that you presently inhabit is
to some extent contained within the language that your culture has invented