Heaven (34 page)

“So what we experience as history—such as the spread of a cosmic religion, to pick something topical—might be a casual thought
about putting out the Galactic cat?”

“That is my contention, Smiling Teeth May Bite.”

“But surely such thoughts would be too slow.”

“You imagine that they must proceed at the speed of history, not that of light?” said the Thumosyne. “Perhaps. It takes two
hundred million years for a galaxy to complete one revolution. It has no need to hurry.”

“I disagree,” said Will. “Even lightspeed would not be enough. The components of a galactic mentality must communicate far
more rapidly than the emergent events that they generate. Just as our neurons react more rapidly than our conscious thoughts.
I can imagine a galactic mind communicating with radio waves or even gravity, but those are too slow. Our own ships can exceed
lightspeed; history can travel faster than gravity.”

“Then a galaxy could employ similar physics,” said the philosopher. “Or better. Consider the transible. Quantum entanglement
is instantaneous. The Galaxy could have a quantum mind. What we think of as quantum randomness might be neural signals in
the Galactic Mind, exchanging qubits in a cosmic dialogue of which we are totally unaware. Quantum chaos, signals too complex
for us to comprehend. Optimal communication always appears random to those who do not know the code.”

“In that case,” said Will, “are we making a meaningful distinction?”

The philosopher liked that question. It got to the heart of the matter. Discussion of mere physical mechanism was too concrete
for his tastes. “You mean, is there a scientific test to distinguish between history as the emergent consequences of physical
laws, and history as a thought in the mind of the Galaxy? That would be very difficult. I am convinced that we lack the intelligence
to perform such a test, even if one exists.”

“A Galactic-level mind would have better prospects,” said Stun, disappointed.

“If there is one. Which brings us back to where we began.”

May remembered those dim flickers of sensation tickling at her mind. “There was something there; I sensed it. And Ship deliberately
took us to the Agathyrsi Cluster to make us aware of it. I am convinced, also, that it was Ship that put into my mind the
need to consult the pond.”

“Whatever makes you think that?” asked Will.

“Because the moment we stopped denying the pond’s consciousness and made contact with it, Ship told you that consensus had
been reached for departure. So Ship is in effect telling us to listen to what the pond has to say.”

Will scratched his nose and turned to Ship’s philosopher. “But it is not that simple, is it, Epimenides?”

“No, it is not. Ship depends on consensus, and consensus is a matter of
opinions
. Ship is telling us to respect the pond’s opinion about the Galactic Mind. But that does not mean that we should assume that
what the pond is telling us is
true
.”

“Assuming that ‘truth’ is a meaningful concept,” said Stun.

“Do not get me started on that! I am a philosopher, remember. The pond’s opinion offers valuable insights, but we cannot assume
that it is the only valid opinion. Or, indeed, that it is a valid opinion at all.”

May felt let down. She had hoped to convince Will that the Galactic Mind was real. Think of it! Sentience on a cosmic scale!
But that was a spiritual viewpoint, and Neanderthals were deeply skeptical about anything spiritual.

“So what do we do?”

The Thumosyne expanded once more. “As a pragmatic matter, we should act as if the pond is right. That will reinforce the consensus
that Ship clearly desires. And it will keep both the pond and its mariner friend happy. Which may be two different ways to
say the same thing, incidentally.”

“Fine, so we pretend.”

The philosopher looked startled. “Not at all. You respect the pond’s opinion. You may even find yourselves beginning to accept
it.”

“Are you saying we should take the Galactic Mind’s existence on
faith
?” said Will, shocked. Neanderthals had no truck with mindless belief. “Galactic Mind” was dangerously close to “god,” and
that was intellectual territory into which Neanderthals never ventured.

“No. I am saying that the interpretation that you place on unfolding events makes no difference to how those events unfold.
It is the events, and their unfolding, that determine history. The meaning that you attach to them is irrelevant.”

May understood the point that the Thumosyne was making; her natural Neanderthal disdain for the spiritual made her sympathetic
to it. But at the back of her mind, Fat Apprentice’s question still reverberated, a persistent, nagging doubt:
“Is a galaxy what happens when a universe spawns?”

Could
a galaxy—or a universe—be a form of life? And what powers would it possess if it were?

The thought terrified her.

The Tweel engineers had plenty of sand, just as they had plenty of everything else, tucked away in
Talitha
’s capacious holds. Though they had not expected to use it for quite this purpose. It was rather a nice beach, considering
that it was on a spaceship, and the pond approved of its new location, too. The larger compartment that had now been provided
gave it more room to spread itself.

Second-Best Sailor sat at the edge of the pond, half on the beach, half in the water, and waited until they were alone. “What
did you want this beach for? Just findin’ out ’ow far ya could push them?”

NOT AT ALL. IT IS ESSENTIAL TO MY LIFE PROCESSES.

The mariner was puzzled. “How?”

WATCH.

The pond rippled, as if a stone had been thrown in but in reverse, and something rubbery and round plopped out of the water,
landing next to Second-Best Sailor on the beach.

“What in the name of the Maker . . .”

IT IS A SANDSKATER EGG. I ATE ITS MOTHER, JUST BEFORE YOU FELL IN. BACK ON AQUIFER.

“You ate its mother? Then why not eat the egg, too?”

BECAUSE IF I ATE THE EGG, THERE WOULD NOT BE ANOTHER MOTHER TO EAT. I AM NOT SO STUPID AS TO DESTROY MY OWN LONG-TERM FOOD
STORE.

As the pond’s molecular “words” resonated in Second-Best Sailor’s mind, the beach near the egg moved aside to create a depression.
The egg slipped into the hole. A few moments later, the beach had covered it over.

WHEN IT HATCHES, THERE WILL BE A NEW MOTHER.

“And you’ll eat her then?”

NO, NOT STRAIGHTAWAY. ONLY WHEN SHE HAS LAID ENOUGH EGGS TO ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF HER SPECIES. THE SANDSKATERS ARE PARTHENOGENETIC;
THEY NEED NO MALES.

The mariner thought about that. First he thought about his wifepiece and gave thanks that she wasn’t parthenogenetic. Then
he thought about the pond’s strange attitude to its food. It was really just a form of gardening, he decided. Like growing
lemon trees on top of a boat and eating the lemons. Not as much fun as hunting, but more secure. He wasn’t sure what the mother
sandskater thought about the arrangement. But the pond was:

WITHOUT THE MOISTURE THAT I PROVIDE, HER EGGS WILL NOT HATCH. WE ARE SYMBIONTS; BOTH SPECIES BENEFIT FROM THE ARRANGEMENT.
IS NOT THE GALACTIC MIND WONDERFUL?

“Let’s not start
that
again,” said Second-Best Sailor.

For the survival of the principle, the many shall be sacrificed.

For the survival of the many, the few shall be sacrificed.

For the survival of the few, the self shall be sacrificed.

For the survival of the self, the principle shall be sacrificed.

Koans of the Cuckoo

Y
ou are safe now,” the servomech assured Sam. “The levithons cannot penetrate this building.”

“
Levithons?
There are more of the things?”

“Thousands. They are universal scavengers, biological constructs about which we knew nothing until their spores descended
from space.”

Sam sat down suddenly, and all the energy sagged out of him. Tears coursed down his cheeks; he felt like throwing up. “She’s
dead. Nerydd. Why wasn’t
she
protected by a building, if that’s all it takes?” He tried to summon up techniques from his training as lifesoul-healer.
He knew the self-delusional traps.

It still hurt.

“We have been carrying out an urgent program of construction ever since the first levithon attacks, a century ago,” the servomech
explained, oblivious to Sam’s distress. “For the previous four thousand, five hundred years, this facility functioned faultlessly.
Faultlessly,
do you hear me? The arrival of such predators was not anticipated, and there was no technological need for containment buildings.
They would merely have added to the cost.”

“Actions have consequences,” said Sam. “They are never neutral. Prey attracts predators; carrion attracts scavengers. New
resources will be exploited. You should have anticipated the general nature of the threat, even if its specific form was unpredictable.”
Not that gaining the robot’s agreement would bring back Nerydd. “What are those awful things?”

“The levithons should not exist,” said the servomech. “We kill them by the hundreds, but occasionally one of them gets through
our defenses. Then it eats its fill. They are immune to our protective femtomachines, even though they lack identifying qubit
tags. Moreover, they infringe every principle of xenoscience. Such a generalized predator cannot credibly evolve. Levithons
consume
all
organic material. From innumerable species, which evolved on innumerable worlds. They cannot have been selected to occupy
such a broad ecological niche.”

“So they’re impossible,” said Sam. “What killed Nerydd, then?”

Unusually, the servomech sounded hesitant. “It is thought . . . nothing is certain, but there is evidence . . . though no
records . . . that the levithon is a Precursor construct. An all-purpose scavenger, bioengineered to clean up dysfunctional
ecologies. The ground where a levithon has passed is immensely fertile, once it has thawed again. Their immunity to femtotechnology
is presumably a consequence of Precursor engineering.”

“For all that, she’s still dead,” said Sam sullenly.

Servomechs had no sense of sympathy. “By your arguments, she was not a real person in any case.”

“Damn the arguments! She wasn’t real when her body was scattered in bloody slabs and disarticulated bones!” Sam yelled. “But
she was real when you put her back together!”

The servomech could make no sense of the distinction. In either state the organism had the same components, connected in the
same manner; discorporation just distributed the components in a more rational, more accessible arrangement. “Discorporation
is merely the most convenient state for maintenance work,” it said, bemused. “It makes no functional difference.”

The stupid mechs really couldn’t see any difference, could they? “She couldn’t walk, or talk, or breathe when she was discorporated!”

“In her mind, she could.”

“That’s not the same!”

This was where the servomech could never follow the human’s argument. Was it missing something vital? The novice lifesoul-healer
seemed so certain that there was a meaningful distinction. “To her, it was. In her discorporate state she could do more than
was ever possible in a corporate one. That is our task: to enhance the function and experience of lifesouls. To give them
what you might call a ‘better world.’”

Sam’s anger boiled over. “Not like that! That’s obscenity, blasphemy! Insanity!” But the mechs would never understand. To
them, function was what mattered; form was irrelevant. They had no sense of aesthetics, no sense of propriety, and no sense
of evil.

Sam was struck by a new thought. “You say that it makes no difference whether her bodily parts are scattered or assembled.
Could she not be brought back, by the same process that incorporated her?”

“Using what for body-parts?”

“Duplicated copies. Have you no recorded templates?”

The servomech patiently dashed his hopes. “Even if we had . . . even if her organs were all intact, a vital element of process
is irretrievably lost when an organism dies. We cannot re-create the correct dynamic state. What the Lifesoul-Stealer has
taken can never be restored. Death, like life, is a question of function, of process. Not components.”

Well, he was certainly getting an education in the secrets of the Church, Sam told himself. But was it the education that
his superiors had intended? He had assisted in torturing Clutch-the-Moon Splitcloud to death, supposedly for the unfortunate
creature’s spiritual health. And he had swallowed the theological creed of the Great Memes, which had led him to shoot an
innocent alien and leave him to die a terrible death. He had discovered that the reward for spiritual advancement was Heaven—but
the paradise was fake, and the reality was a planetary charnel house. And he had met and been attracted to an irritatingly
sarcastic woman of supreme beauty, and had watched her being smothered and consumed by a monster.

And this was supposed to be evidence of tolerance? Love? Respect for one’s fellow lifesouls?

Really?

“Your visit to this facility has served its purpose,” said the servomech, breaking into his thoughts. “Your tuition here is
at an end. The transible has been prepared for your return. Delay will be inefficient and costly.”

Delay? Sam couldn’t wait. When he got back to Aquifer, the hiero-crat would have an awful lot of answering to do.

Surrection, resurrection. Quantum phases recohered. Matter, briefly transparent, became opaque. The ghostly inner light faded,
and XIV Samuel was back on Aquifer.

Oval pink eyelets peered at him myopically from an elongated, ophidian head. “No, Hhoortl555mup isn’t here,” it said in answer
to his question. The Cakhadyll operating the transible was apologetic, but its mind was occupied elsewhere, and its forefringe
ruffled helplessly. “It’s been nothing but confusion since she left.”