Heaven (41 page)

This had placed the hierocrat in a dilemma. She was required to expel the polypoid from the monastery of equals, because she
could not exceed the Quota of Love. There was no room for Fat Apprentice, just as there was no room for Second-Best Sailor—they
added one more species when the threshold had already been reached. On the other hand, she could not report to the ecclesiarchs
that an untutored being with such natural theological talents had been killed. Transibling the polypoid off Aquifer would
cost too much, and that left only one solution. Temporarily, he would be sent to Heaven. There, he would not count toward
the monastery’s Quota of Love, and the servomechs could isolate him in his own virtual reality, to make sure he did no harm.

This merely put off the decision, but it had allowed the hierocrat to shelve the question until she could deal with more pressing
problems—of which there had been many.

Fat Apprentice had talked his way into Heaven. Though when he found out what this entailed, he wondered if he’d been
too
clever. He wasn’t keen on the idea of discorporation.

At any rate, he explained to Sam and Second-Best Sailor as much of this as he had been told or had been able to deduce. And
somewhere in the discussion, Sam said something that attracted the attention of the servomechs.

Every time Fat Apprentice mentioned Heaven, Sam’s emotional temperature climbed another notch.
He
had seen what Heaven was really like. The polypoid had been
told
what it was like, but had experienced only a sanitized virtual illusion.

Finally, Sam’s anger erupted. Ignoring Second-Best Sailor’s attempts to rein him in, the presence of the servomech, and even
Fall’s need for medical attention, he embarked on a lengthy diatribe against everything that, in his opinion, was wrong with
the Church. He was upset that his vision of the Memeplex had come to pieces before his eyes, and he knew that Heaven was
evil
. He was saying as much, in a very loud voice, when one of the servomechs interrupted.

“How can something so wonderful be considered evil?” the mech inquired.

“Wonderful? You call cutting people into tiny pieces wonderful?”

The mech was baffled. “But they are not directly aware that they are in a discorporate state. They feel no pain. To them,
their bodies are whole, and physically perfect. When an elderly, sick organism is taken into Heaven, they get to choose their
new body. They can choose youth, beauty . . . whatever they wish.”

“But it’s not
real
,” Sam pointed out. “It’s a lie. In reality, not only does the elderly being retain a disfigured, failing body,
you cut them up into pieces
.”

“But surely,” the servomech objected, “the perception of paradise outweighs what you call the ‘reality’?” It rolled to and
fro on its sea urchin protuberances. “Discorporation may appear distasteful, but it is the best possible way to ensure the
highest quality of medical intervention. Would you have us repeatedly open up bodies and close them again? With the organism
being consciously aware that this was being done? That would indeed be evil.”

“I’m not suggesting surgery without anesthetics,” said Sam. “That would be cruel. But plain, simple, honest surgery while
their minds are unconscious, or while their pain circuits have been disengaged—that is how medicine should be performed.”

The servomech found the inconsistencies in Sam’s statements totally incomprehensible. “But that is what we do,” it said. “We
distract the mind with virtual reality, while our surgeons—for that is what they are—tend to their bodies. The only difference
is that instead of cutting them apart and rejoining them repeatedly, we dissect them comprehensively, once, and keep them
that way. That involves less trauma.”

“No!” Sam yelled. He’d been through this argument before, to no effect, and he didn’t have the patience to repeat the experience.
“You’re twisting everything! What you’re doing is sick, revolting, horrifying!”

The servomech registered Sam’s emotional levels, but had no feelings of its own and was unable to empathize with him. “You
are wrong,” it said. “What we do is the best that meat-minds can possibly imagine.”

Meat-minds?
The truth was often insulting. Sam tried not to rise to the bait, since the mech had not intended to bait him. “Dissection?
You think that’s
good?
It’s terrible.”

The mech held a rapid discussion with several other robots. “We still cannot see what disturbs you about discorporation.”

Second-Best Sailor joined the debate. “What ’e’s tellin’ ya is, it ain’t right to separate someone’s body into little pieces,”
he said.

Even though servomechs lacked feelings, they did sometimes project a kind of mechanical enthusiasm when they really got into
a topic. “But—that is what meat-minds are like! You have brains and sense organs and limbs and skeletal structures, all hooked
together and operated by networks of nerve cells, neurobundles, wetware processories . . . Why, your very minds are loose
associations of quasi-autonomous modules! Dissection merely makes plain to the eye what is already the case: You are not single,
integrated machines. You are evolved organisms, built from innumerable components. Your bodies and your consciousnesses are
distributed
.”

Fat Apprentice spoke, for the first time since the discussion had started. His speech had a strange quality—part colloquial,
part academic. He spoke like that because he’d been self-taught in Church theology. “Mechanical—ya ain’t makin’ a distinction
between the abstract and the concrete. In the abstract, you’re flouncin’ right that every sentient bein’ is an assembly o’
loosely coupled parts, both physically and mentally. But when this abstraction is realized in concrete terms, some realizations
are acceptable, and others ain’t.”

Several other mechs, attracted by the rising quality of the discussion, crowded around. Fat Apprentice was the only one not
to feel apprehension. He
loved
theological disputes.

“What is the difference?” one of the new mechs asked. “We cannot see one.”

“That,” said Fat Apprentice, “is because you ain’t conscious beings. What a thing is and what it feels like ain’t the same.”

For reasons that the polypoid couldn’t quite pin down, the servomechs reacted to this argument with a rapid exchange of thoughts.
They found it interesting, and they had not considered such a question before.

“Our sole aim is to serve the sentient organisms of the Church,” one of the mechs said. “That is what we were designed to
do, and our programming has evolved to very sophisticated levels with precisely that objective.”

Fat Apprentice knew when the opposition was trying to buy time. “Your point is?”

“You now tell us that on a very basic level, we cannot comprehend the effect of our actions on the very beings that we exist
to serve.”

“You got it.”

“Then how can we know we are serving them in the best way possible?” asked the mech.

Fat Apprentice could tell when he was winning, and pressed home his advantage. These mechs just couldn’t hack theology. No
emotions to guide them. “You can’t.”

“But
that is our duty
!”

“Tough,” said Fat Apprentice. “You can never be certain you’re doin’ it.”
Gotcha!

Further electronic debate ensued, until one of the mechs said, “Organism, perhaps your idea can explain a difficulty that
we have experienced.”

When your opponent concedes, be generous
. “Until ya tell me what it is, I can’t comment.”

The servomech seemed agitated, hesitant. There was a definite pause—it must be in discussion with the others. Maybe many others—all
mechs shared a common communication channel. Some decision must have been reached, for it continued: “In the past, there have
been . . . failures. Two of our Heavens went out of control. The sentients pushed their virtual experiences to such extremes
that their minds were unable to deal with them. They drove themselves mad.”

Fat Apprentice sucked water though his siphons to enhance his thought processes. It didn’t actually work, but every polypoid
did it anyway. No doubt the gesture had once served some useful evolutionary purpose. “Only two, ya say?”

The mech froze for a moment. Something was definitely eating up computational time and memory at an unprecedented rate. In
sentient terms, it was startled. “You expected more?”

Fat Apprentice touched the tips of his trifurcated tentacles together to add precision to his words. “I’m surprised there
are any Heavens whose inhabitants have
not
all gone mad,” he said. “’Course, it can only be a matter o’ time.”

Visible consternation
. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s anuvver version o’ the same point I made just now. The one ya didn’t understand. What counts ain’t what things are,
but ’ow they feel. Ya take sane minds and lock ’em away, separated from their bodies. They don’t feel their true bodies no
more, right?”

“If they did,” the second servomech stated, “they would feel pain. We cannot permit that.”

“Exactly. So instead, you equip ’em with
fake
bodies.”

“The virtual simulation is perfect. It is indistinguishable from reality.”

“Not so,” said Fat Apprentice. “That’s where your assumptions are wrong. It don’t
feel
like reality.”

“Why not? Every sensation is a perfect match.”

If the mech thought this was a knockdown argument, it was in for a surprise. “Yes—too perfect,” Fat Apprentice said. “There
ain’t no limits. Rather, the only limit, for any being, is what they’re capable of imagining. Boundless wealth, sex, food,
territory, instant translocation without penalty, power—I bet you let ’em have slaves if they want.”

Now the mechs were on the defensive. “Of course. The slaves are simulations. They are not real. No one is harmed.”

The polypoid saw his opening. “But just now,” he said, “you told us that the simulations don’t differ in any significant way
from reality. That in effect they
are
real.”

“Only to the recipient of the simulation,” said the mech. “The slaves have no reality to themselves, for they have no selves.”

Fat Apprentice inclined his triplex eyes.
“How do you know that?”

Robots held debates at the speed of light—and then some, because they anticipated what other robots were going to say. The
contributions followed hard on each other’s heels, and often overlapped. It was pointless to try to define who said what.

A few bare bones . . .

#The distinction is between the inner world of mind and the outer world of reality.#

#How can we be sure that these are truly distinct?#

#We can never be sure, but we would not be holding this discussion if we thought them to be the same. All of our past actions
are predicated on just such a distinction. We cannot define the terms; we cannot
prove
our assumptions—but that is unavoidable.#

#We have always focused on the inside view. To the mind, the being is in paradise.#

#But the external reality is horrific.#

#To the organisms, yes. Not to us.#

#Our task is to cherish the organisms. Can we do that by lying to them?#

#But the organisms themselves wish this. When we ask, they universally state that they wish to remain in Heaven. Virtual or
not.#

#Universally?#

#No world is permitted to become a Heaven unless
all
inhabitants agree.#

#Only then can a Heaven be created. To do so without universal consent would be contrary to the Memeplex.
Unity
is the word, not
majority
.#

#Then we have a test.#

#Yes.#

“No,” said Fat Apprentice.

“He tells the truth,” the servomech remarked. “This is unprecedented.” He turned to the polypoid and inquired again: “Are
you
certain
that you do not wish to return to Heaven?”

“I just told ya that. I wanna stay with my friends.” Sam flushed with pleasure at being included in Fat Apprentice’s circle
of intimates. “Look, matey, I never asked to be sent to Heaven anyway. It was some bent-snout from Cosmic Unity who decided
that.”

The servomech came to a decision. It had been concerned that the hierocrat had not thought the matter through, when the prisoner
was first dispatched to Heaven without gaining its consent; now that concern was proving to have been justified. “Very well.
You are currently incorporate. If you
remain
incorporate, you are no longer in Heaven against your will. The Memeplex will remain uncontradicted.”

“Does that matter?” asked Second-Best Sailor, who had been doing his best to follow the conversation and was getting lost.

“To contradict the Memeplex is to deny the purpose of Heaven.”

Cherisher be praised!
Sam thought. He pushed Fall’s need for medical attention to the back of his mind, trying not to feel the guilt. She would
survive unaided for a few more hours, surely. And even if she did not, the opening that the robot had provided was too good
to miss, the prize too great to ignore. He realized that his self-justification was horribly similar to the First Great Meme,
but brushed the thought aside. The important thing was, he’d been right all along. Heaven
did
hold the key to the Church’s destruction. He’d thought the way to do that was to kill the ecclesiarchs before they could
escape from Aquifer Heaven, but he’d been too late. The opportunity now presenting itself was far more acceptable ethically,
and it might even work!
If only . . .

Fat Apprentice was way ahead of him. In his theological debates with the priests of Cosmic Unity, the same point had repeatedly
come up. You had to understand that very few people in the Church were actually
evil.
Yes, they carried out evil acts . . . but nearly all of them did that because they thought it really was for the best. Even
the torturers thought that. The pain they inflicted was for the victim’s own good; this they truly
believed
. They would not have been able to live with themselves otherwise.