Transcendence (59 page)

But now he’s found a friend in Nooa, even if she is simply the construct of an AI with questionable motives. And perhaps he’s even found the man for whom he built a spaceport within the fortress-world of his mind.

If only it’s all true
, Jonathan thinks.
Please, let it be true
.

Wordlessly, he tells Nooa to send a little something to test this man. Jonathan stares at him, smiling, waiting for a reply and a light in the sky.

Janus finished her
ryokucha
—a weak, bitter tea the people of Jiru City had given her to wash down her first meal in nearly a day. When she opened her eyes, she looked out through the ultraglas dome and was seized by the planet Neptune. She set down the ceramic cup and stared at the massive orb overhead. It was so quiet and solemn, blue like the blue sky of Earth yet only filling a tenth of this moon’s sky, streaked with white. Closer, on the surface of the glass, tiny meteorite impact-craters blemished the view; but they were as natural here as Neptune itself, more natural than the people working within this cluster of cylindrical living chambers.

She sighed, realizing only after drawing a deep breath that already she had become accustomed to the scent of dense humanity. And then she smiled and lowered her eyes to the steady man across the plastic table from her. Jon Pang, too, was staring up at Neptune, and something in the intensity of his eyes said to her that he was seeing something new. Behind him, doorless cabinets virtually spilled out their contents of electrical and mechanical components. Janus and Pang were alone with six other chairs, though she could hear voices and movements in the distance, the whirrs of machines and purr of ventilation. The chamber’s airlocks—one at each end—gaped open onto two other chambers, beyond which Janus glimpsed others, and so on.

“
Janus-san,” Pang said, “I must apologize for President Dorei. He should have come to accept your apology.”

“
I understand.” She suddenly felt heavy.

“
Miru spoke with you before the
. . .
bombing. He told Dorei-san you tried to avert—”

“
Time to go,” a voice interrupted the awkward conversation.

Liu Miru stood in the doorway, wearing a spacesuit. Janus rose immediately.

“
I will not permit—” Pang began.

“
Please, Pang,” Miru said, “you have been my only friend. You must not try to stop me in pursuit of knowledge such as this. Instead, you must join me.”

Janus watched in silence. Pang lowered his eyes and stared at the scarred tabletop. If she had to return to the artifact alone, Janus would, though she preferred an escort. Indeed, she would feel like a trespasser if she went there alone.

“
Sayo,” Pang said. He drew a heavy breath as he stood.

Already he was wearing a spacesuit; Janus recognized that he had long ago established a pattern with Miru:
No; you must; if I must, then I will
—and it was all predetermined, as if the words themselves were only ritual. She smiled. It warmed her heart to see such friends. She had so seldom watched real friends interact in ways that had become natural between them.

“
Let us go, then,” Miru said. He waited only a second while Janus rose—having never removed her spacesuit—then began to lead the way. Pang followed Janus.

Janus moved through the crowded “city” with abrupt, shaky movements. She was excited at the prospect of discovery and finding Jack, yet still filled with hatred at Eyes—filled also with frustration that she hadn’t been able to destroy him. But at least he was gone. Perhaps Jack was right; perhaps it was best that she hadn’t murdered the cyborg. Killing had haunted Jack for so long, and she was haunted enough already. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Eyes was still alive, somewhere, somehow, waiting like a venomous predator in the 3VRD wilds of her mind.

They reached an outer airlock-entry room where spacesuits hung like hollow men, helmets like legless insects dangling from the ceiling or from hooks on the walls. Someone had brought Janus’ helmet here. She locked it in place with assistance from Miru, whose warm, brown eyes held hers for a long second. His smile felt familiar, though she couldn’t remember having seen one like his before, except perhaps on Miguel or Jack. . . .
That’s it
, she thought.
He smiles Jack’s smile. How could that be?

Pang shut and sealed the room’s door, opened the airlock’s outer door, then led them inside and closed the door again. They cycled through and stepped out onto Triton’s surface.

The walk was very easy in the fractional gravity, though the occasional ice fissure made Janus pay attention to her foot placement. Twice they passed vehicles extending boring tools into the pale green surface, though only one was manned. Crystal sparkling rays from the nuclear blast were their guides. Wind hissed constantly, though with little effect. Finally, the three reached the tumbled hill bordering the new crater.

Janus reached the top first and looked down upon the tower of ice that seemed to cup the alien object as a mother would hold a precious child in her hands.
Jack’s in there
, she told herself.

“
We should enter together,” Miru’s voice said over Janus’ helmet speaker. “I have been inside before. It can be a terrifying experience without someone to
. . .
guide you through.”

Janus understood the logic of that, but still she found herself often stopping to wait for the two men to catch up to her as they descended the crater’s rim and climbed the tower. Miru, especially, was impatient; “The gravity is so slight, why go so slowly?” But she insisted. Plant an anchor, run the rope through, descend a few meters, plant a new anchor. . . .

At last they stood atop the pillar, each with a hand on the three-meter black sphere.

“
Shut down your cards,” Miru said.

Janus did so, and again she saw the graceful concentric levels of the Beningus Great House rise up before her. Behind a slick, black wall waited something for which she had searched all her life, exploring distant nebulae and imagining worlds she’d never see. But here waited the reality, and she was only minutes away from taking hold of it.

Yet, as the three of them circled round and round, she grew afraid. Was she ready? Miru said the experience could be terrifying; indeed, the artifact had supposedly killed Eyes. What if her heart were as black as the cyborg’s? What if the alien intelligence that worked this
. . .
machine or whatever it was could see into her soul and find the hatred there? What if? what if?

Miru sensed a hesitation in the woman’s movements. He felt as if he knew her well, though he recognized that the memories he used had been collected by a different man. A different shell of a man, he corrected himself; a different exterior that had collected different pearls over the past few decades. Still, Pehr Jackson had shared those pearls of memory with him, as had Miru shared his with Pehr, and now it was as if they both had grown twice as wealthy, neither having lost anything.

“
Janus, you must not be afraid,” he said. “Fear is the thing that can destroy you. You must be free to trust me, trust Pang, with everything we are about to experience. You must be free to examine yourself without fear. Neither I nor Pang will judge harshly what we see. Is that right, my friend?”

Pang turned away from the temple—if indeed that’s what he saw. Miru realized he hadn’t yet asked if the others also saw the Great Buddhist Temple of Mahabodhi.

“
I have judged no one in my life,” Pang said. He looked at Janus, as if seeing her for the first time. “If I can tolerate this man—” he waved absently at Miru, “—I can tolerate anyone.” He smiled.

Miru felt relieved when the woman smiled back. Yes, Pehr was right, she had a lovely smile. He felt a longing for her which took a moment to dissociate from himself; this was Pehr’s feeling.

“
What do you two see, here?” he asked. He heard Pang draw a long breath.

“
That’s rather difficult to explain,” the man answered. “It looks rather like a
. . .
model of the galaxy, but more than that. The spiral arms sweep around the bright core as we imagine our galaxy operates, yet I seem to glimpse many
. . .
tonneru, tunnels. They are clear yet as bright as the stars. I cannot explain. Why, what is it you see?”

Miru told him, and then Janus. The three stood in silence for a while, looking on their minds’ constructs of holy.

“
We should continue,” Miru said.

After one more circuit of the barrier wall, Miru saw the telltale roiling colors that indicated an entrance. He waited until the others saw it before he spoke.

“
Here is where we enter. Are you both ready?” Pang nodded; Janus hesitated. “Do not be afraid. I will help you however I can, but I will need your energy. I’m speaking to both of you.”

Janus smiled again. Miru smiled back, and again saw the peculiar look of recognition on her face.

They stepped inside, Miru first, Pang second, Janus last. Miru’s momentary nervousness vanished when he sensed that the woman had overcome her fear and followed them within.

Darkness. Then much more.

A rainbow shatters and re-forms. Within the rainbow are countless fragment—details, moments from lives, alive with faces and places. Great clouds drift all through the space that feels like a sphere but seems to extend to infinity.

“
Our galaxy.” My friend Pang. “From how you explained your experience here, I knew it would be this way.”

“
Yes. Now look closer. Look at the crystals which compose the rainbow.” My friend Miru. “Janus, I cannot see you.”

*I don’t know what you mean.*

But her panic makes the rainbow rush in upon I and I, and we catch glimpses of her life from now, back through battles on the icy surface of Triton, Eyes tricking her again and again, then she’s back aboard the
Bounty
—

*You did not intend us harm. Remember that. Watch how you fight to save the artifact, to save the little enemy man down on the surface of an alien world. Is that how you see me?*

Laughter. *I know I am not as beautiful as Pehr.*

*I find you beautiful.* My friend Pang. *But still my panic scares you. I’m so sorry but I’m afraid.*
Eyes penetrates my skull and whips up a nightmare circus. He the clown and his 3VRD minions, none of them real but the pain, oh Father, what have I done to deserve this?

A million bubbles of time float within the medium of our minds. A wave pulses through, tossing each bubble of our lives which encompasses seconds or hours or days
. . .
but each scene whips now in the wave like fragmentary nothings about to burst—

*You must be careful of these emotions, my friend Janus. This is what destroyed Lonny, Eyes, as you know him. He has harmed you, but please do not attempt to bring the shell in here.*

I and I and I see, as young Miru had, the oyster shell ripped open on the metal grating, high above the ocean. Its meat is ripped out, its mother-of-pearl lining scored by a knife—*Is this what you mean?*—*No; watch: In watching, the dangerous wave subsides. Distraction is sometimes necessary until calm can be secured.*

The shell fills up once again, and at the center of the soft meat lies a pearl. As the shell closes, it swallows the obscuring clouds, the rainbow of crystals, the huge metal and plastic mass of Ryukyu Island, Earth, Alabama, the shadow-shrines at Hiroshima, a homeless shelter in Montgomery, and becomes all three of us because this is what we are. . . .

And then it explodes, and we are within ourselves as the oyster is back within his shell. Yet now a shell has no purpose.

“
It will destroy you if you bring it here.”

Terror: “Where are we? What’s happened?”

Janus stands trembling and naked at the edge of a moment just before I took my sister Rachel away from our Father’s house.
I can’t stand to go there, I won’t
.

I and I stand on two different planes of moment, two scenes roiling in our own pasts, but you must go first else neither of us can escape.
We need you. Now you see why I need you. You are so strong, but you cannot access that power because of the shell
.

“
My friend Janus, you must show us who you are,” Miru says aloud. I cannot hear his thoughts now that I stand at the gates of Hell. “Even now I can see the demons that dwell within you. They are devouring you. But don’t you see? They are no longer inside; you can defeat them now. You are everywhere in this galaxy of life, yet they only occupy a few moments. Look!”