by Gadi Migdal
The little entourage moved quietly towards them.
“Your honor, please inform me of any problem or shortage you encounter. I am at your service at all times,” Nola transmitted to the egg-layer as she passed by.
The egg-layer did not respond or show any sign of hearing Nola.
‘It’s happening again,’ Nola was horrified.
“My name is Nola, your coordinator. Always at your service,” she tried again, following the egg-layer who was getting farther away.
As usual, as it had been for those twenty-two years, no response came.
She looked quietly at the small group as it entered the large elevator and descended to the great hall.
Why? She had failed again; she wasn’t able to contact her egg-layer. Why?
‘She ignored me completely,’ the thought echoed in her brain. The egg-layer didn’t even acknowledge her existence.
A rustling behind her caught her attention, “This certainly was a most exciting event, Your Honor, now it’s time for me to resume my role,” General Bud said as she walked towards the elevator.
Nola had a thought. “General, why didn’t you try to communicate with the egg-layer or welcome her?”
The general swiveled and looked at her for a long moment, before answering her in a surprised voice, “Try to communicate with the egg-layer, Your Honor? Why would I do something like that?”
The stunned Nola did not reply and just watched as the general entered the elevator and disappeared.
Several seconds later, the ship’s computer reported to her that the egg-layer had safely reached the great hall.
Chapter 9
General
Nola was resting in her living quarters and hoping for a few hours of quiet. The last two weeks had been exhausting. She gathered the final crumbs that remained of the cheesecake with her fingers and licked them. The hard work had tired her out, and the complete disregard she had experienced from the new egg-layer did not improve her mood.
Throughout all of the previous week, she had tried to communicate with the egg-layer. It was futile. The egg-layer didn’t bother to acknowledge her existence. It was tempting to throw her hands up, as she had done for the past two decades. Not this time, Nola was determined - the egg-layer would not again be the ‘she-slave’ to her. She would go on trying to communicate with her until she succeeded. After all, they had a long journey ahead of them, and the cluster was very small, so Nola’s chances were good. In any case, it was a future matter. For now, she just wanted to close her eyes and rest. Tomorrow the swarming would set off.
“Your Honor, may I come in?” the implant beeped, it was General Bud.
Nola sighed despondently. She so wanted to rest, not to meet or speak with anybody.
But, as Grant had pointed out, she had a purpose in life. She signaled to the door to open.
The general marched in with her usual arrogant determination, “Your Honor, is everything ready for tomorrow?”
“Yes, General, the aides say that the egg-layer has settled in and feels well. The gardens have already begun to bear fruit. All of the ship’s systems are in order. As soon as you tell me the destination, I will instruct the ship to fly there.”
“I already know all of that, Your Honor,” the general transmitted. “I want to know if everything is ready for the humans who will be arriving soon.”
“The humans? Why? All they need is some living space. They are just passengers on board the ship. In fact, they are a type of cargo,” Nola made a tired joke.
“No, Your Honor, they aren’t just passengers, and certainly not cargo. They are part of the swarming. They are all experienced with long journeys in space and interstellar trade, and all of them have the relevant education for the journey. They are an important asset to the Whole.”
Nola was surprised; the egg-layers saw humans as an asset? “How do you know what experience they have, General?”
“All of the adult city residents embark on acquisition trips, Your Honor, that’s a well-known fact.”
Nola straightened in astonishment, “General, how do you know that?”
“From the Whole, Your Honor,” the general answered with pride.
Nola looked at her suspiciously, was the general evading a straight answer? “Who in the Whole told you that, General? How is it possible that the egg-layers know about that?”
“Your honor, the Whole knows everything about the city.”
“How?” Nola demanded aggressively.
“From the coordinators, of course.”
Nola stared at her in astonishment. “Through the coordinators?” she repeated.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
A wave of jealousy passed through Nola. ‘How did they manage that?’ “So other coordinators told the Whole everything they know about the city?” she asked the general.
“I don’t understand the question, Your Honor.”
“General, are you telling me that the coordinators of other clusters told their egg-layers everything they knew about the city?”
“Told? Your Honor.”
“Yes, told. Did the coordinators tell what they knew about the city to their egg-layers?”
“I don’t understand the question, Your Honor.”
Nola burst with frustration, “Do the other coordinators speak with their egg-layers?”
“No, Your Honor, egg-layers never speak with their coordinators.”
“Never?” Nola was astonished.
“Never, Your Honor, egg-layers don’t communicate with people.”
Never. The surprise mixed with a sense of relief. “Never? Egg-layers never communicate with people? Why did nobody bother to tell me that?” she demanded.
The general made a movement that looked like a shrug, which was not a simple maneuver for a creature with four arms attached at the chest, “you never asked, Your Honor.”
“But they communicate with one another, why not with humans?” Nola insisted.
The general looked perplexed, “I don’t understand your question, Your Honor.”
Nola smiled at the general. “Never mind, if the egg-layers don’t communicate with their coordinators, how does the Whole know so much about the city?”
“The Whole learned from its coordinators, Your Honor.”
“But how?” Nola asked impatiently. “How does the Whole learn?”
The General looked a little confused. “I told you, from the coordinators, Your Honor.”
Inquiry with the Whole members could be a frustrating undertaking. Nola ordered herself to take a deep breath and calm down. “General, how do the egg-layers learn everything they know from the coordinators, if the coordinators don’t speak with them?”
“Because the coordinators are part of the Whole, Your Honor.”
Nola considered this answer. “What does that mean that the coordinators are part of the Whole? Are they part of the egg-layers’ council?”
“Egg-layers’ council, Your Honor? I do not know this expression.”
“What you call the Whole, a group of egg-layers that makes up the Whole. How can you claim that the coordinators are also part of it?”
“But Your Honor, the egg-layers are not the Whole, they are simply part of it.”
Nola blinked in surprise, “Apart from the egg-layers, are there other groups in the Whole?”
“Of course, Your Honor, all of the Whole members are part of the Whole.”
Nola inwardly cursed the cluster members’ limitations in communicating. “General, I don’t mean your species, the Whole. I mean your council, the council that controls all of you. Who are its members?”
The general’s jaws opened and closed in confusion. “Your honor, the Whole has no council. There is just the Whole.”
Nola forced herself to calm down. Conversations with cluster members so
metimes required great patience, so she tried a different approach. “How does the Whole learn from its coordinators?”
“Learn, Your Honor? The Wholes knows everything it knows from its coordinators. It doesn’t learn.”
Nola chuckled. “General, does the Whole read the coordinators’ thoughts?”
“No, Your Honor. The coordinators’ thoughts are part of the thoughts of the Whole.”
“Part of the thoughts of the Whole?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Twenty-two lonely years raced through Nola’s mind. The egg-layers never communicated! She felt a sudden chill in her bones. “General, are all of the Whole members connected to one another?”
“Of course, Your Honor.”
“In other words, the Whole is simply the connection between all of the members of the Whole in all of the clusters?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor.”
Nola breathed slowly, and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled. “Are all of the Whole members from all of the clusters connected to one another at every moment?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Can the Whole read the thoughts of all of the Whole members?”
“The thoughts of the Whole’s members are part of the Whole’s thoughts, Your Honor.”
Horror clouded Nola’s vision, and she was pushed back into her chair.
‘The city council is full of idiots,’ she thought bitterly. ‘It fits them, not to understand a thing.’ She breathed deeply before speaking. “General, are you telling me that the Whole is a thinking, independent entity made up of billions of cluster members?” she asked, frightened.
“Of course, Your Honor, this was already explained to the city council.”
Nola laughed aloud and struggled to stop it. She felt that she was on the verge of a panic attack and forced herself to breathe deeply, calm herself, and stop laughing. “Evidently it was not sufficiently explained, General.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Your Honor.”
The fools on the council had not understood what the egg-layer had told them. She didn’t speak on behalf of some council of egg-layers. She spoke on behalf of the entire whole, an entire species which was a singular intelligent entity. An intelligent entity made up of innumerable individuals.
The Whole entity. Not the Whole council.
An uncontrollable shudder passed through her. “Am I also part of the Whole?” she had to know.
“Of course, Your Honor.”
Thoughts raced through her mind, that damned implant. The implant that was inserted into her head the day that she was chosen by the egg-layer. Of course, it was the implant. It connected her to cluster members and therefor to the entity of the Whole.
“And every coordinator is also part of the Whole?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“That means that my thoughts are actually part of the thoughts of the Whole too?” Nola asked, trying to fight the mounting panic.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Nola closed her eyes. Her heart was beating furiously, and she felt a dull ache in her temples. She ordered her body to slow her heart rate before she opened her eyes. She had to understand the situation properly.
“General, does the Whole communicate with you directly and tell you what to do?”
“There is no need for that, I am part of the Whole, Your Honor.”
“As in, if the Whole thinks to do something, you simply do it?”
“Of course, Your Honor.”
Nola felt nauseous. ‘Is there no more Nola?’ a frightened voice screamed from deep inside her mind.
She shook her head and tried to concentrate. For twenty-two years someone had been reading her thoughts and implanting thoughts of his own in her? That wasn’t possible. She would not agree to that.
She looked at the general who stood calmly before her. “General, how can I know when a thought is mine or when it is from the Whole?”
“Your honor, you are part of the Whole. Any thought you have is also a thought of the Whole.”
“That’s not a good enough answer,” Nola said in anger. The memory of the workers who had run wild and destroyed the crops two years ago suddenly crossed her mind. “Can the Whole also control my actions?”
“Of course, Your Honor, you are part of the Whole,” said the General.
The scream in Nola’s head intensified. ‘There is no more Nola. No more me.’
The frustration burst from her. “And what if I don’t want to be part of the Whole? What right does it have to invade my head?” she snapped at the General.
The general looked at Nola for a long moment and then rested the lower part of her body on the ground, folded her legs, and straightened her upper body until her five eyes were aligned with Nola’s.
The three small eyes, in the middle of her face, were fixed on Nola’s.
“Your honor, the Whole would never do something that would hurt you.”
“How do you know that, General?” Nola asked bitterly.
“You are important to the Whole, Your Honor.”
Nola snorted disdainfully and didn’t answer.
The general was quiet for a moment, then asked. “Your honor, do you know why the Whole asked for you specifically to join the swarming?”
Nola looked at her in amazement. “I don’t care why the Whole chose me. I want it out of my head,” she shouted angrily.
“Please, Your Honor, try to answer my question.”
Nola looked at her angrily but forced herself to calm down, any shred of additional information she received might make it easier for her later on. “I already thought about that,” she replied. “Before I was chosen, eight years passed without choosing a new coordinator. That means that I am experienced enough as a coordinator, but still young enough to go off on this swarming.”
“That’s right, Your Honor, but a coordinator eight years older than you could also handle this journey, and in the two years after your election, three additional coordinators joined. They are also experienced enough. Why were you specifically chosen for the swarming?”
Nola pondered for a moment. “I don’t know, General. I can’t think of another reason.”
“Your honor, the Whole chose you for the swarming the day you became a coordinator. The moment you received your implant, the Whole identified you as suitable for its needs and began to train to you for the swarming.”
“To train me? How? I never did anything besides coordinate a cluster.”
“Correct, Your Honor, cluster coordination was part of your training, and the rest was carried out without you noticing. The Whole recognized a kind of flexible thinking in you, the kind it needs. Since the day you arrived at the cluster, the Whole made sure to strengthen certain qualities of yours. The Whole also made sure to provide you with nutrition that stimulated your implant for faster development. Today you are the coordinator with the strongest and most efficient implant.”
Nola stared at the general. This damned whole had done experiments on her? A hundred questions filled her mind. What right did the Whole have to do this? Which qualities, exactly, had they enhanced? Why? For what purpose? But one question bothered her above all.
“How can the Whole influence my nutrition? After all, I received a container of packaged food from the city every day.”
“True, Your Honor, and the workers who gathered them from the robotic hovercrafts are part of the Whole. Enriched food was added to your nutrition from the day you arrived to the cluster.”
The members of her cluster had betrayed her? Nola felt the sting of insult. “Which qualities did the Whole change in me?” she demanded to know.
“A number of personality traits, Your Honor, such as stubbornness, curiosity, and perseverance. And as I mentioned, they improved your implant’s capacity for calculation and transmi
ssion.”
Nola stared at the general furiously, “the Whole had no right to make changes in me without my knowledge.”
The general smiled her strange smile. “In addition, the Whole strengthened your patience and your ability to adapt quickly to changing situations, and to understand how to get the most out of them without resentment.” Was this a joke?
Less than a month ago, the general had laughed for the first time, now she was making jokes. Nola had never encountered a whole member with a sense of humor. Was this really the general? The freezing cold spread through her shoulders again.
“Am I currently speaking to General Bud or to the Whole itself?”
“The two are intertwined, Your Honor, I have no way to differentiate between them.”
Nola’s heart fluttered again in fear. Just as she had worried, there was no existence for independent individuals within the Whole. She forced herself to calm down again and considered the situation. “How could cluster food influence me? After all, I am a human being and not a daughter of the Whole.”
“Your honor, the Whole was created by genetic manipulation of insects that originate from the mother-world of human beings. Insects that were called ‘honey bees’. As part of the change, human genes were integrated into the genes of the Whole members.”
Nola was surprised. “Humans and the Whole are relatives?”
“That’s one way to express it, Your Honor.”
“Why did the Whole make these changes in me?”
“In order to prepare you for an interplanetary journey, Your Honor.”
Nola raised an eyebrow. “To prepare me for a journey? How long was the Whole planning this journey?”
“Your honor, this journey was planned before you were born.”
“Before she was born? She was just a pawn in their game. All this time she had just been a pawn. First at the hands of the city and now at the hands of the Whole. The scream in her head grew stronger, ‘there is no more Nola,’ as tears sprang to her eyes.
“What if I don’t want to be part of this journey? And what if I don’t even want to be part of the Whole?”