Bowl of Heaven

by Gregory Benford

TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Citadel of Remembrance loomed larger than Memor recalled from her young days, so long ago. The high ramparts loomed like mountain cliffs over the gathering assembly. Fog trailed strands of pale luminance that frayed into brilliant amber fingers, like a twisting dome over them all. She admired the new additions to the Citadel, feeling the immense powers lodged here. That august force seemed more like a state of nature than a power, but such was the point.

  That the Citadel could well be her place of execution did not fully overcome her awe. Instead, it gave her a delicious blend of fear and strangeness that her Undermind relished. She could feel the strumming presence of it and knew she would have to keep it carefully controlled. Her Undermind could slip words and even phrases into her speech, in its eagerness. And eager it was; she could feel the hopeful spikes of feeling. Drama was rare in an Astronomer’s life.

  She shuffled her feet in the required way, said the right things, and needed scarcely any promptings from her inboards. They knew the steps but not the sway, and it was safe to ignore them here.

  Memor hung back from the slowly ambling crowd of Astronomers, relishing the trumpeting salutes of greeting they gave. She always used the tone of these as a diagnostic of the collective mood, and today seemed more testy than usual. Some glowered at one another, while others passed in stiff silence, feathers turned to muted tones. Riffs and small songs danced among the bass notes of the many, a leitmotif. These came from the few young males, who walked quickly and greeted loudly, joyfully.

  Memor had been male when young, of course — the great, vibrant stage of life. Then that Memor of vivid passions and great conquests had gone through the Revealing. It had been a passage of legendary ardor and travail. Mercifully, most such memories had been blotted away by the experience itself. Yet the lessons of being masculine lingered and blended with the feminine insights she was now acquiring. This merging led to the path of wisdom.

  As with all mature Astronomers, Memor became a She of the Folk, after learning by direct experience the male view of the world. While a He, there came to the higher Folk the legendary great desires, an easy willingness to risk, to change and innovate. This phase of zest and emotion lasted nearly twelve-squared Annuals. Memor still recalled the He sadness when those vivid feelings fled, and the bodily shifts began. Memories remained, leaving their residue of longing for a He who could never be again.

  In the Revealing’s changes, Memor had felt His/Her body shift with wrenching desires. The pains and startling fresh urges were also the focus of much Folk literature and dance, but few were nostalgic for that jittery chaos.

  From the Revealing, Memor had acquired the long views of a She, while retaining the experience and fathoming of the He era. This conferred judgment and sympathy-from-experience on the Astronomers, a vital stabilizing element evolved by the Folk over many twelve-millennia in the truly ancient past.

  This essential balance — more a dance, truly — between the He and She Memor now struggled to apply to the most unsettling event of her long life: the radical alien primates. Luckily, she had the Revealing when these aliens first appeared. That dual view of them should help her now.

  “Memor! We have not greeted in longtimes,” came a solemn, deep voice.

  Memor turned and saw the slim head of Asenath, the Chief of Wisdom. To be welcomed by such an august figure was surely a good sign — or was it? “I have longed to see you again,” Memor said. “I need your counsel.”

  “And you shall have it,” Asenath said mildly. “I like your problems — they are more intriguing than our usual fare.”

  Asenath turned to use her bulk as a sound screen, anticipating the arrival of someone out of Memor’s field of view. Memor did not have time to turn to see. Asenath said deftly, “Boredom need not come with every task, Memor, but it may seem so as you go forward.”

  “I am honored,” Memor said with a suitable sub-murmur of respect. She filed the words pointedly with her inboards for later review. She was about to say more, but another voice intruded to her left, “I shall have much interest as well,” in tones more threatening.

  Memor turned with a sense of dread to confront Kanamatha, the Council’s Biology Packmistress. “I hope to please you,” Memor said.

  Kanamatha said, “I shall have many questions,” and in her quick-tongued way turned to Asenath and said, “Following yours, my dear.”

  Memor knew she should say more, but the chimes sounded final call. Amid heady perfumes and sweet music, the cohort assembled beneath rippling lights. In their twelves they began entering the high chamber in all its splendor and beauty. In reverent silence they passed gleaming alabaster edifices, oversized onyx statues of the Builders lining the inward paths to the Citadel of the Council, small temples dotted with animal gods in ancient dress, grottoes for quiet negotiations — and perhaps for amorous assignations, when the time was ripe.

  The following retinue included scribes, small musicians burdened with their instruments, waykeepers, lampists and mathists, stewards of the Savants, oil masseurs — and all trailing sycophants galore.

  Formalities consumed some time, and then routine reports. Each bloc applied their own torque to the proceedings, peppering the reporters with questions.

  The Council had three major factions — the Farmers who ruled the vital living self of the Bowl, the Governors and Bowlcrafters who integrated the Farmers’ intricate networks with the Bowl’s physical structure. Overseeing all this in the larger perspectives were, of course, the Astronomers.

  All three sought more power, though of course none wished to be overtly seen as desiring it. Humble achievement was the goal. But having a particular goal could not be too obvious, or one would never attain it. Memor remained silent throughout this. The occasional reports came next, and Asenath declared a mealtime to separate the two. The twelve-squared all retreated to the banquet hall, nominally to feast but actually to make deals and sniff out new alliances.

  Memor ate little, wanting to keep her wits sharp. When they returned to their seats, Asenath nodded to Memor.

  “Please lead me,” Memor said to place the conversation in the right ranking order. She reported at length on the primates, their odd actions and even odder bodies. Full pictures of them floated in the chamber air, rotated to point out features. The genitalia were unexceptional but their carriage caused remarks. Memor skipped over the escape of some, stressing instead her studies of those captured. She showed the neural and brain interrogations and estimated their capacities — below the Folk, of course, but perhaps somewhat above others of the Adopted, those aliens already encountered and integrated into the Bowl.

  She bowed with regret to report the escape of the second party, as well, from the high latitudes. Her ending was of course humble. “Apologies to you all for my failure to retain or recapture these strange primates.”

  A rustle of reaction, hard for her to judge. The Council had many questions. Obviously, some had not read or even prior-memoried Memor’s reports.

  Why did they wear clothing here in the Bowl’s mild climate? Was their world colder or more hostile? These coverings over all but head and outer extremities — were these rank symbols? Could the clothing hide subtle weapons? Or could their bodies be perhaps recently reengineered, and still fragile, needing to be wrapped?

  When Memor described how the primates remained clothed except when sleeping, others asked if they were competing with one another, making declarations of self with clothing?

  The primate hindfeet had thick coverings. Had they evolved on a world where their every step was threatened? How to explain that curious gait — their continual, controlled toppling must be a transitory style, surely? Bowl creatures used more certain gaits, to avoid falling injuries. Two-legged forms were few.

  A Crafter had a detailed set of questions, embedded in her description of inspecting the primates. The teeth appeared to be all-purpose, but did that mouth truly need an ugly protruding flap of muscle? A proper design would have shel
tered the protruding eyes better, yes? Did the tiny knob nose mean they could not smell well through the tiny nostril bump-with-holes? How useful could those modified forefeet be, versus the obvious better choice to remain on four legs and have arms as well?

  They seemed to use base ten, rather than the more efficient base twelve. Why?

  “Their hands have ten digits.”

  “Surely the obvious advantages of twelve — first three fractions are integers, many other easeful facets — would outweigh that, in an intelligent species.”

  Memor could not contest this, and so moved on. “They display an odd adaptation — ”

  She showed short clips of several humans talking, their odd mouths flapping rapidly. Across their narrow faces quick muscular changes flew, a darting sequence of eyebrow lifts, shaped lips, eye moves, nostril flarings, tilts and juts of chin and jaw.

  “They have this much expression, yet never evolved feather flaunting?” Biology Savant Ramanuji asked.

  “Apparently they use their heads alone. Plus hands.”

  Sniffs and rumbles of disbelief chorused through the high vaulted room.

  Omanah the Ecosystem Packmistress said slowly, “A collective good, I would predict.” This came in feather tones designed to convey her well-earned wisdom, and augmented by self-deprecating, somber themes in a three-layered suite of browns and grays.

  “How so?” Memor said. “Lead us.”

  “These facial moves are apparently signals from their Underminds. Thus the speakers do not know all that they convey.”

  “Surely they must!” a young Astronomer spoke suddenly. All turned to gaze, and the young one realized she — or was this one in the neutral Revealing phase? — had overstepped.

  Omanah twisted her crested head and rippled her ambers and grays subtly. “Memor’s points elude you. They do not know how to access their Underminds. So, in a kind of evolutionary retaliation, the Unders speak in ways the Overs cannot know.”

  Another stir of respectful understanding worked through the gallery — huffs, sighs, soft flares of ruby tribute to Omanah.

  “I kneel to your insight,” the young one said, eyes closed.

  Omanah said, “Here is an example of group selection. The party speaking does not know fully what it says — but the listeners do. For they can see the Undermind voicing in swift flurries of expression, the signals flitting by, using little muscular movements in eyes, mouths, jaws. So the group learns the true thoughts and emotions, yet the speaker does not fully comprehend.”

  Memor added, “Thus the species gains a collective good.”

  Omanah bowed in agreement. “And so it was with our self-modifications. The Uncovering made the Bowl possible by revealing to us our Underminds.”

  A large, thick-plumed Overseer Astronomer asked in slow-sliding words blended with singing, sharp chirp signatures and plume-shaking, “Do you imply, Flock Head and Packmistress, that these primates have deliberately engineered this face-flutter method?”

  The Packmistress pondered this, and in the respectful silence Memor saw the assemblage’s feather tones shift from bright attentive colors of magenta and olive into hues tending toward grays and subdued deep blues — signs that they, too, contemplated, trying to anticipate what the Packmistress would say. Time crawled as each of the members consulted their Underminds, trawling deep, long, and slow for insight. This was how the joint Undermind of them all, in concert, learned — accumulating in linear additions, all cross-correlated to achieve greater force — the steeped wisdom of collective thought.

  Asenath as Wisdom Chief called them back to Uppermind. “Of course, these creatures have features from which we can learn. At least we recovered the body of one dead primate — not killed by Memor’s efforts, I remark — and have learned much from it. Their DNA is like ours, as it is with several of the Adopted. This fits the accepted view that earlier life dispersed through our galaxy on wings of sunlight.”

  Then she turned with dramatic effect and called, “Attendant Astute Astronomer Memor! How to deal with these escaped aliens — that is our issue. And you let them escape.”

  So here it was. Memor dodged with, “Knowledge speaks, wisdom listens, Ecosystem Packmistress Asenath.”

  “I expected more of you.”

  “I can explain some features, Packmistress, and then describe — ”

  “On with it.”

  “These primates have to live with a spectrum of desires driven by natural selection, as do we all. Their starship is a simple design, as if from a society that has developed quickly. That surely means they now operate in a world much different from their primitive lives. Yet still driving them are their deep desires. These, as our own species long ago learned, are hard to govern with learned experience or even medication. Their morality, as did ours, often fights with their desires. So to understand themselves is impossible for them, unless they can see their inner, unconscious minds.”

  “They are retarded, then,” put in an Ecosystem Savant. This provoked feather-ripples of amusement, but no one made noises of glee; the occasion did not invite such.

  “Indeed,” Memor said. “We could help them with this — ”

  “Help them?” Asenath showed vibrant oranges and reds in a dancing pattern, half in jesting colors, half in rebuke. “They got away from you!”

  Memor stepped back, bowed, hooted in the notes of sorrow and beseeching. “They proved more clever than their ship implied.”

  “Certainly more clever than their approach suggested,” Judge Savant Thaji injected. “They simply landed and came through our air lock. No caution! So young!”

  “I can see that as misleading,” Asenath remarked without a single feather display. “Or subtle. They gained entrance, we thought we had them — then they got away.”

  “And now they roam at will!” the Judge Savant said. “Doing damage! We have reports of several dead in 12-34-77 district — their doing, no doubt. They captured a car, as well.”

  “Very grave,” a Biology Savant said. “Grounds for removal.”

  “Or a more exacting measure,” the Judge Savant said with display of scorn and censure, gray and violet fans dancing in rebuke.

  Memor stood and let the discussion run, for it would harm her cause to speak now. Instead she let her Undermind rule the moment. It conjured up for her a memory of a visit to the funeral pit, in all its elegant yet somber majesty. At its center was the Citadel of the Honored Dead, who would be churned into a matrix they shared with plants, animals, insects, and the depleted topsoil the honored would enhance. Subtly hidden machinery adjusted the slowly roiling mud-fluid for bacterial content, acidity, temperature, trace elements. First the Pit, then the Garden: the fate of all.

  When the Undermind let go of the memory and was satisfied, Memor turned attention to the argument rustling all about her. Harsh things had passed her by in a flurry of hot words. She deliberately let these go, as was best in such heated moments. Insults are best not remembered. She let it all go, following the long-ranging talk but not engaging with it. Here, the Undermind helped.

  The Judge Savant pressed her case for execution, calling it “a just recycling.” Others differed, calling for Memor’s replacement. Much talk. If Memor had followed it, laid it deep and solid in memory, she would then go through doubt and regret — which would in future impede her work. Better to let the moments glide by.

  Yet questions about the primates called her out of her needful reverie. Refreshed, Memor pointed out that she had used classical methods of psychological control, since these primates were strongly social animals. She began by keeping them in comparatively small areas, and gave them just enough food to be sure they did not starve. “Still, hunger began to play a role in their behavior. Within ten of their sleep intervals — they seem to come from a planet with a fairly long day — they showed classic symptoms. Some began to communicate with us more often. This was obvious food-seeking. Slowly, I believe, they began to identify less with their fellows, and more with u
s — specifically, me.”

  “Yes, very good,” a helpful underling allowed himself to say. All else ignored him, of course.

  “Within five more sleep intervals, their mood shifted. Disputes began, often in their talk during meals. This, too, fits classical theory — eating brings food to the front of their minds, their hunger drives competition, then disagreement.”

  “You broke down their social code? Their solidarity?”

  “In part,” Memor said, hoping this would come over as modesty. In fact, though, she was unsure that she had. Hurrying on, she said, “They were obviously crew on a distant voyage, so we cannot expect to break them down quickly. Time is our friend here.”

  “Any signs of the early stages of Adoption?”

  “I believe so. They often brightened when one of my team gave them a bit of food, or allowed a small favor.”

  “Your analysis of their minds suggests they can be Adopted?”

  “In time, yes.”

  This gained her shuffling fan-gestures of approval, and the air eased.

  In the end it came down to a vote. Memor suffered through the moments as each voter consulted her Undermind and finally cast an electronic signal. Asenath displayed the results, and — a shocked hush.

  “You have survived in your office,” Asenath said, letting a pitch of reluctance skate among her words. “But I shall monitor you, and report you to this assembly when needed.”

  Memor allowed herself a relieved bow. There came hoots of derision, and a background soft melody of approval, expressed in sighs and foot-claps of applause.

  In the great vault the gathered began a rhythmic chanting. The Protocols called for some group expression, and the momentum of the moment gave it forth. The chant called out an ancient rhythm. It spoke of what the Essence is not, instead of what it is. This set the Citadel into a great rolling call, amid hooting songs and vibrant bass notes. Joyful joined we are, eternal.…

  This was clearly a rebuke of Memor, a reminder of what the Universe of Essences demanded of all the Folk.