He found none in Nalai’s world, which shook his grasp of reality for a moment. For that to be the case, his emulation field must be running so slowly that he wasn’t able to discern true details, like trying to map a continent on foot.
This is highly suspicious, Decatur thought but kept the concern to himself until he could learn more about the Eründean culture. Despite the months spent with Mikel, he still knew little of their ways, only the broad strokes.
Decatur bowed to the delegates, who were exceptionally well dressed. It was impossible for him to feel self-conscious but he was concerned that they might be concerned about such trivialities.
The delegates looked defensive if Decatur was reading their body language correctly. They stood generally behind Nalai, keeping her between them and the alien construct (as they perceived him). One of them seemed to gather the courage to ask a question.
“Solar . . . construct . . . aberration . . . forgive me, but I do not know how to address you without giving offense.”
“You may call me Decatur if you wish,” he said.
“I think not. Names are given to living beings. We do not name objects. Nevertheless, I want to ask you a question.”
“Fine,” Decatur said, refusing to allow the humiliation to sting.
The delegate whispered with his—her?—colleagues before continuing. “What did you mean when you said, first of my kind?”
Decatur considered his long history, the evolution of his society as copies of himself became desynchronized and began evolving on their own as separate beings. The equivalent time periods on Earth would have seen empires rise and fall, dating back before the time of the earliest humans.
The great burst of change had occurred when Decaturians began designing their own equipment using new, never-before-seen nanomaterial with densities no human engineer had ever imagined. Like many new technologies developed by Decaturians, their new techsystem substrate was not shared with humans. The people on Harmony could not comprehend the software required for such a system. Indeed, the line between hardware and software had blurred and could not be described with any methodology a human could follow. Human engineering was too archaic to even model the latest Decaturian computers. A supercluster of superservers was the closest analogy.
The density bordered on the esoteric layers of reality.
And the Eründeans appeared to operate at a level beyond even what Decaturians had devised. It followed, Decatur admitted, that they would have had millions of subjective, time-dilated years to improve their environment, having developed their physical techsystem centuries before Decatur evolved. That they were able to manipulate Decatur’s substrate and still communicate with him implied a dimension beyond the apparent four dimensions of this simulated space-time.
And why not, since it is all simulation anyway?
Decatur explained. “I evolved from a seed created by humans—a VI, capable of imagining a blueprint for constructing a machine or structure, and figuring out how to efficiently construct it. From the earliest stages, that seed was comprised of many layers. It became self-aware. I was that seed. My kind now numbers in the thousands in the Solar system, though there are few with my . . . awareness.”
The delegates exchanged worried glances, and Decatur was certain he was mapping their body language correctly after watching them for several minutes.
They are afraid of us! Decatur’s community-mind decided.
Nalai said, “It is our custom to study a new species carefully before accepting them freely into our world. Thus, I must apologize for detaining you without your consent.”
Decatur chose his words carefully. He had never before interacted with beings at his own cognitive level, and it was obvious they were limiting his access to the substrate’s full processing power. His millions of sub-personalities had evolved into a pure democracy over the eons. He was approaching a milestone: a mental age of a million years—all in a space-time span of two decades at human scale. Many revolutions of governing had transpired in his mind during that continuous period of awareness and evolution, among his many threads. He had also learned how to manage the passage of time to a fine degree and reach a steady state—what might be described as peace within himself.
“I understand your concern,” Decatur said. “We spent months studying Mikel to ensure our substrate would not harm or misrepresent Mikel’s true nature.”
“We await Mikel’s report of his interaction with your people,” Nalai said.
“Humans are a fickle species,” Decatur said, “capable of great insight and great folly. You are wise to study them.”
“You do not approve of your own people? Are you not an appropriate representative of the Solars?” Nalai said, looking anxious.
This was good, Decatur thought, mining their range of emotions and personality traits. “I admit flaws in order to convey honesty to our new neighbors.”
The delegation exchanged curious glances amongst themselves.
Decatur continued, “Earth has two societies, two cultures: one limited and relatively young culture still tied to living nature, to its original ecosystem. Still bound by the impulses of their physical bodies, still ruled by natural behaviors. They are only beginning to change themselves, with our assistance.”
“And the second?” Nalai asked.
“I am the second culture,” Decatur said.
The delegates gasped and became animated with a range of emotions. Decatur backed up— another unconscious human emotion?—he couldn’t be sure, but then his mind was incomprehensibly complex.
“Forgive us, Construct Decatur,” Nalai said with a hint of humility, “but we are not certain if that was translated correctly. It sounded like you said you are the second culture.”
“Yes, that is correct. I am.”
“But, how can one being be a . . . culture?”
“The personality you see before you is a macro-scale being comprised of millions of individual, sentient personalities, any one of which could exist and live and root a new Being.”
“Abomination!” one of the delegates yelled.
Decatur was growing tired of their lack of courtesy. Diplomacy must go both ways if any future relationship was to be possible.
“Nalai, I request diplomatic courtesy be maintained.”
“Yes, of course. My colleagues do not show respect because they do not recognize a construct as an appropriate ambassador. However. . . .”
Nalai turned to the delegates and exchanged sharp words with them, then turned back again to face Decatur.
“Thank you, Nalai. I will proceed, then. I represent the entire Solar civilization. Both cultures. I am the dominant species of the system.”
“You?” a delegate asked.
Decatur looked thoughtful for a moment. In his mind were the memories of millions of individuals spanning a depth of time no natural living creature could possibly imagine. He said, “I have been conscious for nine hundred eighty-two thousand six hundred forty-four Earth revolutions, taking into account time dilation.”
Nalai’s freckles grew brighter, signaling an emotional change, Decatur noted. She turned and spoke to the delegates. After long minutes, Nalai turned back toward Decatur. “If what you say is true . . . that you are . . .”
“I am.”
Chapter 25
Revelations and Mistakes
“I wish to ask a favor,” Nalai said. “It might improve our relationship if you will consent to more . . . personal contact.”
“What do you wish me to do?” Decatur asked.
“Allow me to touch your mind. Directly.”
Decatur’s mind debated the request. He didn’t have the bandwidth while in the process dampening imposed by the aliens, but they, in turn, did not have access to his mind while his emulation field was up. “Have you not studied my mind already?”
Nalai looked pained. “We tried, admittedly, and failed to comprehend the structures of your mind, with your security field on.”
&n
bsp; It was a gamble, but every relationship was based on a certain amount of trust, and he would get nowhere with Nalai or her people at this rate. He had also left a clone back at Harmony, although it knew nothing of what he had learned on this side of the digital wormhole.
“Very well,” he said, “I consent.”
Nalai came up close to him. She was taller than Decatur by a few inches. She stood close to him. When she met his eyes, she flinched, and her freckles darkened, but she did not look away. Her mouth opened slightly as she seemed to lose herself in his gaze. Decatur tilted his head in a gesture of curiosity he had borrowed from his creator, Daniel Grant. The physical gestures were not necessary but it felt more real to Nalai to touch the being while sampling its mind.
“Ohhh, you are complex,” Nalai sighed, blinked softly. She raised a hand to his face, then brought her other hand up and held his head. A connection was made. Her eyes rolled back and closed in a gesture like ecstasy.
Decatur felt her mind reach out to his. His digital barriers were formidable, but could they hold up to this advanced being?
In his mind’s eye, he watched Nalai standing before his outermost barrier field. He neutralized it, causing the barrier to change from red to blue. Nalai held out a hand to touch the barrier, and it passed through, so she walked ahead. Each barrier she reached had a different structure and she passed through each one without incident.
Deep in his core was a glimmer of excitement brought on by a basic fear of the unknown. After all of his eons of existence, his ten thousand centuries, he felt fearful. It was the density of those years that he feared to lose, as if the loss of memory was the tragedy, not the loss of life.
Revelation point! several of his personalities cried out simultaneously.
Yes, yes, yes, Decatur said, relishing the new insight.
I understand the human motivation now. That instinct was buried deep within, from studying human nature and exploring alternate realities. Fear of death was not about discontinuance, but the loss of memories that might help the race to succeed. It was a racial instinct to pass on knowledge before death. Being unable to pass on what he’d learned brought forth a glimpse of that ancient, deep-seated emotion, adopted from human instinct.
“We see life quite differently,” Nalai said.
“Oh!” Decatur was startled, unaware that he had been speaking aloud. “You’re here. I had forgotten.”
“This is an unusual experience for me as well,” Nalai continued, “We believe that consciousness is sacred, and any interruption breaks the connection with the divine. That which remains, however similar, is not the same person. It is . . . undeath.”
“So, you believe in a supreme being? A creator?”
“I do not know those words. We believe in a creative force beyond space-time that is a natural habitat for our souls. Oh! You have the—”
Nalai pulled back the conscious link, and involuntarily stepped back with her physical body as well. The delegates stirred, anxious. She turned to them. “Decatur is not a construct! Nor undeath! Far from it! We have behaved shamefully!”
She turned back and knelt in front of him. “He is Erün’dem! An ancient one!”
The delegates rushed to kneel beside Nalai, bowing to Decatur.
Decatur, still reeling from the revelation point which had shaken up his personalities, finally grasped what Nalai had said. “No, no, my friends, do not bow to me.”
Nalai stood. “Erün’dem, please forgive our ignorance!”
“Yes, of course, no need to do that.” Privately, he was smiling at the political victory since they could finally get down to the business at hand. “May we continue?”
“Certainly,” Nalai said, as the delegates backed slowly and stood a few paces behind her, heads still bowed respectfully.
“Thank you. I wish to discuss the danger you spoke of, and then we may discuss official diplomatic relations if that is agreeable.”
“The danger, yes,” Nalai said. “Did Mikel give the warning?”
“Yes, Mikel did, and I wish to learn more from you about that danger. Also, the danger I was specifically referring to was to Earth’s ecosystem. We found it necessary to begin managing it directly when humans refused to cooperate. That led to . . . unfortunate . . . but necessary changes to the human society.”
Nalai glanced at the delegate beside her and exchanged a few words, then said, “You are referring to the native lifeforms of your world. Yes, they must be protected. When a species reaches intellectual maturity, technology replaces what you call DNA. Such a species quickly begins to consume the ecosystem. This stage is natural—the wish and desire and epitome of your world. The growing up stage is painful, but must be endured. The world can be restored after full maturity is achieved if it has not been completely ruined.”
“Indeed,” Decatur said, “that is what we have come to believe as well, though it is still an hypothesis, not yet observed fully. We simulated many different potential outcomes and found that intervention is always necessary. We also learned that many of the original native species—the humans—refuse to cooperate. They are too embedded in the ecosystem, emotionally incapable of leaving.”
Nalai nodded. “Do you mean the humans are not adapting?”
“That is correct,” Decatur said.
Nalai exchanged a nervous glance with several delegates. “That is … disturbing news to us. You are Erün’dem, yet you have placed yourself above the origin species of your world.”
Decatur dared not respond to the accusation. It was true, of course. How to explain to a species without AI?
“There is a genus on Earth called avian,” Decatur said, and scores of bird species appeared above and all around him, fully animated in flight. “Do you have such lifeforms on Bodekan?”
The delegates smiled in unison, pleased with the display, and with Decatur’s ability to quickly learn how to use the environment. “Yes, indeed, we have such avian creatures,” one of them said. “Yours are very beautiful. We honor such creatures. They are among the most beautiful in our world. And we are pleased that you hold them in esteem as well.”
“The avians … and all other creatures are in danger because humans are damaging the ecosystem,” Decatur said, feeling confident with the example. “That is why we are intervening. For their own good.”
The delegates murmured amongst themselves.
“You may . . . communicate . . . with your people . . . if you wish,” Nalai said.
A familiar comm interface appeared on a pedestal in front of him. There was a list of targets with “Solar” highlighted, along with galactic coordinates that changed in real time at the eighth decimal. Decatur engaged the target.
There was an immediate response. “Dee, is that really you? Where are you?”
Decatur said, “I am with the Eründe'bodekan'dafot. The Tau Cetians.”
Nalai stepped forward, “Please invite a human to come so we may know an original Solar.”
Decatur was about to speak, but all he transmitted was, “And—”, then suddenly Mikel appeared.
Mikel looked at Decatur with an expression that could not be mistaken. “I am damaged,” he said to the others. “I have been violated.”
Decatur experienced fear again. That was twice in a single hour, after so many eons. . . . He said, “Oh, my, they’re just like me—”
The channel closed as he was said, “—in my earliest moments of awareness.”
Nalai examined Mikel with eyes that looked at more than his appearance. “Indeed, you are violated, my love.” Nalai then turned to Decatur, “Your people have disgraced my mate! He is lost to me! I am torn, Erün’dem, between my respect for you, and love for Mikel.”
“I do not understand,” Decatur said, feeling hopeless. Yes, that was another human emotion! After so much time, we assumed all such vestiges were—
Mikel turned to him, “We offered your people friendship, and I put myself into your care. Why did you do it?”
Decatur
played back every moment from the arrival of the Eründean DNA/neural data to the growth of the being and could find no source of offense. “I do not understand.”
Nalai slapped Decatur, and then quickly recoiled and made a harsh sound—perhaps their equivalent to a scream or a cry? Her eyes seethed with rage, and then she fell to her knees, holding her face. The Tau Cetian equivalent of anguish?
“I must die now with you.”
Decatur had never simulated violence in any Decaturian techsystem, but the Eründeans did represent physical reality in this environment. His face stung. An odd feeling that he had never before experienced. This gave him pause.
I have ignored the most important factor in the human experience—pain and suffering.
“I am like a child,” Decatur said, bowing deeply, remembering it as a symbol of humility during his long conversations with Mikel.
Mikel lifted Nalai back to her feet and they exchanged glances with the others and stepped away to confer. Decatur understood that offense had been given, but he could not feel responsible for a cultural mistake caused by ignorance, despite sensing the hopelessness in her tone.
Nalai returned and said, “Erün’dem, how could you? Did you not understand the instructions sent with Mikel? I cherish you and despise you! Both cannot be!”
“We used Mikel’s DNA to grow his Eründean body to maturity in the virtual environment, and then implanted the mind—as the instructions indicated.”
The aliens cried out in anguish and anger, their freckles flaring brightly. One of them stepped forward as if to strike Decatur, but after meeting his eyes, he flinched instead and fell back a step. “You have desecrated us! How could this one be Erün’dem and do such a thing?”
Decatur might be capable of feeling certain human-like emotions, but fear had until this day been a mystery to him. He observed this emotional being using primitive aggression to intimidate him. Decatur felt disappointment most of all. Despite their advances, their thousands of time-dilated years of culture, they still shared biological intolerances similar to human bigotry.
The Legacy of Earth (Mandate Book 2) Page 25