by Greg Bear
Yes, yes—we have been told…we have just been informed there are airborne life forms, living things and that we have narrowly missed a couple of them, resembling gigantic manta rays stretched out, gliders or bats, also white and brown. Flowing in a stream southwest, as if forming a squadron or flock. Excuse me. Excuse me.
Cut the sound. Cut the sound, dammit. And turn that camera off me.
(Pause of five minutes.)
We’re back, and apologies for the delay. I am human and…well, at times liable to a touch of panic. I hope this will be understood. And I myself stand in amazement before the calm and expertise of the…uh…the officers and crew of this aircraft, professionals all, damned good men. We have just passed over Danville, Illinois and will shortly…a few seconds from now be over Indianapolis. We have seen changes in the character of the landscape, or if I may call it a bioscape, below us, changes in color and shape, but we are at a loss to interpret what we see. It is as if we have passed over an entirely new planet, and while our two scientists have been taking readings and scribbling notes furiously, they are much too busy to pass on whatever theories or hypotheses they may have.
Indianapolis is below us, and as indecipherable, as mysterious and…beautiful and alien as the other megaplexes. Some of the structures here appear to be as tall as the buildings they replaced, some perhaps a hundred to two hundred meters tall, casting shadows now in the afternoon light Soon time will reverse for us, as ft were, as we head east, southeast, and the sun will set The shadows lengthen on the bioscape, the atmosphere is remarkably clear no industry, no automobiles…yet who can say what sort of pollution a living landscape might cause? Whatever pollution there is is not passed on to the atmosphere.
Yes.
Yes, that is confirmed by our scientists. When we passed low over Chicago, the readings indicated virtually pure air, smoke-free, pollution-free, and that is reflected in the pure colors of the horizon. The air is also moist and, for this time of year, unseasonably warm. Winter may not come to North America this year, for by now Chicago and the cities we have passed over should be blanketed by at least light snowfalls. No snow. There is rain, warm and in large drops-we have passed over areas of dense overcast; but no snow, no ice.
Yes. Yes, I saw it too. What looked like a fireball, a meteor of some sort perhaps, remarkable-And several more, apparently-
(Voices in the background, quite loud, sound of alarms)
My God. That was apparently a re-entry vehicle or vehicles in the upper atmosphere, just dozens of kilometers away. Detectors aboard the aircraft are screaming warnings about radiation. The pilots and officers have activated all emergency systems and we are now in a steep climb away from the area, with…yes, with yes…no, we are in a dive, presenting I believe a posterior profile to whatever the object was-
There is talk here that the fireball was a matches the profile of a re-entry vehicle a nuclear missile an ICBM perhaps and that it did not repeat did not of course how would we be here? did not go off and now-
(More voices, sounding puzzled; more alarms)
I believe we cannot pull out of the dive now. We have lost most instrumentation. The engines have quit and we are in a powerless dive. We still have radio communications but-
(End transmission RB-1H. End direct feed Lloyd Upton EBN. End scientific telemetry.)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Benard lay on the cot, one leg off the side and the other crooked with his foot propped against a fold in the mattress. He hadn’t shaved hi a week, nor bathed. His skin was heavily marked with white ridges and his lower legs had grown prominences from his upper shins to the base of his toes. Even naked he looked like he was wearing bell-bottom trousers.
He didn’t care. Except for his hour-long session with Paulsen-Fuchs and his ten minute physical each day, he spent much of his time on the cot, eyes closed, communing with the noocytes. The rest of the time he spent trying to crack the chemical language. He had received little help from the noocytes. The last conversation on the subject had been three days before.
/Your conception is not complete, not correct.
—It isn’t finished yet.
Why not let your comrades proceed with the work? There is more that can be accomplished if you devote your attention inward.
—It would be simpler if you just told us how you communicated…
WISH we could be more *pure* with each other, but command clusters believe discretion is best now.
—Yes, indeed./
The noocytes, then, kept things from him and from the researchers outside the chamber. Pharmek, in turn, kept things from Bernard now. Bernard could only guess their reasoning; he hadn’t challenged them on Paulsen-Fuchs’ slow reduction of news and research findings. In some ways, it hardly mattered; Bernard had more than he could do adjusting to the noocyte interactions.
The terminal was still on, still displaying data supplied to the computer three days ago. Red lines had completely replaced the scrolling green numbers now. Infrequently, they were joined by blue lines. The curve determined by their lengths smoothed out as, byte by byte, the chemistry was broken down into an intermediary mathematical language, which in the next phase would be translated into a kind of pidgin of formal logic notation and English. But that next phase was weeks or months away.
Focusing his attention on the memory prompted an uncharacteristic noocyte interruption.
Bernard. You still work on our *blood music*.
Hadn’t Ulam used that phrase once?
Is it that you WISH to join us on our level? We did not consider this possibility.
—I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.
The part of you which stands behind all issued communication may be encoded, activated, returned. It will be like a DREAM, if we understand fully what that is. (ANNOTATION: You dream all the time. Did you know that?)
—I can become one of you?
We think that is a correct assessment. You already are one of us. We have encoded parts of you into many teams for processing. We can encode your PERSONALITY and complete the loop. You will be one of us—temporarily, should you choose. We can do it now.
—I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’ll steal my soul from inside…
Your SOUL is already encoded, Bernard. We will not initiate unless we receive permission from all your mental fragments.
“Michael?” Paulsen-Fuchs’ voice pulled him out of the conversation. Bernard shook his head and blinked at the viewing chamber window. “Michael? Are you awake?”
“I’ve been…awake. What is it?”
“A few days ago you gave us permission to have Sean Gogarty visit you. He is here now.”
“Yes, yes.” Michael stood. “In there with you? My eyes are blurry.”
“No. Outside. I suspect you will wish to get dressed, clean up first.”
“Why?” Bernard countered testily. “I’m not going to be a pretty sight no matter how often I shave.”
“You wish to meet him as you are?”
“Yeah. Bring him in. You interrupted something interesting, Paul.”
“We are all becoming just interruptions to you now, aren’t we?”
Bernard tried to smile. His face felt stiff, unfamiliar. “Bring him in, Paul.”
Sean Gogarty, professor of theoretical physics at Kings College, University of London, stepped up into the viewing chamber and shielded his eyes with one hand as he peered into the containment lab. His race was open, friendly, nose long and sharp, teeth prominent. He was tall and carried himself well, and his arms looked well-muscled under his Irish wool jacket His smile faded and his eyes narrowed behind stylish aviator glasses as he saw Bernard. “Dr. Bernard,” he said, his voice pleasantly Irish with a touch of Oxford.
“Dr. Gogarty.”
“Professor, that is, just Sean, please. I like to eschew titles.”
“Then I am Michael.” Am I?
“Yes, well in your case…er…it’ll be a bit harder to stick to that. I know of you, and I’m s
ure you’ve never heard of me, er, Michael.” Again the smile, but without certainty, troubled. As if, Bernard thought, he expected a human being and met
“Paul has briefed me on some of your work. You’re a bit beyond me, Sean.”
“Indeed. This thing, this incident in your country is as much beyond me, I’m certain. I have a few things I would like to talk out with you, Michael, and not just you.”
Paulsen-Fuchs looked at Gogarty with some apprehension. No doubt this meeting was sanctioned by several governments, Bernard thought, or it never would have happened, but Paul was still on edge.
“My colleagues, then,” Bernard gestured at Paulsen-Fuchs.
“Not your human colleagues, no,” Gogarty said.
“My noocytes.”
“Noocytes? Yes, yes, I understand. Your noocytes. Tielhard de Chardin would have approved of that name, I think.”
“I haven’t been thinking much about Tielhard de Chardin lately,” Bernard said, “but he might not be a bad guide.”
“Yes, well, I’m here just barely, by the scruff of the neck,” Gogarty said, “and my time has been limited. I have a notion to propose to you, and I would like you and your small colleagues to pass judgment on it.”
“How did you get detailed information about me, about the noocytes?” Bernard asked.
“Experts all over Europe are being approached. Someone came to me on a hunch. I hope it doesn’t affect his promotion. I’m not highly respected by all my fellows, Dr. Bernard-Michael. My ideas are more than a touch far-out”
“Let’s hear them,” Bernard said, growing impatient.
“Yes. I assume you haven’t heard much about Information Mechanics?”
“Not a whisper,” Bernard said.
“I’m working in a very specialized area of that branch of physics—an area not yet recognized—the effects of information processing on space-time. I’ll put it simply enough, because the noocytes may already know more than I and be better able to explain it to you—”
“Don’t count on it. They relish complexity, and I don’t” Gogarty paused and sat absolutely still for several seconds. Paulsen-Fuchs glanced at him with fleeting anxiety.
“Michael, I have amassed a great deal of theoretical structure which supports the following assertion.” Deep breath. “Information processing—more strictly, observation—has an effect on events occurring within space-time. Conscious beings play an integral role in the universe; we fix its boundaries, to a great extent determine its nature, just as it determines our nature. I have reason to believe- just an hypothesis so far—that we don’t so much discover physical laws as collaborate on them. Our theories are tested against past observations both by ourselves—and by the universe. If the universe agrees that past events are not contradicted by a theory, the theory becomes a template. The universe goes along with it. The better the theory fits the facts, the longer it lasts-if it lasts at all. We then break the universe down into territories or particular territory, as human beings, beings thus far quite distinct No extraterrestrial contact, you know. If there are other intelligent beings beyond the Earth, they would occupy yet other territories of theory. We wouldn’t expect major differences between the theories of different territories—the universe does, after all, play a major role—but minor differences might be expected.
“The theories can’t be effective forever. The universe is always changing; we can imagine regions of reality evolving until new theories are necessary. Thus far, the human race hasn’t generated nearly the density or amount of information processing—computing, thinking, what have you—to manifest any truly obvious effects on space-time. We haven’t created theories so complete that they pin down reality’s evolution. But that has all changed, and quite recently.”
Listen closely to the GOGARTY.
Bernard perked up and began to pay more attention.
“If I only had time to present my mathematics, my correlations with formal information mechanics and quantum electrodynamics…and if only you could understand!”
“I’m listening. We’re listening, Sean.”
Gogarty’s eyes widened. “The…noocytes? Have they responded?”
“You haven’t given them much to respond to. Do go on, Professor.”
“Until now, the densest single unit of information processing on this planet was the human brain…slight nod to cetaceans, perhaps, but not nearly as much stimulus and processing going on, much more insular I’d say. Four, five billion of us, thinking every day. Small effects. Time stresses, little tremors as it were, not even measurable. Our powers of observation—our power to formulate effective theories—is not sufficiently intense to bring about the effects I’ve discovered in my work. Nothing in the solar system, perhaps not even the galaxy!”
“You are rambling, Professor Gogarty,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. Gogarty gave him an irritated nod and fastened his eyes on Bernard’s, pleading with him.
He speaks of interest.
“He’s getting to the point, Paul, don’t rush him.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael. What I am saying is that we now have conditions sufficient to cause the effects I’ve described in my papers. Not just four, five billion individual cogitators, Michael, but trillions…perhaps billions of trillions. Most in North America. Tiny, very dense, focusing their attention on all aspects of their surroundings, from the very very small to the very large. Observing everything in their environment and theorizing about the things they do not observe. Observers and theorizers can fix the shape of events, of reality, in quite significant ways. There is nothing, Michael, but information. All particles, all energy, even space and time itself, are ultimately nothing but information. The very nature, the timbre of the universe can be altered, Michael, right now. By the noocytes.”
“Yes,” Bernard said. “Still listening.”
Something not stated…evidence…
Two days ago,” Gogarty said, becoming more animated, his face reddening with excitement, “the USSR apparently launched a full-scale nuclear strike on North America. Unlike the Panama strike, not one of the warheads went off.”
Bernard looked at Paulsen-Fuchs first with pique, then amusement He hadn’t been told a thing about this.
The USSR is not that bad at building warheads, Michael. There should have been holocaust. There wasn’t Now, I have compiled several striking graphs from observations and information. One very important source was an American reconnaissance aircraft carrying scientists and reporters over North America, with a live broadcast going to Europe by satellite. The aircraft was in the middle of the United States when the strike was attempted. The plane apparently went down, but not because of the strike itself. Nobody is sure why it crashed, but the way its telemetry and communications were cut off…The timing, the queuing, fits my theory precisely. Not only that but in places around the globe, very peculiar effects were felt Radio silences, power cut-offs, meteorological phenomena. All the way out to geosynchronous orbit-two satellites separated by twelve thousand kilometers malfunctioned. I put the effects and coordinates of the incidents into our computer and it produced this profile of the four-space field.” He lifted a blown-up photo of a computer image from his satchel.
Bernard squinted to see it more dearly. His vision suddenly sharpened. He could make out the grain of the photo paper. “Like a weightlifter’s nightmare,” he said.
“Yes, a bit twisty around the torus,” Gogarty agreed. “This is the only figure that makes sense in light of the information. And no one can make sense of this figure-but me. I’m afraid it’s made my stock jump a bit in the scientific marketplace. If I’m correct, and I believe I am, we are in for a lot more trouble than we think, Michael…or a lot less, depending on what sort of trouble you’re anticipating.”
Bernard could feel the diagram being intensely absorbed. The noocytes left off their constant tinkering with his mentality for seconds.
“You’re giving my small colleagues a lot to think about, Sean.”
/>
“Yes, and their reactions?”
Bernard closed his eyes.
After several seconds had passed, Bernard opened his eyes again and shook his head. “Not a word,” he said. “Sorry, Sean.”
“Well, I’d not expected much.”
Paulsen-Fuchs looked at his watch. “Is that all, Dr. Gogarty?”
“No. Not quite. Michael, the plague cannot spread beyond North America. Or rather, beyond a circle of seven thousand kilometers diameter, if the noocytes are averaged out over that area of the globe.”
“Why not?”
“Because of what I’ve been saying. There are too many of them already. If they were to expand beyond that radius, they would create something very peculiar—a portion of space-time much too closely observed. The territory would not be able to evolve. Too many brilliant theorists, don’t you see! There would be a kind of frozen state, a breakdown on the quantum level. A singularity. A black hole of thought Time would be severely distorted and the effects would destroy the Earth. I suspect they have limited their growth, realizing this.” Gogarty wiped his brow with a kerchief and sighed again.
“How did they prevent the warheads from detonating?” Bernard asked.
“I’d say they’ve learned how to create isolated pockets of observation, very powerful. They delude trillions of observers into establishing a small, temporary pocket of altered space-time. A pocket where physical processes are sufficiently different to prevent warheads from detonating. The pocket doesn’t last long, of course—the universe violently disagrees with it—but it lasts just long enough to prevent holocaust.
There’s one crucial question,” he continued. “Are your noocytes in communication with North America?”
Bernard listened internally, and received no response. “I don’t know,” he said.
They can be in communication, you know, without using radio or any such familiar means. If they can control the effects they have on the local manifold, they could create waves of subtly disrupted time. I’m afraid we don’t have instruments sensitive enough to detect such signals.”