by Greg Bear
“I just need time,” Suzy said.
“Honey, if you want, you can have forever.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Bernard floats in his own blood, uncertain with whom he is communicating. The communication is carried up the stream of blood by flagellates, adapted protozoans capable of high speed in the serum. His replies return by the same method, or are simply cast into the blood flow.
Everything is information, or lack of information.
—How many of me are there?
That number will always change. Perhaps a million by now.
—Will I meet them? Integrate with them?
No cluster has the capacity to absorb the experiences of all like clusters. That must be reserved for command clusters. Not all information is equally useful at any given time.
—But no information is lost?
Information is always lost. That is the struggle. No cluster’s total structure is ever lost There are always duplications.
—Where am I going?
Eventually, above the *blood music*. You are the cluster chosen to re-integrate with BERNARD.
—I am Bernard.
There are many BERNARD.
Perhaps a million others, thinking as he thought now, spreading through the blood and tissue, gradually being absorbed into the noocyte hierarchy. A million changing versions, never to be re-integrated.
You will meet with command clusters. You will experience THOUGHT UNIVERSE.
—It’s too much. I’m frightened again.
FRIGHTENED is impossible without hormonal response of macro-scale BERNARD. Are you truly FRIGHTENED?
He searches for the effects of fear and does not find them.
—No, but I should be.
You have expressed interest in hierarchy. Adjust your processing to **************.
The message is incomprehensible to his human mind, embedded in the biologic of the noocyte cluster, but the cluster itself understands and prepares for the entry of specific data packages.
As the data comes in—slender coiled strings of RNA and gnarled, twisted proteins—he feels his cells absorb and incorporate. There is no way of knowing how much time this takes, but he seems to almost immediately comprehend the experience of the cells rushing past in the capillary. He feeds off their recently shed experience-memories.
By far the greatest number are not mature noocytes, but normal somatic cells either slightly altered to prevent interference with noocyte activity, or servant cells with limited functions specified by simple biologic. Some of these cells do the bidding of command clusters, others ferry experience memory in hybridized or polymerized clumps from one location to another. Still others carry out new body functions not yet assumable by untailored somatic cells.
Still lower in the scale are domesticated bacteria, carefully tailored to perform one or two functions. Some of these bacteria (there is no way to connect their type with any he knows by human names) are small factories, flooding the blood with the molecules necessary to the noocytes.
And at the bottom of the scale, but by no means negligible in importance, are tailored phage viruses. Some of the virus particles act as high-speed transports for crucial information, towed by flagellate bacteria or slimmed-down lymphocytes; others wander freely through the blood, surrounding the larger cells like dust clouds. If somatic cells, servants or even mature noocytes have abandoned the hierarchy—rebelled or malfunctioned drastically—the virus particles move in and inject their package of disruptive RNA. The offending cells soon explode, casting out a cloud of more tailored virus, and the debris is cleaned away by various noocyte and servant scavengers.
Every type of cell originally in his body-friend or foe-has been studied and put to use by the noocytes.
Dislodge and follow the trail of the command cluster. You will be interviewed.
Bernard feels his cluster move back into the capillary. The walls of the capillary narrow until he is strung out in a long line, his intercellular communications reduced until he feels the noocyte equivalent of suffocation. Then he passes through the capillary wall and is bathed in interstitial fluid. The trail is very distinct He can “taste” the presence of mature noocytes, a great many of them.
It comes to him suddenly that he is, in fact, still near his brain, possibly still in his brain, and that he is about to meet one of the researchers responsible for breaking through to the macro-scale world.
He passes through crowds of servant cells, information-bearing flagellates, noocytes waiting for instructions.
I am about to be introduced to the Grand Lunar, he tells himself. The thought and accompanying mental chuckle is passed into his experience data almost immediately, extruded and hastily retrieved by a servant cell, and carried away to the command cluster. Even more rapidly, a response comes to him.
BERNARD compares us with a MONSTER.
—Not at all. I’m the monster here. Either that, or the situation itself is monstrous.
We are nowhere near to understanding the subtleties of your thought. Have you found the ‘downloading’ informative?
—So far, very informative. And I admit I feel humble here.
Not like a supreme command cluster?
—No. I am not a god.
We do not understand GOD.
The command cluster was much larger than a normal noocyte cluster. Bernard estimated it held at least ten thousand cells, with a commensurately greater thinking capacity. He felt like a mental midget, even with the difficulty of making judgments in the noocyte realm.
—Do you have access to my memories of H.G. Wells?
Pause. Then, Yes. They are quite vivid for not being pure experience memories.
—Yes, well they come from a book, an encoding of an unreal experience.
We are familiar with *fiction*.
—I feel like Cavour in The First Men in the Moon. Speaking with the Grand Lunar.
The comparison may be appropriate, but we do not comprehend it. We are very different, BERNARD, far more different than your comparison with the unreal experience would suggest.
—Yes, but like Cavour, I have thousands of questions. Perhaps you don’t wish to answer all of them.
To keep your fellow macro-scale HUMANS from knowing all we might do, and trying to stop us.
The message was just unclear enough to show Bernard that the command cluster was still unable to completely encompass the reality of the macro-scale.
—Are you in touch with the noocytes in North America?
We are aware there are other, far more powerful concentrations, in much better circumstances.
—And…?
No response.
Then, Are you aware that your *enclosing space* is in jeopardy?
—No. What sort of jeopardy? You mean the lab?
*The lab* is surrounded by your fellows in *uncertain hierarchy relationship*.
—I don’t understand.
They wish to destroy ‘the lab’, and presumably all of us.
—How do you know this?
We are able to receive RADIO FREQUENCY TRANS MISSIONS in several LANGUAGES *encodings*. Can you stop these attempts? Are you in a position of hierarchy INFLUENCE?
Bernard puzzles over the request.
We have memory of the TRANSMISSIONS.
—Then let me hear them.
He can taste the passage of a flagellate, intersecting the messenger of the command cluster, returning with a packet of data. Bernard’s cluster absorbs the data.
He “listens” to the transmissions now in memory. They are not of the best quality, and most of them are in German, which he poorly understands. But he can understand enough to realize why Paulsen-Fuchs has been looking worse and worse of late.
The Pharmek facility is surrounded by camps of protesters. The countryside all the way out to the airport is dotted with them; the protesters number perhaps half a million, and more are arriving by bus, automobile or on foot every day. The army and police do not dare break them
up; the mood throughout West Germany, and most of Europe, is very ugly.
—I have no power to stop them.
PERSUASION?
Another inner chuckle.—No; I’m what they want destroyed. And you.
You are far less influential in your realm than we are here.
—Oh, yes, of course.
For a long period, no messages issue from the command cluster. There is even less time. We are transferring you now.
He feels a subtle shift in the voice as he is moved by flagellates away from the command cluster. Follow. He realizes that a group of clusters has broken away from the command cluster. They are communicating with him, and their voice seems oddly familiar, more direct and accessible.
—Who is guiding me?
The response is chemical. An identifying string is brought to him by a flagellate, and suddenly be knows he is being guided by four clusters of primary B-lympho-cytes, the earliest versions of the noocytes. Primary B-lymphocytes are accorded a place in most command clusters, and treated with great respect; they are the precursors, even though their activities are limited. They are primitive in both meanings of the word; less sophisticated in design and function than recently created noocytes, and the ancestors of all.
You may enter THOUGHT UNIVERSE.
The voice fades in and out like a bad telephone connection. Choppy, incomplete.
The sensation of being in a noocyte cluster ended abruptly. Now Bernard was neither embodied nor shrunk to the noocyte scale. His thoughts simply were, and the place where they were was excruciatingly beautiful
If there was any extension in space, it was illusory. Dimensions seemed to be defined by subject; information relevant to his current thinking was close at hand, other subjects were farther away. The overall impression was of a vast, many layered library, arranged in a sphere around him. He shared this center with another presence.
Humans, human form, the presence said. A scurry of information surrounded Bernard, giving him arms, legs, a body and face. Beside him, apparently sitting in a reclining chair, was a wispy image of Vergil Ulam. Ulam smiled without passion or conviction.
“I am your cellular Vergil. Welcome to the inner circle of the command clusters.”
“You’re dead,” Bernard said, his voice an imperfect approximation.
“So I understand.”
“Where are we?”
“Roughly translating the noocyte descriptive string, we are in a Thought Universe. I call it a noosphere. In here, all we experience is generated by thinking. We can be whatever we wish, or learn whatever we wish, or think about anything. We won’t be limited by lack of knowledge or experience; everything can be brought to us. When not used by the command dusters, I spend most of my time here.”
A granite dodecahedron, its edges decorated with gold bars, formed between them. It rolled this way and that for a moment then addressed Vergil’s pale, translucent form. Bernard did not understand the communication. The dodecahedron vanished.
“We all take characteristic shapes here, and most of us add textures, details. Noocytes don’t have names, Mr. Bernard; they put together sequences of identifying amino acids. Sounds complicated, but really much simpler than a fingerprint. In the noosphere, all active researchers must have definite identifying symbols.”
Bernard tried to find traces of the Vergil Ulam he had met and shaken hands with. There didn’t seem to be many. Even the voice lacked the accent and slight breath-lessness he remembered. “There’s not very much of you here, is there?”
Vergil’s ghost shook its head. “Not all of me was translated to the noocyte level before my cells infected you. I hope there’s a better record somewhere. This one is hardly adequate. I’m only about one third here. What is here, however, is cherished and protected. Shade of honored ancestor, vague memory of creator.” Its voice faded in and out omitting or sliding over certain syllables. The image moved sparingly. The hope is they will connect with noocytes back home, find more of me. Not just fragments of a broken vase.”
The image became more transparent “Must go now. Supplements coming. Always part of me here; you and I, we’re the models. I suspect you have precedence now. Be seeing you.”
Bernard stood alone in the noosphere, surrounded by options he hardly knew how to take advantage of. He held his hand out toward the surrounding information. It rippled all around him, waves of light spreading from nadir to zenith. Ranks of information exchanged priorities and his memories stacked up around him like towers of cards, each represented by a line of light.
The lines cascaded.
He had been thinking
“Just another day for you, isn’t it?” Nadia turned and stepped gracefully onto the courtroom escalator.
Not the most pleasant” he said. Down they went.
“Yes, well, just another.” She smelled of tea roses and something else quiet and clean. She had always been beautiful in his eyes, no doubt in the eyes of others; small, slender, black-haired, she did not draw immediate stares, but a few minutes alone in a room with her and there was no doubt: most men would want to spend many hours, days, months.
But not years. Nadia was quickly bored, even with Michael Bernard.
“Back to business, then,” she said halfway down. “More interviews.”
He did not respond. Nadia, bored, became a baiter.
“Well, you’re rid of me,” she said at the bottom. “And I am rid of you.”
“I’ll never be rid of you,” Bernard said. “You always represented something important to me.” She swiveled on her high heels and presented die rear of an immaculately tailored blue suit He grabbed her arm none too gently and brought her around to face him. “You were my last chance at being normal. I’ll never love another woman like I did you. You burned. I’ll like women, but I’ll never commit to them; I’ll never be naive with them.”
“You’re babbling, Michael,” Nadia said, lips tightening on his name. “Let me go.”
“Like hell,” he said. “You have one and a half million dollars. Give me something in return.”
“Fuck off,” she said.
“You don’t like scenes, do you?”
“Let go of me.”
“Cool, dignified. I can take something now, if you want. Take it out in trade.”
“You bastard.”
He trembled and slapped her. “For tire last of my naiveté. For three years, the first wonderful. For the third a royal misery.”
“I’ll kill you,” she said. “Nobody—”
He brought his leg around behind her and tripped her. She fell back on her ass with a shriek. Legs sprawled, hands spread on stiff arms behind her, she looked up at him with lips writhing. “You—”
“Brute,” he said. “Calm, cold, rational brutality. Not very different from what you put me through. But you don’t use physical force. You just provoke it.”
“Shuttup.” She held out her hand and he helped her to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Not once, during their three years together, had he ever struck her. He felt like dying.
“Bullshit. You’re everything I said you were, you bastard. You miserable little boy.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. The crowds of people in the hall watched them warily, murmuring disapproval. Thank God there were no reporters.
“Go play with your toys,” she said. “Your scalpels, your nurses, your patients. Go ruin their lives and just stay away from me.”
An older memory.
“Father.” He stood by the bed, uncomfortable at the reversal of roles, no longer the doctor but now a visitor. The room smelled of disinfectant and something to hide the smell of disinfectant, tea-roses or something sweet the effect was that of a mortuary. He blinked and reached out for his father’s hand.
The old man (he was old, looked old, looked worn out by life) opened his eyes and blinked. His eyes were yellow, rheumy, and his skin was the color of French mustard, fie had cancer of the liver and everything was failing piece
by piece. He had requested no extraordinary measures and Bernard had brought his own lawyers in to consult with the hospital management, just to ensure his father’s wishes were not ignored. (Want your father dead? Want to ensure he will die more rapidly? Of course not. Want him to live forever? Yes. Oh, yes. Then I won’t die.)
Every couple of hours he was brought a powerful painkiller, a modern variation on the Brompton’s cocktail that had been in favor when Bernard had begun his practice.
“Father. It’s Michael”
“Yes. My mind is dear. I know you.”
“Ursula and Gerald say hello.”
“Hello to Gerald. Hello to Ursula.”
“How are you feeling?”
(Like he’s going to die, you idiot.)
“I’m a junkie now, Mike.”
“Yes, well”
“Have to talk now.”
“About what Father?”
“Your mother. Why isn’t she here?”
“Mother’s dead, Father.”
“Yes. I knew that. My mind is dear. It’s just…and I’m not complaining, mind you…it’s just that this hurts.” He took hold of Bernard’s hand and squeezed it as hard as he could-a pitiful squeeze. “What’s the prognosis, son?”
“You know that Father.”
“Can’t transfer my brain for me?”
Bernard smiled. “Not yet. We’re working on it”
“Not soon enough, I’m afraid.”
“Probably not soon enough.”
“You and Ursula-doing okay?”
“We’re settling things out of court, Father.”
“How’s Gerald taking it?”
“Badly. Sulking.”
“Wanted to divorce your mother once.”
Bernard looked into his father’s face, frowning. “Oh?”
“She had an affair. Infuriated me. Taught me a lot, too. Didn’t divorce her.”
Bernard had never heard any of this.
“You know, even with Ursula—”
“It’s over with, Father. We’ve both had affairs, and mine is turning out pretty serious.”
“Can’t own a woman, Mike. Wonderful companions, can’t own them.”
“I know.”