Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy

by Robert A. Wilson

George Dorn realized that, amid all this nightmare imagery from the random circuits, he was coming back together again, a little bit at a time, coming out of the illusion that he was Frank Dashwood.

  “Here it is,” Cagliostro the Great said, handing George a book called The Answer.

  George opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:

  FLOSSING

  “Here it is,” Dr. Hugh Crane said, handing George a book called The Answer.

  Frank opened the volume eagerly. It had one page and said:

  Jan Zelenka was born in Bohemia in 1679, wrote in a style similar (and much admired by) Johann Sebastian Bach, died in 1745. Much of his sacred music is still admired, but perhaps his greatest composition was his Capriccio of 1723.

  Out of the sea rose a gigantic, chryselephantine, bodacious, incredible yellow submarine, waving the Black Flag of Anarchy and the Golden Apple of Discord.

  Mavis, the woman with the tommy gun, appeared at a window. “Gravity sucks!” she shouted. “The cream of the jest rises to the top. That’s the Law of Levity.”

  And the submarine took off and floated over North Beach like a flying saucer.

  Mavis threw down a rope. “Grab hold, George!” she shouted. “We’ve come to rescue you!”

  And he leapt, and grabbed hold, and they pulled him up, into the Golden Space Ship.

  Captain Hagbard Celine (who looked a lot like Hugh Crane the magician, when you stopped to think about it, and a little bit like Harry Coin, the crazy assassin, and somewhat like Everyman) took his hand. “Good to have you back aboard, George. Was it rough down there?”

  He tried to be modest. “Well, you know how it is on primitive planets….”

  “They gave you merry hell,” Hagbard said. “I can see it in your face. Well, cheer up, George. It’s over now. We’re heading home.”

  And indeed there were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of them: great golden ships sailing past at the speed of light, heading into the center of the galaxy.

  It was the planetary birth process; earth, like a single giant flower, after incubating for four billion years, was discharging its seed.

  And the ships, like homing pigeons, were going back where the experiment began, where the DNA was created and ejaculated out onto every planet, where the Star Makers dwell, beyond the Black Hole, out of space, out of time.

  THE RETURN TO ITHACA

  The future exists first in Imagination, then in Will, then in Reality.

  —BARBARA MARX HUBBARD

  One evening while Wing Lee Chee was meditating he found himself floating higher and higher, becoming more and more detached, observing with total lucidity that he was a little old man sitting in a room high on a hill over a huge city on a planet circling around a star in a galaxy of myriads of stars among countless galaxies extending to infinity and eternity in all directions, within his own mind.

  And in that lucidity he knew that he had been lying to himself for months, pretending not to notice what was happening to his body as it gradually terminated its basic functions, fearful of looking straight at Death; but now, in that lucidity, looking at it and seeing that it was just another of the millions of things that Wing Lee Chee (who was so rich and powerful) could not do anything about; but now, in that lucidity and objectivity, looking far down at this particular galaxy, this insignificant solar system, this temporary city, this house that a strong wind could blow away, this absurd old man who was rich and powerful but could not command the tides or alter the paths of the stars, it was all suddenly a great joke and every little detail made sense. For, in this new lucidity and objectivity and selfless perspective, he did not giggle or weep or feel dazed, but only smiled, very slightly, knowing he would soon lose this body, which was like an old run-down car, and this central nervous system, which was like a tired and increasingly incompetent driver, and the meta-programmer in the higher nervous centers which gave him this perspective, because out here beyond space-time he simply did not give a damn about that life, that planet, or that universe anymore.

  So, as he very slowly came down, contracted, into Euclidean 3-D again, he was aware of every amusing, poignant, radiant little detail, the wholeness and the harmony and the luminosity of it all, knowing how richly he would enjoy every last minute of it, now that it didn’t matter to him anymore.

  The next day he called the office and told his secretary he wouldn’t be in. Then he took a long walk, enjoying every bird, every flower, every blade of grass, every radiant detail, and getting a bit winded—another sign that the car was running down—and finally taking a cab to Ying Kaw Foy’s house.

  She wept when he told her, but he smiled and joked and chided her out of it.

  “I may be one of the last men to die,” he said when she was calm. “President Hubbard in Unistat is putting a lot of money into research on longevity and immortality. No, don’t weep again; it is nothing to me. I feel like one of the last dinosaurs.”

  “You are the best man in the world,” she said, eyes flashing.

  “I have been good to you” he said. “I have been as much of a scoundrel as was necessary to be rich and comfortable. Many will be glad of my death.”

  He told her how he was arranging to have most of his estate liquidated, turned into cash, and deposited in her account.

  He urged her to take advantage of the longevity drugs as they became available, and to meditate every day. “One year of life is wonderful, when you are conscious of the details. A thousand years would be more wonderful.” And then he added a strange thing: “Think of me sometimes, and look for me. You’ll never see old Wing Lee Chee again, but you’ll see what I really am if you look hard enough and long enough.”

  And then he suddenly realized it was coming even sooner than he had expected. “How absurd,” he said. “I must lie down now.”

  He stretched out on her couch. “I must have walked too far,” he said. “So many hills … so many ups and downs … and all I want now is one thing. Open your blouse, please. That’s right, thank you. No, I just want to look at them. Such lovely Brownmillers, like peaches. Let me touch them. No, let me kiss them. No, never mind, I’m going now.”

  “Don’t go,” she cried. “Kiss them, kiss them first.”

  “Right back where I started,” he said, suckling. And then he left her.

  Ms. Ying decided to go to the French Riviera after the funeral. She would spend a year there, having a series of young, crude, unintelligent lovers (who wouldn’t remind her of him) and then decide what to do with her money and the rest of her life.

  She sold the Rehnquist and a lot of other junk when she gave up her house in Hong Kong.

  The wholesaler didn’t know what to do with the Rehnquist at first, but he finally sold it to a Sex Shop in Yokohama.

  Markoff Chaney was vacationing in Japan that summer, because—after years of paying him only about three hundred dollars a month—his stocks in Blue Sky, Inc., were suddenly paying two thousand dollars or three thousand dollars a month.

  Blue Sky made zero-gravity devices that were proving very useful in the space-cities President Hubbard had created.

  Chaney had also written a book, which was selling moderately well despite its rather eccentric thesis. It was his endeavor to prove that all the great achievements in art, science, and culture were the work of persons who were, on the average, less than five feet tall, and often shorter. He claimed that this fact had been “covered up” by what he called “unconscious sizeist prejudice” on the part of professional historians.

  He had called the book Little Men with Big Balls, but the publisher, out of a sense that Chaney perhaps had some unconscious prejudice of his own and certainly lacked good taste, had changed the title to Little People with Big Ideas.

  Chaney spent his first day in Japan visiting Kyoto. He went out to see where the Temple of the Golden Pavilion had once stood, and he spent three hours walking around there, trying to get into the head of the Zen monk who had burned it down.

 
; Chaney had known the story for years: how the monk, working on the koan “Does a dog have the Buddha Nature?”, had tried one answer after another, always getting hit upside the head by his Roshi and told he didn’t have it yet. Finally, after meditating continuously for a day and a half without sleep or food, the monk had a brainstorm of some kind and dashed from his cell with a hell of a yell and burned down the Temple, the most beautiful building in Japan at the time.

  The court had declared the monk insane.

  After three hours of trying to get into the monk’s head-space when he set fire to the building, Chaney had his own brainstorm. He had been ignoring Dr. Dashwood for three or four months, he realized.

  He took a cab to Western Union and dispatched a telegram to Dr. Dashwood at Orgasm Research. It said:

  FLOSSING IS THE ANSWER

  EZRA POUND

  Chaney had gotten those words many months ago, while having some dental work done. The dentist suggested they try nitrous oxide, and Chaney eagerly agreed.

  He remembered that the great psychologist William James had once thought he had the whole secret of the Universe on a nitrous oxide trip. What James had written down, in trying to verbalize his insight, was OVERALL THERE IS A SMELL OF FRIED ONIONS. Chaney wanted to know what it was like to be in the state where fried onions would explain everything. He sniffed deeply and expectantly as the mask was placed over his nose, and waited.

  No illumination came at first, but the room seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, and then it was getting smaller and smaller, and then he became aware that the dentist, as was typical of his species, was making remonstrating noises as he gazed into Chaney’s mouth, saying that brushing was not enough and that everybody should be more conscious of dental hygiene and so on, all the usual craperoo, and then he, Chaney, wasn’t there anymore, he wasn’t anywhere; it was just like what he had heard about quantum jumping in physics, because he was there again, having gone from 0 to 1, and then going back to 0 again, not being there, and then back to 1 again and the dentist said somberly, like a very wise old wizard:

  “Flossing is the answer.”

  And Chaney felt like he might giggle or weep, but was too dazed to do either, having found it at last, the Answer. And it was so simple, as all the mystics said; it was right out in the open and we didn’t notice it because we weren’t conscious of the details. And he stared up, awed, at the wise face of the great sage who had given it to him, at last, the Answer.

  Flossing.

  And the damnedest part of it was that for weeks after he still had flashes when he thought that was it, the Answer. Flossing.

  After Kyoto, Chaney went to Yokohama to see the infamous Sex Shops, as was inevitable.

  In the first Sex Shop he purchased an artificial vagina which seemed vastly superior, in both realism and pneumatic grip, to the model he had at home.

  In the second Sex Shop he bought a box of pornographic Easter Eggs.

  By then he was feeling the surging despair again, knowing that these substitutes were not what he really wanted, knowing his loneliness and his exile with that bitterness that he usually kept at bay by concentrating on the absurdity of everything-in-general, experiencing the terrible isolation of being out there on the moon separated from the ridiculous oversized clods by 250,000 miles and sizeist prejudice.

  And then, in the third Sex Shop, he found it.

  The Answer.

  And it wasn’t flossing at all.

  Dr. Glopberger had worked in the Sex Change department of Johns Hopkins for a long time, and thought that nothing could surprise him any longer.

  Markoff Chaney surprised him.

  “No,” Chaney said, in answer to the first question Glopberger always asked, “I’ve never felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body.”

  “Um,” Glopberger said. “Well, sir, what do you want here?”

  Chaney opened the box in his lap.

  “Good God,” Glopberger said. “I’ve only seen one that big once in my life.” What was that character’s name—Wildebeeste? Strange one: he had kept it after the operation, had it mounted on a plaque or something like that.

  “You see,” Chaney explained, “I don’t want to become a woman. I want to become more of a man.”

  “Well,” said Dr. Glopberger, professionally. “Well, well.” It was an ingenious challenge, even with the advances in Sex Surgery in the past three years, but it could be done…. My word, it would be a Medical First.

  The stocks in Blue Sky were now paying eight thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars a month.

  “Name your price,” Chaney said with a steely glint.

  Justin Case heard about the man with no name at one of Mary Margaret Wildeblood’s wild, wild parties. Joe Malik, the editor of Confrontation, told the story. It was rather hard for Case to follow because the party was huge and noisy—a typical Wildeblood soirée. All the usual celebrities were there—Blake Williams, the most boring crank in the galaxy; Juan Tootrego, the rocket engineer responsible for the first three space-cities; Carol Christmas, the man who had invented the first longevity drug, Ex-Tend; Natalie Drest, the fiery feminist; Bertha Van Ation, the astronomer who had discovered the first real Black Hole, in the Sirius double-star system; Markoff Chaney, the midget millionaire who owned most of Blue Sky, Inc. Hordes of other names—maxi-, midi-, and mini-celebrities— swarmed through Mary Margaret’s posh Sutton Place pad as the evening wore on. There was a lot of booze, a lot of hash, and—due to Chaney—altogether too much coke.

  “The town was called Personville,” Malik was saying, “and the man with no name was a detective for a big agency like Pinkerton’s. But then Kurasawa adapted it, and the man with no name became a Samurai.”

  “Of course we can go to the stars,” Markoff Chaney was saying, even louder, on Case’s other side. “The speed of light doesn’t mean a thing when you consider what the next two or three jumps of longevity will bring. There are no real limits anywhere, except in the thinking of the timid and the conservative.” He was armed with new Courage.

  “Then he became Clint Eastwood,” Malik said. “What’s your game?” Juan Tootrego asked, making conversation.

  “Oh, art,” Case said. “I write the art column in Confrontation.”

  “But he still doesn’t have a name!” Malik exclaimed.

  “Then you’re the man who discovered El Mir,” Juan Tootrego said, impressed. Blake Williams snickered suddenly.

  “Everybody this is Simon Moon the President’s husband,” Mary Margaret said.

  The First Man fidgeted in their gaze.

  “I’m not here to do any electioneering,” he said.

  “He’s one of the best chess players in the country,” Mary Margaret said, completing the introduction.

  “Um how does it feel to be married to a politician?” Case asked, trying to put Simon at ease.

  “Eve has her thing, and I have mine,” Simon said.

  “I have a theory,” Blake Williams orated, “that the chessboard is a model of the human brain. What do you think of that, Mtr. Hubbard?”

  “Mt. Moon,” Simon said quickly. He was a Masculinist.

  “You see,” Malik went on, “whether he’s a detective, a Samurai, or a cowboy, he still has no name. Isn’t that archetypal?”

  “I always look at the bright side,” Hagbard Celine was saying to Natalie Drest. “There’s only 337,665 years to go in the Kali Yuga, for instance.”

  “Well, if Batman is so smart,” Marvin Gardens muttered, “why does he wear his underdrawers outside of his pants?”

  “Pardon me,” Simon Moon was asking Blake Williams, “but did you say Grand Canyon should be considered as an artistic whole or as an artistic hole?”

  “Why, yes,” Markoff Chaney was telling Mary Margaret, “I am working on a second book. It’s called Reality Is What You Can Get Away With, and it’s about the future evolution of consciousness and intelligence.” His Courage was growing.

  “Childproof bottles, my Abzug,” Marvi
n Gardens complained. “There isn’t a child in the world who doesn’t have the patience and curiosity to open one of them.”

  “He has no name,” Malik said, “because he is Death, and Death is a nightmare from which humanity is beginning to awaken.”

  “It’s time to stop worshiping gods,” Chaney went on earnestly, “and aim at becoming gods. It took four and a half billion years to produce this moment, and who’s really awake yet?”

  “It’s adults who give up on the damned bottles,” Marvin Gardens went on. “They decide—I know I do—‘Agh, the hell, I don’t need the Potter Stewarting pills.’ What they are is adultproof bottles.”

  “Who is that exciting man?” Natalie Drest whispered to Mary Margaret.

  “Marvin Gardens, the brain surgeon. He’s married to Dr. Lovelace the uh you know the first woman Bishop in the Mormon Church.”

  Benny Benedict, the columnist, arrived, apologizing for being late. “I had to see my mother at the Senior Citizens’ home. Great old gal, she’s taken up tennis again since she started on Ex-Tend.”

  “Well, yes,” Hagbard Celine was saying. “I was a stage magician in my youth. Called myself Cagliostro the Great. But then I got turned on to Cabala …”

  “Everybody this is John Disk he’s the assistant to Dr. Lousewart at NASA-Ames …”

  “No wife, no horse, no mustache,” General Wing Lee Chee (U.S. Army, ret.) was saying. “I really resented that.”

  And then everybody else had left and they were alone.

  “Of course there are robots among us,” Chaney said, finishing his last speech. “There are also Magicians among us. I think we take turns playing each role, as a matter of fact. The Magician defines a reality-mesh and the robot lives in it. Grok?”

  “God, you’re an attractive man,” Mary Margaret breathed, thinking of his Courage.

  Their eyes locked. Because of the magnetism of his personality, neither of them was conscious of the fact that she was looking a long way down at him.

  “Let’s sniff a little more coke,” Chaney suggested.