The Web and the Stars

by Brian Herbert

  “Absurd,” Thinker said. “I have instant access to every one of my circuits, and they are all operating perfectly.”

  “Then why is Noah’s face flickering?”

  “My circuits report no malfunction.”

  “You must be wrong, my friend.” Subi saw the image of Noah partially concealed by a gray film, as if a fog had gotten inside the screen. “Robots can make mistakes too, once in a while.”

  “I’m no ordinary robot.” Thinker whirred, and then looked down at the screen on his own chest. “Mmmm. Peculiar. Perhaps I should fold shut and contemplate this.” For some reason, though, he delayed.

  The foggy gray film inside the screen looked peculiar to Subi, and gave him an unsettled feeling. It swirled around, and then seemed to dart into the image of Noah and vanish entirely. Simultaneously, the eyes and face of Master Noah looked more alive, more alert, and still Thinker did not fold himself shut.…

  * * * * *

  “You’re looking rather stressed,” Noah said to Subi. “Perhaps we can have one of our old talks again, and I could give you some advice that will be of assistance?”

  “I doubt that,” Subi said. He tapped the robot on the head, and said, “Thinker, this … thing … uses computer programming to carry on conversations?”

  Hesitation. Then: “5zocomputer programming. It acts like the original, reacts like Noah really would to any given situation.”

  “So, it could still lead us?”

  “Well,” Thinker said, “I have already discussed this possibility with the programmed likeness, and it doesn’t think that would be practical.”

  “Kindly do not refer to me as a thing or an it,” the image said.

  “A most peculiar sensation,” Thinker said. “The spoken words are not emanating from my operating circuits.”

  “That’s because I really am Noah. Not in the customary sense, since my corporal form is somewhere else. Even so, I have come here, and I’m with you now at this very moment. Now listen carefully, and I’ll tell you where they’re keeping me.”

  “Most unusual,” Thinker said.

  “Good one,” Subi said. “Nice trick, Thinker.”

  “Not a trick,” the robot said. “Something is going wrong … going wrong.” With the repeated words, Thinker’s voice merged with Noah’s, and came from the screen.

  Subi reached out, and touched the face on the screen.

  But the voice from the screen grew weak, and said, “I can’t hold the connection any longer.…” In a few seconds the voice faded out entirely, and the strange animation of the image went away with it, leaving it less lifelike and more in the nature of a video recording, as it had been originally.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  It is said that the Supreme Being had a first thought, a second, and a third. So it was in the beginning, and shall be again.

  —A legend of Lost Earth

  To Noah, it had all been like a strange dream, but he knew it had really happened. And, though he repeatedly tried to make the connection again with his image in Thinker’s torso, he found it impossible to accomplish. On other occasions he had traveled along the strands of the web to go wherever he wanted, but other times—such as now—it seemed to block him. The harder he tried to return to his friends, the more impossible it seemed to be.

  In his heart, he suspected that he needed to back off on the attempts. Then perhaps, the cosmic pathway would open for him again like the embrace of a lover.

  * * * * *

  As a robot, Thinker struggled to explain the strange event, but Subi offered an explanation right away. He theorized that there had been a computer malfunction that made Noah’s simulation seem to come alive.

  “I have no record of a malfunction,” Thinker said.

  “Therefore, you have a malfunction on top of a malfunction.”

  “Perhaps, but my probability programs point in an entirely different direction, to the cosmic structure they call Timeweb. I have only sketchy information on it, what has been reported to me about certain unusual properties of communication and travel. As you know, Master Noah made me the official historian of the Guardians, and the trustee of his life story. At that time, despite numerous experiences in Timeweb, he did not understand how the network functioned. Maybe he has a deeper comprehension now that he has gone from us, but we can’t contact him to find out. I suspect that no living organism will ever gain all information about something so vast and complex.”

  “Are you implying that you could gain a full understanding of it?”

  The heavy lidded eyes blinked. “Of course. I have a much larger capacity for data storage than any Human.”

  “But is Timeweb all about information and data sorting? Noah told me it has certain spiritual qualities that he didn’t think could be grasped in any purely logical way.”

  The machine whirred, but only for a moment. Then: “That could be the case. To be most effective, I must remain open to all possibilities, however implausible they may seem at first.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for you after all,” Subi said with a gentle smile.

  “The best answer I have now,” Thinker said, “is that an aberration in the cosmic structure transported Noah’s mental image all the way here. Think of a radio or audiovisual signal skipping through the atmosphere of a planet, or through the galaxy. The signal comes and goes, depending upon surrounding conditions.”

  “Do your programs say if it can happen again?”

  “Not enough information.… “

  * * * * *

  Over the course of several days, Thinker checked the simulacrum circuitry and pronounced it fit. He, Subi, and other Guardians interacted with the Noah-image several times, and each time it was a straightforward matter, with the image operating as the robot intended. The electronic simulation provided them with its advice and instructions based upon Al-enhanced probabilities that were calculated from Noah’s actual past experiences.

  The Guardians even asked the simulation about the strange, brief moments when it had seemed to be something more. “Oh, you only imagined that,” the Noah said, after a moment’s hesitation. “It never happened. Your perceptions are not real.”

  Grudgingly, Subi accepted this.

  As time passed, he and his followers obtained advice from the computer-generated Noah about how best to make guerrilla raids against industrial polluters, and they were successful in destroying an immense gaserol plant operated by a business associate of Doge Lorenzo. With the help of Noah’s alter ego, the Guardians pursued the most serious damagers of the environment, no longer limiting themselves to the forces of Lorenzo and Francella. This made the Guardians more unpredictable, and harder to defend against.…

  * * * * *

  In heavy armor that disguised him as a machine, covering his entire body instead of only part of it, Giovanni Nehr was sent on a new outside mission. Even after Gio’s failure at Max One, the Noah simulation had recommended no punishment for him, and the placement of no obstacles in his career path.

  Thus, Gio found himself on still another reconnaissance assignment. This time he was supposed to infiltrate Jimu and the fighting machines that were in the service of the Doge. With considerable finesse he accomplished this, obtaining a position with a robotic yard crew working at the Doge’s cliffside villa. There, Gio confirmed earlier intelligence reports that Jimu had his robots reproducing at a very high rate. One day, Gio saw more than a thousand of them performing efficient, deadly fighting formations in a practice session near the villa.

  After a week of spying Gio returned to Guardian headquarters, and reported to Subi Danvar and Thinker, who stood just outside the Brew Room. “We don’t want to oppose those machines in direct battle,” Gio said. “They’re too numerous, too skilled.”

  “I projected as much,” Thinker said, after listening to more details. “They have access to far more raw materials than we do, can build at a much higher rate.”

  * * * * *

  Again, Subi consulted wi
th the likeness of Noah Watanabe, who flashed on at the center of the robot’s chest. “Subi, you don’t really need me,” Noah said. He stared intently from the screen.

  “How can you say that?” Subi protested. “The Guardians are nothing without you.”

  Noah’s likeness scowled. Then it seemed to move away, and paced around a simulated chamber.

  “Master Noah, come back here,” Subi pleaded.

  Noah did so, and returned to the foreground of the screen. With a kindly expression, he said, “Thinker has been updating me with reports of your activities and decisions. My loyal adjutant, you are the wisest of leaders. Your decisions are sound.”

  “Not as sound as they could be. I’ve done my best, but.…”

  Interrupting, the simulacrum said, “The best hope of the Guardians is not to consult with an electronic version of me, but to follow your leadership instincts. You’ve been right to continue your guerrilla raids, while building your own forces, Human and machine. I especially like your idea of calling the robots ‘ecomachines.’ I never thought of that.”

  “But I never said anything about that,” Subi said. “How did you … ?” He paused, and looked up at the metal face of Thinker. “You downloaded my brain, too?”

  The metal face smiled, and the metal-lidded eyes blinked in acknowledgment. “While you slept.”

  Angrily, Subi said, “You had no right. I didn’t give you permission to do that!”

  “Earlier, I avoided doing that to Noah without his permission. This time, however, I.…”

  “Well, what?”

  “I ran probability programs and arrived at the answer that you would appreciate joining Noah’s simulacrum in my internal world.”

  “Well I don’t, and I don’t want you to ever do that again to anybody. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, but I was only trying to be helpful.”

  “Don’t forget what I told you.”

  “I never forget anything. I’m a machine, with perfect recollection.”

  Subi shook his head. “You still have a lot to learn.”

  “As you can see,” the Noah copy said, interrupting them from the screen, “I know you very well, Subi. Thinker’s screen of me is clever, but you should not rely on me any longer, my friend. It can only weaken you.”

  A tear ran down Subi’s cheek. “My decision is this, Noah. I will continue to speak with you from time to time … as a friend. You thought I only saw you as a boss?”

  “No, and I never saw you as only an adjutant, either.” The simulacrum’s eyes looked sad, even capable of crying. Then he turned and walked away, into the darkness of a simulated tunnel.

  Chapter Thirty

  Each world is different from every other one, and Tarbu is the most unique of all.

  —From a Tulyan Story

  In the vast galaxy, some life forms had existed for eternity, while others had evolved over the eons, so that only remnants of their ancient pasts remained … the faint genetic dustings of history. So it was with planets, and entire galactic sectors surrounding them.

  Tarbu was a world run by Tulyans in much the same manner as it had been millions of years ago. As mortal enemies of Tulyans, the Parviis knew it existed but had never been able to determine its location. It was the Tulyan equivalent of the Parvii Fold, mysterious and hidden, filled with the arcane ways of its inhabitants. Both regions, as if designed by God for such purposes, had been cut off from other star systems by cosmic conditions—the Parvii Fold by its pocketed, far-out-of-the way location, and Tarbu by electrical disturbances that prevented Parvii brains from detecting it—or the existence of the Wild Pod Zone beyond, in a region of dim, dwarf stars.

  According to Tulyan legend, the Sublime Creator established Tarbu and the protected region on the other side of it as a sanctuary for podships and for the Tulyans who were supposed to be their pilots. It came to be known as the Tarbu Gap. In this belief system, the Sublime Creator constructed the relationship between Tulyans and the spacefaring Aopoddae in the first place, but Parviis subsequently altered it in horrific ways, for their own selfish purposes.

  Eshaz led his companions off the podship that had just traveled across space, then strode through an airlock to the station platform, talking to them constantly, giving them a preview of the remarkable wonders all of them were about to share.

  Fascinated, Dux hung on every word. To the teenager, this pod station orbiting Tarbu looked like any other, with its mottled gray-and-black surfaces, along with the organic texture of its construction, not dissimilar from podships themselves. He had heard it said that both podships and pod stations were living variations of an ancient race that had been created in unexplained ways, and which continued to behave mysteriously, like an immense, galactic-scale organism. When considered in that manner, it sounded frightening to some people, but Dux had never felt that way himself. Each time he rode in a podship or stepped onto a pod station, he felt more at peace than anywhere else, and infinitely calm. It was like some people felt in the presence of water, as if the liquid was a link to the past when Humans swam the seas of Lost Earth, before evolving to walk on land and become what they were today.

  “Eshaz mentioned something to you in passing,” Tesh said, “the Parvii Fold. He and I have an arrangement of trust, or I would not permit him to speak in this manner, and he would never have brought me here. To his race, the Tarbu Gap is as sacred as the Parvii Fold is to mine.”

  “Don’t forget the Tulyan Starcloud,” Eshaz said. “We have more than one sacred region.”

  She nodded. “And perhaps there are others as well, on both sides.”

  This elicited no apparent reaction from the big Tulyan, as he led them across the platform of the pod station.

  Staring at Tesh, Dux furrowed his brow. “Eshaz said you aren’t really Human. What did he mean by that?”

  “I am like you and not like you at the same moment,” the pretty brunette said, as they all paused at an empty shuttle bay. She touched one of Dux’s shoulders. “I am a Parvii, one of the major galactic races, even though most races do not even know we exist.”

  “You certainly look Human,” Acey said, “so what’s the difference?” He always liked to know how things worked, and studied her attractive form with new interest.

  Dux noticed Eshaz standing off to one side, watching them with a somewhat amused expression.

  “Your race—humanus ordinaire—is an offshoot of mine,” she said. “We are genetically linked, but so vastly different now that the similarities are more superficial than significant.” She paused. “We may look alike at the moment, but watch this.” Touching her own wrist, she seemed to disappear in a faint mist. Then Dux heard her, a tiny voice down on the deck.

  “Don’t step on me!” she shouted, looking up at them and waving her arms.

  Kneeling, Dux and Acey stared at the tiny Human shape, like a Lilliputian in the Land of Gulliver.

  “I wonder what other surprises Tesh and Eshaz have for us,” Acey said.

  “We have hardly begun!” Eshaz boomed, towering over them.

  The boys tumbled backward, when Tesh suddenly shot up and became full-size again. As Acey and Dux regained their footing and stood with her again she said, “Eshaz and I have come to an understanding of epic proportions. Historically, Tulyans and Parviis are mortal enemies, like Humans and Mutatis, but we have agreed to work together for the greater good, for all of the races and sectors of the galaxy.”

  “Noah Watanabe is the binding force,” Eshaz said. “All of us are eco-warriors serving his cause, his interpretation of galactic ecology. Agreed?” Through slitted gray eyes he peered down at Acey and Dux.

  “Agreed!” the boys exclaimed.

  “We knew we could count on you,” Tesh said. “Or at least, that’s what Eshaz told me. You see, he read your minds.”

  “How did you do that?” Acey asked.

  “Leave me some secrets,” Eshaz said good-naturedly. Then, looking at Tesh, he said, “Speaking of that, I
will readily admit that certain thoughts of yours are … how shall I put it? They are veiled, but not completely. I speak of personal feelings you have for Noah Watanabe, beyond anything professional in your capacity as a Guardian.”

  Dux saw her redden in apparent embarrassment.

  “The way you look at him, for example,” Eshaz added, “and the particular tone of your voice in his presence. I find it interesting.”

  “What do you know about it?” she said, indignantly. “You’re not even Human.”

  “And you are? As far as I know, Humans don’t do the magic act we just witnessed.”

  Composing herself, she smiled. “I’m closer to Human than you, my friend. In any event, you do not even have a mate. What is your experience in personal relationships, anyway? For that matter, how do Tulyan people reproduce? I know you have males and females, since First Elder Kre’n is female, or so we are led to believe. Do you mate in the customary manner?”

  Now Eshaz smiled, as he was finding his own amusement in the interplay. “You have touched upon one of the matters we do not discuss with outside races.”

  “It is similar for me,” Tesh said, “but it is not a racial matter at all. I do not discuss affairs of my heart with anyone. They are too personal.”

  “But you must discuss them with someone,” Eshaz said. “With the person you have such feelings toward.”

  “That goes without saying,” she said. Her green eyes twinkled. “My feelings for Noah are personal. So are my feelings for you.”

  Eshaz laughed, a deep rumble. “A Tulyan and a Parvii,” he said. “The most interesting proposition I’ve ever received. And I have lived for a very long time, indeed.”

  Tesh pushed him good-naturedly, but he was so large and heavy that he didn’t move. Her voice rose. “I didn’t proposition you, you big oaf!”

  “I will be more cautious of you in the future,” he said, with a wide reptilian grin. “In all matters, you are dangerous.”

  In a short while a shuttle arrived, to transport them down to Tarbu. For some reason, Dux had been unable to see the planet at all when they arrived at the orbital pod station. There had been no mists or clouds, though, nothing to obscure his vision. Now, as they plunged down in the shuttle, the planet seemed to take shape before them, emerging from space like something appearing out of nothingness, as if had popped out of a void, from an entirely different dimension. As they dropped down into the atmosphere, the light was an eerie brownish gray, with no visible sun or cloud cover. Just an oddly illuminated sky.