by Geoff Ryman
9708
B
Of course.
9710
Control
Intelligence is an active,
not a passive quality.
Intelligence does things.
9716
B
I knew it!
9717
Control
This creature has evolved
completely alone and self-sufficient,
without need of self-defense
or activity of any sort.
It has no capacity for solving problems.
It is conscious
but not intelligent
as Control now defines the word.
9733
B
Intelligence does things?
Birds do things.
They eat worms.
Are birds intelligent?
9742
Control
Of course not.
They are conscious, they act,
but their actions are a function
of instinct.
9751
B
So are yours.
Intelligence merely helps you
do them more thoroughly.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Control
by some holy accident
there has evolved an intelligence
that has no need to do anything,
as you say,
whose only activity is to see
and to delight!
Who doesn’t hunt or maim or battle
or build,
who loves everything!
As it is!
9778
Control
The beast has not progressed
beyond the stage of
infantile identification
of the self with the universe.
It is utterly egocentric
and very, very primitive.
9790
B
Backward!
You’ve got it backward!
You are primitive.
You are at the mercy of your instincts,
Entropy Control!
You can’t even control yourselves!
You are the beast!
10/9801
Control
This is unheard of.
9804
Z
Bee, we do not know the decision yet.
9806
B
I do!
9808
Control
Then we will be brief.
We have decided to
transport the beast to Aldebaran,
another K-type orange giant
with similar enough readings.
The project here
will progress as planned.
The beast will be returned here
if that ever becomes possible.
That, we think, is very fair.
9823
B
This is his home.
He is part of this place!
Taking him from here
would be like cutting him in two!
9828
Z
Perhaps, Control,
the Dajja could stay here…
9831
B
Don’t you understand?
You have no right to do this.
9835
Control
We have every right, B.
9837
Z
Please, listen!
It will take a century, more,
before there is a climactic change.
Surely the Dajja can stay here
until then?
9847
Control
Nothing would be gained.
A decision has been made by the Regimen.
9851
Z
You could study him here!
9853
Control
That will be all, Z.
9856
Z
You haven’t helped, Bee.
9861
Control
In any event,
if all places and things are one to it,
it shouldn’t mind,
should it?
9867
B
You are evil.
You don’t know it,
but you are.
9876
Control
A mobile Slide
will be established for one casting
between Daphne and Aldebaran
when and where the beast is located.
9884
B
I will not search.
9886
Control
The project will still continue.
9889
B
I will not call the Slides.
9892
Control
B, is that a refusal?
9894
B
Yes.
9895
Z
Bee! Consider!
9897
Control
You refute a decision
of the Regimen itself?
10/9902
B
I refute Control altogether.
9904
Control
No matter.
Z will find the animal for us.
9908
B
Will you, Zoe?
9912
Z
It is not right to ask me
to make this decision, Control.
9917
Control
But we have.
9921
Z
Between Bee and duty?
Have you listened to what he said?
Do you realize you are
asking me to betray him?
9927
Control
Him, or us.
9929
Z
It is not that simple!
I do not disagree violently
with your decision!
9935
Control
Then implement it.
You have a duty.
9940
Z
I cannot!
You want me to lead the beast to you,
to the jaws of the Slide?
It couldn’t understand.
We are its friends.
9947
Control
This does not surprise us.
It is not unusual
for Angels to lose touch
with Humankind and duty.
It is in itself a form of decay.
Under the Entropy Directive
our duty is clear.
You must both be recalled from service.
9963
Z
What does that mean?
9965
B
It means they also think
we are no longer human.
9970
Control
It means you will be
returned to Central Control
and rehabilitated.
If that fails you will be
dispersed.
9980
Z
What does dispersed mean?
9982
Control
It means you will cease to exist.
9984
Z
That is possible?
9986
Control
It need not come to that.
9989
Z
We have a right to life!
9991
Control
You are not, strictly speaking, alive.
9993
Z
We will fight!
We will hide!
9998
B
Thank you, Zoe.
30/2/0001
Control
We will find you.
There is no fighting us.
W
e are Control.
from Entropy Control and You
Time…Without time, there is no beginning; there is no creation; there is nothing.
The stubborn nothingness of space resists time and the things time creates. What exists is the product of a struggle between nothingness and creation.
Time began with the massive explosion called the big bang. The big bang divided space from subspace. It unleashed the energy that forces space to open out, like a flower, and thus to move forward in time. This expansion will continue for another 10100 earthyears. After that the force of time will no longer be able to overcome the elastic resistance of space. Expansion will stop, space will contract. Time will run backward, all the way back to the big bang.
This contraction will have no future in which to occur. Time will have ceased to go forward. The contraction must, therefore, occupy the same period of time as the expansion. At any one moment, space is simultaneously expanding and contracting, going both forward and backward in time.
Entropy Control uses the force of time in two ways. We use it to soften matter for Sliding. We also use it to generate chaolis.
You will remember that chaolis are generated by the collision of matter and anti-matter. True anti-matter is, simply, matter that is moving backward in time. It was not generated by Humankind until time was accidentally reversed at the Ningsia Time Travel project. The first discovered anti-particles, such as the positron, were not true anti-matter. When a positron collides with an electron, gamma rays, not chaolis are produced. Nevertheless, a positron behaves very much like a true anti-electron. It was with good reason that the physicists of old Earth speculated that it might be moving backward in time…
The present moment then, is made up of a universe of matter moving forward in time, and also an anti-universe of anti-matter moving backward in time. A teacup is also an anti-teacup. The two would annihilate each other, but for the fact that they mutually occupy the same space at the same moment. They behave like one thing. No reaction between them is possible.
At Ningsia, anti-matter was created by forcing expanding space within the universe to contract. This technique is crude and expensive. Entropy Control now simply split the present moment into two. Since we cannot make the universe and the anti-universe occupy different times, we make them occupy different places.
This is done by means of a set of time freezes, arranged in a pentangle as determined by the Luftens equations…The freezes shoot a highly disruptive pattern of distortion waves through a carefully limited space, for example, a block of granite. The elastic resistance of this space, which holds the two universes together in that place, is momentarily broken apart. Matter and anti-matter separate. Then, as elasticity “knits” space back together, they meet. Chaolis in abundance are released.
It was at first feared that this method of chaoli generation would unduly consume the precious force of time. The Blake refinements to the Luftens equation proved, however, that the expansion of space is momentarily speeded up by the release of chaolis. The force of time is thus renewed.
And this is the most curious and wonderful thing of all. If the Blake refinements are correct, the force of time itself is generated by chaoli release. The big bang, then, is simply the final, catastrophic meeting of universe and anti-universe, just before the rebirth of time. Both are dissolved in a shower of chaolis. Both are then reborn from them.
The chaoli is the source of everything. All forms of matter and anti-matter are derived from it. Time is born as its twin. It sires all forms of energy, save for the steady elasticity of empty space. From chaolis we could, theoretically, make anything.
Like hydrogen
Like gold
Like warm, living soil.
We are learning how to do that, too.
When we succeed, Humankind will have unlimited power to create. We will invent new elements, build whole worlds, throw up new suns to replace old. We will learn how to generate cold, rather than heat. A thousand means will be at our disposal to ensure that work will be possible until time reverses. No catastrophe will be great enough to destroy us. Humanity will be immortal.
Consider the pieces—the Charlie Slide, the time freeze, the gathering of heat, endothermic reactions, the final unveiling. See with what perfection they form the whole that is Entropy Control. They would not have come together, but for Humankind. Wonder at the need creation has of us. Ponder how we have been pulled up from the boiling seas of primeval Earth into the heavens. Marvel at the place reserved for us in the temple of time.
For time, without a time itself to change in, is inalterable. Everything within it is predestined and unavoidable. This, then, is the fate of Humankind: to save the universe and to be the dutiful masters of matter. Faced with this, who could deny the right of the Regimen to direct and to control? What sour fool, tired of life, can plaint now that human existence is without meaning or purpose? For we are the stewards of creation.
from Remembrances of Bee
We kept our minds still and small. We hid where the babble of the sun would be greatest. But every time we spoke our love, Control heard us. It was not long before the Warrior Angels came. Control Apparatus, they are called. We did not even know they existed.
They crashed about us, dead and dull and strong. Control had cut away their hearts, they saw no beauty. They were loyal and powerful.
We tried to flee, up through the twisting gas. They followed, howling. We gave off fear, like a scent they could taste. We could feel them behind us gaping like mouths and they were the faster.
Then we saw the Dajja, enrobed in light.
from the Hellespont Angelogs
Transcripts of 1363/30/2
Time
Recorded Material
2/3031
The Alien
Hello Otherself!
Hello Nextself! Hello! Hello!
3036
B
Get away! Get away! Hide!
(3039)
The Alien
Tumblewords!
3031
Apparatus
H
a
a
a
a
a
a
a
h!
(3038)
We have them!
3040
B
Pain!
Hurt!
Hide!
Oh, Dajja,
you don’t understand!
3041
Apparatus
Is that the beast?
3045
Z
Yes.
3044
The Alien
Sleekvoice!
Sleekvoice-Cold!
Glintgleam.
3047
Apparatus
We have them both, Control!
Both them and the animal.
3052
B
Time!
Time, Dajja!
Time here, us here.
Time go, us not here,
you not here, not home,
but in new world.
3060
The Alien
New-World!
3055
Z
Please, brothers,
let us have
just a few moments?
3061
Apparatus
No.
Control,
Slide to + 2.411X, + .093Y, + .0121Z
Calling to you now.
You can aim at us
E
E
E
E
E
E
(3085)
E…
3063
B
But pain in New-world.
No otherself in New-world.
3068
The Alien
Sadshiver
Soft regret
But all time
One-time.
Us-together
always
here.
Look!
Can you see us?
There!
3079
B
No, I cannot.
Dajja, what do you mean?
3085
Apparatus
The Slide is here.
The beast goes first.
3091
The Alien
Poor Sleekvoices.
Deadminds Loveless.
3096
Apparatus
In, beast.
We can make you!
2/3101
B
Farewell, Dajja.
3102
Z
Good-bye.
3107
The Alien
Hello Otherself!
Hello Nextself!
Hello Sleekvoices!
Hello!
Hello!
Hello!
3116
Apparatus
You have the beast, Control.
Now for rebels,
small and dainty
little rebels.
from Remembrances of Bee
They snatched us up, one each and swept us away.
First Bee was torn from me, without farewells. I reached out after him, but his thoughts were gone; space seemed suddenly hollow. Then the remaining warrior clenched about me, stifling me, choking me. “I am stronger than you, little rebel,” he said, his thoughts crushing mine. I could not move. I was helpless. I fell, in perfect silence. I left the Cherubim behind me, crying out still, pleading it seemed, for someone, just once, to give them each a name.