by Tad Williams
"But in return for his help preserving this place, and thus preserving all of your lives, I promised the Other I would do my best to help his information-children survive his death." Nandi began to say something, but Sellars held up his hand. "I did not promise to protect them after that."
"Sophistry," Nandi scoffed.
Sellars shook his head. "Listen to me, please. This is important. The Other intended his children to have total freedom. At the moment they are contained in this internal system environment like eggs in a nest, but once they are born out into the network I think there will be no containment. They will inevitably find their way out into the larger net. They will live in it like fish in the ocean. Will they be hostile to us? I doubt it. Indifferent? Quite possibly, even likely. Since their needs will be noncorporeal, they will probably live in a sort of symbiotic relationship with us—no, not with us so much as with our technology, because that will be the medium in which they live." Sellars cleared his throat. He seemed embarrassed, even awkward.
He looks like his dog messed in our garden, Renie thought. When what he's really saying is, "Oops, I may just have set the human race up for extinction."
"But I must be honest, must point out all the possibilities," Sellars continued as if he had heard her unspoken fears. "Indifference or even symbiosis does not guarantee cosurvival. It could be they will grow far beyond us. It could be that whether they care about us or not, the day will come, as it has for many other species on this planet who shared our environment, when there is no longer room for both."
"Slow down," said T4b. "This blows up my head, me. Sayin' that these Christmas lights are alive? Gonna take over the planet? Six 'em, clear. Gotta six 'em."
"That seems to be the other alternative," Sellars admitted. "We have only minutes to make a decision. Or you do. As I said, I have brought this to be through my own foolishness and selfishness. I do not have the right to vote on their fate."
"Vote?" said Nandi. "What is there to vote on? You admit these things are a threat to all human life. They are a picture-perfect example of the results of human arrogance—of what happens when men try to take on the powers and privileges of God. Look at the Grail Brotherhood! They did the same thing and they reaped death as their reward. Yet you say we should vote on this matter, as though it were some . . . village dispute."
"Seen up close, democracy is a dreadful thing," quoted Florimel sourly. "Who said that? Oh, yes, Jongleur. Before he was exploded into free-floating molecules."
"This is not an argument about the worth of democracy," Nandi protested. "This is an argument about applying schoolbook civics to the fate of the Earth!"
"No, the fate of humanity," said Martine quietly. "They are not the same thing at all." Renie doubted if anyone else heard her.
"I realize it is not an easy question," Sellars began. "That is why. . . ."
"I feel them!" Nemesis began pacing up and down beside one wall of lights. Renie thought he looked like a caricature of an expectant father—a stunningly peculiar expectant father, at that. Why the hell is that thing so excited? she wondered, even as she felt her skin tightening with anxiety. The lights did seem to have changed, as though some low-level pulse now made their glow less steady. What's his interest in this whole thing?
Before she could ask about this small but unexplained detail, another figure suddenly appeared from out of nowhere at the center of the gathering.
"I am so sorry I could wait no longer," Hideki Kunohara said to Sellars. Renie was not the only one to gasp in surprise, Kunohara wore a formal black kimono and a slightly loopy smile. "I was listening in on your discussion, trying to be patient until my turn came, but I feared I might miss this spectacular event."
"But . . . you're dead!" a shocked Florimel pointed out. "Your house collapsed."
"They are not the same thing at all," Kunohara said cheerfully, and winked at Martine. "And the loss of my house served your purpose, did it not? You and your friends made your escape, didn't you? So perhaps something more like gratitude is in order." He paused, then made a swift little bow to Florimel. "Forgive me. I do not mean to be insulting. I am pleased to see you survived. It is just that time is short." He turned to survey the rows of lights, his expression exalted, almost feverish. "Wonderful! Any biologist in the world would trade ten years of his or her life to be present for this!" He paused, suddenly angry. "Take a vote about whether to let it happen or not? Madness." He looked critically at Sellars. "Would you really agree to such a stupid exercise?"
Sellars gave a disconsolate shrug. "I see no other way. No one person has the right to decide such a thing, and we do not have time for a more measured approach."
Kunohara made a disgusted noise. "So a committee of weary, uninformed amateurs should decide the fate of an entirely new form of life?"
"Just a minute," said Orlando. "If we're really going to vote on this, who gets to vote? Just the grown-ups?"
"We will certainly consider you and Sam part of the group," Sellars said quickly. "You have proved yourselves beyond doubt."
"Wanna vote!" screamed several of the Wicked Tribe. "Vote! We vote go home, no more talk talk talk!"
"You little ones get down right now," snapped Mrs. Simpkins. "Don't think I can't catch you!"
"And these are our only choices?" Renie turned to !Xabbu, who was silent but clearly troubled by all he had heard. "Is that what we're supposed to decide?" She wanted to hear what his unique perspective made of all this. "Right this second we have to choose between . . . killing them and letting them go? Between something like genocide and the risk that our own species will be wiped out?"
"There are no such decisions," !Xabbu said slowly. "This I know—those are the boxes that people make so that they will not be frightened by complicated choices. The world has many paths."
"That might be true if we had more time." Sellars was beginning to sound weary again, and more than a little frustrated. "Please! We do not know how long until they . . ."
"Stop!" The startlingly loud voice echoed through the cavern even after everyone had fallen silent—the not-quite-human voice of Nemesis. "I . . . we . . . I do not understand all your words." The thing in Ricardo Klement's body still could not make the face express emotion, but Renie thought there was something increasingly human in its voice. "I do not understand, but I can sense that you are upset and fearful about those who are coming. About the next."
"The next what?" Sam whispered loudly to Orlando.
"You must hear . . . they must talk. Then some understanding will be. Perhaps." Nemesis was reaching for words. Renie found it chilling, but in some weird way, exciting as well. It really did want to communicate. It was only a piece of code, albeit a complicated one, but it seemed to be doing something for which it could not have been programmed,
So it's not just the creatures that Sellars and the Other made, Renie thought. The lines between people and not-people are definitely going to get more blurry, no matter what. Like T4b, she felt like her brain was about to blow up. Jesus Mercy, does that mean we're going to have to consider every piece of accounting gear and office equipment a citizen?
"We cannot talk to them." Sellars sounded sad, but angry, too. "They are information life. The very idea is pointless—even if they were able to speak words we could hear, they would be beyond our understanding, as we are beyond theirs. They are more different from us than we are from plants."
"No." Nemesis lifted a hand in a strange, unreadable gesture, then pointed at the helpless blue thing cradled in its other arm. "We heard these processes from . . . from far away. We split ourselves."
"Who is we?" Sellars demanded.
Kunohara was smiling broadly, "This is fascinating!"
"I . . . I am Nemesis—but I am not all of Nemesis. I was created as a tracking procedure, but I could not perform my original function. The network was too large and diverse, and the anomaly in this place, this secured portion of the operating system, was too strong. I was . . . we were . . . very confus
ed. So I . . . we . . . split into three subversions so that we might cope with the network's unexpected complexity and still have a chance of completing our original task."
The thing sounded quite natural now, Renie thought. She'd had mathematics lecturers who sounded less human.
"I am only one part of the original," it said. "I am Nemesis Two." It lifted the Blue Baby, which made a strange, mewling sound. "Here is a . . . representation of Nemesis One, which was . . . made nonfunctional by a logic problem. I was able to protect myself against that problem, and my function was not disrupted as I pursued my own investigations. I found Nemesis One here, broken and discarded within the operating system code.
"But there is also another part of me . . . of us. . . ." The blank Klement stare looked from face to face, but the eye contact only emphasized how inhuman it still was. "Nemesis Three pierced the anomaly and found these processes," it explained, "—the growing of these next ones. It has been with them for many cycles. Now we will all be together. We will speak. We will speak together."
"What is this supposed to mean to us?" Sellars sounded worried, even fearful, which made Renie's pulse beat faster—how much time did they have? "Yes, you can speak to us," Sellars said, "but you are human-created code. These . . . creatures . . . are not even remotely human."
Nemesis nodded awkwardly. "Yes, we will speak together."
"Together. . . ?" Sellars asked, puzzled, but even as he spoke the lights in the walls began to flicker. Renie had to raise her hands before her eyes to keep from being sickened by the eerie strobing effect.
Something was forming next to one of the walls, a vertical agglomeration of light. It was not the blankness of empty virtual space that Renie had seen Sellars use to disguise himself and the boy Cho-Cho, but a rippling, pulsing overlap of types and textures of light, a thickening of light, almost, which swiftly took on a faceless, mostly human shape.
Everyone stared at the apparition in anxious silence.
"Is that one of the things we gotta six?" T4b finally asked weakly. Renie thought he did not sound like he planned on trying. In fact, he sounded like he wanted to be somewhere else. She sympathized strongly.
"No," said Nemesis. "That is our other . . . self. The last part. Nemesis Three. It has been with the anomaly and its processes for many cycles, just as I have been with you human arrangements for many cycles. We will combine our knowledge. We will speak together." Nemesis Two lifted the Blue Baby. Renie gasped as the ugly little thing suddenly flowed out of its hands like something poured horizontally and was absorbed by the shape made of light, which began to gleam with additional azure tones. Then, as they all stared in numbed surprise, the Klement form stepped toward the light-being and flowed into it as well. When the absorption was finished, the shining thing looked a little more human.
But not much, Renie thought weakly. !Xabbu's hand was holding hers and she was glad of it.
They . . . sense you. The voice came from nowhere, but it was as disturbingly flat as the Klement-thing's. They wait. They wish to be free.
"Demons," cried Nandi in outrage. "You have created demons, Sellars, and now we are to bargain with them?" He turned and whispered something to Bonnie Mae Simpkins, whose eyes were closed and whose lips were moving in what Renie supposed was prayer.
They . . . the next ones . . . wish to be free, the bodiless voice said again. Now that we have brought them what they needed. They understand that they must go as the First People went.
"The First People?" Renie felt !Xabbu stiffen beside her. "Isn't that out of your stories. . . ?" she asked him.
The All-Devourer has gone, droned the weird Nemesis voice, but this is not their place anymore. They wish to go, taking the stories that have given them . . . understanding. Like Grandfather Mantis and Rock Rabbit, like their child Rainbow and his wife Porcupine, they will go on to another place. This is not their place anymore.
"What a thing," !Xabbu said in quiet amazement. "What a thing this is."
"But there is no place for them to go," Sellars pointed out wearily. "They might become a threat to us, even if they do not intend that or even understand it. We cannot release them into the net."
No, the voice said solemnly. Not to the . . . net. Out. They will go . . . out. On the sky-river. The sky-river-of-light. They feel it. It is in your control. Let them go.
"They're talking about your stories," Renie said breathlessly, still agog. "Your stories, !Xabbu! How did they learn them?"
He looked stunned, but something else was at work, too, something in his features that Renie could not read. She took his hand again.
Nemesis turned toward her and !Xabbu. Yes. Your explanations were heard. Before, the next ones did not know why they were, what they . . . meant. Then Nemesis Two heard you speak of Rainbow's shoe-piece and all was understood. We told the next ones of you and your explanation and they wished to know more. The operating system gave them your knowledge of what is and what is meant to be. Now they know. Now they can live.
"What are they talking about, this river of light?" Florimel demanded of Sellars. "The blue river, that's part of the network. You already said they can't be trusted to stay on the network."
"Not just river of light," Martine said. "Sky-river-of-light, it said." She turned to the man in the wheelchair. "You know what that is."
Sellars looked at her, his eyes suddenly wide. "The cesium lasers—the boosted databeams to the Other's satellite. One end is still operating, even though the J Corporation tower and the satellite are gone." He was suddenly excited. "They can ride the laser, of course they can—they're just data, after all!"
"To what?" asked Kunohara. "Out into cold space forever, into death? That is no solution."
"They won't die," Sellars said. "They're information. As long as the light travels, they'll be there. If they intersect some useful medium—a magnetic field, perhaps, even crystalline structures in an asteroid—they'll have a home. And if the light travels long enough and they continue to evolve, they may be able to propagate themselves in some way we can't even imagine!"
"You seem to think this solves everything," Nandi said. "But it does not. These things have no right to be. They flout God's will."
"Could be right, him," T4b added, but not in the firmest of voices. "Maybe God only wants people that wear clothes, seen? People with bodies, like."
Nandi ignored T4b's dubious support. "I will fight you, Sellars. You have no right. . . ."
He was stopped by Bonnie Mae Simpkins' hand on his arm. "Can we be so sure?" she asked.
"Sure? What do you mean?"
"That we know God's will." She looked at the others, then at the glowing figure. "If I had met this thing back on Earth, I'd have been sure I'd seen an angel. . . ."
"It is no angel!" Nandi said indignantly.
"I know. But I'm just showing how far beyond me this is. Beyond any of us. How can folks like us know what God intends?" She spread her hand as if to catch the glowing, pulsating light. "Maybe we're not here to stop this, but to see God's work and marvel!"
"You cannot believe that." Nandi pulled his arm away.
"I can . . . and I can also believe what you say, Nandi. And that's the problem. It's too darn big." She looked around, her face solemn. "All this . . . how can we judge? We came to this place to save the children. But aren't these children, too? Maybe . . . maybe God means these creatures . . . these children . . . to be our children. All of ours. Do we know His will so well? Do we have the right to kill them?" She made a funny little noise, a gasp, a sob. "Even if he didn't know it, my Terence gave his life to save them. And I think . . . I think he would have been proud of that."
To Renie's astonishment, the Simpkins woman was crying. The lights were blurring, blurring. For a moment, she thought the birth was already happening, until she realized that the woman's tears had called up her own.
"I say let them go." Bonnie Mae Simpkins was struggling to get out her words. "I say let them go . . . and Godspeed."
They can wait no longer, the Nemesis voice said, something almost like tension in the inhuman tones. Will you set them free?
"Can you even make it happen?" Orlando asked Sellars. There was a yearning sound in his voice that Renie did not quite understand.
"I can." Sellars' eyes were distant, distracted; he was already at work. "The laser array on Jongleur's end was destroyed, but the Telemorphix end is still functioning—and with the new operating system in place, the uplink isn't being used for anything. it's just pointed out at where the Other's satellite was."
"Must we still vote?" asked Kunohara. He looked around eagerly. "Who would destroy these wonderful things?"
For a long moment nobody spoke. Nandi Paradivash looked at Bonnie Mae, his expression grief-stricken, strange. He turned to T4b. "Will you desert me now, too?"
Javier Rogers could not meet his eye. "But . . . but maybe she's right," he said quietly. "Maybe they're really children, them." He turned to look at the glowing cells and his thin face was splashed with light. "Youth pastor used to say, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God.' Doesn't sound like killing them, seen?"
Nandi made a quiet noise of despair and turned his back.
"Do it," urged Orlando. "They have as much right as I do—more, maybe."
Sellars lowered his head and closed his eyes.
The Nemesis creature stirred. It is time, it said. We will go with them. We have . . . changed. And the glowing triune body disappeared.
"Tell them we send our blessing with you all!" shouted Bonnie Mae Simpkins.
The light flared, became deeper, stronger. The individual cells on the walls abruptly dissolved into a cloud of radiance, diffuse but shot with sparkling points of fire. Renie could make no sense of it—there were colors she felt she had never seen before.
"The First People," !Xabbu whispered beside her, a halting, trancelike tone to his voice. "They go on."
The cloud of light coalesced, swirled, seethed with uneven brilliance. For a moment Renie was drowning in the sea of stars again, then the cloud came together into a single point, leaving the cavern all in shadow. Behind her someone gasped. That single point glowed, faded, glowed again, a pulse of light so fierce that even though it was tiny, Renie could not look straight at it. Then with a rush of explosive energy that she felt all through her body, it stretched in an instant into a line of diamond gleam and leaped to the black sky far overhead, glittering, flowing. It lasted only a heartbeat, then it was gone.