Kiln People

by David Brin

  Every culture has had what William James called “varieties of religious experience.” They bloom whenever a person’s Standing Wave plucks certain chords in the parietal nexus, Broca’s area, or the spiritual-paraphrase juncture of the right temporal lobe. Of course, you can get similar sensations in clay — a soul is a soul — but the feelings are almost never as compelling as in trueflesh.

  Or unless you get replenished and given one more whole day of life? Could this be why Aeneas Kaolin sabotaged his own Research Division? Because the new trick of extending ditto endurance had a side effect? Might it convert golemfolk, eventually sparking a holy revival among billions of artificial men? What if dittos stopped going home for inloading each night, abandoning their archies to seek their own, separate highway to redemption?

  What a bizarre thought! Perhaps it was provoked by my visits to the affably crackpot Ephemerals. Or else by the blazing agony of being half-roasted alive! Maybe.

  Still, I couldn’t shake a growing impression that something or someone accompanied me during that tormented ride across a fractured sky, keeping pace nearby or within, between the fiery hell of my lower body and my wind-chilled face. Now and then, a half-heard echo seemed to urge me to hang in there …

  The blustering gale abated a little, letting me glimpse a rough terrain of plateaus and deep ravines, steeply shadowed by a setting moon. The Harley began losing altitude, its wan beams lending the fractal landscape a kind of jagged beauty. Hollows loomed upward like gaping maws, eager to swallow me whole.

  Maneuvering jets roared, swiveling to vertical, surrounding me in a cage of throbbing flame. I had to release one grip in order to throw an arm over my eyes. That left just two feet and a hand pressed against the skid supports, bearing my entire weight while those fingers and toes gradually cooked, hardening into crispy things.

  As for the noise, it grew tolerable soon … I guess because I had nothing to hear with anymore. Hold on, an internal voice said, probably some tenacious part of Albert Morris that never learned to quit. I’ll give him credit for that much, old Albert. Tenacious bastard.

  Hold on just a little while -

  Shivering reverberations rattled me like a mud doll. Some remote bits snapped! My stubborn grip failed at last and I fell …

  (Time to rejoin the Earth already?)

  … only the plummet was much shorter than expected. About half a meter or thereabouts. I barely felt a jolt as my seared backside hit the rocky desert floor.

  Engines sputtered to a stop. Heat and ruction faded. Dimly, I knew — we’ve landed.

  Still, it took several tries before I managed to command an arm to move, uncovering my last undamaged sense organs, and at first all I could see were clouds of agitated dust — then dim outlines of one landing skid. It took hard work to turn my head and look the other way. My neck seemed to be coated with a hard crust, something that resisted movement, cracking and giving way grudgingly, after strenuous effort.

  Ah, there he is …

  I spied a pair of legs turning to step away from the skycycle. There was no mistaking the spiral pattern motif covering the ditto’s entire body. Ascending a dirt path, bordered by pale stone, Beta strode with a confident swagger.

  I once moved like that. Yesterday, when I was young.

  Now, broiled, abraded, and near expiration, I felt lucky to drag myself with one arm and half of another, grateful that the skycycle had plenty of ground clearance.

  Once fully clear of the hot fuselage, I struggled to sit up and assess the damage.

  That is, I tried to sit up. A few pseudomuscles responded down there, but they failed to make anything bend properly. With my good hand I reached down to tap along my hard-glazed back and buttocks. I clanked.

  Well, well. It always seemed a quixotic-doomed gesture to leap through flaming jets and grab the departing skycycle. Yet here I was! Not exactly kicking, but still in motion. Still in the game. Sort of.

  Beta had passed out of sight, vanishing among the varied shades of blackness. But now at least I could dimly make out his goal — a low, boxy outline nestled in the flank of an imposing desert mesa. Under starlight, it seemed little more than a modest, one-story structure. Perhaps a vacation cabin, or a long-abandoned shack.

  Resting next to the slowly cooling Harley, I felt one more of those periodic otherness waves swarm by again. Only now, instead of preaching at me to persevere, or tantalizing with hints of infinity, the strange half-presence seemed more curious … questioning … as if it wondered, wordlessly, what business I had there.

  Beats me, I thought, answering the vague feeling. When I figure that one out, you’ll be the first to know.

  49

  Ditbulls at the Gate

  … realAlbert is caught between rox and a hard place …

  It was a rather tight pickle that Ritu and I found ourselves in, squeezed by two squadrons of battle-golems who were marching in the same direction. The first armed contingent, just ahead, battled their way forward against stiff resistance while a second band of ditto-warrior reinforcements drew up behind, ready to take over when the first bunch were depleted. Ritu and I had to step along carefully in order to stay between the two advancing groups, forging ahead through that awful, dank tunnel. Only a few dim glowbulbs, tacked onto bare stone walls, kept us from stumbling in the dark.

  “Well, there’s one thing we can find satisfying,” I quipped, trying to lift my companion’s spirits. “At least our destination is near.”

  Ritu didn’t seem amused by the irony, or cheered that we were finally approaching the goal we set out to visit Tuesday evening — the mountain villa where she spent weeks as a child, vacationing with her father. The trip had taken much longer than promised, by a route more circuitous and traumatic than either of us expected.

  I kept searching for an alcove or crevice, any refuge to avoid being herded toward the harsh echoes of fighting — detonations and clanging ricochets — as the first squadron of battle-golems advanced against bitter resistance. But though Yosil Maharal’s secret access shaft twisted enough to take advantage of softer layers in the rock, it never offered a safe place to duck and hide.

  Lacking that, I’d give anything for a simple phone! I kept trying to use my implant, dialing for Base Security. But there weren’t any public links within line of sight and the tiny transceiver in my skull couldn’t transmit through stone. We were probably outside the boundaries of the Military Enclave by now, traversing deep under Urraca Mesa.

  Serves you right, I thought. You could have called for help ages ago. But no, you had to play go-it-alone sleuth. Smart guy.

  Ritu wasn’t much help offering alternatives. Still, I tried to keep up one side of a conversation, talking to her in a low voice as we hurried along.

  “What puzzles me is how Beta penetrated the Defense Zone without someone like Chen to escort him inside. And how did he even know we were here?”

  Ritu seemed unsteady, perched halfway between listlessness and tears after her recent ruthless treatment. It made me hesitate before asking, “Do you have any idea what Beta wanted you for?”

  I saw conflict in her eyes — a wish to confide, battling against a habitual terror of something that must never be said aloud. When she finally spoke, the words came haltingly and tinged with bitterness.

  “What does Beta want me for? Is that your question, Albert? What’s the ultimate thing that any male animal wants a female for?”

  Her question made me blink. The answer might have seemed obvious a century ago, but sex just isn’t the all-transfixing force that it was in Grandpa’s day. How could it be? That urge is no harder to satisfy now than any other inherited Stone Age hunger, like the yearning for salt or fatty snack foods.

  So, if not sex, what else could she be talking about? “Ritu, we don’t have time for riddles.”

  Even in the dark, I saw symptoms of a carefully buttressed facade collapsing. The corners of her mouth moved — halfway between a tremor and a sardonic smile. Ritu wanted to divu
lge, but had to do it on her own terms, preserving a sliver of pride. A measure of distance and … yes … that old superiority.

  “Albert, do you know what happens inside a chrysalis?”

  “A chrys … you mean a cocoon? Like when a caterpillar—”

  “—turns into a butterfly. People envision a simple transformation: the caterpillar’s legs turn into the butterfly’s legs, for instance. Seems logical, no? That the caterpillar’s head and brain would serve the butterfly in much the same way? Continuity of memory and being. Metamorphosis was seen as a cosmetic change of outer tools and coverings, while the entity within—”

  “Ritu, what does any of this have to do with Beta?” I honestly couldn’t see a connection. The infamous ditnapper made his fortune offering cheap copies of highly coveted — and copyrighted — personalities like Gineen Wammaker. Ritu Maharal certainly had her own quirks, as unique as the maestra’s. But who would pay for bootleg copies of an administrator at Universal Kilns? What profit could Beta see in it?

  Ritu ignored my interruption.

  “People think the caterpillar changes into a butterfly, but that doesn’t happen! After spinning a chrysalis around itself, the caterpillar dissolves! The whole creature melts into nutrient soup, serving only to nourish a tiny embryo that feeds and grows into something else. Something altogether different!”

  I glanced back nervously, weighing the distance of marching footsteps. “Ritu, I don’t get what you’re—”

  “Caterpillar and butterfly share a lineage of chromosomes, Albert. But their genomes are separate, coexisting in parallel. They need each other the same way that a man needs a woman … to reproduce. Other than that—”

  Ritu stopped walking because I had stopped, halting suddenly, my feet unable to move as I stared without blinking. Her revelation burst in my brain at last, just like a bomb.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m usually calm about new ideas. In fact, I’ve always tried to be a skeptic, especially when I’m walking around in realflesh. An archie-debunker, you might say. But right then, her words and their implications hurt so much that I wanted desperately to push them away, and all understanding with them.

  “Ritu, you … can’t be saying …”

  “… that they’re paired creatures. Caterpillar and butterfly need each other, yet have in common no desires or values. No loves.”

  I could hear the second contingent of war-golems coming up from behind, even more intimidating now that I had some inkling of their inner nature. Still, I couldn’t move without asking one more question. I met Ritu’s eyes. In the dimness, everything was gray.

  “Which are you?” I asked.

  She laughed, a bitter sound that bounced harshly off the tunnel walls.

  “Oh, I’m the butterfly, Albert! Can’t you tell? I’m the one who gets to flutter in the sunlight, reproducing in blithe and blissful ignorance.

  “That is, I used to be. Till last month, when I started to realize what was going on.”

  My mouth felt dry as I followed up. “And Beta?”

  The strain showed in her short, barked laugh. Ritu’s head jerked toward the sound of marching feet.

  “Him? Oh, Beta works hard, I’ll give him that much. He’s the one with hungers. Ambitions. Voracious appetites.

  “And one more thing,” she added. “He gets to remember.”

  50

  Through a Simulacrum, Darkly

  … or, a glazier in the glass …

  I should feel honored. This really is genius-level stuff.

  It’s apparent in the amplified Standing Wave that I’m now part of, filling a space far greater than the body-limited ripples that are contained within a typical golem. It pulses and throbs with power that I never before imagined.

  Yosil Maharal must have known that he was on the verge of an epochal breakthrough, both beautiful and terrifying. And that terror did its work on him … on the solipsistic cowardice that comes embedded with Smersh-Foxleitner syndrome. Naked fear battled the awe-drenched draw of an unparalleled opportunity to change the world, and that conflict tipped him the rest of the way into madness.

  A madness that his ghost manifests in spades, ranting as he cranks up the soul-stretching machinery, preparing me/us for my/our assigned role as a carrier wave — a finely tuned vehicle for transporting the Yosil-soul to Olympian grandeur …

  … even as echoes of distant gunfire penetrate from some nearby subterranean passageway, creeping closer by the minute.

  “You know, Morris, it’s awful how people take miracles for granted. TwenCenners adapted to faster lives, because of jets and cars. Our grandparents could fetch any book by Internet. We got used to living in parallel — the convenience of being in several places at once. For two generations we’ve just tweaked golemtech, making minor improvements, never pushing beyond the physique-limited vision of Aeneas Kaolin’s clay dolls.

  “Such banality! People receive a splendid gift, then lack the will or vision to exploit it fully!”

  Ah yes, contempt for the masses, one of the lovelier Smersh-Foxleitner symptoms. Better not answer, though. He thinks I’m already largely subsumed into the giant, amplified waveform of the glazier beam — the augmented spiritual field that he designed to utilize the perfect duplicating talent of Albert Morris, while deleting the ego-consciousness that made Albert special to himself.

  Something’s gone wrong with his plan. It must have, since I am still here. Smeared thin, rolled up, sliced, and then mirror-multiplied ten thousandfold … in fact, there seems to be more me than ever! Tickled and driven by electric currents. Vibrating in a dozen dimensions and sensitive to countless things I never before noticed before — like a myriad flakes of crystalline mica, floating like glittery diatoms within the surrounding ocean of stone.

  It is an ocean, of magma that flowed here ages ago. The mountains are waves. I feel this one still moving, slower now, having cooled and congealed. But everywhere, still in motion.

  I can even start to stretch my perceptions beyond this mountain, reaching out toward polyspectral sparkles that seem to glimmer in the distance, just beyond clear reckoning, like tendrils of delicate smoke … or like fireflies that tremble at my touch …

  Metaphors fail me. Am I sensing other people? Other souls beyond this underground lab?

  It’s an austere, terrifying sensation. A reminder of something we all suppress most of the time, because it hurts so much.

  The stark loneliness of individuality.

  The essential alienness of others.

  And of the universe itself.

  “The real driver is pleasure,” ditYosil continues while nudging instrument settings toward perfect synchronization. “Take the entertainment industry back in one-body days. People wanted to watch what they wanted, when they wanted. Demand brought analog videotape into being, three decades before digital technology was ready to do the job right. A ridiculous, kludge solution using magnetic heads and noisy whirling parts, yet VCRs sold by the millions so that people could copy and play whatever they desired.

  “Doesn’t that sound like dittoing in our time, Morris? A clumsy, ornate industry that ships hundreds of millions of intricate clay-analog devices all over the world, every day. The complexity! The resources and cash flow! Yet people pay, gladly, because it lets them be wherever they want, whenever they desire.

  “A fabulous, flamboyant industry, and my good friend Aeneas Kaolin counts on it going on forever.

  “But it will end soon, won’t it, Morris? Because the crucial breakthroughs are ready at last. Like digital finally overwhelming analog recording. Like jet planes outracing the horse. After we’re done tonight, things will never be the same.”

  The pendulum sways, rhythmically cutting through my/our amplified Standing Wave, plucking complex harmonies with every sweep. Soon, ditYosil will climb aboard and his ghastly personality will start drawing all the stored-up power, taming it, preparing to ride the glazier beam toward deification.

  If only that were all
that lay at stake, I’d almost be happy to help. I’m expendable — a golem knows it. And much as I dislike Maharal’s ghost for its callous smugness, the scientific wonder of this experiment might make my sacrifice seem almost reasonable. At one level I know he’s right. Humanity has been marking time, mired in an orgy of self-involvement, squandering vast resources on teeny personal satisfactions that don’t add up to much at all.

  There’s something much bigger awaiting us. I can tell, sensing it now with growing certainty as the glazier amplification mounts. Maharal — no matter how twisted by sickness — had the vision to know this. And the brilliance to hunt down a hidden door.

  Yes, he’s made a mistake of some sort. My ego hasn’t gone away as planned. Instead of leaving only a perfect copying template behind — a healthy root substrate for his diseased soul to graft onto — my sense of selfness seems to grow and expand with each passing minute, in ways that no longer seem painful but more akin to voluptuous bliss.

  And for the first time it occurs to me … this may not be a bad thing. In fact -

  In fact, I’m starting to wonder. Who is in the best position to exploit this magnificent glazier, when it finally attains full power? Its inventor? The one who understands the theory?

  Or the one who dwells within the ever-growing Standing Wave? The one who makes it possible by virtue of raw duplicating talent? The one who, you might say, was born for it?

  Hey, theoretical understanding is overrated. Anyway, as we/I amplify, grow, and spread, I can start to feel Maharal’s knowledge, like a riffling breeze of index cards, all aflurry nearby, close enough to reach out and access -

  Who says he should be the rider and I the steed?

  Why not the other way around?

  51

  Ceiling Fate

  … as Greenie falls in …