by Ian Stewart
The brains of most living entities were systems of intercommunicating components—nerve cells in Neanderthals and humans, neurobundles in polypoids, crystalline silicon with inlaid electronic conductors in metallomorphs. The precise materials were unimportant, except that the brain had to evolve in whatever environment its owner inhabited. What mattered was that the components could be organized into a complicit computational network. They must be able to filter information, extract meaning from it, and trigger a response to it. If simple networks could do this, in however limited a way, then the stage was set for the evolution of a brain. The network could be linked to sense organs—at first, rudimentary patches that responded in some way to heat, light, moisture, electron flows; later, elaborate structures that had outperformed generations of competitors. The same network could drive movement, and feedback from the senses could control it.
The ponds’ innovation was to build a brain from an ecosystem. As their shoals of fishes flitted to and fro in the water, their gyrations operated on two distinct levels. Overtly, they followed the rules of shoaling, staying close to their neighbors but not too close; they hunted food, and they avoided danger, real or imaginary. Covertly, they were carrying out their part of the computational cascade that formed the brain of the pond.
There was nothing strange about this dual role. Every neuron in a Neanderthal brain, every transistor in a metallomorph, was subject to the same duality. Not a duality of substance—a trap into which innumerable philosophically minded sentients repeatedly fell—but a duality of interpretation.
An ecosystem was extremely complex—far more so than the creatures that composed it. If part of a fish could be a brain, then part of a pond that contained a fish could also be a brain. But the pond did not use the fish brains to think.
It used the fish to think—along with medusas, crustaceans, and amphibians. The network of algal filaments that surrounded a pond possessed a computational ability well in excess of that of a human brain; it contained more cells, linked in more complex ways. And that was just the algae. The pond’s computational abilities extended right down to the atomic level. It was more than just an ecosystem; it was an ecosystem that acted as a coherent whole.
On one level, a fish sucking algae from a rock was dinner.
On a deeper level, it was a thought.
Not a thought about dinner. The physical realization of the thought manifested itself in a thousand ways—the pattern that the browsing snout made on the rock, the angle at which the fish inclined its eyes, the waves that flittered along its fins. All these variables obeyed mathematical laws—some simple, some too intricate to comprehend.
As the pond carried out its day-to-day activities, it enacted the working-out of those laws.
Early explorers from the inward regions of the Trailing Spiral Arm had seen the walkers and totally misunderstood them. They thought that a walker was an organism, and that it died when it encountered and was absorbed by a pond.
Not so.
That was when the walker came to life. A walker was simply a mobile form into which a living pond could metamorphose when its local supply of prey ran out. A walker was a vehicle for the pond’s intelligence, but not of itself intelligent. It was a construct, a tool.
All this, Second-Best Sailor learned from his chemical transactions with the mind of the pond. It made sense, inasmuch as he could follow the argument. If some of it baffled him, that was nothing compared to the problem the pond was having in understanding how a single organism could develop a mind out of something as simple as a mere network of neurobundles. Its own amphibians had brains not so different in structure from that of the polypoid, but the amphibians didn’t have minds.
“Well, we agreed just now that a mind ain’t a thing,” said Second-Best Sailor. “It’s a process, right?” He remembered Fat Apprentice making just that point, floating upside down in an unusually squalid bar late one midseason evening.
THAT IS SO.
“Then I guess that some brains can carry out that kind of process, an’ some can’t.”
YOU MEAN THAT MIND CAN EMERGE FROM A SUFFICIENTLY COMPLEX BRAIN, BUT NOT FROM A SIMPLER ONE?
“Yeah, sort of. Something like that.”
AS A CONSEQUENCE OF ITS ORGANIZATION?
“Well . . . Fat Apprentice always said that unless a brain is intelligent, it can’t make a mind. Can it?”
I AM NOT SURE THAT WE WOULD AGREE ON THE MEANING OF “INTELLIGENT,” BUT YOU HAVE PROPOSED AN INTERESTING LINE OF ARGUMENT.
Second-Best Sailor refused to be diverted. “Look, I’m intelligent and you’re intelligent, and those frogs of yours ain’t. That’s what I mean.”
The pond’s intelligence was another thing that the mariner didn’t understand. He had been taught that mariner intelligence resulted from complicity between two systems: the internal one of the brain, and the external one of mariner culture. The evolution of intelligence was intimately bound up with that of communication.
How could ponds communicate?
That one turned out to be easy. I WILL SHOW YOU, the pond had told him. TILT TOWARDS THE VERTICAL AND WATCH THE FATFLY LARVAE.
Second-Best Sailor had noticed the masses of wriggly wormlike creatures clustered on the pond’s surface and had recognized them for what they were. No-Moon had regular plagues of flies, which emerged from similar organisms that infested many of the planet’s freshwater lakes. The mariners weren’t really bothered by them; in fact, they were a useful source of food for some of their own food animals when billions of dead flies formed a thick scum in the shallows. The flies were more of a pest for the mariners’ land-based trading partners, but they had ways to deal with the problem when the flies were hatching.
He had assumed that the fatfly larvae, as he now discovered they were called, were effectively parasites on the pond. He hadn’t asked himself why an intelligent pond would tolerate the existence of parasites, though. If he had, he would probably have concluded that the pond had little choice. He didn’t have much choice about sucker flukes, did he?
On the edge of the patch of larvae, the wriggling became less sinuous and more erratic. The tiny, glutinous organisms jerked and twitched. The black spots within them began to develop form—segments, tiny legs folded against the burgeoning bodies. Silvery winglets glistened in the sunlight.
The newly hatched fatflies crawled out of the water on the broad back of an amphibian. It ignored them even though they were its favorite food. The wings began to dry in the sun.
Second-Best Sailor watched, mesmerized, as one by one the tiny flies dried out. Rigid winglets sprouted from their bulbous little bodies. The wings buzzed experimentally. Singly at first, then in a mob, the flies took off.
“You can choose when the flies hatch,” the mariner said. “They ain’t parasites at all.”
ONE OF THEIR ROLES IS PARASITISM. BUT I TOLERATE THEM FOR THEIR OTHER ROLE.
“Which is?”
MESSENGER. EVEN NOW A SUMMARY OF OUR DISCUSSION IS WINGING ITS WAY TOWARDS A HUNDRED PONDS . . . PONDS WITH WHOM I REGULARLY CORRESPOND.
“How can a fly be a message?”
IT IS NOT THE FLY, BUT SPECIAL MOLECULES THAT I HAVE PLACED IN ITS GUT. WHEN IT LOCATES ITS RECIPIENT, IT WILL EXCRETE THE CHEMICALS INTO THE POND, AND THE MESSAGE WILL BE DECODED.
“Sounds complicated to me,” said Second-Best Sailor.
NO MORE SO THAN YOUR OWN METHODS OF COMMUNICATION. IN FACT, IT IS CLOSELY ANALOGOUS. DID YOU NOT TELL ME THAT YOU USE JELLYFISH IN A SIMILAR MANNER?
“Yeah, but that’s . . . different,” he finished lamely. “Jellyfish are technology, they became available long after we evolved speech. We talk to each other by siphon-speech; jellyfish are for long-distance messages.” But reluctantly he was forced to admit that it wasn’t different at all. Like most things the pond had told him, everything made perfect sense. But it also sounded completely mad, coming from a flouncing pond.
“So what let you ponds evolve intelligence,” he said, “was f
ly shit?”
WE WOULD NOT PUT IT QUITE THAT WAY, BUT I WOULD NOT CONTRADICT YOUR ANALYSIS.
Second-Best Sailor awoke from a fitful sleep, filled with tantalizing dreams of food. His body fluids were pulsing with newfound energy.
The pond’s crazy explanations didn’t matter. What did matter was that the ponds could communicate with each other.
So they could be organized.
And if their fatflies could be made to coordinate their actions . . . then there might be a way out of here.
If the ponds could be persuaded to cooperate.
Talitha had switched orbit again, back to an acutely inclined one that passed close to Aquifer’s poles. As the planet revolved beneath it, the ship could observe every square foot of its surface. They’d had an early breakthrough when Ship noticed temperature anomalies near the north pole. From their shape, there was some kind of building complex under the ice. As they watched, a high-speed cruiser lifted from the installation and slammed into hydrive the moment it left the lower atmosphere.
Presumably, the buildings and the attackers were connected. Had the attackers fled? Or did some remain, under the ice? The Neanderthals kept watching but saw no further movement.
Long hours passed. Will was of two minds. Should they send down transpods to the buildings? That could be dangerous . . .
“You have found nothing new.”
Will looked up from his screens to acknowledge May’s presence. Stun was with her. They were all feeling the strain. In all Will’s time as captain of a generation ship, he had never felt so vulnerable. The unfamiliar feeling transmitted itself to the two women.
“No,” he said. “The installation at the North Pole and the wreckage of our own equipment in the Bay are the only signs of nonindigenous life.”
“And the indigenes?”
Those, at least, he could rule out as attackers—they were not intelligent. “The most complex is a segmented snakelike creature that crawls out of drying ponds, makes its way for miles across the desert, falls into newly formed ponds, and is dissolved.”
“Well, that makes a lot of sense,” said Stun.
Will privately felt the same but disapproved of her attitude. “I merely report what we have observed. I do not speculate about reasons.”
“When do we next come within sight of these strange creatures?” May asked.
“A few minutes. A pond field is coming across the horizon at this moment.”
“Let me have a look,” said May. The peculiar creatures intrigued her, and for the moment there was nothing better to do.
Will passed control of the sensors to her and busied himself with other tasks. She quickly found the pond field, and a motion-sensing program allowed her to zoom in on a walker, tracking its stolid way across the hot sand. She followed it for several minutes, fascinated.
As it passed by a pond, a flicker of light caught her eye.
“Will? What is that?”
He looked up. “What is what?”
“That pond is flickering.”
He leaned over and looked at where her finger pointed. “Looks like sunlight reflected off its surface. Must be an effect of the wind.” Then, before she could contradict him, he checked himself. “No. It cannot be wind. The light comes and goes too regularly.”
“And it switches on and off,” said May. “The wind would cause more rapid changes.”
Stun joined them.
“Zoom out, Will! We may understand it better if we observe the surrounding . . .”
Her voice trailed off.
“Well,” said Will. “That is unusual. I see it, but I cannot understand what is causing it. Could it be a trap?”
“Even if it is, we have to investigate,” said Stun. “But be careful!”
Will hurried off to put together a transpod crew. May and Stun kept staring at the screen.
It showed a broad field of ponds, perhaps a thousand of them. The change in Ship’s position was reducing the amount of light that reflected back in its direction, so the effect was dimmer than it had first been. Even so, there was no mistaking what they were seeing.
Every few seconds, some of the ponds were flashing reflected light their way, holding it there for a moment, then darkening again.
The pattern of the bright spots had to be artificial. You had only to look to see that. The resolution was coarse, but the shape formed by the spots was still very clear. The pattern read:
2BS—2BS—2BS—2BS—2BS
Second-Best Sailor?
10
HEAVEN
Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
Worse, you might be happy with it.
The Little Book of Prudence
Servant of Unity XIV Samuel Godwin’sson Travers, novice lifesoul-healer, had never seen anywhere remotely as beautiful. The architecture, though he did not realize it, was a careful blend of Egyptian, classical Greek, Mayan, and Argyran—racial images from the original human homeworld and its first planetary colony, tailored to esthetic preferences that the designers of Heaven had isolated from endless stacks of psychological data.
The climate was idyllic. The sun warmed his skin without threatening to burn it; the humidity of the air was balanced for his greatest comfort. In Heaven, no one perspired unless they wanted to.
He stood in a huge open space, a perfectly circular plaza. Everywhere he looked there were exquisite works of art. The polished marble flagstones under his feet were inlaid with decorative emblems in rich metals. Gigantic sculptures lined the plaza’s sweeping walls, leading the eye to the splendors of the city beyond.
Elegant vines curled up the pillars, laden with perfect blossoms, grouped in tasteful colors. Everything was understated, subtle, brilliantly effective. Trees as shapely as the best efforts of a bonsai master offered shade where it was needed, contrast where it was most effective. They seemed to grow directly from the marble of the plaza, and every leaf, every twig was unblemished.
Butterflies a yard across floated past in great flocks, playing games with the breezes. There were birds, too, with gorgeous plumage: some small and simple, some huge and elaborate. It was utterly breathtaking.
And for the moment, he had it all to himself.
Whatever his pleasure, the plaza would provide it. At this moment he wanted peace, so the plaza provided peace. But he knew that when he craved excitement, it would instantly become a riot of movement and life. And when he wanted company . . .
The girl appeared from nowhere. One moment the plaza was empty; the next, she stood demurely at his side.
She was tall but not quite as tall as he. Only now did he realize how perfectly formed his own body had become: lithe and muscular. She smiled; her teeth were perfect. She was slender, shapely, and an absolute beauty. In idle moments Sam would sometimes try to work out what his ideal of womanhood was; now he knew. The girl had been drawn from his subconscious, and every glance, every motion spoke directly to his soul.
She was dressed in a simple crimson robe. He knew that however he wished her to be dressed, Heaven would answer his wishes. As he watched, her robe became feather-light, translucent—and vanished. He opened his arms, and she melted into them, pressing against him. . . .
Plaza and girl vanished abruptly. They were replaced by a small office with utilitarian furnishings, and a Hytth technician. Sam was sitting on a couch made from some kind of simulated animal skin.
“You found that feature surprisingly fast,” said the Hytth. “Most initiates take several sessions to discover how much control they have. Eventually they learn—”
“That in Heaven they can have anything,” said Sam. “Whatever they desire.” He brushed off an irritating feeling of disappointment that the session had been ended just when it was showing promise, only to discover a deeper disappointment. “It’s not real, though,” he said. “Is it?”
The technician didn’t miss a beat. “What is reality? Did your taste of Heaven seem in any way unreal to you?”
; “Uh—no, not while I was experiencing it. But now, when I look back, I realize that it had to be virtual. Everything was too perfect.” Especially the girl . . . damn. “Those butterflies could never have gotten off the ground, either.”
“There can be no gravity control in Heaven?”
“Not as selective as that, not in a real Heaven. This one is an illusion.”
In an instant he was back in the plaza. It was raining. The flagstones were awash with dirty water; his clothing was soaked. It was cold. The statues were old and broken; they lay in piles of rubble at his feet. The flowers had withered; the vines were tangles of dead wood. A skeleton, slim-boned, with perfect teeth, grinned up at him.
Then, discontinuity. He was back with the technician.
“Did that seem unreal? You do not answer; you are still catching your breath, trying to recover from shock. It must have seemed very real to you to evoke that reaction.”
“It was a very powerful illusion,” Sam conceded.
“It was a perfect illusion,” said the technician. “And if something is indistinguishable from reality, it becomes reality. How do you know that what you are now experiencing is not also an illusion? That what you now remember as your previous life was not an illusion? What is reality, Fourteen Samuel?”
“This is reality,” said Sam. “That was an illusion.”
“Are you sure?”
“This room is solid.” He rapped on the desk, hard, and it hurt his knuckles. “This desk has an existence, independent of mine. Whereas the plaza is nothing more than an electronic construct, a pattern of neural bursts in my brain.”
The technician was amused. “All of your perceptions are patterns of neural bursts in your brain, Fourteen Samuel. What makes the bursts that represent the plaza different from those that represent your perceptions of this room, or me?”