The voice of Lobsang chattered crisply from a small speaker in Joshua’s backpack. ‘We are back on the Washington State coast of this planet… My aerial drones are no longer functional; my view is limited. The object appears to be twenty-three miles long and approximately five miles wide. It’s a creature, Joshua. Without a clear analogue on the Datum. I have noticed several appendages along its flank that are changing size and shape – you might think it is a technology park; I see what appear to be antennas, telescopes, but the instruments are morphing one into the other, extraordinary – and a certain amount of movement along the carcass as a whole. I can’t estimate threat. I can’t imagine that something like this could make a sudden movement, but for all I know right now it might develop wings and fly…’
There was a steady rippling along the thing’s upper surface. It was slightly white, slightly transparent. Its movements affected Joshua somehow, viscerally, a sensation seeming to arrive in his consciousness by no discernible pathway.
‘Sally, have you ever seen anything like this before?’
She snorted. ‘What do you think?’
Lobsang said, ‘I have just shaken hands with it.’
Sally snapped, ‘What the hell are you talking about now?’
‘Communications protocols, Sally. We are in contact… It is evidently a remarkable intellect; I can tell that immediately from the sheer information-theoretic complexity of its communications. So far I’ve learned one thing from it. Its name—’
‘It has a name?’
‘Its name is First Person Singular, and before you shout at me about that, Sally, I know that because it has now told me as much in twenty-six different languages of Earth. Including, I’m proud to say, Tibetan. I have been beaming information at it, and it’s learning fast; it has already downloaded much of the ship’s data store. I believe that it’s harmless.’
‘What?’ Sally growled. ‘Something alive and the size of a small reservoir de facto can’t possibly be harmless. What’s it for? Above all, what does it eat?’
Joshua slipped his packs off his shoulders and dropped them on the beach. There was no noise here, he realized. No animal cries, not even the distant honking of the pterosaur fliers. Only the soft, oily spilling of small waves on the shore. Nothing but the Silence. What he had been hearing all his life, in the gaps between people. Huge thoughts, like the echoes from some tremendous brass gong. Now here it was, before him.
More than two million worlds from Earth, he felt oddly as if he had come home.
He walked towards the ocean.
Sally called, ‘Joshua. Take it easy. You don’t know what you’re dealing with…’
He kicked off his boots and pulled off his socks. Barefoot, he walked into the water until his ankles were covered. He could smell salt, and the sweetly rotten stink of seaweed. The water was warm, and thick, dense, almost syrupy. And it swarmed with life, tiny creatures, white and blue and green and mobile. Some were like tiny jellyfish, with pulsing sacs and trailing tentacles. But there were things like fish in there too, with huge, strange eyes, and things like crabs with clever-looking claws.
And, a little further out, the thing. Joshua waded out, towards its tremendous edge. The voice of Lobsang chattered in his ear, but he ignored it. The flanks of First Person Singular were translucent, like inferior glass, and if he squinted he could just about see what was inside. And what was inside was … everything. Fish. Animals. A troll? It was embedded in glutinous fluid, swathed in some kind of frond, like seaweed, eyes closed. It looked asleep rather than dead. At peace.
Walking right up to that misty hull, he touched it with the tip of a finger. There was a slight sensation, nothing painful.
A voice in his head said, ‘Hello, Joshua.’
And information poured into his mind, like a sudden awakening.
47
ONCE, LONG AGO, on a world as close as a shadow:
A very different version of North America cradled a huge, landlocked, saline sea. This sea teemed with microbial life. All this life served a single tremendous organism.
And on this world, under a cloudy sky, the entirety of the turbid sea crackled with a single thought.
I…
This thought was followed by another.
To what purpose?
48
‘TIS A HISTORIC moment,’ Lobsang babbled. ‘First contact! The dream of a million years fulfilled. And I know what this must be. Shalmirane… Didn’t you read The City and the Stars? It’s some kind of colony organism.’
Sally said archly, ‘Behold the alien! So what now? Are you going to set it mathematical puzzles, like Carl Sagan and those SETI guys?’
Joshua ignored them both. He spoke to First Person Singular. ‘I didn’t tell you my name.’
‘You didn’t need to. You are Joshua. I am First Person Singular.’ The voice in his head sounded like his own.
Inside the translucent skin, the creatures. He recognized fish, birds, and, he realized after a while, a very definite elephant, moving slowly through whatever was in there, half walking, half swimming, eyes closed. And trolls, and elves, and other humanoids.
The tide was coming in. Very carefully, so as not to give offence or cause alarm, Joshua walked backward. ‘What is First Person Singular … for?’
‘First Person Singular is the observer of worlds.’
‘You speak good English.’ It was a dumb thing to say, but what was the right thing to say to a miles-wide slug? Sister Agnes would have known, he thought.
The reply came back immediately. ‘First Person Singular does not know what “Sister Agnes” is. I am still learning. Can you define for me a nun?’
On this bleak shore, Joshua’s jaw dropped.
First Person Singular said, ‘Cross-reference, yes – a nun is a female biped who refrains from procreation to service the needs of others in the species. Comparison with eusocial insects, perhaps? Ants and bees… More. Also rides large vehicles propelled ultimately by the remains of ancient trees. More. Is dedicated to the contemplation of the numinous. This is acknowledged as an interim description pending further investigation of relevant details… I myself would appear to be a nun, by some definitions. I perceive the world of worlds in their entirety. I believe I understand what is meant by breathless with adoration… You should move back on to the shore.’
The incoming water was up to Joshua’s knees. He backed up across the strand.
Sally was watching in amazement. ‘You’re talking to it?’
‘She. Not it. I think so. I hear my own voice asking me questions. She seems to know what I’m thinking – or rather, she knows what I know. I have no idea what she is, but she seems to want to learn.’ He sighed. ‘I’m kind of overloaded with wonder here, Sally.’
From the backpack the voice of Lobsang called, ‘Come back to the airship. Debriefing time, I think.’
As they walked back to the Mark Twain more pterosaurs flew over, their silhouettes gaunt against the sky.
Without the winches, the climb back up the rope to the gondola was pretty gruelling, but there were working lights on all decks now, the water heater was functioning, and there was instant coffee, at least.
Of course Sally wanted to talk things over immediately. But she was overruled by both Joshua and Lobsang, for at least the time it took to make the coffee.
Then Joshua tried to relate what he had sensed of First Person Singular’s own story. ‘She was alone on her world.’
‘A survivor,’ Sally said.
‘No. Not that. She emerged alone. She evolved that way. She was always alone…’
Lobsang cross-examined him, and gradually they pieced together, if not the truth, then a story.
On the Earth of First Person Singular, Lobsang speculated, as on many Earths, the early ages of life were long aeons of struggle for survival by half-formed creatures that had not yet discovered how to use DNA to store genetic information, and whose control over the proteins from which all living things were const
ructed was as yet poor. There had been billions upon billions of swarming cells in the shallow oceans, but they were not yet sophisticated enough to be able to afford to compete with each other. Instead, they cooperated. Any useful innovation flashed from cell to cell. It was as if everything in this global ocean operated as a single mega-organism.
‘With time,’ Lobsang said, ‘on most worlds, and certainly on Datum Earth, complexity and organization reach a point where individual cells can survive unaided. And then, on most worlds, competition begins. The great kingdoms of life begin to separate, oxygen bleeds into the air as a waste product of creatures that learn how to harness the power of sunlight, and the long slow climb towards multicelled forms begins. The age of global cooperation vanishes, leaving no trace save enigmatic markers in genetic composition.’
Sally said, ‘On most worlds, but not on First Person Singular’s.’
‘No. Actually that world must have been a remarkable Joker. There, the gathering complexity drove a familiar-looking evolutionary story – but the unity of that single global organism was never lost. We really have travelled to a very distant branch of the contingency tree. It—’
‘She, Lobsang,’ Joshua said.
‘She: yes, the feminine is appropriate, she appears to be positively gravid with apparently healthy life forms. She was more like a maturing biosphere than a creature like a human. As complexity increased, knots of control must have formed. To grow further it would have become necessary for the information structure to construct and contain a copy of itself, for the whole to become self-reflective. That is, conscious.’
Sally frowned, trying to take this in. ‘But what would such a creature want?’
‘I can tell you that much,’ Joshua said. ‘Company. She was lonely. Although she didn’t know it until she encountered the trolls.’
‘Ah.’
They would never know how a band of trolls had ended up on that remote world, Joshua realized. They must have come through the Gap; perhaps they were traumatized, some of them injured by exposure to vacuum. ‘But she was fascinated,’ he said, eyes closed, concentrating, trying to remember. ‘By the simple fact that there was more than one of them. The way they looked at each other, worked together – each of them recognized the other. They were not alone, as she was. They had each other. She wanted what they had. The one thing in the world she lacked…
‘A troll came to the water.’ He had a vision, like a waking dream, of the troll crouching, innocently scooping crabs from the shallow water – a mound of water rising, embracing him.
‘Killing him,’ Sally said, when Joshua described this.
‘Yes. She didn’t intend it, but that was the outcome. The trolls fled. Maybe she caught another one, an infant … studied it…’
‘And learned to step,’ Lobsang guessed.
‘Yes. It took her a long time. The thing we encountered isn’t all of her, all she was; once she filled an ocean. The thing in the sea here is – an expression of her. The essence. A form compact enough to step.’
‘So she followed the trolls,’ Sally said. ‘Heading West down the chain of worlds.’
‘Yes,’ said Lobsang. ‘Slowly but surely heading towards the Datum. And surely she is the reason for the stampede of the trolls, and perhaps other life forms. I am incubating the hypothesis that she has the same effect on pre-sapient species such as the trolls as does a large congregation of humans. Imagine the thunder of her thinking…’
‘So, behold the migraine monster,’ Sally said. ‘No wonder the trolls are fleeing.’
‘She doesn’t mean any harm,’ Joshua said. ‘She only wants to know them. To embrace them.’
‘You know, Joshua, you make this thing sound almost human.’
‘That’s how it felt.’
‘But that is only a partial perception,’ Lobsang said. ‘There is more. The entity you have encountered is only … a seed. An emissary of the integrated biosphere from which she originated. Her absorption of local life forms, even of higher mammals like trolls, is only an interim step. Her goal is, must be, to transform each Earth’s biosphere into a copy of her own. The entirety of it, enslaved. With every resource dedicated to a single purpose. That is to say, her own consciousness. This is not a malevolent phenomenon, or in any way wrong. There is no villain here. First Person Singular is simply an expression of another kind of sentience. Another model, if you like. But—’
Sally’s face was ashen. ‘But for the likes of us she represents a termination. She brings the end of individuality, ultimately, to every Earth she touches.’
‘And the end of evolution,’ Lobsang said gravely. ‘The end of the world, in a sense. The end of world after world as she works her way along the chain of the Long Earth.’
Sally said, ‘She is a destroyer of worlds. An eater of souls. If the trolls sensed any of this, no wonder they were terrified.’
Lobsang said, ‘Of course there is the question of why she hasn’t already reached the inhabited worlds. Why she has not already consumed the Earth. Destroyed it, with curiosity and love.’
Joshua frowned. ‘The Gap. It can’t be a coincidence we found her so close to the Gap.’
‘Yes,’ Lobsang said. ‘She can’t cross the Gap. Not yet, at any rate. If not for that she might already have reached the inhabited worlds.’
‘We can cross the Gap,’ Sally said. ‘The trolls can. Surely she’ll learn. And then there are the soft places. If she could use them – my God. It’s like a plague, consuming the Long Earth world by world.’
‘No,’ Lobsang said firmly. ‘This is no plague, no malignant virus or bacterium. This is a conscious entity. And there, I believe, lies hope. Joshua, how did she speak to you in the first place? You heard your own voice in your head, yes? That doesn’t sound like telepathy – a species of communication for which I have yet to find one single reliable piece of evidence. This sounds like something new. It asked you what a nun was! If I may hazard a guess, it accessed the information then currently at the top of your thoughts. Thinking of Sister Agnes, were you? As an engineer I find it all hard to believe. But as a Buddhist, I accept there are more ways to think about the universe than one can imagine.’
‘I sincerely hope we are not going to start talking religion,’ said Sally sharply.
‘Open your mind, Sally. It’s only another framework for understanding the universe, just another tool.’
‘So what does that make Joshua?’ she snapped back. ‘The chosen one?’
The two of them looked at Joshua.
‘In a way,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Or at least, she seemed to recognize me. If she hadn’t actually been expecting me.’
Sally scowled, evidently jealous. ‘Why you?’
Lobsang said gently, ‘Perhaps it is because of the circumstances of our hero’s miraculous birth, Sally. Your first instants of life, Joshua, when you were entirely alone on another world. Your cries echoed, evidently, across the Long Earth. Or your loneliness, perhaps. And you and First Person Singular, similarly lonely, make up a kind of dipole.’
This bewildered Joshua. Not for the first time he wished Sister Agnes were here so he could talk it over with her. ‘Is this why you brought me here, Lobsang? I keep finding you anticipated all we’ve experienced… Did you know this would happen?’
‘I knew you were special, Joshua. Unique. Yes, I thought that facet of you would be – useful. But I didn’t know quite how, I admit that.’
Sally stared at Joshua, stone-faced. ‘How does it feel to be so manipulated, Joshua?’
Joshua looked away, hot with anger, at Lobsang, at the universe for singling him out.
Lobsang said now, ‘Evidently we need to learn more about First Person Singular.’
Sally said, ‘True enough. And we need to find a way to stop her panicking the trolls. Not to mention eating the Datum Earth.’
‘Tomorrow we will go and see her again. I suggest we have a decent night’s rest, and prepare for another encounter with the ineffable in the
morning. But this time, with Joshua having made initial contact, I will lead.’
‘Huh! The ineffable meets the intolerable! Oh, I’m going to bed.’ Sally stormed off the deck.
‘She’s got a short fuse,’ Joshua said.
‘But you understand why she is angry, Joshua,’ Lobsang said mildly. ‘You were chosen. She was not. She’ll probably never forgive you.’
It was a strange night for Joshua. He kept waking, convinced that someone had spoken his name. Somebody desperately lonely, but he didn’t know how he knew that. Then he would get a bit more sleep, and the cycle would start all over again. It didn’t stop until the morning.
In silence they gathered in the observation deck once more. Sally was bleary-eyed too, and Lobsang, in his soberly dressed and hastily repaired ambulant, was unusually quiet. Joshua wondered how their nights had been.
And the first surprise was that First Person Singular was no longer there. She could be seen about half a mile out to sea, moving so slowly there was hardly even a wake. First Person Singular was clearly not one for hurrying, but on the other hand you had to remind yourself that what was doing the not hurrying was twice the size of Manhattan Island.
There was no discussion about whether to follow her. They all took it as a given that they would have to. But the Mark Twain, still capable of stepping from world to world, no longer had the means to move across this world.
Joshua said, ‘Lobsang, don’t you have another marine unit? I know what you are like when it comes to backups. There’s hardly any wind, and we’ve got more ropes than a circus tent. Our big friend over there is hardly racing. Maybe your marine unit could tow us?’
It did work, but only just. The Mark Twain, aloft, had a great deal of drag to overcome. Sally remarked that it was like the Titanic being towed by a motorboat engine – but an engine devised by Lobsang and built by the Black Corporation, which was why the solution worked at all.
The Long Earth Page 29