Iris

by William Barton

  They fell together, linked as they had come in, slowly forming into a circle until the nether ends joined hands. They became a sort of Midgard serpent, laagered against the coming of Fenris and Fimbulwinter, and the skies began to change. Fiery tongues of lavender and fabled heliotrope began to intrude into their golden world, a wash of mad color that sucked away all sense of separate consciousness and fear. Something that presaged Ginnunga-gap? Unknown . . .

  They had come in together, linked in ways that Demogorgon had never experimented with before, and so there was a result. Some higher, unsuspected routine in Bright Illimit had seized control, plunging them down this long, horrible way, to some unfathomable experience. When their hands came together, completing the circle, their minds did too. The sky was shot with bolts of momentary black lightning, twisting rivers of ebon darkness, vines of ink, and the background pattern of the world shifted to a dark cerulean hue, with an overlay of honeyed amber. They saw each other again, as they had seen Sealock and the cohorts of Centrum in their unwilling journey to the beginning of time. It's not the same, thought Demogorgon, but it might as well be. I don't understand what's happening, yet I cannot fear. I must not. This is my thing, my place in the universe, the creation of my own heart and soul. If I fear it, then I fear myself. The sky around him brightened with the thought, sending beams of warmth deep into him, as if the circuits were responding to his courage and trust. He and Brendan had made this place! The stars above Arhos were real. He felt a little smug sense of, I knew it all along. . . . Achmet Aziz el-Tabari felt himself as a whole being, as he always had, with no overlay of the cultural biases against him. The value of Self stood out strong and the sky colored with a transparentoverlay of rosiness in response. The "me-ness" of his character rewarded him with gestalt happiness, no words, a distillate of feeling. The others were with him, holding him in arms of thought, and he smiled. Who would not feel this way? He transferred, the sky writhing with the shift.

  Aksinia Ockels looked about her in wonder and the sky responded brightly, filling the incandescent shell through which they traveled with a whirl of indigos and greens, metallic hues that almost covered the blue that formed its base. Fading. Fading. She had been almost a day without her usual dose of Beta-2

  and the drug was rapidly being flushed from her system. Dark, jagged streaks of an ugly red momentarily flashed all around, then were gone. All the years lost to me, she thought, lost to it all. I made my world as they all did, and it almost blotted me out. A tiny sphere of brown appeared and was gone without a sound. For the first time a sort of soft wind sighed in their ears, the movement of rushing air tugged at their hair. They felt its coolness. Axie laughed without sound and pictured the dead Seedees. The bacteria, the structure of a typical primitive cell, all of it came to the forefront of her consciousness, coloring the sky a brilliant peach that overwhelmed all that had gone before. Tiny ships, carrying the culture of the Beginning. Then the inheritors arise and go forth. I am myself again, at last. The sky flashed in brilliant red-orange hues and she transferred.

  Harmon Prynne fell with them all, in his usual way almost unthinking. The sky dulled, began to turn gray and then, suddenly, reversed itself, waxing to a brilliant cobalt blue. I am not less than the others, he thought, neither more nor less within myself. Strip away the geas that was placed upon me at birth and I am one with them all. There is no less of me than there is of any other human being. Our identities and values manifest in different ways.... He remembered the people on the ship when they'd left Earth, the retardates, heading out. In another age their dysfunction would have gone unnoticed. I was less than the others only because I bought the propaganda that my childhood sold me. All my fears and failures were groundless. The sky grew momentarily blinding, and he transferred.

  Whirling around in an arcing hora, Vana Berenguer danced among the others, reading what had gone before. Simplification, she thought, and the sky colored in rivers of deep yellow with her soundless cries. She had always been herself, the shadow of supposedly greater beings in need of love, comfort, friendship, physicality. It served, as did she, and in the service grew an individuality that knew no bounds. I am, she thought, complete within myself. The sky ululated in many hues all about, mirroring the different facets of her, as in the many beings of the world, and when she transferred it refused to dim. Their vision changed to accept the new background level, but the brightness could still be sensed. Temujin Krzakwa fell and, in falling, felt nullity. The sky grew transparent in response, clear and without color. The world had been lightening on him ever since he'd fled the depths of Luna, and now it grew weightless. He alone had been totally happy with the distance to which they'd gone. He was, as always, secure in his special individuality, and the loss of Brendan was a trauma that he had weathered. He chuckled, bright spots of wavering pinkness, and transferred.

  To her surprise, Ariane Methol had the most to learn, the program was teaching her that fact. The sky darkened as she fell, horrified, awful muddy shades that tempered the growing mood of them all. She had only fooled herself into believing she was the center of other people's lives, the maiden goddess of her own little world. She needed others, as they had never needed her; dark pits of corroding madness opened in the sky. She fed their needs, just to gain their presence in her life. . . . The sky brightened volcanically, healing itself. I am no different, she thought. I never was. My needs are their needs; I am one with them in a binding matrix of society, a linkage of individual human beings, and that makes individuals of us all. I must be one. I must be! The sky flamed orange. We are all one, she thought out to the people falling with her, with her for the first time. I came for him and he for me, we came for each other, even the ones who were unknown in the beginning. She transferred....

  And Elizabeth Toussaint was the seal of them all, bringing the group together in cohesion as she linked hands in therushing air with Demogorgon, completing the circuit she had begun when she approached him on the first day, the day they had landed on Ocypete. We are not less for having thus exposed ourselves, she thought, no one is. Sadness, blue comet trails marking their passage down the levels of the sky. I'm sorry, John! she cried and then it was audible to them all. The sky was suddenly golden again. The effigy of Brendan Sealock appeared among them, a sudden gravitational source at the focus of their circle. Demogorgon knew that, as before, it was not the man, merely his creation. GAM-and-Redux was its name, but, still, the appearance brought a pang of regret. He ached with loss and the others with him, but the sky remained intact, now unresponsive to the ways they were reacting. They were retreating from the multiple rapport that had bound them together. The subroutine was returning control to the main program, its functioning at an end, its purpose served.

  How did you anticipate all this? Demogorgon whispered. It seemed impossible, even knowing, as he had always known, that the depth and feeling of this man were greater than most others were willing, in their shallowness, to suspect.

  The doppelganger smiled shyly, an incongruous expression on the craggy features of a devil. He did not, it said. The power to heal all wounds is within me, more so than my brethren only because my creator was skilled at this particular craft. Someone is always the best at something. Heal all wounds . . .

  They smashed apart, aflight on the ends of retreating rays, lost to each other on the edges of the expanding universe.

  Demogorgon screamed, the death cry of hopelessness. There is a way!

  Temujin Krzakwa reached out and seized control from the processor submatrix, driving them upward into light and life, and the Illimitor World shut down behind them, going dark.

  John and Beth sat together under the CM dome, looking out across the landscape. Beth seemed subdued, unable to say quite what was occupying their thoughts. Finally the former spoke. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier, Beth. Idon't think I really understood what was going on. I didn't mean it the way ..."

  The woman shrugged and smiled slightly, a faint twisting of her pale lips
. "Don't worry about it. I didn't really know what you were asking." She stood up and walked a little way away from him, then turned to look back. "We never were sure of each other, even in DR, were we?" John stared at her, trying to fathom what had happened to her in the last few days. "I don't know. Maybe Downlink Rapport isn't so all-encompassing as I thought. You'd think it would be, but . . ." She nodded. "Yes, you'd think that, wouldn't you? But our separable selves aren't the totality of us." She shook her head slowly and looked away again. "Listen to me! I ought to be laughing and so should you. We use big words to hide our confusion."

  "Everyone does, Beth." He tried to think, to force some kind of coherent idea out, but nothing would come. "What're we talking about right now?"

  "If you don't know, well . . . Hell. Maybe I don't know either." She came back and sat at his side again. "I came up here fired with an enthusiasm, a will to bring you back to me, to make you become one of us again. Now that I'm up here I find that I don't know what to say. Despite my old resistance to DR, I always followed your lead, lagging a little way behind. I'm really not used to thinking for myself." She got up suddenly and walked to the ladder leading down. "I'll talk to you again later...." John stood up, calling, "But wait ..." She was, however, already gone. He turned back to his chair and drifted into it. The conversation had not only been less than satisfactory, it had been nonexistent. I've got to do something, he thought. The contents of a million conversations, with an unending number of people, came back to haunt him, but they were all sophomoric, useless. I spent too much time making up too many stupid ideas. Thinking and feeling aren't the same and I always knew that. Neuroelectrical patterns . . . Maybe that's what she meant. He got up again and went below, filled with acts of conscience, pursuing no goal.

  Demogorgon sat with the mindless body of Brendan Sea-lock, surrounded by his maelstrom of equipment and circuitry. "I can get you back, Brendan," he whispered softly. "With a little help, I can find the way!" He put his hand on the body's chest. The flesh was still warm to his touch, as if the man would wake up in a moment and things would be as they had been. . . . No, not that way. Better. The door crackled open and Krzakwa came in. He took in the room's tableau and said, "What are you doing?"

  Demogorgon looked up. "Thinking, I guess. What did you think of our little trip?" Shrugging, the Selenite said, "Well . . . that's the way GAM programs are supposed to work. I just never ran across one that was quite so poetic before. I suppose I should congratulate you for making a thing like that."

  "Me? But Brendan's the one who did all the programming for Bright Illimit! I just gave him my generalized ideas."

  That brought a narrow grin. "You have a typical misconception of what programmers do, Demo. Without software, the machines are useless. Everyone knows that; but without ideas, there's no software either. Brendan just took your ideas and expanded them to a logical final form." He paused, rubbing his hand in among the hair of his beard, seeming to ruminate. "It's like doing a bronze sculpture. The artist comes up with an idea, maybe roughs out the moldwork in wax, then a craftsman comes along, finishes the mold, and casts the statue itself. The two work together because, without either one, there is no final work of art."

  The other turned to stare back at the body. "So . . . You're probably right, but he . . ." The Arab stood up to face Krzakwa. "This isn't what I wanted to talk about, Tem! Who the fuck cares who made what part of Bright Illimit? It's what we can do with it now that matters. . . ."

  "I know, I caught some of what you were thinking before we resurfaced. I don't know if I understand what you meant, but it was the germ of an idea. . . ."

  Demo's anger was supplanted by a look of desperation. Hesat down again. "Just a germ. I'll tell you about it and you tell me if it'll work."

  Krzakwa pulled up another chair and sat down opposite him, caught up in the somberness of his mood. "OK. What, then?"

  "Look. These things are called Guardian Angel Monitors because they're supposed to follow you around, keeping you from getting hurt in Comnet. I knew about that, but why the Redux part?" The other started to speak, but Demogorgon held up his hand. "I know! I looked the word up, it means a return or a recovery, like getting better after an illness, right?"

  "Yes." Krzakwa nodded and, seeing that an amplification was awaited, went on. "If a GAM fails in its primary duty, the Redux is supposed to hook you back out before the various components of your personality can dissolve into the circuitry. If these programs didn't exist, on-line discharge wouldn't be a rare phenomenon and no one would be able to use Comnet."

  "OK, so it gets you back from inside the machinery. Why didn't Brendan use such a thing?"

  "He did. Me." Tem looked away. "We didn't realize Centrum would be as capable as it turned out to be. I lost my grip on him and couldn't go in after him because I had no lifeline on me."

  "We know where he is, don't we?"

  "Maybe. In Centrum, sure, but he came apart right at the end. That thing that we experienced as a loss of consciousness was him dissipating into Centrum's data control nexi . If we could find all the pieces, reintegration would still be more than a little difficult. We . . . might get most of him back, even now, but he'd never be the same again. The Brendan that went in is surely as dead as the Seedees." Demogorgon looked down into his lap, where his fingers were twisted together into an agonizing double fist of frustration. "Shouldn't we try?"

  "How? Can you tell me?" Krzakwa felt a sense of intentional cruelty in that statement. Creative or not, ideas or not, the artist just wasn't competent in this area of technology. Taking a deep breath, he looked up. "Yes, I can." He stood and paced over to the body, not looking away. "Part of Brendan is in here still, the parts that made him act so bad all the time. They were the reptilian parts, the hard-wired brain-person that was a soulless monster. A lot more of him is locked up in Centrum. Those were the illusory conscious parts, the mind-thing in all of us that says 'I' and thinks of itself as the whole being, even though it isn't. The rest of him is in Shipnet. . . ." Krzakwa sat back in his chair, bewildered. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "His real soul is in there, Tem, the part of him that helped me make Bright Illimit. A programmer operating with routines so close to the Turing point must leave a little bit of himself in his creation. I know that, if nothing else."

  "Are you talking about the GAM? If so . . ."

  Demogorgon interrupted him with "No! Well . . . maybe a little bit. I mean all of Bright Illimit, maybe the whole body of work that Brendan did. There's a lot of him recorded all around us!"

  "I ... see." Krzakwa closed his eyes. "You're talking about more than an abstraction. It would make a powerful ally ... a whole fucking operating system if it was done correctly. I never thought of it that way before." He thought, How much data can we pump out of these things? A lot? Enough? Ideas have to come from somewhere!

  The Arab shook him angrily. "Do you know what I'm talking about, dammit?"

  "Yes." That was said flatly, abstractedly.

  "Will it work?"

  "I don't know. I have to think about this thing. Maybe there's a way, maybe not. . . ."

  "Well? How much time do we have?"

  "I don't know." He opened his eyes. "Shit. It has to work. We'll get back something. I just don't think it'll be Brendan Sealock." He stood up. "Let's get out of here. You go get the others."

  Temujin Krzakwa sat before a master control/writeboard panel, induction leads stuck to his head, trying to make things work. Despite his original opinions on the matter, it was an art of creation which quickly took possession of his entire being. There was a certain poetic and personal satisfaction to be had in breaking up extant, finished programs and reworking their subroutines into a new whole, a thing different from what had gone before. He worked feverishly, brilliantly, far beyond what he had imagined were his abilities. He found a new belief in the stories of superhuman accomplishments done under emergency conditions: indeed, more than once he had the feeling that his subconsciou
s mind was leading the way, a feeling that the program was writing itself.

  Bright Illimit was the way, as Demogorgon had intimated. It was more complex than he could have imagined, undoubtedly one of the most recursive and gestalt-oriented programs ever conceived, much less written: a fully interactive program that did strange things. As he got into it, Temujin was surprised to discover that the program was set up to raid parts of the user's personality for its terminal background data. Of course, he mused, how could it work any other way? Only the user knew what would make him the happiest. Demo knew that fact and Brendan knew how to make the program realize and utilize it. Perhaps all these things had come about in a subconscious fashion, but then perhaps not. . . . He added bits from a hundred complex utilities that had been found in Brendan's data files, added things that he knew about from his own work at Lewislab, threw in bits and pieces of everything, in hopes that something would help. It began to coalesce, and he began to feel more hopeful. Cover every contingency, he thought, then throw in the kitchen sink in case we get dirty and need to wash up. Shit. And be careful not to break any dishes. The glass can cut you painlessly under water. Bleed to death and never know it. ...

  Add hard wiring. Hookups to the ship's RAW complex and remote processors, then finally into the Machine and the QTD system. Get everyone into the act. Call on the dead man. Punch in through the amygdala, rewire those taps so they access whatever's left coursing across the corpus callosum. Crank up the limbic system, deep inside the brain stem. Get that old lizard-man punching away. Tell him there're faces yet to smash, haunches yet to hump. . . .

  Krzakwa felt like a mad scientist, not creating his own monster, that was old hat, but taking all the monsters that ever lived, ripping them down, stripping their wires, making new monsters from bits of the old.

  Mechanics of the soul, he thought. Adjust my petty neuroses with one deft twist of a spanner. Skulls greasily opened, shining with hydraulic fluid in the operating theater. Are we all robots under the flesh?