by Neil Clarke
“So how did you get here, Kamilah?” He paused in the bedroom to pull on the shirt before entering the sitting room.
“I was sent here as a condition of my parole.”
“Really?” Adel sat on one of the chairs and snapped on his softwalks. “Who did you murder?”
“I was convicted of improper appropriation,” she said. “I misused a symbol set that was alien to my cultural background.”
—say again?—buzzed minus.
Adel nodded and smiled. “I have no idea what that means.”
“That’s all right.” Her medallion showed a fist. “It’s a long story for another time.”
We pause here to reflect on the variety of religious beliefs in the Human Continuum. In ancient times, atheists believed that humanity’s expansion into space would extinguish its historic susceptibility to superstition. And for a time, as we rode primitive torches to our cramped habitats and attempted to terraform the mostly-inhospitable worlds of our home system, this expectation seemed reasonable. But then the discovery of quantum scanning and the perfection of molecular assembly led to the building of the first MASTA systems and everything changed.
Quantum scanning is, after all, destructive. Depending on exactly what has been placed on the stage, that which is scanned is reduced to mere probabilistic wisps, an exhausted scent or perhaps just soot to be wiped off the sensors. In order to jump from one MASTA to another, we must be prepared to die. Of course, we’re only dead for a few seconds, which is the time it takes for the assembler to reconstitute us from a scan. Nevertheless, the widespread acceptance of MASTA transportation means that all of us who had come to thresholds have died and been reborn.
The experience of transitory death has led homo novo to a renewed engagement with the spiritual. But if the atheists were disappointed in their predictions of the demise of religion, the creeds of antiquity were decimated by the new realities of superluminal culture. Ten thousand new religions have risen up on the many worlds of the Continuum to comfort and sustain us in our various needs. We worship stars, sex, the vacuum of space, water, the cosmic microwave background, the Uncertainty Principle, music, old trees, cats, the weather, dead bodies, certain pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom, food, stimulants, depressants, and Levia Calla. We call the deity by many names: Genius, the Bitch, Kindly One, the Trickster, the Alien, the Thumb, Sagittarius A*, the Silence, Surprise, and the Eternal Center. What is striking about this exuberant diversity, when we consider how much blood has been shed in the name of gods, is our universal tolerance of one another. But that’s because all of us who acknowledge the divine are co-religionists in one crucial regard: we affirm that the true path to spirituality must necessarily pass across the stages of a MASTA.
Which is another reason why we build thresholds and launch them to spread the Continuum. Which is why so many of our religions count it as an essential pilgrimage to travel with a threshold on some fraction of its long journey. Which is why the Host of True Flesh on the planet Harvest sponsored an essay contest opened to any communicant who had not yet died to go superluminal, the first prize being an all-expense paid pilgrimage to the Godspeed, the oldest, most distant, and therefore holiest of all the thresholds. Which is why Venetta Patience Santos had browbeaten her son Adel to enter the contest.
Adel’s reasons for writing his essay had been his own. He had no great faith in the Host and no burning zeal to make a pilgrimage. However he chafed under the rules his parents still imposed on him, and he’d just broken up with his girlfriend Gavrila over the issue of pre-marital intercourse—he being in favor, she taking a decidedly contrary position—and he’d heard steamy rumors of what passed for acceptable sexual behavior on a threshold at the farthest edge of civilization. Essay contestants were charged to express the meaning of the Host of True Flesh in five hundred words or less. Adel brought his in at four hundred and nine.
Our Place
By Adel Ranger Santos
We live in a place. This seems obvious, maybe, but think about it. Originally our place was a little valley on the African continent on a planet called Earth. Who we are today was shaped in large part by the way that place was, so long ago. Later humans moved all around that planet and found new places to live. Some were hot, some freezing. We lived at the top of mountains and on endless prairies. We sailed to islands. We walked across deserts and glaciers. But what mattered was that the places that we moved to did not change us. We changed the places. We wore clothes and started fires and built houses. We made every place we went to our place.
Later we left Earth, our home planet, just like we left that valley in Africa. We tried to make places for ourselves in cold space, in habitats, and on asteroids. It was hard. Mars broke our hearts. Venus killed millions. Some people said that the time had come to change ourselves completely so that we could live in these difficult places. People had already begun to meddle with their bodies. It was a time of great danger.
This was when Genius, the goddess of True Flesh awoke for the first time. Nobody knew it then, but looking back we can see that it must have been her. Genius knew that the only way we could stay true to our flesh was to find better places to make our own. Genius visited Levia Calla and taught her to collapse the wave-particle duality so that we could look deep into ourselves and see who we are. Soon we were on our way to the stars. Then Genius told the people to rise up against anyone who wanted to tamper with their bodies. She made the people realize that we were not meant to become machines. That we should be grateful to be alive for the normal a hundred and twenty years and not try to live longer.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if we were not alone in space. Maybe if there were really aliens out there somewhere, we would never have had Genius to help us, since there would be no one true flesh. We would probably have all different gods. Maybe we would have changed ourselves, maybe into robots or to look like aliens. This is a scary thought. If it were true, we’d be in another universe. But we’re not.
This universe is our place.
What immediately stood out in this essay is how Adel attributed Levia Calla’s historic breakthrough to the intervention of Genius. Nobody had ever thought to suggest this before, since Professor Calla had been one of those atheists who had been convinced that religion would wither away over the course of the twenty-first century. The judges were impressed that Adel had so cleverly asserted what could never be disproved. Even more striking was the dangerous speculation that concluded Adel’s essay. Ever since Fermi first expressed his paradox, we have struggled with the apparent absence of other civilizations in the universe. Many of the terrestrial worlds we have discovered have complex ecologies, but on none has intelligence evolved. Even now, there are those who desperately recalculate the factors in the Drake Equation in the hopes of arriving at a solution that is greater than one. When Adel made the point that no religion could survive first contact, and then trumped it with the irrefutable fact that we are alone, he won his place on the Godspeed.
Adel and Kamilah came upon two more pilgrims in the library. A man and a woman cuddled on a lime green chenille couch in front of a wall that displayed images of six planets, lined up in a row. The library was crowded with glassed-in shelves filled with old-fashioned paper books, and racks with various I/O devices, spex, digitex, whisperers and brainleads. Next to a row of workstations, a long table held an array of artifacts that Adel did not immediately recognize: small sculptures, medals and coins, jewelry and carved wood. Two paintings hung above it, one an image of an artist’s studio in which a man in a black hat painted a woman in a blue dress, the other a still life with fruit and some small, dead animals.
“Meri,” said Kamilah, “Jarek, this is Adel.”
The two pilgrims came to the edge of the couch, their faces alight with anticipation. Out of the corner of his eye, Adel thought he saw Kamilah shake her head. The brightness dimmed and they receded as if nothing had happened.
—we’re a disappointment to everyone—buzzed mi
nus
plus buzzed—they just don’t know us yet—
Meri looked to be not much older than Adel. She was wearing what might have been long saniwear, only it glowed, registering a thermal map of her body in red, yellow, green and blue. “Adel.” She gave him a wistful smile and extended a finger for him to touch.
Jerek held up a hand to indicate that he was otherwise occupied. He was wearing a sleeveless gray shirt, baggy shorts and blacked out spex on which Adel could see a data scrawl flicker.
“You’ll usually find these two together,” said Kamilah. “And often in bed.”
“At least we’re not joined at the hip like the Manmans,” said Meri. “Have you met them yet?”
Adel frowned. “You mean Robman?”
“And Spaceman.” Meri had a third eye tattooed in the middle of her forehead. At least, Adel hoped it was a tattoo.
—sexy—buzzed minus
plus buzzed—weird—
—weird is sexy—
“Oh, Jonman’s not so bad.” Jarek pulled his spex off.
“If you like snobs.” Meri reminded him a little of Gavrila, except for the extra eye. “And cheats.”
Jarek replaced the spex on the rack and then clapped Adel on the back. “Welcome to the zoo, brother.” He was a head shorter than Adel and had the compact musculature of someone who was born on a high G planet. “So you’re in shape,” he said. “Do you lift?”
“Some. Not much. I’m a swimmer.” Adel had been the Great Randall city champion in the 100 and 200 meter.
“What’s your event?”
“Middle distance freestyle.”
—friend?—
“We have a lap pool in the gym,” said Jarek.
—maybe—minus buzzed
“Saw it.” Adel nodded approvingly. “And you? I can tell you work out.”
“I wrestle,” said Jarek. “Or I did back on Kindred. But I’m a gym rat. I need exercise to clear my mind. So what do you think of old Speedy so far?”
“It’s great.” For the first time since he had stepped onto the scanning stage in Great Randall, the reality of where he was struck him. “I’m really excited to be here.” And as he said it, he realized that it was true.
“That’ll wear off,” said Kamilah. “Now if you two sports are done comparing large muscle groups, can we move along?”
“What’s the rush, Kamilah?” Meri shifted into a corner of the couch. “Planning on keeping this one for yourself?” She patted the seat, indicating that Adel should take Jarek’s place. “Come here, let me get an eye on you.”
Adel glanced at Jarek, who winked.
“Has Kamilah been filling you in on all the gossip?”
Adel crammed himself against the side cushion of the couch opposite Meri. “Not really.”
“That’s because no one tells her the good stuff.”
Kamilah yawned. “Maybe because I’m not interested.”
Adel couldn’t look at Meri’s face for long without staring at her tattoo, but if he looked away from her face then his gaze drifted to her hot spots. Finally he decided to focus on her hands.
“I don’t work out,” said Meri, “in case you’re wondering.”
“Is this the survey that wrapped yesterday?” said Kamilah, turning away from them to look at the planets displayed on the wall. “I heard it was shit.”
Meri had long and slender fingers but her fingernails were bitten ragged, especially the thumbs. Her skin was very pale. He guessed that she must have spent a lot of time indoors, wherever she came from.
“System ONR 147-563.” Jarek joined her, partially blocking Adel’s view of the wall. “Nine point eight nine light-years away and a whole lot of nothing. The star has luminosity almost three times that of Sol. Six planets: four hot airless rocks, a jovian and a subjovian.”
“I’m still wondering about ONR 134-843,” said Kamilah, and the wall filled with a new solar system, most of which Adel couldn’t see. “Those five Martian-type planets.”
“So?” said Meri. “The star was a K1 orange-red dwarf. Which means those Martians are pretty damn cold. The day max is only 17C on the warmest and at night it drops to -210C. And their atmospheres are way too thin, not one over a hundred millibars. That’s practically space.”
“But there are five of them.” Kamilah held up her right hand, fingers splayed. “Count them, five.”
“Five Martians aren’t worth one terrestrial,” said Jarek.
Kamilah grunted. “Have we seen any terrestrials?”
“Space is huge and we’re slow.” Jarek bumped against her like a friendly dog. “Besides, what do you care? One of these days you’ll bust off this rock, get the hero’s parade on Jaxon and spend the rest of your life annoying the other eyejacks and getting your face on the news.”
“Sure.” Kamilah slouched uncomfortably. “One of these days.”
—eyejack?—buzzed minus.
Adel was wondering the same thing. “What’s an eyejack?”
“An eyejack,” said Meri confidentially, “is someone who shocks other people.”
“Shocks for pay,” corrected Kamilah, her back still to them.
“Shock?” Adel frowned. “As in voltage shock or scandalize shock?”
“Well, electricity could be involved.” Kamilah turned from the wall. Her medallion showed a cat sitting in a sunny window. “But mostly what I do,” she continued, “is make people squirm when they get too settled for their own good.”
—trouble—buzzed plus.
—love it—minus buzzed.
“And you do this how?”
“Movement.” She made a flourish with her left hand that started as a slap but ended as a caress that did not quite touch Jarek’s face. Jarek did not flinch. “Imagery. I work in visuals mostly but I sometimes use wordplay. Or sound—laughter, explosions, loud music. Whatever it takes to make you look.”
“And people pay you for this?”
“Some do, some sue.” Kamilah rattled it off like a catchphrase.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Meri said. “I know I’m still working on it.”
“You liked it the time she made Jonman snort juice out of his nose,” said Jarek. “Especially after he predicted she would do it to him.”
The wall behind them turned announcement blue. “We have come within survey range of a new binary system. I’m naming the M5 star ONR 126-850 and the M2 star ONR 154-436.” The screen showed data sheets on the discoveries: Location, Luminosity, Metallicity, Mass, Age, Temperature, Habitable Ecosphere Radius.
“Who cares about red dwarfs?” said Kamilah.
“About sixty percent of the stars in this sector are red dwarfs,” said Meri.
“My point exactly.” Said Kamilah, “You’re not going to find many terrestrials orbiting an M star. We should be looking somewhere else.”
“Why is that?” said Adel.
“M class are small, cool stars,” said Jarek. “In order to get enough insolation to be even remotely habitable, a planet has to be really close to the sun, so close that they get locked into synchronous rotation because of the intense tidal torque. Which means that one side is always dark and the other is always light. The atmosphere would freeze off the dark side.”
“And these stars are known for the frequency and intensity of their flares,” said Meri, “which would pretty much cook any life on a planet that close.”
“Meri and Jarek are our resident science twizes,” said Kamilah. “They can tell you more than you want to know about anything.”
“So do we actually get to help decide where to go next?” said Adel.
“Actually, we don’t.” Jarek shook his head sadly.
“We just argue about it.” Kamilah crossed the library to the bathroom and paused at the doorway. “It passes the time. Don’t get any ideas about the boy, Meri. I’ll be right back.” The door vanished as she stepped through and reformed immediately.
“When I first started thinking seriously about making the pilgri
mage to the Godspeed,” said Jarek, “I had this foolish idea that I might have some influence on the search, maybe even be responsible for a course change. I knew I wouldn’t be aboard long enough to make a planetfall, but I thought maybe I could help. But I’ve studied Speedy’s search plan and it’s perfect, considering that we can’t go any faster than a third of C.”
“Besides, we’re not going anywhere, Jarek and you and me,” said Meri. “Except back to where we came from. By the time Speedy finds the next terrestrial, we could be grandparents.”
“Or dead,” said Kamilah as she came out of the bathroom. “Shall we tell young Adel here how long it’s been since Speedy discovered a terrestrial planet?”
“Young Adel?” said Meri. “Just how old are you?”
“Nineteen standard,” Adel muttered.
—twenty-six back home—buzzed plus.
“But that’s twenty-six on Harvest.”
“One hundred and fifty-eight standard,” said the wall. “This is your captain speaking.”
“Oh gods.” Kamilah rested her forehead in her hand.
The image the Godspeed projected was more uniform than woman; she stood against the dazzle of a star field. Her coat was golden broadcloth lined in red; it hung to her knees. The sleeves were turned back to show the lining. Double rows of brass buttons ran from neck to hem. These were unbuttoned below the waist, revealing red breeches and golden hose. The white sash over her left shoulder was decorated with patches representing all the terrestrial planets she had discovered. Adel counted more than thirty before he lost track.
“I departed from the MASTA on Nuevo Sueño,” said the Godspeed, “one hundred and fifty-eight years ago, Adel, and I’ve been looking for my next discovery ever since.”
“Longer than any other threshold,” said Kamilah.
“Longer than any other threshold,” the Godspeed said amiably. “Which pains me deeply, I must say. Why do you bring this unfortunate statistic up, perfect one? Is there some conclusion you care to draw?”