Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  "Well, I reckon that's for you to find out, Nort."

  What Norton really wanted to ascertain was whether he was, in fact, in a dream world that he could simply awaken from. If he was not, his "awakening" might be disastrous. A person who decided, when about to step off the brink of a cliff, that it was all a dream and didn't matter would be in trouble if wrong. But if right, he could step off the cliff and force the dream to end. Norton had to be sure. What conceivable question could he ask of a dream-figure that would settle that?

  That internal question brought its answer: he needed to find someone who knew more than he did on some subject. Only that way could he be sure the answers were not coming from his own mind. For that purpose, it didn't matter whether Bat Dursten was himself or an alcove figure; if he could not show knowledge beyond Norton's own, he was not enough. Presumably if all four alcove figures manifested, and none could prove individuality, then Norton could reasonably assume he was locked in a dream of his own. How he would manage to awaken from it he didn't know; somehow, committing suicide here didn't appeal. But first he had to be sure what he was dealing with.

  Squeeze.

  So Sning agreed! But, of course, if this were a dream, Sning himself was probably part of it, a dream-snake whose advice was suspect. Likewise the Hourglass; now he remembered how the original, adult Bem had snatched it from him. In real life that was not possible; the Hourglass had passed right through Agleh's hand. But that did not guarantee this was a dream-world; Satan could simply have arranged the illusion that the Hourglass had been snatched. Norton knew he could trust nothing until it proved to be independent of his imagination.

  Merely talking with the alcove-spaceman would not do the job. Asking Dursten's name and sentiments would produce only answers that were obvious or not subject to verification. So he would have to get technical, posing the riddles that had always baffled him; the point was to get beyond his own knowledge in such a way that he remained assured the information was valid. Only through scientific logic could he do that.

  Norton pondered, then addressed the spaceman. "Let me ask you a sample question before I decide."

  "Why, shore, pardner. Ask away!"

  "There is a story about Galileo, back on my home planet. He was supposed to have climbed to the top of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped several objects to the ground. I forget what they were, but that doesn't matter. Let's assume they were a penny, a ping pong ball, and a cannonball. He discovered that they all fell at the same rate, contrary to popular opinion, the small and the large. Popular wisdom had had it that larger and heavier objects would fall faster than small ones. From this experiment he deduced the theory of gravity—that all objects in the universe attracted one another with a force directly proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to their separation from one another. Can you accept that story?"

  "Well, I ain't never been to the Tower of Pizza—"

  "Any tower will do," Norton said patiently. "The point is, what about the objects falling?"

  "Why, shore," the spaceman said. "That's gravity, shore 'nuff. You find it around planets and things."

  Norton controlled his irritation. "What about air resistance?"

  "Oh, yeah, there's that. I don't mess with atmosphere so much; planets are a bother. That there ping-pong ball would fall slower in air. And so would the penny, 'cause it's flat, catches the air."

  "Very well. Let's repeat the experiment on an airless planet. Absolutely no atmosphere. Now do they fall at the same rate?"

  "Shore," the spaceman agreed amicably. "Weight 'n density don't matter none in a perfect vacuum. A dang feather would fall as fast as a lead shot."

  "But the theory says that objects attract one another in direct proportion to their masses. Since the cannonball is more massive than the ping-pong ball, shouldn't it fall faster?"

  Dursten scratched his head. "You know, I never thought o' that! I'll go try it sometime."

  "Does this suggest to you that Galileo could not have performed the experiment attributed to him—or that if he did, and got the results claimed, he would not have derived that particular theory from it?"

  "Yeah, shore does, now you put it that there way."

  Norton sighed inwardly. The spaceman had not been able to take it any further than Norton himself had. He had questioned the Leaning Tower story at the outset, as a child, and been sure that Galileo's experiment must have been misrepresented in some way. For example, magic could have distorted the results. None of the other children had thought so, however, and they had ridiculed him for questioning it. Norton himself had never been quite certain whether he had a valid argument or was merely finding fault with what he did not properly understand. Had Dursten been able to offer a better explanation, he could have been accepted as an independent entity. But the spaceman knew, if anything, less than Norton himself did—and that was no proof he was not a figment of a dream.

  "Thank you. Bat. I'm afraid I must decline to accept your advice. This does not imply any criticism of—"

  "That's okay, Nort. Can I step down now?"

  "By all means."

  The spaceman stepped out of the alcove. "Say, that shore was funny!" he said. "For a while there I felt like I was somebody else!"

  "Let me try that," Excelsia said. She stepped into the second alcove, placing her dainty feet where indicated.

  She froze. "Say, she's pretty as a pitcher!" Dursten remarked appreciatively.

  She was indeed, Norton reflected. Pretty as a fine porcelain pitcher with a classic picture painted on it. He went to stand directly before her. "Hello, Excelsia."

  "Oh, hello, Sir Norton," she replied, reanimating sweetly. "But I'm not exactly the Damsel at the moment."

  "She shore looks like a Damsel to me!" Dursten remarked.

  "I understand," Norton said.

  "Will you accept my advice, O noble querent?"

  "First may I try a sample?"

  Her fair brow furrowed. "A sample of what, sirrah?"

  "Of your advice, of course."

  "Oh." Her brow cleared. "Certainly, Sir Norton."

  "If the universe and everything in it doubled in size in an instant, would anybody notice anything different?" This was another question that had frustrated him, because his answer had differed from that of everyone else. Such differings had set him apart from his peer group, perhaps putting him on a path to self-isolation in the wilderness, where philosophy and reality were one. He believed this was another good question for the occasion.

  Excelsia pondered prettily. "I don't think so," she said. "I mean, sirrah, if everything were twice as big, including the yardsticks and people, there really wouldn't be any change, would there?"

  That was the standard answer. "But what about the square-cube ratio?"

  "The what?" she asked, perplexed.

  "The surface area of objects increases by the square, while volume increases by the cube," he explained. "If you doubled the diameter of the planet and the height of the man standing on it, his mass would multiply by a factor of eight and the mass of the planet by a similar factor, so his actual weight would be something like sixty-four times as much as before, while the cross section of his legs would be only four times as much. The burden on each square inch of his feet would be about sixteen times the prior burden—without strengthening his flesh. He would collapse and die in short order; it would be like standing on Jupiter—"

  "Oh," she said blankly. "I've never been to Jupiter. Are you sure?"

  "It's why ants aren't the size of elephants. The square-cube ratio prevents them from achieving such great size without changing form radically."

  "But the big termites—"

  Excellent point! Scientifically, those monsters were impossible! But he had the answer. "Magic changes things, of course. Without magic, those huge termites could not exist."

  "Then—with magic, the universe could double!"

  Another nice point; she was certainly smarter than Dursten. But her point
was flawed. "Magic is limited to planetary range. Sections of the universe are not magic; these would perish. The laws of science, in contrast, are universal, so science is what applies here. Thus, where magic overrides science, as here, huge termites are possible, but the doubling of the universe remains impossible."

  "That's for shore!" Dursten agreed. "I never had no truck with none o' that there magic."

  Norton had eliminated Excelsia as an independent thinker; she, like Dursten, knew less than he did. The dream-world hypothesis, so far, was two for two. "You may step down, Damsel."

  She stepped out of the alcove, seeming perfectly normal now that her interview was over. She brought out a little mirror and checked her makeup.

  "Must be your turn," Norton said to the Alicorn. "Want to try an alcove?"

  "An Alicove!" Dursten said, chuckling. The Alicorn shrugged and stepped into the third. This one turned out to be larger than it looked; there was room. He put his forehooves on the footprints and froze. "Hello, Alicorn," Norton said. "Can you speak?"

  The Alicorn animated. Telepathically, he projected. But I am not exactly the animal at the moment.

  "I understand."

  "I shore don't," Dursten said. "What in space is going on?"

  "The Alicorn is telepathic," Excelsia said. "Everyone knows that."

  The spaceman was silent, embarrassed. Obviously he hadn't known—and neither had Norton. It seemed the Alicorn generally didn't bother to communicate that way to people with whom he was not tame.

  Will you accept my advice?

  "First I must question you."

  Proceed.

  "This is a scientific question. You are a magical creature. Can you handle it?"

  In this guise I can.

  "It is said, scientifically, that the mass of an object increases as that object is accelerated toward the velocity of light. Thus nothing can actually reach the speed of light, because its mass would become infinite."

  True.

  "But what, then, of light itself? Doesn't its mass become infinite—thus preventing it from achieving its set velocity?"

  Light is massless, so is not affected.

  "But it bends around stars. It is affected by gravity, and gravity is the force that acts on mass. Light must have mass."

  The Alicorn sent no thought; he was unable to answer.

  Norton dismissed him and moved to the final alcove. The Bemme entered it, settling her base on the footprints. She froze.

  He went through the ritual, animating her in the new office. He asked her his most difficult question: "Are you conversant with the scientific theory of relativity?"

  "Naturally. We Bems grasped it long before Man did."

  "Then you know that when a spaceman takes off from Earth and accelerates to a significant fraction of the velocity of light, he experiences the phenomenon of time dilation. For him and his ship, time seems to slow, so that at the end of a trip of perhaps a month, he returns from the far reaches of the galaxy to discover that the folk back on Earth have aged maybe centuries and all his friends are gone."

  "Shore, any fool knows that!" Dursten put in. "Happens all the time. That's why a true spaceman's got to love 'em and leave 'em; they're old hags when he makes port again."

  "Continue," the Bemme said.

  "But a prime tenet of special relativity is that everything is relevant; there is no absolute standard of rest. So, while from Earth the spaceman seems to be traveling at nearly light-speed and suffering time dilation, the effect is opposite from the spaceman's view. To him. Earth is traveling at nearly light-speed and suffering the time dilation. So when he rejoins Earth, he should discover that the folk on Earth have aged only a fraction as much as he has. How do you resolve this paradox?"

  "There is no paradox," the Bemme said. "Though for a while each party perceives the other as functioning more slowly than itself, this is largely a matter of perspective."

  "Perspective? They can't both be right!"

  "Perspective," she repeated firmly. "If you are on one spaceship, and I am on another, and our ships drift apart in space, to each of us the other's ship will appear smaller than his own, together with the people in it. The instruments of each will measure that diminution of size in the other. Each viewer is correct—but this is perspective, not paradox."

  "Say, I never thought of it that way!" Norton exclaimed.

  "Me neither," Dursten said.

  "The human species does tend to cogitate shallowly," the Bemme agreed politely.

  "Hey, watch it with them dirty words!" the spaceman said.

  "But does this mean," Norton asked, wrestling with the paradox of perspective, "that when the spaceman returns to Earth, there will be no difference in their time frames? Once the distortion of perspective is eliminated?"

  "No, there will indeed be a difference, though not as great as perspective made it seem. The spaceman will have aged less than the folk on Earth."

  "But then the principle of relativity—the apparent slowing of the Earth, from the spaceman's viewpoint—"

  "Perspective does not change reality," the Bemme said patiently. "Despite your planet's apparent slowing, from the spaceman's perspective, there is a distinction. He ages less."

  "Now I can't accept that just on your say-so! What dis—"

  "The distinction of acceleration. The spaceman experiences it; Earth does not. To each party, the other is retreating at increasing velocity, but only the spaceman feels the extra gees. This distinguishes his condition from that of Earth or the rest of the universe; his time is slowed."

  "Acceleration? Why should that—?"

  "Besides," Dursten put in, "he decelerates when he comes home, so it cancels out." He seemed to have forgotten which side of the issue he was on.

  "There is no such thing as deceleration," the Bemme said. "There is only negative acceleration, which is to say, acceleration in the opposite direction. The spaceman accelerates twice—when he is departing from Earth and when he returns to it."

  "Very well," Norton said. "So he accelerates twice. What has that to do with time?"

  "Everything. It is easier to understand in the frame of general relativity, which relates to gravity. Gravity slows time, literally—and the effects of gravity are indistinguishable from those of acceleration. So when the spaceman accelerates, or as Dursten so quaintly puts it, decelerates, his time slows—regardless of the temporary effects of perspective."

  "Gravity slows time?" Norton asked dully.

  "Certainly. The effect reaches its extreme at the so called event horizon of a so-called black hole, which is a stellar object of such density and mass that gravity increases to the point at which light itself can not escape, and time slows to eternity. Thus the spaceman bold enough to travel there would become truly timeless."

  "But nothing escapes from a black hole!" Norton protested. "How can we ever know what goes on there?"

  "Three ways. First, we have worked it out theoretically, in the form of the general theory of relativity. Second, we have tested it by experimenting with lesser levels of acceleration and gravity; it has been verified that the intensity of gravity does affect a clock. Third, we have explored black holes magically and recorded the effects there. In this manner, magic, far from opposing science, facilitates it."

  "So there is no clock paradox?" Norton asked weakly.

  "Correct," the Bemme agreed. "And, I might add, your other questions were somewhat deficient in aptness. You confused the theoretical work of Galileo with that of Newton and misstated their conclusions; and as for the infinite mass of anything traveling at light-speed, you failed to take cognizance of the fact that an infinite series can have a finite total. Mass and energy are merely different aspects of the same reality; mass is merely solidified energy. So when an object accelerates toward C, or light-speed, the energy required to—"

  "Enough!" Norton cried, his mind spinning. The Bemme obviously knew more than he did, and was teaching him things he had never grasped before and could not now
dismiss as nonsense. This was the mind he had been seeking. "I will accept your advice."

  "An excellent decision," the Bemme said, stepping out of the alcove. "What is your problem?"

  "I'm stuck in this frame and I need to get back to Earth. How do I return?"

  "You never left Earth," she told him. "That should have been obvious to you the moment you remembered that magic is limited to planetary scale; you can not tour the universe by magic."

  "You mean I am in a dream? Then how do I wake?"

  "You are not in a dream. You are in an illusion fostered by the Father of Illusion. You must find a way to perceive reality with certainty; that will vanquish the illusion."

  "An illusion?" Norton asked, still reeling. "Are you an—?"

  "No. I am what I seem—a creature alien to your planet. I needed a job, and your Figure of Evil hired me for this role."

  Norton looked at the others. "And they—?"

  "They, too, are role players—but they don't know it. For them, the roles have become reality. This is perhaps just as well, for it prevents them from realizing they are damned."

  "And you are not?"

  "I am not of your socio-political-religious frame. I have no attachment to your Incarnative figures of Good or Evil. I deal with them on a purely practical basis. Your damnation does not relate to me. When I tire of this job, I will seek some other."

  "How do I perceive reality, then?"

  "That I can not tell you. I can describe reality to you in superlatively accurate detail, but only you can perceive it. As with any natural function, you must do it yourself."

  Surely true! "But if I am on Earth, why do I perceive the make-believe world of the Magic-Lantern Cloud? I mean, now that I know—"

  "I have some difficulty grasping the irrationalities of your species," the Bemme confessed. "I presume you find some private satisfaction in the perceptions you maintain, and the Lord of Buzzbugs caters to this innate propensity."

  "Buzzbugs?"

  "I think you call them flies. Small creatures with pretty eyes. On my planet we call them buzzbugs, because their tentacles buzz as they levitate."

  The Bemme was a real font of information! Perhaps almost too much information. "Um, Sning—do you know how I can break out?"