The Symbionts of Murkor

by Tarulli, Gary

  Message from HealthScan available.

  Anyone who could afford it had embedded a subcutaneous micro device/nanoinfuser that, among its many diverse capabilities, could be programmed to send encrypted reports to one’s personal mindstor.

  “Play message,” Ellis said.

  Pregnancy detected. Term: Ten days. No level two genetic abnormalities.

  “Gender?” Ellis asked, her heart racing.

  Male.

  A boy! A wonderful surprise! In some things she and Brian had let Nature take its desired course. There were notable exceptions:

  “Relay message to HealthScan: Implement Family Planning NP1.”

  Completed. HealthScan confirms reception.

  Which meant that if all went well with her current pregnancy, which modern medicine made a near certainty, she would not conceive a third child.

  Reclining in the AirCar that would take her to Coalition’s capital, New Detroit, she made one more vital decision.

  To forego the chardonnay she planned on having with dinner.

  ***

  By decree of city planners, and belying its own importance, half of IHI regional headquarters’ seventy-four levels had been situated underground. Thankfully, for Davis, Research and Development occupied five of the highest floors, affording him a stunning view of Rivière des Prairies as it meandered past central Montreal’s silver-blue spires.

  He did some of his best thinking staring out windows. Now those thought processes, aided by crucial contributions from Gustavo and several others, were beginning to bear fruit.

  Or so he hoped, for there remained a great deal of uncertainty in the groundbreaking territory they were charting.

  The many ways in which human intelligence were approximated and amplified—from circuit boards processing strings of binary code to quantum computers and subsequent iterations—had, a generation ago, been outmoded by IHI’s development of the mindstor. It had accomplished this marvel by infusing a molecularly engineered hydrocolloid with the “circuitry” of the left frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, specifically that area of the brain associated with reasoning, problem solving, logic and speech. The results—an exponential increase in information processing and a corresponding reduction in energy usage and heat production—were quantitatively revolutionary.

  Original thinking, however, was still primarily the purview of the human brain. The mindstors utilized on Murkor were fitting examples of AI’s limitations.

  IHI gave Davis free rein to pursue a different, additive, approach. Why not, he postulated, supplement a mindstor’s hydrocolloid with the intuitive, creative, meditative thought centers of the brain? With his intimate relationship with Ellis being inspirational, he proposed that the best way to proceed was when a human subject, a mentor, was experiencing the psychophysical effects , the state of mind, of deep meditation.

  And so, one day months ago, sticky mat and duffel in hand, Ellis arrived at IHI. After passing through security, she was eagerly greeted by Davis, who guided her to the seventy-first level where she changed from military uniform into loose yoga clothing. Upon performing the stretching exercises that helped her to relax, she was ushered into a R&D room. The lights were unnecessarily dimmed, and (just as unnecessarily) directions issued to maintain a modicum of silence. A team of technicians fitted her with the “skullcap” necessary for the infusion process to proceed.

  Unfurling the sticky mat, she assumed the full lotus position: Back straight, bare feet tucked on opposite thighs, hands resting on knees, thumbs and index fingers touching to forming an “O,” the hand mudra of choice. Sprouting Medusa-like from her head, a tangle of wires connected to banks of softly glowing electronics humming their own insensate mantra.

  It was an image, Davis vividly remembered, of striking contrasts, her lithe form and ancient pose incongruous with the modern trappings of science and technology.

  All that had taken place months ago. They were still struggling with the outcome.

  The complex process of converting brainwaves originating from the right frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex into a usable form had, as anticipated, been their first obstacle. The precise degree in which to infuse that creation into the hydrocolloid of an existing mindstor would turn out to be the greater impediment. Levels were constantly adjusted and rebalanced with mixed results—the mindstor’s replies to speculative inquiries often confused, but they also showed a spark of original, intuitive thinking. To Davis, this was cause for optimism, for although responses were often unverifiable or subject to multiple interpretations, it could also be said that more came out than went in.

  Gustavo, aware of the diversion it would create, suggested that one fitting test of the mindstor’s capabilities would be to pose a series of inquiries deemed either to be deliberately obscure, or unanswerable. Davis recalled two favorites among many:

  Q: Mindstor, is there a God?

  A: If you want there to be.

  Q: What is the meaning of life?

  A: All.

  It almost seemed that the mindstor had the ability to outsmart them, Gus had remarked.

  Wasn’t that exactly the point of it all? Davis had responded, agreeing that more research would be necessary before Mindstor II could be let loose on an unsuspecting public.

  There were, in the meantime, those small flashes of insight and brilliance. Several months later, with the latest right brain/left brain rebalancing complete, Davis suggested they move forward, testing the issue with a new inquiry.

  The inquiry.

  Held in abeyance, it had been his primary motivator.

  Nearly four years had passed since the “incidents” on Murkor. Four long years and the root cause of the strangeness that took place there, to those scattered few who still cared, remained a mystery. Disappointingly, there had only been halfhearted attempts at closure, principally by an investigative medical team dispatched from Varian, the same team that ultimately cleared transit off the planet. When they failed to advance a plausible explanation it was Stewart’s theory, although also lacking proof, which conveniently filled the vacuum.

  Discounted was the possibility of a nebulous entity stalking the planet, an allegation that had been previously studied and discredited as merely the fertile imaginings of the human psyche. This was true not just on Murkor, but planetary systems elsewhere. By the time a team of dispirited and disinclined scientists arrived to once again discover nothing, the reports of ‘alien contact’ had oddly abated. Not even Ellis, first to reenter Nadir’s-now-Zenith’s inexhaustible Tube N119, felt anything particularly noteworthy.

  Ultimately, Murkor’s isolation and the eroding property of time called into doubt whether anything uncommon had actually occurred on the planet. By then, a more captivating story, the windfall generated by the unexpected increase in anecrecium production, had diverted nearly everyone’s attention.

  The matter had, however, remained an unfinished chapter in the lives of those who had been directly or indirectly affected. Of them, only Davis, and later Gustavo, had found recourse to pursue a resolution.

  From the start, Davis understood the odds of succeeding were stacked against him. The first task: Ferreting out and transferring to an awakening Mindstor II every last scintilla of data pertaining to humanity’s tenure on Murkor, much of it out of reach within Unión mindstors on Nadir, Varian, and Earth. To this aim, he petitioned IHI for project assistance in the capable person of Gustavo Ramírez. That the petition was granted seemed to be as much an indication of IHI’s political influence as a harbinger of a subtle thaw in relation between rival superpowers. For Gustavo, none of the politics mattered. Based on his former association with Davis and a professional interest in the research project, he came willingly. If a solution were found to what had happened to him and his crewmates on Murkor, so much the better.

  The two men, in conjunction with Ellis, discussed how to phrase the initial inquiry, deciding, as Comandante Garcia had years before, that simplicity was best.

/>   “The only time I was this anxious about a response,” Davis commented, “was when I asked El to marry me.”

  “Really? I thought you and the Commander were a sure thing.”

  “What?!” Davis said in surprise.

  “Relax. Mariana clued me in. She’s got a sixth sense about those things.”

  “Great. How sure are you about this?”

  Gustavo always had Edgar Allan at the ready. “I have great faith in fools—self-confidence my friends will call it.”

  “And we are the best of friends,” Davis was quick to point out. “But here goes anyway.”

  “Mindstor. Research all available records pertaining to Murkor. Determine the probability of an unidentified organism or substance existing on the planet.”

  Unable to comply. The parameters of the inquiry are too limiting.

  Davis refrained from flashing Gustavo a disappointed look. Sure, it seemed like more of the usual BS. Or maybe, his gut told him, this time there would be more to it.

  “Explain.”

  There is a high probability that the entity can only be characterized as both an unidentified organism and an unclassified substance.

  “Maybe we’re on to something,” Gustavo said. “Keep with it.”

  Davis, restraining his excitement, thought for a moment. Having learned that the mindstor preferred simplicity, he asked:

  “Offer further proof.”

  There is a statistically significant correlation between reports of an entity’s presence and false positives issued by the Stanton Model 16xvb and AquaStatt Model 18xvb Sniffers used to detect ambient water molecules in parts-per-trillion.

  “We had the Stanton with us most of the time,” Gustavo said. “I can confirm the false positives.”

  “Same with the AquaStatt,” Davis replied. “The mindstor must realize they function using two entirely different operating systems—”

  “Which makes false positives much less likely,” Gustavo said, completing the thought.

  “But what the hell are we dealing with? An entity that’s all water? No way’s that possible.”

  “Ask.”

  “Mindstor. Is the entity water?”

  No.

  “What, then?”

  A mimic capable of rearranging subatomic particles to replicate the chemical and molecular properties of water.

  “For what purpose?”

  Concealment.

  “Was the biological stasis observed in Nadir’s crew induced by the entity?”

  Probable.

  “Why—strike that—to what aim?”

  To perpetuate the life of the affected humans.

  “For what purpose?”

  Unknown.

  “Mindstor, refer to Commander Ellis’s survival on Murkor’s surface without a rebreather. Was that incident facilitated by the entity?”

  Unknown.

  And so it went. A score of additional inquiries, followed by almost as many “unknowns.” For the present, they could get no further down the path they had embarked on.

  “If you can believe any of that,” Gustavo finally said, “then we’ve created a greater mystery than when we started.”

  A pensive Davis retreated from the table where they had sat for the last hour to stand at a west-facing window. Scattered sunlight had painted the sky orange; the shiny sides of spires mirrored the color of the reflected sky. “We have, my friend, once again set the wheels of inquiry in motion. Among the suppositions is that one hard fact a scientist can latch on to.”

  Gustavo nodded. “Yeah, curious as to those sniffers. Except, have you asked yourself to what extent the mindstor is reflecting the wishes, dreams, and imagination of one Missus Jennifer Ellis Davis?”

  “El!” Davis exclaimed, turning from the darkening sky. “Look at the time! We’re going to be late!”

  “Forty minutes to New Detroit. It will be tight.”

  ***

  When Garcia returned to Earth he was gratified to see that his aged father, although retired from politics, had retained much of the influence and craftiness that his thirty years in public service as ranking member of Unión’s Câmara de los Deputados could bestow. When an opportunity arose to fill a vacant position in that prestigious legislative body, the father, driven by filial pride and force of habit, immediately set about convincing his son to run for office. Although reticent at first, Garcia ultimately had to concede that the arguments put to him were as persuasive as the man making them.

  Foremost, Garcia had culminated a long and honorable military career on a high note. The hugely profitable venture on Murkor was viewed through the prism of national pride as having been largely his doing. His father knew that when his son was thrust into the public eye, the public would like what they saw: A distinguished, exceedingly handsome man who looked the part of a leader. It did not hurt El Comandante’s chances that he was also intelligent, well-spoken—and had the full backing of his politically savvy father. The election wasn’t even close.

  Beholden to almost no one, Garcia set about trying to make a difference. Drawing on his recent experience on Murkor, he hit upon what he believed to be exactly the right idea at exactly the right time. Of critical importance to that aim would be the speech he was about to give, the venue being an opulent lecture hall crowded with luminaries, dignitaries, and Coalition politicians. Sitting to both sides of him at the dais were the evening’s other speakers: Coalition’s vice president (who had just given the keynote address), a climatologist, a renowned sociologist, and representatives of three of the largest multinational corporations. He was in the midst of what some in his home country would call the enemy’s camp partly because of his notoriety, but mostly because he had asked for, and been granted, an invitation to attend. It helped that the topic under discussion, Economic and Sociological Disruptions Due to Climate Change, respected no boundaries.

  As he listened to himself being introduced he spotted El in the audience, sitting a few tables back, looking radiant in a bright green evening gown. Next to her were two empty chairs. Making eye contact, he watched her shrug, then beam, when Davis suddenly approached. All imposing two meters of him, running cover for the much shorter Gustavo.

  Taking a seat next to his wife, Davis somehow found the time to flash Garcia, himself moving to the podium, a sly grin, a sympathetic wink, and a “thumbs-up” sign. The crowd, he well knew, would have to be won over.

  “Thank you for the invitation and the kind words,” Garcia began in a forceful, clear voice. “Considering just how far I am from mi casa I shall do nothing to alleviate you of the positive sentiment.”

  Scattered laughter broke the silence and tension. Exactly what would this Coalition audience expect of him, Garcia wondered. He had composed his short speech literally on the fly from Unión’s current capital, Bogotá. Next year he’d be originating from San Paolo, the speed of transportation and communication negating the need—and the acrimony—of establishing one fixed capital.

  “We are gathered here compelled by circumstances to become enlightened students of climatology,” he continued. “For those of us who struggled through history, an anecdotal story comes to mind.

  “A man in an expensive, well-tailored suit stood alone on a dome. Looking north, east, south, and west all he could see was water and the tops of a few important-looking edifices. Unfazed, he sat down and began puffing on the stub of a fat cigar, sending acrid smoke curling into the atmosphere.

  “Eventually a boat appeared.

  “That’s odd, its concerned captain thought as he navigated closer. ‘Hello!’ he sung out from a prudent distance. ‘I shall come alongside and get you safely off there!’

  “‘You shall not,’ the man on the dome shouted back. ‘I am quite content to remain exactly where I am.’

  “‘But, my good man,’ the boat captain said, ‘you shall be at the mercy of the rising water.’

  “‘Nonsense,’ the smoking man said, flicking ashes into the ocean lapping at his feet. ‘
When the tide recedes, the land will return.’

  “‘Untrue,’ the boat captain said, humoring the man, ‘for this is low tide.’

  “‘Well, then,’ the smoking man said, getting a bit testy, ‘I shall wait for the sun to poke through the haze and dry this nuisance out.’

  “The captain was beginning to understand the stubborn nature of the person he was dealing with. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. ‘In case you change your mind, I shall send another boat along tomorrow.’

  “‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ the man on the dome said. ‘I never change my mind.’

  “‘Yes, I can see that,” the resigned captain said. “By the way,” he asked, seeking confirmation of his opinion of the man, ‘what is that building under you?’

  “‘Why, you damn fool, it is the Capitol, home of the Senate. I’m out here to get a bit of fresh air. My colleagues are still in session.’”

  After an awkward pause, half the audience began to politely laugh.

  “Exactly which capital and senate,” Garcia continued on, “I shall leave to your imagination. Looking back from where we came, we know that few governments fully embraced the urgency of climate change or did so belatedly. None had the political will to make the hard individual concessions that collective action required. We—our planet—dearly paid the price for their intransigence.

  “Exigencies compel us to look to the future. Let us do so with guarded optimism. I believe that we are in the infancy of a new type of warming, a global change in the political and social climate, this time for the better. We need only look to Murkor, to the furthest reaches of humanity’s strivings, for proof. It was there, through the heroism shown by Coalition citizens—two, I am gladdened to say, are in attendance tonight—that I personally witnessed affirmation of our better nature. A wellspring of goodwill was born from that encounter—and, not incidentally, a fair amount of wealth generated to our respective nations. As fortuitous as this is, I believe it is merely a token of what we can accomplish together. Or will we squander the opportunity this example of cooperation personifies? If it were to be at my sole discretion, I would be ashamed to allow it.