Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail flotd-4

by Jack L. Chalker

  Point 2: All of the flora and fauna on all four worlds logically match with our carbon-based life system, and all are integrated in biologically expected and balanced ways, except for the omnipresent Warden organism, which is unique unto itself. Here is a totally different kind of life that has no microbial relatives yet is static enough that its properties and behavior on each world is uniform and predictable. §uch an organism might be expected to mutate with lightning speed—after all, this is the common theory applied to the three worlds other than Lilith, that we spread the organism and it instantly mutated to meet the differing conditions. So I am asked to accept an organism that mutates instantly and perfectly to other planets, yet shows not the slightest sign of mutation or deviation on any of the four themselves. I find this biologically inconceivable. Therefore, I am forced to the conclusion that the Warden organism is an artificially created form of life superimposed on all four worlds by a common intelligence.

  The Warden organism is far too simple a creature to do more than cause an illness or two, yet it is integral to all four worlds and symbiotically matched to them. On Lilith the Warden organism obviously serves as a sort of planetary manager, keeping the ecosystem stable and static; this is what led to the prevailing view of a single source. I submit that evidence exists in ample amounts that the organism is equally the planetary manager of the other three worlds, and that a little hard research will show this to be so. We drew our original conclusions about the Warden organism because of its widely variable effects on humans and human perception and ability. But the Warden organism was not created and does not exist with humans in mind at all—it is there to keep the ecosystems of the four worlds within certain stable tolerances—in effect, to eliminate as many variables as possible.

  Charon and Medusa further demonstrate that the Warden organism, while chemically rather simple, has the ability to act collectively and to draw upon a vast amount of complex knowledge. This is less obvious on Cerberus and Lilith, but I can cite examples there as well, and I need only note how fast it is able to regenerate damaged and lost tissue in humans on all four worlds. But how is it able to draw upon and use such knowledge?

  At first I was drawn to the hypothesis of a collective intelligence for the organism—that is, each colony represented a cell or collection of cells in communication with other colonies, or cells, making up a single and physically discorporeal entity. I find no evidence to support this supposition, though, and much to support the conclusion that this is not true. People of Charon travel to Medusa, and vice versa, with no ill effects, although, surely, the distance between planets would be more than enough to sever their Wardens from any such planetary consciousness. On Lilith, for example, people can directly perceive the lines of communication between Warden colonies, yet they can perceive nothing of this while on other Warden worlds. Nor, in fact, could I conceive of such organisms even collectively storing and analyzing so many quadrillion-plus data bits just to do some fairly complex regenerations.

  But when I thought of the Wardens not in terms of cells but rather in terms of neural transmitters and receivers, the system made far more sense. Consider the nerve endings in your index finger. They serve only one function really—they transmit information to the brain. Burn them and the irritation reaches the brain, and the brain then transmits back through the same network corrective measures to repair the burn. Warden colonies, then, are the neural transmitters and receivers of information, remote sensors to a central brain source. Such a brain must in fact be a tremendously versatile computer of near infinite capacity. This theory then fits in with everything else.

  Everything all four worlds say about the Warden organisms on each also belies an external power source, as has been hypothesized as the reason for the so-called “Warden Limit” after which the Wardens run amok and destroy their hosts. The Wardens have been shown to be able to draw whatever they needed from the host for normal operation. On those rare occasions when more was demanded of them than the host could provide, they have shown a limited ability to make energy-to-matter and matter-to-energy conversions, although they are clearly not specifically designed to do so and, when demanded, this causes pain, discomfort, or danger to the host. Such an organism, unless far too much was demanded of it, would hardly self-destruct for the reasons supposed.

  However, when you realize that the Warden organism is, in fact, too simple an organism to do anything for itself, being merely a transmitter and receiver, what the limit implies is the limit of its ability to transmit and receive information from its computer.

  It is equally obvious that four different frequencies, perhaps four entirely separate transmitters, are in operation. This is why a Cerberan, for example, appears “Warden-dead” to a Charonese, who sees the Warden network in everything and everyone on his own world. But where are the brain’s transmitters and receivers—the Wardens’ base station, as it were? I suspect that there is a central computer outside the Diamond zone itself, perhaps on or beyond Momrath, although that gas giant with its rings and thousands of moons would be the most logical and logically placed location. This would transmit, in turn, to central areas, or subcomputers, on each of the four worlds, which would in turn directly govern those worlds. The two-tiered system would be extravagant, but it is one way of explaining why there is a fixed quarter of a light-year distance for travel from all four Diamond worlds, yet Cerberans can travel to Charon, for example, cut from their own planetary net but not from the central computer.

  On Medusa there is a “sacred mountain,” and, remaining there overnight, one is subjected to nightmarish alien dreams and sensations only to awaken the next day with a far greater control of the Wardens in his own body. This mountain, I am convinced, is over the central processor for Medusa’s Wardens. Medusans are already plugged into their Warden network, but here, so close to maximum signal, their Wardens are far more excited than elsewhere. The experience is somewhat akin to, I believe, what communications scientists call “front-end overload,” in which a signal too powerful for the electronics of a transceiver will produce a blasting but unintelligible signal. However, the human brain, which has some control over its Wardens, reacts to this overload much as protective circuits would in electronics—it recoils and damps the overload down. The tremendously high level of excitation the overload produced in the Wardens, however, makes the host far more aware of them and their energy flow.

  I am convinced that such points exist on the other three planets. I note, for example, that on all four worlds there are curiously similar religions based on planet worship, of a god who resides inside the world and is the source of all power for that world. If we were able to transport the entirety of Lilith’s population to its central processing facility, I am convinced that everyone would share the powers now limited to a few. The few who do, in fact, are mostly trans-portees to the planet who are likely to be more conscious of the energy flow than those bom with it in place. I shudder to think, however, of what such an overload would do to a Cerberan—madness, perhaps, or constant, uncontrollable body-changing, or perhaps the merging of minds into a single mass entity.

  Point 3: We are faced, then, with an incredibly advanced civilization technologically, far beyond anything we can imagine, a civilization that can terraform four worlds, and stabilize and maintain them with a single clever device (the Wardens), yet does not apparently use them for anything. Although these aliens, who are apparently called the Altavar, maintain a token force near the Medusan processing center, and probably near the others as well, I do not believe they inhabit any of the four worlds in any numbers. One of my counterparts theorized them as air-breathing water mammals, but I find it difficult to see how such a civilization could have developed such a high degree of technological advancement if limited to water. Indeed, the few Altavar that I saw, via my remote, appeared equally at home in air and sea, and probably would also be on land. These, of course, were bred to the conditions in which they had to live and work, and are most certainly not
representative of the Altavar masses in form of capabilities. Perhaps they are a token force, not guards or soldiers but on-site mechanics or engineers for the processor who simply relieve their boredom with random attacks on any who venture close.

  Now, since they went to all this trouble but do not at this time inhabit the four worlds in the broad understanding of that term, it remains to be determined why the project was undertaken at all. Certainly it has all the earmarks of a carefully established scientific experiment, but if this is so, they made no attempt to remove an inconstant variable when introduced—humans—even though they could have easily done so, and in a manner convincing enough that we wouldn’t have bothered with further settlement.

  Since they do not use the worlds now, they either had use of them in the’ past, in which case they couldn’t care less about humans being there now, or they have a use for them in the future, in which case they would care a great deal about our being there. Since they obviously do not care about present use, but are still very much around and involved in an action against the Confederacy, their use of the Diamond is obviously in the future.

  It bothered me from the start that the aliens, who allegedly could not take our form or infiltrate directly, could still immediately know all about our civilization and go just to the Four Lords, the only people likely to be on their side against us. Obviously, therefore, they came specifically to the Diamond, or were called there by the small permanent party when we landed on the places, and then discovered us. So we have a small cadre of aliens in place when we suddenly show up, which greatly surprised them. One can imagine the problem the small base parties faced. It would take some lime to report our arrival and have experts from wherever good little Altavar come from get here. Meanwhile, of course, the Warden organism was invading and trying to cope with this new element and threatening to destroy or transform the first exploiter teams. If I were in charge of such a base, I would play for time, and the best way to play for time would be to do what I could—and fast—to hold a representative segment of this new race for study while discouraging further approach and settlement. They did this by simply adding human beings to the program of their central computer, making the Warden, in effect, an alien disease that had terrible effects not only on “alien” life forms but also on “alien” machinery. It was a clever and resourceful ploy, and we fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

  The Altavar, obviously, were pleased with the arrangement and pleased that it had so obviously worked, and felt no need to go further at this tune. I suspect, though, that they were as surprised as we were at the odd and peculiar by-products the Wardens produced in human beings. I don’t think that those by-products, those bizarre powers, were programmed in, for their best interest would be in leaving us trapped but still ourselves, both for study and for control. It’s simply possible that the bioelectrical system that powers the human body operates within the same sort of range as the Warden transmitters, or fairly close. This would explain why some people have more powers than others, and some have little or none, on three of the worlds, anyway. You might say both our brains and nervous systems and their quasi-organic machines work on the same wavelengths.

  A side thought is somewhat illuminating and a little disturbing. In effect, the Warden invasion of human bodies made the humans on the Diamond creatures of the master computer just as the plants and animals and probably anything and everything else are. Everything from simple biology and biophysics all the way to the content of those human minds was sent to that computer. This information would give them all they needed in the way of human nature, human politics, human beliefs, and human history as well. This is how they learned so much about us without having to pay us a visit.

  This means, too, that they knew about our agents as soon as they were “assimilated” into the Warden computer system. Knew about our entire plot, in fact. So either they never made use of this information, which is possible, or they really find the Four Lords and their operation irrelevant to them. They certainly did nothing to tell the Four Lords of our plans, nor to inform them of any of our operations. They did nothing to warn or save Kreegan or Matuze, and they did nothing to warn Laroo or to keep him from coming under our control and influence. In point of fact, they must have known about Laroo’s treachery to them, but made no effort even to block the information on their damned robots from coming to us for analysis. They supply the robot masters to Cerberus, yet don’t really care if we know about it or even find a way to subvert the process. I find all this enlightening, and disturbing. It implies that they feel they have sufficient defenses to be invulnerable to attack on their interests—as opposed to those of the Four Lords and the people of the Diamond—and also that this entire sabotage war and its robot campaign are not something initiated by them but entirely conceived of and run by the Four Lords.

  But if they can defend easily, why allow this odd and diabolically clever campaign against us in the first place, one that would almost certainly attract attention to themselves when it was put into operation or prematurely revealed, as happened?

  The only possible answer is that several years ago the Altavar decided that they had at this time to make use of the Warden Diamond, and that we would get in the way. They decided, I believe, to attack the Confederacy in an all-out and brutal campaign of genocide but were talked out of it, or at least convinced to defer it, by Marek Kree-gan. The evidence for this is all over my alter-ego experiences and can be examined at leisure, but that evidence is inescapable. Kreegan, then, is a rather odd sort of hero. Fearing racial extermination and wholesale destruction of planetary populations in a defensive war against a foe technologically superior to us and unknown to us in the ways that count—including the location of their worlds and fleet—he sold them on a different sort of campaign, one that would strike at the very heart of the political and economic union of the worlds of the Confederacy, causing us to turn inward, to be unable to retain our unity, which is our only strength. It would cost countless lives, of course, and push much of humanity back into harsh barbarism, but we would survive. The other Lords bought the plan for revenge, and because it held out the promise of escape, to leave the Warden Diamond and be the ones to pick up the shattered pieces of the Confederacy. The Altavar bought it simply because it accomplished the same purpose as all-out war but much more cheaply. It is also clear that they didn’t have much faith in the plan’s success, but were willing to give the Four Lords just enough time and material support to try it just in case.

  Point 4: The aliens have decided we must be taken out, yet they have perfect confidence that they can lick us in any such war. Why, then, are we a threat to them at all? We don’t know where to hit them back, nor do we know enough about them to pose anything like the threat to their civilization that they are to ours. Therefore, we can interfere in some way that will cause them real trouble. As of now, the only point at which our two civilizations intersect is the Diamond. Obviously, they fear we can destroy it, or badly louse it up, and this must be of central importance to them. Saving the Diamond is their one priority here, the reason they were willing to buy Kreegan’s plot at all. So what is the Warden Diamond to them that they want it so badly? To go to these lengths it must be something of great racial importance to them, a matter of life and death.

  The Altavar can breathe the same air we do. They are almost certainly made up. of carbon chains in a.way that will be unusual, but still very understandable to our biologists. Therefore, it’s fairly easy to find their same racial least common denominators—they must be the same as ours. These three LCDs are food, shelter, and reproduction.

  I think we can dismiss food out of hand. The amount of protein and other food products that these four worlds could produce is insignificant in the light of an interstellar civilization’s needs. Besides, if they can work energy-to-matter conversions, they’ll never starve.

  Shelter is an obvious possibility. These four worlds were deliberately terraformed and stabilized, so they obviously w
ere intended to be settled. But a population that could be settled on four normal-sized planets is pretty small and hardly worth interstellar war to protect. Considering the number of terraformable planets humanity has found just in its galactic quadrant, total war over the colonization rights to four worlds we couldn’t use anyway because of the Warden organism just doesn’t make any sort of logical sense.

  That leaves reproduction. Defense of their young would make the behavior and attitudes they’ve exhibited so far totally comprehensible. Assuming their total alienness—evidence indicates that their thinking would be very strange to us, as you might expect—we might extend that to their biology as well. There is no reason to believe that their reproductive method is anything like our own. If we accept the Diamond as a breeding center, though, we must assume they reproduce very seldom or very, very slowly. If so, they are almost certainly extremely long-lived, and, by inference, this would indicate that the number of their eggs, or whatever, is enormous to require four worlds. The Warden organism, then, might be a protective device, keeping conditions for the eggs optimal while also defending them against basic threats. Its defensive capabilities may be very great, and the eggs must be deep inside the planets themselves. I suspect that the fact that there is geothermal activity only on the frigid world of Medusa is evidence that only there is some sort of temperature regulation necessary. They need it warm.