The Mind Pool tmp-1

by Charles Sheffield

  It was Leah. No matter what illusion the Morgan Construct might be able to create within a human mind, Chan was sure that it could not do this. The consciousness touching him was filled with memories that only he and Leah shared. She was deep inside him, even though he could see her, still sitting astride his body and smiling down at him. She was naked, and her skin glowed — with a color that Chan had never seen before. He realized that he was seeing her through the Angel’s thermal infrared sensor.

  Tinker components were fluttering at his bonds, loosening them. Leah squatted back on her haunches, took Chan’s hands, and helped him to sit up. She was smiling at him. As she moved close and kissed him on the mouth he felt a new stirring of multiple pleasures — in himself, in her, and in the other three members of the group.

  She put her arms around him, and they hugged each other close.

  “They told us you were dead,” he murmured. “They said that you met the Construct, and it destroyed you. We believed them, believed that Nimrod had killed all of you. I should have had more faith. You killed Nimrod.”

  NIMROD? The feeling through Chan’s body was like an intense electric shock, yet its current was bright laughter, direct in his mind, CHAN, YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. NIMROD COULD NOT KILL US. WE COULD NOT KILL NIMROD. CHAN, WE ARE NIMROD.

  No more words, but in their place images and raw information, an intense, mind-stretching torrent. WE MET THE CONSTRUCT. WE WERE AFRAID. AND WE CHANGED. SEE THIS (FEEL this, KNOW this). Everything at once, an explosion of parallel data inputs bursting inside Chan’s head …

  * * *

  IMAGE: …the Alpha Team is frozen in position. Above them, floating down with all weapons ports open, the Morgan Construct.

  Too late to flee.

  This is the moment for Ishmael the Tinker to fall apart in independent components, for Angel to stand useless and immobilized, for S’glya to seek futile escape in the bounding leaps of a terrified Pipe-Rilla.

  The group coalesces…

  FUSION: …every component of Ishmael flies to a new position, embedding Leah, S’glya and the Angel within the Tinker’s extended body. After a split-second of chaos, combination takes place. Instead of a pursuit team of individual members, a single mentality exists…

  IMAGE: …the Morgan Construct is ready to obliterate everything. Weapons ports are glowing with impending energy release, while the air shimmers with electromagnetic fields. Ionization forms a violet-blue nimbus around the broad head and latticed wings…

  EVALUATION: …the Mentality formulates and reviews a score of options. It holds within it the structure of the Morgan Construct, together with all the separate and combined capabilities of the pursuit team…

  ACTION: …the option is selected. A tone, loud and pure, emerges from the communications box on the Angel’s midsection. At the same time a second note, precisely placed in pitch, phase, and volume, comes as an octaves-higher scream from S’glya, and a higher overtone from individual Tinker components.

  The Morgan Construct pauses. A fraction of a second later, its wing panels begin to vibrate.

  COMMENT: …CONSTRUCT DESIGN DEFECT. RESONANCE POTENTIAL IN INORGANIC CONTROL CIRCUITS. VULNERABILITY TO ACOUSTIC/ELECTROMAGNETIC COUPLING. NO SAFETY LEVEL ESTABLISHED. OVERLOAD AND SHUTDOWN…

  IMAGE: …the Construct begins to shake. A crackling sound from the body cavity, a violent series of random jerks. The latticed wings twist. (OVERLOAD) A final shudder. The Constructs frame locks to a fixed position, floats in silence to the forest floor. A dozen Tinker components fly across and enter the body cavity…

  COMMENT: …NO PERMANENT DAMAGE. IMMOBILIZED FOR STUDY OF CONSTRUCT MENTAL PROCESSES AND PATHOLOGY.

  IMAGE: …beside the quiet form of the Morgan Construct, the pursuit team members huddle. The whole group lies motionless in the dark forest depths, every external sensory input damped to lowest levels…

  COMMENT: …THE TIME OF WONDER, THE TIME FOR INTROSPECTION. SO WE BECAME NIMROD, SO WE ARE NIMROD. NO MORE CAN BE GIVEN, TO ONE WHO IS NOT YET A POOLED MIND. FAREWELL.

  Chan lay supine on damp leaf mold. Knowledge of his surroundings bled back into his mind. It had been as intense as a bolt of lightning, and as short-lived. He had abandoned his own body for hours, yet no time had passed. He and Leah still held each other close, her lips still brushed his cheek.

  He took his first breath in an eon, lifted his head, and stared around him. Nothing. The forest was dark as ever. Only a trace of remembered after-image seen through the Angel’s sensors told him where the other team members had been. He fancied a brief whirring of tiny wings, twenty feet away, then he and Leah were alone.

  Chan allowed his head to fall back to the damp, soft cushion of leaves. His brain was jellied and contused, with the familiar agony of a bad session on the Stimulator. It was better to lie in silence, to feel but not to think. Thinking was pain.

  “Chan.” It was Leah’s calm voice again, wakening him, whispering in his ear. “Chan, it was hard on you, but we knew no other way. You resisted fusion. The only way that we knew was to take you by force, when emotion was strongest and you were unguarded. We are sorry it had to happen that way.”

  Chan said nothing. “We are sorry,” said Leah again. “Here is a promise: It will never happen that way again. It was not done to use you, only to bring you quickly to union.”

  “Who are you?” Chan did not think he had spoken those words, but the body that lay alongside his, touching now from breast to thighs, jerked in reaction.

  “You know who I am.” The voice in the darkness was puzzled. “I am Leah.”

  “No. Not any more. You are Nimrod. What happened to the Leah that I knew?”

  “Ah.” A sharp, indrawn breath of comprehension. “Nimrod, yes. But truly, I am still Leah, no less than I ever was. I am more, because I am part of Nimrod also.”

  “My Leah has gone.”

  “Gone? Rubbish!” Leah’s voice lost its dreamy, far-off tone. “What are you talking about, gone? I’m right here, the same as I always was. She slapped her hand hard on his bare chest, making him start at the unexpected blow.

  “Who do you think did that to you, if I’ve gone?” she went on. She lifted herself up and leaned over him, her sharp elbow digging into his shoulder. “If you think that I’m some sort of illusion, or just a part of something else, then you’re wrong — dead wrong. I m still me. I still think, I still breathe, I still laugh, and I still love. Get that into your thick skull, Chan Dalton.” She slapped his chest again, harder than ever. “That’s me doing that to you, not Nimrod. When I first spoke to you today, that was me. When we made love, that was me. If you don’t understand that, you’ve got rocks in your head instead of brains. You were merged, and now you’re not. Do you feel any less, because we were fused?”

  Chan shook his head slowly in the darkness. It was Leah all right, beating up on him, just like in the old days when he had been bad. “I don’t feel less. I feel different.”

  “Different, and more.” Leah was not leaning over him any more. He knew that she was standing up. “Remember this, Chan. I’m still all that I ever was. I love you as much now as I did back in the Gallimaufries, when you were all I had, and I was all that you had. We have both changed since then, and you have changed more than I have. But remember one thing, when the time comes for you: Humans are the most difficult element. We form the pacing tactor for everything. So when it happens, relax. Thanks to what happened here, you’re halfway along the road.”

  “The road to what?”

  “You’ll see. Very soon.” She bent over, to give him a final soft kiss on the cheek. “It was all necessary, and it was wonderful, too. Better than I’d ever dreamed it might be.”

  Chan heard light footsteps, running away across the soft carpet of Travancore’s surface. As he sat up, a faint light came bobbing towards him, weaving its way through the high cover of the creepers. It was S’greela, moving rapidly with the tubby form of Angel tucked under two mid-limbs. The dark nimbus of Shikari
breezed along close behind.

  “You are safe?” said S’greela.

  Chan was ready to grumble at her: he might be safe enough now, but he was also exhausted, scraped by creepers, covered in dirt, wet, wild-eyed, naked, and mentally battered. Where had the others been, for God knows now long?

  He could not say any of it. He had found an instruction in his mind, something that Nimrod had slipped there along with the high-pressure information flow. It was waiting, a time bomb that had just ticked its way down to zero.

  Chan lay back on the dark soil. S’greela and Angel moved close, to touch him. Shikari swarmed in to cover and connect them. The first stir of interaction began. Chan felt his way inward, following the flow of the stream. There it was. The others were ready, had been ready long ago.

  Leah is right. We humans are the most difficult element.

  The others laughed their reply. Chan closed his eyes.

  And opened his mind.

  Contact began, immediate and powerful. The surge of current passed through every cell of his body, sending Chan off on a tidal wave of pleasure and satisfaction. It was the cozy feeling of the pursuit team, sitting together late at night, amplified a thousand times, a million times, a billion times. Four minds re-oriented … meshed … settled into mentality mode. Saturated. Contact was complete.

  Chapter 36

  First there was the naming of names. The new mentality decided quickly. It would be Almas, a name for a mind as clear and hard as diamond.

  Second came the data transfer. The information flow from Nimrod to Almas was rapid. The primary, secondary and tertiary files that Nimrod had loaded into Chan occupied the new mentality for less than twenty seconds. At the end of that time, Almas knew all that Nimrod knew of mentality origin and nature.

  The quaternary data file was the smallest in volume, but it had been nagged by Nimrod for special attention. Almas began the review.

  It found a record of the first hours following Nimrod’s own formation, interleaved and overlain with Nimrod’s analysis. The record structure was designed to guide the new mentality through a multi-channel flow, a hyperweb of facts, conjectures, and conclusions.

  The naming of names. The mentality that in separation had been Team Alpha was filled with excitement and pride at the miracle of its own creation. It was Nimrod. Nimrod existed as a fusion of will, information, desire, and understanding.

  The naming was the first act. The second involved the captured Morgan Construct. It had to be placed in long-term stasis, until its flaws could be understood and remedied. Already there was a clue. M-29, compelled to fulfill its destiny and unable to do so on Cobweb Station, had become insane.

  The third act was the most dangerous: regression, back to individual team members.

  The mind pool dispersed, dissolved, faded. Leah, S’glya, Ishmael and the Angel stood silent for endless minutes, staring at each other. They were looking at strangers, at parts of their lost self. Finally they made their separate ways back to the upper levels of the Travancore forest. Like components of a Tinker Composite, each part of the mentality must serve its own needs for food, drink, and rest.

  Interval. A gap in the record.

  In the tent, high in the jungle, Nimrod was re-assembling for a specific purpose. The great news must be transmitted through the Link to Anabasis Headquarters.

  A message was created, and innocently sent. The mentality assumed that news of its existence would be received with Nimrod’s own enthusiasm for the event. With the message went a request for transfer up to the Q-ship of Nimrod itself, and the now-harmless Morgan Construct.

  There was a long delay. Mondrian’s face appeared on the screen, then vanished again. The mentality waited Nimrod knew of the need to make allowance for the slowness and inadequacy of single-species thought.

  The Anabasis reply came: Leave the Morgan Construct in stasis on Travancore. Fly yourselves at once in the landing capsule, up to the Q-ship that holds the blockade on the planet.

  Nimrod possessed the empathy of a Pipe-Rilla, the quirky variable logic of a Tinker, the analytical capability of an Angel — and the irrational suspicion of a true human. The message from the Anabasis conflicted with Nimrod’s perception of the plausible.

  The landing capsule flew up to the high-orbiting Q-ship. Forty kilometers from rendezvous, the capsule was vaporized by a high-intensity salvo.

  But Nimrod was still in the tent, hiding beneath Travancore’s vegetation. The capsule had been flown under remote control.

  Now Nimrod was stranded on the surface of the planet. There was plenty to occupy the power of the mentality’s intellect.

  The data stream that had come from Nimrod to the new mentality now added a modifying field, to show a change from reporting of fact to the field of conjecture and probabilistic analysis.

  The Anabasis sought to destroy Nimrod, but wanted the Construct left behind on Travancore. In this case, the goals of the Anabasis can be equated to the goals of Esro Mondrian.

  Conjecture: Esro Mondrian has need of the Morgan Construct.

  Contradiction: The pursuit teams were sent to Travancore by the Anabasis to destroy the Morgan Construct.

  Analysis: On Barchan, Team Alpha had not destroyed their Simmie Artefact. They had (like Chan’s team) subdued it, and sought to hide the evidence.

  If Esro Mondrian knew that fact (probable, at a 0.93 level), then he would expect Team Alpha to be equally incapable of destroying the Construct.

  Deduction: Team Alpha had been sent to Travancore by Mondrian, who saw three possible outcomes for the confrontation with the Morgan Construct:

  1) The Construct would destroy Team Alpha. This result was the most probable, and it offered no new danger to the Anabasis or Esro Mondrian. The Construct would survive. Travancore would remain as a blockaded world. Additional pursuit teams could be sent to Travancore.

  2) The pursuit team would destroy the Construct. The events on Barchan made this the least probable outcome.

  3) The pursuit team would subdue the Construct, but not destroy it. The Construct and the pursuit team would return together from Travancore.

  End of data file.

  Nimrod had deliberately omitted the final part of the analysis, leaving it to the new mentality to draw its own conclusion.

  Almas did so, without effort.

  Esro Mondrian had hoped for the third of Nimrod’s perceived outcomes: a pursuit team would subdue or disable the Construct, but not destroy it. Mondrian needed the Construct, for some unknown purpose. After its capture, the pursuit teams could be disbanded.

  However, none of those three outcomes had been a threat to Mondrian, nor would any of them require the destruction of a pursuit team by the Anabasis.

  Conclusion: The creation of the mentality had been a total surprise to Mondrian. This was the event that he saw as an intolerable threat. The destruction of Nimrod had therefore become Mondrian’s prime goal, with the saving of the Morgan Construct of secondary importance. He had ordered the Q-ship to vaporize the capsule as it returned from Travancore without the Morgan Construct. That had been done, but spectral analysis of the vaporized ship had surely told Mondrian that the pursuit team was not on board.

  A second pursuit team had therefore been sent to Travancore, with the hope that it would destroy Nimrod and also subdue the Morgan Construct. Instead, it had formed another group mind. And now, like Nimrod, it was in danger from Mondrian. It was possible that at any moment the full destructive power of the Q-ship would be turned on Travancore. But that would not happen, so long as Mondrian thought that the second pursuit team had not formed a mentality, and might destroy Nimrod.

  Almas drew a final conclusion, based on Chan’s insight into the mind of Esro Mondrian. The obsessed leader of the Anabasis would not be content to monitor the situation on Travancore from distant Ceres. If he were not already on the Q-ship, he would be likely to Link to it very soon. Return from Travancore would be more dangerous than ever.

  The mentali
ty clung tighter for a moment, sharing that concern. Then the union ended. As dissolution began, Chan found himself sitting on the forest floor, dirty and naked. He stared around him in surprise. The images front Nimrod had been of such clarity and depth that Almas had been there also, in a tent high in Travancore’s jungle.

  The other three team members waited in dreamy silence as Chan recovered his clothing. With S’greela lighting the way they drifted slowly back up a spiral tunnel. After their bonding, speech was inadequate.

  Only Shikari spoke as they ascended. The Tinker talked trivia, of Coromars and Maricores.

  Naturally, thought Chan. Merging units is nothing for a Tinker. Shikari must wonder why the rest of us think it’s such a big deal.

  They reached the tent as the last rays of Talitha’s light were cutting across the forest overstory. Amazingly to Chan, they had been away less than a single day.

  Each team member settled into a preferred resting place. Chan had no appetite, but he forced himself to nibble on a biscuit and found at once that he was ravenous. He watched with detached surprise as he wolfed down masses of protein-rich synthetics. The energy drain of their merged state must be formidable.

  He wanted to talk to the others about Almas, and realized that he could not. There was no way that words could say anything about that experience.

  “I now sympathize with Vayvay,” said S’greela suddenly. She had been eating also, with fierce concentration. “If a Coromar feels hunger like this all the time; naturally there is little room for other thought. We must go back, and explain that we are safe.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Shikari. “Vayvay has plenty of food, and will be more than happy to wait for us.”

  “Never do tomorrow what can be done today,” said Angel. “However, in this case you are right, and an exception may be admitted. Tomorrow will suffice for Vayvay.”

  The others might be able and willing to chat, but it was too much for Chan. Today had been the Tolkov Stimulator all over again; the painful expansion of mind, the blinding mental Tight that made everything that had gone before seem dim and feeble. And yet Chan yearned to be part of Almas again, to feel the enveloping warmth of the mind pool …