by C. Gockel
Giving a last little concerned look at Carl, Volka turned around. For a moment, she was silhouetted against the floor-to-ceiling glass doors on the opposite side of the dining room. And then the woman who had fought pirates, Guardsmen, and the Dark, who wasn’t afraid of death, gasped, jumped back, grabbed 6T9, and pulled him away from the door, trembling as much as Carl.
Eyes wide, she exclaimed, “Call Admiral Sato! We have to get out of here! Now!”
15
Fantastic Beasts
Galactic Republic: Shinar
Volka stared out the glass doors between the cafeteria and the Consulate garden, her eyes wide, body trembling. Towering over the capital of Shinar were three snowcapped peaks. The largest mountain, set back from the other smaller two, was belching smoke. She’d read about such things in Luddeccean Geographic—it was a volcano—and no matter how technologically advanced Shinar was, poisonous gas or falling rocks the size of footballs could kill thousands. She’d heard of animals sensing such things. Was that why Carl was upset? “Volcano!” she gasped. “Active!”
Carl squeaked in terror, though it was muffled by Sixty’s coat.
The Shinar man who had called them out for Carl’s presence a moment ago stopped and turned back toward them. Clearing his throat, he said, “It’s scheduled maintenance.”
“Of a volcano?” Volka demanded.
“Volka—” Sixty began to say.
“I suppose as a Luddeccean you’d be ignorant of such things,” he muttered.
“You can’t control nature!” Volka protested.
“We don’t just control nature, we’ve mastered it,” the man replied.
“That’s…that’s…arrogance!” Volka gasped. Was that why they didn’t even think about the Dark? Because they believed they were in control of everything?
The man held up a long, slender finger. “In 30.5 seconds, there will be a scheduled tremor.”
Volka stared at him, uncomprehending, and then she felt it: a gentle, barely perceptible wobble beneath her feet. If she hadn’t been paying attention, she would have thought she’d imagined it.
The Shinar man smiled wryly, inclined his head to her, turned on his heel, and walked away. Which was when Volka realized Sixty had been conspicuously quiet.
“They can control volcanoes?” Volka whispered. The sliding doors to the cafeteria were still open, and she looked apprehensively over her shoulder at the smoking peak. It made her stomach flip-flop. She couldn’t quite believe it.
Sixty said softly, “They’ve controlled that peak since the last eruption.”
Volka looked at the floor. “But volcanos are nature, and nature is…”
Shifting on his feet, Sixty completed her thought. “…and nature is the universe, and the sum total of the universe is God.” She hadn’t wanted to say it. Noa had said she’d be safe from institutionalization as long as she wasn’t proselytizing, but Sixty didn’t believe in God, and she’d thought the argument would be moot with him. But here he was taking her lines—well, almost. She hadn’t been about to say that last part about the sum total of the universe, but hearing it, she liked it. She liked it very much.
Sixty continued, “Eliza used to say that. It’s very Einsteinian. But humans have been controlling nature since the advent of fire…over a million years if you count early hominids like Homo erectus. Controlling nature is human nature.”
“And human nature is designed by God,” she said.
He didn’t roll his eyes; he narrowed them. “If God is the sum total of the universe, then certainly the evolution that sparked man’s need to use fire is a part of that.” He walked into the dining hall. There was a buffet along one wall, and from where Volka stood, she could smell there was no meat, eggs, or even milk. Following him in, she sighed at the offerings. There was some rice and berries which she could eat, but there was a lot of high-fiber cereals, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and jellies and jams that might contain xylitol—a sugar substitute that was toxic to her.
Sixty plucked a single earthy-smelling, grayish blob from a bowl. “Shinar truffles,” he said. “They used to grow only on Mt. Enmerker, but the frequent maintenance isn’t good for them. Now they only grow on Little Loaf, the smaller mountain to the east. They need volcanic ash to thrive, but there is enough ash deposited by Enmerker there. Never have had them. They are rumored to be…” He plopped the blob in his mouth and closed his eyes. “Amazingly chemically complex.” Rolling on his feet, he hummed, opened his eyes, and then winked. “I may not believe in God, but these are heaven.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, Volka turned her attention to the blobs. Sometimes mushrooms tasted meaty…She reached out for one, but Sixty caught her hand. “They’re hallucinogenic in canids.” He winced. “I should have thought of that before I ate one. It was rude of me.” Surveying the rest of the table, he said apologetically, “I’m sure we can find lab grown meat somewhere in the city. Do you want to get something to tide you over or—”
Volka looked out the window. Besides the smoking peak, the sky was a brilliant, crisp, clear blue above the snow-covered volcanic peak and its gentler companions. She eyed the few Shinar in the dining room, peering at her not so covertly. She couldn’t read their thoughts but… “Let’s just leave.”
Sixty grabbed some tofu chunks, and they exited the dining room through the glass doors that led to the garden. She glanced at the werfle. He’d crawled under Sixty’s lapel and up under his collar. He was where he had started out on Sixty’s shoulders, but inside Sixty’s coat, not on top of it. All that was showing of him was his tail.
She took a breath and smelled flowers, greenery, hover engines, and, almost imperceptibly, even to her weere nose, acrid soot. She’d smelled it last night when they’d arrived but hadn’t known its source then and hadn’t been alarmed. She tried to push the thought of the belching volcano from her mind. The day was lovely, warm enough for a dress with capped sleeves, but not too hot. And the garden was lovely, with flowers, carefully manicured shrubs, and abstract sculptures. Unlike the garden back at Luddeccea’s embassy, there were no armed Marines lined up along the inside wall. She blinked…but there were disguised Marines in the garden, sitting here and there on benches, or standing, cups of coffee in their hands. Their eyes were vacant—like they were working in the ether. As she and Sixty stepped close to a man she knew was Young by scent, he gave them both a curt, military nod. But when they left the garden, there was not a Shinar Guard outside the wall; no identification was needed. Her shoulders sank. There were no guards because Shinar did not know it was at war with the Dark. The thought made the cheery scene feel surreal.
Taking a breath, she tried to bring her train of thought back onto the track of the earlier conversation—just to forget the Dark for a bit.
6T9 had suggested that God might be the sum total of the universe, but… “I know you don’t believe in God, and yet you are defending God’s existence.”
“I’m defending one interpretation, strictly as an intellectual exercise,” he said.
She scowled. God wasn’t an “intellectual exercise” and people on this planet were being effectively incarcerated for being believers. Her skin got hot. “Playing the devil’s advocate on God’s behalf,” she muttered.
“Hah!” Sixty smiled at her, cheek dimpling perfectly. “Good one.” A beam of sunlight caught his face, making him appear especially angelic. She flushed, annoyed because she liked it when he found her clever, but she hadn’t meant to be flippant.
They began walking down a pedway bordered by shade trees and more blooming plants. Hovers flitted over their heads, like liquid quick, shimmering clouds. The pedway was made of a surface with the texture of new concrete, but prettier, a delicately mottled light brown, almost pink. It reminded her of pink marble. There were actual humans—they weren’t quite perfect enough to be androids—trimming the plants along the side, which was a surprise. Past the greenery that lined the pedway, she could see Shinar’s buildings: lovely, organically
shaped white towers with flowers and greenery spilling over balconies on every floor. It almost seemed that they were walking through a lush, forested canyon, not a city.
“The Bestiary is in walking distance,” Sixty said. “It’s famous throughout the galaxy. I thought we’d go there.”
Volka nodded. The city looked natural…was God only nature? He couldn’t be. God had saved her life, kept her from falling into complete despair when she was orphaned and when Alaric left her. God’s rules had propelled her to save Alexis, even though the woman despised her. What sort of person would she be without her belief in God? She didn’t even have to ponder—she knew she’d be a dead person. It was faith that compelled her to save Sixty, who’d then saved her. God’s rules had made her a better person—but did everyone need God’s rules? Sixty was an atheist and he was moral...but that was by programming. Alaric was a better example of principled atheism. He’d left her, but he’d had to choose between her and relatives who were much poorer than Volka’s weere parents had been. Was their romance worth more than his family’s survival? She couldn’t say so. But when it counted, Alaric had risked his life to save her, and he, along with Archbishop Sato, had risked their lives to protect all humanity. Alaric hadn’t done any of that out of a belief in God or of a reward in heaven. Volka believed in a heaven—not as a place in the clouds, but as something more. She didn’t feel that death was the end of everything. But she also believed that heaven was a place in the here and now, and that hell was a guilty conscience. Alaric felt that conscience, too. The Three Books said that non-believers who lived good lives would have the opportunity to repent after death. Alaric would come to heaven.
She looked up at Sixty. By a random twist of evolution or God, Carl could eat tofu, and Sixty was holding up a piece he’d snagged from the breakfast table, trying to tempt Carl to eat.
What about androids? God was good, she was sure of it, so Sixty would be allowed into heaven, too. Her brow furrowed. He’d find the whole trajectory of her thinking completely illogical.
“What?” he asked, as though he were the telepathic one.
“You’re an atheist, and yet you’re here on behalf of a man institutionalized for his religious beliefs. Why?”
He shrugged. “I regard religion as…sort of a mostly vestigial organ.”
“A mostly vestigial organ?” Volka blurted.
“Like wisdom teeth,” Sixty said. “Or maybe more like an appendix—which can be useful in places where access to probiotic infusions isn’t practical.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Volka admitted, ears flicking in annoyance at her ignorance.
“Well, an appendix is a repository of beneficial gut bacteria so that in the event of illness there is always a population of good bacteria to—”
“No, I mean about religion being a vestigial organ,” Volka interjected before the inevitable data dump.
“Oh.” Sixty looked at the brilliant blue sky. “Feelings of religiosity or spirituality happen because humans have a region in their brains, the left parietal lobe, that is designed to experience those sensations.”
Volka’s ears perked. “Because God is real.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “The left parietal lobe is activated by watching favorite sports teams, too. Do you think that is properly devout?”
Volka’s ears went back.
Sixty sighed. “Look, I say it is mostly vestigial because humans who are spiritual or religious, who experience activity in that brain region, are more resistant to stress and less likely to become depressed. It has use.”
“But in your opinion, the left parietal lobe isn’t like the occipital lobe which allows us to see.” She was a little bit proud that she knew that. She’d learned it from Silas, actually, who was always anxious about slipping down the stairs, banging his head, losing his vision, and being “a blow to the head away from penury!”
Sixty glanced at her again. Did she imagine this time his glance was pitying? “The occipital lobe technically allows you to process what you see. But, you’re right; I don’t think the left parietal lobe is processing information on a real phenomenon.” He tilted his head. “But it is wrong to remove something that is vestigial without counter indicators. We don’t remove appendixes without good reason, and even wisdom teeth aren’t removed in populations native to high gravity environments who have wider jaws. Unless someone is using religion as a justification for hurting others, it shouldn’t result in what is de facto incarceration due most likely to political motivations.”
Volka’s ears perked. “Political what?”
“You didn’t download data on the man we are here to rescue?” Sixty asked.
Volka shook her head and realized everyone else had probably done so immediately, with a thought. She hadn’t thought to ask Bracelet—
Sixty’s eyes took on the empty data dump look. “Anderson Okoro has a degree in astro-engineering and was a Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics at Shinar University. He spent four years in that program. The professor who was his supervisor died three days before his defense. His defense was rejected by committee, he never earned his Ph.D., and he walked out of said defense, right into the Consulate and a Fleet recruiter’s office. Fleet saw the value of his and his supervisor’s work and took him in as a civilian researcher. That was over twenty years ago. During that time, as his work with Fleet became more widely known, Shinar University offered to grant him his Ph.D. He turned them down saying that his thesis rejection was politically motivated, and the ex post facto Ph. D was too, and he didn’t want any part of it. This was his first trip back since he left.”
Volka blinked, piecing that together. Alaric had dreamed of getting a Ph.D. in computer science back before he’d been forced into the Guard by his extended family, and it sounded like the process of getting one in Shinar wasn’t that much different than on Luddeccea. Clasping her hands behind her back, Volka paraphrased Alaric, “A Ph.D. thesis is a tremendous undertaking for the candidate and supervisor. The topic would first have to be approved—multiple times before the thesis was even begun, let alone before the final defense—at least on Luddeccea.”
“It works the same here,” Sixty said, still trying to tempt Carl to eat the tofu.
Her brow furrowed. “No true Ph.D. candidate would just walk out of his defense and head to Fleet offices. He’d revise, redo—”
“Well, he did walk out. Ran out, really. Literally, minutes later he showed up at the Consulate, out of breath,” Sixty replied distractedly.
Volka felt a chill. Anderson Okoro’s supervisor had died, he’d fled, and then he hadn’t come back to Shinar for decades? She halted. “Do you think he feared for his life?”
Sixty froze and he gaped at her. “Well, I’m thinking about it now!” Of course, someone programmed not to kill wouldn’t think of foul play first thing. He looked traumatized, and she wanted to reach out and touch him…she almost did, and then she heard a faint plop. Following the sound, she saw a drop of crimson on the pedway. A trickle of synth blood was emerging from Sixty’s clenched fist.
“Sixty,” she whispered, hand reaching for his.
Pulling away, he said, “The software upgrade…I’m still beta testing.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide now. He had gotten the software update…but wait, the destruction in the forest, he hadn’t done that. Had he?
“Nothing to worry about. Very routine. Please don’t worry,” Sixty said, pulling out a tissue.
Her mouth felt dry. She wanted to ask about the forest…Or did she want to? He was frantically dabbing his hand with the tissue. He was upset. The upgrade had perhaps made him knock down some trees. Maybe he just needed to test his mobility and strength? He was obviously embarrassed. She decided she didn’t need to ask. Her fingers itched to touch him, though, to let him know it was all right, that he was all right. Her hand lifted, but ducking his head, Sixty turned away, mumbling, “Dr. Andrea Kirkpatrick, Okoro’s supervisor died of anap
hylactic shock at the age of fifty-eight.”
Which was young…even on Luddeccea.
“No foul play was even suspected,” Sixty added weakly, eyes scanning empty air.
On Volka’s wrist, Bracelet made a noise that sounded suspiciously like she was clearing a throat she didn’t have. “If I may be so bold…since Okoro’s public refusal of the ex post facto Ph.D., the value of a Shinar Ph.D. has decreased. There have been less extra-planetary applicants to Shinar University—the major income source for the institution—and how they funded the education of residents. Also, unemployment, although still low by Galactic standards, has risen as fewer Shinar Ph.D.’s are able to get employment off world. One of the reasons it has not risen more than it has is that the Shinar government has decommissioned service robots and replaced them with humans.” She made a clucking noise. “How interesting…in many circles, a rejected Shinar Ph.D. defense is more valuable than a granted Ph.D.! Human behavior is so fascinating and strange.”
Volka’s eyes flicked to a man trimming a hedgerow. He happened to turn at her gaze, and her eyes fell to the name badge embroidered on his neat blue coveralls. “Jim Zhu, Ph.D. in Topiary Design.” She blinked. He smiled, tipped his hat, and resumed trimming the hedge. Volka eyed the pedway. It was lovely, but not lovelier than the public gardens on Luddeccea.
Her ears swiveled to the sound of hover engines humming in their descent cycle. Dozens of the vehicles appeared to be landing behind the hedge on her right. The pedway began to curve, and behind the hedge on the left, a white stucco wall gradually rose to nearly three stories high. Squinting at the sky above the wall, she noticed it glinted…almost as though it were covered by an invisible dome.
“We’re nearly at The Bestiary,” Sixty said.
Ahead, Volka saw what must be a break in the hedge wall. People were streaming across the path, crossing from the right where there must be hover parking, and disappearing on the left.