by A I Zlato
The latter knew that Teo would only give up in appearance, and that he would put the issue back on the table. Meanwhile, he knew his friend would follow his instructions. Egeon hoped he could come back to the next meeting with initial answers.
He left the meeting room with a strong sense of weariness. The two morons who ventured into the Unique Forest had put him on edge earlier in the day, and Teo and his everlasting problems did not help. Many problems and so few solutions... he would have loved to avoid a day like this. He passed by the construction site, and observed the shuttle. Dayshift teams were busy, in sync with the noise of machines and orders from team leaders. It was a beautiful shuttle, but could it withstand the journey? Would he live to see it completed?
He walked toward the tunnel without realizing it. Even if he did not believe in these stories about a prophet, he had to admit that the place had a soothing effect on people. A day like that day, he thought it would be a great relief to believe in the coming of a Messiah, someone who would incarnate the Link and the Break.
Unfortunately, he was unable to make up his own mind about his beliefs. Galatea had told him she could feel her faith in the depths of her soul. That day, he envied her.
The freshness of the cave filled his lungs and produced an anesthetic effect. He touched the smooth facet of the stone, and felt the marks of the tools used by those who had built the tunnel. He immersed himself into the darkness toward the bottom of the cave. The tunnel was shrinking gradually; the walls were tight, with many bumps. The cavity ended some 30 yards from the entrance. In front of him, there was a dead end. Behind him was the bright halo of candles brought by the faithful, as well as the blue veil from outside. Those who had dug this cave had decided not to let it lead onto the other side of the mound, into Space H., and thus to symbolize Space O.
Space O... the mythical place that many believed was the birthplace of the Founding Couple. With his back facing the cold wall, Egeon fancied being one of those ancestors, the Arts, emerging from the tunnel and discovering the new environment. Although he did not really believe in the legend, he liked the image. He walked toward the exit, and looked at the candles on the altar. Their flames stretched to the ceiling, stirred by thermal differences. For him, these candles were the physical representation of the community’s need to believe in something. His belief was in the shuttle, the trip, the promise of a new life.
He left the cave to go to his next weekly meeting. He met a few people, who gave him a startled look, surprised to see him there. Just for a moment, he had felt the need to explain; to say he still did not have faith, but that he liked the place. He pulled himself together.
He did not need to explain his actions to anyone. He knew, however, that someone would notify Galatea about his behavior, and she would surely make a little speech about his subconscious mind speaking to him. Never mind.
Leaving behind Teo and his propulsion problems, he joined Alea. She was a slender young woman, with eyes that were so dark a brown that they almost appeared black. Her large head of blond hair invaded her face and descended all the way to her hips, only held by a clamp. Always sharply dressed, with some light makeup, she looked like a fragile doll, ready to break under the slightest gust of wind. This impression of fragility disappeared as soon as she opened her mouth. Her bass voice gave her comments a vibrant depth, and commanded respect. Alea was responsible for the Transmission Department, which established computer-training curricula for those who would be born on the shuttle. It was important that they had the necessary skills to maintain the shuttle, make trajectory corrections... and implement the Earthization of their new planet. This program was a crucial part of the project. Without it, even the best shuttle would not make the mission possible. If generations that were to come into existence, live, grow and even die in the shuttle did not acquire the necessary knowledge, the worst was possible. The shuttle, in the absence of a robust maintenance or control program, would disintegrate in space, and the Earthization could be ineffective, thus condemning humans to a sure death in the short term, more or less... The transmission department was as important as the construction department that Teo led.
It was not possible that two beings were more different than were the two department leaders. Egeon even had said that Alea was the perfect antithesis to Teo. Optimistic, she only saw opportunities for improvement, not problems. Chatting with her was relaxing and rewarding. She welcomed Egeon for their meeting with a tray of pastries and a smile that lit up her face. Every week, invariably, Galatea had to tell Alea to be careful, because he had to watch his diet, and avoid eating too much. Nonetheless, Alea would always prepare a small assortment of cakes with the complicity of Talos, the cook. Egeon appreciated that attention, even if he did not eat too much good shortbread; never too much anyway; not more than one or two; three or four, to be honest; except when he was upset, in which case he could easily finish the set to comfort himself. As he was hot-blooded, he had to admit he was generally eating all the cakes. Galatea and Alea knew it perfectly.
While he was eating, without an ounce of guilt, the shortbread that Talos cooked, he listened to Alea chronicling the progress made in the training program. The transmission department was relatively young; it was created three generations earlier, so everything had to be structured in there. Previous generations were primarily devoted to building the shuttle, and selecting the planet. They focused on the departure and the arrival, leaving it to their successors to worry about the actual journey.
Egeon and Teo could rely on centuries-old knowledge in their work, but Alea did not have that privilege. There was no precious notebook to review, only a pile of scattered remarks; the beginnings of a department. Where others would have abandoned, given the immensity of the work, Alea would rather rejoice to have the opportunity to create everything from scratch. She loved the almost blank sheet in front of her, and he admired her for that.
She began her mission, seven years earlier, taking up the list of pieces of knowledge to transmit which her three predecessors had started earlier. For two years, she had focused on that list, completing it, and then modifying it in order to have a more comprehensive array
of knowledge. She got her inspiration from training that each child in the community was receiving by evaluating possible modifications that were necessary to account for the environment. For example, there was no need to describe what the floor, the sky or the sun was. Aboard a shuttle, it would be essential for their descendants to remember what a planet was and know to which one they were heading. All obvious notions, so obvious that they were not worth talking about, would need to be part of the curriculum. She had done a good job distinguishing what they all knew intuitively.
To achieve this, she had not hesitated to live for two months on the shuttle, noting any references outside what she was doing. From that experience, she created a list of things to incorporate in the curriculum. She had also emerged with a number of questions which she and Egeon had discussed. Should they talk about the concept of the space, the Machine and the Elders? Was it important? If yes, how should they broach the topic? Alea had concluded that such subjects were critical to understanding the motive for the trip. They had to address those issues by emphasizing the concept of stagnation of the human species, and the tight grip that the Machine had on people’s lives.
The shuttle was their response; a way to allow humanity to evolve and overcome a supercomputer, which kept the population in a framework that only its algorithms permitted. Without this historical explanation, it was not possible to justify the trip vis-à-vis their descendants. Without it, they could not explain why they had imprisoned them for life in a confined environment, and projected them into the vacuum of space.
When she established the curriculum, Alea and her team had started a new stage, which they were continuing that day. They had to convert the curriculum into study materials by defining programs for each and ensuring a gradual increase in the difficulty level. Children should first learn th
e basics of reading, writing and math. Then they should learn their history and know where they were heading. Once they acquired that basic knowledge, they could begin specific training to become mechanics, engineers, pilots, etc.
In her curriculum, Alea had carefully avoided the concepts of religion and prophet, but Egeon knew that the question of faith transmission would inevitably arise in the latter generation, the one that would embark on the trip. He was torn between the desire to be part of that generation and the yearning to defer things; to pass this thorny issue on to his successor to solve.
The majority of the people, like Galatea, believed in the coming of a Messiah. Believers who would embark on the trip would necessarily take their faith with them. How should they manage the transmission of these beliefs to future generations? It was necessary to cope with such a question. Letting religion be spread unchecked could generate unimaginable problems. Lost in the vacuum of space, shuttle inhabitants might be tempted to see the Prophet in one of their own.
They might be tempted to believe in such a thing so as to have something to hold onto. And what if the self-appointed Prophet decided not to continue the project? To abandon the youth training program? To...? This was a problem they had to answer. Finally, Egeon would rather not think about it, and focused on current problems instead of future ones, as Teo did. The issue of religion would come soon enough without him having to trigger it.
In parallel to the development of training content, Alea had established the minimum number of people required in each discipline. Each generation should have dozens of mechanics, welders and electrical engineers, three astrophysicists, etc. The question she broached that day with Egeon related to Earthizers. She wondered if they needed to train some in each generation, or only in the last generation. Indeed, Earthizers who would come into existence and die in space would have a very strong feeling of worthlessness. On the other hand, they could use their time to improve techniques developed on Earth, especially as astrophysicists’ observations would be more accurate the closer the objective was.
The permanent presence of Earthizers had another advantage. This would help people keep in mind the purpose of the trip, and help parents talk to their children about the world to which they were heading.
One of Alea’s rare anxieties, which Egeon had finally shared, was that people simply would not want to disembark from the shuttle. Born in a confined environment, with parents and grandparents having seen nothing but a shuttle, those who would see the new planet would perhaps want to stay at home. The shuttle, however, was not designed to be a space station orbiting around a planet. Its useful life, albeit long, was nonetheless limited. Alea thought that training Earthizers in each generation, although their skills would be useless, could counteract this trend, and instill in them the desire to go into the unknown.
Although Egeon shared her analysis, he nevertheless was not as optimistic with regard to the odds of success for her proposal. He approved the training of Earthizers throughout the trip but asked Alea to consider other incentive mechanisms. He wanted not to reduce the risk, but to eliminate it outright. It was unthinkable to send humans into space, condemning them to an endless future, because they did not have the will to go forward. Egeon self-painted a mental image of an animal that having lived all its life in a cage, was now refusing to leave the cage to explore the beautiful nature. Freed from its bars, but still prisoner in its mind... that should not be the end of the project.
They chatted together for a moment about possible options. She suggested they plan the shuttle’s obsolescence. Faced with his bewildered eyes, she expounded on her idea. By making it progressively a difficult, uncomfortable place to live, people would want to get out. Egeon found the suggestion interesting, and asked her to review it with Teo. It was necessary to ensure a controlled decay, and not jeopardize the entire trip. Teo would go crazy listening to such suggestions! Asking him to build something with a scheduled end... he who wanted to construct an everlasting shuttle... would be a real challenge.
The issue was, however, too important to take his temperament into account. Egeon promised to discuss the topic with Teo quickly before she started working with him. Sending Alea to talk directly to Teo would certainly trigger a tremendously negative reaction. Egeon would thus take care of the initial approach.
They then talked about Alea’s second and last concern. The IT training programs seemed to be nearing completion, but everything was still very theoretical. What if the physical and physiological evolution made these teachings incomprehensible to future generations? Egeon quickly recollected the parallel between these programs and notebooks that his predecessors had left. The earlier he went through time, the less he understood those notebooks. What if the same thing happened on the shuttle, given that knowledge was the key to survival?
She had come up with the concept of translator, a person who would be responsible for tailoring programs according to the population evolution. Changes in language, understanding and culture would be integrated continuously. Each translator would have a minimum number of adjustments to make, and could not change the background knowledge. He or she simply would need to make the necessary adaptations. The idea was very interesting, but she had doubts about how to train such people. How would trainers formulate the information to give? Alea was deep in her thoughts, and Egeon had no idea how to help her. And if he admitted that her concept of translator was a success... would that be enough?
Egeon exited, leaving her at her tasks. While walking, he felt assailed by doubts. The closer the project got to completion, the higher the stress was. How to predict the unpredictable? Would that be enough? Or too much? What if...? What if... he gave up?
On his way, he met Galatea. She had a sixth sense to detect his anxiety, and always appeared at the right time. She took his hand, and they went for a stroll by the lake. In silence first, they walked toward the wells, as children called them. In fact, these weren’t wells but rather a natural cavity, which sank deep in the ground, and in which one could hardly see the deep bottom. All young people had, at least once, thrown a stone and paid attention to hear it bounce off the walls. That night, with Galatea, Egeon found, for a few delicious minutes, his childhood soul, and threw a pebble he had picked up on the shore. They both listened to the sound of shocks, weaker and weaker, until it disappeared.
He knew that problems would continue to pile up on their way, but he got back his will, which had wavered for a moment. He looked at Galatea, and put his arm around her shoulders. In silence, she leaned on him. Together, they were stronger than his doubts.
The project, their project, would succeed. If Egeon did not believe in its completion, he knew at least that he would bequeath a well-advanced site to his successors, with workers focused on their tasks. He knew he had reasonable doubts, but deep inside, he kept hoping to be part of the generation that would embark on the shuttle one day.
What is knowledge? I know that I believe.
Legend of the Link and the Break
CHAPTER 14
PRE-E.S. ERA
5th Hexa lay on the floor. It must have shocked Paul, and it felt bad about it. Yet it had no choice. Paul, this human, so special, could free humanity from the Elders’ dream, and alter this beginning, which would be, in their future, the root of their destruction. The kandrons had also made many mistakes, and they felt the punishment every day, condemned to live in reverse linearity vis-à-vis the rest of the space. One had to change what could be changed.
The kandron looked up, staring at the black sky, which was eaten by a giant moon. In this time and place, the satellite was very close to the planet and its soft pallor pervaded the night. Distant stars accompanied it as small extra characters in this nocturnal show. Immutable, the moon revolved around the Earth, indifferent to the horrors of its inhabitants. The future... the end of spaces... even the observation of the white satellite could not divert 5th Hexa away from its concerns, especially its guilt.
To enable Paul
to see the urgency of the situation, it had influenced the Machine in associating him to the investigation of child suicides. The kandron had decided not to warn him to ensure this event would be impressive enough. In this, it was successful... Poor Paul! He was thrown into a horrible world, and nothing had prepared him for it. The kandron, his friend, could have warned him, but it had not. It thought that it had done the necessary to ensure the survival of spaces — but was that motive enough? Paul, unhappy, came home seeking solace.
Instead of helping him, it had pushed him into a corner, then abandoned him, before dropping him in front of a manuscript. 5th Hexa repeated to itself that it had been right, but the guilt would not go away. Its partner’s stare, his desperate pleas when the mental connection broke... all those sufferings arose only because it so wanted.
Yet the painful actions had achieved their goal. Right now, it was following Paul’s premonitory nightmare. In his sleep, he was now seeing the emergence of chaos, of which the suicides were only the beginning. He saw, without knowing it, spaces becoming permeable as well as the ensuing destructions.
5th Hexa felt Paul’s anguish as he browsed those images. It wanted to wake him and reassure him, but it should not. Paul had to see... the door to possibilities... no matter how terrifying the whole episode was. He continued dreaming, and 5th Hexa observed him. In the turmoil of the nightmare, he then saw something else... an event that the kandron had not perceived... It could not be that easy. Paul did not understand everything he saw, but it perceived the symbols. How could the entire kandron community have missed it? Their blindness could not have been so total... It would speak to the Spirit of the Multitude. It was too important to settle on 5th Hexa’s quick understanding. It then burrowed into the dream, looking for other clues, but the vision disappeared. Paul had stopped dreaming. 5th Hexa remained stuck on this vague impression of having seen something fundamental, but could not go deeper. Paul would have to dream again.