Otherness

by David Brin

  Assuming the Omnipotent simply cannot resist round multiples of ten, and conveniently chose Earth's orbital period as the unit of measure, what date shall we figure He is counting from? To Hindus a three-billion-year cycle of creation and destruction passes through multiple "yugas," of which the present is but one of the more threadbare. The Mayans believe in cycles of 256 years, based on motions of the moon and planets, of which the most recent major shift occurred in 1954.

  To certain Christian fundamentalists, the answer is plain. Obviously, the countdown began at the pivot point of the common-era calendar, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

  Unfortunately, that postulate presents problems. Regarding the actual date of nativity, biblical scholars disagree over a range of five years or more. Nor is there good evidence that the month and day assigned to Christmas under the Gregorian Calendar have anything to do with the celebrated event. (Eastern Orthodoxy commemorates Christmas weeks later.) Early church leaders may have meant to match the popular solstice festivals of the Mithraic cult, followed by their patron Emperor Constantine, thus making the conversion of pagans easier.

  It gets worse. Suppose we reach the year 2005 and nothing has happened? Are we rid of millennialists until the next century rolls around? Not a chance! Doom-seers are well practiced at the art of recalculation. In the nineteenth century one midwestern preacher managed to hold on to his flock through six successive failures of the skies to open, until at last he was abandoned by all but the most fervent and forgiving.

  Here is just one of the excuses we are bound to hear—"Of course the countdown shouldn't date from the birth of Jesus. After all, the chief event of his life, the promise of redemption and resurrection, came at the end of his earthly span."

  If so—assuming the clock has been ticking from Calvary to Armageddon—we would seem in for a slight reprieve, and yet another wave of millennial fever set to strike some time in the mid-2030's. Again, the lack of any specific written record in Roman or Judaean archives will let enthusiasts proclaim dates spread across five or six years, but at least the season won't be vague—sometime around Easter, or during the Passover holiday.

  We've only begun to plumb the options available to millennial prophets. While some sects focus on two thousand Christmases, and others on as many Easters, there will certainly be those who consider such thinking small-scale and altogether too "New Testament." After all, why should the Creator terminate His universe on the anniversary of some event that took place midway through its span? Why not start counting from its origin?

  It so happens that another nice, round anniversary is coming up, which just fits the bill. Remember Archbishop Ussher of Armagh? He's the fellow who carefully logged every "begat" in the Bible, then declared that the creation of the world must have occurred at nine o'clock in the morning, on October 25 of the year 4004 B.C.

  Now, there has been a considerable amount of teasing directed at poor Ussher, since he made this sincere calculation back in 1654. His results don't jibe too well with the testimony of rocks, fossils, stars, or the scientists who study such things. Still, he has followers even today, folk who believe that all physical evidence for a vastly older Earth (four and a half billion years) was planted to "test our faith." (One might ask, if the Lord went to so much effort to convince us the world is billions of years old, who are we to doubt it? But never mind.)

  If Ussher fixated on time's origin, the famed founder of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, had something to say about its end. Luther took into account that "a day is as a thousand years to the Lord" (Psalms 90:4), and that genesis itself took six days. He then concluded that the Earth's duration would thus be six thousand years from first light to the trump of doom. Further, this span would be symmetrically divided into three two-thousand-year stretches, from Origin to the time of Abraham, from Abraham to Jesus, and a final two millennia rounding things off at Judgment Day. While this speculation drew little attention back in Luther's day, it is sure to appeal to modern millennialists, hoping for the good luck of witnessing the end in their own time.

  Unfortunately, combining Luther's logic with Ussher's date (4004 B.C.) shows that we've just shaved four years off the countdown! Now the end comes in October 1996! No time for that final stab at the Winter Olympics, then, or to pay off the car loan. Celestial trumpets will blow two weeks before the Democrats' last hope to retain the White House. (At least we'll be spared the possible scenario of President Quayle making plaintive, placatory welcoming speeches for the Heavenly Host from the Rose Garden.)

  We may win a little more time on a technicality. Since there was no Year Zero in the common-era calendar (One B.C. was followed immediately the A.D. One), the Ussher-Luther deadline shifts to autumn 1997. Alas, still too short a reprieve to save those lovely turn-of-the-century parties we're all looking forward to.

  Fortunately, old Bishop Ussher wasn't the only one counting off from Adam and Eve. The Jews have been at it much longer, and by the Hebrew calendar it is only year number 5753, which seems special to no one but mathematicians.

  What of Jewish millennialists, then? Back in the 1640's, followers of Shabbtai Zevi believed in him passionately, but neither that "false messiah," nor Jacob Frank in the 1720's, brought any New Kingdom, only disappointment. Since then most Jewish scholars have put less faith in vague riddles than in a growing maturity of human culture working gradually toward a "millennial age"—an attitude that baffles some Christian evangelists.

  Is the coming plague of millennialism simply to be endured by the rest of us until it's over? As with UFO cults, there is no such thing as "disproof" to those who can always find convenient explanations for each failed prophecy. It is useless to cite scientific data to refute the supernatural.

  All isn't hopeless. There are methods for dealing with doomsday cant. One way is to turn things around and confront millennialists on their own turf. In the end the entire question revolves around symbols.

  In Judeo-Christian mythology two chief metaphors are used to describe the relationship between the Creator and humankind. The first of these depicts a "shepherd-and-his-flock." The second describes a "father-and-his-children." These parables are used interchangeably, but they aren't equivalent. Rather, to modern eyes they are polar opposites, as irreconcilable as the tiny, closed cosmos of Ussher and the vast universe of Galileo and Hubble.

  A shepherd protects his flocks, guiding them to green pastures, as the Psalms so poignantly portray. All the shepherd expects in return is unquestioning obedience . . . and everything else the sheep possess. Lucky ones are merely shorn, but that reprieve is brief. None escapes its ultimate fate. None has any right to complain.

  Everybody also knows about fathers. Sons and daughters are expected to obey, when tight discipline is for a young child's own good. Nevertheless, with time, offspring learn to think for themselves. Even in patriarchal societies, a good father takes pride in the accomplishments of his children, even—especially— when they exceed his own. If there is a foreordained plan, it is for those children to become good mothers and fathers, in turn.

  To the perennial, millennial oracles, with their message of looming, irresistible destruction, here is a head-on response. Ask them this: "Are we children of a Father, or a Shepherd's sheep? You can't have it both ways.

  "You preach a tale of violent harvest," the challenge continues. "Of judgment without debate or appeal, fatal and permanent. A shepherd might so dispose of lambs, but what sane father does thus to his offspring? Would you stand by if a neighbor down the street commenced such a program on his flesh and blood?

  "Anyway, you choose an odd time to proclaim the adventure over, just when we've begun picking up creation's tools, learning, as apprentices do, the method of a great Designer. Those techniques now lay before us, almost as if someone had placed blueprints to the universe there to be pored over by eager minds . . . by those perhaps ready soon to leave childhood and begin adult work."

  The latest crop of millennial prophets might be aske
d, What do sheep owe the shepherd of a cramped pasture, a cheap, expendable world just six thousand years old?

  Personally, I prefer a universe countless billions of parsecs across, vast and old enough for a hundred million vivid, exciting creations. An evolving, growing, staggeringly fascinating cosmos. One truly worthy of respect. One that will endure, even if we do foolishly cause our own midget Armageddon.

  Time will tell. We, humanity, may yet thrive, or fry, by dint of our own wisdom or folly. The macrocosm may be, as secularists say, indifferent to our fate.

  Or perhaps some great mind out there does see, does care. If so, that spirit may be more patient than doomsayers credit, with a design far subtler, yet more honest. None of us can know for sure, but I'll bet a truly creative Creator would be disappointed in an experiment that ended so trivially, or so soon.

  CONTINUITY

  NatuLife ®

  I know, things taste better fresh, not packaged. They say hamburger clots your arteries and hurts the rain forest.

  We should eat like our Stone Age ancestors, who dug roots, got lots of exercise, and always stayed a little hungry. So they say.

  Still, I balked when my wife served me termites.

  "Come on, sweetheart. Try one. They're delicious."

  Gaia had the hive uncrated and warmed up by the time I got home. Putting down my briefcase, I stared at hundreds of the pasty-scaled critters scrabbling under a plastic cover, tending their fat queen, devouring kitchen trimmings, making themselves right at home in my home.

  Gaia offered me a probe made of fine-grained pseudo-wood. "See? You use this stick to fish after nice plump ones, like chimpanzees do in the wild!"

  I gaped at the insect habitat, filling the last free space between our veggie-hydrator and the meat-sublimate racks.

  "But . . . we agreed. Our apartment's too small . . ."

  "Oh, sweetheart, I know you'll just love them. Anyway, don't I need protein and vitamins for the baby?"

  She put my hand over her swelling belly, which normally softened any objections. Only this time my own stomach was in rebellion. "I thought you already got all that stuff from the Yeast-Beast machine." I pointed to the vat occupying half of our guest bathroom, venting nutritious vapors from racks of tissue-grown cutlets.

  "That stuff's not natural," Gaia complained with a moue. "Come on, try the real thing. It's just like they show on the NatuLife Channel!"

  "I . . . don't think . . ."

  "Watch, I'll show you!"

  Gaia's tongue popped out as she concentrated, quivering with excitement from her red ponytail down to her rounded belly, passing the stick-probe through a sealed hatch to delve after six-legged prey. "Got one!" she cried, drawing a twitching insect to her lips.

  "You're not seriously . . ." My throat stopped as the termite vanished, headfirst. Bliss crossed Gaia's face. "M-m-m, crunchy!" She smacked, revealing two legs and a twitching tail.

  I found enough manly dignity to raggedly chastise her.

  "Don't . . . talk with your mouth full."

  Turning away, I added—"If you need me, I'll be in my workout room."

  Gaia had rearranged our sleep quarters again. Now the cramped chamber merged seamlessly with a tropic paradise, including raucous birdcalls and mist from a roaring waterfall. The impressive effects made it hard navigating past the bed, so I ordered the hologram blanked. Silence fell as the vid-wall turned gray, leaving just the real-life portion of her pocket jungle to contend with—a tangle of potted plants warranted to give off purer oxygen than a pregnant woman could sniff from bottles.

  Wading through creepers and mutant ficuses, I finally found the moss-lined laundry hamper and threw in my work clothes. The fragrant Clean-U-Lichen had already sani-scavenged and folded my exercise togs, which felt warm and skin-supple when I drew them on. The organoelectric garment rippled across my skin as if alive, seeming just as eager for a workout as I was.

  I'd been through hell at the office. Traffic was miserable and the smog index had been redlining all week. Termites were only the last straw.

  "Let's go," I muttered. "I haven't killed anything in a week."

  Long Stick spotted a big old buck gazelle.

  "It limps," my hunting partner said, rising from his haunches to point across a hundred yards of dry savannah. "Earlier, it met a lion."

  I rose from my stretching exercises to peer past a screen of sheltering boulders, following Long Stick's gnarly arm. One animal stood apart from the herd. Sniffing an unsteady breeze, the buck turned to show livid claw marks along one flank. Clearly, this prey was a pushover compared to last Sunday's pissed-off rhino. The virtual reality machine must have sensed I'd had a rough day.

  My hands stroked the spear, tracing its familiar nicks and knots. An illusion of raw, archetypal power.

  "The beaters are ready, Chief,"

  I nodded. "Let's get on with it."

  Long Stick pursed his lips and mimicked the call of a bee-catcher bird. Moments later, the animals snorted as a shift in the heavy air brought insinuations of human scent. Another hundred yards beyond the herd, where the sparse pampas faded into a hazy stand of acacia trees, I glimpsed the rest of our hunting party, creeping forward.

  My hunters. My tribe.

  I was tempted to reach up and adjust the virtu-reality helmet, which fed this artificial world to my eyes and ears . . . to zoom in on those distant human images. Alas, except for Long Stick, I had never met any of the other hunters up close. Good persona programs aren't cheap, and with a baby coming, there were other things for Gaia and me to spend money on.

  Yeah, like a crummy termite hive! Resentment fed on surging adrenaline. Never trust a gatherer. That was the hunters' creed. Love 'em, protect 'em, die for them, but always remember, their priorities are different.

  The beaters stood as one, shouting. The gazelles reared, wheeling the other way. Long Stick hissed. "Here they come!"

  The Accu-Terrain floor thrummed beneath my feet to the charge of a hundred hooves. Sensu-Surround earphones brought the stampede roar of panicky beasts thundering toward us, wild-eyed with ardor to survive. Clutching my spear in sweaty palms, I crouched as graceful animals vaulted overhead, ribcages heaving.

  Meanwhile, a faint, subsonic mantra recited. I am part of nature . . . one with nature . . .

  The young, and breeding females, we let flash by without harm. But then, trailing and already foaming with fatigue, came the old buck, its leap leaden, unsteady, and I knew the program really was taking it easy on me today.

  Long Stick howled. I sprinted from cover, swiftly taking the lead. The auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed me, so my feet knew how to land and thrust off again. The body suit brushed my skin with synthetic wind. Flared nostrils inhaled sweat, exhilaration, and for a time I forgot I was in a tiny room on the eightieth floor of a suburban Chitown con-apt.

  I was deep in the past of my forebears, back in a time when men were few, and therefore precious, magical.

  Back when nature thrived . . . and included us.

  Easy workout or no, I got up a good sweat before the beast was cornered against a stand of jagged saw grass. The panting gazelle's black eye met mine with more than resignation. In it I saw tales of past battles and matings. Of countless struggles won, and finally lost. I couldn't have felt more sympathy if he'd been real.

  My throwing arm cranked and I thought—Long ago, I'd have done this to feed my wife and child.

  As for here and now?

  Well . . . this sure beats the hell out of racquetball.

  Mass-produced con-apt housing lets twelve billion Earthlings live in minim decency, at the cost of dwelling all our lives in boxes piled halfway to the sky. Lotteries award scarce chances to visit mountains, the seashore. Meanwhile, Virtuality keeps us sane within our hi-rise caves.

  On my way to shower after working out, I saw that Gaia's private VR room was in use. Impulsively, I tiptoed into the closet next door, feeling for the crack between
stacked room units, and pressed my eye close to the narrow chink of light. Gaia squatted on her treadmill floor, shaped to mimic a patch of uneven ground. Her body suit fit her pregnant form like a second skin, while helmet and goggles made her resemble some kind of bug, or star alien. But I knew her scenario, like mine, lay in the distant past. She made digging motions with a phantom tool, invisible to me, held in her cupped hands. Then she reached down to pluck another ghost item, her gloves simulating touch to match whatever root or tuber it was that she saw through the goggles. Gala pantomimed brushing dirt away from her find, then dropping it into a bag at her side.

  Sometimes, eavesdropping like this, I'd feel a chill wondering how odd I must look during workouts, leaping about, brandishing invisible spears and shouting at my "hunters." No wonder most people keep VR so private.