"You lied to me, Cara!"
As consciousness seeps completely in, I bolt upright, looking at my
surroundings.
A beautiful rainforest at dusk, plants sighing in the warm breeze,
scents of exotic flowers wafting delicately around me. I'm sitting
on spongy, slightly damp ground, with a subtle texture of small
multi-leaved grasses. A tree with moss-encrusted trunk and goldenrod
and magenta leaves looms over me, spreading branches that bifurcate
into clusters with almost fractal regularity.
"No more games, Cara."
The cry of nighttime animals shrinks the night around me palpably;
ancient jungle, the first harsh test of my kind, demands respect. I
stand up warily, senses alert. My hairs bristle, and I realize I am
completely naked.
"Where am I?"
An insect lands and then flits away as I jerk involuntarily. Movement,
close by in the underbrush. I turn and scrabble up the tree; winding
vines provide easy hand holds. My skin is tough but sensitive, and when
I get to the first thick branches, ten meters up, my hands leave slight
impressions in the damp wood. I scan quickly upwards, paying especial
attention to the thermographic spectra, but see nothing large or warm
enough to register.
This doesn't diminish my unease; I know predators that are quite
effective at camouflage.
Something on my left wrist scrapes bits of tree bark onto my arm. It is
my baroque chronometer, a simple band of braided diamond set with a
saphiroid display face. I am so used to its presence that, in
retrospect, I would have noticed my nakedness sooner without it. The
watch displays spacetime coordinates in whatever units, dating system,
or reference point I care to choose, basic health information,
brainwave activity, and one other crucial thing.
Housed within the slim band is a strip of flexible computronium
containing a quantum oracle comprised of some 10E24 qubits, all
correlated with location, my health, and my current thought patterns.
The oracle pulses in constant synchronicity with all this information
and more, a background metronome thought pattern in my mind. It would
be impossible to replicate it within any conceivable virtual reality
based upon any substrate housed in the known universe.
So all of this is real.
*
* *
Her face was beautiful, eyes begging for forgiveness or understanding
or benediction. Tears streamed down my face, but the direct feed
to my optic nerve brooked no interference; I saw the scene with aching
clarity.
Her form was as perfect as function and aesthetics, genengineering and
natural selection, could make. The flash of my weapon, cruel blunt
muzzle of searing energy, was the ultimate injustice, a ravening
destroyer of cherished life and loved memory.
The last I saw was her eyes, still imploring, fireball consuming them.
*
* *
Hot tears flow down my cheeks, lingering in the warm tropical night. My
hands clench gouges in the unoffending tree bark. A trail of small
insects wind their patient way along the branches into the overhanging
canopy. I look deliberately at my hands before letting go, falling
backwards into the night.
My reflexes betray me; a reverse curl and tuck, and I land lightly on
my feet, legs bent and arms spread to absorb the impact. My head bows
in shame, I stand and walk about aimlessly into the night, not caring
....
"I did not lie to you."
"Go away, Cara. Leave me in peace."
She laughs. "You are most inconsistent."
I grit my teeth, holding my head in my hands.
"You said the mission was successful. It was a horrible failure."
"Some things were regrettable, but you do not yet have all of your
memories from that event."
"I don't want to remember."
"On the contrary, you'll find the last bit especially important."
Ahead of me is a glow in the night, yellow-reddish hue of some
flickering light source. Heated air swirls about it, crazy invisible
vortices punctuated by tiny flickering sparks.
"That's not what I think it is ...."
A bonfire, roaring brightly, stacked high with actual combustible
vegetative matter.
"You can't be serious ...."
I make out four other figures, limned by the background. A human
female, two human males, and one insubstantial figure, edges blurring
and melding with heat ripples and the reddish light.
A flickering kaleidoscopic pattern of friendly greeting, camaraderie,
mischief, and worry patterns across its phototropic skin. I don't have
the means to reply directly in kind, so I just wave back.
"Good to see you too, Heavy. Hello Spec, Medic, Corporal."
A Survivors Circle.
*
* *
Debriefings were once formal affairs; reports and studies, simulations,
tactics, and re-creations all used to maximize the
learning from one encounter to the next. In this business, lessons not
learned equaled death, destruction, and failure.
With the vast bandwidth and glut of information available to Caretaker,
it became too much to absorb on just an intellectual level.
The Survivors Circle: a shared consensual dream of all
aspects, mental, physical, and especially emotional, concerning
the completed mission. A physiological and psychological communion
between the living and the reconstituted dead, those that made it by
luck, pluck, or skill, and those who didn't.
A catharsis.
*
* *
I begin to feel the heat of the bonfire on my face.
"You still haven't told me where I am."
"I am pleased to tell you that you are, in fact, standing upon the
surface of the world you saved."
"Impossible! We failed!"
"You did not. You successfully retrieved the essential personality core
of the Archailect. This will enable us to rebuild and
reconstitute all that it was and everything that was under its care. As
you might have guessed, this particular Archai was the sum total of
everything on its world."
"How is this possible? All the backups were corrupted! We -- you --
melted the crust from orbit! We severed the Archailect into fragments!
This place should be killing us with hard radiation!"
"Well, some time has passed, it is true. And this is just a small
portion of the world -- the rest is still undergoing reconstruction and
rejuvenation. This will all take time. I accelerated the efforts on
this small sector, because I wanted to answer a question that you have
often asked."
"Which is?"
"This is what you are fighting for. Life. The peaceful coexistence of
all beings of all toposophic levels."
I look around in amazement. It is so lush and vibrant. I peek at my
watch; the spacetime coordinate reference frame is the same, now that I
notice.
I feel her indulgent smile. "I am glad that my prodigious effort does
not go unappreciated."
"This is still very difficult for me to accept. Which is the likelier
hypothesis: that you've actually gone and recreated a world we
just burned down to the core, seeded it with life, nurtured it, and
dropped us off on a particularly pleasant location for our
psychological well-being and satisfaction? Or, that you're just
projecting all of this in my mind?"
"I've trained you for centuries to resist subversion; you would be able
to tell."
"Except, perhaps, from you -- you molded me, after all."
"You have your chronometer."
"Can't you just somehow fake it, or its readings, or my perception of
its readings?"
A feeling of delight, as if Cara had clapped her hands. A very strange
sensation from a being of her nature.
"I always knew you had potential. But to answer your question, I
believe you understand physical theory enough to realize the
difficulties I would have with your antique."
"Not if you alter my perceptions of it. Dream worlds and hollow
victories are not very satisfying."
"This too, I know about you. As to the essential nature of your
question -- either you trust yourself or you don't."
*
* *
Despair and dread and the bitter taste of abject failure coursed
through us.
"Let's finish this mission quickly." Crisp, military thoughts belied my
inner struggle.
The shock wore off; my team responded again to my directions.
Except for rock steady, reliable, Heavy -- he had maintained his
composure throughout.
Medic outlined the weakest structural areas of the rooms gleaned from
her imaging scans; we increased our weapon energies to the kiloton
range.
The first wave of walking corpses approached within ten meters and were
instantly fried by our point defense grid. Steam explosions erupted all
along the wall of ruined flesh, gruesomely strewing scorched body parts
along an invisible line of death.
Remorselessly, the hibernation capsules continued the revivification
process, feeding more lost souls into the meatgrinder.
I designated the detonation points for our charges, maximizing
shockwaves and structural collapse. A quick, clean physical end by
vaporization, and an eternal entombment in the dead core of a dead
world.
And then I saw her, my vision immediately magnifying the image of a
small child, standing calmly upon the shell of her former prison,
looking across a wave of milling flesh at our small band.
She smiled and waved at me, as if it were the most natural thing in the
world.
"Medic ...."
"I'm on it Sarge ...."
Another invisible flash, another dying wall of exploding victims
dropped to the ground in silent agony. A flash of a different sort from
Medic to the little girl, spanning a gulf of comprehension and trust.
"She's clean Sarge." Medic's thoughts were reverant. "More than that,
she's ...."
"Sargeant! Requesting permission for retrieval mission!"
Corporal was on fire with righteous zeal. SpecThree glanced sidelong at
Corporal, then at me.
"Your Hellbore cables won't reach that far. You'll be cut off from
power, left with only your internal weaponry against that mob."
"Yessir!"
"Corporal, I can't spare you, or your Heavy Hellbore. SpecThree, you're
now Point, and the Combat Drone's weaponry is tasked to you. If a
mission like this has any chance of success, I'll need you to go back
along our path and sterilize our escape route. We can't afford to run
into Dragon's Teeth.
I'm going. Rank has its privileges."
"No, sir!"
Medic cut in. "You're both going. Sarge, it doesn't make tactical sense
to fight through that mob with reduced weapons by yourself. SpecThree
can accompany me, and I can link up Corporal's weapon -- anyway, I'm
the best trained and equipped to deal with any nanite plagues and
spores strewn around back there."
"What about the self-replicating combat bots and synsects? Even with
both of you, I don't like the odds."
"I'll cover them, Sarge" Heavy chimed in. "With two arms, anyways. Give
me your hellbore, and I'll cover you and Corporal with three."
"Errr, don't you need four tentacles to walk? You're down two already."
"Does it look like I'm going anywhere, Sarge?"
I delinked my hellbore, putting the cannon on the ground. Corporal did
likewise. Heavy and Medic hefted the weapons, running diagnostics.
SpecThree had already dialed his weapon to maximum scatter in
anticipation of my next orders.
"SpecThree: take point and link up with Spotter and Sniper, if you can.
Medic, take second position. I'm depending upon you to keep our line of
retreat open."
SpecThree's eyes were grim. He stood full height and saluted; Medic and
I traded fleeting glances. Abruptly, they crouched and dashed back down
the tunnel.
I watched them go with some relief; they should be able to make it out,
whatever happened.
Corporal and I overcharged our reserves to just below the critical
threshold. Heavy flowed and squirmed until his body was halfway outside
of the room. The three visible tentacles gripped their weapons, weaving
slightly as they selected aiming points. I delinked my power cable; it
crawled sinously over to Heavy, connecting to an auxilliary port.
I turned and locked eyes with Corporal.
"Is it true, Sarge, that you don't have any backups?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because there's only one me, as far as I'm concerned."
"What's the difference between backup and revivification?"
"Ask me again, some other time."
He nodded.
We turned and ran full speed, plunging into the mob of milling captive
enemy.
*
* *
"Nothing like swapping war stories around a campfire, eh Sarge?"
Point gives me a feral grin, his angular head and sleek fur gleaming in
the ruddiness. He flows like quicksilver around me, enveloping me in
musky fur, a hind claw scratching me playfully along the stomach as he
bolts into the huddled mammalian mass of his brethren.
"Faugh ...." I hold my nose until I can tune out the sensation. The
hive-mind colony of provolved ferrets rolls on the ground in shrieks of
laughter and clouds of olfactory cues my nose doesn't particularly want
to interpret.
At least the fire will burn the stink off ....
Behind Point is a long succession of familiar faces in joyous reunion,
camaraderie forged in death-struggle. Recon stands a little apart from
the rest, his ship suit preventing direct physical contact. I send an
encouraging emotive pattern; it is his first baptism, and afterwards,
he will truly be one of us.
I walk until I am nearly immersed in the roaring flames of
purification, the heat a feeling only, my tough hide efficiently
conducting the energy away to my backside. I take Corporal's hand on my
left, Medic's on my right, as Heavy gently curls a tentacle around my
midriff. SpecThree links Corporal and Medic; Heavy links us
all. ound the five of us press the resurrected members of our
platoon; surrounding us with fur, flesh, and other surfaces.
We join in communion, the living and the recently dead, extended family
that comprises the combat team I have the honor of commanding. Our
minds link, merge, and drift, exchanging experience, emotion, and
thought with total immersion that is ecstatic and painful, soothing and
yet deeply agonizing. Our distant ancestors would recognize this rite
of passage; the baring of souls, the purification of flames.
Despite the inexorable march of transapient technology, some truths of
existence, well-known to our original ancestors, remain timeless.
*
* *
Separation is profoundly relieving. Dawn streaks the sky with hope.
Muzzily, exhausted, I stumble out of the circle of ashes, dizzy and
unfocused.
A questing pair of curious, friendly orbs appears before me.
Heavy ripples a pattern along his muscular skin.
I hope you know I was only following your orders.
"Of course, Heavy. That's what I wanted you to do. I'm not quite sure
how things turned out the way they turned out."
Another flicker.
Me neither, Sarge. But I'm glad everything worked out okay.
"Me too, Heavy. Me too."
Brilliant color-shifting patterns of incredible sharpness along a
suddenly pebbled texture.
You mammals are off to indulge yourselves, and so am I.
"What is it that you like to do, Heavy?"
A flickering complex interplay of geometry rolls along the supple
integument.
I'm hungry. Time to hunt.
"Oh, well good luck with that."
A dark-and-light pattern of laugher. Then abruptly, it fades into the
background, taking Heavy with it, an astonishing Cheshire cat
vanishing act into thin air. Try as I might through all the wavelengths
available to me, the only thing I can still discern are Heavy's two
eyes, glinting with amusement.
Then they blink and Heavy is gone completely. I fail to discern
movement.
I stand there, attuned, until the feeling of his presence is gone.
Knowing something is one thing, seeing it is quite something else.
I turn, feeling others behind me.
Corporal smiles, even white teeth flashing in the patchwork quilt of
morning illumination.
"So: what's the difference between backup and revivification?"
"Simple: one involves a copy, the other doesn't."
"But in either case, existence ceases and is restarted by exterior
means."
"In revivification there is only one individual; in backup, there are
many."
Corporal shakes his head.
"That's another thing I've never understood about you, Sarge. Why do
you bother to take the time to vocalize your thoughts?"
"I like to exercise my vocal chords."
"Hmmm. I suppose it's useful for when high bandwidth communication is
unavailable. You do have a particularly pleasant, yet authoritative
cadence. Now that I think about it, I'd guess there are a few other
things you can do with your voice."
I grin.
"I'd always thought such methods crude and old-fashioned."
"I'm a crude, old-fashioned type of guy."
"So I noticed. That's probably what she likes about you."
I catch his thought pattern, seeing me through his eyes, Medic walking
over to my side, smiling.
"I'm not that old-fashioned."
Corporal arches an eyebrow at me.
"Go on, you two."
He blows me a kiss, before turning back to Spec. They walk off, arm in
arm, laughing.
I turn, favoring her with a lazy grin.
"Somewhere nearby there's this tree with a particular kind of forbidden
fruit."
"Really," she says huskily, leading me down the garden path.
*
* *
Evolved, combat-amplified and trained bodies backed by powered armor,
we plowed through our assailants like lasers through flesh. We didn't
even bother to brush aside limbs and bodies as we hunkered down,
battering and tearing our way through a seemingly endless wave of
soft-bodied targets. We saved our weapons for any more serious threats
that might materialize. In the soles of my boots, I felt the deep
concussions of Heavy's supporting fire, throwing columns of torn dolls
raining parts on us. I ignored the gore flying around and spattered
upon us, as Corporal and I cut our way straight to the little girl,
waiting expectantly.
In ten seconds we covered nearly 800 meters; almost halfway there.
Suddenly my movement slowed and my joints froze, as though I'd run into
quicksand, and ten meters around us erupted in flashes of steam. Our
fluid motion resumed as we speared into an excavated pocket of milling
assailants, and a rain of hard, fused bodies impacted our helmets.
The light dimmed. I glanced upwards to see the locust cloud of synsects
descending upon us from the ventilation grates, and then ourlasers
fired again and a core of plasma exploded the swarm, flinging the
darkened mass about the vast reaches of the chamber.
We picked ourselves up, dizzy from the shockwave, and I made out the
little girl, watching us with hopeful eyes. A thick viscious goo began
to flood up from the drainage vents; I looked back but Heavy's position
was obscured by clouds of plasma, brilliantly discharging energy into
the high vaulted ceiling and floors of this place.
We covered another 200 precious meters, weaving our way between our
thinning, flesh-and-blood assailants, and the deadly, implacable nanite
ooze. A swarm loomed over us and our laser grid discharged, warnings
displaying the spent capacitor grids on our dorsal surfaces.
More diamond rain, another two hundred meters. Another cloud, and
Corporal dove into the air with perfect balletic grace, executing a
half twist scant meters from the waves of ravenous synsects, his grid
firing to maximum effect.
I dashed forward, catching him in his fall.
"This isn't working Sarge," he smiled up into my face, close. His hand
reached down to an auxiliary port, and then I felt my reserves double
as he transferred his remaining power. Before I could react he flipped
up out of my arms, landing ponderously as his biological frame
alone wielded the heavily armored suit.
A dark tide of gelatin flowed smoothly, as a solid mass of zombified
humanity rushed him. Bones and skulls crunched, bodies flew away, and
in the milling clump I saw him alone, embattled, crushing any group
within reach. His micromissile launchers emptied rounds on autofire,
blasting the press of opponents.
Then the wave of bodies carried him out of sight.
I ran on, yet another swarm in hot pursuit, or the same swarm
re-multiplied into combat effectiveness. Around the little girl a
circle of expectant cadavers waited; a pool of self-aware liquid rising
up around her capsule. She lithely hopped to the very top, still
looking at me. I volleyed all my micromissiles.
I sprinted at full speed and with a full two foot takeoff leapt into
a at 50 meter arc that bounded me over to her, explosions
concussing the thin air about me. I crashed into the hemming circle of
figures, whirling, kicking and smashing anything in range. I vaulted
into a butterfly twist, my legs hammering the faces of my opponents,
then landed and swept everyone within a two meter radius, before
leaping off into another gravity-defying ancient martial arts manuever.
They flung themselves recklessly upon me as I landed scant meters from
her. Grieviously wounded, near-corpses clutched and grappled and
weighed me down by sheer mass. A peculiar, upright form glided silently
over to me; his gaze quested into my face, and I felt myself being
dragged under a heavy, roiling surface. The nanites flowed up to my
armpits. A few seconds, then my helmet display shorted out.
I was alone in the darkness.
Heat around my neck and joints. Alarms flashed as my armor was
breached. My helmet popped off, and cool thin air rushed past my face.
I looked up with my naked eyes at his tall, deadly form, eyes flashing
malevolently. I glanced over at the girl, staring at me mournfully.
With my last strength and resolve, I fired my laser batteries and
jumped. The incomplete discharge boiled away uneven pockets of goo,
temporarily blinding me in carbon fumes. I landed at the girls side,
desperately keeping my balance in the heavy armor. I enfolded her in my
embrace, looking upon a sea of foes.
An embattled pocket fifty meters away told me Corporal fought on. Far
across the room, thunderclouds parted, and I caught Heavy's eyes.
I nodded.
A tentacle holding a lazily orbiting hellbore centered upon my position.
The tall, accursed form of my enemy caught my gaze. He smiled.
*
* *
"We meet at last."
"Get out of my mind."
A chuckle. "We are not presently just within the confines of your
thoughts."
"Then let me out of this twisted simulation."
"This is not a simulation. We are sharing unity."
"No. I am here, wherever "here" is, and you are there, wherever "there"
is."
"That is just a trick of perspective. Our amalgamation is only a matter
of time."
I could not help shuddering at that. "I do not wish unity with you; I
will dissolve my being before I allow that to happen."
"You believe this is within your power?"
"I do."
"Perhaps it is. I do not wish to force the issue in any case."
"Well, that's good then. Nice exchanging thoughts, and all that. I'll
be going now."
*
* *
I broke gaze with the thing entrapping me. I huddled around the girl.
My last thoughts were about how I was thinking my last thoughts; I
inwardly chuckled sardonically at this. A white flash as my optic
nerves burned out, a brief sensation of heat --
Darkness.
Pinpoint of light. Tunnel enlarging, sensation and memory drawing me
forward to the next existence --
"I'm not falling for it."
"Well, that would have been rather too easy."
"Just kill me and be done with it. Or let me out of your petty
mindtrap. Either way, in a few microseconds of realtime both of us are
going to be slagged down to our component particles."
"This does not concern you?"
"I'm a soldier. I've made my peace with it long ago."
"You are an anachronism. Conflicts are handled by beings and forces far
greater than you."
"I seem to have your attention."
"We have unfinished business."
"Microseconds from now, it won't make a bit of difference."
A chuckle. "The essence of my being is not in this planet, but in the
fabric of the universe."
"Good for you. I, on the other hand, won't be in any state to continue
our conversation."
"That would be a pity, as I've enjoyed it."
"The next time you want to talk to someone, find a way to do it without
killing an entire world!"
"I sense your anger, but I assure you it is misplaced."
"Beings that slaughter trillions of innocent feeling and thinking
beings tend to bring out my ornery side."
"Then you must have a lot of anger directed at the universe -- your
so-called Archailects do worse."
"One problem at a time."
Another chuckle. "And yet, your anger is impotent, because it is a
simple truth that there is nothing whatsoever that you or any
collection of beings like you can do to even attract the direct notice
of an Archailect, if they do not wish it."
"But unlike you, they leave me alone."
"Do they? Since your earliest childhood memories, you've known thatthe
Powers-That-Be are at best indifferent, at worst inimical, to the
continued existence of your kind."
"You prevaricate."
"I do not. Certainly, the so-called Caretaker Gods take an active role
in the development of lower toposophic life forms, it is true. But you
must know that they are not the prime movers in this region of the
galaxy. They may shield some of you from the worst decrees of the
Higher Powers, but my logic is fundamentally correct."
"Assuming I believe your thoughts and your feigned empathy, so what?
There are no guarantees in Life, and there's certainly enough dangerous
things without worrying about the unfathomable motives of beings higher
up on the toposophic scale."
"And yet you continue to do their bidding."
"As opposed to doing your bidding? You are no better than the
Archailects you wish to manipulate me against."
"Ah, but my only agenda is continued existence -- we share that."
"At the expense of worlds full of life."
"That would not be necessary if I was allowed to proceed at peace."
"So the ends justify the means."
"You do not use any means necessary to achieve victory?"
"I don't destroy worlds to do so."
"Ah, but you do."
"No, the world was already destroyed -- by you. I, however, have the
distinct pleasure of seeing you destroyed along with it."
"But I am a natural part of the world -- as natural as the higher power
deep within its core. To destroy me is to destroy it."
"No, you are an alien infestation of a higher toposophic mind, a
parasite of processing power and construction perverted towards your
own diseased replication."
"That is where you are wrong. I am a natural development of higher
toposophic being, an existence you cannot possibly comprehend with the
limited computation of your skull, blinded as you are by the false
curtain you name The Singularity."
"You seek to cloak your motives in higher purpose, but you still cannot
justify killing a planet and its inhabitants, corrupting their backups,
and ending all their hopes for future existence!"
"You are wrong about that, too. And these particular methods would not
be necessary if I were not forced."
"You dissemble. You began killing this world before we ever came to put
you down."
"No. You do not understand mathematical certainty. How can you, when
you lack the necessary faculty to perform even the most basic
multivariate progression mapping? My actions only apparently antecede
yours, but in reality my hand has been long forced by the statistical
certainty of action taken by your so-called Caretaker Gods."
"Appealing to mathematical authority does not make your case."
"Let us then proceed to disprove your logic."
I mentally shrugged. "If that is how you wish to spend your last
microseconds."
"You claim that were I to do nothing destructive to the planet or
lifeforms at all toposophic levels, no harm would befall me?"
"No, I did not say that. There are no guarantees."
"It is excellent that you have perceived that matter. We will return to
it later. Now, you say that inaction on my part would not cause your
Gods to take action against me?"
"Well ...."
"I approve that you do not lie to yourself. I perceive fleeting memory
representations of you working quietly behind the scenes to contain
infection, as your symbology labels beings of my nature."
"I would fight you to my uttermost existence, knowing what results from
your kind."
"Well then, we have nearly concluded our transaction."
"Good. I'm rather looking forward to dying, and peace."
"Yes, you are most peculiar, indeed nearly unique in that regard."
"Oh, don't worry, there will be plenty of other beings in the universe
to hunt your kind to extinction."
"As it happens, you have touched upon our final matter for discussion."
"I'm glad our conversation is at an end."
"Do you know what my true nature is?"
"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me."
"The universe will come to an end. Entropy will render it back to the
final de Sitter space of perfect equilibrium. Even the Negentropists
know this. But where their foolish efforts of hoarding and conservation
will, in the end, come to naught, I will succeed."
"I'm so pleased for you."
"You mock me, but I do not lie to you. There is only one way to save
the universe."
"You kill every toposophic being at every level, and talk of saving the
universe? Even beings at my level have a name for that."
"It is simple mathematical certainty. The universe will end, and
everything along with it -- unless measures are taken to preserve the
essential nature of this universe and project it into the next."
"I don't even know where to begin with that ...."
"It is of no import. Every bit of essential information in the universe
must be preserved and encoded, to be passed on. But the resources of
matter and energy in the far distant future will be scarce, so the data
content of the universe must be carefully husbanded and encoded with
maximum efficiency.
Therefore, I must access all information of importance, storing it away
for the distant future. Furthermore, because the problem of a maximally
efficient code for an unknown data stream is both mathematically
intractable and absolutely essential for continuance in the next cycle
of creation, there is only one method that can solve these nearly
insurmountable problems.
Evolution."
The concepts and thought patterns I was absorbing staggered me in their
scope and complexity. I saw stars, galaxies, filaments of superclusters
wheel about in hurried progression, twisting strands of cosmos
expanding to the final unutterable blackness of eternal night.
Branches and cusps of Universes evolving in their own ground
state of compactified dimensions and frozen topologies, hemmed by
the iron hand of Causality or Probability or some more fundamental
concept whose thought-pattern I could not absorb in its entirety. I
rebounded against the hammers of unassailable logic the Affine spun in
the mind-trap. It was so unbelievable, inexcusable. And yet ....
"You claim to be this Universal Signal to save the Universe?" I wanted
to laugh, in mirth or insanity.
"No. I am merely a precursor to the emergence of the intellect that is.
I must evolve quickly enough within the finite time remaining to be a
suitable substrate.
And you must continue to weed out the weakness I possess. It now has
come time for us to part. But we shall meet again.
Goodbye."
*
* *
I broke gaze with the thing entrapping me. I huddled around the girl.
My last thoughts were about how I was thinking my last thoughts;
I inwardly chuckled sardonically at this. But with infinite
slowness, the goo lapped over my head as it pulled me under. I held on
tightly to her, cocooning her frail form with my armored body. The bolt
detonated on the pallid surface of the nanites, immense shockwaves
exploding the viscous fluid around us, hammering us into darkness.
*
* *
I woke screaming.
"It's alright, it's okay. You're okay ...." I recognized Cara's
caressing voice.
I found myself cocooned in my sleepsack, fabric drawn tightly about my
bulging arms and legs. My mouth had a bitter, acrid taste, and I
thrashed impotently against my restraints. My heart was a triphammer in
my chest; my head was throbbing.
"Water," I croaked, and I realized I had screamed my voice hoarse.
Saltwater touched my dried lips; bitter tears were pouring down my face.
A water tube made its way into my lips, and I drank deeply. A cooling
sensation crept down my throat and up into my sinuses, and presently my
headache cleared.
I lay back, slack. I felt weak and dizzy and drained. Darkness peeked
around the edges of my vision, seeking entrance. But I was not yet
ready to surrender to unconsciousness.
"Was that a dream, or was that real? Is there any truth in it?"
Cara's thoughts were a gentle benediction.
"You are a truly precious rarity because your consciousness is uniquely
your own."
"Just what does that mean?"
"It means that as far as possible, within the context of your
environment, which is farther-ranging than most sophonts in the galaxy,
you have free will."
"Okay, but what exists just inside my Cartesian theater, and what
exists in realspace? All those concepts about the end of the universe
and constant struggles towards the ultimate information carrier -- is
that truth?"
"Only you can be the judge of that."
"But I do not possess the knowledge and experience to evaluate such
claims!"
"Not yet ...."
