Moving Mars (59 page)

Who could have designed such a mind? Humans had famous and less famous; and QL thinkers had played a small role in human affairs for a century and a halfbut no human, not even the designers, could encompass the QL mentality. It was not superiorin some respects, it operated much more simply than any human or thinker mindbut what it did, it did superblyand unpredictably

If I was a spectator, watching this odd and beautiful horse perform its dressage, Charles was the rider.

Weve measured and drawn the first orthonormal base, Charles said. Now we measure the translation of conserved descriptors to the larger system.

With the help of my enhancement, I understood part of what I saw: massive number-crunching through the interpreters computer portion, cheating on nature by pulling the energy required to shift Mars from the total energy of the larger system, the Galaxy. In fact, the energy would never be expended, not in any real sense; the universe would simply have its demanding bookkeeping balanced, under the table, while it wasnt looking.

Twenty seconds until the first frame shift, Charles told me. Our link seemed more and more intimate. He spoke solely for my benefit. QL is now reassigning all descriptors to the first destination. We would move everything in the space to be occupied by Mars, at the same time we shifted the planet itself, in effect trading places. This was the easiest part of the process to understand, though not to accomplish.

The tweaker is beginning to radiate, Stephen said outside. Fluctuation in the Pierce region.

I saw the two framesour present frame and the frame we would translate ourselves to. They overlapped, and then, for an instant, I could not see Mars at all. What I saw instead was horrifying in its simplicity.

Mars had been reduced to an ineffable potential. It could be anything, and we were with itwe had been drawn outside of the rules, away from the game. This was the blanking, when systems that relied on moment-to-moment correlationsminds, computers, thinkers, electronic systemshad to jumpstart themselves, to assume that there had at one time been a reality, and that all of the rules had been what they seemed to be now.

In the potential, I sawthough fortunately, I did not feel the attraction of what seemed to be choice. We could choose other sets of rules. The QL danced through these with great haste. I wanted to linger, to sample; what if this were changed, or that, or thatsuch fascinating prospects!

Frame shift, Charles said. The potential vanished and I saw again a simple representation of Mars. Hergesheimer took quick measurements of our position.

The rumbling howl died to a faint shiver, barely heard or felt through the couchs padding. We were no longer where we had been. Earth had lost its target.

Charles, how are you? I asked.

Well enough, he said. The QL got a little frightened back there. Changing the rules seems to be as attractive as sex. It feels at home in that kind of place.

Dont let it do any dating, I suggested. The immensity of what might have happened was lost in a sudden feeling of lightness.

I think we did it right, Charles said. I blinked away from the projectors and squinted at him on his couch. His eyes were closed and his breath came in shallow jerks.

Something brushed my arm. I swiveled my head the opposite direction and felt such a sudden sense of relief, tears started to flow. I lifted up my arm and reached out.

Ti Sandra stood beside my couch. She looked very healthy, back to her full weight, face wide and radiant and proud. She wore her most flamboyant gown, hand-stitched tiny glass beads sparkling. She stroked my arm, her touch as light as a breeze. You made it, I said. God, its good to see you.

Weve advanced along Marss orbit fifty million two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers, Hergesheimer sang out.

Ti Sandra shook her head, still beaming at me, eyes crinkled down to slits with her pride and her love. I wondered at the lightness of her touch.

Now for the first big leap, Stephen said. Charles?

Assessing, Charles said.

I had glanced away at the sound of Stephens voice. When I glanced back, Ti Sandra was not there, of course, but her touch on my arm remained.

I settled back into the couch, mouth dry as flopsand, and let the projectors find my eyes again, filling my field of view.

Theres no greater time lagno lag at all, Charles said. But well seem to be in the blanking longer, you and I and the QL and interpeter. We have a lot more translation to doto the larger system. That will seem to put us outside status quo longer.

Status quothings as they are. All the familiarities to which our minds adapt from infancy. Home ground, home turf, home rule.

The longest ever for the QL, I said.

Right, Charles affirmed.

Temptations.

Charles chuckled.

Dangerous for you, too?

You bet, he said.

Like sex.

Much worse, dear Casseia, he said. Im in here with the QL, keeping it from getting distracted, but I experience most of what it experiences.

You told me once you wanted to understand everything, I said.

I remember.

In the blankness I wanted to play around, too.

If we played for an eternity, Charles said, we might learn how to put together a universe. You and I.

But you say theres no time passing.

Eternity means no time. Infinity without time. A ring of bright and endless theorizing. The ultimate play.

Leander broke in. Are you still working, Charles?

Still at it, Charles said. You want reports?

Dont keep us guessing, Charles, Leander said.

QL has finished assessing the planet and the site, and its preparing to fix the books, Charles said. Dont mind us, Stephen.

Dont mess with her mind too much, Charles, Stephen said. We need her after youre done.

Youll see something different, this time, Charles told me, his voice barely above a whisper. Intimacy beyond that of man and wife: the intimacy of two young gods. I think it will be part of the QLs longer acquaintance with the larger system. It will be measuring the highest level of superposited descriptors, up to, and maybe beyond those that are actually in use

Unused descriptors, I said.

Or no longer in use, Charles said. Descriptors for things that once were, or might be. Or for nothing at all. Vestigial or excessive.

How many minutes until frame shift? Leander asked.

Four minutes, Charles said.

Earth might get a fix on our new position and start again, Leander said.

To hell with them, Charles said. I could tell he was smiling, man on a powerful horse, riding confidently. But that horse was going to grow unbearably magnificent in the next few minutes.

What would you use them for, Charles? I asked.

The untagged descriptors?

Yes.

I think theyre waiting for when were mature. We could make new forms of matter. We could translate all human information into the upper memory of mass and energy. We could trick space into believing it was matter or energy, or into believing it was something we cant even conceive now.

You talked about that once, a long time ago, I said.

A dialog with the radixes of creation.

Radishes? Leander interrupted.

Stephen, Charles said, leave us alone. Were fine. Casseia is doing her job.

She sounds more theoretical than political, Leander said dourly.

One minute, Charles said.

I had a card to play, to keep Charles rooted in this particular creation. Now seemed the best time.

Ive thought of you often, I said.

What? Charles seemed puzzled by the shift.

Ive thought of you often since we were together.

Ive caused enough trouble, no?

Ive thought about what you said, when we were trading ambitions. I think I know why I turned you down, Charles.

He said nothing.

I did love you, but you were going places I could never go-

Right, he said softly.

It seems terrible to say it, but I wanted to be with someone less stimulating.

Right.

Leander whispered in my ear, Casseia, what in hell are you doing?

I pushed him away. There was a moment when I felt so close to you, years after, I felt as if we had actually gotten married and lived a lifetime together. You came to my rescue, Charles.

When was that?

I had my back against a wall, talking with Sean Dickinson.

You liked Sean.

He was acting on Earths behalf after the Freeze. He was forcing usmeto give up everything. I never felt so trapped in my life. Then you sent your message.

Ti Sandra Charles said.

I interrupted. I went to the surface and looked west and saw Phobos through the clouds. My voice hitched again with the emotion of that moment. I knew what you were going to do. And you did it. You took all my burdens away. My God, what you did for me then, Charles. I was so very proud.

Im glad, Charles said.

The image of Mars grew dark in my field of view. Through the darkness I saw the potential coming, the blankness a huge animal moving through void to reach us. The impression of its living beauty petrified me, like a rabbit facing a tiger.

Shifting frame now, Charles said. I felt his calmness, his focus, his strength. Charles was really so simple, still a child. I had spoken a truth I had not been able to acknowledge until now, and he believed me.

I love you, I said.

I always have, and I always will love you, Casseia, Charles said. He took a deep breath. Lets play.

Abruptly, the QL expanded the scale of our simulation. We seemed to hang over the Solar System, the inner planets bright points marked by armillaries of coordinates, references for descriptor bases, expansions of arrays for major effects on Mars.

Removing Mars would have virtually no effect on the sun or planets.

The tiger struck.

In the blankness, I wondered what the universe would be like if

Charles spoke to me reassuringly

There would have been no agreement between charges of particles having no extension, point-like particles such as the electron, and aggregates such as the neutron; and furthermore, superposition would not be possible, and the universe would crumble

But Charles held firm, and guided the QL

The blankness drew me into something like a dream, where all actuality was but a subset of

My life would have been

Casseia.

No going to Earth, staying home, no

Casseia.

My enhancement seemed to throw colored layers of notation at me, layer upon layer piling up in beautiful depths, staring through a sea of described realities, and within that sea, the Mars that I had known reduced to a vector space, a single state array forming the basis for everything thereafter, and that moment had been (searching out the root, the zero for its passage over an infinite plane of my existence)

Multiple roots, multiple zeroes

Where my plane intersected with the complex surface of Charles, forming shock fronts that pushed me along and ahead, tumbling like a boulder

Removing those roots, and the function collapsed in an entirely different fashion, and it seemed, in this dream, that we had both been used, that our potentials had been coerced to achieve one thing, what was happening now, and all else could be discarded, our lives the endless scribbling that leads to an answer

I saw also the trials, the judgments, the suits brought against what was left of the Republic, crowds of those who could not be reasoned with, because the shock fronts had tumbled them along, as well; and I would receive the reflection, their anger and fear.

Ah, Charles said, something between a sigh and a groan. Cassie.

He had never called me Cassie, the familiarity of a husband, and this our child coming now.

Frame shifted, he said.

The Solar System had vanished from our perspective. Instead, a view of the distant stars from three angles, combined, twisting my internal gaze until I understood what the interpreter was doing. We swam in a sea of nebulosity, fresh clouds of young stars, stars newly born, the corpses of over-eager suns that, dying, enriched the medium and allowed even more dynamic suns to be made. The QL laid its sight over these things, and all was twisted into uncollapsed vagueness, flickering between states, superpositions of qualities it regarded as important but which meant little even to Charles.

Ive found the New System, Hergesheimer called out. Were four point nine trillion kilometers away.

I broke from the projectors to look at Charles. He lay without moving on the couch. Leander kneeled beside him and looked at me with an expression caught between wonder and pain.

Do you hear himin the simulation? Leander asked.

I dont know, I said. I went back under the projectors, bands combining to immerse me again. I did not hear Charles, but through the interpreter, I felt a guidance of the moving figures, a steady hand on the QL.

Yes, I said. I feel him. Hes here.

Yes, I said to the steady hand, the man on the horse.

Frame shift in

No time at all.

A mere adjustment.

Two thirds of a light-year; having emerged ten thousand light-years from the Sun, this was just a twitch of the toe into the waters of our new ocean. Charles could do it.

Did it.

The blankness almost a familiarity now, a place of rest as well as potential, and within the repose, the steady hand on the surface of the QL.

Not mad, Charles said. The QL is not mad. Its not even eccentric. I thought for a moment he was calling out the name of a woman, one of his lovers. Agnes Day. Who is she, Charles?

Now listen to me closely, because there will not be time to say this again. You are my image of what a woman should be, God save me, Cassie.

Agnus Dei he had said, lamb of god.

You are strong, you love and care, and they will come after you.

Did you see them, too, Charles?

I dont need to see anything. I know people almost as well as you. I wont be there in any useful form, because this is going to

just kill me

Cassie. But you saved them all. History grinds very fine sometimes, and the dust is bonesor ash.