Neverness (47 page)

   - Do not be afraid of losing yourself. There is the part and there is the whole, and both exist at once.

   - I am a
man
! I could never be one of the Host.

   - And the wo-men of Old Earth nearly succeeded in creating a planetary consciousness. Ten billion wo-men and children - each one like a neuron in a brain. And all their touching and talking and copulating and writing and fighting and singing - all the instances of intercommunication, just like the interconnecting synapses of a neuron. Ha!

   - Why did we fail?

   - Why does a manchild pull the wings off flies?

   - I don't want to be part of a planetary brain.

   - Ha, ha, but
it
wants you to be a part of ... the whole. At least for a time.

   - No, no.

   - And that is why our ancestors failed. The nascent consciousness of Mother Earth was damaged by its youthful carelessness. In a way, it was never born. The parts were never truly aware of the whole.

   - They were afraid, I think.

   - Ha, ha, they were stupid! Is a fish aware of the sea, or only the immediate water in which she swims? What does a single neuron in your brain know of mathematics or music or love? We can never be completely aware of the entire dimensionality of the whole, but we can know some of the things it does.

   - And the ten thousand hosts - what do you do, then?

   - Miraculous things! We're gods, aren't we, oh, ho? We are the brain of Agathange, and when we weep there is rain, and when we sigh the wind blows. When the coral die at the right place, their skeletons form the reefs of the sea. We create new species when there is need, sometimes just because it is fun. And the other things, the higher things, the ecologies and harmonies - we tremble to tell you about these things, we are on the verge of telling you, we want to tell you, we must but ...

   - But?

   - But you are too stupid, ha, ha! As even the individual Agathanians, Balusilustalu, Mumu and Pakupakupaku are too stupid. But we at least are aware of the whole; the whole is us, and it is aware of us.

   - And the whales?

   - As your cortex is to the more primitive parts of your brain, so are the whales to the hosts. You might say the whales are the soul of Agathange. But that would be a simplification, ha, ha!

   - So many hierarchies and layers of intelligence; I'd be afraid of losing myself.

   - Stupid, stupid man! The hologram is preserved; all is preserved.

   - I
am
afraid.

   My great fear was not that the planetary consciousness would absorb me. Could a man with hair and fingers and a mathematical brain be absorbed by a host of seal-men? And even if they
could
change my flesh and cark my brain to their whims - and I had to admit they could - why would they want to? What value did Mallory Ringess, a simple pilot of an archaic Order, possess to a race of gods? No, my great fear, what I dreaded above all was losing my selfness to the virus that they had put inside me. The longer I swam among the Host and the more my brain "healed," the more fearful I became.

   As the days passed, I gradually realized that the Agathanians had great power over matter and consciousness. (And to complete the semimystical quincunx of the mechanics, over energy, spacetime and information as well. Especially over information.) I noticed that wherever the Host swam, it never rained, nor did the wind blow too hard or the waves grow too steep. Even the sharks were somehow kept at bay. These great, sleek beautiful murderers ate only a few of the oldest Agathanians, those who were ready to "go on," as they put it. The sharks left the pups - the children - alone. I never understood how Mumu and Siseleka were able to swim right up to a great white shark and impudently touch flipper to fin. It was a mystery why they would wish to do so, unless it was to impress me with their love of nature, and more importantly, of nature's love for them. Only once did I doubt their power. Only once did nature seem as far beyond their control as the sun is to a sunfish.

   One day a pod of orcas, with their even-spaced, conical teeth and grim smiles, appeared as if from nowhere. In no time, Siseleka and seven others were torn apart and swallowed piecemeal. The blood was so thick in the water that even the sharks became crazed. There was a slaughter, then. Somehow the sharks died even as they bit at mouthfuls of water. During this confusion one of the orcas forced his way into the center of the Host. He gobbled down eight screaming children as if they were oysters. When he was full - he must have been full, I thought - he whacked-his great tail up under a baby, propelling her up out of the water over the backs of her mothers and into the waiting jaws of another orca. Three times this trick was repeated, and each time a hapless child disappeared into the belly of a smiling black and white beast. Then, as quickly as they had come, the orcas were gone, and the red waters grew still.

   The Host's sobs, shrieks, cries, whistles and moans continued for a long time. A few of the mothers took me under the water and engulfed me with layers of seal bodies which writhed and quivered around me. When it seemed the orcas had eaten their fill, the song of the Hosts returned to the sea. Perhaps the Agathanians were taking inventory of their losses or were merely soothing each other. Perhaps they were busy with their "higher things." I was terrified. by the dangers, without and within. I wanted only to be back on my island, to pull myself to safety up the branches of a tree. But after a while the many singing voices calmed and reached a harmony; the shrieks and barks flowed into words, the words into thoughts.

   - The price, the price, there is always a price, ha, ha!

   - But you're gods! When you weep there is rain, you said.

   - We're still human, deep inside, and when there is blood we weep.

   - You said the whales are the higher gods. I don't understand - are they insane?

   - Oh, the debts, the sins of our fathers. The consciousness of Agathange is not quite achieved, not quite perfect. The price.

   - Tell me about the orcas.

   - Listen to the music of the rising waves.

   - Is part of your planetary brain insane?

   - Listen to the rush of the drifting clouds.

   - Tell me.

   - Listen to the sound of your own beating heart.

   - No!

   - The price, the flaws. The universe is flawed.

   - Is my brain flawed? Tell me about the virus - what will it do?

   - The universe is perfect, too, and your brain is perfect or will be soon, oh, ho! And you must not call it a virus. The
godseed
is perfect. The godseed is only for you. The mind of the hosts has surrounded you and modeled your brain. Our mind is a computer, like your Order's akashic computers or the neurologics of your ship. Only much more powerful and profound, oh, ho! We're gods, are we not? Your brain is like a perfect hologram. And in a hologram, isn't information about the whole preserved in every part? And in our bakulas, which listen to our mind's computer, we make the godseed. The godseed "reads" the hologram of your brain. It unfolds it, you are being unfolded now, ha, ha! The godseed knows the exact order in which your neurons must be replaced. The godseed "sees" the connections which must be made to the living neurons.

   - And my memories?

   - Memory is a nonlocal phenomenon. Memory can be created but not destroyed. Every part of your brain contains all of your memories. The godseed preserves memory.

   - And myself?

   - Ha, ha, you are Mallory Ringess, aren't you?

   - Is my sense of selfness preserved? Will I still
be
myself? How will I know?

   - What is the sound of the rising sun?

   - I feel like I'm drowning.

   - Drowning in a sea of information, oh, ho! Information, information everywhere! Information in the conch's spiral shell, and in the song of the hosts: information; information passing beneath the sea, passing from the true information viruses to the mothers, and from mother to virus; and the viruses infect the otters and the octopuses, the sunfish and diatoms. This is what a true information virus is: It keeps our DNA
informed
of the changes of the other species. As it informs us, we inform the life of the sea, passing the information, always passing, back and forth from creature to creature and from plant to plant, under the sea across all the waters of Agathange. Let us open you to the sea of information.

   - No!

   - Don't be afraid. All will be restored.

   - I'm afraid of dying.

   - Information is like water, and you are dying of thirst.

   There was a moment of stillness, then, hard to remember, impossible to fully forget. They opened me, and the tides of consciousness rushed in. I think I became a part of Agathange, a part of the living mind of the planet. I heard things; I felt the planet moving beneath me. Information passed from me into the sea, while each living creature and plant informed me of its existence. My consciousness was embodied in every clam, whale or starfish - am sure of it. I was a lobster feeling with my claws through the bottom sand for decaying tidbits; I was the blue-green algae floating on the currents, soaking up sunlight, and I was a diatom and an arrowworm and a kerfer slicing open the soft tissues of a jellyfish. I was a great sperm whale who sang the ecstasy of his mating and moaned the joy of her giving birth. I was many things and one thing, enfolding the world in my tentacles, in my flippers, in my arms. And always information was passing, from plant to animal, from eaten to eater, from virus to bacteria, from mother to daughter. There was a brilliant pattern to this information, a vision as clear as diamond, but now there are only memories of vision; like starlight diffusing through deep blue waters, the memories are tenuous and dim. I was at once myself, a tiny cell with tiny human consciousness, and I was a vast being aware of the information flooding through the universe. I
knew
things. To me as a man, the knowledge was impossibly complex. But as Agathange the planet, when I looked out at the stars, I was aware of the beauty and simplicity. In ways I still do not understand, this awareness changed me and has never stopped changing me, and I am afraid it never will.

   When I awoke I was lying on the beach with the heels of my feet stuck down into the wet sand near the water's edge. There was sand in my mouth, sand in my hair, ears and eyes. I moved my parched, gummy lips to speak and my teeth ground against particles of grit. A seagull cried out. All along the line of crashing surf, the waves were white and foamy. The pink sun was sliding down the western sky, and I wondered how long I had been lying there. My skin was hot, burnt red as a bloodfruit. I clasped my hands to my head and ran my fingers across my scalp, searching for some fissure, scab or scar to prove my brain had been opened. But I found only a few pieces of crackling, black seaweed clinging to the hair. (To the black and
red
hairs.) I closed my eyes, then. I looked inward to the interior of my brain; I looked for memories which might seem unreal. I tested my mathematical powers. I proposed arbitrary axioms and created a logic, and I invented some pretty theorems. I did other things. For a long time I thought deeply, brooding about the problem of identity I had first faced within the Entity. How would I know if my true self had changed? And if it had changed, subtly changed so I never knew, if I were somehow different or diminished, would it matter?

   Yes, it would matter. My eyes moved beneath shut lids, and I thought of Katharine's last words to me, and it suddenly mattered more than anything in the universe. My great fear was that the Agathanian virus would rob me of free will. It had happened before, to other men. In a way, the fundamental technology was old. The warrior-poets of Qallar and the despicable alien Scutari were known to practice this barbaric art of brain replacement. They call their art "slel-mime," and it is a horrible thing. Tiny slel-viruses - they are computers, really - invade their victim's brain. The viruses first establish colonies at critical locations throughout the cortex. One by one they take over the victim's programs, all of the human habits, beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and mental functions. The victim's brain then runs the programs of his new master. In the end, when the virus has done its work and all the brain has been remade, the man is no more than a machine.

   _What is inside of you is neither a true information virus nor a slelvirus. We have told you, it is godseed. The hologram is preserved._

   I lay there on the beach, listening to the internal rhythms. In truth, I felt as I had always felt - perhaps a little more complex, angrier, grimmer, and too full of the world, but ... myself I stood up and looked out across the breakers where the ocean swelled and the Host of Restorers gathered. I heard the Song of Agathange in my blood. Although I remained the proud, vain, murderous man I had always been, I knew I was something more. There was a new truth, a new passion inside me - I could feel it burning somewhere behind my eyes. I almost knew what it was. Something - and not just the Song of the Hosts - had been added to me. I looked out to sea, and I listened to the ebb-sob of the waves, and I knew that the Agathanians had left something unsaid, something unexplained.

   I swam out past the lagoon, past the white and pink coral reefs into the deeper waters. Whistling dolphins raced ahead of me, and a humpback breached the surface and landed on his back with a gigantic splash. I found Balusilustalu swimming with the Host. She nudged my stomach as I talked to her in the language of the Civilized Worlds. Once again I asked her about the orcas, and again she answered me in riddles. I was given to understand that the subject was taboo, a thing she could not or would not talk about. (It is curious that for all people - even god-men - there are things which cannot be discussed. The Devaki, for instance, almost never reveal their nighttime dreams, while many of the exemplars disdain any mention of sex or sexuality. And even we pilots may not talk about those things that we may not talk about.)