Mindbridge

by Joe Haldeman

  “Yes, of course. But the net result of this is.. . well, in playground jargon, they say he has a diode loose. That affair with the animals last year didn’t help.”

  “That was blown all out of proportion,” Robert says evenly. “Scientific curiosity. He thought he had anesthetized them.”

  Weinberg squares the stack of paper in front of him and stares at it. Softly: “That’s not what he says under hypnosis.”

  49 – CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jacque was dreaming that they had inserted a long needle into his brain. They screwed a syringe onto it and sucked out yellow fluid.

  “Darling! Jacque! Wake up.” Carol was shaking him hard.

  Jacque shook his head and patted her on the shoulder. “Nightmare.” The sheet was twisted around him, soaked. He worried at it but only made the situation worse; swore, and jerked, tearing the fabric.

  “Here, let me.” Carol got off the cot and unwound him, from the feet up. “Poor helpless creature.” She slid into bed next to him. Held him.

  “Look, if you want to do that, let’s switch sides. This one’s all clammy.”

  “Okay.” She rolled over onto her cot and Jacque followed. “Are we alone?” he asked.

  “Far as I know. Nobody’s come in since I woke up.” He started caressing her. “Look, that, that’s not necessary. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”

  He laughed softly and eased himself onto her. “We can go an easier way,” she said. “Long day ahead of you.”

  He answered with a first slow thrust. “Call this work?”

  The door to the billet slammed open. Sampson’s voice came through the privacy screen: “You up, Lefavre?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Carol giggled into his chest.

  “Well, the last bunch of VIP’s came in. They’re about two hundred klicks away and homing.”

  “All right. Give me five minutes.”

  “Ten!” Carol said: “Jackrabbit,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be outside in the truck.”

  It wasn’t much of a conference room: a dissection table covered with homespun, surrounded by folding chairs and stools. Nobody sat. Pacing around the room were six of the most important people in the world:

  Hilda Svenbjorg, pale, thin, chain-smoking; a touch of blonde in her ruff of white hair. World Order Council Majority Leader (C., Westinghouse).

  Jakob Tshombe, light chocolate skin, expressionless features more Caucasian than Negroid, standing patiently. World Order Council Minority Leader (L, Xerox).

  Pacing were Bill (“Hawkeye”) Simmons, leader of the Union of Independent Scientists; Reza Mossadegh, Coordinator of the World Petroleum Cartel; Fyodor Lomakin, Premier of the Eastern Grain Bloc; and Chris Silverman, leader of the World Council of Churches and Western Pope (her eyebrows shaved California-style).

  They were ignoring Jacque and the other three Tamers. Carol and Vivian and Gus were in their GPEM suits, acting as bodyguards. Jacque sat on a stool in the middle of the room, next to a bowl of water that held the bridge.

  A hissing sound from outside: the last arrivals. Jacque and Bahadur went out to greet them.

  Tethered to the floater were three man-sized canisters, like overgrown oil drums: static life-support units. You can’t put an untrained person (or a pregnant woman, past a couple of months) into a GPEM suit; these LSU’s could keep a person alive, if immobile, for several weeks in any environment.

  With the help of the floater pilot, they unscrewed the tops of the canisters; three undignified dignitaries came out. They limped into the conference room and Bahadur addressed all nine.

  “I don’t know how much time we have, so I’ll give a brief summation of what we know. Which isn’t much. Then answer questions.

  “You know that the L’vrai are an ancient race, and that they can assume virtually any shape, evidently by an exercise of will-“

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Hawkeye Simmons muttered.

  “You will see it, I believe.

  “They appear to be telepathic with one another. Since the Sirius L’vrai are in possession of information that L’vrai on Achernar and Earth learned only months ago, then their telepathic messages must travel at greater speeds than that of light. Perhaps instantaneously.”

  “Impossible by information theory,” Simmons said.

  “How interesting. Their telepathy works only imperfectly with human beings; evidently they can read our minds only at some preconscious level.”

  “Can you be sure of this?” Tshombe asked. “We will be at a considerable disadvantage in negotiating if our thoughts are open to him.”

  “There is objective evidence of a sort. When the L’vrai first appeared in human form, they . . . their sexual parts were exaggerated in a way that suggested the totems of primitive peoples. And they were unblemished, handsome idealizations of the self-images of the people with whom they were in contact.

  “I myself saw this L’vrai take the form of his communicant’s-“ nodding at Jacque-“father. Evidently to inspire trust. It was the image of his father when the Tamer was a small, vulnerable boy.

  “The L’vrai, the one who spoke with us, only used the first person singular pronoun-even when referring to his entire race. This means either that the race literally has only one consciousness-“

  “Patently—“

  “-or that his syntax reflects a philosophy that subordinates the individual’s worth to the idea of his membership in some larger group, or his relationship to a spiritually higher-“

  A golden snake slithered through the open door.

  The blood drained from Simmons’s face.

  Silverman crossed herself.

  Mossadegh clutched his throat.

  Svenbjorg put out her cigarette and Tshombe raised one eyebrow.

  The serpent’s head weaved at their level for a few moments. Then it continued drifting toward Jacque. Its scales hissed on the rough concrete.

  Musky smell of nervous sweat.

  “Is it . . .” Silverman began.

  “Is it what?” Bahadur said.

  “Is it going to hurt him?”

  “Not physically. I don’t think. If it does we know how to kill it.”

  The L’vrai raised itself as if to strike, towering over Jacque. Jacque bared his teeth and started to rise.

  Then the snake blurred and melted and reformed as a bent old man clad in a white toga. His face was full of benevolent wrinkles and he had only a few strands of white hair. He could have been any race: his skin was the color of age and his features the’ shape of a saint’s.

  The illusion would have been perfect except that the toga showed a barely perceptible network of yellow veins.

  It reached into the bowl and took out the bridge, then offered it to Jacque. Jacque touched it and snapped to his feet, galvanized, face and body rigid with pain. Then he slumped back onto the stool and began to speak.

  “You are curious about me. Ask anything.”

  Tshombe’s voice was flat and authoritative: “Why are you here? What do you want with us?”

  “That depends on what you mean by ‘here.’ I am in this region of space because I am expanding my sphere of influence, as you are. I am in this room for your convenience. To explain your situation.”

  “And what do you mean by ‘I’?” Svenbjorg said. “Is there only one of you, or many?”

  “In your sense there are many, there are billions. But really there is only one. Only L’vrai.”

  “Which brings us back to where we started,” Bahadur said. “Do you mean this in a literal sense? If we killed half your billions you would not be diminished?”

  “Only in the potential for exploring and manipulating the volume of space that surrounds me. If only one of me was left it would still be completely me, L’vrai.

  “This could be true of humans as well. In a sense, it is true. You blind yourselves to it.”

  “Theology,” Hawkeye Simmons muttered.

  “No,” the L’vra
i said, “it’s a simple fact. I am many but I am one. All identical.”

  “What you mean is that you’re clones. All stamped out of the same mold.”

  Jacque was silent while the creature searched his brain for the term. “In no sense. I am only one and have always been only one. Only L’vrai.”

  “Each of your parts is aware of every other one?” Svenbjorg asked. “They act with common purpose?”

  “You are asking the same question over and over. The answer, again, is ‘yes.’ Please ask something-“

  “He could well be lying,” Mossadegh said.

  “There would be no reason for it. I have absolute power over you. The ones in this room and the billions on Earth as well. And on the other planets, if they were worth destroying.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Tshombe said. “From this room you can-“

  “Did you listen to me? I am not only in this room.”

  “Even so-“

  “I will explain in detail, then. Yes, I could kill all or most of you in this room by creating what this one calls a ‘feedback’ condition in your brains. This body of mine would also die.

  “Killing your other billions will take longer. That’s what the ships at the near blue star . . . Sirius, are for. With a relatively simple maneuver they can upset the harmony of forces inside your sun, and make it explode.”

  “Why?” Silverman broke the silence, her voice quavering. “Why in the holy name of God would you want to do that?”

  “Is that a serious question?” No one replied. “It seems so obvious. You are expanding through my volume of space. I must either destroy you or arrive at a compromise as to. . . the use of this region.”

  “That’s why you’re here, then?” Simmons said. “To negotiate over who gets what?”

  “You do not listen either. As I said, I am here to explain your situation. There will be no negotiating.” It paused. “Would you negotiate with an ant over the rights to a piece of sugar? The rights to your house?”

  “You called this meeting to gloat, then?” Simmons was almost shouting. “Why not just sneak up and blow us to hell without any warning?”

  The L’vrai smiled. “That might have been the most humane course.”

  “Humane,” Silverman scoffed. “You enjoy killing people. Don’t deny it, I’ve seen the cubes. You just want to prolong-“

  Jacque made a noise between a laugh and a death rattle. “You poor . . . ignorant creatures. I should explain-have explained.

  “I did enjoy, yes, killing those people. Insofar as it was my duty to them.” He waited for them to quiet down. “Exactly that, my duty.

  “I am an ethical and . . . the closest you say is ‘courteous’ . . . organism. My first act when I meet a new organism is to do what it expects me to do. As well as I can divine its wishes.”

  “I can not believe this,” said Chin (L., Bellcomm). “These people, you claim, wanted you to kill them?”

  “Not precisely. They expected me to try. Physically. Simply to kill them, with no danger to my own parts, would have been easy enough.”

  “I believe him.” It was Gustav Hasenfel, the first Tamer to speak. His amplified voice rang off the metal walls. “We’re always ready for trouble; always expect the worst.”

  “Thank you,” it said. “This one understands, too.” The wise old face looked down at Jacque with something like affection. “But he knew from the first time he touched my mind, on Earth. Though he didn’t know how to say it.

  “This one is different from most of you. He has brought the animal part of his nature into harmony with the . . . angel part. He does not attempt to separate them. Because of this, he and I can talk. I can sense that no one else in this room possesses this kind of, this kind of integration. You keep your animals and angels separate: you would have the angel prevail. It never can.

  “For this reason, we can’t waste time. This one dies, and without him I can no longer speak.”

  The table of people was between Carol and the L’vrai. She shuffled sideways to take aim.

  “Tamer!” Bahadur shouted. “Don’t”-drowned out by Hasenfel’s booming voice: “Look away I’ll kill you first.”

  Carol’s helmet swiveled toward her teammate, crystal clusters of optical sensors below the terrible red eye. “You would,” she said.

  “And then myself,” he said. “I’m sorry, Carol.”

  “Then have the L’vrai do it.” She turned up her vocals and her cracked whisper filled the room. “Do you hear me, monster?”

  “I will kill you if you turn your weapon on me.” Jacque’s strained voice said. “Not otherwise. Now that I know how you believe you can individually die.”

  “He won’t have the chance,” Gus said. “I’ll kill you the instant you take your eyes off me.”

  “All right. I’ll save you that. But-“ She sobbed and her vocals clicked off.

  “Let me explain further,” it said. “You’re wrong to see me as a monster, though I admit to having been partly at fault.

  “I’ve never met another spacefaring race that believed itself to have individual consciousnesses. Individual wills for each part, certainly; otherwise it could hardly be mobile. I assumed . . .

  “You see, sometimes my own parts wish to die in interesting ways. I approve; it adds to what I am. I assumed this is what you were doing. Nothing more.”

  “To business,” Simmons said. “This is all very interesting. But immaterial, if you’re just going to blow us to—“

  “This was never the totality of my plans; for one thing, it will be a long time before you present any real threat to me, or to any other civilized race. I will not destroy you, not immediately.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Tshombe said.

  Jacque’s voice was getting weak; they strained to hear. “Consider me an observer, a monitor. A teacher, if you will learn.”

  “An executioner, if we won’t,” Svenbjorg said.

  “Yes, but not in the sense of punishing you for wrongdoing.” It paused. “I struggle with the limitations of your language, and with speaking through this one’s pain.

  “I have what you would call an obligation. To a sort of family, which includes organisms who would appear much stranger to you than I do-some of whom you wouldn’t even recognize as life. And some so . . . sensitive that your mere presence would destroy them.”

  “You will guide us away from them?”

  “Not necessary, yet. Those are still much too far away. Possibly, by the time you can reach them, your own sensitivity will have evolved to where you are no longer a threat.”

  “If not, you’ll warn us? Or them?”

  “If not, I’ll exterminate you. Which is the only way I can . . . legitimately interfere with your expansion. One day the logic of this will be clear to you.”

  “But what about the space we share?” Svenbjorg said. “Do we partition it? Share planets?”

  “This is no real problem. You could not survive unprotected on worlds where I thrive. And I would stagnate on yours. I need a great deal of hard radiation to properly reproduce my parts-constant mutation and winnowing-that I may continue to evolve at a proper rate. You reproduce too slowly to take advantage of this. Otherwise you might.. We would have to...

  “This one dies. I sympathize with his pain. But his fear of death amuses me. He-“ A loud rattle choked off the last word. The L’vrai released the bridge and Jacque’s body pitched forward to the floor.

  Carol spun and her laser glared green. The L’vrai’s head split at eye level and it toppled over, changing as it fell.

  “Woman you might have-“

  “Shut up!” Gus shouted. “She waited.” Softer.

  Carol glided to where her man lay and picked him up. She stood immobile, silent.

  Simmons approached her. “Woman? Listen to me. I used to be a doctor. Let me see that man.” Her crystal eyes stared down at him.

  “Ah, hell-“ He grabbed Jacque’s dangling arm and pulled. Carol let go and he
eased Jacque to the floor.

  He ripped open Jacque’s tunic and listened to his chest. Then he straddled Jacque and started pounding on his sternum, putting all his weight behind it.

  “He’s young . . . and healthy . . . get it . . . going here . . .” The others gathered around, watching. He kept it up for a while and put his ear down again.

  “All right.” He turned Jacque’s head sideways, pinched shut his nose, and began breathing into his mouth. In a few minutes, still unconscious, Jacque was breathing under his own power.

  Simmons sat back and panted. He glared up at Carol. “Goddam it, don’t just stand there. Get a real doctor.”

  GPEM suits are fast, but you have to watch out where you’re going. She narrowly missed trampling the Western Pope, and widened their door by half a meter.

  50 - Mindbridge

  Interspecies Communications With the Groombridge Bridge: A Summary

  1. Invertebrates

  The most interesting invertebrate tested in conjunction with the Groombridge bridge (also the first one) was another bridge.

  Communicating with a bridge, via bridge, was not the immediate object of the experiment. The research team, in 2052, was trying to enhance the Groombridge effect by using more than one bridge per rapport-pair. If the two bridges touch, it turns out, the effect is diminished, not increased (though if the bridges are “in parallel”—one in each hand—the effect is the same as with one bridge).

  Some of the investigators reported vague feelings of “apprehension” or “uneasiness” when one bridge touched another, though others reported no sensation. There was no apparent correlation between this subjective response and the investigator’s Rhine potential.

  That the sensation is real was repeatedly verified by blind testing: the two bridges connected by a conducting circuit that could be opened and closed at random intervals by an unseen observer.

  This same apparatus was used in experiments with terrestrial animals. Only a few invertebrates (such as the tarantula and the spiny lobster) produced repeatable responses. In no case could experimenters identify the response with any discrete human thought or emotion: in the words of one, it was “like the feeling you might get when some barely audible sound stops. You probably wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t concentrating.”