Gamers and Gods: AES

by Matthew Kennedy

  Chapter 55: Kemushi: Tí eúkolon? Tò állōi hypotíthesthai.

  (“What is easy? To advise another.” – Thales)

  “My childhood?” Am-heh stared at Kemushi. “I doubt you could even understand it.”

  “Stalling is not persuasive,” she noted.

  “You won't believe me,” he said. “My experiences will be strange to you. For all you know, I'd be making them up as I went along.”

  “I have an idea about that,” she said. “Hang on.” Now she was glad she had spent a few extra minutes in Wu's office, scanning his updated manual. Finder, she thought. Silent mode, please. If Am-heh actually turned out to be an alien, she mused, it might not be a good idea to give him the keys to the candy store.

  I'm here, the system's persona answered. What do you need?

  Question: can two minds connected to you share thoughts or memories with each other? I really need to know if someone is telling me the truth.

  Affirmative, but there is loss of privacy and the hypothetical danger of possession. And both parties must agree to the sharing, due to privacy laws. The procedure is not recommended.

  Nevertheless, it appears necessary, she thought.

  Very well, the inner voice replied. If you accept the risk, make contact with another avatar, agree verbally, and ask the other to also agree verbally.

  “There is a way to convince me,” she told Am-heh. “It's a little risky, but I am willing to do it if you are. Will you try it?”

  “What is it you want me to do?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Take my hand,” she directed, holding out hers. “There is a way we can share memories. Mind to mind contact – deception is impossible. If this works, I will know if you aren't human.”

  After a moment, his hand grasped hers.

  “I agree to share memories with you,” she said. “Are you willing to share yours? If so, you must verbally agree.”

  She could see him mulling it over. Now she would learn if his need for privacy would be outweighed by his need to be believed.

  “I agree to share memories with you,” he finally said.

  The world around her dissolved.

  She was clinging to a branch with all six legs. The blue trunk of the tree rose straight out of a purplish body of water, as did the other trees. She looked up and saw Aton, the Light-Giver hanging blue and almost overhead. It was the Time of Hunting.

  Movement caught her eye: a yellow-green Chelox was climbing up out of the lake on a nearby trunk. Without a thought she launched herself toward it, leathery membranes fanning out between her limbs and her abdomen. In the low gravity, they were enough to let her glide over to her victim. Snapping at it, she gripped its neck in her jaws as the fractal pads on her feet slapped against the smooth surface of the S'erlu tree, bonding to it as if by magic.

  The Chelox struggled feebly as she devoured it whole, relishing the feeling of fullness that resulted. A good meal. It was good to be one of the People when the Time of Hunting came and Aton's ascendancy drew the amphibians out of their waters to molt and mate. It was a time of plentiful food, to grow faster to adulthood.

  But she did not become an adult. Suddenly there was a roaring in her mind and an explosion of directionless white light.

  Wonder surrounded her: the feeling of many minds opening, expanding as bodies dissolved, the very space around them unfolding and re-folding. Awareness exploded outward, freed from the redundant meat bags that had imprisoned it. An almost painful clarity erupted in the massed minds that knew themselves at a new quantum level of awareness, with greater insight and connection to the Universe than they had ever dreamed of: We have Transcended!

  It was a spontaneous arising; no benefactor Species had prepared the Children of Nuit for this experience. Strictly speaking, she now understood, no Benefactor was necessary. Transcendence was inevitable for any species, once they developed the necessary complexity of neural physiology. Even a single individual could Transcend at that point, but a sufficiently high population density could trigger Transcendence for all; if the society was ready. The first to experience it triggered those around them in a near-instantaneous chain reaction.

  Kemushi felt overwhelmed by wonder, as she remembered becoming aware of many more dimensions of the continuum. Time became...complicated. As Am-heh the Transcended child, she could move forward, backwards, or sideways in new components of the currents of event-flow. A timeless period of joyful exploration followed.

  Contact with members of an older Transcended group from a distant galaxy revealed more possibilities. The People could now become Benefactors to other races: they could acquire client species, who would assist them in the material plane in return for their guidance and supervision to hasten their own Transcendence.

  Why would they want to interfere with others, they asked the Elder race. Because, the answer came, in assisting them, you will reach even higher levels of awareness.

  The People wasted no time in seizing this opportunity. Am-heh and the other younglings were directed to assist in the endeavor. Older members were given choice inner-system planets with rocky crusts and primitive atmosphere. Younger helpers were assigned to less promising worlds. As one of the youngest, Am-heh was given a gas giant to manage.

  The gas giant circled a yellow G2 dwarf, but it had no life as yet. No matter. As Am-heh, the godlike one, she glided forward on the Time axis, leaping a billion years into the future of the planet.

  Life arose from the complex organics in the upper atmosphere, the result of cometary infusions of hydrocarbons to the methane clouds that swirled around the giant's core. Simple self-replication began. The first cells formed. He/she moved forward in time a bit more.

  Now there were multicellular life forms. They were hardly more than floating gasbags, coreless simulacra of the giant itself, with membranous envelopes enclosing the internal molecular machines. It was a start. As Am-heh, she moved forward again.

  There! Predators had evolved: smaller manta-like shapes with agile flight muscles and complex nervous systems that swooped among the gasbags, ripping into them with their more advanced intelligences.

  Now was the delicate time of Contact. As a Transcended one, Am-heh no longer had a physical body in the material plane, but he could mingle his awareness with sufficiently-evolved brains. Merged with Am-heh, Kemushi knew he/she could not wait. If another Transcended group, another Species discovered this species before he had staked his claim, there would be a fight for the right to be the Benefactor of the new client species.

  Swiftly, he selected the strongest, most alert individual and took possession of its body. Ro'ora of the Trenni was no match for a higher quantum of Mind. Controlling his body, Am-heh/Kemushi dominated the other Trenni, showing them where to find richer food regions, pushing their evolution of the young species.

  After a time, Atum looked in on his progress. Eldest of the People, the Children of Nuit, Atum had already reached the second quantum of mind. This placed him in undisputed leadership of the People, since he could overcome any of the first-quantum minds as easily as Am-heh could overwhelm a non-Transcended mortal mind.

  They are not coming along quickly enough, Atum informed the young godling. Solitary hunters are not good enough. They must have a society, a culture that will facilitate mass Transcendence and give it the structure of ethics.

  Why? asked Am-heh, who had Transcended from a child to a god in the massive event, without passing through the adult stage.

  Because gods without a culture foment anarchy! the answer came from Atum. There must be structure, even for gods, else the lower species suffer. Even when we contend for the privilege of being Benefactors to a species, there are rules to limit the scale of the Conflict. These come down from the time of the Elder gods. The rules of engagement, the Covenant, were formulated to prevent massive battles from destroying the very species we are fighting over.

  Am-heh found this all very arbitrary. Rules, for gods?

  Accelerate their deve
lopment, Atum ordered.

  I could make demigods, Am-heh suggested. This was a thing he had heard from others of his kind. By forming a temporary incarnation as one of the target species, child's play for a god, he could mate with some of them and tweak the DNA of the resulting conceptions, accelerating its development a thousandfold faster than mere evolution would allow. The progeny of such matings would be exceptional individuals, and would Transcend when their physical bodies perished. Sons of gods, they would become gods themselves.

  No! Atum said. This would produce only scattered individual Transcendents, and not a true ascended culture. They would be capricious, undisciplined godlings. Dangerous. I have seen this through the memory of the Elder Species who contacted me. Make no demigods! It is part of the Covenant we have sworn to uphold.

  Very well, said Am-heh, reluctantly.

  I will be back later, said Atum. I have others to follow up on.

  After Atum departed, Am-heh considered his options. He could tinker with the sun and produce more radiation, more mutations. He considered it, but it seemed so tedious a methodology. And so slow, because most of these random mutations would be lethal.

  The strategy he adopted was more suited to his own temperament: he reintroduced cannibalism.

  All predator species go through this stage, but develop taboos against it. Commanded to accelerate the Trenni, Am-heh used his influence through the Prophet of each generation. Through his possession of each alpha's body he worked to remove the taboos.

  Using his dominance to create flocks of followers, he led them in raids against competing populations, ripping into the unsuspecting victims and devouring them. Leading by example.

  Other flocks formed in self-defense, imitating his. Evolution roared ahead at a fantastically accelerated rate, as the Trenni intraspecies competition reached new heights. Their descendants were ruthlessly culled by competing packs of cannibals who devoured the weakest and slowest among them. The succeeding generations became swifter, stronger...and more intelligent, to better outmaneuver their opponents to attack or escape.

  Now they are really coming along! he thought. He could hardly wait for Atum to review his progress.

  Soon, as a god senses time, Atum returned to check on him. But the Elder's reaction was not what Am-heh had expected.

  Atum was aghast. Fool! You have doomed the entire species!

  What? said Am-heh. I do not understand. They are coming along nicely...

  Coming along nicely? They are RUINED! Atum retorted. If such a species Transcends, they would become cannibal gods! Can't you see the chaos that would generate! Millions of lesser species could be destroyed in battles for clients! They would ignore the Covenant!

  Atum gripped Am-heh's mind with his greater power. Kemushi knew Am-heh's consternation, his helplessness and fear. Your supervision of this species is at an end, Atum informed him/her. Their metapatterns, their souls, will have to find another developing planet and start over.

  Helpless in Atum's grip, Am-heh had to watch as Atum destroyed the Trenni. Atum took no chance. He destroyed the gas giant, clenching the fist of his second-quantum mind on its core until it imploded into a singularity. All of the life forms perished, their bodies ripped apart into subatomic particles that the black hole sucked up like cosmic spaghetti. The species was gone. The planet was gone. Only the black hole remained, a grim tombstone orbiting the sun.

  Atum could not likewise destroy Am-heh the immortal for his mistake; Atum was 'only' a second-quantum mind. But he could punish the godling. He could try to ensure that Am-heh learned from his mistake.

  No more gas giants for you, Atum decided. The next blue marble planet we discover, you shall be low on the Development team, not in sole charge. Your job will not be a pleasant one. For what you brought upon the Trenni, you shall have a title. You shall be known henceforth as Am-heh, the Devourer of Millions.

  And so it was.