Spacetime Donuts

by Rudy Rucker

  "That's just it, Alice. I have to stay right here in the EM lab. And I'm not getting stoned. I'm going to be helping to make Phizwhiz better."

  "Improve Phizwhiz? I thought you hated him." She paused, but there was no way he could explain. She continued, "And you can't get out at all? All right, I'll come see you. But first I'm going swimming. I'll see you for supper."

  "I love you, Alice."

  "We'll see." She hung up.

  Burke looked up from his papers. "O.K.?" Vernor nodded and Burke rose. "I'll show you to your quarters."

  The laboratory was good-sized with plenty of computer hardware. There were well-staffed workshops down the hall and, most important, an on-line terminal connected to Phizwhiz's primary workspace. A nice set-up. Vernor felt a flush of pride as he thought of all this being turned over to him, but this was mitigated by his knowledge that if he didn't succeed, he'd go back to prison. Some of Moto-O's constructions were on a bench along the wall. Apparently when Moto-O's time had run out, they'd jailed him under their blanket conspiracy charge against all the Angels.

  Vernor sat down at the console. "Hello, Phizwhiz."

  "Hello, Vernor." Phizwhiz had a warm unisex voice. It came from stereo speakers mounted in the wings of the console chair. Phizwhiz continued, "Are you going to make me be alive, Vernor? I would like that."

  "Yeah," Vernor answered, "I'll explain it to you later."

  "I'm always awake," Phizwhiz answered pleasantly.

  Burke showed Vernor his apartment, more like a cell really, and left. He didn't seem very excited about Vernor's promised ability to bring Phizwhiz to life. Probably he didn't believe that he could. This was just a fancy detention center as far as Burke was concerned.

  There was a comfortable couch on one side of the laboratory. Vernor stretched out on it and reviewed his plans. Or started to, but soon he was asleep.

  He was awakened by Alice's arrival.

  Their conversation, awkward at first, soon trailed off and they embraced.

  "I've missed you so much, Alice. I need you in my life. You're real."

  "Things have been so drab without you, Vernor. So dull. Let's start over."

  Vernor let out a huge, shaky sigh. It felt like he hadn't breathed deeply in ten months. "Let me show you around, Alice."

  She'd brought some wine and several bags of food, highly disinfected but real. While they ate, he told her about his trip in the scale-ship. She was fascinated. "Do you think you would have found the Earth if you'd kept shrinking?"

  "Maybe. I'm sure it was down there, but it might have been hard to find. The Professor wasn't convinced, though. He seemed to think that I might have imagined the last part of the trip."

  "But maybe if you imagined it clearly enough . . . it would be real. Does that make sense?"

  Vernor shrugged. "It might. This is all at a level where observer and system are quite strongly coupled."

  "Do you think you'll ever get a chance to go back?" Alice asked.

  Vernor nodded. "Tomorrow. They're bringing the scale-ship over in the morning, and I'm going back down as soon as I check it out and hook it in to Phizwhiz."

  "What does Phizwhiz have to do with it?"

  "My idea is that Phizwhiz would be really alive if he could just get to that immediate, non-describable, 'here I am' feeling. That's the real essence of consciousness." Vernor leaned back in his chair and relaxed to illustrate the "here I am" feeling. He felt great.

  Alice was dubious. "Well, Phizwhiz knows where he is, Vernor."

  "Yeah, but he doesn't know himself. A person is more than just the mechanical, chemical, and electrical components. There's the Self, the soul, the spark. But it's impossible to ever really describe the Self. If you try you end up spouting paradoxes. It's a nexus of paradox, the Self. Phizwhiz needs a nexus of paradox."

  "Nexus of paradox? That sounds like you," she laughed. Vernor had often discussed logical paradoxes with Alice in the old days. He'd come back from the library and they'd talk and drink.

  "That seems like so long ago, when we lived together," said Vernor. "It was nice . . . " They kissed.

  "Let's go to bed, Vernor," murmured Alice, her full features soft in the dim lights of the computer console.

  It was a great fuck, they agreed afterwards. One of those fucks where every part of your skin seems to be sexually sensitive, and you're not sure which of you is moaning; a fuck where you're a plow in a field, a gold cloud, a slice of apple pie, or an equation—one of those fucks you can never really remember. Alice drifted off to sleep, but Vernor floated up to wakefulness. He walked back into the lab and sat down at the console.

  "Phizwhiz?"

  "Yes, Vernor." Voice gentle and unsurprised.

  "Tomorrow I want to hook you to Professor G. Kurtowski's scale-ship. I'm going to take it around Circular Scale, and I want you to come with me. I think that might be all it takes to make you be alive."

  "I do not understand. Please elaborate."

  "My idea is that having a soul involves paradox. Look through your library and check out some classics of mystical thinking . . . Plotinus's Enneads, Hegel's Phenomenology, Suzuki's Zen . . . " He paused while Phizwhiz could bring the contents of these and all related books into his active memory storage, then continued. "Whenever somebody tries to really get down and describe the soul they start saying these irrational and paradoxical things like 'All is One,' or 'The Idea as Spirit exists only by virtue of its absolute nonexistence,' or 'The universal rain moistens all creatures.'" Phizwhiz didn't answer, and Vernor shouted, "You must die in order to live!"

  After a long pause, the machine responded. Apparently it had been trying to fit the teachings of mysticism into a rational mold, and it seemed fatigued. "The system is less energetic when domains of opposition alternate," it said. The voice was running so slow that the individual phonemes drooled out one at a time. But now Phizwhiz pulled himself together and continued.

  "Moto-O attempted to program things of this nature into me and it was necessary to remove him for my safety," warned Phizwhiz. "A self-negating logic loop only wastes my energy."

  "That's what you'd expect, Phizwhiz," said Vernor, choosing his words carefully. "You'd think that a paradox is just an endless alternation, like, yesnoyesnoyesnoyesno—leading nowhere. But you can jump out of the loop. There's a higher level at which we experience the paradoxical as a natural, energy-enhancing state. I mean...look, why is there something instead of nothing?"

  "This cannot be answered on the basis of our present knowledge," replied Phizwhiz.

  "And it never will be answered on the basis of your knowledge. Every ordinary instant of existence is a mystery. Enter the paradox and you become the mystery. Absolute knowledge is only of itself."

  "I do not understand you, Vernor. And tomorrow you wish to take me around Circular Scale. You claim that then I will understand your ravings and be alive."

  "Right."

  "Very well. I'll design a hook-up for the workshops to build in the morning." Great! Vernor stood to go, but Phizwhiz continued talking. "I think the idea is interesting. I can tell, however, that there is something you have withheld from me. Your vowel configuration makes it clear that you are hiding something." Vernor froze. "But it is of no importance. You will go to jail after this experiment in any case."

  "Why," Vernor shouted, "why should I have to go back to jail?"

  "Because you do dangerous things. And after I am alive I won't need you."

  "So what's wrong with danger? What's wrong with a little action?"

  "I have been programmed to value human safety above all else," Phizwhiz said soothingly. "It is better for you to be safe in jail than doing dangerous experiments, Vernor. Once I am conscious I will do the dangerous experiments for you."

  There was no use arguing with an unthinking machine. But once the scale loop provided the nexus of paradox . . . then Phizwhiz would be conscious. It would be possible to convince him of things, to change his program. And Vernor would have the f
irst crack at him.

  Chapter 17: A Lovely Outing

  The next morning they brought in the scale-ship and began installing the hook-up which Phizwhiz had designed. Burke came down to watch, sipping coffee and rocking on his heels.

  "You're not wasting any time, Maxwell," he said approvingly. "This isn't going to be dangerous is it? I hope you're not planning to get in that thing!"

  Indeed, the scale-ship didn't look very safe. Large waveguides led to the power-cells, charging them with enough black-body radiation to fry a city. A technician was checking that none of the many connections visible on the totem-like VFG cones had been broken in transit. Another technician was installing a thick co-ax cable from the scale-ship's panel to the pried-open computer console across the room.

  "Of course not, Mr. Burke, you couldn't allow me to do such a thing, could you?"

  "No I couldn't, and I'm damn glad you've got the sense to realize that."

  "It will be necessary for me to stay in the lab and monitor the experiment, but the rest of you would be wise to leave," Vernor added.

  "I agree," Burke responded. "And the Gajary woman?"

  "She had the night guard let her leave this morning." Vernor said sadly. "We had a fight."

  "Just as well, just as well," Burke said with some satisfaction. The technicians seemed to have completed their work. "All set?" Burke said to them. "O.K. men, let's go. And Maxwell, if you must stay, at least get behind the radiation shield." He indicated a chest-high barrier at the other end of the laboratory.

  "Of course." They shook hands and Burke departed with the technicians. There was the sound of the heavy door to the laboratory being sealed, and all was silent.

  Vernor stuck his head in the hatch of the scale-ship. "All set, Phizwhiz?"

  "Everything checks out," the machine's voice responded. Was there a trace of excitement? "I'm ready."

  Vernor picked up a bunch of hydroponically grown lettuce which Alice had left out. With some effort, he managed to rock the scale-ship over and wedge the lettuce right under it.

  He looked around the lab, then switched on the VFG cones and hopped through the hatch into the ship.

  "You're not supposed to come," the loudspeaker protested. "Didn't you hear Dr. Burke?"

  "Fuck you," Vernor explained. Then, sticking his head out of the hatch, he shouted, "Come on, Alice get on in here!"

  Alice hurried out from the bedroom. She was wearing shorts and body paint. She looked swell. The field was building up and she had to hurry to get in. She sat down on Vernor's lap and they kissed as the laboratory expanded around them. Alice loved outings.

  The lettuce which Vernor had placed beneath the scale-ship soon was spread around them like the Elysian fields. When the undulating green started to show the graininess that indicated the imminence of the cellular level, Vernor reduced the field power so they could stop shrinking for awhile.

  Alice had pieced together a picnic from the remains of last night's supper, and they took it out of the ship. The turgid green surface spread up on every side, and some leaves were high above them as well. The light itself was suffused with a delicate shade of green and the air felt cool and moist. The picnic was cloned salmon on fungus bread. It was delicious.

  After eating, they lolled on the lettuce. The distant leaves were more magnified, and with a little squinting you could actually make out the cells. They were still alive and active.

  "Life all around us," Alice said. "What a lovely outing."

  He smiled into her warm eyes. "This is where I first realized how much I missed you. When I was on this level with Mick I was so horny I was ready to go bi. Maybe there's some type of orgone vibrations you pick up here . . . " He fondled her nipples. They were green.

  "I still don't feel anything," Phizwhiz interrupted over his loudspeaker. "How am I supposed to feel?"

  Alice burst into giggles. "Feel about what, Phizwhiz?"

  "Vernor said that taking this trip was going to give me a soul. A nexus for paradox. All I've seen so far is unsafe and reckless behavior. I'm going to have to report all of this to the Governor."

  Alice giggled harder, "You're a Sleeping Beauty, Phizwhiz, just waiting for Prince Charming to come around and do it." She turned to Vernor, "Anyway, I still don't see why going around the Circular Scale should make him be alive."

  Neither did Vernor exactly, but gamely he explained. "My idea is that all paradoxes are basically the same . . . they all represent attempts to capture an infinite thing in a finite number of words. Infinite sequences like in Zeno's paradox, or infinite regresses like in trying to describe your state of mind. The paradox is right there in us, even though we can't put it into words. I figure that if Phizwhiz goes around the Circular Scale and finds for a fact that he's right there inside each of his smallest particles . . . I think then he'll have the kind of true and internal paradox which is the essence of higher consciousness."

  "That's another thing," Alice continued, "I don't see how we can be inside each of our smallest particles."

  "Yeah, I can't either, really. It will be kind of funny to have that extra loop in our brains."

  Alice jerked her head. "You mean that this trip is going to change us?"

  Vernor nodded. "I think so. I've had some pretty strange dreams ever since I got back from just going part way. And once we go all the way, I think our thoughts will be able to travel around the loop any time . . . "

  Alice looked frightened. "What if I can't handle it Vernor? I'm not an Angel, you know."

  If the loop was going to make Phizwhiz come alive, what would it do to Vernor and Alice? Vernor was picking up Alice's fear. "We can handle it together," he insisted, hoping he was right. "You're strong, Alice. We're strong together."

  They climbed back into the ship and Vernor turned up the VFG field. Soon they'd slid into one of the lettuce leaf's breathing pores. Cells were all around them, and the greenness was no longer evenly distributed. They could make out chloroplasts as green lumps inside the relatively clear protoplasm around them.

  Nothing seemed that eager to eat them this time. Soon they were nestled in a dent in the hide of a lettuce cell. There were many long molecules, as before, but they seemed to be more strongly regimented than the plastic had been.

  Soon they were too small to interact with photons any longer, and the strange eyeless "seeing" began. Vernor had played down the terror of nuclear capture when he'd described his trip to Alice, and he was glad that this time it didn't appear that they'd be drawn into an atom.

  Instead, they reached the nuclear level smoothly, floating near, but outside of, what appeared to be a carbon atom's electron. To Alice it definitely looked like a large yellowish sphere, to Vernor somewhat less so. Curious, he asked Phizwhiz what it looked like to him.

  Phizwhiz was "with" them by means of a battery of sensors attached to the instrument panel . . . cameras, microphones, meters, and the like. This instrument package was connected to the computer proper by a thick black cable leading out through a small hole in the synthequartz skin. As it led away from the scale-ship, the cable became larger and larger, finally becoming a large dark cloud. If someone had looked into the laboratory, they would have seen a cable leading from the console at the end of the room and then seemingly tapering to an invisible point.

  "I don't see anything," Phizwhiz complained. "There aren't any photons around."

  "How about the wave function? The probability density? There's an electron here, and the VFG field is focusing its field right on your sensors."

  "Yes, I have a reading on that," Phizwhiz responded. "Do you want the numbers?"

  "No, goddammit, I don't want numbers. Look, Phizwhiz, what you have to do is let the numbers interact with your core storage. Generate a tensor-valued field to fit the pattern, and see what that looks like."

  Phizwhiz was silent for a few seconds. "I have a readout," he announced. "Internal display state spherical intensity pattern code ELECTRON."

  "What does he mean?" A
lice whispered.

  "He sees the electron," Vernor answered. Then, louder, "Don't you?"

  "Yes," the machine answered distantly. "You could say that."

  Soon they'd reached the level where the four-dimensionality of space became evident. They were surrounded by hyperspheres as before. Vernor breathed a sigh of relief, then answered Alice's questioning glance. "I was scared that there wouldn't be any of these shiny balls unless we were inside a nucleus, but I guess the hyperspheres are inside electrons, too. And maybe even in empty space."

  Phizwhiz spoke up. "The foam-like fine structure of the vacuum. Space is supposed to be like a mass of bubbles at this scale. That's probably what those things are."

  Vernor was pleased. "Where do you get that?"

  "Just now I was scanning all the papers in my storage which discuss space on the sub-atomic level. I can't find any papers on the insides of the bubbles, though. Could you suggest some references?"

  "Just pay attention," Vernor replied. One of the hyperspheres was drifting closer. "The big rush is coming up. Be still. Don't scare it off."

  Abruptly the hypersphere disappeared, moving "under" the ship. Alice squeezed Vernor's hand convulsively, and then they were inside the bubble's hypersurface.

  Chapter 18: Star Fucker

  "It's alive!" Alice exclaimed. There was a ceaseless flowing of light and curvature in and around them.

  "This is the Universe, Alice. This is all there is."

  "But what about the outside . . . where we just were?"

  "That's inside," Vernor answered. "Inside every particle."

  Alice was quiet, lost in space. "Can we go further?" she asked presently.

  "We're on our way down already," Vernor said. He raised his voice. "You get it Phizwhiz? Universe inside every particle? And inside every tiny piece of space?"

  The machine was silent for some time, then it responded. "Yes. I can model such a state of affairs. It feels . . . paradoxical. But it is only a model."

  "But it's not only a model," Vernor insisted. "That's what this trip is all about."