"I don't know why those scientists are making so much fuss about it," Mildred said. "I mean, this business about universes getting mixed up and people not agreeing on what the past was. Isn't it obvious that it happens all the time anyway? Don't you ever find yourself listening to somebody who denies they said something that you heard them say quite clearly? Or found something staring you in the face in a place you've looked a dozen times, and it wasn't there?"
Showm smiled as she sliced one of the morsels on her plate-Mildred could read Ganymean expressions by now. She was at ease and relaxed, not at all the curt, businesslike Frenua that Mildred knew from the Government Center in Thurios and in their daytime dealings. In place of the tunics that accompanied the professional image, she was wearing a loose, richly embroidered robe of dark, satiny blue. Mildred wondered if she had a different style of dress for each part of the house and the personality that inhabited it. "You mean it happens to you, too?"
"Doesn't it to everyone?" Mildred said.
"I'm not sure. Even if I thought it did, I wouldn't say so. It might make you think that we argue and disagree as much as Terrans." A mild gibe that Freuna could now comfortably feel wouldn't give offense, Mildred was pleased to note.
"I still don't really grasp how this Thurien ability to come to agreements that seem to suit everybody works," Mildred admitted. "Maybe you're right. Maybe you have to be a Ganymean to understand it… or feel it, rather, you said, didn't you? You described the system as a consensual monarchy. On Earth it couldn't happen. You'd never get the consensus. It's absolutely as you said. I've been thinking about it. Everything's settled in the end by some form of warfare, camouflaged or otherwise. We're told it's unavoidable. The dominant ideology says that competition drives everything. But Thuriens are living disproof of that."
"An ideology that would suit those who see no significance in life beyond achieving that kind of success," Showm commented. "Its effect would be a society shaped to support and preserve a plutocratic minority, rather than to advance general prosperity and well-being. Wouldn't you think so?"
Mildred struggled to select one of the directions that her mind immediately wanted to go off in at once. "It's supposed to be what produces motivation… Well, that's true of course. But it can't be the whole story, can it? There has to be something that goes deeper… farther…"
"It comes from inside," Showm said, answering the unasked question. "You see, it works the other way around too. I am unable to comprehend what the satisfaction can be from devoting a life to outdoing others in contests that don't matter. What kind of people does it influence or impress? Adolescents of all ages, you told me once. I agree. But adolescents given power can do immeasurable damage."
"So what motivates Thuriens?" Mildred asked. This was getting closer to one of the things she wanted to explore more deeply. "You spend much of your time in Thurios or traveling, taking on fearsome responsibilities. Others build starships and energy conversion systems, or decorate buildings with landscapes from other worlds. Why? What's the reward? What do they get in return for the effort?… It's not as if their livelihood depends on it. They'll always have food to eat and a place to live, because others here continue to produce such things. But why should they?"
"Because there's nothing to prevent them."
"I don't understand."
Showm had spoken as if the answer were obvious. She checked herself and thought for a second. "Think about what you said just now. You asked why a person would do such things if their livelihood didn't depend on it. What does that mean? That their means of staying alive has to be controlled and restricted before they will take part in this mania for competition that Earth thinks is the ultimate meaning of existence? In other words, they have to be induced by need, and if that fails, compelled by violence. What kind of reward should require that? Can an organism that has to be forced be living in a way that is true to its nature? Of course not. It gets sick and it rebels. No wonder Earth has so many hospitals and prisons… Thuriens know that their nature is to build, to create, to help others achieve the things that will bring fulfillment to their lives also, not to profit at their expense. And everyone has something that it's in their nature to contribute. Discovering it is their reward. A true reward. Thuriens would have to be subjected to force not to seek it."
Showm paused, looking at Mildred searchingly for several seconds. But Mildred had too many threads of thoughts to untangle to respond immediately. She stared out at the falls where the gorge ended, tumbling in their slow, endless majesty. Such notions were not entirely unknown on Earth, she thought. The old monastic orders with their abbots had accepted the primacy of their own Calazars and worked to contribute each their share to the prosperity of the community that fed and clothed them. Could it be that the most appropriate model for the Thurien social order was a monastery scaled up to interstellar dimensions? She smiled distantly at the thought.
"What do you find amusing?" Showm asked.
"That perhaps not all Terrans are so alien in their philosophy. You should meet Xyen Chien, who's with Christian and his group."
"The Chinese scientist?"
"Yes. She's like you in many ways. She says the world must change as it moves out of its adolescence and comes of age. I think you and she would get along. You'd understand each other."
A serving platter with a domed cover glided silently down from the level above and behind them to hover by the end of the table. The cover opened to reveal a jug containing a hot reddish beverage, two drinking goblets, some ancillary dishes and bowls, and a dish of what looked like confectionary. Mildred helped Showm set the items out on the table and load the things that they had finished with. The platter closed itself and departed. Showm remained strangely silent throughout.
"Now it's my turn," Mildred said. "What are you thinking?"
"This is called ule. The small cup is to try a sample and blend ingredients to suit your taste. The colored flakes range from tart to sweet, and the syrups add body and smoothness. When you know what you like, you can mix it again in the goblet."
Mildred made a few choices and tried the result. It was sweet and spicy with a delicious reverberation of aftertastes that died away like echos in a cathedral. "You haven't answered my question," she said as she began mixing a larger version.
Showm made her own selection without needing to use the sampling cup. "I was thinking about what you said… Earth moving out of its adolescence and entering maturity. There was a world of humans who would have passed through that phase long ago. Yes, their roots lay in the predatory jungles of Earth, and our ancestors abandoned them to perish as genetically impaired biological misfits. But they didn't perish. With no choice but to play by the rules of the environment that they found themselves in, they braved and survived every challenge that it could throw at them. They emerged finally to dominate that world in a way which was, despite all the things you've heard me say, stirringly magnificent." Showm was talking, of course, about the Lunarians, evolved from terrestrial primates that the ancient Ganymeans had transported to Minerva. She went on, "But they overcame the limitations that my ancestors inflicted on them, and developed a cooperative technological culture in a fraction of the time that it had taken Ganymeans to progress to the same level. It was astounding. You see what I'm saying, Mildred? This Terran compulsion to fight adversity, the refusal to accept defeat, if tamed and directed at the real obstacles that stand in the way of life and the growth of consciousness and spirit, instead of against each other… it could prove a more potent force than anything we have encountered in all our explorations of the Galaxy."
"I've heard Christian talk along exactly those lines," Mildred said. She hoped this wasn't going to turn into a Thurien guilt-trip over the destruction of Minerva. Had she been the one who had gotten them onto it? She was unable to recall. It was time to change the subject before they got morbid, she decided. Showm sipped her ule, testing it, then added a drop more of one of the syrups and stirred it in. "Is your whol
e life taken up with public affairs, Frenua?" Mildred asked her. "How about personal things? Do you have any family?"
"Children, you mean?"
"Yes."
"Oh, indeed. I have a son who's away on a distant world these days, working among the natives. They're quite primitive there. And two daughters. One excels me by far in musical talent. The younger one is in Thurios, raising a family of her own."
"So, their father?… Are you together still?" Mildred had heard no reference to another occupant of the place.
"That was a phase of living that we completed and fulfilled. But there comes a time when we are called to do other things. He is finding his inner self now. But we remain companions in life. How about you?"
Mildred waved a hand to and fro. "Oh… a few flirtatious things in younger years. But I really don't think it's for me, you know. I enjoy solitude with my own thoughts, and the freedom to do things in my own peculiar ways. I don't think I've met a man yet that I didn't end up driving to distraction. Did you know that the only reason I ended up on Thurien was because Christian was trying to get rid of me?"
"No. How could that be?"
Mildred related the story and was relieved to see that it got Frenua chuckling-at least, shaking and making funny cackling sounds that she took to be a Ganymean chuckle-and away from her threatened downward slide over Minerva. Suddenly the thread of a thought came into Mildred's mind that if Eesyan, Christian, and Victor got their machine working, then maybe they could go back there somehow and change what had happened. But she didn't want to get Frenua onto that topic again. "Are you going to let me hear some of this music that you compose?" she asked instead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Overwhelmingly, it was the short-term capriciousness of human actions that produced the kind of disparities among local time lines that would be experienced as the clashing of incompatible events. But given that the effect was confined to a localized domain, even a complex physical device could be expected to function consistently. While the innumerable quantum transitions involved in its existence and operation would continue to define realities of their own that were, it was true, theoretically discrete, within the immediate locality of the surroundings and the recent past, the likelihood of their adding up to anything discernibly different at the macroscopic level was remote.
Eesyan therefore concluded that the indicated course of action would be to put everything at Quelsang on hold and relocate the work off-planet where it could be directed remotely. Indeed, the scaled-up MP2 Multiporter already under design was intended to do just that, but for a different reason: to safeguard researchers from the catastrophic consequences if a sizable object from a parallel experiment happened to materialize within solid matter. But when Eesyan mentioned the prospect matter-of-factly in the course of a discussion in the Terrans' office in a way that presumed such a decision to be as good as agreed, he was taken aback to discover that they saw no real need for halting the Quelsang program at all.
"Why?" was Hunt's simple rejoinder. Hunt's assistant was there too; also the German and the female scientist from China.
It had seemed obvious. Eesyan made a helpless gesture. "Well… you've all seen the kind of chaos it can create around itself. How would it be possible to conduct any work that makes sense with that going on? We've got two extra versions of an autograph book from other realities. Suppose they had been copies of you or me, or anyone else out there?" He motioned toward Hunt. "The Professor Danchekker that you talked to here in this room is now in another universe. What if another one hadn't replaced him in this one?"
"So now we're beginning to understand it better," Hunt said.
Sonnebrandt came in, "We can reduce the operating power to keep the core of the convergence zone within the chamber. That would eliminate the risk of any major discrepancies like the ones you're talking about. Maybe some slight fringe effects, yes."
"Disagreements about minor things, possibly," Chien said. "But none of us will be blaming each other now." She paused, seeing that Eesyan was readjusting his view only with some effort, and then went on, "Professor Danchekker's cousin even thinks it happens all the time anyway as a result of quantum fluctuations, but it took something on this scale to get our attention. And I think she may have a point."
They waited. "What better way could there be to learn more about it?" Duncan asked.
Eesyan had been caught unprepared. He had taken it for granted that differences would generate disagreement and disagreement implied strife, which Thuriens strove to avoid. But Terrans thrived on it. To them it was a challenge. They saw the situation not as a source of disunity to be feared and avoided, but as an enticing and amusing curiosity to be studied. Eesyan deferred making a commitment and went away to consult with Calazar.
"I've found there are times when an old race like ours could use some reminding of the spirit that drove it when it was younger," was Calazar's response. "Our ancestors were able to deal with the universe as they found it, without defensiveness projected out of their own inner fears. When the occasion demanded, they were able to rise to conceiving schemes on scales of audacity that in comparison make the most celebrated of the Terrans' heroics seem pale. I think we should keep that tradition in mind now."
The upshot was that there would be two facilities investigating trans-Multiverse propagation. The original pilot system at the Quelsang Institute would continue running micro-scale experiments to explore the physics, and in particular to delve further into the strange phenomenon that Hunt had dubbed "timeline lensing." In parallel, construction would go ahead of the larger and more powerful MP2 project remotely in space to handle objects that a nearby other universe might not appreciate having materialize under the floor of one of its laboratories. The two complemented each other. Choosing to live with the peculiarities of converging time lines was probably the quickest route toward learning more about the effect, while the larger-scale project offered the most effective means of devising some method of countering it. With Calazar already involved and now personally intrigued by the latest developments, completion of MP2 was accorded highest priority. Although the Terrans were not in a position to contribute much to the actual construction, Hunt was curious to see some Thurien space engineering in progress. He had a feeling that it would be very different from the UNSA projects that he had found himself involved in from time to time.
***
The original reason for locating the higher-power system remotely in space had been to safeguard against the hazard of objects materializing from corresponding experiments being performed in other parallel realities. The risk of such an occurrence was eliminated by taking advantage of a fact long-familiar to Terran physicists: that no two quantum systems could exist in precisely identical states-where a system's "state" was defined by an appropriate set of "quantum numbers." On an ordinary map, no two points can have identical coordinates. If they did, they would be the same point. In a similar way, for two quantum systems to exist as unique entities in the universe, they have to differ in at least one of the numbers ("quantum coordinates") specifying them.
MP2 was located a few hundred thousand miles from Thurien. Although that was admittedly still in their own back yard on the typical Thurien scale of going about things, statistical calculations indicated it to be sufficient for the purpose. The position had been randomly chosen from the stupendous number of possibilities that existed throughout the volume contained within an even larger radius. The intervals between permissible coordinates being such that the available possibilities would be safely far apart. Yes, it was possible that other parallel systems might use a different method. But the near-infinity of possible sending universes was balanced by the near-infinity of possible universes that an object sent could arrive in, and some arcane statistical calculations performed by VISAR gave the probability of collision at the end of it all as about the same as that of two positions randomly chosen within the entire prescribed volume of space happening to coincide.
The
re was no real need for Hunt to travel there physically, since VISAR could produce an indistinguishable simulation, but it seemed that Terrans either just didn't share the Thuriens' attitude regarding the equality of surrogates or else they hadn't developed it yet. After experiencing some virtual previews of the work going on at MP2, and since it wasn't taking place in some distant part of the Galaxy, Hunt decided he wanted to go out there. He couldn't exactly pinpoint why; it seemed that coming all this way from Earth only to remain confined on the same planet was missing out somehow. Duncan, Josef, and Chien felt the same way. When they mentioned it to Eesyan, such being the Thurien disposition, he put arrangements in hand to accommodate their wish. A craft appeared the next day at the space base along the coast from Thurios to transport them to the site of MP2.
***
If the Terrans' desire was to experience the reality of "being there," the Thurien response came as close as was alienly possible to granting them just that. The vantage point they were provided with suffered from none of the distancing effect that would have been induced by viewing the operation through windows or on a screen inside some kind of enclosed structure. Hunt had told Eesyan they wanted to be "out there," and that was exactly what they got.
When the ship arrived at the project, they were conveyed through a connecting g-field "tunnel" to a room-size platform equipped with seats and containing an assortment of housings, compartments, and pieces of strange equipment, all surrounded by a low parapet rail but otherwise open visually to the surrounding vastness of space. From VISAR's description the vehicle-for want of a better term-created a local gravity comparable in strength to that of a planet but with an abrupt cutoff distance, limiting its range. It thus imbued the occupants with normal bodyweight, while a force and filtering shell retained a breathable atmosphere and shielded out radiation and particle hazards. Thus, warm, comfortable, yet wearing only everyday clothing, they looked around, speechless, at the wonders of stars of every hue in the stellar spectrum, ghostly nebulas, and radiant filaments of color all around on every side, above and below, seemingly near enough to touch or infinitely distant. The perspective shifted spontaneously like the optical interpretation of a wire cube. There was no standard that they were familiar with to set a scale of size or distance. Despite his years of experiences from the Moon out to Jupiter, and the previous Ganymean and Thurien ventures that he had been involved with, Hunt had never before known such an overwhelming feeling of experiencing the immediacy of space. It was intoxicating, a sensation of total immersion-like someone who had seen the ocean all their life from the inside of a submarine, swimming for the first time. The children and younger Ganymeans who had been borne during the Shapieron's strange exile and known no other existence than life within the ship had tried to describe similar impressions after emerging onto a planetary surface when they arrived, finally, on Earth.
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