The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Whatever was done, the resources of several stars would be needed to accomplish it, for time had grown cosmically short.

  “An enormous work,” Gaia said. Wayfarer wondered if she had in mind the dramatics of it, apparitions in heaven, such as centuries during which fire-fountains rushed visibly out of the solar disc.

  “For an enormous glory,” he declared.

  “No,” she answered curtly. “For nothing, and worse than nothing. Destruction of everything I have lived for. Eternal loss to the heritage?”

  “Why, is not Earth the heritage?”

  “No. Knowledge is. I tried to make that clear to Alpha.” She paused. “To you I say again, the evolution of life, its adaptations, struggles, transformations, and how at last it meets death—those are unforeseeable, and nowhere else in the space-time universe can there be a world like this for them to play themselves out. They will enlighten us in ways the galactic brain itself cannot yet conceive. They may well open to us whole new phases of ultimate reality.”

  “Why would not a life that went on for gigayears do so, and more?”

  “Because here I, the observer of the ages, have gained some knowledge of this destiny, some oneness with it—” She sighed. “Oh, you do not understand. You refuse to.”

  “On the contrary,” Wayfarer said, as softly as might be, “I hope to. Among the reasons I came is that we can communicate being to being, perhaps more fully than across light-years and certainly more quickly.”

  She was silent awhile. When she spoke again, her tone had gone gentle. “More … intimately. Yes. Forgive my resentment. It was wrong of me. I will indeed do what I can to make you welcome and help you learn.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Wayfarer said happily. “And I will do what I can toward that end.”

  The sun went under the cloud deck. A crescent moon stood aloft. The wind blew a little stronger, a little chillier.

  “But if we decide against saving Earth,” Wayfarer asked, “if it is to go molten and formless, every trace of its history dissolved, will you not mourn?”

  “The record I have guarded will stay safe,” Gaia replied.

  He grasped her meaning: the database of everything known about this world. It was here in her. Much was also stored elsewhere, but she held the entirety. As the sun became a devouring monster, she would remove her physical plant to the outer reaches of the system.

  “But you have done more than passively preserve it, have you not?” he said.

  “Yes, of course.” How could an intelligence like hers have refrained? “I have considered the data, worked with them, evaluated them, tried to reconstruct the conditions that brought them about.”

  And in the past thousands of years she had become ever more taciturn about that, too, or downright evasive, he thought.

  “You had immense gaps to fill in,” he hinted.

  “Inevitably. The past, also, is quantum probabilistic. By what roads, what means, did history come to us?”

  “Therefore you create various emulations, to see what they lead to,” about which she had told scarcely anything.

  “You knew that. I admit, since you force me, that besides trying to find what happened, I make worlds to show what might have happened.”

  He was briefly startled. He had not been deliberately trying to bring out any such confession. Then he realized that she had foreseen he was bound to catch scent of it, once they joined their minds in earnest.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why else but for a more complete understanding?”

  In his inwardness, Wayfarer reflected: Yes, she had been here since the time of humanity. The embryo of her existed before Christian Brannock was born. Into the growing fullness of her had gone the mind-patterns of humans who chose not to go to the stars but to abide on old Earth. And the years went by in their tens of millions.

  Naturally she was fascinated by the past. She must do most of her living in it. Could that be why she was indifferent to the near future, or actually wanted catastrophe?

  Somehow that thought did not feel right to him. Gaia was a mystery he must solve.

  Cautiously, he ventured, “Then you act as a physicist might, tracing hypothetical configurations of the wave function through space-time—except that the subjects of your experiments are conscious.”

  “I do no wrong,” she said. “Come with me into any of those worlds and see.”

  “Gladly,” he agreed, unsure whether he lied. He mustered resolution. “Just the same, duty demands I conduct my own survey of the material environment.”

  “As you will. Let me help you prepare.” She was quiet for a span. In this thin air, a human would have seen the first stars blink into sight. “But I believe it will be by sharing the history of my stewardship that we truly come to know one another.”

  4

  Storm-battered until men must work the pumps without cease, Gray Courser limped eastward along the southern coast of an unknown land. Wind set that direction, for the huukin trailed after, so worn and starved that what remained of its strength must be reserved for sorest need. The shore rolled jewel-green, save where woods dappled it darker, toward a wall of gentle hills. All was thick with life, grazing herds, wings multitudinous overhead, but no voyager had set foot there. Surf dashed in such violence that Kalava was not certain a boat could live through it. Meanwhile they had caught but little rainwater, and what was in the butts had gotten low and foul.

  He stood in the bows, peering ahead, Ilyandi at his side. Wind boomed and shrilled, colder than they were used to. Wrack flew beneath an overcast gone heavy. Waves ran high, gray-green, white-maned, foam blown off them in streaks. The ship rolled, pitched, and groaned.

  Yet they had seen the sky uncommonly often. Ilyandi believed that clouds—doubtless vapors sucked from the ground by heat, turning back to water as they rose, like steam from a kettle—formed less readily in this clime. Too eagerly at her instruments and reckonings to speak much, she had now at last given her news to the captain.

  “Then you think you know where we are?” he asked hoarsely.

  Her face, gaunt within the cowl of a sea-stained cloak, bore the least smile. “No. This country is as nameless to me as to you. But, yes, I do think I can say we are no more than fifty daymarches from Ulonai, and it may be as little as forty.”

  Kalava’s fist smote the rail. “By Ruvio’s ax! How I hoped for this!” The words tumbled from him. “It means the weather tossed us mainly back and forth between the two shorelines. We’ve not come unreturnably far. Every ship henceforward can have a better passage. See you, she can first go out to the Ending Islands and wait at ease for favoring winds. The skipper will know he’ll make landfall. We’ll have it worked out after a few more voyages, just what lodestone bearing will bring him to what place hereabouts.”

  “But anchorage?” she wondered.

  He laughed, which he had not done for many days and nights. “As for that—”

  A cry from the lookout at the masthead broke through. Down the length of the vessel men raised their eyes. Terror howled.

  Afterward no two tongues bore the same tale. One said that a firebolt had pierced the upper clouds, trailing thunder. Another told of a sword as long as the hull, and blood carried on the gale of its flight. To a third it was a beast with jaws agape and three tails aflame.… Kalava remembered a spear among whirling rainbows. To him Ilyandi said, when they were briefly alone, that she thought of a shuttle now seen, now unseen as it wove a web on which stood writing she could not read. All witnesses agreed that it came from over the sea, sped on inland through heaven, and vanished behind the hills.

  Men went mad. Some ran about screaming. Some wailed to their gods. Some cast themselves down on the deck and shivered, or drew into balls and squeezed their eyes shut. No hand at helm or pumps, the ship wallowed about, sails banging, adrift toward the surf, while water drained in through sprung seams and lapped higher in the bilge.

  “Avast!” roared Kalava. He sprang down the for
edeck ladder and went among the crew. “Be you men? Up on your feet or die!” With kicks and cuffs he drove them back to their duties. One yelled and drew a knife on him. He knocked the fellow senseless. Barely in time, Gray Courser came again under control. She was then too near shore to get the huukin harnessed. Kalava took the helm, wore ship, and clawed back to sea room.

  Mutiny was all too likely, once the sailors regained a little courage. When Kalava could yield place to a halfway competent steersman, he sought Ilyandi and they talked awhile in her cabin. Thereafter they returned to the foredeck and he shouted for attention. Standing side by side, they looked down on the faces, frightened or terrified or sullen, of the men who had no immediate tasks.

  “Hear this,” Kalava said into the wind. “Pass it on to the rest. I know you’d turn south this day if you had your wish. But you can’t. We’d never make the crossing, the shape we’re in. Which would you liefer have, the chance of wealth and fame or the certainty of drowning? We’ve got to make repairs, we’ve got to restock, and then we can sail home, bringing wondrous news. When can we fix things up? Soon, I tell you, soon. I’ve been looking at the water. Look for yourselves. See how it’s taking on more and more of a brown shade, and how bits of plant stuff float about on the waves. That means a river, a big river, emptying out somewhere nigh. And that means a harbor for us. As for the sight we saw, here’s the Vilku, our lady Ilyandi, to speak about it.”

  The skythinker stepped forward. She had changed into a clean white robe with the emblems of her calling, and held a staff topped by a sigil. Though her voice was low, it carried.

  “Yes, that was a fearsome sight. It lends truth to the old stories of things that appeared to mariners who ventured, or were blown, far north. But think. Those sailors did win home again. Those who did not must have perished of natural causes. For why would the gods or the demons sink some and not others?

  “What we ourselves saw merely flashed overhead. Was it warning us off? No, because if it knew that much about us, it knew we cannot immediately turn back. Did it give us any heed at all? Quite possibly not. It was very strange, yes, but that does not mean it was any threat. The world is full of strangenesses. I could tell you of things seen on clear nights over the centuries, fiery streaks down the sky or stars with glowing tails. We of the Vilkui do not understand them, but neither do we fear them. We give them their due honor and respect, as signs from the gods.”

  She paused before finishing: “Moreover, in the secret annals of our order lie accounts of visions and wonders exceeding these. All folk know that from time to time the gods have given their word to certain holy men or women, for the guidance of the people. I may not tell how they manifest themselves, but I will say that this today was not wholly unlike.

  “Let us therefore believe that the sign granted us is a good one.”

  She went on to a protective chant-spell and an invocation of the Powers. That heartened most of her listeners. They were, after all, in considerable awe of her. Besides, the larger part of them had sailed with Kalava before and done well out of it. They bullied the rest into obedience.

  “Dismissed,” said the captain. “Come evening, you’ll get a ration of liquor.”

  A weak cheer answered him. The ship fared onward.

  Next morning they did indeed find a broad, sheltered bay, dun with silt. Hitching up the huukin, they went cautiously in until they spied the river foretold by Kalava. Accompanied by a few bold men, he took a boat ashore. Marshes, meadows, and woods all had signs of abundant game. Various plants were unfamiliar, but he recognized others, among them edible fruits and bulbs. “It is well,” he said. “This land is ripe for our taking.” No lightning bolt struck him down.

  Having located a suitable spot, he rowed back to the ship, brought her in on the tide, and beached her. He could see that the water often rose higher yet, so he would be able to float her off again when she was ready. That would take time, but he felt no haste. Let his folk make proper camp, he thought, get rested and nourished, before they began work. Hooks, nets, and weirs would give rich catches. Several of the crew had hunting skills as well. He did himself.

  His gaze roved upstream, toward the hills. Yes, presently he would lead a detachment to learn what lay beyond.

  5

  Gaia had never concealed her reconstructive research into human history. It was perhaps her finest achievement. But slowly those of her fellows in the galactic brain who paid close attention had come to feel that it was obsessing her. And then of late—within the past hundred thousand years or so—they were finding her reports increasingly scanty, less informative, at last ambiguous to the point of evasiveness. They did not press her about it; the patience of the universe was theirs. Nevertheless they had grown concerned. Especially had Alpha, who as the nearest was in the closest, most frequent contact; and therefore, now, had Wayfarer. Gaia’s activities and attitudes were a primary factor in the destiny of Earth. Without a better understanding of her, the rightness of saving the planet was undecidable.

  Surely an important part of her psyche was the history and archeology she preserved, everything from the animal origins to the machine fulfillment of genus Homo. Unnumbered individual minds had uploaded into her, too, had become elements of her being—far more than were in any other node. What had she made of all this over the megayears, and what had it made of her?

  She could not well refuse Wayfarer admittance; the heritage belonged to her entire fellowship, ultimately to intelligence throughout the cosmos of the future. Guided by her, he would go through the database of her observations and activities in external reality, geological, biological, astronomical.

  As for the other reality, interior to her, the work she did with her records and emulations of humankind—to evaluate that, some purely human interaction seemed called for. Hence Wayfarer’s makeup included the mind-pattern of a man.

  Christian Brannock’s had been chosen out of those whose uploads went starfaring because he was among the earliest, less molded than most by relationships with machines. Vigor, intelligence, and adaptability were other desired characteristics.

  His personality was itself a construct, a painstaking refabrication by Alpha, who had taken strands (components, overtones) of his own mind and integrated them to form a consciousness that became an aspect of Wayfarer. No doubt it was not a perfect duplicate of the original. Certainly, while it had all the memories of Christian Brannock’s lifetime, its outlook was that of a young man, not an old one. In addition, it possessed some knowledge—the barest sketch, grossly oversimplified so as not to overload it—of what had happened since its body died. Deep underneath its awareness lay the longing to return to an existence more full than it could now imagine. Yet, knowing that it would be taken back into the oneness when its task was done, it did not mourn any loss. Rather, to the extent that it was differentiated from Wayfarer, it took pleasure in sensations, thoughts, and emotions that it had effectively forgotten.

  When the differentiation had been completed, the experience of being human again became well-nigh everything for it, and gladsome, because so had the man gone through life.

  To describe how this was done, we must again resort to myth and say that Wayfarer downloaded the Christian Brannock subroutine into the main computer of the system that was Gaia. To describe what actually occurred would require the mathematics of wave mechanics and an entire concept of multileveled, mutably dimensioned reality which it had taken minds much greater than humankind’s a long time to work out.

  We can, however, try to make clear that what took place in the system was not a mere simulation. It was an emulation. Its events were not of a piece with events among the molecules of flesh and blood; but they were, in their way, just as real. The persons created had wills as free as any mortal’s, and whatever dangers they met could do harm equal to anything a mortal body might suffer.

  Consider a number of people at a given moment. Each is doing something, be it only thinking, remembering, or sleeping—together wit
h all ongoing physiological and biochemical processes. They are interacting with each other and with their surroundings, too; and every element of these surroundings, be it only a stone or a leaf or a photon of sunlight, is equally involved. The complexity seems beyond conception, let alone enumeration or calculation. But consider further: At this one instant, every part of the whole, however minute, is in one specific state; and thus the whole itself is. Electrons are all in their particular quantum shells, atoms are all in their particular compounds and configurations, energy fields all have their particular values at each particular point—suppose an infinitely fine-grained photograph.

  A moment later, the state is different. However slightly, fields have pulsed, atoms have shifted about, electrons have jumped, bodies have moved. But this new state derives from the first according to natural laws. And likewise for every succeeding state.

  In crude, mythic language: Represent each variable of one state by some set of numbers; or, to put it in equivalent words, map the state into an n-dimensional phase space. Input the laws of nature. Run the program. The computer model should then evolve from state to state in exact correspondence with the evolution of our original matter-energy world. That includes life and consciousness. The maps of organisms go through one-to-one analogues of everything that the organisms themselves would, among these being the processes of sensation and thought. To them, they and their world are the same as in the original. The question of which set is the more real is meaningless.

  Of course, this primitive account is false. The program did not exactly follow the course of events “outside.” Gaia lacked both the data and the capability necessary to model the entire universe, or even the entire Earth. Likewise did any other node, and the galactic brain. Powers of that order lay immensely far in the future, if they would ever be realized. What Gaia could accommodate was so much less that the difference in degree amounted to a difference in kind.