Iris

by William Barton

  Demogorgon and Jana had survived the exacting demands of their own lives, separate. Now, together, Li-jiang would survive because he had to.

  Purpose came, and drove him on into the darkness.

  Brendan Sealock sat at his desk going over the hard copy of Bright Illimit that he'd made before leaving Earth. It was a heavy, cumbersome volume printed on expensive paper only tens of molecules thick, with more than twenty thousand pages, and would probably have been impossible to get for someone not in his position on the Design Board. These things were archaic, but they had their uses. You could hold an entire entity in your hands, access it by essential feature and taxon , scan it without an explicit overlay.

  He was going through it now, marking off the places where conjoiner programs would have to be inserted. If he assumed that everything was actually intact, then all that was necessary was to sew the damned thing back together.... He came to the section that handled the GAM-and-Redux functions and smiled, feeling strange. He'd put himself into that, in a way, but the program lacked the externals that made other people invent their personae for him. Just, be smart and helpful. He could see how it had begun to manifest higher functioning once Torus-alpha had been booted. Now, he thought, once I get this thing up and running again, it'll know where to start and what to look for. The pieces of the rest should still be there for it to latch onto. . . . And, what the hell, I can preserve the resonance within Centrum as a reward . . . The door crackled open.

  Brendan looked up, almost absent-mindedly, and winced. The form of Demogorgon was standing within the opening, staring at him rather somberly. He sat back and took a deep breath, then said, "Come in, Jana."

  The man came in and walked slowly across the room, feet gliding bare centimeters from the floor.

  "Please don't call me that anymore," he said.

  Brendan nodded. "OK. I, uh . . . I'd rather not call you Demogorgon, though." That made the man smile. "That's no more correct than Jana was, is it? I'd like to be known as Li-jiang, from now on."

  Sealock's lips twisted in a parody of a grin. "That doesn't really fit your appearance too well either."

  "No." Li-jiang laughed in a light, pleasant baritone. He closed the remaining distance to Brendan and sat down at his side. The other man seemed to squirm away from him slightly, as if avoiding his touch. Li-jiang slid his arm around his shoulders and said, "I need to talk to you, Bren ." Sealock tried to force his tightening muscles to relax, but they kept getting away from him, one winding up as another loosened. He gave up and sat there, stiff, looking steadfastly at the book. "What do you want?"

  Li-jiang looked up at him, at the scarred irregularities of his face. What do I tell him and how do I begin? he wondered. "I thought I'd come in here and tell you that I loved you," he said, "but I can see that's not it. . . ."

  Brendan's face turned to look at him, a bland mask. "That's probably a good idea. Jana was in love with John. Demogorgon . . ." He turned away again.

  "That's not so. Jana loved no one. She was trying to fool you all, and accidentally got killed in the process. This is a new person beside you."

  Brendan nodded slowly once again. "If you want to become, uh, Li-jiang, well, think about it in any way that makes sense to you," he said. The man put his other arm around him, embracing the thick barrel of his chest. Brendan ruffled a hand through the sleek black hair, nuzzling him softly. "We can't do this, you know."

  "Why not? Jana was no heterosexual, but she could be physically moved by some men, and Demo . .

  ." Li-jiang thought about the dreams that had accompanied his resurrection and felt a touch of the madness return: if only I had my old body back, I'd know how to use it now!

  "It's not that." He paused, holding the man tight up against him. "It's no use. Doing this would hurt me too much, now that it's too late."

  "I'm sorry...."

  "So am I. You deserve better than this. We all do." He began leafing through the book again with his free hand.

  Li-jiang relaxed and slowly released his hold on him. "What are you doing?" It seemed like a good time to talk of other things: Jana and Demogorgon had both understood pain.

  "I'm working on a solution to Demo's little problem."

  "Is that possible? I thought he was all tangled up in the ruins of Centrum."

  "He is. So was I, and here I am."

  Li-jiang felt a little stab of terror, night and death threatening to return. "But . . . he's got no body to return to! I mean ..." Will they put me back?

  Brendan laughed softly. "Don't worry, we won't erase your soul. I've got something a little better in store for him than what we came up with for you." He contemplated the symbols he was marking among the pages, then said, "Look, why don't you go find some of the others to talk to, learn to find your way among people again? I think you have unfinished business with John." Li-jiang nodded. "I do." He rose, stood gazing at Brendan for another little while, then turned and left without another word or a backward glance.

  Brendan sighed and continued working. After a while he began to whistle a Parisian street song that Demogorgon had taught him long ago. Someday I'll just be a sentimental old fool, he thought. The program swiftly took shape.

  Hours later, Tem and Brendan sat before their equipment boards again, getting ready to play out a final act of their prolonged saga. The Selenite thought he understood what they were going to try but felt a need to talk it over nonetheless. Sealock's schemes seemed to grow ever more complex and so incomprehensible.

  "Once again: do you really think this is going to work? I thought Centrum's problems, going off course and all,stemmed from a gradual breakdown of its equipment with the passage of aeons. How can Demo live on in there?"

  "All that's true only in a limited sense. What broke down on it was the evolution and development of the Seedees. It lived off them, relied on them for correcting the deficiencies of its self-wired circuits. When they fell, it did too. Most of what was in the Mother Ship was life support for the crew, if we can call it that. Most of the ship's actual machinery along the axial core, the propulsion units and so on, are probably in pretty good shape. Once we send down some good programs, things can probably be made to work again."

  Tem looked dubious. "If you say so."

  "I do. The changes I've made in Bright Illimit should be enough to get the ball rolling along, then Demo can take over and organize things to his own satisfaction. He'll know what to do. Shall we get started?"

  "Whenever you're ready . . ."

  They plugged in, went under, and down, riding the black winds of eternity like velvet eagles on a dark, fluid tide,

  The instructions that they went in on were simple, the symbolism that they led to was not. The process counter fed in through the quantum conversion scanner and began tabbing across the bare tag ends of data that it was able to touch, inspecting, identifying, looking for the one thread that would allow it to begin untying the snarled knot that it faced. The hunting went on and on until all the candidates were identified. Any remaining consciousness in Centrum or its subroutines would have helped, but there was nothing left. The place was grave-silent. The machine paused, watching its timer count away, considering its options, then it fell down all the trails at once, following the delicate spoor down an endless series of branching trails, coming ever closer to some kind of center, like a nut caught in a swift whirlpool. The great drain approached.

  Far below, the dark sea of Iris waited. It was, as it had been, a flat, black, dead surface, quiet, tideless, engulfing a moonless, starless sky. The data were puddled into a formless mass. Though there was nothing present to look upward, noliving thing to see, still the scenery was there. Ghost clouds formed above, faint luminescences that swirled and moved, presaging some unknown event to come. The clouds took on form, bringing order to the void, little silvery masses in which some kind of grainy structure could be seen. Streamers of vague light reached out from each cloud, wafting across the sky in webworks of ever increasing complexity until
the skies were linked together. On the surface of the sea, patterns of restive wavelets began to form. Energy accumulated as the Searcher came in on its guidepath

  .

  A spot of dim, golden light appeared in the heavens and waxed, watching its own reflection in the mirror surface of the sea. Agitation on the water disturbed it, throwing off majestic scintillae that conspired to drown out the heavens. The golden spot continued to brighten, growing ever larger behind the silver clouds, discoloring them, peeling them back layer after layer, reversing the gauzework process that had enveloped this world so long ago. The aeons reversed themselves, and the tension became a palpable thing.

  The sky broke open. The heavens around the golden spot, now a molten pool of brassy, burnished metal, were riven by a diamond flash of light, soundless, hazy rays flashing briefly away in all directions. A beam reached down, slowly, like cold fire streaming toward the surface of the dark sea. It stretched out, with agonizing slowness approaching the ebony waters, now thrashing about beneath the lash of an infinite energy. It touched.

  The sea contracted suddenly, drawing the darkness inward from all directions, pulling the cosmic-event horizon in upon itself to form a dimensionless point, filling its surround with a heavy wash of gray static, a flannel screen upon which all images could then be drawn. The beam vanished, leaving the black spot alone in all of creation.

  It waited, gathering its strength, and considered what it might do. The internal timers found themselves and began to tick away of their own accord. Given a structure, the program counters began to process their work, sort through the data in their channels, seeing what might be done to resume their long-forgotten tasks. GAM-and-Redux awoke and began looking for a host to parasite itself upon, and succor.

  The black spot contracted itself to that unimaginable density beyond which it could not go, and then it exploded. The gray world fragmented, glassy shards roaring away to the far reaches of space, colliding with a faint, melodious tinkling, smashing into ever smaller pieces, filling the universe with light and life. Riding the bow shock of a fleeting electromagnetic wave, all the entities that had ever been came alive, awakening, and fled outward in a great host to populate a multitude of worlds. He awoke, dark eyes opening on the dim, swirling canvas of an interior existence, and in a soft, wondering voice whispered, I still live. . . .

  Achmet Aziz el-Tabari.

  I can hear you, Brendan. Thank you for calling me. I miss you.

  I know. I too.

  Can you still not say it?

  No. I'm sorry. Believe me.

  I do.

  Do you understand what has happened?

  I think so. What am I going to do?

  Whatever you want. Fly. Live. Be happy.

  You almost said it, didn't you?

  Yes. Almost. Are you ready?

  Yes. . Then: hold out your hands to me.

  What is happening? I'm frightened.

  Don't be, little one. I am passing over control to you. The world is yours, to do with as you please. You are to be the God at last.

  At last?

  To the end. Good-bye, Demogorgon. Take care of yourself.

  Good-bye, Brendan. I love you.

  The scene evolved out of nowhere, filling itself with the necessary denizens of life. In the highest spire of the Jeweled City on the Mountain an instrumentation chamber sprang full-blown into existence, already filled with the principal actors of the play it was about to perform. Demogorgon en Arhos , King, Lord of all he surveyed, Irrefutable Commander of the Universe, sat in a chair before his subjects, surveying them with satisfaction.

  People sat before their instrument boards, reading information from archaic screens, all the people of Arhos and the world that surrounded it. Chisuat Raabo read the data for him, the beauty of Piruat Nahuaa by his side. Floating off to one side of the great chamber, as if supported by some viscous, invisible fluid, were Cooloil and her eternal companion, Seven Red Anchorelles. They might have been as they always had been, but they were changed. On the conic frustum of each hard-tentacled body lay a pair of slanted, glowing red eyes, that they might see at last by the light of the outer world. They waited together, overjoyed to live again, to be together, and to have each other for all time. The adventure for them was begun again.

  In one dim corner of the room, lurking before the console of a mighty computer, squatted a great, lizardlike biped called Over Three Hills, one truly dead, reborn from the contents of a mere recollection. Demogorgon let his throne spin slowly about. Standing behind his shoulder, hands clasped behind his back, feet planted slightly apart, Brendan Sealock, GAM-and-Redux, gazed calmly out across the scene, proud of the role he had played in making it come true.

  Demogorgon looked around, smiling at his handiwork. It was done. "This is it," he called out. "Begin Systems Survey."

  The two Seedees—the People, they called themselves now —swung into action. They swept to their work station, jetting through the very air, and plugged into an Action Panel, anchorelles foremost. Comnet-like, information flowed into their bodies, whirling meaningfully through their oil. Pheromones arced outward, forming audible words for the rest. "The repair work is complete," they said in unison. "All is in readiness."

  The King nodded. It was good. Should I let it take them by surprise? What a surprise that would be!

  The expression on Brendan's face would be worth the cost of his immortal soul, for such it now was. No, that would be petty of me. The effect of a warning might save their lives, at no cost to the drama of the thing.

  He turned to face the GAM replica. "Contact the humans on Ocypete ," he said. "Tell them that starship Iris is ready to move. Warn them."

  "At once," said the GAM. It tilted its head back to stare into the sky. Pearlescent oceans sprang forth, penetrating the crystal dome that topped the spire, and burst outward to the very ends of creation. Klaxons hooted and the footfalls of hurried men thudded on through endless corridors. Technicians sweated over their minute task. Computers thought and the various enslaved functions that survived from the construct of Centrum worked at keeping up their end of the charade. Energy sources were concentrated and great ducts opened in the hull of Mother Ship, drinking in the lower atmosphere of the enfolding planet that had trapped them all in its womb for so long.

  Imagination played its part, circuits working on overdrive, and the reality that it was derived from hurried to catch up with the commands that drove it. Deep in its matrices of data, the reborn mind of a child spun forth the web of its dreams, and the dream stuff caught fire and burned with a terrifying flame.

  Beth sat in the common room, brooding before a deopaqued wall, staring out across the flat vistas of Ocypete and the vast expanses of the ice ocellus they had so long ago named Mare Nostrum. Who called it that? Demogorgon? She tried to call up a memory of that first thrilling orbit about their new world but failed. I can't remember. She thought about the little Arab, now, she supposed, dead within the electrochemical depths of Iris and Centrum. She looked up at the planet, still hanging in the sky. It was unchanged, still blue and semiclear, its rings undisturbed. A strange thing, that. She knew that Brendan and Tem were up to something but didn't know what. They never explain anything to me. Reasonable, I guess. I really wouldn't understand anyway. The man was dead and his body lived on, powered by fragments of Jana. How much of him is still alive in that body? Axie talked a little about it. Most of him is in there. Only the "I" part thinks of itself as Jana.

  The events of the recent past warred powerfully against five hundred years of humanism. She knew that each human being was a unique, powerfully ensouled entity, an unpredictable absolute. Every moment of her consciousness proved it as surely as if it were etched in stone. There is a me that goes beyond my leaden flesh, and, even though I will die one day and it will stop, that doesn't mean anything. Why shouldn't it be so? My love of existence and other people, all the things that go into making me an individual? She had an image of herself as a machine, all the
things that she truly was recorded on an old-fashioned reel of tape, able to be transferred at will to another machine, another muddy hulk. The idea was repellent. Things that lack meaning aren't things.

  She passed on to gentler yet still more troublesome ideas. She had become united with the others during the battle in Bright Illimit. They had fought together and, she knew, facing the adversity and triumphing over it had made them close. What would the future bring to them? Undoubtedly they would return to Earth, and she had no doubt the feeling could be broadened and she would be strengthened by the knowledge that intimacy could be achieved through understanding. She puzzled over the strangest void, however— Brendan, Jana, and John were somehow totally excluded from her view of a common, joyous humanity. In fact her reaction to Sealock's resurrection was one of near revulsion. She felt infinite pity for poor Demogorgon, yet it did not extend to his repopulated body. And of course her feelings toward John were vasty complicated by all that had happened between them. She thought of John and wondered, Did I do the right thing? I know we can never be right for each other. Our ideas about love and life are just too different. We can never come together, be one, like Seven Red Anchorelles and his Cooloil. How delicious to think of it being that way. . . . An image of John floated up before her face, still handsome and dark, brooding deep within his intelligence. Strange to think of him as such a cold, remote being at times, and so filled with his own uncertainties. It wasn't just nonsense that the fullness of him ate away at the very soul of her existence during DR. He existed in such a way that she couldn't exist as well. His ideas always ran away with him. Instead of feeling his emotions he felt about them. I cannot imagine, still cannot comprehend, what it must be like to truly be such a person. But it was more than that for him. Could it be for her as well? The very existence of another person lacked the all-important criterion of meaning. She shuddered. What an awful idea! That can't be right.