The Wild

by David Zindell

  –Pilot?

  Like a thallow perched on his mountain eyrie, waiting, Danlo exulted in his powerful sense of sight. Before him, below him, the collective knowledge of the Narain people and a hundred generations of the Cybernetic Universal Church lay glittering with all the depth and clarity of a frozen seascape. Not any longer like a wine-dark ocean or even a pool. For that is the beauty of organization, that when one reaches out to logically arranged data with the proper senses, the flowing information pools fall into form and become more like snowflakes, frozen waterfalls, crystal mountains. And in Danlo, these inner, cybernetic senses were deep and keen. There was his sense of shih, a sort of master sense allowing him to perceive the relationship between information and knowledge, between knowledge and wisdom. With shih he might drink in the information crystals and know by the tastes of sweetness or bitterness which paths through the Field’s data space that he should seek. There were his senses of iconicity and syntaxis, and gestalt, where information would just ‘pop’ into his mind with all the suddenness of a soap bubble swelling into its colours. And, of course, the senses of fractality and fugue, and above all, fenestration. In the Field, as in all cybernetic spaces, there would be windows to pass through, clear arrays of information opening onto ever new arrays, window after window, layer upon crystalline layer sometimes hundreds of panes deep. A cetic – or even any Orderman whom the cetics had trained – might fenester through these windows with all the speed of a pilot falling through the manifold.

  –Perhaps you aren’t ready to face the Transcended Ones.

  Suddenly, then, Danlo moved. In truth, he almost flew along the frozen rivers of information, swooping here or there as a snowy owl might follow an elusive kitikeesha chick. In clumps of two or ten, the thirty-one different letters of the Narain alphabet passed before his inner eye at a blinding speed, like millions of bright shells strung along the tide line of a frozen beach. And so he raced above the field of biological history, reading, looking, seeking. He ached to cry out in discovery, to close the talons of his mind around a single fact or clue that might lead to a cure for the plague virus that had killed his people. But he found nothing. He fenestered through many windows, seeking in such unlikely areas as heuristics and biographies, and still the knowledge he sought escaped him. Perhaps, he thought, a cure did not exist. Or rather, perhaps Isas Lel had told the truth in saying that the Narain knew nothing of such a cure. Although it is impossible to prove the absence of information until every window of every sub-sub-field of knowledge has been opened and all the data searched as carefully as a kitikeesha picking through snow for a worm, with every reference to the plague virus’ aetiology that Danlo read, he became more and more certain that the Narain were as baffled by this terrible disease as were the Order’s biologists. Perhaps some outlaw virologist had once recorded a description of the effects of an array of alien drugs on the virus’ embroidery within the human genome. Perhaps this knowledge existed in some lost informational pocket in some far field within the greater Field itself. If so, then Danlo might search for years and never find it. Even a master librarian might be pressed to uncover such esoterica. With this in mind, after a long time of soaring across icy mountains of information, Danlo abandoned his search. He came to rest on a branch of a decision tree high above the fields and streams of brilliantly-formed information below him.

  –Oh, Pilot, there you are.

  Isas Lel’s voice rang inside Danlo’s mind. Although the sound of it was only a computer simulation unaffected by the workings of Isas Lel’s heart and lungs, there was almost a breathless quality to this disembodied voice as if he had found much trouble in following Danlo on his wild flight.

  –Are you lost, Pilot? It seemed that you were falling uncontrollably through the windows.

  –I … was falling. But I am not lost.

  –No? Are you sure? It’s impossible for anyone to read so quickly.

  –If your people know of a cure for the plague, I could not find it.

  Danlo went on to describe the many pools to which his seeking had taken him. When he was done, Isas Lel seemed convinced that he was indeed not lost after all.

  –You surprise me, Pilot. Does everyone in your Order have this talent with information?

  –Many … do.

  –It seems that your Order has much to teach us, then.

  –Yes, this is true. And you’ve much to teach us.

  –We can only hope so. You haven’t joined in the conversation of my people yet, much less faced a Transcended One. Are you ready to leave the information pools and see where we Narain really live?

  –Not … yet. If it is all right, there is more that I would know.

  So saying (or thinking), Danlo sprang forward with his mind and spent a long time skimming above the Field’s thousands of information pools. Here and there, like an osprey fishing the ocean waters, he dipped down to taste some tantalizing bit of knowledge. Sometimes, he dived deeply into ancient Narain poetry or eschatology or any other art where he might find wisdoms or insights. And so he understood at least a part of the dream of the Narain people. For them, God was not only a transcendent reality outside the universe, but also a living force that had emptied itself into the universe at the moment of its birth. It was their purpose to recreate God after this cosmic disintegration; in this they saw themselves as partners with Ede, and perhaps more, as the very Architects of His divinity. How this could be so – how the Narain hoped to transcend themselves in creating Ede the God – Danlo would soon learn.

  –Pilot?

  Danlo learned other things as well. Of particular interest to his quest was an Oredolo, a formal epic detailing the Narain’s exodus from Tannahill. And an ancient child’s poem. And above all – Danlo found this almost forgotten in one of the fantasy pools – a light painting of the Known Stars made on Iviendenhall, when the Narain had paused near this hot blue giant two hundred years before on their journey to Alumit Bridge. From these three sources, Danlo hoped that he had all the information he needed to fix the location of Tannahill’s star. In his mind, deep within his visual field, where there burned all the colours from cobalt to crimson, he was about to illuminate this light painting and fix it in his memory. He could almost see the stars, and then, suddenly, there was a brilliant burst of light as if one of them had exploded into a supernova.

  –Pilot!

  And then there was only darkness. Inside Danlo’s mind, the Field was as dark as the space of the Old Morbio. He knew, then, that he had lost interface, that he had been expelled from the Field as soldier bees might eject a wasp from their hive. He opened his eyes to the lesser darkness of the meeting room. There on the floor, the hologram of Nikolos Daru Ede beamed like a mother seeing her son return from war. There, too, in the twilight, the chatoy dome glowed a pale orange as if the simulated sun had finally just set. He saw the Transcendentals sitting in the half-circle on top of their robots. All except Isas Lel had their eyes closed; it seemed that they all continued to interface the Field. Isas Lel, however, had his eyes fixed on Danlo with all the trepidation of a man beholding a Scutari alien for the first time.

  ‘You’re very good, Pilot,’ he said.

  ‘I … almost had it,’ Danlo said. ‘The viewpoint, out of the light-distances, the stars, another moment and–’

  ‘You promised not to enter any of the astronomy pools! And so you didn’t, did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you tell me where you found the light painting, then?’

  Danlo explained about the forgotten fantasy pool and his plan to reconstruct a star map from the sources that he had discovered. And then he said, ‘The information was not forbidden … only hidden.’

  ‘Hidden, not forbidden – I must remember that,’ Isas Lel said.

  ‘I … am sorry.’

  ‘But why should you be sorry? You kept your promise.’

  ‘But I was not true … to the spirit of the promise.’

  Isas Lel’s soft brown eyes almost shon
e out of the meeting room’s darkness. ‘You’re a strange man, Danlo wi Soli Ringess. So fierce with yourself.’

  ‘The truth is the truth.’

  ‘So fierce within yourself.’

  ‘How … should I not be?’

  ‘How? Oh, there are many ways of being with oneself. And with other selves, as you’ll soon see.’

  ‘What … do you mean?’

  ‘When we return to the Field, you may see how it is to be one of many who would cherish one such as you.’

  ‘You … would allow me to interface again? Truly?’

  ‘It’s already been decided,’ Isas Lel said. ‘Of course, this time there will be no need for you to explore the information pools, will there?’

  For a moment Danlo was silent, and then he said, ‘No.’

  ‘Very well, then. Why don’t we go on to the association space? It would be good for you to take part in the conversation of my people before facing the Transcended Ones.’

  Danlo nodded his head and smiled. ‘If you’d like,’ he said.

  As before, the lights of the meeting room faded to blackness. As before Danlo entered the Field, only this time there was no clear light behind his eyes nor mountains of information, but only voices. There were many voices – how many Danlo could not say. Perhaps there were a billion of them. The voices were too loud; they shrieked and shouted and reverberated almost as one single sound, almost like the roaring of a great swarm of people crowded together in a public ice ring. And yet there were words, too, individual words almost as clear as the notes of a bell and strings of statements that ran together like paints spilled into water and almost made sense: … of God Ede in the system where the Elidis say yes the assassins would take the seventeenth level mehalchins flowers infolding the One at the omega point to share all mind the conversation of the true Narain Ones who go to One have you heard the many lives patterns the beauty of God facivi facilah for in what sense is Tadeo Aharagni mad or divinely mad for assassinating this naman Danlo wi Soli Ringess of Neverness in the Sagittarius Arm of stars when they die the Old Church Iviomils would destroy all things are beautiful when faced with lives of God instar I know nothing of God who the Fanyas said the Jurridik said do not believe the family is killed when the mothers of Ede and the mothers bear their own and keep them calling this the only threat they must go to God to Ede on and on and …

  –Pilot?

  In Danlo’s mind, the voice of Isas Lel sounded loudly, and it was as clear as the notes of a gosharp ringing out above lesser instruments.

  –Pilot, you’re too high.

  –Yes, I know.

  Danlo fell back upon his sense of fractality, then. He moved lower in the association space, down to where the great conversation of the Narain people began to divide and redivide into separate streams. It was rather like viewing the ochre-green wholeness of a planet’s continents from space and then falling down to an Earth. Gradually, the single sound of the conversation began to break up, and Danlo was aware of many conversations, as of an Earth’s many different lands. Each land, it seemed, sang with its own sounds, its many separate conversations all associating and connecting to a major theme. In one land, the Narain doomsayers (or dreamers) might concentrate on eschatology, while in a nearby land, aspiring Transcendentals talked about nothing except the ineffable nature of Ede the God. One land was all waterfalls, flowers, and songbirds, and there music was being discussed or played. Another land, almost as barren and dry as a desert, was inhabited only by a few thousand hardy linguistic police. These eccentrics were expert in peeling back the words of common speech to reveal various species of nibwaw, a term used in the Algorithm for pointless or frivolous theological debate. Every millisecond or so, one of these linguists might journey to nearby lands to monitor the many streams of the Conversation and warn their fellow Narain to speak more carefully. Few, however, paid them any attention, especially the dwellers of one strange-looking place (it was all stunted with conversational vegetation like bonsai trees) who spent all their time telling jokes. Within any of these lands – and across the Field of Alumit Bridge there were thousands of them – countless symposiums, soliloquies and debates went on continually. And at yet a lower level of individual voices, there were musings, arguments, laughter, cries, confidences, whispers, murmurings, lamentations and prayers. A Narain man or woman (or child), upon entering the association space, might choose to visit any of these lands and simply listen to the brilliant wordplay, much as a butterfly might float through an open window into a room full of people and eavesdrop on a conversation.

  –Where would you like to go, Pilot?

  It had always been Danlo’s dream to go everywhere, or rather, to journey to the centre of all things so that he might see the universe as it truly was. But in this universe of the Field, in the millions of people spinning out their silvery words and weaving together the great Conversation, he could find no true centre. But he found much to interest him. He listened to the debate about Tadeo Aharagni; it was almost impossible for the Narain to decide if he was divinely mad for claiming to be Ede the God or merely mad, like a man who has eaten mehalchin scrapings from a plastic wall and poisoned his brain. Danlo learned of the aspirations of a group of would-be immortals who dreamed of roaming the galaxy in pod ships for billions of years. These ten thousand womenmen would record the birth of new stars and gods and other wonders and meet at the end of time and merge their individual memories into a single, cosmic remembrance. And then there were those groups who questioned what should be done about the Assassins, and others concerned with the Rebirthing movement. All across Alumit Bridge, it seemed, there were millions of young women who wished to bear children inside their wombs, in the natural way. And worse, they wished to suckle their newborns at their breasts, and worse still, to keep them close by their sides and teach them all they needed to know to live within Iviunir and the other cities. The more traditional Narain, of course, were horrified by this new (but also very ancient) abomination. They warned that this newfound passion for life outside the Field could destroy the very ideal of the cybernetic family. Babies, they said, should be grown in amritsar tanks and educated by tutelary robots; when the children had grown old enough, they could then enter the Field and find their true families. There they could find real love and personal knowledge and thus become masters of their lives. Then Danlo became aware of other conversations, all of which formed around a single topic of moment: the arrival on Alumit Bridge of the pilot called Danlo wi Soli Ringess. The Narain, it seemed, were very interested in discussing his life – not the stylized and formal life of one who has interfaced the Field, but rather the real (or unreal) life of a man who has lived since childhood en getik, who has sat in caves before blazing woodfires and skated down icy streets and piloted a diamond lightship across the stars.

  –he said lived with a people named the Sani on a planet like Earth he said the Sani went naked beneath the needle forests and feasted him and loved and worshipped beauty as a way of being on this world he found that there had been others before him who from the white robes they wore must have been missionaries sent by the Old Church to bring the Sani back to Ede but they killed them with knives they must have secreted before they must have killed them because it’s always dangerous to discover the way to Alumit Bridge by pointing to the stars he’s mastered like other pilots of his Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame which is a rather pretentious name but in seeking across the stars for Tannahill in his lightship he’s found much we should listen to him if he would speak to us we might ask him about the stars and if Ede is God is he …

  For a long time, as time is measured within electron-quick exchanges of information within the Field, Danlo listened to the Narain discussing his quest to find Tannahill. After a while he became aware that Isas Lel was listening, too. And then Isas Lel spoke to him, or rather directed his thoughts to the Field computers so that they might generate words that only Danlo could hear.

  �
��You’re now a luminary, Pilot. Almost everyone on Alumit Bridge knows your name.

  –Truly?

  –There are so many who would speak with you. Would you care to speak with them?

  –I … am not sure.

  –We would be honoured if you would join in our Conversation.

  –To join … how?

  –There are many ways. But perhaps it would be best if you’d instantiate and talk with them directly.

  Danlo was silent as he considered talking with the Narain people. To do this, as Isas Lel advised, he should not simply open his mind’s mouth and let his words rain down like the voice of God out of the clouds, but rather he would do better to create a persona and cark out his selfness into the Field’s onstreaming information flows. In other words, he must instantiate as a cybernetic entity, a kind of symbolic being who might possess as much presence and reality – within the Field – as a tiger who has leaped from a misty forest into a room crowded with people.