Adrift in the Noösphere (5 page)

“Quiet!” The unseen figure had an edge to his tone, commanding, and Marmalade cocked his whiskers but fell silent. “Child,” Ouranos told her, “something very important is about to happen. Everything held dear by human people and machines and animals is at stake. Not just our survival, but the persistence of the world itself, of history stretching a billion years and more into the mysteries of our creation.”

The beancounter was feeling very tired. She looked around for a chair or a cushion, and found one right behind her, comfortable and handsomely brocaded. She felt sure it had not been there a moment earlier. Tightening her teeth against each other, she let herself slump into the chair. Her mother also was seating herself, and the cat walked by from the stern with an attitude of hauteur and lofted into Elisetta's lap, where he immediately began his droning purr, ignoring Bonida. The unseeable presence remained just out of sight. Wonderful! Would it not have been more melodramatic for a third chair to manifest, so she might witness its cushions sag under invisible buttocks?

Something took the ruby into its grasp and they were held motionless above the great rings, an expanse of faint ice and ruptured stones, some as large as their craft, mostly pebbles or sand or dust, like a winter roadway in the sky yet swirling ever so slowly. Far away, but closer than ever before, the bruised globe showed stripes of various dim hues, and a swirl that might have been a vast storm seen from above.

“Call us Saturn,” a powerful, resonant voice said within the cabin. It was unseen, and a presence, but not her father the machine. And the beancounter knew that it was also a machine, yet beyond doubt a person, too, of such depth and majesty that its own unseen presence rendered them unutterably insignificant. Somehow, though, this realization did not crush her spirit. She glanced at her mother. Elisetta was watching her, calm, wise, accepting, encouraging. How I do love her, Bonida thought, even though she treated me so cruelly by pretending death. But perhaps it was no fault of her mother's. Sometimes one has no choice. Her own employment, for one.

“We offer you a choice,” the voice of the world Saturn told them all. Marmalade was now seated on the carpet, upright on his haunches, seemingly respectful. What was the animal plotting this time? “But it must be an informed choice. Permit me to join you.”

An immense tawny beast crouched in their midst, larger than a human, with a golden mane that rose behind its formidable head. When it spoke again, its rumbling voice was a roar held in check.

“Call me Aslan, if you wish.”

Marmalade had leapt backward, teeth and claws bared, his own fur bristling. Now he sat down again, slightly askew, and turned his face away. “Oh, give me a break.”

The great creature shot him a quizzical look, shrugged those powerful cat-like shoulders. “As you please. Look here—”

§

A hundred voices in muted conversation, like a gathering for supper before the Sodality Plenary, then louder, a thousand chattering, a million million, a greater number, all speaking at once, voices weaving a pattern as large and multifarious as the accreted skyfallen materials of the great ridge circling her world, so that she must clap her hands to her ears, but she had no hands and must scream in the lemon-yellow glare of an impossibly brilliant light that—

“Too bright!” she did scream, then.

The light shed its painful intensity, subsided step by step to a point of roseate glow, and the voices muffled their chorus. She gazed down past the sparkling icy rings to the globe of Saturn, down through its storms and sleet of helium and hydrogen to the shell of metallic hydrogen wrapping its iron core. A seed fell. A long explosion crackled across the lifeless frigid surface world, drawing heat and power from the energies of Saturn's core, snapping one of the molecules after another into ingenious patterns braided and interpenetrating, flowing charges, magnetic fluxes. The voices were the song of those circuits, those—memristors, she knew, somehow. Not to be confused with the Mem-brain, the damnable cat had joked, and now Bonida smiled, getting the modest joke. Skeins of molecules linked like the inner parts of a brain, sparks of information, calculation, awareness, consciousness—

Oyarsa, you might say, the great feline manifest told her. She knew instantly what he meant: he was the ruling entity of this planet, the mind of which the planet was the brain and body. Not quite right, though: not he but they. A community of minds linked by light and entanglement (and yes, now she understood that as well, and, well, everything, at least in its numberless parts).

“How did you make the Skyfallen Heights, and why?”

Aslan told her, “The smallest of small questions. The cat has already told you. How do you make a trumpet? Take a hole and wrap tin around it.”

“Gustav Mahler,” Marmalade said, whiskers flicking. “You could say the same about his symphonies. Bah! Trumpets? Give me blues, man.”

Symphonies, trumpets, the composer Mahler, a thousand riches from lost Earth: it flooded her mind without overflowing.

“Yes, I know that much, but why? To build the Skydark, yes, but why?” It was an immense construction, she saw, the Field of Arbol uttered from imagination into reality, sphere within sphere of memristors, sucking every erg of energy from the hidden Sun at its core, a community of godlike beings that surpassed their builder as the Father of Time surpassed, perhaps, whatever ancient beings had brought him/them into existence. But why? But why?

“All the children ask that question,” said her mother, smiling. “Why, Bonida, for
joy
, as the Sodality has always taught. For endless renewal. For the recovery of the world. Taking a hole and wrapping everything important around it.”

“More arrant sentimentality,” said the cat, looking disgusted.

“You are a most offensive creature,” the beancounter said reprovingly, although she tended to agree with him. “Here, come sit upon my lap.” The animal shot her a surprised look, then did as she suggested, springing, circling, snuggling down, heavy orange head leaned back against her modest breast. She let one hand stroke down his coat, and again. “So what is this question we are meant to address?”

The lion rose, looked from one human to the other, and his glance took in as well the rumbling cat and the unseen presence.

“We are considering terminating our life.”

Elisetta pressed forward, shocked, all tranquility dispelled. Her voice cracked: “You must not! What would become of us?”

“That is not the question we wish to put to you, although it has a bearing. Yours is not the species that created us, before they departed, to whom we are beholden, yet you are living beings like those creators. We in turn created the great Minds that cloak the Sun, and built their habitation. Now they, too, are at the end of their dealings with this universe. They know all that might be known, and have imagined all that might be done within the greater landscape of universes. So now they propose to voyage into deepest time, to the ends of eternity. Perhaps something greater awaits them there.”

Bonita's own small mind, acknowledging its smallness, reeled at the images flooding to her from the demigod whose own life and purpose were complete at last. Stars and galaxies of stars would fling themselves apart into the night, driven by the power of that darkness, their flaring illumination fading, finally, flickering, dying. All the multiple manifestations of cosmos torn apart and lost in a dying whisper. Her mood summoned from the treasure house the Adagietto from that composer Mahler's Fifth Symphony, and she sank into its tinted, tearful melancholy. Yet in the frigid blackness and emptiness she detected...something. A lure, a promise, at the very least a teasing hint of laughter. How could the Skydark not follow that trace to eternity? How could she?

“Off,” she told the cat, and Marmalade sprang away, less offended than one might have expected. She stood up and took her mother's hand. “We are the deputies of your makers, then? You and the Skydark require our...what? Permission? Leave to die, or to depart?”

“Yes.”

“And what's to become of us?”

“You will remain for as long as we burn.” A vision was placed before them of the ringed world falling in upon itself, crushed into terrifying density, alight with the energies of compression. And Iapetus circling that new Sun, this visible star, unshielded, unveiled, but barren of mind. The agony of loss slashed tears from her eyes. Yet it was Saturn's decision.

“Can we go instead with the Skydark? The Embee? May we share that voyage?”

“Thought you'd never ask,” said Marmalade. “And you, Madame High Governor, and Ouranos, Lord Arxon, do you concur with the wisdom and daring of this young woman?”

“I—” Her mother hesitated, gone once into death and retrieved by the gift of her child, looking from Bonita to the machine in which they stood. “Yes, yes of course. And you, sir?”

“We shall attend you, Lord Marmalade,” said the unseen presence. “Even unto the ends of eternity. It will be an awfully big adventure.”

A qualm brought the beancounter an abrupt pang. “What of the pedlar we hired? He's still waiting for us, poor creature. He might not be so happy at the prospect. Who are we to make such a choice for a whole world?”

“He'll get over it,” said the cat. “And hey, if not you, who?”

§

The sky rolled up, and they set sail into forever.

All Summer Long

Mother was really pleased when Dad brought the new robot home. Our housekeeper had just graduated as an accountant after nine years of night school and left us, to start work with H&R Block up the road.

Dad honked his car horn out the front when he got home this day. He honked it again, impatiently, when nobody came out. After the third noisy honk I peeked out the window to see what the fuss was about and saw him sitting in the car, at the curb, with the window down. I passed this news on to Mother, who told me, “Go and see what your father wants, Davy, I've got this awful stuff all over my hands.”

It was true. She was trying to make dinner for us, using something called a recipe. The kitchen was covered in a fine layer of white flour, and there were two broken eggs on the floor. The cat was licking up the yolks and getting under foot. Something was smoking in the microwave. I turned it off before the smoke alarm was triggered and the fire brigade came rushing around.

“Yabba, Dad,” I yelled, wandering down the path.

Dad yelled back from the car window, “Where's your mother, Davy?” He had that look you get when you're bursting with exciting news and nobody is paying any attention. “Tell her to come out, I've got a treat for her.”

“Cool.” I wandered back to the kitchen. Mother was trying to shoo Perdida the cat away from the smashed eggs. I didn't know cats ate raw eggs, but then our cat is fat and greedy and would snatch the burger off your lap if you let her. “Dad's got a surprise for you, Mother.”

“I've got one for him, too,” Mother said crankily. “No dinner.”

“Oh boy,” called Marj from the study room, “take-out! Can we have Mongolian?”

By the time we'd all trooped out the front door and down the path, Dad was locking the car. Something short and wide and dark green was propped on the grass strip next to him. It looked as if a new shrub had sprung up over-night. Well, faster than that, because it hadn't been there a minute earlier.

Dad walked toward us up the path with a pleased grin, and the shrub followed. Mother gave a squeal.

“Darling! A household robot! You said we couldn't afford one!”

“Bratachari in Engineering has arranged for some of us to have one on extended loan,” Dad said, giving Mother a big smooch, and beaming at us kids. “Beta test. The Moravec company has made about a thousand robots available. We can evaluate its performance.”

“What's it called?” Marj asked, staring down at the moving shrub. “Why does it look like a big plant if it's a robot? I thought they were silvery or covered in plastic or something?”

“It's a Moravec bush robot,” Dad told us. “See, its arms look like branches and they have smaller arms at the ends that look like twigs, and they have really fine manipulators at the end like prickles.”

“Herb,” I said. “That's his name.”

“How do you know? That's a stupid name for a robot.”

“No it's not,” I said, and pulled her hair. She yelped, and Dad gave me a clip over the ear. “It's ‘Herb' because he looks like something that grows in the garden, get it?”

“How do you know it's a ‘him',” Marj said smugly. “Maybe it's a ‘she'. I reckon she's called Rose.”

“Whatever,” Dad said. “Davy got in first, so Herb it is.”

Marj gave me a sour look and went inside. Mrs. McGunzel, across the road, was standing at her open front door, gazing at our new robot. Mother waved to her, and after a moment she waved back, but she looked a bit scared. I don't know why, I thought Herbie was supercool.

“Does it talk?”

“Yes, up to a point, but we need to introduce ourselves first.” By this stage we were assembled in the living room, gathered in a half-circle around the robot. Dad pulled the instruction manual out of his briefcase and flipped through the first few pages. “We were told how to do this at the office, but I don't quite recall how to— Ah, here we are. Robot 47D95, instruction mode on.”

“Good evening, sir or madam.”

I gave a hoot of laughter, and Dad flushed. He was always sensitive about his slightly high-pitched voice, but I reckon the robot was just pulling his leg.

“That's ‘sir',” he said crossly. “Your name is ‘Herb' or ‘Herbie,' okay? And I'm Roland FitzSimmons, your new owner.” He went through the rest of the introductions.

“Glad to you meet you,” Herb told us. “I would like to begin my duties now. May I prepare dinner for the family?”

“Oh, bless you,” Mother blurted. “Do you cook?”

“I am programmed for fifty-two national cuisines,” the robot told her. “Afghani, American, Australian, Balinese, Caribbean, Chinese, Creole, Deli, Egyptian, Ethiopian—”

“Do you do pizza?” I asked it.

There was a moment's silence. “Certainly, Davy.” I thought it sounded a bit offended. “Can someone direct me to the kitchen?”

The robot moved in a mysterious way, sort of gliding on its branches and twigs. Perdida the cat freaked when it slid into the kitchen, and leaped on to the nearest bench, all her fur sticking out and her back arched.

“This place is disgusting,” Herb said. “I shall have to clean up first. Please remove the domestic animal.”

Mother was insulted, but you could see the robot's point. She just wasn't very good at this food preparation caper. Marj went and retrieved Perdida, smoothed down her ruffled fur, and took her and Mother into the living room. I stayed in the kitchen door, watching Herb. He kind of flattened out into a turtle, or what a turtle would look like if it had been stepped on by an elephant. More like a surfboard.

It slid easily over the kitchen floor, and after it was done there was no sign of spilled flour or broken egg shells, and the bits of orange peel I'd dropped in the corner when I missed the trashbin were gone. Herb had...well, he'd sort of eaten everything, I suppose. He extended upward once more and became a bush, then kept extending and became a kind of short tree. His branches swept out across the kitchen benches, sucking up the mess and straightening everything out. It was a miracle of applied science.

Then Herb found the larder and refrigerator and the stove and the microwave and started on dinner. Awesome! That robot spun around the kitchen like a green whirlwind, opening jars, laying out pans, mixing and blending and pouring and tidying up as it went. Dad and I stared at each other in amazement. Mother came back and looked suspiciously at Herb's work, and then nodded. She was won over, I could tell. Perdida sulked in the corner of the living room, and slunk under the couch when Herb brought out piping hot pizzas to the dining table.

“Can it do homework?” Marj asked, wiping a thick gloopy strand of cheese off her mouth.

“You'll do your homework yourself, young lady,” Mother told her. “But it can help you tidy your room. That will give you plenty of spare time for your studies.”

“Can he sleep in my room?” I asked.

“The robot will stay downstairs,” Dad said. “It can go into its dormant phase in the closet, since we won't need brooms and the vacuum cleaner any more. Well, until the trial ends, anyway.”

“I shall sleep on the roof, thank you,” Herb said. “I collect power from the sun's rays, like a flower or a tree. I am an ecologically friendly mechanism.”

When we got up next morning, the house smelled wonderfully of hot toast and even hotter coffee. Herb had made breakfast for us all. Even Perdida was purring—Herb had poured her a bowl of milk, and put out some Kat Crunchies in her bowl, after cleaning it. I couldn't wait to tell the other kids at school about our keen robot.

That afternoon, I rode back quickly on my trail bike in the hot summer sun so I could see what Herb was up to. I brought Ken and Michio so they could meet Herb. When we banging in through the front door, Mother was out at her bridge game and I couldn't find Herb anywhere. We grabbed some cookies and beverages and went out the back. Herb was soaking up the rays next to the pool.

“Hey! It's all flat! You said it was like a tree.”

“It can change shape,” I told Michio. “I wonder if he can float?”

“Let's toss him in the pool,” Ken suggested.

“Well, I don't know—”

The others ran across and grabbed the flat robot and lifted him off the grass. Herb looked like a green flying saucer. He must have been pretty heavy, because they had a bit of trouble moving him. They shoved him toward the edge of the pool, and he slid in to the blue water and sank.

“Uh-oh.”

“You idiots!” I shouted. “Do you know how much one of those robots costs?”

A dark green snorkel rose above the surface of the pool and quested about. Herb must have been able to see through it, because it pointed in our direction.

“This is very pleasant,” Herb told us through the snorkel. “Thank you.”

“Our pleasure, dude,” Ken said with a smirk. “Hey, maybe this robot's a surfer!”

Herb floated up to the top of the pool. His body was flatter than ever, like a plate. He moved back and forth slowly, the edges of his body kind of paddling with a thousand tiny tendrils.

“Hey, yeah, he'd make a great board. Come on, let's show him some surfing videos and see if he can morph into, like, the world's best interactive board.”

Herb slid up the side of the pool and turned back into a shrub. The water just kind of fell off him. Skin like a dolphin, amazing. We took him inside and sat him down in front of the TV set and showed him some of Dad's old surfer movies. Herb really loved
Crystal Rider
, you could tell.

That night we ate Lebanese, because Mother insisted on it. I wasn't too sure at first, but Herb whipped up such a great spread with mouth-watering smells and tastes that I wolfed down everything on my plate and asked for more. Herbie cleaned up quietly while we watched some television, and then put himself away neatly in the closet. He must have charged up enough in the sun by the pool.

Next morning he was gone. No delightful morning smells of ham and eggs and toast. Not even a note. Dad was frantic. He phoned a couple of friends from work who also had robots out on beta test. All the robots were gone.

News reports started coming in from traffic helicopters. Strange green bushes were on the march. People were panicking. Cars ran into the curb. Dogs fled in fear. Little old ladies were being helped across the street by shrubs. The streets the shrubs passed along had never been cleaner. Inside an hour, it was obvious all the robots were heading for the ocean.

And that's where Herbie is now. I don't know which one he is, but I can see them on the TV news—hundreds of glistening green surfboards, without riders, out there under the summer sun riding the waves. It looks weird, I have to say, all those boards with no surfers hanging five on them and paddling out to catch a great wave. The boards do it all by themselves, skimming out into the deep blue like dolphins, turning, waiting for the wave, moving faster, catching it, hovering for a heart-stopping moment at the very lip of the breaking surf and then riding that sucker in, tens and hundreds of green surfboards flying in the sun, singing together and synthesizing their own guitar and drum backing, singing old Beach Boys hits from last century. It made my hair stand on end. I have to tell you, it made me wish I was a robot surfer.