Queen of Angels (2 page)

No pain, no gain. Worlds a rough. All we learn comes of our own sharp go. We torment each other. Race is like acid in a tight metal groove; we etch. Hope

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In a lost time of myth the coast of southern California had been littoral brown and dusty desert populated by Indians Spaniards mestizos scrub and ancient twisted pines. Now from twenty kilometers below Big Sur to the tip of Baja it was a rambling ribbon of community linked by slaveways, fed by desalting plants and mountain melts gathered from as far as Canada, punctuated by the towers of Santa Barbara the immense diurnal mirrored combs of Los Angeles centipede segments of South Coast monuments and the sprawling rounded ceramic arches and spires of San Diego. Nestled between the desalting and fusion plants of San Onofre and San Diego, like islands in this coastal and inland battle of titans lurked the groundling enclaves of La Jolla and Del Mar, blanketed in shabby gentility and celebrated memory of years past. Flanking the sprawl of the University of California at San Diego, these cities boasted hundreds of thousands of atavists who wished to live lives of past simplicity. The once ubiquitous doctors and lawyers and heads of corporations had decades before abandoned their beacbside palaces to move into the central luxuries of the monuments; outmoded academics and scholars took their place. Herr Professor Doctor Martin Burke, O.V.F. & I.Once Very Famous and Influentialbad recently left the monuments and the bosom of highrise society to slum in the flatlands. He had found himself an old not ruinously expensive apartment in the inland hills of La Jolla and here he sat with barely enough energy to answer his chiming phone, trying to raise some enthusiasm for a scheduled public broadcast of the latest Lit Vid 21 AXIS report, history in the making. He turned down the sound on the floating head and shoulders of an announcer and reached out on the third chime to make sure the phones vid was off. Then he said, Ill take it. The phone opened a connection. Hello. Martins voice was hoarse and phlegmy. He sounded sixty; he had just earned forty five. Martin Burke, please. A pleasant, aggressive male voice. He coughed. Speaking. Mr. Burke, you used to work for the Institute for Psychological Research Used to. Pause. Sounded like a journalist. I had nothing to do with No, of course not. My name is Paul Lascal, Mr. Burke. Im not a reporter and Im not interested in the Raphkind scandals. I am interested in what you know about IPR. Would it be possible to speak with you soon? A LitVid simulation of AXIS itself floated before him, narration muted. The crafts deceleration vanes were shown spread wide a spidery thing of deep space. The vanes withdrew with unreal speed and AXISs children flushed like a thousand handsful of nickels smeared by gravity in a gray pointillistic curve around the second planet of Alpha Centauri B. The last thing I want to talk about is IPR, Martin said. Where did you get my number? I represent Mr. Thomas Albigoni. Lascal paused for some sign of recognition, then continued smoothly without it. Carol Neuman gave him your name and phone number. She thought you might be able to help him. I dont see how. I havent worked at IPR for a year. How is Carol connected with Mr. Albigensi Albigoni. Thomas. Mister. She was a therapist for his daughter. They became friends. I understand youre no longer in the silky with the regulators. That could make you doubly useful to us. Just a short talk. Say, over lunch? Martin looked at the mess in his small kitchen. He had not mustered the energy to tell the apartment arbeiters to dean it up. He had not eaten since early evening of the day before. You seem to think I should know who Albigoni is. Hes a publisher. Oh? LitVids? And books, Lascal said pointedly. Far more lit than vid. Is he after an expose? No. Another matter entirely. Martin rubbed his nose. In that case, and considering its Carol, maybe Ill accept. Do you know Lascal named a shoreline La Jolla restaurant, very expensive. I know it. About one hour from now? just ask for Mr. Albigonis table. Martin gave an assenting grunt and put the receiver down. He leaned back in the weak cushions of his aging armchair. On the battered coffee table sat a ceremonial and condensed printed copy of his twenty year old atlas of the human brain, a seminal work from his salad days. Sometime during the previous night he had drunkenly opened it to a plate of the olfactory nerve and system. Next to the plate be had drawn a crude cartoon of a vampire, teeth trickling teardrops of blood, with branching arrows connecting cartoon and pink and white cauliflower flesh of prepyriform cortex, olfactory bulb and rhinencephalon. From the armchair he could see into the apartments small bedroom. In one corner beyond the bed a tall metal case supported stacked cubes of data. Martins life had centered on those cubes until President Raphkinds downfall and suicide had ushered in the new era of constitutional cleansing and investigations. He had not been part of the Raphkind scandals not directlybut his research bad been targeted. Federal had shut down IPR and tucked him away from his true calling. He turned up the sound on the AXIS report pushed himself forcibly from the armchair and walked into the bathroom to shave and dress. Martin had once hiked the Country of the Mind. Now he was reduced to accepting luncheon dates with curious strangers just to get out of the apartment.

Why put on eyegla.sses? Why look out and ahead? You wont go there. I wont. We are all Moses staring into Canaan. Who in hell cares our children get there? My this has been a bitchy evening, hasnt it?

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LItVld 21 (Science and Philosophy Nets) Scheduling 12/23/47 1: AXIS MultlNet Coverage 24 hr reports four tiers. A Net: PubAcc David Shine and Team. B Net: PubAcc Direct Data Downlink. (Hobby-Tech). C Net: Australian SquInf 0: Analysis (Pay). D Net: Lunar Squlnf 0: Analysis (Pay). 2: DesIgner Babies Conference Thcson AZ 0800-2200. (Member Conference Pay). A Net: Health and public acceptance. B Net: Future social change. C Net: Religious. Historical and Scientific Images of Humanity. 3: Public Science Issues Forum PubAcc MultiNet 0900-2100 A Net: Diane Muldrow-Lewls-Taper. Playback Interviews with Science/Tech Pers. (Expanded Schedule for subjects). B Net: Senate Transform Law Debates. Discrimination In Eastern States? C Net: Arbelter Design Conference. Cleveland. Ohio. D NET: NAXOTKCH NEWS (CheSfl for Recording. $20.00 P..) E Net: END SELECTION.

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Selection made: 1/ AXIS Multlnet A Net B Net switch at will. No fee. ___________________________________________________________

LltVid 21/1 A Net (David Shine): AXIS has been on the road for fIfteen years. at a cost of over one hundred billion dollars. a lot of treasure for such a distant piece of metallic fluff many have said. But the overwhelming voice of the world community spoke loud and clear three decades ago, and It said Yes. AXIS, an acronym for Automated eXplorer of Interstellar Space, became the grandest project In recent history. perhaps more important overall than the manned Mars missions, the return to the moon, the orbital platforms and ....... For in planning, building and launching AXIS the world propelled Itself deliberately and with historically unprecedented foresight into a new Industrial revolution. The technologies necessary for AXISs successthe nanotechnologies of machines smaller than living cells-have already changed our lives and promise much more In the very near future. But which Is more Important the economic and Industrial benefits or the philosophical and psychological? Through AXIS we might find our doppelgangers. our soul-mates: we might find mankinds future husbands and wives among the angels who the Bible tells us once cohabited with Earthlings. AXIS may be therapy for us all, for the great uncured. unhealed human race, with so far to go on its breathless course through history. We may finally be able to compare ourselves to our superiors, or our equcls. and know where we stand. As for yourself, youll find more formal telecasts on other LttVid 21 channels We are taking the universal feed and simulated report from Australian and lunar farslde mission controL and adding our own culiural spin. In the past few weeks. AXIS has returned images of three planets circling Alpha Centauri B. As yet these worlds have not been named, and are called only B-l, B-2. and B-3. B-3 was already known to moonbased astronomers; It Is a huge gas giant some ten times larger than Jupiter in our own solar system. Like Saturn It is surrounded by a thin rugged ring of Icy moonlets B-l Is a barren rock hugging close to Alpha Centaurl B. similar to Mercwy. But the focus of our attention Is now on B-2. a lustrlght world slightly smaller than Earth. B-2 possesses an atmosphere closely approximating Earths, as well as continents and oceans of liquid water. It Is orbited by two moons each about a thousand kilometers in diameter. AXISs sensors and telescopes discovered B-2 almost three years ago. Now AXIS Is making Its move on this Eartbulke world. That Is, It made Its move over four years ago. for AXIS Is sending us Information at the speed of light across four light years. The signal has been relayed by fifty transponders across almost forty trillion kilometers of empty space. The reports we only reaching us this wooL In compressed form, to be decoded. enhanced and analyzed by thinking machines In California and by planetary scientists around the world This is as close to live and realtime as God allows us to be.

Swltch/ LiP/Id 2111 B Net (Decoded: Australian Cape Control: Message relayed Space Tracking: Lunar Control: Australian Cape Control: AXIS Mind Team Leader Roger Aiklns)

(I = realtime). !AXIS (Biologic Band 4)> Hello. Roger. I assume yottre still there. This distance Is a challenge even for me, based as I am upon human templates... (politeness algorithm diagnosis for total mechanIcal-bIologIc thinker function V-optimal) most of the time. I have come within a million kilometers of B-2 mark this moment 7-23-2043-1206:15 I am preparing my machine and blo memories for receipt of Information from the children. now flying In a perfectly dispersing cloud toward B-2. Data on B4 have been relayed. The planet, you can see. Is quite Jovian. very pretty. though tending toward the greens and yellows rather than reds and browns I'm enjoying the extra energy from Bs light it allows me to get some work done that Ive been delaying for some time. opening up regions of memory and thought Ive closed down during the cold and dark. Ive just completed a self analysis; as you doubtless have discovered by checking my politeness algorithm diagnostic. I am V-optimaL I am not using the formal "I"; the joke about self awareness still does not make any sense to me. (Total algorithm diagnostic tIme: 4.05 plooueoonds). Sensations: My temperature Is 276 K. Radiation flux .82 solar unity. My optics are warming nicely; blopflcs should be fully grown and ready far electronic Interface wIthin 21 hours. My final biological extensions are also growing nicely; nutrients have not degraded and I can expect to begin integrating new neural extensions and checking their fllneus within the hour. I assume my earthbound twin is lntupreflng these bush adequately, politely, suavely.

LJILL Roger: how is It? IRoger Atkins: Just fine. (Redundancy and Ollphant code checks complete). AXIS (Biologic Band 4) Non-neural systems report they are ready to download the last six months worth of Information on C. Enough burst chatter. As you can see. I am healthy. Expect next burst assembly diagnostics from non-biologic systems. (Burst routed to machine language division: machine computation V-optimal).

!Roger Atkins Alan. AXIS Is doing just fine. Jills simulation is a perfect match. Routing to machine language division.

LitVId 21/I B Net (Recorded Interview AXIS Space System Project Manager Alexander Tranh): Biologlcals and Integration team reports AXIS Is in prime condition. We are about to receive Information that AXISs sensors have been gathering over the last half year of flight toward 5-2. The large portion at this Information will concern Alpha Centaurl C. commonly called Proxlma Centaurl As most of our viewers should know by now, astronomers are very interested in Proxima Centauri. even though It lies same one trlllion miles from the A and B components of Alpha Centaurl. C is a very small star Indeed. one of the five smallest stars currently known, less than one tenth the mass of our sun and less than hail the diameter of the planet Jupiter. It is very like the class of red dwarf stars named after IN Cell, flare stars that brighten and dim over a period of days. Information about A and B Is currently decoded and available worldwide on the Australia/Squlnto subscription service, proceeds from which. orcourse. go to pay for future analysis of AXIS data.

LltVid 21/1 A Net (David Shine): Were cutting from the AXIS report nowIrs mostly numbers and stuff for enthusiasts. Ive been toldand replaying two poems. One of them Is the poem AXIS wrote to his or her or Its programmers as part of a long range diagnostic test four months ago. The second Is a poem written and transmitted by AXIS six months after departing our solar system. At that time, AXIS was still functioning on a biological basis. The AXIS mind consists of a machine system and a biological system During the years when AXIS accelerated on a furious torch at matter-antimatter plasma, the unmanned Interstellar probe was controlled by a primitive, rugged and radiation proof Inorganic computer. When the antimatter drive ceased some four years after launch, AXIS entered a cold, quiet mode. Its functions reduced to the simplest routine of maintenance, sensing and launch of transponders. During this time. AXISs mlndas I said. little more than a simple computer ticked away the days and weeks and years, Its most demanding job keeping track of numerous deep space experiments that could not be conducted while the torch was burning. Some six months before the beginning of AXISs deceleration phase. AXIS allowed Itself the luxury of powering up a small fusion generator, very little larger than a human thumb. This produced sufficient heat to allow nanomachine activity, and the creation of AXISs huge, yet very thin and light superconducting wings, or vanes. AXISs huge wings actually acted like the rotor on an Incredible electric generator, cutting across the lines of the galaxys own magnetic field. The resulting flow of electricity through the superconducting material of the wingssome billions of watts of power was used by AXIS to dismantle the antimatter drive, reduce it to a fine powder with the aid of nanomacblne destructors. and to electrically propel this refined scrap opposite its direction of motion to further decrease speed. By cutting through the galaxys magnetic field and generating this electricity, AXIS relied on the law of conservation of energy to decelerate even more quickly without the use of onboard fueL The power drawn from Its vast wings was more than sulfldent to dispel the cold of deep space; but AXIS waited for proximity to Alpha Centaurl B to begin to grow its biologic thinker system. That complex neural network Is finishing Its growth and Integration right now, Earth reference frame. AXISs new biologic thinker will replace the thinker that died and was recycled when AXIS passed out of our suns temperate regions and fired off its antimatter drive. AXIS chief mind designer and programmer Roger Atkins has told LltVld 21 that he personally knows whether a poem has been written by the machine thinker or by the biological thinker. Can you tell the difference? Here are the two poems.