Godbirth
By Robert Musser
Swim, swim, hunger, swim.
“…normal in control group A…”
Swim, prey, hunger, lure, attack,
consume.
“…minor anomaly with specimen…”
Rest, swim, swim, fear, THREAT.
“…Check the neural output on 3X24…”
* * *
I awoke, still burning from the
imagined agony. Waves of fear poured
out of my mind, reverberating in the glass chamber. I floated in my sleep-tank for a few more moments, trying to take
whatever comfort the water would offer.
It offered none, and so I bobbed in misery. I had dreamt many times before in my life, and sometimes the
dreams were this disturbing. Never,
though, had they been this…vivid.
Tearing myself away from the memories of my dream, I signaled my walker to come for me. The walker, sensing my mental call, rose up on its four talons and crawled to the side of my tank. The tank’s claw plunged into the water and lifted me into the dry air of my dwelling. By then, I had pushed my dream aside to prepare myself for the day’s tests. The Council had run this design through every simulation possible; it was possible that I, on that very day, would become the first to explore the void beyond our world. The thought of such an advance for my people filled me with ecstasy.
The claw gently placed me within the bowl on top of my walker. As the walker’s jets began their soothing, constant spray of water, I let out a low chirp of relief. I turned to the window and gazed out at the endless stretches of sand dunes. Only seedling shore-stalk plants, being carried on light sandstorms to search in vain for a new lake to inhabit, offered any variation to the stark landscape. It wasn’t the sea, of course, but its emptiness offered some relief to my mind. By the time I left my home for the testing grounds, I had completely forgotten my dream.
* * *
Laan [puzzlement] greeted me at the gate. “Early as always, I see, Kheeri [despair],” he said, emitting a wave of despair to complete my formal name.
“Couldn’t miss today,” I replied. “I heard that the Council has a lot of [confidence] in this design.” I mentally projected “confidence” instead of actually saying it; much more vivid than mere words. “Who wouldn’t want to be the first person in space?”
“Well, technically, that honor belongs to our ancestors-”
“I know, I know, Laan. I’m not here to discuss theology. I’m here to advance the species.”
Laan released a wave of amusement in response to my grandiose claim. “Just the sort of [enthusiasm] we like to hear.” He turned and started walking toward the launch center. “Follow me.”
As I followed Laan, I noticed someone else at the edge of my vision. I turned, and there on the other side of the gate was Okan. I would know him anywhere; his spherical, gelatinous build was unremarkable, but nobody could miss the deep red stripes radiating outwards from his optical cluster. Okan [joy] hur—outsider, enigma, the only revolutionary the Council hadn’t restructured.
Seeing Okan there frightened me.
* * *
Trapped in the transparent ball that formed the main body of my space-walker, I couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. Yes, the Council’s tests had gone well; yes, they covered every possible situation; yes, every actual probe had returned unharmed. So why feel uneasy?
Because terror had no use for rational thought. I did what I could to focus on the task at hand. Any moment now…
The signal came, a burst of urgency from Laan. Now!
I let out a mental burst, sending it along the wire piercing my brain. Several reactions later, the thrusters behind me ignited. The heat threatened to break into my insulated chamber, draining me of moisture in a split second. I would die, I knew; another victim of unfortunate design failure.
But the heat faded. With it, gravity fell away. And I floated alone, in space.
I tried to think of something poetic to say, something to give me just a bit more permanence in collective memory, but I could only wheeze incoherently. I spun in endless circles with my thrusters, absorbing the panorama. Laan said something over the radio, some sarcastic remark about my wheezing, but I didn’t listen. The stars held all of my attention.
I remembered a simulation I’d enjoyed during my earlier years. Not a realistic model by any stretch of the imagination—I was still immature, at only half a year old—it involved me swimming from star to star within seconds, encountering a strange new alien race at each one. One of these aliens would join me at each stop, so eventually I was leading a chain of several dozen species, all intrepid explorers. Once I even met the Gods (although I just had to imagine their appearance, since nobody remembers what they looked like; in my sim, they looked like blue shore-stalks with legs).
But now I was trapped in reality. The nearest stars would take thousands of years to reach with current technology, aliens couldn’t be found at every star, if any, and I would never see a living God. How harsh reality can be.
I took one last look at the stars, then started testing some basic maneuvers. Everything checked out. The Council had outdone itself. Thruster handling, manipulation arms, everything worked like a part of my own body. I reported to Laan, “Everything looks great. I can’t find a single malfunction.”
“It’s Council work, what did you expect? All right, bring it back home.”
I began to work the thrusters-
Then the world shattered before me, and there was nothing.
* * *
There
is food. See food. Feel hunger. But food is strong, can not fight it.
“Keep
an eye on 5B87C, he’s trying something,” Voice say. Voice from sky.
I look
for Voice, but it is gone. Shapes are
outside of world, but not clear. Voice
one of them? Do not know.
Back
to food. I tell Friend to go around to
other side. Friend does. Friend helps me.
“See
that? Do you think it’s…”
“Keep
watching, keep watching, we’ll know in a minute.”
There
is other Voice now, but I ignore. Only
food. Soon. Soon…
Now! I attack, other attacks. Food can not escape. It fights, but dies. I and Friend eat.
“I
thought so. Teamwork.”
“Amazing…”
* * *
“…read me? Kheeri, do you read me?” I could almost feel Laan’s panic, even from space.
I shook myself out of the trance and replied, as steadily as I could, “I’m fine. Just got distracted.”
“Well, re-entry is a bad time to get distracted. We don’t want to lose you until the project’s finished.”
“Don’t worry, Laan, I’ve got it under control.” I adjusted my angle slightly as I tried, and failed, to forget the new dream.
* * *
There was a brief conference after the flight. I temporarily fused with the others in my division, becoming one mind to transfer my experiences from the flight to each of them. I kept my dream to myself, though.
The others rambled on endlessly, discussing potential adjustments to increase thruster efficiency, new claw designs, and so on, for longer than I could stand. The Council had probably already reached the same conclusions. None of it interested me. None of it mattered. Somehow, I knew that the dream was all that mattered.
When the meeting finally ended, I shuffled out of the space exploration center, confused emotions pouring from my mind. I wanted nothing more than to eat some warm sea-hunter leaves, clear these images from my mind, and get some sleep.
Then Okan [joy] hur stepped into my path and destroyed my plans.
“Rough day?” Okan said. He released no emotion that I could notice.
“None of your business,” I grunted, trying to sidestep around him.
He blocked me, matching my movement. “The dreams, right?”
I said nothing. The sudden cut-off of my emotions told him that he was right.
“Do you know how many others have had them?” he asked. I didn’t try to answer.
He continued, “At last count, fifty-two on the planet, including you and me.”
I didn’t know how he came by that knowledge. I didn’t care. “Since you’re such an expert on the matter, what are they?” I asked. “The dreams?”
Still no hint of emotion. “A sign,” he said. “There are changes ahead.” He turned away and headed toward his dwelling.
I should have followed him, demanded that he explain himself. But I was exhausted, and I had a feeling that all I would get out of him was more cryptic babbling. So I went home myself. But I didn’t eat, and the dreams were still fresh on my mind when I fell asleep.
* * *
I
awaken. There is danger. I do not see it, but it is there. I hear the voices and their nonsense
words. The higher one says, “Watch, I
think 2K40W is attacking. This should
be interesting.”
“Better
be, after four hours of watching the algae bloom.”
“Doctor,
you’re whining again.”
“That’s
right.”
“And
your time would be better spent doing…what?”
“Well,
let’s see…maybe bitching at you until you either get a big-screen holovision
for the lab or find someone else for the night shift?”
“Funny.”
“That’s
what you pay me for.”
“Just pay attention for a
minute. Keep an eye on 9F’s neural output.”
I stop
listening to them, and try to hear the Enemy.
I listen for his waves, and I find them. They are quiet waves, but not quiet enough.
“There’s
a spike here-”
“All
right, still watching…”
I am
hidden in a large plant, he does not see me, so my lure will work. I send out my waves farther away, on the
other side of the plant. I feel him
move away. I wait, listen for his waves,
and I feel him attack and find nothing.
He attacks again and again, beating himself against the rock. I wait.
Soon he is still. His waves are
gone.
“Holy
shit!” The lower voice is louder
now. “Did you see that?”
“Yeah. Near as I can tell, 9F made 2K kill itself.”
“How? It just sat there!”
“Physically,
yes it did. But check 9F’s neural
output charts.” They pause, and I
consume what is left of the Enemy.
“Wow.” The lower voice stops for a moment, then
says again, “Wow. This is big.”
“Very.”
“Well,
well then.” The deeper voice moves
closer to the world, and I see the shape of the giant above me. “Congratulations, boys and girls, you just
got promoted from Ugly Eyeball-Things to Psychic Ugly Eyeball-Things.”
* * *
This time I was ready. When I awoke, there was none of the shock that accompanied the previous visions. I was cold, methodical, efficient. I analyzed each image, filtering out the obvious and implied solutions. Okan wouldn’t help me, so I would help myself.
These were visions of the Gods themselves, genetic memories passed down by my ancestors. Each event that someone in my lineage experienced was coded into the cells that formed me. Given the countless years that have passed before my birth, though, these memories would have been overwritten by newer, more relevant information. How did these images survive, and why did they resurface? No answer came.
Of
course, I thought. I can only go
so far before I need Okan again. He’d
better have some answers for me.
* * *
There was no test today. The Council had redesigned the space-walker and was busy comparing the new design with those produced by the other Councils. Instead, we sat in the conference chamber for an interminable period, trying to sound intelligent while discussing absolutely nothing, just as an excuse to keep working and appear useful. I waited for the others to finish so I could leave and search for Okan.
When the conference finally ended, Okan was once again waiting by the gate. “[Relaxing] dreams?” he chirped.
I resisted the temptation to thrust my walker’s claw through his body. Barely. “I need an explanation.”
“And one is coming.” He shifted within the basin that held him in his walker. “But first, a question: how familiar are you with the Wveek Prophecy?”
“Familiar enough,” I said. It was the only real bit of superstition in our largely secular religion; that one day, whether through strength of will or random evolution, one of us will become a God. Or something like that; it’s open to interpretation. “Enough to know that it’s just the [overoptimistic] dream of a deluded Council.”
“Oh, really.” Okan’s ironic amusement swept over me. He tapped his leg against mine several times, an irritating gesture that brought back that temptation of a few moments ago. “And you don’t think that maybe, just maybe, these dreams have resurfaced to remind you of your heritage, and your goal?”
“So you actually believe that I’m going to become a God.”
“We both will.”
I somehow managed to restrain my waves of scorn. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to try harder to convince me.”
“You explain where the dreams came from.”
“I don’t exactly have control of my mind while I sleep. I could have dreamt anything. The dreams were just random, meaningless images.”
“And the fact that I knew about your dreams?”
“I wouldn’t put it above you to probe my mind in my sleep. Look, even if you could do this, why are you so sure I would want to be a God in the first place?”
He shifted a little. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Why be a God when I’m [content] where I am? I’m doing what I can to keep the species moving forward, and I’m [happy] with that.”
Okan stood still for a long moment. “I see,” he said. “Perhaps the dreams came too late.”
“I suppose so.” I turned and walked away.
He shouted after me, “Maybe you should think about why you’re so [content]. About why you don’t strive for something more.”
I ignored him.
* * *
I crawled to my sleep-tank, anxious to slip into the water and forget about Okan’s delusional ranting. But I just stood in front of the tank, motionless. Okan’s shrill voice still taunted me in the back of my mind, asking me how I could possibly turn down Godhood, dismissing me as a blind slave of an obsolete order.
“Shut up,” I said. The imagined voice continued.
I left my dwelling, hoping that a walk would give me time to think. It didn’t help. The night was half over when I decided to give up and return home. It was about then that I realized that I’d walked to Okan’s dwelling. He was waiting outside his door, his crimson stripes quivering as the cold air bit into him. I walked over to him as he watched without a trace of surprise.
“Tell me more,” I said. “I don’t care what you have to say, just say it so I can get through this.”
And he told me.
By the time I left, I had become an enemy of the Colony.
* * *
“There’s
more to it than that,” a voice says. I
seek a rock for the group.
“You’re
sure? Maybe it’s just for comfort. It looks like a social ritual to me. Like grooming or something.”
“No,
it lines up with too many other variables.
It has a definite, practical function, and I think I know what it
is…What are those?”
“Just
the bills. And another warning from
that Purity of Creation group.”
“Throw
it out. I don’t need that ‘tampering in
God’s domain’ speech right now. Makes
me feel like the villain in a ‘50’s sci-fi movie.”
There
is a large rock. I call the others so
they will notice it. As I wait, the
first voice continues.
“Okay,
they’re telepathic, right? They’re
using parts of their brains that we never even evolved. Now, look here…” The group notices and reaches for the rock. “These are neural patterns for the creatures
before they join together. Now, look at
these, after they’ve joined in a cluster.”
“They’ve
synced up.”
“Right. They’ve become one mind. One powerful mind…Wait, look at that!”
The
group is pulling the rock to the shelter.
“Oh my
God…this is incredible. Is that…what I
think it is?”
“I
think so. It looks line…whatever part
of their brain enables their telepathy also lets them impact the physical
world—create a minor distortion in space-time.
The more there are in a hive mind, the more they can control these distortions
to manipulate the physical world. In a
word—telekinesis.”
Silence. Then, “I’ll be damned.”
“In
this case, I’m guessing, they’re building a shelter for the group. To defend
against the others, I suppose.”
The
rock slides against the others, and more of the group is blocked from
view. I start to look for another rock.
“Incredible,” says the second voice.
* * *
Shortly after I awoke from the dream (with considerably more peace of mind, I might add), the Council blasted my mind with a sudden broadcast stating that I was to report to the Colony Central Building immediately. I prepared for the day much less quickly that morning. As I saw it, the summons to the Council could only be about one of two things: the space-walker project, or Okan [joy] hur.
I desperately hoped for the former.
Despite the Center’s primitive structure—it was built in the Council’s early days, when it hadn’t yet mastered the art of shaping buildings—it was still an imposing site. A solid rock dome, dotted with jagged spires and shallow pits, it almost seemed like a natural feature of the planet, a freak volcanic formation. Within, though, it was the most advanced building in the colony, with state-of-the-art atmosphere regulators and direct links to the Worldmind. Colony citizens had already flooded the Center’s spacious halls, some researching in the vast planetary database of the Worldmind, others seeking an audience with the Council, still others just sitting idly in the halls, riding the chaotic exchange of thoughts.
I passed through a security checkpoint into the Inner Hall, where I waited a short time before being allowed into the Council chamber. By this point I was quivering with anxiety. I was almost certain that I was being taken in for consorting with a known rebel. Perhaps Okan was untouchable by the Council, however he’d managed that, but I wasn’t.
I stepped through the massive door, and it hissed shut behind me. I stood in a cramped room outside the Council chamber; the Council needs a carefully regulated atmosphere to survive. I waited as steam jets hissed around me. Then the inner door slid open, and I faced the Council.
Fusion is a common practice among my people. It is used in everyday life for creating hallucinated entertainment sims, producing simple objects, and exchanging information. Even so, a cluster on the scale of the Council is an overwhelming sight.
The mountain of spherical bodies slowly turned to me, individuals shifting in and out of view. The viscous material coating them, a secreted substance that allows the flow of mental energy, oozed across the floor. I felt the thousands of eyes scanning me as the hive mind focused on me.
Three voices—I couldn’t tell which of the hundred Council members they belonged to—said in near-unison, “Thank you for responding so quickly, Kheeri [despair].”
If the effect was meant to be unnerving, it succeeded completely. I had to gather my thoughts for a moment before responding, “I am honored to be in your presence. What is this matter which requires my attention?”
Five more voices, none of them the same as the three earlier ones, said, “Your service in the space-walker project has been exemplary. You are providing an invaluable service to your species.” The Council began to spread out in the room, losing height but gaining breadth.
“I only do that which is assigned to me,” I say, watching the nearest Council members warily. “There is no need for such praise.”
Two voices, near the front of the Council, spoke now. “There has lately been a…distraction from your duty.” I restrained myself from running back to the Inner hall; I was trapped in the chamber, anyway. “The one called Okan [joy] hur has spoken to you.”
“About revolution,” several dozen more voices added.
“I…” I couldn’t continue. I tried to relax and spoke again. “Okan has said such things.”
The Council as a whole seemed to absorb this for a moment. Three voices said, “And how do you feel about this?”
I desperately worked to hold my emotions back, to avoid letting the Council have so much as a hint of my thoughts. It was futile, of course—the Council could reshape my mind on a whim—but I had to hang on to a bit of hope. “I have no desire to join his plans.”
The Council was still, no longer shifting, no longer oozing. After a moment, I felt a light nudge, almost imperceptible, against the back of my mind. It was joined by another, then another. They slowly built in intensity, like grains of sand in the dry season’s windstorms. The Council prodded for weaknesses, digging deeper and deeper into my consciousness. I did my best to maintain my composure, but one of my walker’s legs began kicking in uncontrollable spasms. I shifted my balance to avoid tumbling out of the walker, when I felt another leg give.
“Stop,” I tried to plead, but the only sound that came out was “…ssahh…” The Council stabbed again and again, severing my memories with one stroke, blackening my vision with another, then flooding my mind with information with yet another. I gave up trying to control myself. There was no point. I was being erased, reprogrammed, and reborn as a willing puppet of the Council. I screamed, what I was sure would be my last free act-
And the Council’s probes pulled away. I lay on the ground, trembling, stunned by the sudden reprieve. I suddenly remembered where I was and started working to claw my way upright. When I once again saw the Council, it was still perfectly motionless. It had never moved. But the telepathic waves pouring off of it were constantly in motion, carrying with them…disappointment?
Finally, a single voice from the Council, near the peak of the hive mind, said, “Thank you, Kheeri [despair]. Continue your normal, everyday life. Keep meeting with Okan [joy] hur, and learn what you can. We will call on you again later to tell us everything you can.” The Council began to slither away, turning its collective backs on me.
“Th…thank you,” I said, trying not to sprint to the airlock.
* * *
Okan was silent when I finished telling him about the Council. I waited for his assessment, and when he offered none, I continued. “What I don’t understand is why the Council just let me go.”
“Sounds to me like they worked you over a bit before they ‘just let you go.’”
“But it didn’t work, whatever they were trying to do. Whether they wanted to dig information on you out of my mind, or just brainwash me, it didn’t work. The Council doesn’t fail.”
“Another conception you have to erase,” Okan said, starting to pace around in his dwelling. “I only scratched the surface yesterday, but I did tell you the most important thing: the Council is all-powerful only within the limits of its collective mind. Some of us know those limits.” He then pointed to my walker with one curved talon. “Reach under your front-left leg.”
I did. At first I didn’t notice anything, but then I felt it—a slight bump, an imperfection. I scraped at it with my claw, but Okan reached out with one leg to block me. “Careful, it’s fragile,” he said. He then lifted his own front-right leg. Near the tip, camouflaged against the silver claw, was a tiny disk with a red light. The bulb glowed gently.
“A neural scrambler. I planted it on you the evening before you joined up. It’s my little discovery,” Okan said, allowing pride to leak into his stature. “The path to Godhood.”
At least that explained the annoying leg-tapping of the day before. “I suppose that’s what blocked the Council from my mind?”
“And what keeps them from having any effect on me. Basically, it creates a sort of interference pattern that cancels out all nearby mental energy waves. I set yours to be triggered only when they attempted serious mental restructuring; when it’s on full time, you’ll be completely untouchable.”
“Of course, it cripples our minds, too.”
“Not necessarily. I’ve managed to tweak my scrambler to allow my mind waves through, and I got to yours as well, but it takes time to rework it for each individual. Fortunately, we won’t need many to begin the revolution.”
“How many are there besides us?” I asked.
“None, actually. Not yet.” He turned away to stare out his window. “But two will be enough.”
“The Council wouldn’t let you build something like this. They’d kill you the moment you thought of it.”
Okan tapped a claw against his leg, next to the device. “That’s exactly it. I didn’t think of it. I didn’t even build it. Not the first one, anyway.”
I started to get an idea of where this conversation was going. Shakily inhaling, I asked, “The Gods?”
“The Gods’ ship,” Okan said. “The womb of our people.”
* * *
My body was an automated shell for the rest of the day, carrying out my research assignments by rote while my mind roamed elsewhere. Tomorrow, Okan would show me the Gods’ ship. Its location was common knowledge, of course, and anybody curious enough could freely explore the disintegrating husk. The thought, though, that ancient God technology remained on the ship, undiscovered by the Councils…well, it thrilled and frightened me.
I’d hoped for another dream that night, for more pieces to the puzzle, but my sleep was regrettably undisturbed.
* * *
After living in the barren, flat stretches of desert for most of my life, I’d thought that a return to the sea would be a pleasant change. In terms of landscape, I was disappointed. Ignoring the blue tint and sense of weightlessness, the Dahllin Sea was every bit as uniform and lifeless as the land surrounding it. On the other hand, being free from the constraints of my walker—hidden, of course, within some moss clumps, to keep anyone from finding the scramblers—was refreshing, and Okan had to wait impatiently as I reveled in my freedom, rolling and diving and generally behaving like a fool.
As a result of my delays, we arrived at the Gods’ Crevasse much later than Okan had planned (“The world doesn’t need a feeble-minded God,” he hissed to himself once along the way). The impact crater was remarkably deep compared to the size of the craft. Or at least, the original size of the craft; now, it was little more than a corroding, collapsing frame, roughly spherical, with twisted steel plates lying around it.
As we approached the decrepit frame, it slowly grew in size to dwarf even the Council’s largest factories. It was the first time that I really appreciated the sense of scale between my people and the Gods—they would have been immense.
“I was lucky to find the scrambler intact,” Okan said, swimming slightly ahead of me. “It’s a wonder it lasted so long.”
We were within the structure now, the rotting supports threatening to crumble and bury us at any moment. I tried to turn my mind away from that.
We drew near the center of the ship and found ourselves directly over a giant tank, open from the top.
“My best guess is that it was already attached to one of our ancestors when they escaped that tank. But it must have been taken by [surprise] and killed after they were thawed.”
“Thawed?”
“They were frozen for the trip. A clever method of preservation, if a bit risky. Anyway, the one with the scrambler—the test subject, if you will—was killed, the device fell to the floor, got wedged between two panels down there, and went unnoticed by Council explorers. I found it during a salvage operation back when I was a real citizen, played with it for a while, and when I found out what it did…that was about when the dreams started.”
I made a slow turn, taking in the entire vessel. It suddenly seemed oppressive, like a terrible psychic presence that wanted to crush these two foolish trespassers. “I can see why it’d be easy to miss.”
“There’s more.” Okan’s voice spoke of a hidden glee that his scrambler kept his emotions from showing. He hurriedly swam to the back end of the ship, and I followed more tentatively.
He stopped before a solid gray box with a cracked monitor on top. “One admirable quality of the Gods: they’re [obsessed] with information.”
He showed me a smaller terminal, much closer to our scale, which he’d apparently cobbled together out of stolen factory parts. “It took me about a hundred years of non-stop work to finish this part of the revolution,” he said. “Their computer systems are completely alien to us. Just figuring out how the thing stored information was three decades. Converting that data to our format was even longer. But here, in this terminal, I have access to the complete history of the Gods.”
He switched on his terminal, and a horrendous buzzing sounded from the gray box—a God computer, it seemed. Text spilled across Okan’s screen, and he began to work his way through the information at an astounding rate.
“Just how much is there?” I asked, almost too awed to speak.
“More than enough,” Okan replied, not looking up. “History databanks, encyclopedia of native life, database of popular musicians and artists…everything the Gods thought of as important. Most likely just in case an extraterrestrial intercepted the pod and wanted to get to know the makers. Like I said, [obsessed] with information.”
I waited, hoping the buzzing didn’t attract any onlookers—or worse, collapse the fragile ship. Finally, Okan hissed, “Here we are. Take a look at this.”
I moved over to the screen. On it were diagrams for…well, I had no idea. Blueprints of some sort, undoubtedly, but I couldn’t make out what they meant.
But the video Okan called up made everything painfully clear.
The completed device, a boxy object covered with flashing screens and ending in a long, wide tube, sat alone on the screen. The view zoomed out, showing a thin, bipedal, pink creature in green garments picking up the device with its upper limbs. It strapped the device around its body, gripping it by two handles. The view panned to the side, showing an array of empty buildings before the creature.
Without warning, a ball of light exploded from the tube. It smashed into a steel wall and punched through. The wall exploded outward a second later.
I watched as the weapon launched projectile after projectile, tearing apart each building instantly. Smaller targets popped up in rapid succession from the ground before the creature, and they were shredded just as quickly by a stream of smaller, faster projectiles.
“Just think,” Okan said, lost in the image. “We’re most likely the equals of the Gods at that time—possibly even higher—and yet we never created anything like this. Their path of development took them to a totally different world from ours. The Councils would never see it coming…” He remained floating in front of his terminal, staring at the video’s final frame: the creature staring at the barren, apocalyptic landscape he had just carved with this weapon of his. Okan sighed.
* * *
I should have left the scheme then. Even now I tell myself that over and over, as though intense thought could shift space-time to such an extent that the past would rewrite itself. But I didn’t leave. I thought I could either adapt to his plans or convince him that Godhood could be achieved without violence.
And so things continued. I took many more test flights, the Council made many more design changes, and the designers had many more meaningless discussions about said changes. If it weren’t for the anticipation of becoming a God, my brain would have collapsed in on itself from the monotony.
Meanwhile, I met Okan regularly, usually with a bit of trepidation. He never acted as though he was losing his mind; he was perfectly polite and direct in his speech, he was one of the most lucid individuals I’d ever met. But the things he spoke about still bothered me. He’d translated the blueprints of the “weapons platform” and had scaled down the quantities to match the smaller size of our species, as well as altering the controls to work with his claws. Now it was a matter of hacking into the automated minds of the factories to produce these materials. I didn’t bother to ask how he planned to break into such a secure, closely watched system, and avoid the direct suspicion of the Council. I knew he had some way in mind.
* * *
There was another day off from work while the Council made a major space-walker upgrade. Of course, my days off carried just as much stress as my time at the testing center. Today, Okan had me on a critical assignment. His device was well underway, but try as he might, he couldn’t reprogram the factories to get the shells just right. Knowing he would be too conspicuous in the Colony Center, he sent me to search the Worldmind for any information about God technology that the Council had picked up.
I walked in casually, my scrambler deactivated. I’d learned to control my thoughts just enough so that the Council wouldn’t notice any rebellious tendencies. It helped me remain less dependent on the useful, but often conspicuous, scrambler.
I stopped at the first open Worldmind station, a stalk of fleshy material stretching down into a vast, organic information net below the surface. It was an early innovation of the Councils; using the brain tissue of the dead, with its incredible storage capacity, to create a planetary information bank. With constant electrical pulses keeping it “alive,” it ravenously fed on any new information from the Councils, and it currently holds our species’ history, communications system, and most significant records. Anything the Council had learned about the Gods should be there.
As I approached the terminal, it reached out to me with a sinewy tendril and wrapped itself around my body. I felt a brief prickling sensation as the tendril started tapping into my brain. These stations were a two-way system: you got information out of them, they got information out of you for their records. I managed to guard my knowledge of the revolution closely enough, though, that the tendrils gave up on that bit.
I started my search, narrowing my possibilities with parameter after parameter. There weren’t very many entries on the Gods, actually. It wasn’t that surprising, since nobody ever saw them firsthand, and any genetic memories would have been filled with gaps (like mine, I thought). I checked a few that seemed to have potential, but there was nothing significant about technology.
I was about to pull away from the station when a set of entries caught my attention. They were fairly lengthy sensory visions under the label “Gen. Imprints: God-Related.” Curious, I activated the first entry.
Swim, swim, hunger, swim.
“…normal in contro-”
I snapped back to reality immediately. Even after almost a quarter of a year, I recognized the primal fear of the dream.
Automatically, I checked the next
entry.
And the next.
When I finished the fourth, it was
all I could do to keep from tearing apart the Worldmind station in blind fury.
Okan had lied. He’d planted the dreams. He’d manipulated me for the sake of his
psychotic goals.
There was one more entry in the
group. For some reason, I activated it.
* * *
“I can’t believe it,” the Giant
says. I wait in the cave with the rest,
sensing his dark feelings. “I just
don’t get it!”
Some move to get food, but when the
Giants have dark feelings, most stay in the cave that the Group made. The other Group, the Bad Group, attacks
sometimes when the Giants have dark feelings.
“Alex, be careful,” the other Giant
says. “You know how they react to
anger.”
“Damn it,” the first says. “I keep forgetting. How can you even observe these things if simple
emotions screw everything up? Why are
we even in the lab with them in the first place? We should be watching remotely, they shouldn’t know we’re here.”
“We tried that with one of the test
groups. They died within a week, lost
their sense of self-preservation.
Didn’t eat, didn’t cluster, didn’t even move. I guess they…need us.
We’re some sort of comforting presence.”
“Jesus. We’re trying to create independent, sentient beings here, not
psychic pets.”
“It has some flaws, I know, but we
have to stay with it, unless we want to kill a—what? Five-hundred-year project?”
“It’s kind of a moot point anyway,
Sarah,” the first says. “These Purity
of Creation people are worrying me.
After threats like those, the powers that be will have to shut us
down.” He sighs. “Figures.
And after I got that wave-scrambler tag put together. That would have made for some great
interaction, some huge shake-ups in the test-group’s social structure. But that’s over, I guess.”
“They aren’t going to stop us. The higher-ups have things well in
hand. We shut down ‘officially,’ close
our labs, and take the project elsewhere.
No problem.”
The Bad Group pours out of its
cave. The food-hunters see them and
start to flee, but they are torn apart.
The rest of us pull back into the cave and get ready to strike back.
“It won’t come to bombing, Alex,”
the second Giant says as I smash into the first invader, crushing it against
the rock wall. “Trust me on this one.”
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
I
couldn’t move. I couldn’t even feel
anything anymore. We were
barbarians, I thought. Killers. And Okan thinks we would become Gods by
returning to that?
I pulled away from the tendril, which curled back into its stalk to await the next user. I walked aimlessly within the building, trying to feel something—rage, regret, betrayal, relief, anything. But I was completely drained, my mind sucked dry, as though the Worldmind had seen fit to rip my brain away instead of just copying it. There was only one possible end now.
I went to the Council.
* * *
That same day, I returned to Okan’s dwelling. He looked up from his desk, electronic components scattered everywhere. “So, how did your search go?” he asked. “Did they have anything like what I was looking for?”
“No,” I said evenly. “I didn’t find anything like it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Okan said, kicking the desk lightly. “Oh, well, I’ll have to come up with another design.”
“I did find something else, though.”
He turned, but didn’t look at all surprised. “What was that?”
“A few ‘genetic memories,’ which ‘resurfaced to remind me of my heritage.’”
He still showed no sign of guilt. “Did you now.”
“Don’t bother trying to turn this around. We both know that you’re a liar.”
“If there was another way, I would have taken it,” Okan said. “You can’t expect me to advertise a prophecy-fulfilling revolution on the Worldmind, now can you?”
“The revolution has nothing to do with the prophecy! The prophecy was just an excuse for you to wipe out the Council! Are you really that deluded?”
Okan sighed. “Kheeri,” he said in a weary, scolding voice, “I chose you because I felt that you, of all people, would appreciate the need to change. Our society is no different than it was a thousand years ago, than two thousand years ago. Why? Because if anybody tries to change anything, he’s either killed or brainwashed. If the Councils truly worked, nobody would want to change things in the first place!”
I said nothing, just glared. Okan stared at me. “So I assume you’re not going to let me continue.”
I stepped closer to him, hoping for the opportunity the Council told me to watch for. “That’s right.”
“A pity.” Okan hurled himself at me, bowling me over. One of his claws slashed across my side, splitting my outer membrane. My weight tore away the restraining claws on my walker and I tumbled out, feeling the wound instantly dry out in the heat. Still connected to my brain, the walker tried to scramble upright and walk towards me.
“I wanted you to become a God, Kheeri,” Okan said, sounding genuinely regretful. “Why are you doing this?”
I was drying out quickly, my membrane starting to crack in places. My vision began to swim. Okan lifted one clawed leg.
Revealing the scrambler on its underside.
Reacting to a reflexive pulse from my brain, my walker kicked out, striking the back of Okan’s leg. There was a buzz of electricity as the disk shattered. Okan lost his balance and stumbled backwards. I took the opportunity to bring my walker over to pick me up. The water that sprayed over me quickly smoothed over most of my cracked skin.
Okan regained his balance, and started to charge again.
And then the Council fulfilled its part of the plan.
The combined minds of the Council let loose a violent pulse of mental energy. This is a standard practice for them; as my people effectively live forever under normal conditions, the Council must annually kill a number of citizens for population control. In most cases, it is entirely random. This time, the target is very specific.
The energy converged on Okan’s brain, charging its neurons to beyond their full capacity. With nowhere else for the energy to go, it went outward. Okan exploded, globs of jelly spraying through the air. Okan’s walker stood for a moment, steam rising from it, then it slumped to the ground, as though mourning the death of its master.
For a long time, I just stood there, half-expecting to be next in line for execution. Nothing happened. Finally, with a long, heartfelt sigh of relief, I left the home of Okan behind.
* * *
The story should have ended there, tidily and happily. It should read, “I saved the Council, was revered as a hero, and lived contentedly until the Council finally killed me to make room for younger, stronger citizens.” I think with a little more effort on my part, along with a little more willingness to forget the past, it could have ended like that. But life is rarely so convenient, and I have to be honest about what happened.
To pick the story up right where I left off: as I said, in a truly surreal turn of events, I was hailed as a hero of the Colony. The Council insisted on honoring my accomplishments, broadcasting the news of my actions not only within our own Colony, but to others around the world. Shortly, everyone knew the name Kheeri [despair]. If the Council had any idea that I had been a traitor earlier that same day, and for quite some time before, they didn’t seem to.
True, I was relieved by the return to boring routine, without being plagued by fears of being labeled a traitor. The space-walker program kept going well, with more and more flights each day. Shortly, we even put a space-walker on the smaller of our two moons (not me, though; I was kept busy with tests for an orbiting Colony). My career was at its most exciting point, and thousands of others in my Colony envied my position.
And yet, after a year, I could barely endure it at all. It was more than I could ever hope for from life—fame that rivaled the Council’s, a secure position in Colony life, and regular journeys off-planet—but I felt inexplicably regretful. I knew that Okan’s plans were nonsense anyway, that his babbling about Godhood was an arrogant, unreachable dream. I was sure I had tossed those hopes aside. But they still pleaded softly in a corner of my brain for me to please, please reconsider.
One day, about a year after Okan’s death, I was on my way to the conference room when I decided, on an impulse, that I couldn’t handle any more today. I turned around and, in full view of about half of my colleagues, strode confidently away from the test site. I could feel their incredulity beating against my back in steady waves, and I savored every moment of it. The glory was short-lived, though, for once I passed through the gate and moved out of view, my confidence was replaced with exhaustion. This break was even more important than I’d realized.
The moment I got home, I crawled over to my sleep-tank and wasted no time plunging into the water. I bobbed just below the surface, not falling asleep, but not fully conscious either. Before long, though, I slipped into unconsciousness.
* * *
There
is silence in our world. Nobody moves,
nobody hunts, nobody calls out. We have
reached out to the Giants, and we feel pain.
“It’s
happened, hasn’t it?” This is the
higher voice.
“Yeah. They just launched, ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Any
hope of stopping them?”
“The POC
covered its bases. Sabotaged just
enough to make a hole.”
“I’m
guessing we’re firing back.”
“Hey,
it’s the American way: if we’re going to hell, we’re taking everyone else with
us.”
I do
not move. I cannot. I feel my danger sense screaming, but I do
not understand the Giants’ words. There
is a long pause.
Then
the higher voice says, “God DAMN IT!”
There is a crash.
“I
know, Sarah, I-”
“Don’t
they know what they’re doing? Just
because we have a little imagination, they go and sign the planet’s death
sentence! What the hell were they
thinking? Why-”
“Sarah,
calm down! You’re not making this any
easier!”
“I
know, but…when I came on the project, they were pretty much mindless
killers. I brought them up to…what,
chimp level now?”
“More
or less.”
I
shift slightly, and when I find that it does not shatter the silence of the
world, I move to eat a surface-leaf.
“The
point is, what we’ve done here is unbelievable,” says the higher voice. “With all the laboratory controls, we’ve
compressed millions of years of evolution into about five hundred years. And now, because a handful of nuts are
screaming bloody murder about the greatest scientific achievement in
history—and I mean that, it is—we’re all going to die. In fifteen minutes, it’s over.”
“It
was going to happen, sooner or later. I
mean, it’s not like our hands are clean.”
“Boston
doesn’t compare to this. That was a few
thousand. This is the end of life,
period, after a few more years.”
The
lower voice sighs. “It isn’t over. Just our part is. Eden is fueled. We
have a course set for Tau Ceti. We can load
it and launch anytime.”
I stop
eating; the doom in the Giants’ voices steals my appetite. I hear in their minds what their words do
not tell me; the Giants will soon die.
All the Giants will die.
“All
right,” says the high-voiced Giant.
“I’ll freeze this group. The
ecosystem seems to be healthiest of the three.”
The
other says, “Do you need me? I…” He pauses.
“I’d like to call my family. The
kids…they need to…”
“Go
ahead. You’ve worked hard enough…It was
a pleasure working with you, Dr. Lopez.”
“Thank
you. It was…memorable.”
After
a moment, the Giant’s shadow appears above our world, blotting up much of the
light. “Okay, kids, you’re going on a
trip,” she says, and I think she is speaking to us. “Once you evolve a bit more, write me, okay?” She laughs, and I do not like the sound this
time.
The
head pulls away, and a barrier slides over the world. Everything grows cold.
And colder. And still co-
* * *
The dream went on in blackness for a long time before I awoke. Not death, just nothingness. By the time I regained consciousness, the blackness seemed burned into my eyes, leaving me blind. I didn’t try to think about where the dream could have come from; I already knew where it couldn’t have come from. My vision slowly cleared, and the dream went with it, replacing itself with a new revelation.
The Gods gave birth to our civilization by casting us out into space.
I cast myself into space on a regular basis.
I saw just how convenient my position was.
I got out of my tank.
* * *
The testing area is unguarded at night. After all, who needs guards when the Council never sleeps? Thus, I easily entered, tapping my ID code into the console and stepping through the obliging gate.
The Council had already set up the latest space-walker for tomorrow’s test. I admired it for a moment, noting the far sleeker pod design and less bulky, six-clawed arms. Not to mention fuel efficiency and nutrient recycling that would allow a pilot to last for several thousand years, if need be.
I looked down at my walker. Odd, being so attached to a machine, but it had been an extension of my body for well over a century. I knew its flaws, its quirks, everything the Council couldn’t quite get right every time. I grew nostalgic for a while, then forced the feeling aside. Emotion would only make focusing on the task ahead more difficult.
I reached up with my claw—the one with the scrambler, the scrambler that I’d never handed over to the Council—and jammed the device into my own body. I winced until the pain passed, then pulled my claw away. It was clean. The scrambler had transferred to my body nicely.
Now came the hard part. I walked to the space-walker, so that my walker touched just below the open cockpit, and cleared my mind. I gathered up all of my strength and pushed.
As I’ve said, telekinesis is a tricky skill. Normally, a single, un-fused individual can lift a few grains of sand, maybe some pebbles. Hardly anything on the level of moving oneself.
I shortly began to feel certain that I would die from the effort. Even with my mind purged of all higher thought, leaving only primitive instincts, it was all I could do to roll to the edge of my walker’s basin. But I kept pushing, driven by a single-minded certainty that it was too late to turn back, that the Council had already noticed the use of my ID to open the gate, that death was certain, eventually, if I stayed.
Finally, I collapsed into the space-walker. As much as I knew I needed to take off quickly, I couldn’t move immediately. I sat for a short while, starting to detect the uncertain probes of the Council. I felt their confusion and—I took more than a little pride in this—fear.
So this is what it is to be a God.
I lifted the neural connectors with little effort and plunged them into my body. Linked to the space-walker, I closed the cockpit and began warming up the system.
I spotted about a dozen walkers coming my way, just outside the gate. So, the Council caught on to the scrambler, and decided to use old-fashioned means to stop me: violence.
That added some urgency to my situation.
I tried to coax the systems to warm up faster, boosting them with a mental surge. The effort saved me a few seconds of loading time, but not as much as I needed. I glanced at the walkers outside. Their masters were charging at a full gallop now, risking tumbling to the ground and being trampled for the sake of exacting revenge on a traitor.
The status panel lit up. Ready for ignition.
The first attacker leapt at me, grabbing onto the cockpit. He started scratching at the transparent shield, trying to claw through.
I sent a pulse to the craft. I shot upward, the attacker quickly losing his grip and falling to the platform below. I wondered for a moment if I’d killed him, but his obscene blasts of fury reassured me.
The acceleration continued, not quite as painful as my first flight. Then the engine cut out, and I was free.
* * *
That puts me more or less where I am now. I’m not entirely sure where that is, or even how long I’ve been traveling. I left my own solar system, and the Councils, far behind; the feeble probing and waves of frustration faded quickly after I left their limited range. I don’t know how long ago that was, as my planet’s years are now meaningless to me. At least a thousand years, almost certainly. Possibly several thousand. I’ve stopped counting.
The space-walker’s latest redesign went very well indeed. Somehow, the Council tweaked it to endure the rigors of interstellar travel. My body needs little in the way of nutrients, provided I enter a near-death hibernation state regularly to conserve what little the vessel carries. Unfortunately, my hibernation periods are hundreds of years shorter than my waking periods.
There is loneliness, yes, that is to be expected when I break from my species’ communal nature. I approached insanity once or twice, screaming within my pressurized dome and trying to claw into my flesh with my steel arms. I did no damage to the walker, or myself. Whether that’s a good thing, I haven’t yet decided.
But it isn’t all suffering. The vast starscape is no less captivating than I’d found it during my first launch. Every so often (it could be anywhere from every decade to every century, I simply can’t tell), when dementia starts to sink in, I usually come across some new wonder to behold. Once it was a comet passing nearby. Once it was a supernova, visible even from countless light-years away. The sights change just often enough to keep me sane.
I often look back on what I have done and wonder whether I took the right path to Godhood. If there were any others who actually fulfilled the prophecy. Do they laugh and jeer as they remember the legend of Kheeri [despair], the imbecile who squandered the gift of Godhood by hurling himself into space to die?
Then again, Okan was a liar in the first place. Why should the prophecies come true for anyone?
And after my wondering, I tell myself: maybe so. But in any case, I may as well carry on in my nonsensical quest. I will find a suitable star, and around that star I will find a suitable planet, through sheer trial and error (the advantages of being near-immortal). I will settle on this world, and I will feed, reproduce, and begin anew. It may never happen, but there is nowhere else to go, except maybe plunging into a sun, and I would prefer any other end to that.
Perhaps I failed, perhaps I haven’t become a God. But I have gained the patience of one, and that is near enough to Godhood for me.