“Early scientists had the idea that the organism had some sort of collective intelligence,” Kerar told us. “It became obvious that every single tiny subviral form was somehow in contact with every other one. We now know that they were only partly right. It is one organism, each one like a part of a cell to a huge body, but it doesn’t think. Its behavior patterns are well known and quite consistent. Once you know how it acts, it will never surprise you.
“On Lilith, this intercommunication led to some people getting tremendous power, since the organism there exists in literally every molecule of solid matter. Some there can simply will a hole to be cut in rock, for example, or cause trees, fruit, even people to mutate. This works because some minds are so strong that they can transmit their will through the Warden organisms in their own body to others in people and things nearby. Here we have a different effect.”
Again there were murmurs, and again I thought of my poor counterpart. Such a world would seem to be one of magic, and there magic alone worked.
“On Cerberus,” our guide continued, “the organism is also in every molecule of solid matter. We’ve found it in tree samples taken by divers a full kilometer below the surface of the sea, and in the sea and air creatures themselves. As on Lilith, it doesn’t like things that don’t have Warden organisms inside them, and it will invade them as it has you. It seems to have a much easier time with organic molecules, though, particularly ones in living creatures, because it adapts to you with little trouble. Put a manufactured item from, say, the Confederacy here, though, and it will try and invade that, too—not very successfully. The stuff just doesn’t work and usually falls apart. Fortunately, it doesn’t care which kind of Warden creature is there, at least on Cerberus, so we can import raw materials, finished products, and food from our fraternal worlds, and with the exception of Lilith, export our goods to them. The Lilith original just won’t take anything that upsets the primitive nature of the planet.
“Now, there are some good things about this invasion of your body. For one thing, since it depends on you to give it what it needs to live, it keeps you in tip-top shape. It purges your body of disease, so nobody gets sick. It cleans out the blood vessels and directs cellular repairs, so you don’t get cancer, heart attacks, strokes, or whatever. Even things like drugs and alcohol, for the most part, will be purged before they can have any effect—with the exception of solids from the Warden system, and those are very rare and restricted. The worst you can do to yourself is get a little fat or out of condition. And of course the organism cannot retard the aging process, although even there it keeps you in far better shape far longer than normal.”
That was an interesting benefit, I told myself. Still, no more getting drunk or high or using any kind of recreational drugs. This was a clean world.
Kerar looked at us and smiled a bit, pausing before dropping the other shoe, the one only she truly knew about. “However, you are fortunate to have been sent to Cerberus. Only the best are sent here. No murderers, no persons with violent histories. This is not a violent world, and for very good reason. You see, only we here on Cerberus have the potential of living forever.”
There it was—along with an interesting additional bit of information. No violent criminals. I wondered why.
When the rest of the group had caught hold of itself, she continued her orientation. “I told you that on Lilith people could contact and command Warden organisms, and control and change them. That does not happen here. However, all the Warden organisms here are in constant contact with others, with proximity being the guide. The closer you are to somebody or something else, the more contact the Warden organism has with the other. When you are awake, your consciousness controls those within your body and there is no problem and no effect. But if you are tired, sleepy, or asleep, or in semiconscious or unconscious state, the Warden organisms reach out to others near them.” She paused a moment, choosing her words carefully. “I’ll give you an example, with the understanding that we know what happens but we have never discovered exactly how it happens.
“Let’s say I go to sleep here next to you, and you fall asleep too. Unlike those on Lilith, Warden organisms here tend to communicate mostly with those in complementary positions, so those inside you don’t communicate with, or link with, or whatever it is they do, those in rocks, trees, and the like the same way they do to those in other people. Freed from conscious restraint, the Wardens in your body would link with the Wardens in my body. This linkage would become strongest during the short periods of sleep when we aren’t dreaming. If two of those periods match—mine and yours—the Warden organisms in your brain and mine would link, and, for reasons we don’t understand, start to exchange information. Now, remember, I told you that the creatures are in every molecule and actually can cleanse, change, repair, or replace parts of your body to keep you healthy. In the same way, as a by-product of their very nature, they change the molecules in your cerebral cortex to my code and mine to yours, even adjusting the brain-wave pattern to match. It’s done in a matter of minutes. Since memory is chemically stored and electrically retrieved, this means a total change of information within the brain. So you wake up with my memories and personality, and I wake up with yours. In effect, we have switched bodies.”
“Then why don’t they switch all the information?” a bearded young man to my left asked skeptically. “You should have hormonal imbalances, differentials in respiration and blood pressure—enough wrong commands tailored for the wrong body to cause it to be very wrong and very sick.”
“Agreed,” she responded. “Good question. The answer is simply that in the early days some of that happened, but it no longer does. The Warden organism is incredibly adaptable, and it exchanges information with other parts of itself, even with other organisms outside its physical form. It learned. As to why it wants to do so—well, we don’t know. We’re not even sure it does. The person may be a by-product of its unique life form. It may be some necessary adjustment to keep itself going in the Cerberan atmosphere. We don’t know. I’m not sure we ever will. But it does happen, it has, and it almost certainly will continue.”
“Have you ever switched bodies?” another skeptic asked.
She smiled. “Many times. I am a native, unlike you. The switching phenomenon comes with puberty—a rite of passage here, you might say. Adolescents here undergo many switches, particularly since that age is more highly emotional and so control is more difficult. Besides, what adolescent could resist the experimentation? Boys curious about what it’s like to be a girl, vice versa—that sort of thing. I often wonder what it would be like to be trapped at birth in a particular gender and body. I, for example, was born male, but by the age of sixteen, having been in three male and two female bodies, I found myself more comfortable, somehow, as a female. I found a female who felt more comfortable as a male and we slept together and settled it. However, don’t think we run around swapping bodies as often as we change clothes. We don’t. Oh, some of us change often, and there are occasional marriages where the partners switch around constantly, but those cases are rare.”
A thought had occurred to me early in her talk and I wanted to get the question out before it slipped away. “You said it takes several minutes to exchange minds during this sleep,” I noted. “What happens if you’re awakened in the middle of it?”