I stood and watched for a while, playing devil’s advocate against my own first impressions, trying to convince myself that there might be some real insight hidden in the story: some eternal verity which transcended the outdated medical contingencies.
If there was, I honestly couldn’t find it. The earnest clowns might as well have been envoys from another planet, for all that they conveyed to me about the world we supposedly shared.
And if I was wrong, and they were right? If everything I saw as specious contrivance was, in fact, luminous with wisdom? If this clumsy, sentimental fairy tale spoke the deepest truth about the world?
Then I was more than wrong. I was utterly deluded. I was lost beyond redemption—a foundling from another cosmology, another logic entirely, with no place in this one at all.
There was no possibility of compromise, no question of building bridges. We couldn’t both be “half-right.” Mystical Renaissance endlessly proclaimed that they’d found “the perfect balance” between mysticism and rationality—as if the universe had been waiting for this cozy detente before deciding how to conduct itself, and was, frankly, relieved that the conflicting parties had been able to reach an amicable settlement which would respect everyone’s delicate cultural sensibilities and give due weight to everyone’s views. Except, of course, the view that the human ideals of balance and compromise, however laudable in political and social spheres, had absolutely nothing to do with the way the universe itself behaved.
Humble Science! could denounce as “tyrants of scientism” anyone who expressed this opinion, Mystical Renaissance could call them “victims of psychic numbing” who needed to be “healed"… but even if the cults were right, the principle itself could not be diluted, reconciled with its opposites, brought into the fold. It was either true or false—or truth and falsehood were meaningless, and the universe was an incomprehensible blur.
I thought: Empathy at last. If any of this was mutual—if MR felt half as alienated and dispossessed by the prospect of a TOE, as I did at the thought of their lunatic ideas shaping the ground beneath my feet—then I finally understood why they’d come here.
The actors bowed. A few people, mainly other cultists in fancy dress, applauded. I suspected there’d been a happy ending; I’d stopped paying attention. I took out my notepad and transferred twenty dollars to the one they’d placed before them on the ground. Even Jungians in clown costumes had to eat: First Law of Thermodynamics.
I turned to Indrani Lee. “Tell me, honestly: Are you really the one person who can step outside every culture, every belief system, every source of bias and confusion, and see the truth?”
She nodded unassumingly. “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
Back in my room, I stared blankly at the first page of Helen Wu’s most controversial Physical Review article—and tried to piece together how Sarah Knight could have stumbled on the Anthrocosmologists in the course of her research for Violet Mosala. Maybe Kuwale had heard about the project and approached her, just as ve’d approached me.
Heard about it how?
Sarah had come out of politics, but she’d already completed one science documentary for SeeNet. I checked the schedules. The title was Holding Up the Sky… and the subject was fringe cosmology. It wasn’t due to be broadcast until June, but it was sitting in SeeNet’s private library—to which I had full access.
I viewed the whole thing. It ranged from near-orthodox (but probably untestable) theories: quantum parallel universes (diverging from a single Big Bang), multiple Big Bangs freezing out of pre-space with different physical constants, universes “reproducing” via black holes and passing on “mutated” physics to their offspring… through to more exotic and fanciful concepts: the cosmos as a cellular automaton, as the coincidental by-product of disembodied Platonic mathematics, as a “cloud” of random numbers which only possessed form by virtue of the fact that one possible form happened to include conscious observers.
There was no mention of the Anthrocosmologists, but maybe Sarah had been saving them for a later project—by which time she hoped to have won their confidence and secured their cooperation? Or maybe she’d been saving them for Violet Mosala, if there was a substantial connection between the two—if it was more than a coincidence that Kuwale was a devotee of both.
I sent Sisyphus exploring the nooks and crannies of the interactive version of Holding Up the Sky, but there were no buried references, no hints of more to come. And no public database on the planet contained a single entry on the ACs. Every cult employed image managers to try to keep the right spin on their media representations… but total invisibility suggested extraordinary discipline, not expensive PR.
The cult of Anthrocosmology. Meaning: Human knowledge of the universe? It was not an instantly transparent label. At least Mystical Renaissance, Humble Science! and Culture First didn’t leave you guessing about their priorities.
It did contain the H-word, though. No wonder they had opposing factions—a mainstream and a fringe.
I closed my eyes. I thought I could hear the island breathing, ceaselessly exhaling—and the subterranean ocean, scouring the rock beneath me.
I opened my eyes. This close to the center, I was still above the guyot. Underneath the reef-rock was solid basalt and granite, all the way down to the ocean floor.
Sleep reached up and took me, regardless.
15
I arrived early for Helen Wu’s lecture. The auditorium was almost empty—but Mosala was there, studying something on her notepad intently. I took a seat one space removed from her. She didn’t look up.
“Good morning.”
She glanced at me, and replied coldly, “Good morning,” then went back to whatever she was viewing. If I kept filming her like this, the audience would conclude that the whole documentary had been made at gunpoint.
Body language could always be edited.
That wasn’t the point, though.
I said, “How does this sound? I promise not to use anything you said about the cults—yesterday, if you agree to give me something more considered later on.”
She thought it over, without lifting her eyes from the screen.
“All right. That’s fair.” She glanced at me again, adding, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do have to finish this.” She showed me her notepad; she was half-way through one of Wu’s papers, a Physical Review article about six months old.
I didn’t say anything, but I must have looked momentarily scandalized. Mosala said defensively, “There are only twenty-four hours in a day. Of course I should have read this months ago, but…” She gestured impatiently.
“Can I film you reading it?”
She was horrified. “And let everyone know?”
I said, “'Nobel laureate catches up on homework.’ It would show that you have something in common with us mortals.” I almost added: “It’s what we call humanization.”
Mosala said firmly, “You can start filming when the lecture begins. That’s what it says on the schedule we agreed to. Right?”
“Right.”
She carried on reading—now truly ignoring me; all the self-consciousness and hostility had vanished. I felt a wave of relief wash over me: between us, we’d probably just saved the documentary. Her reaction to the cults had to be dealt with, but she had a right to express it more diplomatically. It was a simple, obvious compromise; I only wished I’d thought of it sooner.