I persisted, “But there’s still room left to change things, isn’t there? No one knows yet exactly which TOE is true.”
Kuwale shifted again; I could feel vis body grow rigid with anger. “That’s the wrong way to look at it! The Keystone is given! The TOE is fixed!”
I said, “Don’t waste your breath defending the mainstream to me. I think you’re all equally braindead; I'm just trying to come to grips with the more dangerous version. Don’t you think I have a right to know what we’re up against?”
I could hear ver breathing slowly, trying to calm verself. Then ve explained, reluctantly: “They believe that the identity of the Keystone is determined, preordained… along with everything else in history, including the killing of any ‘rivals.’ But determinism doesn’t take away the illusion of power—have you ever known an Islamic fatalist to be passive? It’s not as if the hand of God is going to reach out of the sky and make sure that they spare the Keystone—or some improbable conspiracy of fate will frustrate them, if they go after the wrong physicist. There’s no need for supernatural intervention, when the whole universe and everyone in it is just a conspiracy to explain the Keystone’s existence. Whoever they murder, for whatever reason, they can’t get it wrong.
“So… if they kill all the rivals of the theorist with the TOE they favor, then that TOE must be the one that brings the universe into being. And whether they’ve really chosen anything or not, the result is the same. The TOE they want, and the TOE they get, end up being identical.”
It hit me, belatedly. “And they’re in Kyoto, too? You think they got to Nishide—that’s why he’s sick? And they got to Sarah, before she could expose them?”
“Most likely.”
“Have you told the Kyoto police? Do you have people, there—?” I stopped; ve could hardly discuss countermeasures, when we were almost certainly being monitored. I said wearily, “What’s so wonderful about Buzzo’s TOE, anyway?”
Kuwale was derisive. “They think it leaves open a chance of access to other universes, seeded from pre-space by other Big Bangs. Mosala and Nishide both rule that out completely; other universes might still exist, but they’re unreachable. Black holes, wormholes, in their TOEs, all lead back to this one cosmos.”
“And they’re willing to kill Mosala and Nishide—because one universe isn’t enough for them?”
Kuwale protested sardonically, “Think of the infinite riches we’d be throwing away, if we chose a self-contained cosmos. Take a long-term perspective. Where would we flee to, when the Big Crunch came? One or two lives is a small price to pay for the future of all humanity, isn’t it?”
I thought of Ned Landers again, trying to step outside the human race, in order to take control of it. You couldn’t step outside the universe—but out-explaining every TOE theorist with Anthrocosmology, and then playing choose-your-own-creator, came close.
Kuwale said despondently, “Maybe Mosala is right to despise us, if this is where our ideas have led.”
I wasn’t going to argue. “Does she know? That there are ACs who want to kill her?”
“She does and she doesn’t.”
“Meaning what?”
“We’ve tried to warn her. But she loathes even the mainstream so passionately that she won’t take the threat seriously. I think she thinks… bad ideas can’t touch her. If Anthrocosmology is nothing but superstition, it has no power to harm her.”
“Tell that to Giordano Bruno.” My eyes were adapting to the darkness; I could see a faint strip of light on the floor of the hold in the distance.
I said, “Have I missed something—or have we been talking all this time about the people you call moderates?” Kuwale didn’t reply, but I felt ver move—slumping forward, as if in a final surrender to shame. “What do the extremists believe? Break it to me gently, but break it to me now. I don’t want any more surprises.”
Kuwale confessed miserably, “You might say they… hybridized with the Ignorance Cults. They’re still ACs, in the broadest sense: they believe that the universe is explained into being. But they believe it’s possible—and desirable—to have a universe without any TOE at alclass="underline" without a final equation, a unifying pattern. No deepest level, no definitive laws, no unbreakable proscriptions. No end to the possibility of transcendence.
“But the only way to guarantee that… is to slaughter everyone who might become the Keystone.”
My clothes seemed to reach an equilibrium with the hold’s moist air at the most uncomfortable level of dampness possible. I needed to urinate, but I held off for the sake of dignity—hoping that I’d be able to judge correctly when the problem became life-threatening. I thought of the astronomer Tycho Brahe, who’d died after rupturing his bladder during a banquet, because he was too embarrassed to ask to be excused.
The strip of light on the floor didn’t move, but it grew slowly brighter, and then dim again, as the hours wore on. The sounds reaching the hold meant little to me; random creaking and clanking, muffled voices and footsteps. There were distant hums and throbbing noises, some constant, some intermittent; no doubt the most casual boating enthusiast could have discerned the signature of an MHD engine, propelling a jet of sea-water backward with superconducting magnets—but I couldn’t have picked the difference between maximum thrust and a crew member taking a shower.
I said, “How does anyone ever become an Anthrocosmologist, when no one knows you exist?”
Kuwale didn’t answer; I nudged ver with my shoulder.
“I'm awake.” Ve sounded more dispirited than I was.
“Then talk to me, I'm going out of my mind. How do you find new members?”
“There are net discussion groups, dealing with related ideas: fringe cosmology, information metaphysics. We take part—without revealing too much—but we approach people individually if they seem sympathetic and trustworthy. Someone, somewhere, re-invents Anthrocosmology two or three times a year. We don’t try to persuade anyone that it’s true—but if they reach the same conclusions for themselves, we let them know that there are others.”
“And the non-mainstream do the same? Pluck people off the nets?”
“No. They’re all defectors. They all used to be with the rest of us.”
“Ah.” No wonder the mainstream felt such a strong obligation to protect Mosala. Mainstream Anthrocosmologists had literally recruited her would-be murderers.
Kuwale said quietly, “It’s sad. Some of them really do see themselves as the ultimate technoliberateurs: taking science into their own hands, refusing to be steam-rollered by someone else’s theory—refusing to have no say in the matter.”
“Yeah, very democratic. Have they ever thought of holding an election for the Keystone, instead of killing off all the rival candidates to their own pretender?”
“And give up all that power, themselves? I don’t think so. Muteba Kazadi had a ’democratic’ version of Anthrocosmology which didn’t involve murdering anyone. No one could understand it, though. And I don’t think he ever got the mathematics to work.”
I laughed, astonished. “Muteba Kazadi was AC?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t think Violet Mosala knows that.”
“I don’t think Violet Mosala knows anything she doesn’t want to.”
“Hey, show some respect for your deity.”
The boat lurch slightly. “Are we moving? Or did we just stop?” Kuwale shrugged. Adaptive ballast smoothed the ride so thoroughly that it was almost impossible to judge what was going on; I’d felt no wave motion in all the time we’d been on board, let alone the subtle accelerations of the journey.