He remembered blinking in amazement.
“D-Dr. Wolling? Jen?”
He couldn’t be sure in retrospect. The voice had seemed different in countless ways. Distant. Preoccupied. And yet, somehow it had made the hours of hectic labor that followed more bearable just knowing he hadn’t been overlooked — that someone knew he and the animals were out here, and cared.
So it wasn’t with total surprise when — after lashing the last beast down, after sealing the last whistling crack, after adjusting gas and aeration balances in the complex panels that recycled the ark’s basic stuff of life — he suddenly heard the phone ring again, and lifted his eyes to see a stubby white and black arrow homing in on this derelict little worldlet.
Nelson’s knowledge of physics was too slender to truly appreciate what it meant when Atlantis’s pilot promised to provide gravity again to the ark’s weary inhabitants. He only felt gratitude as the shuttle’s crew somehow delivered, recreating up and down via some magic they generated at long range. Then they began hauling the drifting tower toward a promised new home.
En route, he finally had time to listen to condensed summaries of what had been going on, back on Earth. It was all too complex and bizarre to comprehend at first, in his dazed state. But later, as he took advantage of his first real chance at sleep, partial realization came to him in his dreams.
At one point he saw a dismembered snake writhe and bring together its many parts. He heard a hundred braying instruments settle down under a conductor’s baton to create symphonies where there had been mere noise.
E pluribus unum … a voice murmured. Many can make up a whole…
Now, as the time of landing approached, Nelson wondered if anyone on Earth had a better understanding of what had happened than he did.
They’re all so busy arguing about it, discussing the change and what it means—
Gaians claim it’s their Earth Mother… that she’s been shaken awake at last, to step in and save foolish mankind and all her other creatures.
Others say no, it’s the Net… the whole store of human knowledge that poured into all those unexpected
new circuits deep inside the Earth. All that virgin computational power, suddenly multiplied, only naturally had to lead to some sort of self-awareness.
There was no end to theories. Nelson heard Jungians proclaiming a race consciousness had manifested itself during the crisis, one that had been there, waiting, all along. Meanwhile, Christians and Jews and Muslims made noises much like the Gaians’ — only they seemed to hear the low voice of a “father” when they tuned in on those special channels that now carried new, awesome melodies. To them, recent miracles were only what had been promised all along, in prophecy.
Nelson shook his head. None of them seemed to understand that they — their very arguments and discussions — were helping define the thing itself. Yes, a greater level of mind had been born, but not as something separate, or even above them. All the little noisy, argumentative, even contradictory voices across the planet — these were parts of the new entity, just as a human being consists naturally of many disputing “selves.”
Nelson recalled his last conversation with his teacher, when the topic had swung to her latest project — her bold new model of consciousness. A model that, he knew somehow, must have played some key role in the recent coalescence.
“The problem with a top-down view of mind is this, Nelson,” she had said. “If the self at the top must rule like a tyrant, commanding all the other little subselves like some queen termite, then the inevitable result will be something like a termite colony. Oh, it might be powerful, impressive. But it will also be stiff. Oversimplified. Insane.
“Look at all the happiest, sanest people you’ve known, Nelson. Really listen to them. I bet you’ll find they don’t fear a little inconsistency or uncertainty now and then. Oh, they try always to be true to their core beliefs, to achieve their goals and keep their promises. Still, they also avoid too much rigidity, forgiving the occasional contradiction and unexpected thought. They are content to be many.”
Remembering her words made Nelson smile. He turned again to stare at Earth, the oasis everyone now spoke of as a single living thing. It hardly mattered whether that was a new fact, or one as old as life itself. Let the NorA ChuGas preach that Gaia had always been there, aware and patient. Let others point out that it had taken human technology and intervention to bring violent birth to an active planetary mind. Each extreme view was completely correct in its way, and each was just as completely wrong.
That was as it should be.
Competition and cooperation… yin and yang… Each of us participatin’ in the debate is like one of the thoughts that bubble and fizz in my own head — whether I’m concentrating on a problem or daydreaming at a cloud. Does one particular thought worry about its “lost independence” if it realizes it’s part of something larger?
Well, some prob’ly do, I guess. Others aren’t bothered at all. So it’ll be with us, too.
Nelson replayed his last musings to himself, and silently laughed. Listen to you! Jen was right. You’re a born philosopher. In other words, full of shit.
But then he had an answer to that, too. We may be mere thoughts, each of us a fragment. But that don’t mean some thoughts aren’t important! Thoughts could be the only things that never die.
From below decks a lowing wafted through the air grilles. Sedatives were wearing off and some of the wildebeests were waking up. Perhaps they sensed imminent arrival. Soon Nelson would have his hands full tending this, the first sapling cast forth by the mother world… the first of a myriad that might stream outward if the new gravity technologies proved workable. And if Earth’s nations agreed to the bold enterprise.
And if the new Presence let it be so.
Anyway, until the promised help came, he’d be too busy for philosophy… either for Gaia’s sake or for his own. Westward, the lunar mountains loomed higher and higher. The plains rose rapidly. And not too far below, he now saw the shadow of the ark. That dark patch coalesced and then spread across the gaping foundation awaiting it — freshly carved and vitrified within the ancient regolith by more magic from Atlantis.
Nelson put his arms around Shig and Nell during the final descent, which ended in a grating bump so gentle it was almost anticlimactic. The small, fluttering variations in gravity disappeared, and the moon’s light but firm grasp settled over them for good.
“Hello, ark four,” the voice of the woman pilot said. “Come in, ark. This is Atlantis. Is everything okay over there?”
Nelson lifted his belt phone.
“Hello, Atlantis. Everything’s just fine. Welcome to our world.”
□ Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Group [□ SIG AeR.WLRS 253787890.546]
… found an old TwenCen novel in which something like our present-day Net got taken over by software “gods and demons” based on some Caribbean sect. If that’s what happened, we’re all in deep trouble. But what we’re seeing doesn’t seem to be anything like-How can I tell? Yeah, I know it’s hard getting any sort of explicit answer from the Presence, whatever it is. But I’m sure all right. Call it a feeling.
Oh, yes, I agree with that! We are in for interesting times…
• EXOSPHERE
The contradiction was almost too absurd. Atlantis was the most capable ship in history. Atlantis was also a creaking wreck, threatening to fall apart at any moment. The air recyclers kept leaking. The carbon dioxide scrubbers had to be kicked every ten minutes or so to unclog them. The toilet was so awful they’d taken to using plastic bags, tying them off and storing them un-der webbing at the back of the cargo bay. At least the water coming out of her slapped-to-gether fuel cells was pure. But for food they had only some bruised fruits provided by that lonely caretaker-ecolo-gist — his way of saying thanks for rescuing his marooned ark and depositing it safely on the moon. The oranges were tart, but an improvement over what they’d survived on during the first few days in space — a single box of stale crackers and five suspicious candies found in Pedro Manella’s jacket pocket.