"The Lambertians have diploid chromosomes, but only one gender. Any two of them can inject DNA, one after the other, into certain kinds of plant cell; their genes take over the cell and turn it into a cross between a cyst and an egg. They usually choose a particular spot on the stems of certain species of shrub. I don't know if you'd call it parasitism -- or just nest-building on a molecular level. The plant nourishes the embryo, and survives the whole process in perfect health -- and when the young hatch, they return the favor by scattering seeds. Their ancestors stole some of the control mechanisms from a plant virus, a billion years ago. There are a lot of genetic exchanges like that; the "kingdoms" are a lot more biochemically similar here than they were on Earth."
Maria turned away from the screen. The stupidest thing was, she kept wanting to ask questions, press him for details. She said, "What's next? You zoom right in and show me the fine anatomical structure, the insect's cells, the proteins, the atoms, the Autoverse cells -- and that's supposed to convince me that the whole planet is embedded in the Autoverse? You unfreeze this thing, let it fly around -- and I'm meant to conclude that no real-world computer could ever run an organism so complex, modeled at such a deep level? As if I could personally verify that every flap of its wings corresponded to a valid sequence of a few trillion cellular automaton states. It's no different than the equation results. It wouldn't prove a thing."
Durham nodded slowly. "All right. What if I showed you some of the other species? Or the evolutionary history? The paleogenetic record? We have every mutation on file since the year zero. You want to sit down with that and see if it looks authentic?"
"No. I want a terminal that works. I want you to let me call my original. I want to talk to her -- and between us, maybe we can decide what I'm going to do when I get out of this fucking madhouse and into my own JSN account."
Durham looked rattled -- and for a moment she believed she might finally be getting through to him. But he said, "I woke you for a reason. We're going to be making contact with the Lambertians soon. It might have been sooner -- but there've been complications, political delays."
He'd lost her completely now. "'Contact with the Lambertians?' What's that supposed to mean?"
He gestured at the motionless insect, backside and genitals still facing them. 'This is not some species I picked at random. This is the pinnacle of Autoverse life. They're conscious, self-aware, highly intelligent. They have almost no technology -- but their nervous system is about ten times more complex than a human's -- and they can go far beyond that for some tasks, performing a kind of parallel computing in swarms. They have chemistry, physics, astronomy. They know there are thirty-two atoms -- although they haven't figured out the underlying cellular automaton rules yet. And they're modeling the primordial cloud. These are sentient creatures, and they want to know where they came from."
Maria turned her hand in front of the screen, bringing the Lambertian's head back into view. She was beginning to suspect that Durham actually believed every word he was saying -- in which case, maybe he hadn't, personally, contrived these aliens. Maybe some other version of him -- the flesh-and-blood original? -- was deceiving both of them. If that was the case, she was arguing with the wrong person -- but what was she supposed to do instead? Start shouting pleas for freedom to the sky?
She said numbly, "Ten times more complex than a human brain?"
"Their neurons use conducting polymers to carry the signal, instead of membrane action potentials. The cells themselves are comparable in size to a human's -- but each axon and dendrite carries multiple signals." Durham moved the viewpoint behind the Lambertian's eye, and showed her. A neuron in the optic nerve, under close examination, contained thousands of molecules like elaborately knotted ropes, running the whole length of the cell body. At the far end, each polymer was joined to a kind of vesicle, the narrow molecular cable dwarfed by the tiny pouch of cell membrane pinched off from the outside world. "There are almost three thousand distinct neurotransmitters; they're all proteins, built from three sub-units, with fourteen possibilities for each sub-unit. A bit like human antibodies -- the same trick for generating a wide spectrum of shapes. And they bind to their receptors just as selectively as an antibody to an antigen; every synapse is a three-thousand-channel biochemical switchboard, with no cross-talk. That's the molecular basis of Lambertian thought." He added wryly, "Which is more than you and I possess: a molecular basis for anything. We still run the old patchwork models of the human body -- expanded and modified according to taste, but still based on the same principles as John Vines's first talking Copy. There's a long-term project to give people the choice of being implemented on an atomic level . . . but quite apart from the political complications, even the enthusiasts keep finding more pressing things to do."
Durham moved the viewpoint out through the cell wall and turned it back to face the terminal end of the neuron. He changed the color scheme from atomic to molecular, to highlight the individual neurotransmitters with their own distinctive hues. Then he unfroze the image.
Several of the grey lipid-membrane vesicles twitched open, disgorging floods of brightly colored specks; tumbling past the viewpoint, they resolved into elaborate, irregular globules with a bewildering variety of forms. Durham swung the angle of view forward again, and headed for the far side of the synapse. Eventually, Maria could make out color-coded receptors embedded in the receiving neuron's cell walclass="underline" long-chain molecules folded together into tight zig-zagged rings, with lumpy depressions on the exposed surface.
For several minutes, they watched thousands of mismatched neurotransmitters bounce off one receptor, until Durham became bored and pleaded with the software, "Show us a fit." The image blurred for a second, and then returned to the original speed as a correctly shaped molecule finally stumbled onto its target. It hit the receptor and locked into place; Durham plunged the viewpoint through the cell membrane in time to show the immersed tail section of the receptor changing its configuration in response. He said, "That will now catalyze the activation of a second messenger, which will feed energy into the appropriate polymer -- unless there's an inhibiting messenger already bound there, blocking access." He spoke to the software again; it took control of the viewpoint, and showed them each of the events he'd described.
Maria shook her head, bedazzled. "Tell me the truth -- who orchestrated this? Three thousand neurotransmitters, three thousand receptors, three thousand second messengers? No doubt you can show me the individual structures of all of them -- and no doubt they really would behave the way you claim they do. Even writing the software to fake this would have been an enormous job. Who did you commission? There can't be many people who'd take it on."
Durham said gently, "I commissioned you. You can't have forgotten. A seed for a biosphere? A demonstration that life in the Autoverse could be as diverse and elaborate as life on Earth?"
"No. From A. hydrophila to this would take -- "
"Billions of years of Autoverse time? Computing power orders of magnitude beyond the resources of twenty-first century Earth? That's what Planet Lambert needed -- and that's exactly what it's been given."
Maria backed away from the screen until she could go no further, then slid down against the wall beside the red-draped window and sat on the plushly carpeted floor. She put her face in her hands, and tried to breathe slowly. She felt like she'd been buried alive.