‘And so we find we can learn from the play of even the youngest children, who arrive in this world fresh, free of the limitations and misconceptions we inherited from humanity. We may garner from their play anything from a new design of spanner to a new, intuitive approach to transfinite mathematics. Even the babies, even the toddlers, when they “learn” to speak, invent their own vocabulary, their own grammar, even their own mathematics. We don’t teach the children so much as learn from them.’
All this seemed chilling to Rocky. ‘But from what you say, they don’t draw pictures for Mom to stick on the fridge door. They don’t have stories before bedtime.’
Roberta nodded. ‘You see that as a loss. I don’t blame you; I grew up in the human world too. They are little children. They do play silly run-around games and take naps. And we have trolls, here in this world. Maybe you heard their call in the night. We bring in the trolls in the evenings. They snuggle. Help the children sleep.’
Rocky asked, ‘Why do they need help sleeping?’
Roberta glanced at him. ‘They are extremely bright children, Rocky. At a very young age they gain an awareness of the fragility of life, of their own vulnerability. Human children, I think, believe they are immortal. Whereas our children—’
‘Ah,’ said Stan. ‘No illusions. And they can’t be distracted by accounts of heaven and the afterlife, or other fairy stories.’
‘I learned this lesson myself, at a young age.’ She briefly closed her eyes.
Rocky asked, ‘Don’t you have any religion? None at all?’
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Come. Let’s walk on.’
They hadn’t gone much further when a group went by, quick-talking noisily, carrying picnic lunches, towels, tablets and pads of paper, heading out of town. Some of the party nodded to Roberta as they passed, and glanced at Rocky and Stan incuriously. They were mostly young, but there were a couple of women who might have been about fifty, Rocky thought. The presence of the older people made him realize how rare they were here; there couldn’t be many folk over mid-twenties. It was a young community.
Roberta pointed at one of the older women. ‘Her name is Stella Welch. One of the brightest of the pre-emergence generation. She once worked as a relationship counsellor on the Datum, would you believe? She’d been thrown out of university – she was studying mathematics at Stanford, but the regular academic institutions of humanity couldn’t cope with her. Now, here, she’s become one of our leading thinkers on cosmological evolution. Before we found her, she worked out most of her ideas in private, on scraps of paper—’
‘Einstein in the patent office,’ Stan said. ‘Figuring out relativity in his spare time.’
‘That’s right. I told you that where we have disagreements, Stan, is at the apex of our philosophies – the levels of goals, ultimate objectives. I think we all agree that the purpose of intelligence is to apprehend the world. But how to achieve that apprehension? Some, like Stella, think big. She wants us to understand the cosmos on the largest of scales – and, perhaps, some day, participate in its evolution. But others disagree. We have a philosopher, you might call him a poet, who has styled himself “Celandine”.’
‘Like the flower,’ said Rocky.
‘That’s it. Strictly speaking the lesser celandine, a beautiful little wildflower, the spring messenger. Wordsworth admired it, yet it was treated as an invasive species in North America. Well, so it was, I suppose. Celandine, our Celandine, argues that all that is essential of our reality can be reached through the contemplation of a single flower: the mathematics of its diploid and tetraploid forms, the way its small face presses to the sunlight. Celandine says we should reach for the numinous, you see, not through the infinite but through the infinitesimal. You must meet him.’
‘Oh, we must,’ said Stan, straight-faced.
Rocky asked, ‘So where are they going, the cosmologist lady and her friends, with their swimming costumes and all?’
Roberta smiled. ‘We have a hot spring about a mile north of here. You might call the meeting they’ll have a seminar. Or you might call it a hot tub party. If you’re prissy you might call it an orgy.’
Rocky said, ‘If I went with them I don’t think I’d get much cosmology done.’
‘I told you,’ Roberta said. ‘We enjoy sex. We do use sex socially … Right now there’s a fierce debate going on over esoteric interpretations of some of the fluctuations in the radiation that’s been detected coming out of the massive black hole at the centre of the Galaxy, and that’s what Stella’s group are going to debate. Passions among us can get just as stirred up by academic arguments as amongst you, you know. But it’s a lot less easy to fall out if you’re sitting in a hot tub grooming your opponent.’
‘Grooming!’ Stan laughed. ‘Good word. Like the bonobo chimps.’
She nodded. ‘You see, you do understand. Stan, you will come here, you know. You will accept your place here.’
Rocky said hotly, ‘You can’t give him orders like that.’
‘But I’m not,’ she said gently. ‘Rocky, remember what I told you about how we lack free will, by your standards? Because often we can see what needs to be done, and have no choice but to do it. So it is with you, Stan. I’m sure you can see that your place is here, with us. It’s just a question of where you fit in.’
But Stan seemed distracted and didn’t reply.
‘Hey,’ Rocky said. ‘There’s our buddy Jules.’
Jules van Herp looked grimy, hot, but he was wearing Next clothing, as Rocky had come to recognize it: a loose waistcoat, some kind of loincloth, a belt with straps for tools. ‘Been digging that drainage ditch,’ he said to Roberta.
‘No wonder you’re sweating.’
‘I like to join in.’
Roberta said, not unkindly, ‘I’m sure everybody appreciates your contribution.’
Jules looked pathetically pleased. He spoke in a gabbling burst, and Rocky realized that he was, incredibly, attempting quicktalk, or imitating it.
Stan stared at him, as if disgusted. ‘Hey, Rocky. Remember that kobold that hangs around the plant sometimes?’
‘Bob-Bob.’
‘Yeah. Grinning and mugging, trading his bits of tat. Trying desperately to be a human, a person. Never ever going to be one.’ He stared at Jules. ‘Remind you of anyone?’
Jules seemed upset, but he didn’t reply. He looked to Roberta, as if she would make it right for him.
Rocky said, ‘Hey, that’s harsh, man—’
‘Is it?’ Stan turned on Roberta.
Something in him seemed to have snapped, Rocky thought. Roberta recoiled from his sudden anger.
Stan said, ‘So is this the outcome of your great Next experiment? Humans like Jules here, reduced to performing tricks for your approval, all their dignity gone? Your own lost children, crying without comfort in the dark?’ He glared around at the Grange, as if in disgust. ‘Is this the best you can do?’
Roberta snapped, ‘Your remarks are inappropriate. A dozen years ago the Next were scattered, stigmatized, locked up in human institutions. Now we are together, proud, growing strong, confident. You will learn, with us. Great minds think alike—’
‘Hmm,’ Stan said. ‘You ever read Tom Paine?’
‘Of course—’
‘The Rights of Man, 1792. “I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree.” I’m with good old dim-bulb Tom Paine, not you. I humbly disagree with you – hell, no, I don’t feel humble at all.’ He looked at Rocky. ‘I’m out of here. You coming?’ He held out his hand.