“So souls accrue from the reaction of thoughts upon this energy,” Nowak said. “I’m not disputing the hypothesis. But how can that help us?”
“Because it’s only us: humans. Animals don’t have souls. Dariat and Laton never mentioned encountering them.”
“They never mentioned encountering alien souls either,” Mattox said. “But according to the Kiint, they’re there.”
“It’s a big universe,” Nowak said.
“No,” Gilmore countered. “That can’t apply. Only some souls are trapped in the section we know about, the area near the boundary. Laton as good as confirmed that. After death, it’s possible to embark on the great journey. Again, his words.”
Euru shook his head sadly. “I wish I could believe him.”
“In this I agree with him, not that it has much bearing on my principal contention.”
“Which is?” Mattox asked.
“I believe I know the glue which holds souls together. It has to be sentience. Consider, an animal like a dog or cat has its individuality as a biological entity, but no soul. Why not? It has a neural structure, it has memories, it has thought processes operating inside that neural structure. Yet when it dies, all that loses coherence. Without a focus, a strong sense of identity, the pattern dissolves. There is no order.”
“The formless void,” Nowak muttered in amusement.
Gilmore disregarded the jibe. “We know a soul is a coherent entity, and both Couteur and Dariat have confirmed there is a timeflow within the beyond. They suffer entropy just as we do. I am convinced that makes them vulnerable.”
“How?” Mattox asked sharply.
“We can introduce change. Energy, the actual substance of souls, cannot be destroyed, but it can certainly be dissipated or broken up, returned to a primordial state.”
“Ah yes.” Hemmatu smiled in admiration. “Now I follow your logic. Indeed, we have to reintroduce some chaos into their lives.”
Euru gave Gilmore a shocked stare. “Kill them?”
“Acquire the ability to kill them,” Gilmore responded smoothly. “If they have the ability to leave the part or state of the beyond where they are now, they must clearly be forced to do so. The prospect of death, real final death, would provide them with the spur to leave us alone.”
“How?” Euru asked. “What would be the method?”
“A virus of the mind,” Gilmore said. “A universal anti-memory that would spread through thought processes, fracturing them as it went. The beauty of it is, the possessed are constantly merging their thoughts with one another to fulfil their quest for sensation. En masse, they are a mental superconductor.”
“You might just be on to something here,” Hemmatu said. “Are there such things as anti-memory?”
“There are several weapons designed to disable a target’s mental processes,” Mattox said. “Most of them are chemical or biological agents. However, I do know of some that are based upon didactic imprint memories. But so far my colleagues have only produced variants that induce extreme psychotic disorders such as paranoia or schizophrenia.”
“That’s all we need,” Nowak grunted. “Extra demented lost souls. They’re quite barmy enough as it is.”
Gilmore gave him a disapproving glance. “Would an anti-memory be possible, theoretically?” he asked Mattox.
“I can’t think of any immediate show-stoppers.”
“Surely it would just self-destruct?” Yusuf said. “If it eradicates the mechanism of its own conductivity, how can it sustain itself?”
“We’d need something that rides just ahead of its own destruction wave,” Mattox said. “Again, it’s not a theoretical impossibility.”
“Nobody said the concept wouldn’t need considerable development work,” Gilmore said.
“And trials,” Euru said. His handsome face was showing a considerable amount of unease. “Don’t forget that phase. We would need a sentient being to experiment on. Probably several.”
“We have Couteur,” Gilmore muttered. He acknowledged the Edenist’s silent censure. “Sorry: natural thought. She caused us more than her fair share of trouble in court three.”
“I’m sure there will be bitek neural systems adequate for the purpose,” Mattox said hurriedly. “We don’t have to use humans at this stage.”
“Very well,” Gilmore said. “Unless anyone has any objections, I’d like to prioritize this project. The First Admiral has been placing considerable pressure on us for an overall solution for some time. It’ll be a relief to report we might be able to finally go on the offensive against the possessed.”
Edenist habitats gossiped among themselves. The discovery first surprised, then amused Ione and Tranquillity. But then their multiplicity personalities were made up from millions of people, who like all the elderly were keen to see how their young relatives were doing and spread the word among friends. The personalities were also integral to Edenist culture, so naturally they took an avid interest in human affairs for the reaction it would ultimately have upon themselves. The minutiae of political, social, and economic behaviour from the Confederation at large was absorbed, debated, and meditated upon. Knowledge was the right of all Edenists. It was just the method of passing on the more miscellaneous chunks which was delightfully quirky. Manifold sub-groups would form within every personality, with interests as varied as classical literature to xenobiology; early industrial age steam trains to Oort cloud formations. There was nothing formal, nothing ordained about such clusterings of cognate mentalities. It was, simply, the way it was. An informal anarchy.
Observing this, Tranquillity began to consider itself the equivalent of some ageing uncle overseeing a brood of unruly young cousins. Its own decorum generated a mild feeling of alienation from its contemporaries (which Ione also found amusing). Only when the full Jovian Consensus, with all its solemn nobility, arose from the gabbling minds, was there a notion of kinship.
By the time Tranquillity did arrive at Jupiter, there were literally millions of sub-groups convening within the habitat personalities to consider every possible aspect of the possession problem (essentially, Gilmore’s committee to the Nth degree). Eager to participate in the search for a solution, Tranquillity contributed its memories and conclusions of the crisis to date; information which was eagerly disseminated and deliberated over. Among the groupings who surveyed all matters religious, the most interesting development was the Kiint’s curiosity in the Tyrathca’s Sleeping God. The question of what the Sleeping God might actually be was passed to the cosmology groupings. They didn’t have much of an idea, so they queried the xenopsychology field. In turn, they wondered if the enigma would be better served by the xenocultural historians . . .
At which point, two very distinct (and in their different ways, very important) mentalities among the collective personalities became aware of the Sleeping God problem. The sub-Consensus for security and Wing-Tsit Chong together decided the matter was best dealt with by themselves and a few of their own specialists. In collaberation with Ione, of course.
Joshua had a bad feeling about Ione calling him to a conference without being told the reason. There were resonances of being asked to go after Mzu coming into play. It got worse when she told him it was to be convened in De Bouvoir Palace. That meant it was going to be formal, official.
When he arrived at the small tube station which served visitors to the Palace, Mzu was climbing the steps ahead of him. He wanted to turn round and go back to supervising Lady Mac ’s refit. But at least this was as bad as it could possibly get. They made laboured small talk as they walked along the dark-yellow stone path to the classical building. Mzu didn’t know why she’d been invited, either.