The Rituals of Infinity Read online

  'But why all those simulations?' Faustaff said. 'Why not one planet which you could—judging by what you do anyway—brainwash en masse and channel it the way you want to.'

  'We are trying to produce an identical evolutionary pattern to the one which produced us. It would be impractical to do as you suggest. The psychological accretions would build-up too rapidly. We need a fresh environment every time. All this was considered before we began work on the first simulation.'

  'And why don't you interfere directly with the worlds? Surely you could destroy them as easily as you create them.'

  'They are not easily created and are not easily destroyed. We dare not let a hint of our presence get to the simulations. We did not exist when our ancestors evolved, therefore no-one should guess we exist now. We use our androids for destroying the failed simulations, or, for more sophisticated work, we use near-humans like the one who brought you here. They seem to be human and the natural assumption, if their activities are discovered and their missions fail, is that they are employed by other human beings. It is a very delicate kind of experiment, since, it involves complicated entities like yourself, and we cannot afford, normally, to interfere directly. We do not want to become gods. Religion has a function in a society's earliest stages, but that function is soon replaced by the sciences. To provide what would be to your people "proof of supernatural beings would be completely against our interest.'

  'What of the people you kill? Have you no moral attitude to that?'

  'We kill very few. Normally the population of one simulation is transferred to another. Only the children are destroyed in any quantity.'

  'Only the children!'

  'I understand your horror. I understand your feelings towards children. It is necessary that you should have

  them—it is a virtue when you have these feelings in any strength—in your terms. In our terms, the whole race is our children. Compare our destruction of your immature offspring to your own destruction of male sperm and female ovum in preventing birth. Your feelings are valid. We have no use for such feelings. Therefore, to us they are invalid.'

  Faustaff nodded, i can see that. But I have these feelings. Besides which, I think there is a flaw in your argument. We feel that it is wrong to expect our children to develop as duplicates of ourselves. This defeats progress in any sense.'

  'We are not seeking progress. There is no progress to be made. We know the fundamental principles of everything. We are immortal, we are secure.'

  Faustaff frowned for a moment and then asked, 'What are your pleasures?'

  'Pleasures?'

  'What makes you laugh, for instance?'

  'We do not laugh. We would know joy—fulfilment—if our experiment were to be successful.'

  'So, currently, you have no pleasures. Nothing sensual or intellectual?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Then you are dead, in my terms,' Faustaff said. 'Forget about the simulations. Can't you see that all your energies have been diverted into a ridiculous, useless experiment? Let us develop as we will—or destroy ourselves if we must. Let me take the knowledge you have given me back to E-Zero and tell everyone of your existence. You have kept them in fear, you have allowed them to despair, you have, in certain directions, kept them in ignorance. Turn your attention to yourselves—look for pleasure, create things to give you pleasure. Perhaps in time you would succeed in reproducing this Golden Age you speak of—but I doubt it. Even if you did, it would be a meaningless achievement, particularly if the eventual result was a race like yourselves. You have logic. Use it to find enjoyment in subjective pursuits. A thing

  does not have to have meaning to be enjoyed. Where are your arts, your amusements, your entertainments?'

  'We have none. We have no use for them.'

  'Find a use.'

  The giant rose. His companions got up at the same time. Once again they left the place and Faustaff waited, assuming they were debating what he had said.

  They returned eventually.

  'There is a possibility that you have helped us,' said the giant as he and his companions seated themselves.

  'Will you agree to let E-Zero develop without interference?' Faustaff asked.

  'Yes. And we shall allow the remaining subspacial simulations to exist. There is one condition.'

  'What's that?"

  'Our first illogical act—our first—joke—will be to have all the thirteen remaining simulations existing together in ordinary space-time. What influence this will in time have on the structure of the universe we cannot guess, but it will bring an element of uncertainty into our lives and thus will help us in our quest for pleasures. We shall have to enlarge your sun and replace the other planets in your system, for the thirteen worlds will constitute a much larger mass since we visualise them as being close together and easily accessible to one another. We feel that we shall be creating something that has no great practical use, within the limited sense of the word, but which will be pleasing and unusual to the eye. It will be the first thing of its kind in the universe.'

  'You certainly work fast,' Faustaff smiled, i'm looking forward to the result.'

  'No physical danger will result from what we do. It will be—spectacular, we feel.'

  'So it's over—you're abandoning the experiment altogether. I didn't think you'd be so easily convinced.'

  'You have released something in us. We are proud of you.

  By accident we helped create you. We are not abandoning the experiment, strictly speaking. We are going to let it run its own course from now on. Thank you.'

  'And thank you, gentlemen. How do 1 get back?'

  'We will return you to E-Zero by the usual method.'

  'What about Maggy White?' Faustaff said, turning towards the girl.

  'She will stay with us. She might be able to help us.'

  'Goodbye, then, Maggy,' Faustaff kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her arm.

  'Goodbye,' she smiled.

  The walls of light began to flow inwards, enfolding Faustaff. Soon they took on the shape of the room in the house.

  He was back on E-Zero. The only difference was that the equipment had vanished. The room looked completely normal.

  He went to the front door Gordon Ogg and Nancy were coming up the path.

  'Good news,' he grinned, walking towards them. 'I'll tell you all about it. We've got a lot of work to do to help everybody organise themselves.'

  20

  The Golden Bridges

  By the time the principals were ready to create their 'joke', the populations of the subspacial worlds had been informed of everything Faustaff could tell them. He had been interviewed for the press, given television and radio time, and there had been no questioning voices. Somehow, all he said struck the worlds' populations as being true. It explained what they saw around them, what they felt within them.

  The time came, and everyone was ready for it, when the thirteen planets began to phase in to ordinary space-time.

  Faustaff and Nancy were back in Los Angeles when it happened, standing in the garden of the house which had first brought them to E-Zero and where they now lived. It was night when the twelve other simulations made their appearance. The dark sky seemed to ripple gently and they were there; a cluster of worlds moving in unison through space, with E-Zero in the centre, like so many gigantic moons.

  Faustaff recognised the green jungle world of E-12; the desert-sea world of E-3. There was the vast continental atoll that was the only land area on E-7; the more normal-seeming worlds of E-2 and E-4; the mountainous world of fill.

  Now Faustaff received the impression that the sky was flowing and he realised that, miraculously the atmospheres of the Earth-simulations were merging to form a complete envelope around the world-cluster. Now the jungle world could supply oxygen to the worlds with less vegetation, and moisture would come from the worlds predominantly of water.

  He saw E-l, as he craned his neck to see them all. It seemed covered by black and scarlet clouds. It wa
s right, he felt, that it should have been included; a symbol of ignorance and fear, a symbol of what the idea of hell actually meant in physical terms. The atmosphere did not seem to extend to E-l, for though its presence was necessary, it had been isolated.

  Faustaff realised that though the principals had made a joke, it was a joke with many points to it.

  T hope they don't get too earnest about this now,' Nancy said, hugging Faustaff s arm.

  T don't think they're going to be earnest for long,' he smiled. 'Just serious maybe. A good joke needs a spot of everything.' He shook his head in wonderment. 'Look at it all. It's impossible in our scientific terms, but they've done it. I've got to hand it to them; when they decide to be illogical, they go the whole hog!'

  Nancy pointed into the sky. 'Look,' she said. 'What's happening now?'

  There was a further movement in the sky. Other objects began to appear; great golden structures whose reflected light turned the night to near-day; arcs of flame, bridges of light between the worlds. Faustaff shielded his eyes to peer at them. They ran from world to world, spanning the distances like fiery rainbows. Only E-l was not touched by them.

  'That's what they are,' Faustaff said in realisation. 'They're bridges—bridges that we can cross to reach the other simulations. See ...' he pointed to an object that hung

  in the sky above their heads, rapidly passing as the world turned on its axis—'there's one end of ours. We could reach it in a plane, then we could walk across, if we had a lifetime to spare! But we can build transport that will cross the bridges in a few days! These worlds are like islands in the same lake, and those bridges link us all together.'

  'They're very beautiful,' said Nancy quietly.

  'Aren't they!'

  Faustaff laughed in pleasure at the sight and Nancy joined in.

  They were still laughing when the sun rose, a massive, splendid sun that made Faustaff realise that he had never really known daylight until that moment.

  The giant sun's rays caught the gold of the bridges so that they flamed even more brilliantly.

  Used now to the code in which the principals had tried to write the history of his race, Faustaff looked at the bridges and understood the many things they meant; to him, to the worlds and to the men, women and children who must now all be looking up at them.

  And in its isolation, E-l glared luridly in the new daylight.

  Faustaff and Nancy turned to look at it. 'There's no need to fear that now, Nancy,' he said to her. 'We can start getting somewhere at last, as long as we remember to relax a bit. Those bridges mean understanding; communication ...'

  Nancy nodded seriously. Then she looked up at Faustaff and her expression turned into a spreading grin. She winked at him. He grinned and winked back.

  They went into the house and were soon rolling about in bed together.