"He could do sums that told him things like that-much more complicated than the ones you"ve learned so far," Kort said.
Taya pulled a face. She didn"t dare ask if she"d have to learn how to do sums like that one day. "So had Scientist proved it?" she asked instead.
"He thought he had. But when he showed Skeptic the sums, Skeptic pointed out that all they showed was that cold places that weren"t stars could exist, and that if they did, big molecules that couldn"t exist in stars might form on them; they didn"t prove that such places did exist, or that such molecules had formed on them. Mystic said the whole idea of big, intelligent molecules was ridiculous anyway. There were stars outside Merkon that grew bigger and bigger-but they just turned into big stars, not intelligent stars."
The tunnel looked out on both sides into strange rooms packed with bewildering machines. Some of them moved intermittently, and there were many lights, pulsating glows of various colors, and occasional brilliant flashes. Kort told Taya that they were in the part of Merkon where Scientist still did most of his work.
"Another mind was called Biologist, and he gave Thinker a new idea," Kort went on. "Biologist was fascinated by machines and what made them alive, and he had been finding out more about evolution ever since Evolutionist discovered it. He realized that what enabled machines to be complicated enough to be intelligent was the amount of information stored inside the machines that built them. Now, that information was pa.s.sed on from one generation of machines to the next-and sometimes it was changed to make the newer machine work better. So really, it wasn"t the machines that were evolving at all; it was the information they pa.s.sed on that was actually evolving."
"Yes, I can see that," Taya agreed. "As far as machines go, anyhow. But I"m not sure what it"s got to do with molecules."
"That was the new idea," Kort told her. "The way a molecule is put together can also store information.
If the information stored in a machine could cause machine parts to come together in the right way to make a complicated machine system, then maybe the information stored in a molecule could cause chemicals to come together in the right way to make a complicated chemical system, and perhaps that was what had evolved and become intelligent."
Taya had stopped to watch a fountain of yellow sparks surrounded by a blue glow inside a gla.s.s shape in one of the rooms off to the side of the tunnel. "So now it wasn"t the molecule itself that had to be intelligent," she said over her shoulder.
"Correct." They resumed walking "And I bet I can guess what happened then," Taya said. "Thinker thought it might be true. Mystic said it was just as silly as the other idea. And Skeptic said he"d believe it when somebody showed him a molecule that could build intelligent chemicals."
"That"s what happened. And so Scientist started making enormous molecules and putting them into all kinds of chemicals to see if they would a.s.semble into anything. But there was nothing to tell Scientist what kind of molecule to make, and the number of possibilities was larger than any number you can think of."
"Even millions and millions?"
"Much larger than that-so large that Scientist would never be able to try even a small fraction of them.
He did try, though, for years and years, but everything failed. . . . Oh, he did manage to produce a few that produced tiny specks of jelly that grew for a while, but they soon stopped and broke down into chemicals again. Not one of them ever looked like being remotely intelligent, never mind capable of making a machine. And Skeptic said that if it would take Scientist forever to find the right molecule, even with all his knowledge and intelligence, how could it have just come together on a cold place outside Merkon, without any intelligence? There was nothing out there that could provide an equivalent method of selection. Mystic said that was what he"d been telling them all along.
"But Thinker looked at it another way: If Evolutionist and Biologist were right, then a molecule that could a.s.semble an intelligent chemical system had existed, and had been selected somehow, somewhere in the universe. Whether or not Scientist could explain how it had been selected was a different question. If Scientist could just discover what that molecule had been like, then he could forget about all the other countless possibilities that there would never be enough time to try anyway. Scientist agreed, but couldn"t imagine where to begin looking; so he asked Thinker to think of an idea for that, too.
"There was only one place that Thinker could think of to look. Biologist had discovered that there were lots of codes in the information that older machines copied into newer machines, which n.o.body had ever understood-they copied it because that was the way things had always been done. Some of those codes went back to the earliest machines-the ones that had existed before any of the minds were aware of anything at all."
"You mean the machines that the chemical intelligence made, before machines knew how to make machines?" Taya asked.
"Yes, which meant that some of that meaningless data that older machines had always copied into newer machines could have been written into the first machine by the chemical intelligence that made it. And maybe-just maybe, for some reason-there might be something in there that could give Scientist a clue of how to make the right molecule."
They were approaching the end of the tunnel now. Taya could see that it ended at a large, shiny white door. She glanced curiously up at Kort, but the robot carried on walking slowly and continued. "So Scientist concentrated on trying to understand the codes that had been handed down from the earliest times. And eventually, after many more years, he found what he was sure was the secret he"d been searching for. Some of the oldest codes of all contained arrays consisting of millions of numbers. If those numbers were read in a certain way, they looked just like the instructions for building precisely arranged sets of gigantic molecules. So Scientist a.s.sembled the sets just as the instructions said, and then began supplying them with chemicals to see if the chemicals would grow into anything."
They had stopped outside the white door. Taya stared up at Kort with suspense written across her face.
The robot gazed down in silence for a few seconds, inviting her to complete the obvious for herself. But she hadn"t made the connection. "What happened?" she asked with bated breath. "Did they grow into something?"
Kort shook his head slowly. "Not at first. There were many things that Scientist still didn"t know. Some of them did grow into strange, unfamiliar forms, but they soon stopped. Scientist had nothing to tell him what chemicals to supply, or how they should be given." The robot"s black, ovoid eyes seemed to take on an inner light as they bore down on the tiny, upturned face, now deathly pale suddenly. "He had to learn that they would only grow when they were kept warm; that they had to be always bathed in air; that the air had to be kept slightly moist. . . . We had to learn how to make the special food that they needed, to provide light that was right for their delicate liquid eyes, to keep them covered to protect their fragile skin." Taya"s eyes had widened into almost full circles. Her mouth fell open but no sound would come out. That was the first time Kort had said "we." He nodded. "Yes, Taya, there was much to learn. There were many failures."
Taya could only stand paralyzed, staring up at the seven-foot-tall metal colossus, as the truth at last burst into her mind. Kort"s voice swelled to echo the pride he could no longer conceal. "But in the end we succeeded! We produced a speck of jelly that grew and acquired shape until it could move of its own accord. We nurtured it and tended it, and slowly it transformed into something the like of which we had never glimpsed in the entire cosmos." Kort was trying to make her share his jubilation, but even as he spoke he could see her beginning to tremble uncontrollably. At the same time, alarm signals poured into his circuits from all over Merkon.
He stooped down and lifted Taya level with his eyes. "Don"t you see what this means, Taya? Long, long ago, before there were any machines, there was another kind of life. They made the place that has become Merkon. They built the machines that the machines of Merkon have evolved from. They were incredible scientists, Taya. They understood all the things that we have been trying for so long to learn.
They gave us the secret that enable them to grow out of simple, unstructured matter that drifts between the stars. Without that secret, all our efforts would have come to nothing. Our greatest achievement, the culmination of all our work, was just a fragment of the wisdom with which they began.
"And now, Taya, we know what they were. They were like you! You will grow, and you will become again what they were. You asked if you could ever learn enough to understand machines. Of course you can . . . and far more than that. It was your kind that created the machines! You will teach us! You will know more than all the minds of Merkon put together could even think to ask. You will bring to Merkon the wisdom and the knowledge that once existed in another world, in another time."
The robot peered into her face, searching for a sign of the joy that he felt. But when at last she could speak, her voice was just a whisper. "There were once other Tayas . . . like me?"
"Yes, just like you."
"What . . ." Taya had to stop to swallow the lump forming at the back of her throat. "What happened to them, Kort? Where did they . . . go?"
Kort could feel tremors in her body, and his eyes saw that her skin had gone cold. An unfamiliar feeling came over him. For once, he realized, he had misjudged. His voice fell. "We have no way of telling. It was very long ago. Before Merkon changed, there were places that were built to contain air. We can only a.s.sume that your kind of life once inhabited whatever Merkon was built to be. We don"t know what became of them." He could see the tears flooding into her eyes now. Gently, in the way she found comforting, he moved her onto his arm.
"Other Tayas lived here, long ago?" There was a hollowness and an emptiness in her voice that Kort had never heard before. She clutched at his neck, and his skin sensors detected warm salty water rolling down across the joints. "There isn"t anyone anywhere like me. I don"t belong here, do I, Kort? I don"t want to be in this world. I want to be in the world where there were other Tayas."
"That world doesn"t exist any more," Kort replied somberly. "Of course you belong in this one. And we"re changing it all the time, so it will become even more like yours."
"But I"ll always be . . . alone. I"ve never felt alone before, but I do now. I"ll always feel alone now, for years and years and years. . . ." She pressed her face against the side of the robot"s head and wept freely. "How long will it go on? What will happen to me, Kort?"
Kort waited for a while, stroking her head with a steel finger of his free hand, but the tears didn"t stop.
"You won"t be alone," he murmured at last. "I"ll always be here. And you haven"t let me finish the story yet."
"I don"t want to hear any more. It"s a horrible story."
Kort"s arm tightened rea.s.suringly. "Then I"ll have to show you the rest of it," he said.
Taya felt Kort move forward, then stop, and she became aware of a warm yellow glow around them.
She raised her head and saw that the white door was open and they had pa.s.sed through it. She sensed that Kort was waiting, and lifted her head higher to look. And she looked . . .
And looked . . .
And then she gasped aloud, her fretting swept away in that instant. Kort set her down on her feet, facing the room. For a while she just stood there and stared. Then, very slowly, as if fearing she was in a dream that might evaporate suddenly, she began walking forward.
They were standing in rows a few feet apart-dozens of them. Each of the boxes was low and flat like a bed, but they were smaller than Taya"s. Each was enclosed by a rounded gla.s.s cover stretching from end to end. There were tubes and wires connecting them to machines lining one wall. And through the gla.s.s covers she could see . . .
She didn"t have a word for lots of little people like Taya. There had only ever been one Taya.
She stopped and turned to look back at Kort, but the robot made no move. She turned back again and approached the box closest to her-almost reverently, as if the slightest sound or sudden movement might cause the sleeping figure inside to vanish. It had eyes and a nose and a pink mouth . . . and it was bendy everywhere, like her. It wasn"t as big as she was-in fact it was a lot smaller-but it was . . . the same.
She moved slowly around the box to peer in from the other side. The Taya wasn"t quite the same, she realized. It had darker hair, almost black, and a nose that wasn"t the same shape as hers. She turned to look in the box behind her and saw that the Taya in that one had hardly any hair, and a pink patch on its arm that she didn"t have. And at the top of its legs its body was curiously different. She looked across at the box in the next row, and at the one next to that. All the Tayas were different . . . the same as her, but all different.
Kort moved forward to stare down from alongside her. Taya looked up at him, but was unable to form any question because her mouth just hung open and wouldn"t close. "Scientist had no way of knowing how long he would be able to keep his tiny chemical thing growing," he said. "If it stopped the way the others had, he"d have to start all over again. So, when he had managed to keep one growing properly for one year, he picked out another fifty groups of numbers to make fifty more different sets of giant molecules, and he started them all growing in the same way that he"d managed to make the first one grow. So now he had fifty-one chemical things, but one of them was a year older than the rest."
Taya was listening rapturously, but she couldn"t keep her eyes off the figures in the gla.s.s-covered boxes.
They were all about the same size-bigger than Ra.s.sie, but much smaller than Taya. Their chests were moving the way hers did-not as much as hers, and more quickly . . . but they were moving. Kort"s chest never moved like that because he didn"t need air. They were really like her. Some of them were darker than she was, a sort of brown instead of pink, and a few almost black. And some were yellowy and some more red. Taya wondered why there weren"t any blue ones or green ones or purple ones, too.
She began moving through the room between the boxes, stopping and gazing through every one of the gla.s.s covers to marvel at how delicately a nose was formed here, or to stare at a miniature hand there, or a brown foot that was pink underneath. This one had hardly any eyebrows, while that one had thick black ones; this one had hair that was almost red, and another had tiny ears, not much bigger than Ra.s.sie"s.
"By that time all of the minds were saying how clever Scientist was," Kort resumed. "But then Skeptic reminded them that nothing Scientist had done so far proved anything about chemical intelligence. All he"d proved was that a set of molecules could cause a chemical structure to grow. And he had a point, because even the one that was a year older had never actually done anything that could be called intelligent. All it had done was kick, squirm about, and eat the food that the machines gave it. So the machines settled down to watch and wait for it to do something intelligent."
Scientist must have been very clever to make these, Taya thought to herself, never mind what the other minds said. When she had reached the end of the room and looked inside every one of the gla.s.s covers, she turned. She was happy now, Kort could see, and the laughter in her eyes was echoed by the relieved currents flowing into his mind from the entire network of Merkon. But there was something else in her eyes, too. The expression on her face contained more than just the simple happiness that he saw when she watched the stars or created a picture that she especially liked. There was a light of awareness there now, which added to the happiness to produce an effect that was new to him-as if in the last few minutes she had suddenly become older and changed more than she had in all of the previous nine years.
He continued. "The minds waited for almost another year, but no sign of intelligence appeared. Then Mystic started saying it was because Supermind was angry at the machines for trying to create intelligence. Only Supermind was supposed to create intelligence. If the machines didn"t stop trying to do something that machines were never meant to do, Supermind would sc.r.a.p all of them, and Merkon as well. This worried the minds, and they argued about whether they should allow Scientist to keep his creations."
There was nothing left to see at the end of the room. Taya clasped Kort"s hand and they began walking back between the boxes toward the door. "By this time a new mind had formed out of parts of Scientist, Evolutionist, Biologist, and Thinker. Its name was Kort." Taya stopped and looked up. Kort paused for a second, then continued. "Kort had spent a lot of time studying the strange chemical things and watching them grow. He had become fond of them and didn"t want Mystic to take them away. He suggested that maybe the machines were mistaken in a.s.suming that all kinds of intelligence had to be like them-because that was the only kind they knew. A machine was fully working as soon as it was finished and switched on. But maybe a chemical system was different. Perhaps its intelligence needed time to grow, just as its body had to grow.
"But the other minds were still afraid of making Supermind angry and being sc.r.a.pped. So Kort suggested carrying on the experiment with just one of the chemical things instead of with all of them-to put the other fifty to sleep in a special way that would stop them growing, and just see what happened with the one that was a year older. Then, if Supermind did get angry, it would only have reason to get a little bit angry. And only Kort would have anything to do with the one that would be allowed to carry on growing. Then Supermind would only have reason to sc.r.a.p Kort, and not any of the others."
"And that was what they did, wasn"t it?" Taya said, smiling. She thought for a second. "So was that when you made your body?"
Kort nodded. "One of the things he"d learned was that the little chemical things needed lots of looking after, and he"d been thinking of making a special looking-after machine to do it. That made him wonder what had looked after them long ago, before there had been any machines. He asked Thinker what he thought, and the only thing Thinker could think of was that the small chemical things must have been looked after by the ones that had already grown bigger. Kort figured that the bigger ones would have had the same shape as the small ones, and maybe that would be a good shape for a looking-after machine to have if it was supposed to do the same job. So that was the shape he chose to build it."
"I thought it was that shape for mending things," Taya said.
"It"s a very useful body," Kort replied. "These hands aren"t very good for much by themselves, but with a few simple tools I can make them do almost anything. I found there are some things that I can do faster and more easily with this body than the machines can."
"What can it do that the machines can"t do?"
"There"s one very important thing. If something is going to become intelligent, it has to be able to learn things. But it can only learn if you can talk to it to teach it. Scientist had known for a long time that the chemical things couldn"t talk, because they couldn"t hear radio waves."
"Are those the waves you talk to the machines with?"
"Yes. But they could make pressure waves in the air that they had to be in all the time-they were always making pressure waves. So Kort decided to make his looking-after machine capable of sending out pressure waves, too. Then maybe he could find a way of using them to talk with instead of radio waves. The chemical thing grew, and as it grew, Kort taught her to talk."
"You haven"t given her a name yet," Taya said. "You said everyone in a story ought to have a name."
"She was called Taya, of course."
Taya laughed. "I know. I just wanted to hear you say it."
"Taya grew bigger, and Kort began teaching her things. All the minds in Merkon waited to see what would happen. But as the time went by, they were disappointed." Taya looked dismayed, but Kort went on, heedless. "She just wasn"t any good at even the simplest things that a new machine would do perfectly. She forgot things almost as quickly as he tried to teach her new things, and she was hopeless at even the easiest of sums. Her ears were so weak that she could only hear him when he was in the same room, and her eyes could never see more than a few of even the nearest stars, and then only a part of what they really look like. Mystic asked how anyone could possibly call her intelligent, and said it was a final warning from Supermind for her to be sc.r.a.pped."
"ME?" Taya clapped a hand to her mouth, horrified. "Mystic wanted to sc.r.a.p me?"
"At one time, yes. But Kort argued with the rest of the minds and demanded that they keep to the agreement they had made. But while all this arguing was going on, Taya started to change in a strange way." Kort paused and looked down at the face staring up from no higher than his waist. "The machines knew they could see lots of things that she couldn"t. But then they found out to their astonishment that she could see other things that they couldn"t see. She could see things in shapes and colors that made her smile. She could think of questions that none of the minds in Merkon had ever thought of asking. She could imagine things that weren"t there, and create her own world inside her mind whenever she wanted.
She could see things that made her laugh, and sometimes things that made her cry. The machines found that they liked it when she laughed, and it made them want to laugh, too; and they felt bad when things made her cry, and they tried to make those things go away. Soon all the other minds found what Kort had already found: that they liked their world better with Taya in it. They remembered how it had been before Scientist made her, and it seemed empty and cold, like the emptiness between the stars. She was like a tiny star, brightening the inside of Merkon."
"All the minds?" Taya queried. "Even Mystic?"
"Yes, even Mystic. But now Mystic was saying that the things Taya could see proved what even Scientist had been unable to prove: that there was another universe that couldn"t be seen with all of Scientist"s instruments. Supermind had allowed Scientist to create Taya to prove that Supermind really existed. And one day she would be able to uncover secrets that they would never even have guessed might exist."
"And was the Merkon in the story always moving toward a star like this Merkon is?" Taya asked thoughtfully.
"Oh yes. It was just like this Merkon."
"Did it ever get there?"
"You know, it"s funny you should mention that. I"ve just heard from Ra.s.sie. She says that Vaxis is getting bigger. Scientist says that Merkon will arrive there just over ten years from now."
"Ten years!" Taya gaped up at the robot. "That"s a long time. it"s longer than since I started growing, and that"s longer than I can even remember. I can"t wait ten years to find out what happens-" Her voice broke off as a new thought struck her. "Did Ra.s.sie really just tell you that?"
"Why?"
"She didn"t! Ra.s.sie doesn"t really talk. You"ve known about it for a long time. You have, haven"t you?"
"Yes," Kort admitted.
"So, why didn"t you tell me before?"
"Because I know how impatient you are, little seer-of-invisible-universes. You think ten years is a long time, but it isn"t. There will be lots to learn and do in that time."
They were back at the door, and Kort stopped while Taya turned to look back at the rows of gla.s.s-topped boxes. "So what happened to the fifty others?" she asked.
"The minds asked Scientist to wake them up and let them carry on growing from where he had stopped them," Kort said.
"So when will he do it?" Taya asked, abandoning the pretense of a story in her eagerness.
"He has already started to. But they haven"t been asleep in the same way that you sleep. They"ve been kept cold for a long time, and they can only be warmed up again very slowly and carefully."
"But how long will it take?"
"Not long. Scientist says about another five days."
"Five days! I won"t have to wait that long before I can talk to them, will I? I"ll never be able to wait five days!"
"You see how impatient you are," Kort said. "And you"ll have to learn to be a lot more patient than that to talk to them. They won"t be able to talk as soon as they wake up."
"They won"t?"
"Of course not. They don"t know the language yet. They"ll have to learn it, just as we had to."
Taya gasped. "Are you going to have to teach all of them?"
"Certainly not. You are going to have to help."
"Me?" Taya stared back in amazement. "But I can"t teach things. How will I know how to teach anything?"
"That"s something else you"ll have to learn," Kort replied.
"But they"ll need to know all kinds of things. Will I have to teach them about Merkon and the machines .
. . how to make clothes and draw pictures and spell words . . . and do sums?"
"I said there would be a lot to do between now and when we reach Vaxis," Kort said. "But it won"t be as bad as you think-we"ve decided to build some more bodies like mine. Also, because Scientist stopped the others growing, you are eight years older than they are. You"ve already learned a lot that they won"t know. By the time they are nine, you will be seventeen and will have learned a lot more.
Between us we should manage okay."
Taya tried to picture the forms in the boxes walking and talking, asking all the questions that she asked Kort and trying to learn all the things she"d had to learn. There would be so much for her to remember.