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| Image by ImageFX. |
I had envisioned that Marda would establish a school on Asha. Claude completely ignored the task of dealing with the educational infrastructure that Marda and the other replicoid crew members of Sedrover create on Asha. In contrast, my version of Chapter 5 extensively develops this thread.
There are several biologically distinct individuals who arrive on Asha. (1) There is only one conventional human: Lori. (2) Tynyo and Naseh are human, but they have unusually high numbers of Ek'col gene patterns. I imagine that Tynyo and Naseh each carry a special variant of the NOTCH2NL gene that allows them to have some capacity to use the Sedron Time Stream as a way to receive information from the future. Some of the children of Tynyo and Naseh have two copies of that special NOTCH2NL gene variant and they have enhanced ability to "see the future".
The first child born on Asha is named 'Tarynon' and she gets one copy of the special NOTCH2NL gene variant from her father, Tynyo. The second child born on Asha is named 'Tye' and he has two copies of the special NOTCH2NL gene variant, one from Tynyo and one from Naseh.
Chapter 5 of "Plūribus ē Spatium" – I Hear You Dreaming (Ch 1)(Ch 2)(Ch 3)(Ch 4)
Scene 1: The Hierion Femtotube
Asha Simulation, Year 8
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| Figure 1. Marda on Asha. Image generated by Gemini. |
The sun of Asha was slightly more orange than Earth's sun, and in the early hours it painted the lake shore in colors that suggested sunlight filtered by clouds, even on days like this when there were no clouds over the village. Naseh was eight months pregnant and her large abdomen seemed to ripple as the fetus inside Naseh moved.
From down the hallway, Marda could hear Naseh's two children playing with Marda's daughter. Marda rolled off of Naseh's bed and went to check on the children, shifting her telepathic linkage from Naseh to her daughter, Surty. Surty told Marda: We want breakfast.
Marda asked Tye and Oly, “What do you want to eat?”
Tye had already brought a bowl of berries for Oly whose lips and chin were stained with juice from blueberries and blackberries. Tye replied, “The usual, Auntie.”
Marda went to the kitchen and prepared eggs and pancakes. The eggs had been brought in from the chicken coop that morning by Tye. As the second oldest child on Asha, he was amazingly reliable about completing his chores without ever needing to be reminded. Marda telepathically sensed Naseh awaken and take a shower.
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| Marda and Naseh. Image generated by Gemini. |
Although officially weaned, Oly climbed up into Naseh's lap and told Marda, “Bye-bye.” Oly then began comfort nursing at Naseh's breast.
Naseh knew that one of the Tyhry replicoids had returned from an Explorers Club over-night trip to the Jerash continent which was located on the far side of Asha. Naseh was following Marda's thoughts and asked, “What did Tarynon bring back this time?”
Marda replied, “They are calling these cubs a type of 'lynx'... it is another another Jerash feline creature that caught Tarynon's eye.” Tarynon was now seemingly running a zoo and trying to domesticate some of the animals that she had collected from Jerash continent. Marda and Naseh shared one last long hot kiss then Marda departed, telling Surty, “Come home when you are done playing.”
As Marda walked back to Sedrover, she contemplated the meaning of “home” for Surty who usually checked in at least once a day with Marda, but who moved around the village like a nomad. As Marda returned to Sedrover, Surty was still following Marda's thoughts and telepathically chided Marda, “Don't be jealous.”
Marda knew that she was jealous. She had expected her own daughter to be more dependent on her mother, but Surty was content to wander from home to home and merge into every family of the village, moving like the wind to where there were the most enjoyable opportunities for play.
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| Marda. Image generated by Gemini. |
T2 had telepathically monitored Marda's approach and was now telepathically telling Marda: Tynyo objected to the arrival of another pet. Tarynon is still making the case for the beauty and uniqueness of this particular species of feline and why she wants to breed it. With characteristic Tyhry bluntness, she added: I bet you can guess who will win this argument.
Marda laughed. She'd had a future vision that had shown her the future of this first settlement on Asha, what would eventually be called 'Ery' (pronounced just like Earth's 'Erie'). The Erie people of that future time were known as the Cat people because of their love for their domesticated cats. Marda was now navigating the maze-like corridors and passages of Sedrover.
She thought about Tarynon's precocious interest in animal breeding. Tarynon and Tye were horny little fuckers. All of the children on Asha had become sexually active at about age five. Tye insisted on spending at least an hour every day exploring Tarynon's vagina with his big Ek'col style penis. As far as Marda could tell, all of the children on Asha were in love with each other and they had already discovered that sensory stimulation of their erectile tissue made it easier for them to synchronize their mind patterns and strengthen their shared telepathic connections. Perhaps most significantly, they all expected the adults on Asha to understand this and the fact that the children would let nothing get in the way of their love and their use of telepathy.
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| Figure 2. Image generated by Gemini. |
Spread below Marda, the new settlement, officially named Ashapor (but nobody bothered to use that name) was a dozen buildings, strung out along the lake shore in an easy curve, the structures low and wide and already beginning to acquire some useful shade from trees that had been planted by the colonists. The site of Ashapor had been selected because it had plenty of water and mostly un-forested ground that was easy to cultivate.
Marda's telepathic mind meshed with that of T2 and they both put an arm around the other's back. They enjoyed gazing out upon the village where the people were genuinely happy and where they both enjoyed visiting the telepathic humans, although Tyhry and Marda spent most of their time onboard Sedrover or in the school house that was immediately below the small rise that was Sedrover's traditional landing spot. Gardens, rows of berry bushes and orchards had been planted between the buildings and it was gardens and parks that made up the vast majority of the space in the village. Children were already out among the bean rows, picking bean pods with the focused urgency of children intent on completing their chores as quickly as possible so that they could get back to the important business of play as soon as possible.
Eight years. The needed buildings for the colony were complete and in use. The gardens were producing and the underground food storage warehouse bulged with two years supply of food. The older children like Tarynon were growing like weeds and occasionally attending school. Marda wanted to enforce school attendance, but she had no authority, and keeping the children in a classroom depended on her ability to make lessons entertaining.
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| T2 and T3? Image generated by Gemini. |
Emerging from the hatch behind her was the Tyhry replicoid known as T3, who carried a leather cup sling holding cups of hot tea. She handed steaming cups to Marda and T2 without ceremony and commented on the settlement, “It really should be called 'Sleepy Town'.” T3 put an arm around Marda, trapping her between T3 and T2. They were all fantasizing about launching a three-way sexplay session, but Marda had an important topic on her mind. T3 could not resist slipping a finger into Marda's hot wet allzaurish. Marda moved her free had that was not holding tea down to T3's crotch and pulled out Her penis. Marda began giving T3 a gentle hand job.
“I confess: some days I'm bored, particular when nobody shows up for school.” Marda added, "I want to take Sedrover out of this Simulation... before Tarynon captures every cat on Jerash."
The two Tyhry replicoids giggled at Marda's joke. With only twelve students who had ever set foot in the school house, and most of those being tryp'At children of the crew members of Sedrover, it was not unusual for the school house to be empty. T2 suggested, "We could try cloud seeding. Rainy days have the best school attendance."
T3 added, “Rain making might be the one practical use for Sedrover on this world.”
"The colony doesn't need Sedrover anymore. The humans have their houses, they have plenty of food and they have each other." Marda nodded towards the settlement below. "They have more than enough, in fact. They are endlessly abandoning the unnecessary complexities and excesses of Earthly existence."
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| Manny. Image generated by Gemini. |
"I keep expecting Manny to show up. Surely she did not expect an interstellar spacecraft to go to waste, sitting here inside this Simulation."
“It may be that Manny made a duplicate of Sedrover. Another copy of Sedrover might already be out exploring the galaxy. How would we know?”
“The crew has been patient. Even Anthony's replicoid copies have been patient, and you know how they feel about the importance of searching for exoplanets."
“The original Anthony spent thousands of years in Alastor Cluster. He gets itchy if he can't get on a spaceship and go visit another world for the weekend.”
Marda shrugged. "I can't stop imagining that this is just a puzzle that Manny gave to me. A test of my problem solving ability. But as much as I've tried, I can't think of a way to extract Sedrover from this Simulation and send it home to Earth.”
T2 assured Marda, “My future vision was clear. Sedrover will depart. It won't be here on Asha in the future... I'm certain. There must be a way to break out of this Simulation.”
“I've been thinking about this for years and I cannot figure out how it can be done. The problem is quite simple. We are inside an accelerated Simulation where there are new rules, new constraints. For some mysterious reason, I can't pop myself out of this Simulation using my femtobot recall function, let alone extract an enormous interstellar spacecraft."
“It is not just you. The recall function does not work for any of us.” The T3 replicoid was quiet for a moment. Then she suggested, "We could try taking Sedrover further from Asha, but I'm afraid to waste sedron fuel. Not until we find a source of sedrons to mine here in this Simulation."
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| Figure 3. Manny and Marda. Image generated by Gemini. |
From behind them, a familiar voice said, "There is, in fact, a way to liberate Sedrover from Asha."
Marda turned. Manny was seated in one of the deck chairs that Lori had made for lounging on Sedrover's aft deck during the first year of the colony's existence, insisting that a spaceship without deck chairs was a missed opportunity. Manny was using her preferred body form for visiting humans — extraordinary hair, the comfortable physical presence of someone who has arranged her zeptite components with the specific goal of putting biological creatures at ease — and she was holding a cup of tea that she had provided for herself.
"Manny! I've hoped you would appear," Marda said, with relief and only mild surprise.
"I've been watching your progress with great pleasure," Manny said. "Eight years have flown by in a flash! You've done beautifully. The colony is healthy. The telepathic bonds between the humans are developing exactly as I hoped." She gestured towards the settlement. "Tarynon's generation is going to grow up to be a remarkable community of telepaths."
"That is not my only concern," Marda said. "What about, Sedrover? It is a waste to keep it here on Asha. Tell me how to get it out of this Simulation."
“I played a small trick on you.” Manny allowed her tea cup to evaporate into its nanite components and drift away on the breeze. "This Asha Simulation is an advanced type of bumpha Simulation, running inside the Sedron Domain. Everything inside this Simulation — including Sedrover — is composed of zeptites. The ship's physical structure here is a precise zeptite replication of the original femtobot Sedrover that existed in the Ekcolir Reality Simulation of Earth, back in the Hierion Domain.”
T2 asked, “A Simulation within a Simulation?”
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| Marda and Manny. Image generated by Gemini. |
“What technology?”
“It is called a hierion femtotube."
“I've seen those used as a popular plot device in stories archived at the Writers Block.” Marda said, "I've never used one."
"I haven't given you access to the programmed femtobots that are required to make one, not until now. A hierion femtotube is narrow — far too narrow for hadronic matter to pass through. But the zeptite components of this simulated Sedrover...” Manny stamped her foot on the hull of the spaceship, “...can disassemble, pass through the femtotube in a rushing stream, and then reassemble in the Hierion Domain. You'll soon have Sedrover back in its hangar on Earth. It is not magic... the process takes a few hours for an object of Sedrover's size." Manny reached into the pocket of her sparkling jumpsuit and pulled out a small device, which she tossed to Marda. "That's a femtotube anchor. Get everyone onboard Sedrover who wants to return to Earth and then place the activated anchor against Sedrover's hull. I've designed this tube to be intuitive to operate."
Marda examined the anchor device. It was warm in her hand and sparkled the way that advanced hierion-based technology sometimes did. "And the femtotube will stay open after Sedrover exits this Simulation?"
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| T2 and T3 on Sedrover. |
"And the original Sedrover?"
"The original Sedrover is gone. This zeptite copy of Sedrover is the only one that remains. The original Sedrover was destructively scanned, eliminating its femtobot components during the creation of this copy." Manny reformed her tea cup again and took a sip, seemingly quite pleased with herself for having revealed the rather simple trick that Marda had hoped existed for liberating Sedrover from the forked Simulation of Asha. "Oh, I should mention one other thing. The hangar beside the nanotechnology laboratory on Earth will serve as the receiving end of the femtotube. I placed the anchor for the other end of the femtotube inside the hanger. When you exit this Simulation, you will find yourself inside the Ekcolir Reality Simulation, back inside the hangar."
The T3 replicoid, who had built the wind power energy supply system for Ashapor and who ran what was called the triplex (a combined sewage treatment plant, purified water source and fish hatchery) located five miles down the coast had been listening to Manny and now she spoke. "What about the crew members like me who plan to remain here on Asha after Sedrover leaves?"
A large number of Marda, Tyhry and Anthony replicoids had been made in order to help with the construction of Sedrover, but they had been gradually drifting off to participate in other projects, most aimed at acquiring advanced Fru'wu technology. It was no surprise that some would end up wanting to stay on Asha.
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| femtotube experiment |
“I'm eager to take Sedrover home.” Marda turned the femtotube anchor over in her hands. "When should I do it?"
"There is no rush. Inform everyone that Sedrover will soon depart.” Manny frowned and looked at the faces of the three tryp'At. “Some of the crew will not find it easy to decide to leave or stay and some of your children will feel conflicted. The older ones will all decide to stay here. Even the younger one will want to return here."
Marda made a sad chuckling sound. “I suppose my daughter will stay here. She knows who her parents are, but she does not seem to care.”
Manny placed a hand on Marda's shoulder. "The human colonists have mostly lost interest in Sedrover. They will be sad to see it go, and sad to see you go, but you will return. They will have an excuse for a big party when you return." She paused. "Not that they ever really need an excuse for a party." Manny began releasing her nanite components and she started to become transparent.
There was something in Manny's tone that Marda filed away for later consideration.
Manny looked at Marda for a moment with an expression Marda could not quite read. "I approve of that experiment," she said. "I look forward to learning if the telepathic humans of Asha will care about anything beyond this world." Then between one moment and the next, Manny was gone.
The T2 replicoid looked at the empty space where Manny had been. "She knows the future of this Simulation. There is something important she isn't telling us, as usual."
"Yes, that is Manny. She always expects us to figure things out for ourselves." Marda kissed first T3 passionately on the lips then pecked gently on T2's cheek. She closed her fingers tightly around the femtotube anchor and headed for the hatch. "I'll tell the crew and the humans that Sedrover is going home, to Earth."
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| Marda and Surty. Image generated by Gemini. |
Surty had told Marda, “I've been adopted by Aymy and Tyna, just as you predicted. They'll take good care of my while you visit Earth.”
Marda had told Surty telepathically: I'll be back soon, my love. You can call this an adoption by Aymy, but I plan to be back in less than a year.”
Just minutes before the scheduled departure time, Lori stood at the base of the Sedrover entrance ramp with Tarynon. The child had and interesting combination of her mother's eyes and those of Tynyo and a quality of attention that always made Marda wonder where Tarynon's already impressive telepathic abilities might peak.
Tarynon could see into Marda's thoughts, but she enjoyed taking trips onboard Sedrover and did not like what she saw in Marda's mind. "Won't Sedrover come back?" Tarynon asked.
"Maybe someday," Marda told her. "But I have not heard that anyone has seen that in a vision of the future. I hope that the people of Asha will build their own spaceship... but that's a project for when I return."
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| Marda using the femtotube. Image generated by Gemini. |
"Yes. That orange 'star' is an entire world... Yrmya," Marda said. "Another habitable world located in this star system. Another whole planet, full of adventures waiting for you, just beyond your reach."
Tarynon looked at the evening sky where Yrmya was just becoming visible as a faint orange point of light above the western hills, then looked back at Marda with the expression of someone who was being politely patient with an annoying adult. "It is so unfair. We won't even be able to reach Jerash when Sedrover is gone," she said simply.
Marda hugged Tarynon, “So, if you want to collect more specimens from Jerash you better attend your class sessions and learn and plan to work with me to build a flyer when I return. We can start simple with an anti-gravity aircar. T3 knows how to build on just like Tyhry's original flying car on Earth.”
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| Sedrover. Image generated by Gemini. |
Then, in absolute silence over the course of the next four hours, Sedrover and its contents systematically dissolved into their zeptite components and ceased to exist on Asha. A few of the colonists including T3 watched, holding hands, until the last shimmer faded and the landing apron held nothing but the warm night air.
In the hangar on Earth, Sedrover reassembled from its zeptite components and was then ready to return to the task of exploring the galaxy.
Scene 2: Years of the Quiet World
From Marda's research log, Year 12 of the Asha Simulation.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
In contrast, there seems to be absolutely no reproductive barrier between Tynyo and Lori. Lori just gave birth to her tenth child; my gene sequencer revealed that six of them have inherited the special Ek'col NOTCH2NL variant from Tynyo.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
Population note. The reproductive rate for the humans is below the rate that I originally projected. I'm investigating contributing factors. No obvious health issues detected. This might be due to all of the enthusiastic sex-play that Naseh has with me and other tryp'At. It almost seems that Lori is trying to make up for Naseh's lower fertility. Lori refuses to breast feed her children, which allows her to string together pregnancies one after another. Her children are willing to breast feed from anyone who is lactating and in general all of the children on Asha treat all of the adults as their parents.
I'm forcing Tarynon to do most of the work on the flying car that we are building, so progress is slow.
From Marda's research log, Year 24.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
I have been trying to understand the low population growth rate. The telepathic adults of Asha do not appear to have reduced their reproductive activity in any measurable way. Tarynon is quite sexually active, but she uses contraception and has proclaimed that she intends to wait until she is older before having children. She knows that she is immortal and she is in no hurry to make babies. She and I are now making plans for how to build a spaceship that can reach Yrmya. Tarynon does not want me bringing spaceship components in from Earth. She want's to learn how to make everything here on Asha.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
When I have asked about this, the answers I receive are consistent: "We know." They say it without drama, without anxiety, with the same tone one might use to say that the beans are ready for harvesting. They know. I've discovered an additional reproductive constrain among the children of Tynyo and Naseh who inherited two of the special NOTCH gene variants from their parents. They have some conscious access to the Sedron Time Stream which links them to the future and appears to be providing them with a dim but real sense of the family they will eventually have. They simply view the process of having children as something for the future. They prefer to spend their time playing and participating in the many artistic pursuits that have become integral to life on Asha.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
The artistic output of the colony continues to be extraordinary. The weavers of Ashapor have developed a textile manufacturing process that makes beautiful clothing. In winter, there are flamboyant pageants for showing-off the clothing that is made, but most of the year everyone is naked. The music is remarkable. Last night Tynyo led a gathering in a performance that I am fairly certain would reduce any audience on Earth to tears. I sat in the back and watched and tried to remember that I was here as a scientist.
I mostly failed. Every artificial surface on Asha is decorated with paintings, carvings, sculpture or woven hangings.
From Marda's research log, Year 38:
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
I could take Timton to Earth, as I once did for Tarynon, but I know that Timton be terrified to walk among the people of Earth, their minds all closed to him.
I think what Timton actually wants is not to visit Earth. I think he wants to know if Earth is real. The younger colonists — those born here who have never seen any other world — have a complicated relationship with the concept of the Simulation. They know they are inside a Simulation, because we have told them. Most of them believe us. But "believing" and "feeling it as real" are different things, and for the Asha-born, the Simulation is simply their world. It is warm and it has good food and it is full of people they love. The epistemological question of whether it is a Simulation does not, in their daily experience, seem to matter very much.
I've traced the general belief among the humans that they can delay having children to the tryp'At, including my own children. Surty has had visions from her future and she has telepathically shared those visions with the human children. It may have been a mistake to have so many tyrp'At here on Asha, helping the humans get established on this world. I suspect that this is something that Manny learned from this simulation and that is why Manny crafted a new type of tryp'At to send to Asha in the Final Reality.
From Marda's research log, Year 52:
I have identified two students who are worth noting.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
The second is Veth, a young woman of nineteen who is Tarynon's close friend and an active member of the Exploers Club. She came to me for tutoring in astronomy because she is interested in the night sky. She has become obsessed with Yrmya. "Why is it a different color than the other lights?" she asked me, and when I explained that it was a planet, a whole other world orbiting the same sun as Asha, she went quiet for a very long time and then said, "I want to go there."
I told her that building a ship to reach Yrmya was exactly what I had been hoping someone would want to do. The spaceship building project has been arduous. There are so many technical processes we have had to re-created from scratch here on Asha. Tarynon has always insisted that this spaceship be a product of Asha's ingenuity, not a product rolled off an assembly line on Earth.
It is hard work for Tarynon and Veth, but even after Veth realized just how hard, she has not yet stopped wanting to explore Yrmya.
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
The following conversation is one that I had with Oryen and Veth in Year 60 of the Asha telepathy experiment. It took place at our little observatory on the roof of the research laboratory which had been built off of the west end of the school house. It was after sunset, with Yrmya hanging in the western sky like a small orange lantern.
"Here is the challenge I want to put to you," I said. She had thought carefully about how to frame this. She had thought about it for years. "Yrmya is habitable. When Tarynon was young, we flew Sedrover to Yrmya and ran every sensor analysis available to us and all the data suggest that it will support human life. It is colder than Asha, but it has breathable air and plenty of water. For decades, Tarynon and I have worked with other tryp'At to prepare all of the materials and engineering processes needed to get us to Yrmya. I want you two to help us build that spacecraft."
Oryen looked at Yrmya. "What resources do we actually have on hand, ready to use?"
"Everything that Tarynon has assembled during the past four decades. You have available to you the materials, equipment, my help and the help of the other Sedrover crew members and access to everything they and I know about spacecraft engineering from having helped build Sedrover." I looked at both of them. "What I cannot do is build it for you. The point of this project is for the people of Asha to build it themselves."
Veth said, immediately, "I'm willing to start tomorrow... but... how many of you did it take to build Sedrover?"
“There were about twenty of us working full time.”
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
I knew that the humans of Asha has begun calling themselves the Ash. In their minds, they were the remnants of Humanity that could be obtained by burning away all of the errors and idiocy of Earth. "Yes," I said. "You would. That is the major part of the challenge."
They looked at each other. Veth was already planning. Oryen was already calculating the difficulty of what I had just described. Both of them understood, with the particular clarity that comes from being immersed in a telepathic community, that getting other residents of Asha interested in building a spaceship was going to be the harder problem by far.
From Marda's research log, Year 72:
Twelve years since I issued the Yrmya challenge to Oryen and Veth. Progress report:
Oryen and Veth have recruited five additional engineers and builders. This group, which they have named the Yrmya Circle, meets three times a week in the workshop adjacent to the research laboratory. In twelve years they have designed a credible spacecraft and begun fabrication of several key components. At the current pace of work, a functional prototype could be completed in perhaps another twenty years, with the additional assistance from we tryp'At.
Twenty years. For a project that I had hoped would capture the imagination of the entire colony.
Everyone in the broader Asha community knows about the Yrmya Circle and is supportive in the way that people are supportive of a neighbor's unusual hobby: with genuine warmth, occasional questions, and no personal desire to participate. Yrmya is visible on clear nights. I have heard the colonists refer to it sometimes as "Oryen's star," with affectionate pride in their community's eccentric engineer.
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| Figure 4. Image generated by Gemini. |
I have been trying to understand this for years. I think I am beginning to.
The telepathic bonds of Asha are deep and rich and genuinely beautiful. What I have watched develop here over seventy years is a form of human community that is, in many ways, more connected and more humane than anything I have seen on Earth. When someone has a problem on Asha, the whole community knows it and gathers around, ready to solve the problem. When someone creates something beautiful, the pleasure of it ripples outward through the telepathic network like a stone dropped in still water. Nobody is ever truly alone here. Nobody is ever truly unknown.
But nobody is ever truly surprised, either.
In the case of building a spaceship, most of the Ash view that as a distraction that I have created. It is not viewed as a problem that the Ash need to solve.
The future that the Sedron Time Stream quietly whispers to these people is not detailed. It is not a map. It is more like a warmth in a particular direction, a gentle certainty that the people they love will still be there tomorrow and the day after. For the people of Asha, that certainty does not feel like a cage. It feels like home.
What it does not feel like is a reason to get into a spacecraft and fly toward an orange light.
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| Figure 5. Image generated by Gemini. |
Scene 3: Marda and Tarynon
Asha Simulation, Year 84
Ely, Tarynon and Marda sat on a long log bench at the community fire pit where the annual solstice bon fire was held. This was the spot where the Sedrover had first landed on Asha. Out on the lake, a fishing boat moved through the lingering mist of the early morning, its electric motor churning out a stream of foam. From somewhere inside the settlement, someone was enthusiastically playing a stringed instrument. Marda telepathically identified the player and then several other instruments joined in.
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| Tarynon. Image generated by Gemini. |
"You wanted to talk about numbers again," Tarynon said.
"Population numbers," Marda said. "Yes. But those numbers are just the canary in the coal mine. The bigger problem is our failed attempt to build a spaceship here on Asha."
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| Marda and Tarynon. Image generated by Gemini. |
"The original projection assumed a growth rate based on a community of healthy, long-lived adults with no resource constraints. You natives of Asha have everything you need." Marda looked at the tall trees that now shaded the oldest buildings of the settlement. "I'd expected the population to be growing much faster than it is. I'd hoped the spaceship would have been built by now."
"We know the families will grow... at Asha speed," Tarynon said, gently. "It is hard to explain the Ash to someone who isn't born into a community of telepaths. It isn't that we don't want children. We love our children. But when a family feels complete, it feels complete in a way that is... very convincing."
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| Tarynon's vision of Asha's future. Image generated by Gemini. |
Tarynon looked at the lake for a long time. Two more boats moved slowly out on the lake. The mist was gone. Sweet music continued in the settlement, restful, like the sound of bees in the orchards.
"I see this," she said at last. "Much more of this.... spreading slowly around the world. More people, more villages, more gardens, more music. A community of telepaths, growing deeper and more complex over time. The spaceship will get built, just not soon enough for you." She paused. "Is that wrong?"
"It's not wrong," Marda said carefully. "It's beautiful, actually. What you've built here is genuinely beautiful. But I want to ask you about Yrmya. You used to want to go there."
Tarynon smiled, and the smile contained a warmth that Marda recognized as the specific sign people show when they are being patient with someone who keeps returning to the same question. "Oryen and Veth are making progress. Charging off on adventures is a game for the young."
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
"People here are not incurious," Tarynon said, with a slight edge that Marda had never heard from her before. "We simply have different goals that feel more important to us. How to be better partners to the people we love. How to make music better. Important things like that." She turned to face Marda. "Are those really of lesser importance than going to a distant, cold world?"
"No," Marda said, and meant it. "They are not lesser goals. I've studied this community for eighty years and I can see clearly what you value and I understand why." She stopped. Then, with the honesty that had always characterized her relationship with Tarynon: "But I am afraid that it is not sufficient. Not for what the future of humanity requires."
Tarynon was quiet. Her telepathic bond to Marda was deep enough that she understood, without being told, that Marda was not criticizing the people of Asha. She was worried about something larger. Something that Marda herself was not certain how to name.
"Tell me what you plan to do," Tarynon said.
"First, it is not really my plan. I taught you this long ago. There are millions of habitable worlds in the galaxy. The plan — the very long plan, that began before you existed — is for humans to spread to those worlds. Not because the bumpha want us to. Because humans won the right to that great adventure, through our own history, at great cost." Marda paused and thought about the Time Travel War. "That plan requires humans who want to explore. Who feel the pull of what they don't yet know. Who look at a light in the sky and think: I have to find out what is there." She looked at Tarynon. "The Ash community looks at Yrmya and thinks: we have Asha. And Asha is enough."
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
"I think that telepathic access to the Sedron Time Stream and the early development of telepathic ability, caused by giving newborns a G-sim, efficiently removes the kind of uncertainty that makes people want to explore. The children still have curiosity. They still have creativity. But they don't have the productive anxiety of genuinely not knowing what comes next. And my guess is, that productive anxiety might be exactly what sends people toward unknown worlds."
Tarynon looked at the lake. The music from the settlement had stopped and then started again, a different piece now, more complex. Out among the garden rows, children were singing while they cleared away weeds.
The sun comes up orange,
the lake comes up gold,
I can
hear you dreaming before you're awake,
I can feel you laughing
across the lake.
We sing our songs when the stars come bright,
We know each
other the whole way through,
I know your heart and you know mine
too.
"What will you change?" Tarynon asked.
"I don't know yet," Marda said, honestly. "I need to consult with Tyhry. The original Tyhry, who is on Asha of the Final Reality. I think it is time for us to discuss what has been observed here." Marda paused. "I may want to try something different... not providing a G-sim at birth, but later, when a child is old enough to have developed their own relationship with the unknown."
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| Figure 6. Ely and Tarynon. Image generated by Gemini. |
Tarynon absorbed this in silence. Then she asked, in a voice that was careful and a little anxious: "Will children without a birth G-sim be able to bond telepathically with their parents when they are young? It is such a sweet thing... I would not want to give that up."
"That's one of the things I need to discuss with Tyhry. I don't want to take away the early bond between a mother and an infant. That bond is precious." Marda looked at Tarynon. "I am not sure yet what the right answer is. But I think the Asha Simulation has taught me what one wrong answer looks like, and I am grateful for that, even if it is not the result I hoped for."
Tarynon nodded slowly. She reached out and took Marda's hand and held it, as she had done sometimes since she was a small child. Her telepathic mind pattern was warm and clear and complicated with things she was still processing. After a while she said, "Maybe by the time you come back we will have built a spaceship."
"I hope so," Marda said. "I promise I'll be back as soon as possible. And Tarynon — I want you to know something. Whatever we decide to change in later generations, it will not be because what you have here is a failure. It is not a failure. It is a particular answer to a particular question, and it is a good answer to that question. It is just not the right answer to Manny the bumpha's question."
Tarynon squeezed Marda's hand and released it. She told Ely, “I know why you don't show yourself among the Ash. You are so cold, so distant.”
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| Figure 7. Image generated by Gemini. |
Marda stood. "I'm going to exit through the femtotube later this morning and return to Earth of the Final Reality. I need to find Tyhry and discuss the results of this experiment, so far."
"She is on Asha," Tarynon said. "The real one. How will you reach her?"
"Yes. The real one." Marda gazed at Tarynon, eighty years old and eternally young and woven into the fabric of this warm, still, beautiful world like a thread that belonged exactly where it was. "If I have to teleport to Tyhry's Asha I might be away for a long time."
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| Figure 8. Marda and Ely. Image generated by Gemini. |
Marda took one last walk through the settlement with Ely, past the gardens and among the children who they both felt were deficient. Ely said, “This is all wrong, but it is pleasant to live here.”
Marda slapped Ely on the back. “Enjoy it while you can. When I return, changes will be made. I'll bring a sense of struggle and adventure to this world, even at the cost of lost tranquility.”
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| Image generated by Gemini. |
Marda instantly arrived back in Tyhry's nanotechnology research laboratory in the Ekcolir Reality Simulation. Anthony's replicoid was at a workbench, studying a complex sample of mixed hierion-hadron composite obtained from the Fru'wu, and he looked up when Marda arrived. On his face the particular expression he used when he expected a horny tryp'At to engage him in sex-play.
"Anthony," Marda said. "I'd love to play, but I'm going to Casanay."
"Of course," he said. And Marda popped herself out of the Ekcolir Reality Simulation and returned to the Final Reality.
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| Marda, Anthony and T2. Image generated by Gemini. |
End Chapter 5
I had Gemini make some "storybook" images to illustrate Chapter 5, above. Sometimes the images that come from the imagination of Gemini are impressive; for example, see the huge ocean-going Sedrover in Figure 1. Both Claude and Gemini imagined the population of Asha growing faster than I did. That's quite a large and densely built-up village in Figure 2. Gemini got into the spirit of having fun with Manny's har (see Figure 3). Gemini also played around with the appearance of Marda, even giving her a tail (see Figure 4).
For the Gemini-generated image shown in Figure 5, there are two copies of Ely the Grendel. Maybe the real, original Ely gets to carry the staff with the cool blue crystal. Gemini really seemed to get into making images of Ely (see the images in Figures 6 - 8).
Next: plans for Chapter 6 of "Plūribus ē Spatium".
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| Images by WOMBO Dream, Gemini and Leonardo. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers |
