With a
big dollop of infites recently arriving in my head, it is inevitable that some old memories are now bubbling to the surface.
Zeta spent many years watching me from her location within the
Hierion Domain, so she was aware of how I was programmed to efficiently carry out my function as
the Editor. It makes perfect sense that Zeta's sister
Yōd would have been briefed on my past by receiving a set of infites from Zeta. In the fullness of Time, eventually those infites got handed along to me. Below is an account of an old memory from 1977 that those Zeta/Yōd infites recently shook loose in my head.
___________________________________
Fall of 1977 was an exciting time for me because I was just starting
my university studies. For me, the most dreaded component in my first semester schedule was a mandatory English course. I grew up as a native speaker of English, but it always has seemed like a foreign language to me. According to Zeta, a big chunk of my brain that would normally have been devoted to my language-processing neural network was instead adapted for another function: it allows me to use the
Bimanoid Interface. Such is the cost of being provided with telepathic abilities.
So, language proficiency was sacrificed for telepathy: should I view that as a fair trade? I know that the course of my life would have been entirely different without my ability to use the Interface for technology-assisted telepathy. Zeta, reading this over my shoulder and using our telepathic connection:
You were created and stationed on Earth only because of the need of the tryp'At to have a deeply embedded agent on this world.
Okay. So maybe I would not have ever even existed without my language skills having been degraded and my brain modified to allow me to fulfill my mission on Earth. Back in 1977, I did not know that I am tryp'At and so it was simply an annoyance that I would have to demonstrate my terrible language skills to a university professor. However, I felt like I had found a sneaky way to ease my pain. In the course catalog I had discovered that there actually existed a section of freshman English that was built entirely around science fiction. I was thankful that I would not have to read and pretend to understand literature that had been written by dead people from previous centuries and millennia. Instead, I would be reading stories from a relatively new genre that had been named and developed in the century of my own birth.
It should not be a surprise to anyone that in 1977 my favorite author was Isaac Asimov (although this was about to change). Asimov made a special effort to write in a clear and logical style that did not greatly strain my defective language processing neural network. Zeta again:
Most of your neurons devoted to the Interface are located on the right side of your brain. Your mostly-intact left brain language centers are well suited to processing Asimov's prose. I suppose a detailed description of the tryp'At brain was provided to her as part of Zeta's education. After all, to complete her mission on Earth she had to understand me and help guide the course of my life.
Zeta now speaking: "No, that was my sister's job. I was the backup, the second string player in that game. I only got my hands on you after Alpha departed from Earth."
Be that as it may, Zeta is still my prime suspect. I can't escape the suspicion that it must have been her who visited me in 1977 and left me with a packet of information nanites embedded in my brain. However, it may have been one of her clone sisters. Zeta:
It would not have been difficult for Grean to have disguised herself and tricked you into thinking that you had met a Gohrlay clone.
I told Zeta, "No, I don't buy that. It seems unlikely that Yōd would have ever come into possession of Grean's infites."
Zeta shrugged. "Well, you tell me. Is your memory from 1977 entirely your own? If so, it could have been triggered by something that Yōd knew, even if it was Grean who visited you in 1977."
Zeta is so smart. Smart enough to have been the one who I met in 1977 and still cloud my judgement enough to make me wonder if Grean was involved instead. I feel it is important that the girl who I met in 1977 (she called herself "Bonny") referred to herself as being human and I doubt if a
Kac'hin such as Grean would have done that.
Zeta insisted, "Grean could have lied to you and it is possible that the Kac'hin think of themselves as being a human variant."
Yes, but I know that I was telepathically linked to Bonny via the Bimanoid Interface. In 1977, I could not consciously think about engaging in telepathy, but at a subconscious level I felt like I was connected to Bonny, connected in a way that shocked me and amazed me... for a moment. My shocked amazement did not arrive from being in telepathic contact with an alien Kac'hin... no, I feel certain that my mind was resonating with a human mind. I've recently had lots of experience with that kind of resonance and I know that the pattern of each person's mind is distinct and recognizable. Now, when I think back to 1977 and my recently recovered memories from that year, I feel that I recognize the pattern of Bonny's mind.
Anyhow, enough dithering. Here is what happened in 1977...
During the first week of class, me and my fellow English students had been given a writing assignment that was due on Friday. We were told to write a one page summary account of our favorite science fiction story. That was a fun assignment, and I arrived at the next class session with a feeling of confidence: this English course might not turn into the kind of disaster that all my previous English classes had been!
My newly recovered memories from 1977 are from that Friday. While walking across campus to class that day, I began feeling light on my feet. I don't know how else to describe the change that came over my cognitive system. Through my entire life I have occasionally had the feeling that gravity is weaker than normal. Actually, this usually happens in my dreams and it was unusual for me to experience disruption of my somatic senses while I was awake. I now believe that this kind of strange sensation arises from the reactivation of a memory of those times when my mind has been telepathically linked to my
replicoid in such a way that I feel like I am living inside my replicoid and located within the Hierion Domain. It is a distorted sensory effect that is larger than just a gravitational anomaly: it arises from the effects of my mind temporarily functioning inside a different body.
I now understand that during those times when my mind has been in the Hierion Domain, I was using the Bimanoid Interface so as to make possible technology-assisted telepathy. Now, any time that I start using the Interface, doing so triggers the sensation of low gravity, even if I am here on Earth in my own body. That day in 1977 was a glorious Fall day. Walking across campus on my way to class, I was happy and confident; I now believe that I had actually slipped into some sort of trance-like state induced by someone linking into my mind via the Bimanoid Interface. At the time, I did not notice what was happening to me, but now, while thinking about my newly-revived memory of that day, I can tell that something unusual was happening in my mind, even if it was happening beyond my conscious awareness. I now suspect that Zeta was prowling around in my mind and not being very subtle about it. She had a job to complete on that day; a rather tricky re-programming of my thought processes.
Then, at the start of the Friday class period, our English professor told us to exchange what we had written with a classmate who was sitting beside us. That was how I met "Bonny". In my memory, Bonny was older than I was in 1977. I was 18 and my guess is that she was at least ten years older. However, I now realize that with the use of facial nanites, some visitor to Earth like Zeta could have altered her appearance and her apparent age.
I had already noticed the presence of Bonny as a fellow student in that English class. A striking, if unconventional, beauty clung to her and she was quite tall; I was very much aware that a gorgeous woman was sitting in the seat beside mine even before that class session began.
When the time came, we shared a quick glance and then we wordlessly exchanged our papers and I started reading her homework assignment. I quickly discovered that I already knew what she had written even before I read it. All my attention was on the
format of her writing, which surprised me. The sheet of paper that she handed to me smelled nice, like a mixture of cinnamon, lavender and some weird ester from organic chemistry lab. Here is what Bonny had written:
Star Kings by Bonny Fennland
In 1967 I read the short science fiction novel Star King by Jack Vance and it remains my favorite because of what it tells readers about space aliens. In that story, the Star Kings are a type of alien creature that has been engineered to be almost human in appearance. Vance never tells readers who was responsible for that engineering, but it is suggested that maybe "the people who left ruins on the Fomalhaut planets" were involved. The Star Kings are from a distant planet called Lambda Grus III, but in the future era in which the story is set, it is believed that many alien Star Kings freely live among the human population of Earth and the many other planets that were colonized by humans as they spread outward through the galaxy.
In 1968 I read the book Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past by Erich von Däniken.
I paused my reading at that point, looked up from "Star Kings" and saw that Bonny was already done reading my assignment. Of course, I had hand-written my summary of Asimov's novel
The End of Eternity. In contrast, Bonny's assignment was printed. I could tell that her little essay had not been typed because there was no compression of the paper from having been struck by the type heads of a typewriter. Her beautiful paper had the titles of books spelled out in italics and there was that perfectly printed "ä" in the name "Däniken". The title "Star Kings" was printed in a larger font than was the rest of her assignment. I wondered how Bonny had managed to produce what looked like a professionally printed document. The paper even felt glossy, like a page out of a magazine. The room was quiet and everyone else was still reading. When I looked at her, she asked me, "Have you read anything by Vance?" There was something strange about the way she "spoke" and on that day I simply attributed the weirdness of her "speech" to her having an accent, maybe Australian.
For a moment I was tongue-tied. Bonny's pale, pretty face was partially concealed by her wild mop of dark wavy hair that extended down to her shoulders. Her dark eyes seemed large and intent on drinking in my thoughts and possibly my soul. Looking back into my old and long-suppressed memories of that day, it seems like her lips were not moving when she asked me:
Have you read anything by Vance? I replied:
No, I've never heard of Vance. Now, give me a minute, I'm still reading. Strangely, in my memory of that moment, I did not speak those words out-loud. It was a natural part of my trance-like state to use telepathy with Bonny and do so without even noticing. Now, here in 2018, while I examine my memory, the events of that day seem bizarre and I am surprised that my 1977 self did not even notice that he was in telepathic communication with another person.
Bonny's assignment continued:
The contents of Chariots of the Gods? were presented to the world by von Däniken as an investigation into the facts of human history, but it was easiest for me to read that book as a science fiction story, one that raises similar questions about space aliens as had Vance's story Star King.
The most audacious idea in Star King is the idea that modern humans (of the Cro-Magnon variety) had come into existence about 100,000 years ago on the planet Lambda Grus III. In the Star King story, it is suggested that a tribe of Mousterian Neanderthals had been transported to Lambda Grus III. After evolving on that world and transforming into a new variety of human organism, some of the Neanderthal descendants, now Cro-Magnons, were brought back to Earth.
For me, the interesting question that is raised in Vance's Star King story is this: why had the Earthlings of the 20th century never met the space-traveling beings who first took some Neanderthals to Lambda Grus III and then later brought the newly evolved Cro-Magnons back to Earth? Vance never even tried to provide an explanation for that and Chariots of the Gods? also fails to explain why "ancient astronauts" have often visited Earth in the past and frequently interacted with our ancestors but now they no longer do so. This strange invisibility is a profound and fundamental puzzle for all science fiction story tellers who write about unseen alien visitors to Earth, ancient or contemporary.
That was the end of her short essay. It seems certain to me, here in 2018, that Bonny had already transferred some infites into my brain. Those information nanites held the text of her essay in a form that was made readily accessible to my conscious mind as soon as I saw her homework paper. By the time I had finished reading, the room was noisy with other pairs of students talking about their favorite types of science fiction. Glancing up at the front of the room, I saw that the professor had written our next assignment on the blackboard; for homework we were to work in our newly established teams of two students to write a new, original short story That was due the following week. I told Bonny, "I have read
Chariots of the Gods? and now I'll have to find a copy of
Star King."
Bonny immediately seemed pleased that I wanted to read
Star King. She said, "I'll give you my copy of
Star King, although you might prefer to start with Vance's third book in that series,
The Palace of Love."
I knew nothing about Vance as a story teller, so I tried to shift our conversation towards Asimov. I asked Bonny, "Have you ever read
The End of Eternity?"
Bonny replied, "I sure have." Just then a teaching assistant came by and collected our homework assignments. Bonny continued, "I agree with your view that it is Asimov's best
science fiction novel."
She had put extra emphasis on "science fiction" so I asked, "There is some other type of Asimov story that you prefer over his science fiction?"
Bonny nodded. "I'm a fanatical lover of mystery and Asimov is a great mystery writer. Last year I was bowled over by his newly published self-referential mystery story,
Murder at the ABA."
I admitted, "I only know his science fiction."
Bonny chuckled. "Ya, you were programmed to crave science fiction."
"What do you mean programmed?"
"Oh, nothing much. But imagine the power of nanoscopic devices... the possibility of mind control."
Bonny pointed a finger at me and I felt my mind slide sideways. All my resentments over the idea that I was programmed and my mind controlled faded away. I muttered, "I love stories about mysterious devices, particularly advanced alien technology."
Bonny nodded approvingly. "Here, I'll give you a reading assignment. Go to the university library's science fiction collection and check out
Asimov's Mysteries. Read his stories 'Anniversary' and 'The Key'. You'll enjoy the high tech devices that Asimov wove into those stories."
"Actually, I was offended by how in
The End of Eternity Asimov described the Eternals having access to advanced technologies that were too dangerous to allow being used on Earth."
Bonny asked, "So, you accept Asimov's assertion in
The End of Eternity that all the other alien intelligences of the galaxy would catch up to the technological level of Earthlings if we humans wasted the next few million years playing time travel games?"
I laughed, "No! That's silly, but it does not ruin the story for me. I can easily imagine other reasons why the human addiction to Reality Changes might be broken." At that point I launched into a long, rambling account of why mention of aliens was not needed in
The End of Eternity. I thought I knew how to 'fix' a defect in Asimov's novel and I was determined to subject poor Bonny to the complete details of my contorted scheme for improving Asimov's time travel story. I don't think Bonny could have possibly heard my complex proposal very well over the noise in the classroom.
I must provide some background information. My brain is wired up in such a way that if I begin telling a story, then while I am talking I won't pay attention to incoming sensory information. I can become trapped in the flow of my inner thoughts and not even notice if anyone is still listening to me.
After a few minutes of listening politely to my spiel, Bonny took me by the hand and pulled me to my feet. I grabbed my backpack and found myself quick stepping to keep up with her long strides as be exited from the building. She was quite the tallest girl I'd ever met.
Just being in close proximity to Bonny had been exciting and I'd quickly discovered that it was pleasant to talk to her. The magic of the spell she had cast over me was completed when she took hold of my hand. Her skin was amazingly soft. The surface of her skin seemed slippery, almost like it was covered in oil, but her skin was perfectly dry and clean. Too perfect.
While we strolled across campus, we discussed the Fermi-Hart Paradox and the Drake Equation and we each shared our personal estimate of how many technological civilizations might exist in the galaxy and how far away the closest one might be. I was entirely caught up in the flow of our conversation and not paying attention to where we were walking. I still had the sensation of walking on air, although that might have been caused by my rapidly growing infatuation with Bonny. Within minutes our conversation was flashing out into the depths of space and across the galaxy. Then Bonny finally let go of my hand and she said, "Here's my car."
Now again becoming aware of my surroundings and something other than the amazing Bonny, I noticed that we were in a parking lot and I was standing near a pinkish colored vehicle. I got into her car, an old Ford Galaxie, and I said, "You really are a science fiction fan... driving a Galaxie!"
She laughed, started up the car and told me, "This particular Galaxie was produced in the first model year, 1959."
I had grown up in a family that drove a Galaxie 500 in the late 60s but I'd never realized that the model line had its roots back in the 50s. I remarked, "I had no idea that a Ford could last 20 years in New England with all the salt, sand and rust."
She shrugged, took her right hand off of the wheel and patted the seat between us, "This car has gotten special care." Bonny turned on the radio and "Weekend in New England" was playing. She set her hand back down on the seat between us. Already addicted to the feel of her body, I took hold of her hand. Bonny laced her fingers through mine and I was pleased that she seemed to also enjoy touching me. She had quickly driven us off campus and we were heading up and out of the flood plain that runs along the river. As we ascended into the nearby hills, she pushed a button and the roof of the car retracted. Her hair sailed back, pushed by the wind.
I looked at the profile of her face and I
almost realized how strange it was to meet her that day. Strange. That word did
somersaults in my mind. Looking back into my recently revived memory of her, I now realize that Bonny had the appearance -almost- of my future wife. Wives. Back in 1977, I new nothing of the future and the woman I would one day marry; I was simply enthralled by Bonny and her strange magic. I said, "Bonny with a 'y'. You know, that's not a real name."
She laughed and for a moment took her eyes off the road to look at me. "Ya, so I've been told. When I got around to the task of selecting that name for use during this mission, I had just spent a week studying your preferences. I'd carefully designed my physical features so as to appeal to you and make me be beautiful in your eye. It was a bit of a joke to name myself 'Bonnie' or 'Bonny' and I did not care that my preferred spelling of 'Bonny' was not conventional." Almost as an after-thought she said, "I don't like the name Bella. It sounds like a war, so that was not an option."
She drove on for a while in silence. I was happy to watch her dark hair flow and swirl around her neck. Bonny then added, "I was mostly thinking about the Lynn part of the name, which I had decided to use because Fred Lynn is your favorite baseball player. I guess I liked the two 'y's together."
I was amused by the idea of naming one's self and I did not question it. On that day, Bonny could have told me anything and I would have accepted it. I was that far under her spell.
The radio station's D.J. said, "Next is the hit single from the album Leftoverture by Kansas, 'Carry On Wayward Son'."
Bonny had done something to my brain and I had lost my normal capacity to be surprised by strange occurrences. I could still recognize when I was being told something new, but my response was simple child-like wonder and a desire to learn new things. I guess my fear of the unknown had been completely quieted when Bonny connected her mind to mine that day. In essence, I was a zombie, ready to be programmed by her. Watching her, but noticing the wooded hills zip past, I asked, "Where are we going?"
"Back to my place. I want to show you my book collection. You can pick out a Vance novel to read. It is important that you start reading Vance's work. I think we should use a Vance theme for our homework assignment."
I liked Bonny (well, that is a silly understatement... having known her for almost half an hour, I was well on my way to falling in love with her) and I was pleased with the idea that we could collaborate as a team to write a short story. I was not comfortable with the idea of writing a story that was inspired by Vance since I knew nothing about the man. I asked, "What is so special about this guy, Vance?"
Bonny shook her head. "Ya, this was so much easier in the Ekcolir Reality... there, female story tellers dominated science fiction and there was even a female analogue of Vance. I've read the statistical chronodynamic proof of why this Reality had to be male-dominated, but you are not interested in that. We can't have you questioning why it is that you are male."
I laughed. "You say the strangest things, but somehow they make sense."
Bonny explained, "You should relax and enjoy yourself. For the rest of this weekend just soak in what I tell you. I'm preparing you for the role you must play in order to stabilize the Pact."
I repeated, "The Pact."
Bonny winced. "Forget I mentioned that. Let's keep our attention on the homework assignment and the process by which you will become familiar with Vance's stories."
I suggested, "It would be more logical to start with Asimov. After all, we've both read his work. I love his idea of positronic robots."
Bonny gave a little sigh of exasperation. "Back in the 40s, when Asimov started writing robot stories, he was caught up in the Momentum of Time and overly optimistic about robots." Bonny shook her head slowly. "He was out of sync with this Reality."
I repeated that word: "Reality."
She casually said, "Ya, Asimov was a better fit for the Ekcolir Reality, where technology was accelerating at a slightly quicker pace than here in this Reality."
I repeated, "The Ekcolir Reality." I was well aware of how Asimov had used the technical term 'Reality' in
The End of Eternity. I muttered, "Asimov only wrote about the Mallansohn Reality."
Bonny corrected me, "He wrote about many Realities, but so far you only know the name of the Mallansohn Reality. In the Ekcolir Reality, science fiction was dominated by women and the stories could be much more explicit about the role that space aliens have played in the history of Humanity. Take Carolyn Cherry for example."
I had never heard that name. "Who?"
"You recently read her novel,
Brothers of Earth. She used C. J. Cherryh as a pen name."
"Oh, yes. An amusing story, but I think she was lazy. I don't like it when writers design the cultures of distant planets as mere reflections of human cultures from Earth's past."
"Well, in the Ekcolir Reality, Carolyn wrote a much more interesting book called
The Gods of Earth, full-on ancient astronauts and right up your alley. Sadly, writing that sort of story has to be much more tightly regulated here in this Reality." Bonny slowed the car and turned off the road. We went slowly down
a long driveway that led towards an old farm house and barn then continued on past.
On the radio, "Let Your Love Flow" by the Bellamy Brothers started playing. I had no idea who Ekcolir was, nor did I care about the details of the Ekcolir Reality for more than just a minute before my thought pattern was adjusted. Forty years later, I now realize that Bonny could not explain everything to me; her mission for that day was quite narrowly focused on adjusting my reading habits. It was going to take decades for me to reach the point where I could make sense of the Ekcolir Reality and the grand sweep of Deep Time.
We passed by the farm house and a group of cows grazing in a pasture and entered into a forest. Bonny drove carefully down the narrow driveway, which for a distance seemed almost like a tunnel through the trees that grew close to either side. Ignoring the idea of past Realities, I argued with Bonny about robots, a topic that I did care about.
"You don't like Asimov's robot stories?"
Bonny shrugged. "Sadly, in the robot stories of this Reality, the whole idea of a positronic brain is treated just like mumbojumbo and all we get is hand-waving rather than technical details. That's frustrating for someone like me who knows the truth about positronics."
I asked, "What do you think about very large scale integration? It seems to me that we are entering into a new era of transistor miniaturization, exactly like what Asimov imagined with his positronics."
The golden leaves of a low-hanging tree branch brushed our heads. Bonny pushed the control toggle and the car's retractable roof came back up. She explained, "In the Ekcolir Reality, transistors were invented a few decades earlier. Asimov became
one of the first science writers to explain transistorized circuits and
computers to the public. But the pace of scientific advance was
retarded here in this Reality. I find it painful to read Asimov's robot stories, knowing that they do not really fit in with this Reality." We emerged from the forest at the top of a ridge. Green pasture land stretched away down slope, off towards the east.
Reaching the end of that very long driveway, we parked in front of a relatively new house, maybe "only" about 100 years old. It had been beautifully restored and rebuilt as a modern residence. I got out of the car and examined the fancy tile work in the terminal loop of the drive way; it was laid out in a stylized galactic spiral.
Bonny came around the Galaxie and put her toe at the center of the spiral. "I was born on a world in the Galactic Core." She again took my hand, pulling me away from my admiration of the driveway tiles and lead me to the front door of the house. As we approached the doorway, I saw metal letters above, spelling out "Fennland Farm". The door swung open and I could see a very tall man standing inside. I assumed it was Bonny's father and I said, "Hello Mr. Fennland."
Bonny went quickly through the doorway and jumped at the tall man. He caught her up in his arms like he was holding a small child. After their brief shared hug during which her feet were off the floor, he set Bonny back down. She pulled me inside the house and said, "This is just Cal." With a bit of sadness in her voice, she said quietly, "My parents never got to visit Earth."
Cal closed the door and seemed to be gazing down upon me with suspicion. He must have been over seven feet tall. Cal asked, "Will there be two for dinner, Miss Bonny?" His voice was deep and he was dressed formally, almost as if in uniform, but in a style that I did not recognize.
Bonny now had both of her hands on my arm. She asked me, "Won't you stay?" She actually seemed a little bit nervous, as if fearful that I might say 'no'. "We can work together on the homework assignment tonight."
The house was full of wonderful odors, including what smelled like baking apple pie. More importantly, I was totally captivated by Bonny. With Cal there looming over us, I might have been intimidated, but I could sense that Bonny was either nervous or just naturally shy. She did not mind revealing her uncertainties and vulnerabilities to me and I knew that deep inside she was a sweet and gentle person who shared my interests in science fiction. I was feeling very comfortable and happy with her leaning against me and I decided to tease her. I replied to Bonny's question, "Alternatively, we could go back and eat on campus at the dinning commons."
Bonny laughed, "I'm sure Cal's cooking is far better than what you get at the DC."
Bonny's face was only inches from my own and I was feeling like a floating feather on the breeze. I had recently read an article about the powerful x-ray source Cygnus X-1, what was almost certainly a black hole. Now I imagined that I was falling into the sparking black holes that were Bonny's eyes. "I'd be happy to join you here for dinner," I glanced questioningly up at Cal's face, "As long as it is not an imposition."
Bonny told Cal, "Two it will be!" She asked Cal, "What were you planning to prepare?"
Cal replied, "My traditional Friday fish dinner."
Bonny squeezed my arm, "You'll love the way Cal prepares trout." She pulled me towards the stairway that led up to the second floor of her home. "Now, for Vance..."
From halfway up the stairs, I glanced down at Cal, whose eyes followed me suspiciously. I tried to imagine the origin of his strange accent, which seemed almost like an unknown eastern European accent. When he spoke, his words popped out very slowly and precisely, like he had only recently learned English. From my perspective here in 2018, I can tell that I was never in telepathic contact with Cal back in 1977. My semi-conscious sense of some lurking presence in my mind was a manifestation of Bonny and her efforts to guide me safely into the future.
As soon as we reached the top of the stairway and passed out of Cal's range of vision, Bonny put her arms around me and gently kissed my cheek. She whispered in my ear, "Thank you for staying."
I put a hand on the back of Bonny's head and for a dozen seconds I was captivated by the feel of her soft hair against the skin of my hand and my face. Finally I mumbled, "Why would I ever leave you?"
She explained her self-doubt, "I wasn't sure that you would like me... and tolerate Cal."
I know now that I was in telepathic contact with Bonny and I suspect that she had quickly loaded up my mind with information nanites that day. Whatever the source of the information flow, I knew that Bonny was a kind of Time Technician. I said, "Well, I suspect that you have seen our future... that you knew we would be here now, right here, with our arms around each other."
Bonny made no attempt to deny her knowledge of the future. "The problem is, the future is contested. I'm trying to make the Pact become a success, but there is no consensus about exactly how to shape the Final Reality. Someone could step in and disrupt my plan. You could ruin everything if you started making difficulties tonight."
"I feel like you can stop worrying. " I tightened the circle of my arms around her. "I've fallen completely under your spell and even my jealousy over Cal can't change my desire to get to know you and my curiosity about Mr. Vance."
"Don't be jealous of Cal."
I held her at arm's length and looked into her lovely eyes. I asked, "You live here, just the two of you, together?"
"This is my base of operations for my mission on Earth. Cal is my assistant. He prepared this safe house before my arrival and he will clean up and remove all traces of me after I complete my work on this world."
My mind had started swirling with questions about Bonny's origins and the details of her mission on Earth, but then my thoughts were suddenly diverted into a new path; a cognitive mode dominated by burning curiosity and an inescapable need to discover everything that Bonny knew about science fiction in general and Jack Vance in particular. Bonny was deep in my mind:
Let me introduce you to the alternate Reality of Vance.....
Most of the second floor had been remodeled into a library. The walls were covered by well-stocked shelves of books. There were several big comfortable chairs, a couch, a small writing desk and a larger table. Bonny pulled my backpack off my shoulder and she tossed it into a big leather chair. She turned and went to one of the shelves, "Here is my collection of Vance's works." Selecting from among the many books by Vance, she pulled three thin paperback novels off of a shelf. "These are the three novels in the Star King series, but in time there will be two more." She handed the books to me and I noticed that a sly little grin had curled her lips.
I looked at the cover of
The Killing Machine and asked, "Is this a machine or a bug?"
Bonny explained, "That is supposed to be a mechanical replica of a giant multi-legged creature that lives on a far planet called Thamber."
I commented, "Interesting... Asimov wrote about robots in human form. Vance imagined robots in the form of giant insects?"
Bonny explained, "It is not an autonomous machine. It is a vehicle, designed to carry a dozen human passengers inside and be controlled by a human driver. In the story, it functions more like a Trojan Horse or a tank than a robot."
I muttered, "I took this particular English class so that I would not have to deal with Trojans or Athenians or any literature older than the science fiction stories of the 1920s."
"Don't worry!" She gestured towards the books that I held. "These stories are set more than a thousand years in our future."
I was ready to learn everything about Vance and his writing. I asked innocently, "Our future?"
"Well, almost." Bonny paused briefly, apparently at a loss for how to effectively communicate with someone like me who knew nothing about the sequence of recent Realities in Deep Time. "Actually, Vance's stories were inspired by events in the Asimov Reality, which came just before the Ekcolir Reality. In the Asimov Reality, Earthlings were given early access to interstellar space drive technology. That allowed the many Earth-like planets of the galaxy to become sites for human genetics experiments and the creation of new human variants such as the tryp'At."
I examined the cover illustration for
The Palace of Love. "I'm seeing insects everywhere. Even the Palace of Love looks like it has bug legs growing out of it."
Bonny shook her head in dismay, "That cover is by Richard Power who also did some cover art for a few of Asimov's books." She pulled a copy of
David Starr: Space Ranger off of a nearby shelf. "This one is by Asimov, writing as Paul French."
"I own a newer edition of the
Space Ranger
story with cover art by Bruce Pennington, one that has Asimov's real name on it."
Bonny said, "Just imagine if
Space Ranger had become a popular television program like
Star Trek."
I shook my head, "I can't imagine that." I was somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had even read Asimov's space ranger books. "I still find it hard to believe that Asimov wrote so many David Starr stories. I much prefer his mainstream writings."
There was no way I could deceive Bonny. "Still, you did read the David Star books. All of them."
"Yes, I did."
"Asimov knew what he was doing. He introduced a new generation of budding astronomers to the solar system and also put an end to silly planetary adventures set on Mars and Venus."
I pointed to the 1974 edition of
The Oceans of Venus that was there on the shelf. I commented, "Sadly, Asimov imagined an ocean on Venus. By the time I read this book, it was known that the surface of Venus is hot and dry, crushed under a heavy greenhouse atmosphere."
"Writing about the solar system in the 1950s, Asimov did the best he could to combine fun space adventures with astronomical reality."
I was impressed by Bonny's seemingly vast knowledge of science fiction. I looked at all the books there in that room and asked, "Have you read every one of these books?"
Bonny wandered along the shelves, occasionally reaching out and touching a favorite book. "My mind can quickly receive and process entire books that have been encoded in the form of information nanites. Reading is too slow. She turned and looked at me. I was about to ask her a question about nanites but my desire to do so died almost immediately. "Both Asimov and Vance have written in many genres, and written some things just for children, but I think we should pay attention to the fact that they are both attracted to mystery stories. Don't you think that good science fiction is always a mystery story?" Bonny re-shelved the copies of
David Starr: Space Ranger as well as
Star King and
The Killing Machine, leaving me holding
The Palace of Love. "Start with that one; it should appeal to a biologist... it involves human cloning."
Bonny grabbed the copy of the
The Palace of Love out of my hands and put it on top of my backpack then she led me to a another shelf. She took down a book and handed it to me; the title was
The Gods of Earth. "This was Carolyn's first published novel in the Ekcolir Reality. It tells how the bumpha and the pek created humans and our replacements, the Prelands. It is a time travel story, mostly set in the ancient Aegean."
I saw that there were dozens of books on that shelf authored by Cherryh. I muttered, "I had no idea that she's written so many books."
Bonny explained, "Here in this Reality, her publishing career is just getting started. These are her books from the Ekcolir Reality."
I opened
The Gods of Earth and started reading. Bonny said, "Let's get started on the homework. You can read this later." She took the book out of my hands.
She tossed
The Gods of Earth onto the big wooden table in the middle of the library.
"You can read this while you are here, but I can't let you take this book with you, its not from this Reality."
We sat down at the table and Bonny started writing on a piece of paper. She spoke while she wrote: "Even
The End of Eternity is a mystery story. Asimov keeps readers guessing right to the last page of the novel." I saw that she had written in large letters: '
Mystery of the Future' at the top of the sheet of paper.
Bonny said, "
The End of Eternity is a novel with several twists and turns." She placed her hand on top of mine. "Do you think we can write a science fiction mystery story that is far shorter, just a few pages, within the specifications for our homework assignment?"
I confessed, "I've never really thought about the necessary elements of a mystery story."
She said, "You don't like mystery."
I shrugged. "Don't put words in my mouth. Artificially constructed mystery -and dishonesty- annoy me. I prefer knowledge to mystery... I guess that is what attracts me to science."
Bonny squeezed my hand, "Mystery is all around us, all we need to do this evening is just write it down."
I was staring rather intently at Bonny. "You are the mystery."
She smiled and winked at me. She nodded and said, "Very good. The central mystery is: why does Bonny Fennland show up and bring the fiction of Jack Vance to your attention?" Once more she wrote on the paper...
The mysterious Bonny began the story: "The distant worlds that are described in Jack Vance's stories are the actual worlds that we humans will eventually discover in outer space: they are out there in the galaxy, waiting for us."
Reading what she had written, I laughed. "Wait, you want to make our homework story be self-referential?"
"Why not? I love stories that feature their authors as characters."
"You want us to write you into the story, not even changing your name?"
"What's wrong with my name? I selected a name that would attract your attention and be of interest to you." Bonny seemed to stare off into space for just a moment. "The importance of my mission is two-fold; first, to interest you in Vance's stories and secondly, to let you know that it is possible to write about the truth and pass off what you have written as fiction. So just forget about my silly name."
"There is nothing wrong with the name, really. I just think it is a bit odd. Part of my problem is that I can't think about the name 'Fennland' without thinking about baseball."
Bonny laughed. "I hope you don't want to include baseball in our science fiction story."
"No, but I enjoy baseball. Did you ever play?"
Bonny scrunched up her nose. "Ug. Hitting balls? There are much better games to play with balls, but don't distract me." She put a hand on my thigh. "We need to get our work done this evening."
I laughed and shook my head. "Fine. The rest of this evening is all yours..." I placed my hand on her thigh. "...but I'm planning a mound visit for shortly after midnight."
Bonny put her hands under her small round breasts, jiggled them and said, "I play for the Twins. Which mound do you have your eye on?"
"So you do follow the sport." I asked, "Who do you think will win the pennant?"
Bonny heaved a great sigh. "The Yankees will win, but who in their right mind would listen to my opinion? I don't really understand baseball any better than you understand cricket."
I shook my head. "Completely unimportant. I listen and I believe you." Somehow it seemed obvious to me that Bonny had already seen the outcome of the ballgame and had viewed our future. "I'm totally enthralled and dazzled by your miraculous appearance in my life, Miss Bonny. Just tell me one thing... that you aren't only teasing me with your beauty and all the attention that you are paying to me."
Bonny giggled and played a bit with her hair, wrapping a strand around her finger. "I am teasing you and manipulating your emotions so that I can have your complete attention. Believe me, from my side it is not easy to program your memory system in this way. My other option was to simply program you with a new layer of infites, but there is no fun to be had in that. I fully intend to get all sweaty and intimate with you before this weekend is over. That will be fun. But I have to warn you... you won't be allowed to remember our love making. In a few years you must fully imprint on your wife, and nothing we do together can be allowed to interfere with that. And our joy of sharing our bodies can't be allowed to distract me from completing my mission this evening." Bonny picked up my hand, pulled it to her lips and she kissed the back of my hand. Then she casually pointed her finger at me and I felt my mind tilt. "So until we get to know each other a bit better, let's tone down the flirtation. Cal suggested a good way to keep you from slipping into one of your internally-genrated fantasies... so while I tell you my story, the
Mystery of the Future, and while I write it out for you, you can be slid into and out of your game-watching mode, as needed. Cal has arranged all the details..."
Just then, Cal came into the library, pushing a fancy wooden serving cart that had a big color television set on it. He plugged in the television and attached it to an antenna cable that was set into the wall beside the door. The Red Sox baseball game came to the screen. Cal reached into a lower compartment of the cart and pulled out some chilled drinks and snacks which he placed on the table near us. He asked us, "Can I bring you anything else?"
Bonny replied, "More paper. I thought there was a bunch of paper in here."
Cal went to a high shelf and returned with an entire ream of paper. "Sorry, Miss, I mistakenly put it up out of your view. I keep forgetting how short Earthlings are. Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes." He turned and retreated from the library. He had to duck his head to get through the doorway.
I wanted to know what the score was, so my eyes went back to the ballgame, but I noted, "And Cal is a mystery. He walks around like a robot. He talks like a robot. And he just called us Earthlings. What's up with that?"
Bonny replied, "Well, I don't think we can include Cal in our story and stay within the page limit. As an artificial life form, he's amazing, but I don't have time to explain hierions and sedrons."
I repeated, "Hierions. Sedrons."
Bonny nodded. "Those are technical terms from the future of physics; they are explained in
The Gods of Earth."
I reached towards the copy of
The Gods of Earth that was there on the table, but Bonny intercepted my hand. She whispered, "Later."
She pointed to herself. "Cal and I are not of this world. Now, just forget all about Cal and the fact that he does not fit in here. I was forced to adopt a short stature just for this mission. I figured you would be intimidated if I was taller than you, but I was not comfortable being any shorter than you are. Cal only shrinks himself down to Earth human size when I send him into town to do the shopping."
I laughed. "You have a great imagination. For our homework, you want us to submit a story in which you are an alien pretending to be an Earthling?" I shook my head and looked back at the televised baseball game. I wanted to find out the score of the game, so I found the volume control for the television and turned up the volume.
I could tell that Bonny was annoyed by me watching the ballgame. She turned down the volume of the broadcast then tried to get us back to the task of working on the homework assignment, "Really good mysteries are built upon a foundation of truth."
Realizing that I had annoyed her, and since I had finally learned the score of the game, I turned my attention back to Bonny. I reached out and took hold of her hand. I was fascinated by the amazing smoothness of her skin and I knew on some subconscious level that only a visitor to Earth from another world could possible have an artificial servant like Cal and casually discuss time travel. And yet, part of me still resisted the idea that Bonny was a visitor to Earth. She looked like a normal human being except for the fact that she was exceptionally tall and pretty. "You are serious, aren't you? You expect me to simply accept that you are from another planet. A space alien."
She laughed. "Don't let your imagination run wild. I'm just as human as you are, but everyone is tall on my home world. For this mission on Earth, I had to shrink myself down so that I don't attract too much attention. In any case,
you are the alien." She jabbed a finger into my chest.
I laughed. "Right."
"Yes, exactly. But that's irrelevant. The tryp'At have been engineered to pass as human, so we won't even mention aliens in our story. We have to stay within the length limit for this assignment. And besides, tomorrow you won't remember anything about the tryp'At. In fact, you won't remember any of what I've told you today, not until about 40 years in the future when my sister reminds you about it. Now, we have a limited amount time together, so don't keep wandering off topic." She sniffed the air. "Golly, I smell Cal's wonderful fish frying... let's hurry this along."
Bonny pointed a finger at me and I felt my mind
shift. I no longer cared if she was a visitor from a distant planet. It had been interesting to hear her call me a tryp'At, but I suddenly lost all curiosity about that. Now working efficiently as a team, we quickly formulated the basic plot of our story which was concerned with secret messages about space aliens that Jack Vance had embedded in his stories and how I needed to decode those hidden messages. Of course, the story was largely about Bonny and how she had to inform me about the importance of reading Vance's books.
Before we could finish writing the entire story, Cal called us downstairs to dinner. I enjoyed the trout and the whole meal, which Cal served to us as multiple courses, like we were in some fancy restaurant. While we ate, Bonny kept telling me about the details of "our" story, such as how Jack Vance was himself guided to write about particular exoplanets by his replicoid, an artificial lifeform who had originated in an earlier Reality. Of course, I asked Bonny to explain what replicoids are, but she said that there was no time for "pesky little details like that". She told me, "Later in the semester, as another writing assignment, you can create a story explaining what a replicoid is."
All through the evening, each and every time that I started getting off topic, Bonny would point her finger at me and more of my mind was edited and additional thought trails were blocked off from further discussion. After dinner, we went back up to the library and finished writing up the story.
There was one small part of what Bonny told me that might explain why my memories of that evening were suppressed until I recently received a set of infites from Yōd. Bonny told me about a Vance story that needed to be "corrected" just before the Final Reality.
In the Buld Reality, Jack Vance wrote a version of
The Blue World that explicitly mentioned hierions and endosymbionts. That novel was published as an Ace Double with Vance's
The Brains of Earth. I was horrified by the idea of human brains secretly hosting alien lifeforms as described in
The Brains of Earth. It remains my greatest fear that my own behavior has been controlled during my whole life by
Irhit the replicoid making use of the Bimanoid Interface to control my
phari endosymbiont. That night in 1977, Bonny mentioned Yōd and the role she would play in freeing me from Irhit. Sadly, I was not allowed to remember that until 2018, after a change was made in the Bimanoid Interface, a change in its functioning that liberated me from Irhit.
Towards the end of the writing session, I just sat there watching the final inning of the Red Sox game on the television, so I barely noticed how the hand-written story had been processed by a neat little computer that was embedded in Bonny's pen and how Bonny was able to quickly print out the whole story using a silent little printing device that was on a shelf there in the library. When she had the printing completed, she tucked the pages of the story into my backpack along with the paperback copy of
The Palace of Love.
The last thing I clearly remember from that evening and from that entire weekend was the sportscaster commenting that it was almost midnight. The Red Sox won both games of a double header that evening, and the late game was exciting back-and-forth affair with Fred Lynn hitting both a double and a triple. Looking back on that weekend, as Friday ended and we went into the early hours Saturday, my memories become foggy.
I think I understand how Bonny made use of the ballgames that evening. While she wrote out
Mystery of the Future, something marvelous that I had just learned about Vance's imaginary universe would often shunt me into my own "story telling mode" during which I could talk endlessly about the minutia of a subject I was intrigued by. Bonny had some means to flip my brain over into "game watching mode". Quietly watching a baseball game was about the only way to keep me seated and quiet when I was in my teens. I would imagine that it was me playing the game and I was completely absorbed, anticipating each and every pitch. Then, after a few minutes of baseball, when my thoughts had calmed down (or had been pruned and edited by Bonny), Bonny could switch my mind back to listening to her explain the next part of
Mystery of the Future. Most likely she could manipulate a nanite control circuit in my mind to switch me back and forth between my available cognitive modes. I wish I could remember the details of
Mystery of the Future, but those details were apparently not important. Bonny's mission was a success because she taught me an important concept that I could instantly apply later in my life when I received information about past Realities from my collaborator,
Ivory Fersoni.
I've lived the past 40 years of my life without remembering any of that magical weekend that I spent with Bonny until I received a big packet of infites from Yōd here in 2018. I am certain that Bonny provided me with infites that contained the complete text of her "Star Kings" essay, so I remember that little tale word for word. I suspect that she did the same with
Mystery of the Future, but I'm not sure about that. If she did, then something might still be blocking me from fully accessing the information that is contained in those particular infites. Alternatively, the reason I cannot remember more than the first line of
Mystery of the Future might be that the infites I received from Yōd here in 2018 have now erased or destroyed some of the infites that were given to me back in 1977.
Zeta is still reading this as I write. Zeta says, "I've told you that there are some truths that my sisters and I are not allowed to share with you. Some of those truths we are aware of, but others may have been taken from my conscious awareness before I was ever allowed to come to Earth." When she was a child, Zeta was explicitly told that her memories would be manipulated and controlled by infites. In my case, I have slowly discovered this fundamental concept: infites were used to make possible the programming of my mind, but it seems like I may never be allowed to understand the details of my programming because of the powerful resentment that I have over this matter. To retain my sanity, I must believe that I have some freedom of action in my daily behavior. My worst fear is that I carry virus-like infites that automatically edit my knowledge so as to keep me guessing and prevent me from knowing that I am a simple puppet with my behavior completely controlled by others.
I can't really be sure if that was Zeta who visited me back in 1977. Maybe it was Alpha Gohrlay. Maybe it was
Grean the Kac'hin with her appearance altered so as to look like my future wife. Whatever her real identity, Bonny's mission had been to plant in my mind the basic and fundamental idea that Jack Vance's science fiction stories contain hints about real events that took place in the
Asimov Reality.
That homework assignment, the story called "Mystery of the Future", prepared my mind so that I was later able to accept the idea that there had been analogues of Jack Vance who had been allowed to write less fictional accounts of space aliens in the
Ekcolir Reality. By
temporal momentum, all the same topics were written about by Jack Vance here in our
Reality. Sadly, Vance was severely constrained in terms of what he could reveal about aliens to readers like me, here in the Final Reality. However, Bonny had equipped me with the idea that it was possible to decode Vance's writing and by so doing, learn truths about the origins of the human species.
To this day I feel bad about having gotten an "A" on "Mystery of the Future". Bonny wrote that story and all I contributed was a few suggestions for how to better explain some of the "far out" topics. I remember the professor's reaction to our collaborative homework assignment. After reading "Mystery of the Future", our professor wrote on our story:
Let me guess, you are both trekkies.
In the second week of the semester, Bonny dropped the English class and disappeared from campus. A day after her departure, I could barely remember her, but for about a year I rode my bike down every road up there in the hills, as if I might find something interesting down one of those shady lanes. Now I understand why she had called her artificial life assistant "
Cal". Bonny had known the future, or, if not
the future, she had seen
some future in which Asimov wrote about a robot named Cal.
I think I know why the name "Bonny Fennland" was used back in 1977. As I already mentioned, after dinner, Bonny finished up writing "Mystery of the Future". I slowed her down by making her explain many things to me, those points that formed the interesting plot elements of her story, elements that had mostly been lifted from the pages of Jack Vance's stories. After she had placed the printed copy of the story into my backpack, she quizzed me about my interest in
baseball. Based on her questions, I soon realized that she did have a good understanding of the game, but as if she had simply read the rule book. I think she envied me for having grown up with the luxury of spending time on silly recreations like playing baseball.
When the Red Sox game was over and I turned my full attention back to Bonny, we discussed many other topics all through the small hours of that night. One topic that I now recall discussing with Bonny was the
Grendels and why Vance had originally described the alien in
Star King as "
Grendel the Monster". Bonny explained to me how through the course of thousands of years the Grendels had guided the development of human civilization, operating out of their hidden bases in inaccessible wetlands like the fens of Europe. Maybe with continued effort I will recover more memories from that magical Saturday and Sunday, but right now, as I write this, those two days are still mostly blank space in my memory with just a few memory fragments from early on Saturday leaking through to my conscious mind.
In retrospect, one of the most surprising "memories" that have been revealed to me by Yōd's
infites is that the natural height if the
Gohrlay clones is apparently much above that of Earth-normal humans. Or is that an over-generalization? I have to believe that it was Zeta who visited me in 1977 and introduced me to Jack Vance's writing, and the more I think about my recovered memories from 1977 the more I feel like I do have a memory of being in telepathic contact with Zeta back then. Each person's mind has a distinctive "flavor". (Zeta is reading this and she still denies it.)
I've long imagined that the great height of Asterothropes and the
Ek'col was something relatively new, but it is possible that Gohrlay originated from a very
tall human population that existed all the way back in the
First Reality. Zeta now refuses to discuss that topic with me and as far as I can tell there is nothing explicit about Gohrlay's natural height in the infites that I received from Yōd. I have to conclude that this is one of the topics that I am not allowed to know about. Another mystery for the future: why should it matter if Gohrlay was naturally tall?
Having read all of the above, Zeta told me, "Now that I've read your full account of that weekend, I suspect that Bonny was a completely artificial replica of a human being."
I asked Zeta, "An artificial lifeform that enjoys eating pan-fried trout?"
"A human replica that enjoys the taste of food the touch of her lover's hand and all other human pleasures. There have been Gohrlay clones in every Reality. Bonny might have originated as a being that was genetically my sister, but also someone who could only exist in the Final Reality as an artificial lifeform."
Related Reading:
Let's Make a Genre
Error Patrol and The Ivory Infites
Next:
Phenence goes to Earth
However, I now realize that as a very young child, I could have easily been fooled into thinking that I was being read Lewis Carroll stories by my sister when, in fact, someone else was there, preparing my mind for the idea that important information about actual space aliens could be hidden in science fiction stories.
