Time inside the VR cage had been speeded up. The lifespan of a pet was rarely more than twenty-eight days. The far-sighted leader of the fire prevention team had designed the computer pets as a learning toy. When I eventually spoke to this lady, she said, ‘Belle Rivers recognises that the children need love. She is less ready to recognise that children also need to give love, to own love-objects, something other than human, to help in developing their own personalities. Kids with tammies will grow up into caring adults – and have fun meanwhile.’
It was far-sighted, but not far-sighted enough. Every kid wanted a tammy. The domes were maddened by the moans, howls and chirps of a wide range of the VR pets. Concerts and plays were ruined by the incessant demands of the toys in the audience. Eventually, tammies had to be banned from such occasions, although this meant that children excluded themselves, lest their charges perished … I hated imposing bans, but the government of behaviour was an inescapable part of civilised society.
Tammies next became banned at mealtimes, so that children might associate properly with adults. Adminex had in mind here a passage from Thomas More’s Utopia, in which he says, ‘During meals, the elders engage in decent conversation with the young, omitting topics sad and unpleasant. They do not monopolise the conversation for they freely hear what the young have to say. The young are encouraged to talk in order to give proof of the talents which show themselves more easily during meals.’
This was not always successful. The elders sometimes grew tired of childish prattle. The atmosphere was always soothed by music – not Beza’s music, but something much more anaemic, suited to our austere diet.
20
A Collective Mind
I managed to drag myself away from the raptures of Mary Fangold and her delicious physiotherapy. Although I was back in the busy world, finding a juster society slowly developing, act by act, I wished to give Mary a present.
Seeking out Sharon Singh, I asked to see her collection of rock crystal pieces. She displayed them for me, meanwhile gazing up at my face from under her dark fringe of hair. Among the many shapes, I chose one that, in its finely detailed folds, closely resembled a vagina.
Giving it to me, Sharon said, ‘Isn’t it curious that the cold pressures of Mars should create such a hot little thing?’
She gave a tinkling laugh.
Olympus – now more frequently referred to as Chimborazo; Kathi Skadmorr had won that argument – had taken hold of people’s imaginations. Discussion groups met regularly to chew over the riddle. It was a subject for argument in public and across the Ambient.
Most Ambient users found it hard to accept that Chimborazo could be conscious. They were daunted by the thought of that great solitary intellect sitting permanently upon a planet that had become hostile to life. What was it waiting for? was a frequently asked question.
Certainly not a bombardment by CFC gas, was one answer.
The parallel between Chimborazo’s shelter for collaborating species and our own situation in the domes was quickly seized on. Fondness replaced fear as a response to its existence.
Dreiser’s remark about a stack of thoughts 23 kilometres high kept returning to me. Also there was the speculation about what one might encounter if one prized up the protective shell and looked – went? was drawn? – inside.
I believe that Hawkwood’s interview was a great persuasive force in the establishment of our Utopian constitution.
One interesting theory I heard discussed on my return to society was that Chimborazo’s power of consciousness was far greater than we had suspected. Its attention had become directed across the gulfs of matrix to where it sensed other minor flames of consciousness. It had kept the minds of terrestrials busied with ambitions to visit Mars in order to lure them to provide it with company.
These were speculations without much ground in fact. However, when I contacted Dreiser and Kathi, I found that they too were in the midst of a welter of troubled speculation. Their new findings presented us with new problems. I moved Adminex to call a meeting in Hindenburg Hall at once.