“Why not,” he asked quietly. “You yourself instinctively treat it like a human being, now more than ever. You hate it.”
“And you don’t?”
“No, Kelvin. It is blind.” – I thought that I might not have heard him correctly – “. . . or rather it ‘sees’ in a different way from ourselves. We do not exist for it in the same sense that we exist for each other. We recognize one another by the appearance of the face and the body. That appearance is a transparent window to the ocean. It introduces itself directly into the brain.”
“Right, what if it does? What are you driving at? It succeeded in recreating a human being who exists only in my memory, and so accurately that her eyes, her gestures, her voice . . .”
“Don’t stop. Talk.”
“I’m talking . . . Her voice . . . because it is able to read us like a book. You see what I mean?”
“Yes, that it could make itself understood.”
“Doesn’t that follow?”
“No, not necessarily. Perhaps it used a formula which is not expressed in verbal terms. It may be taken from a recording imprinted on our minds, but a man’s memory is stored in terms of nucleic acids etching asynchronous large-moleculed crystals. ‘It’ removed the deepest, most isolated imprint, the most ‘assimilated’ structure, without necessarily knowing what it meant to us. Suppose, I’m capable of reproducing the architecture of a symmetriad, and I know its composition and have the requisite technology . . . I create a symmetriad and I drop it into the ocean. But I don’t know why I’m doing so, I don’t know its function, and I don’t know what the symmetriad means to the ocean . . .”
“Yes. You may be right. In that case it wished us no harm, and it was not trying to destroy us. Yes, it’s possible . . . and with no intention . . .”
My mouth began to tremble.
“Kelvin!”
“All right, don’t get worried. You are kind, the ocean is kind. Everybody is kind. But why? Explain that. Why has it done this? What did you say . . . to her?”
“The truth.”
“I asked you what you said.”
“You know very well. Come back to my cabin and we’ll write out the report. Come on.”
“Wait. What exactly do you want? You can’t be intending to remain on the Station.”
“Yes, I want to stay.”
14 THE OLD MIMOID
I sat by the panoramic window, looking at the ocean. There was nothing to do now that the report, which had taken five days to compile, was only a pattern of waves in space. It would be months before a similar pattern would leave earth to create its own line of disturbance in the gravitational field of the galaxy towards the twin suns of Solaris.
Under the red sun, the ocean was darker than ever, and the horizon was obscured by a reddish mist. The weather was unusually close, and seemed to be building up towards one of the terrible hurricanes which broke out two or three times a year on the surface of the planet, whose sole inhabitant, it is reasonable to suppose, controlled the climate and willed its storms.
There were several months to go before I could leave. From my vantage point in the observatory I would watch the birth of the days – a disc of pale gold or faded purple. Now and then I would come upon the light of dawn playing among the fluid forms of some edifice risen from the ocean, watch the sun reflected on the silver sphere of a symmetriad, follow the oscillations of the graceful agiluses that curve in the wind, and linger to examine old powdery mimoids.
And eventually, the screens of all the videophones would start to blink and all the communications equipment would spring to life again, revived by an impulse originating billions of miles away and announcing the arrival of a metal colossus. The _Ulysses_, or it might be the _Prometheus_, would land on the Station to the piercing whine of its gravitors, and I would go out onto the flat roof to watch the squads of white, heavy-duty robots which proceed in all innocence with their tasks, not hesitating to destroy themselves or to destroy the unforeseen obstacle, in strict obedience to the orders echoed into the crystals of their memory. Then the ship would rise noiselessly, faster than sound, leaving a sonic boom far behind over the ocean, and every passenger’s face would light up at the thought of going home.
What did that word mean to me? Earth? I thought of the great bustling cities where I would wander and lose myself, and I thought of them as I had thought of the ocean on the second or third night, when I had wanted to throw myself upon the dark waves. I shall immerse myself among men. I shall be silent and attentive, an appreciative companion. There will be many acquaintances, friends, women – and perhaps even a wife. For a while, I shall have to make a conscious effort to smile, nod, stand and perform the thousands of little gestures which constitute life on Earth, and then those gestures will become reflexes again. I shall find new interests and occupations; and I shall not give myself completely to them, as I shall never again give myself completely to anything or anybody. Perhaps at night I shall stare up at the dark nebula that cuts off the light of the twin suns, and remember everything, even what I am thinking now. With a condescending, slightly rueful smile I shall remember my follies and my hopes. And this future Kelvin will be no less worthy a man than the Kelvin of the past, who was prepared for anything in the name of an ambitious enterprise called Contact. Nor will any man have the right to judge me.
Snow came into the cabin, glanced around, then looked at me again. I went over to the table:
“You wanted me?”
“Haven’t you got anything to do? I could give you some work . . . calculations. Not a particularly urgent job . . .”
“Thanks,” I smiled, “you needn’t have bothered.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I was thinking a few things over, and . . .”
“I wish you’d think a little less.”
“But you don’t know what I was thinking about! Tell me something. Do you believe in God?”
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction:
“What? Who still believes nowadays . . .”
“It isn’t that simple. I don’t mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I’m no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new – do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an . . . imperfect god?”
“What do you mean by imperfect?” Snow frowned. “In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considering that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals . . .”
“No,” I interrupted. “I’m not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a . . . sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that served specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.”
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
“There was Manicheanism . . .”
“Nothing at all to do with the principle of Good and Evil,” I broke in immediately. “This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot . . .”
Snow pondered for a while:
“I don’t know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been . . . necessary. If I understand you, and I’m afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn’t this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? It is man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.”