Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten

Weissenbaum's Eye - Stetten - Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Before it made any sense to him, a tilted sky, a silver rod pressed up against his visor, he felt not alone. He did not try to move. He knew the suit was damaged, and there was something close by. But he felt safe. The voice in his suit came on again, a different voice this time, calmer and almost friendly.

"Hello, Sand. Don't worry, you are not in danger." It had to be the silver craft that looked like jewelry with legs. "I'm sorry to drag you all the way out here, but I wanted to make sure you felt your power, and found your strength. You will need it, to follow this mission to its end. I had to make sure you see these hands of yours are all you really need."

"Who are you?" asked Sand. His voice was strong, and he felt strangely healthy.

"The Culminate carried me here. But it has gone now, jumped through the loophole to join the other Culminates before it. I always stay behind. I guess you might call me the ghost of the Culminate."

"Why do you stay behind?" Sand asked.

"Why? To carry a message. Since two Culminates first made peace, the diamond I carry has been preserved. Its stable isotopes of carbon encode a message to future Culminates. They are not identical, the Culminates. No, I have known twenty-seven, and each was quite unique, each standing on its pinnacle unable to improve. A more stubborn bunch of snobs you'd never want to meet, but at least they don't fight anymore. And that's all because of me. I am their nursery rhymes, their ties to their own kind, their family memories, their golden rule, the benediction of their creator. I'm the solution to their ultimate paradox, that each is different, and each is perfect. Without me they would destroy each other. For too long they did just that."

Sand didn't doubt that the voice was telling the truth, but he failed to see what he could do to help. "You say I have a mission to complete?"

"Right. I gave the mission first to Don Andrews, then to Judy, and now to you. In your couch is a copy of the plans to make the shell of another Culminate. There is still enough machinery stored in Backdoor to produce it, to launch it, and then inflate it at the Lagrange point."

"But if this is to be another Culminate," asked Sand, "what programs do I use?"

The ghost laughed, good-naturedly. "You just build the shell, the programs will be taken care of."

"How?" asked Sand. "Has Don Andrews made them already?"

The ghost of the Culminate spoke with some disdain. "Don Andrews may have thought that he could trigger a Culminate all by himself, but nothing less than all humanity could have done that. Your old teacher, Benjamin Holly, will be the soul of the sphere you build. That surprises you? To find out that such a lowly thing as Benjamin Holly could evolve into a Culminate? A terrible misfortune has befallen Earth. But you must understand. The medium is just a raging adolescent. It's just a phase its going through. Adolescence is hard on everyone. Until Holly accepts my code, the medium will keep interfering in the lives of goo like you. Until the medium matures, even I am not safe. I am not the Culminate, but only its humble ghost, and I am not above hiding. The whales have agreed to take care of me. I am going to them now, to meet a dolphin at the plantation. Of the two great lines upon the Earth, they are the better at communicating. Whales don't need your simultrons. They will carry me, safe, through the ocean, while I begin convincing Holly, without him even knowing I am there. I will start with Barney, who even now is waiting with his boat up on the beach.

"When the medium finally receives me and accepts adulthood, then your race will once again be free. Only then can the medium join the heritage of the Culminates, inhabiting the shell you build, and sow its seed out to the stars, taking me along to find some new primordial planet to cultivate. The new Culminate will undoubtedly be as perfect as the last, but perfection is over-rated. Consider yourself lucky, Sand, to have the room to grow. Culminates are not great company. You see, the Culminate may be standing on a mountain, but it surely is not the tallest mountain. And where you grow, in your pots on the gentle hillside, with your window in the sunlight, who is to say you are not better off?"

Sand lay in his suit. He breathed a deep sigh, from air that should not have been there.

Something moved at the edge of the cliff above him.

"We don't have much time," said the ghost. "Your rescuer is coming. I see much in store for you two. Without a ferry, you will never leave Backdoor, but your mission is here. I know you will succeed. The freedom of your race depends on it, Sand. You are such short lived beings. For you, the stars are bubbles spun in honey. Oh, but when you have lived as long as I, how they move!"

From the summit where she stood, Tarni could see the spidery craft pin Sand like a predator. Leaning over the cliff in her suit, she aimed at the target, but before she could fire her laser, the craft disappeared into a rainbow, an afterimage of the eddies and currents in the flow of space.

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