Purpose:
To discover the meaning of life.
Participants:
Hurley O’Niall, Lens del N’stl’d, His Most Sublime and Eminent Radiance Aran del Eden’d, 3rd Archon of Skarsia
Materials:
A pillow.
Hypothesis:
Dreams are a source of significant unconscious content. The phenomena of incubation – the oracle of dreams – is a hitherto unexplored avenue of prophetic vision. In this experiment, dream incubation will be used as a technique for generating information, the results of which will be evaluated by comparison to more conventional sources.
Procedure [Reported by Her Eminence Tara del D’myn, Matriarch of Skarsia]:
Of course Marius and I had a huge fight. I demanded that he return to Dolparessa immediately; he refused to leave my side. There were two weeks remaining in the court season. In the end, Heavensent went back to Dolparessa, but she was incapable of travelling on her own power. I had Admiral Naveeta transport her in a naval cruiser; unfortunately, from the current position of Eirelantra relative to Dolparessa, it would take her almost a week to arrive.
I went to bed angry, which was a mistake. I had a nightmare about my exile on Volparnu, the first in years, and I woke up crying for Ash. It took Marius a few minutes to calm me down.
“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” he asked. “I triggered the dream.”
It’s true that the last time I was on Volparnu, I had been with Marius. But on that occasion, I hadn’t had any nightmares, and barely allowed myself a conscious thought about my forced marriage to Tenzain Merkht. We were in the middle of a crisis; I couldn’t afford to indulge in my old traumas.
“I want to protect you,” said Marius, “but you won’t let me.”
“I’m more worried about you protecting yourself,” I said. “Go home. Ride the grid. You could be there in a matter of minutes.”
“Heavensent is going home.”
“So the Cantor can assert her presence. But Elma can’t see.”
“Elma can damn well see, if only she’d take the blue amrita. Elma can see a lot better than you can – she’s had nine centuries to practice directing her visions. You’ve only been seriously experimenting for the past decade. Elma just doesn’t want to use the blue amrita because she doesn’t love Elma’ashra.”
“I know that.” I rose to get myself a glass of water. Then I decided I’d sleep better with some vodka added. Then I thought better of it; it’s a crime to water down good vodka, so I skipped the water. “And so the Cantor developed Cu’enashti culture on the basis that they were tools to be used by the Chosen, and that selfless service was the highest form of virtue. Basically, she worsened a situation which was already, by nature, exploitive. I can see why the other Cu’endhari are upset.”
“I don’t feel exploited.”
“Oh Ash, you are the most exploited of them all. But the difference is that I love you.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “Let’s not fight. We have to fight everyone else, so we shouldn’t fight each other.”
“It’s not something I ever want,” said Marius. “But the Mover is strong enough even to resist you, if it means protecting you or your destiny.” He gently pushed me away. “You should go back to bed. It will be embarrassing if you fall asleep in the middle of one of Lord Varmann’s endless tirades.” He took the glass from my hands. “But I have a better idea than this.” He stood, raising his arms, for a few seconds revealing the form of the mothman. I wasn’t sure whether that meant Ash was becoming more comfortable with changing forms – or if it was just a measure of how seriously he took the situation.
The emanation who appeared – of course – was Hurley. “I’ll go into your dreams with you,” he said. “I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“My hero,” I said, laughing. Hurley in his Charlie Chaplin bowler hat, and like the ancient comic, equal parts silly and sad. An unlikely dream-warrior if ever there was one.
And then Hurley said something troubling. He said, “We have to finish the experiments before we return to Dolparessa. The time of peace is coming to an end.”
So another war was coming – this time, probably a civil war. “Does Ash see it?” I asked.
Hurley nodded. “Now that Lens understands what he’s looking at, he can see the pattern of the trouble coming. We can also see pretty accurately that it won’t happen for another few weeks. It’s imperative to complete the experiments before then.”
“Are they really that important?”
“Very. We’re going to be tested, and the more we understand our own capabilities, the better. But for now, you should go back to sleep.”
I dreamed that I was in a garden, and the snake said, “Take, eat.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Ernst Sider,” it said. “There will be war in heaven.”
“I don’t believe in heaven,” I said.
“It’s a useful metaphor,” he replied, “especially when you’re dealing with a species hell-bent on conforming to archetypes. Listen: there are two factions. One falls from pride, and the other falls in love.”
“Ash is not an angel,” I said. “He’s a moth.”
“One wants isolation and the other wants union,” the serpent continued.
Hurley came up behind me, putting his arms around me. “Will you talk to me?” he asked the snake.
“A nectarine,” hissed the serpent. “I love nectarines. So much more a propos than apples, don’t you think, considering it’s all about sex? When Adam knew Eve, he wasn’t reading a dictionary. Apples are woody, a little tart, but nectarines are so sweet and soft and juicy…peaches of immortality. The Chinese had it right.”
“Please tell me,” said Hurley, “what am I?”
“Something that has never been seen before. Don’t forget that. Don’t confuse what you were intended to be with what you will become. Genetics can only go so far. My discovery of the Arya was pure serendipity.”
“Wait,” I said, “you discovered the Arya?”
“Blood will tell,” he said.
And then I woke up. I looked at Hurley quizzically.
“This time, the experiment is on you,” he said.
Data:
When I returned from the High Council meeting, Hurley said, “You need to go inside and talk to Cüinn. I’ll stay with Canopus.”
I know that it has to be enormously important because when I walk through Daniel’s apartment, no one even offers me a drink. I go straight up to Cüinn’s lab on the 9th floor.
The minute I enter, he addresses me: « Okay, so I got to thinking. The crystals are Flaxxshi tech, we know that. And so is the Staff. So why does it respond to a genetic marker in the line of the Matriarchs? »
« It would’ve had to have been programmed to do that. Maybe the Arya told the 4th Matriarch how to modify it. »
« The Arya were scared out of their needles, so they told her where the Skarsium mine was, and agreed to supply the power, » Cüinn replies. « But they really didn’t understand the technology, as Ailann found out. Remember when he first became Archon, how he completely recalibrated the system? The Arya had no intuitive way to grasp it – they didn’t need generators, or ships, or food production facilities. I highly doubt that a species which had never experienced anything like war or theft would have a clue how to construct a security system based on genetics. »
« You have a point. So what gives? »
« We’ve been assuming that the so-called Blood of the Matriarch is a piece of garbage code inserted into your DNA that allows the Staff to identify a suitably credentialed candidate for Matriarch. It has to exist on both X chromosomes, so men are automatically disqualified. But here’s the thing – we went on that assumption, so we never even bothered to look at it. On a hunch from Malachi, I had Hurley contact Roger at RR-2 Labs. He ran a class 6 military codebreaker on the genetic sequence. I have the results. Do you want it on a datapad, or do you just want to access my branch? The datapad will be less disconcerting. »
« But the branch will be more efficient, won’t it? »
Cüinn nods. He links his fingers with mine. I can feel a slight mental tug, and then we are spinning down xylem, swimming in wood that suddenly splinters into an image of Hurley holding a datapad in his hand. There is a message from Roger.
My impulse is to read it, but Hurley scrolls down three screens almost instantly, his eyes permanently registering the content faster than the human brain can interpret. And then I feel the text sinking, each word a stone thrown into a pond whose ripples intersect, touching associations. I understand what is meant; then I remember the words that were written. From a human perception, it is backwards. Cüinn was right about it being disconcerting.
These are the words.
Comment: The planet I named Sideria is the sole property of the descendants of my son Justin. The Staff is the sole property of the descendants of my daughter Christina. Until the ascension, the bearers of this genetic code are entitled to exploit the alien technology of the original inhabitants of the Domha’vei system (Flaxxshi), as recovered by my expedition.
I have one more gift for my children: an orchard of my precious nectarines. They are the perfect tree, producing intoxicating blossoms, sensuously round fruit, heavy with juice and sweetness. Never in my life have I met a person I could trust. Never once has a nectarine betrayed me. But alas, they are painfully short-lived, fragile, vulnerable to blight and variations of climate. So when I understood the remarkable alien technology of the Siderian moon, with its perfectly stable climate and conditions managed by the Flaxxshi’s genetically engineered trees, I felt my heart leap with joy. I knew I had found the perfect orchard planet, a paradise for nectarines.
I originally believed this was the purpose of the moon, although given the power of the Flaxxshi, it would have made more sense to transform one of the moons of their homeworld, the third planet, for this use. Also, the presence of amazingly hostile fauna, wildlife that was found to have been genetically modified, made no sense on an agricultural world. Two of my crew were killed by “squirrels.”
It was the moon’s impossible gravity that led us to discover the truth: the gaping hole between completely incompatible universes. The existence of this universe had been predicted, but as it was “a nothing universe, useless for travel” it had been greatly ignored, although the title “nul-universe” stuck. Of course, no one had imagined that life existed in such a hellish place. Pockets of energy trapped inside of the endless mass of crushing matter, some of which developed a sort of systematic coherence. And then we discovered something very interesting. Besides using this energy to regulate the rotation of the moon, keeping it synchronized with their homeworld, the Flaxxshi, efficient as they were, had engineered both varieties of trees, the fruit-bearing ones and the climactic guardians, to tap into the energy source. But over a period of thousands of years, a number of the guardians had accidentally absorbed some of the pockets of coherent energy. They adapted to each other, becoming symbiotic. The trees started to think.
Eat the fruit of the tallest trees, the guardians, and they will tell you the secrets of the Flaxxshi, the secrets of the Staff.
But the Flaxxshi trees are complacent. They were created; they did not evolve. They are unsuitable partners for the angels trapped in hell (although one supposes that anything would be preferable to their original circumstances.)
I ate of the fruit of my nectarine and found Ariel imprisoned within. This gentle wandering spirit was something I could use. It is not unusual for immigrants to endure a period of indentured servitude. I told it that Prospero breaks his wand once he is able to assure a proper marriage for his daughter.
Following this message is a genetic program I have encoded into both of my children. The presence of the first part of the program on two X chromosomes will enable the use of the Staff and all of the powers it contains. The second part – the major part- will only become activated if the bearer also has an energy signature peculiar to the nul-beings. This will indicate that Ariel – or, more likely, its descendants – has fulfilled my mandate to become the protectors-servants-concubines of my line. When the genetic code is activated, it will trigger the development which will enable my descendants to become the next phase of human evolution.
After that, it will be up to the Nephilim to stop the ensuing flood if they wish to survive. – ES
Results:
« Tara’s destiny, » says Cüinn. « It was engineered from the start by Ernst Sider. No wonder Aidenne envisioned you as some kind of messiah. »
« No, » I reply. « I’m not having it. It will go to my head. I’ll become a ridiculously self-indulgent autocrat. »
« You are a ridiculously self-indulgent autocrat, » says Cüinn. « It hasn’t seemed to hurt anything. Also, I think that Sider was kinda like Elma. He saw himself as a warrior for freedom. Remember what he said in the dream – ‘Don’t confuse what you were intended to be with what you will become.’ He wanted us to have free will. »
« Well, I’m going to exercise my free will by not having any children. So much for the next phase of human evolution. »
« But will that matter if you never die? Evolution will be forced to become an internal process instead of an external one. It probably already has. »
« How the hell did Sider know all of this? How can he be one step ahead of us? »
« Better technology, » Cüinn replies. « Sider’s expedition had the full backing of Pre-Centralization Earth. That was a golden era – there were so many amazing leaps in scientific knowledge. 90% of what we know about trans-universal geometries comes from then. It’s not exactly like Earth lost the tech, but the environment and economy never really recovered from the wars. And a lot of it we never really bothered to develop here, between the heresy laws, and the 4th Matriarch’s deliberate suppression of any knowledge that would lead to…well, finding out what we just found out. »
« The weird thing is that I didn’t even know that the Matriarch’s line descended from Sider. Then again, I don’t know anything about the 5th Matriarch’s family. She never spoke of it. But they must’ve known – because the 4th Matriarch had to know what was written in the code. Christina’s line kept the secret – and then kept it a secret that they were descended from Sider. But Justin’s line knew of their ancestry – but lost the secret, or maybe never knew it. I’m getting the impression that Sider was a really fucked up manipulative bastard. »
« It’s cool how into The Tempest he is, though, » says Cüinn. « Ari really likes it, too. »
« He’s also into the Bible. All of the obvious metaphors. Megalomaniacs never seem to draw inspiration from Charles Bukowski. »
« Chase would like Bukowski, » Cillian yells, « if Chase could be arsed to read. »
“Hurley,” I said when I returned, “tonight I want to go into your dream instead of having you come into mine. Can you do that?”
“I never sleep,” he said. “You know that. The closest I could come would be Chase’s dreams – but they aren’t anything particularly enlightening.”
“But the trees dream, don’t they? That’s what I was told.”
Hurley looked thoughtful. “I could…” he said slowly. “I don’t know that it’s something you would want. Trees don’t think like humans. I’m not sure it would make any sense to you at all, or that you would even be able to remember it.”
“It’s worth a try,” I said. “Remember, the experiment is on me, this time.”
In truth, something was bothering me enormously – Sider’s attitude towards the Nau’gsh. Maybe I was becoming a warrior for freedom too, but I disliked the idea that the father tree – Ariel – had somehow been coerced into service.
I drifted off to sleep in Hurley’s arms. Then I woke.
Hurley was staring at me miserably, his freckled face flushed with desire, but saying nothing. I could almost feel the ache in his bones, his erect cock pressed against my thigh, but he wasn’t the type to make the first move.
I pulled him down on me, still half asleep, my head full of fuzz. No, full of patterns of light and shadow, the sun’s movement across leaves. Sensations I remembered from our dream, but could only put words to now: rain, soil, warmth. Cycles of motion, of peace and contentment, and then…
And then Hurley’s lips pressed against mine, his body moving against my body.
Cycles of discontent. Something arising, taking form. A pressure inside. Aching, the woody stalks of the trunk solidifying with ache. This was not natural. This was not the way a tree dreams.
Pushing the flowers open. Something pushing the flowers, more than the natural urge to attract a pollinator. Flowers set their bait and wait. This was different, a flower being pushed out only to run down the slope towards the sun. No, not the sun at all, but the second sun. A face for a faceless creature, a flower face, Daniel.
I could feel Hurley’s dreams on my skin, like the breath of a breeze, like being wrapped in warm fur. Sex with him was like this, his mind in my mind, but it wasn’t our conscious minds. In the past, it had always been so languid; this time I could feel his need, his unusual passion.
We spent ourselves in quick desperation. I lay in his arms quietly for a while; there were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That dream was just too much for me.”
“Ash,” I said, “I need to go to Nightside.”
“What?”
“To talk to the Bhavashti. They know what’s going on. They’ve said as much.”
In an instant, Hurley had spread himself into the strange, glowing form of the moth-angel. And then I was gone.
I emanated on the platform at Nightside; Lens was with me. That made sense – Lens was also supposed to be part of this experiment.
It took us some time to find Tash-Bel-Nefren-Hagol-Isvi-Teggri-Taval-Ashra. She no longer looked like a creepy little girl. She now looked like a Floatfish. “I have some questions for you,” I said. “What are you, where did you come from, and why did you stay?”
The fish gurgled, belching phosphorescent green. “I’m a Bhavashti. I came from the nul-universe. I’m staying because I’m bonded to Tash-Bel-Nefren-Hagol-Isvi-Teggri-Taval.”
“I know all that,” I said. She’d apparently evolved into a typical Floatfish – that is, an asshole. “Let’s try again. Why did you come from the nul-universe to Nightside, and why did you choose Tash-Bel-Nefren-Hagol-Isvi-Teggri-Taval, when most of the others of your kind… well, it didn’t work out, did it?” I wanted to put it as delicately as possible, as I wasn’t quite sure if they died or turned tail and left.
“We were stuck in the rocks,” she replied. “It’s awful. But we didn’t know better until we came here and found out we could get stuck in something alive.” She flipped a fin at Lens. “You got a better choice, but I got a better deal. I got exactly what I wanted, exactly. You didn’t.”
“You’re wrong,” said Lens. “You don’t know what I want.”
Lens walked quickly towards the hilift. I ran after him. He was angry, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him angry before.
“Damn Bhavashti,” he muttered. “Davy made them to be stupid.” We reached our quarters. He wheeled around to face me, backing through the doorway as the door slid open. “They aren’t real nectarines,” he said. He turned around and gasped. “What the…?
“The Hreck decorated our room, remember?”
“I’m getting a headache,” he said, quickly pulling off his spectacles.
“What did you mean just then when you said that Davy made them to be stupid and they aren’t real nectarines?”
“The same thing Sider meant about the Arya Nau’gsh. Lifeforms that are genetically engineered for a purpose have that purpose built in. The Hreck are like that – and so are the K’ntasari. Humans tend to feel at peace around those lifeforms because they’re so calm, so self-assured. It’s quite possible for them to be discontent, though. The questions they are always asking themselves are ‘Am I doing my best?’ and ‘Are my circumstances conducive to doing my best?’ They get very unhappy when the answer is no. But lifeforms that evolve are always asking different questions, questions like, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ and ‘Do I really belong here?’ They are constantly reassessing their circumstances in case they have to adapt.”
“You’re saying that the Cu’endhari evolved, and that the Arya and the Bhavashti didn’t.”
“You’ve noticed that the branches here and on Ashvattha have started to differentiate. Even Goliath – even though Davy just remade it from the components of Atlas, they’re still growing in new directions. We’re programmed for evolution.”
“Sider knew that,” I said. “He knew that if mankind was going to evolve, he’d have to give up controlling the scenario at some point. Prospero breaks his wand.”
Lens lay back on Lorcan’s bizarre bed, staring up at the plum and beige plaid ceiling. “But Sider had no way of knowing that the descendant he expected to fulfil his destiny would choose another servant – a seed from the tree that Sider planted.”
“Serendipity,” I said, “unless Ash somehow manipulated the probabilities so that I would find him.”
“We weren’t there yet. We…” Lens sat up abruptly, fumbling for the glasses in his pocket. “Wait.” He stood and looked over his shoulder. “I never thought to look behind me,” he said.
“What do you see?”
“The past, of course. The trees sense time as a three-dimensional sphere, extending equally in all directions. If I look back far enough, I can see the beginning. Beyond that is darkness, but it’s a positive darkness, not just the absence of light. It’s the nul-universe.”
“What’s at the beginning?”
Lens cranes his neck. It looks uncomfortable. “A hand grasping a seed – the force of will, an extension of Sider’s fiat pushes the seed into the soil, into the unforgiving rock where the seed puts forth a momentous effort, seeking out, drawing in the energy seeping through the rocks. There are pockets of energy, small pockets that the seed can feel, crying out with the need for life and freedom. They’re nul-beings, proto-consciousness, minds with nothing to think. They are all existence and no awareness. The seed is different. A plant is nothing but perspective. From the moment it breaks through the seed coat, it is aware of everything around it, understands itself only in terms of its relationship to its surroundings.”
Lens’ voice grow soft, trancelike. “The seed is full of dreams, dreams of flowers and fruit, an ancient echo of Sider’s dream in the warmth of a hand. But it’s pulled now, pulled by a vortex, a hollow ache of swirling voices, asking, ‘Is this all?’ It’s enormous, this vortex. And the seed gives it sun, and sky and earth, wind and rain, all devoured by the ravenous mind which needs to comprehend everything. The seed gives it dreams. The seed gives it perspective, infinite and overwhelming. Most of all, the seed gives it sexuality, an urge to blind, indiscriminate fruition which resonates with its own hunger. And still it isn’t enough. The vortex grows; the all-consuming need grows, a chorus of voices, and the loudest crying out one word: ‘More.’”
Lens looks back at me, visibly shaken. He takes off his spectacles, rubs his eyes. “It’s what Molly saw. I understand why she went mad.”
I place my hand on his chest. He places his own over it, closes his eyes, breathes deeply. “It was a being of enormous knowledge and power,” he said. “But it had no means of understanding any of it. None of it had meaning. And then there was a stirring, a sudden warmth, a vibration which shook the sapling’s tiny leaves. The seed moved towards it, recognizing a piece of its dream.”
Lens began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“That was the moment the universe began for us. I can find the memory buried deep within the roots. And when I examine it now, I recognize what it is. It’s the voice of a girl, saying, ‘This is it. My seed of destiny.’ At that moment, the nul-entity moved towards it, another new thing to be comprehended and digested. But it couldn’t. It could sense the molecules and the patterns of energy, but there was something else there it couldn’t understand: consciousness. It looked as far as it could look, thousands of years into the future.”
Lens looked into my eyes. His pupils were almost invisible; I could see only Ash.
“Something remarkable happened. The tree reached for it, touched the vortex, allowed it to understand the nature of its pain. They reflected each other, reborn as one, saying, ‘I and I will not be alone.’ From that instant, all its will was focused only on one thing, the vision it saw, the being that both defined and completed it. You, Tara.”
“It was years before Daniel approached me.”
“Self was observing you. It was so much more complicated than He had ever conceived. But He had time – the nul-entity had existed for an eternity before that. He finally came to understand what it would take to interact with you – a human body, a personality. It was when you wrote the tanzaku that He decided to act. The realization that you needed Him came as an enormous shock. His reaction was complex and confusing to Him – heart-rending sympathy for your pain, but at the same time enormous joy that you wanted Him, and a sort of sadistic glee that you shared His suffering.”
“Welcome to the world of human love.”
Lens shook his head ruefully. “But you weren’t looking for a friend. Your letter requested a husband – a mate. I and I immediately comprehended that your desire was parallel to the desire of the tree, to the desire of his original nature. He wanted to experience love in all its forms and complexities, but the simplest way to express it seemed to be…”
“By getting laid.”
Lens cleared his throat. “He knew he had to go to you, but He wasn’t sure quite what to do. Shortly after, he heard the call of the drums. The Cantor came and pulled Daniel out of the tree.”
“Is this what happened for all the Cu’enashti?”
“No. Each is called differently. I think many of the ones in the forest didn’t know what they were looking for until they were decades old. It took them that long to encounter humans – and it takes the right kind of human to trigger that self-awareness. The Cu’enashti are the ones who recognized their loneliness, and the Cu’enmerengi are the ones who thought the idea of animal bodies might be nice to play with. The Cu’ensali are something entirely different, I think.”
“Then your existence was part Sider’s intricate manipulations, and part incredible luck.”
“Isn’t that the definition of destiny? But you were absolutely right in insisting on the importance of the trees. The nul-entities have no perspective at all. No eyes. So they can’t help but be changed by the perspective of the creatures they join with. In the Arya’s case, they were trees genetically engineered to control the weather. As sentient beings, they are perfectly content. Sider’s nectarine was different. It was a tree that evolved, in the process of evolving. Its seed was drawn to a partner that wanted to evolve.”
“Ashtara – I and I – Atlas and the nul-entity – two that are one.”
Lens nodded. “All the other trees are really part of Atlas. They aren’t new trees grown from seed.”
“With the exception of Canopus, the roots are all connected. Which means that as a botanist, I’m an idiot. They’re a clear example of a clonal colony – just with a very unique means of propagation. It’s the most efficient way for a tree to increase its lifespan – as Davy would say, it’s obvious. You know, there’s a clonal colony of aspen trees on Earth that’s supposed to be 82,000 years old.”
“But Canopus isn’t obvious. It allows the grove an element of movement.”
“Atlas is sentimental,” I realized. “He named Ari after his father.”
Conclusion:
When I returned to Eirelantra, Aran emanated. “Do you really think that Sider’s idea was such a bad one?”
“The line between visionary and madman is very small,” I said. “I’m leaning towards madman. ‘My nectarines shall rule the universe’ – that’s something Suibhne would say.”
Aran looked distinctly unhappy. “You should have more confidence in yourself.”
“I hate responsibility.”
“We’ve done pretty well so far.”
“We’ve got a war scheduled, remember? Plenty of opportunity to fuck things up.”
Aran slammed his fist upon the table. “Damn it, Tara! Nothing means anything if you won’t…”
I grabbed him by the wrist. “Is that what you wanted, Ashtara? My destiny? The creation of a new species? I thought that was all Ailann’s propaganda, but now…”
Aran turned from me, covering his face with his hands. “We wanted more,” he said miserably. “You are the most.”
Future Investigation:
What do I want?
What do I want?
I know I’m supposed to have some kind of plan.
In my life, I’ve known what it means to have no hope, no future. Now I can do anything.
What do I want?
A drink, probably.
Aran is watching me from the doorway. His eyes are wary. Of all the emanations, he’s the one who expects the most from me, and he’s the most easily disappointed. I want to tell him that whatever the thought he saw in the first few moments of his emanation, I’m not it.
“Do you want me to brush your hair?” he asks.
Good enough.