Stephen Baxter - Transcendent

On some level, the Transcendence must already have known, I thought. I was just a lever it used to lift itself back to sanity. But that didn’t mean it was happy about it. Or grateful.

Leropa hissed, “Michael Poole. You know that if the Redemption is abandoned, you will lose Morag forever, don’t you?”

I recoiled from this personal attack. So much for the lofty goals of the Transcendence, I thought; so much for transhuman love. “But I already lost her,” I said. “Nothing the Transcendence can do will make any difference to that. I guess it’s part of being human. And so is letting go.”

Leropa said, “Letting go?”

“Of the past, the dead. Of the future, the fate of your children. Even an arch-instrumentalist like me knows that much.”

Leropa laughed. “Are you forgiving the Transcendence, Michael Poole?”

“Isn’t that why I was brought here?”

“Good-bye, Michael Poole,” Leropa said. “We won’t meet again.”

And suddenly, I knew, it was over. I searched for Morag. Perhaps there was a trace of her left. But she was receding from me, as if she was falling down a well, her face diminishing, her gaze still fixed on me.

And then the stars swirled viciously around me — for an instant I struggled, longing to stay — but I was engulfed in the pain of an unwelcome rebirth, and a great pressure expelled me.

The six of them gathered in Conurbation 11729: Alia and Drea, Reath, and the three Campocs, Bale, Denh, and Seer.

Under the mighty electric-blue tetrahedral arch of the ancient cathedral, the undying walked their solitary paths. Some of them mumbled to themselves, continuing their lifelong monologues, but the very oldest did not speak at all. But even now she was aware of the presence of the Transcendence, in her and around her. And she was aware of its turmoil, like a storm gathering, huge energies drawing up in a towering sky above her.

Campoc Bale drew Alia aside. She could still faintly sense the extended consciousness he shared with his family, like a limited Transcendence of its own. And about him there was still that exotic sense of the alien, the different, which had given their lovemaking so much spice.

He said carefully, “We did not mean any harm to come to your ship, your family.”

“But you led the Shipbuilders to the Nord. ”

“Yes.” It was the first time he’d admitted it explicitly. “We were concerned that the Redemption would rip everything apart. We were right to be concerned, weren’t we?”

“And I was your tool, your weapon to use against the Transcendence.”

“You were more than that to me,” he said hotly.

“Your manipulation was gross. You threatened my sister, you endangered my family—”

“We would never have harmed Drea.” He looked up. “I think on some level you always knew that, didn’t you? And we did not mean the incident with the Shipbuilders to go so far.”

“ Incident. My mother died, and my brother. Are you looking for forgiveness from me, Bale? Do you want redemption, after all that’s happened?”

“Alia, please—”

She laughed at him. “Go back to your Rustball and bury yourself in the empty heads of your brothers. You will never be a part of my life again.”

His broad face was full of loss, and she felt a faint stab of regret. But she turned her back on him and walked away.

Reath walked with her. “Weren’t you a little hard on him?”

She glared at him, refusing to answer.

He sighed. “It is a time of change for us all, I suppose.”

“What about you, Reath? What will you do now?”

“Oh, there will always be a role for me and my kind,” he said wryly. “Many of the Commonwealth’s great projects will continue whatever the Transcendence decides to do next: the political reunification of the scattered races of mankind is a worthwhile aim.”

“That’s noble, Reath.”

They came to Drea, who was sitting, looking bored, on a block of eroded rubble.

Reath asked, “And what of you two? Where will you go next?”

“Back to the Nord, ” Drea said immediately. “Where else? The Nord is home. Besides, I think my father needs us right now.” She reached up and took her sister’s hand. “Right, Alia?”

But Alia did not reply.

Reath turned to her. “Alia?”

She found a decision formulated in her head, a decision she hadn’t known she had made. “Not the Nord, ” she said. “Oh, I’ll miss Father — and you, Drea. I’ll visit; I always will. But—” But she couldn’t live there anymore. She had seen too much. The Nord and its unending journey were no longer enough for her. “I’ll find a role for myself. Maybe I can work for the Commonwealth, too… Someday I’ll find a new home.” She pulled Drea to her feet and hugged her. “Somewhere to have children of my own!”

Drea laughed, but there were tears in her eyes.

Reath watched them more seriously. “Alia.” His tone was grave, almost reprimanding; it was just as he had spoken to her when he had first met her.

She snapped, not unkindly, “Oh, what is it now, you old relic?”

“If this is your true intention — just be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of yourself.” He had seen it before, he said: in Elect who had failed, or even mature Transcendents who, for reasons of health or injury, had been forced to withdraw from the great network of mind. “You never forget the Transcendence. You can’t. Not once you have experienced it, for it is an opening-up of your mind beyond the barriers of you. You may think you have put it aside, Alia, but it always lurks within you.”

“What are you saying, Reath?”

“If you are going to roam the stars, be sure it is yourself you are looking for — and not the Transcendence, for that is lost to you forever.”

On impulse she took his hands; they were warm, leathery. “You are a good friend, Reath. And if I am ever in trouble—”

“You will have me to turn to,” Reath said, smiling.

“I know.”

Leropa emerged from the flock of the undying. She approached Alia, as enclosed and enigmatic as ever. The others stood back, uncertain — afraid, Alia saw.

Leropa said: “The Transcendence is dying.”

Alia was shocked. Beside her Reath grunted, as if punched.

Leropa went on, “Oh, it’s not going to implode, today or tomorrow.”

Alia said, “But the grander aims, all that planning for infinity—”

“All that is lost. Perhaps the project was always flawed. We humans are a blighted sort. Too restless to be bucolic, too limited to become gods: perhaps it was always inevitable it would end like this. The Redemption was our best effort to resolve the paradox of an attempt to build a utopia on shifting bloodstained sands — an attempt to mold a god from the clay of humanity. But we succeeded only in magnifying the worst of us along with the best, all our atavistic cravings. And so the Transcendence will die — but at least we tried!

“This is a key time in human history, Alia, a high watermark of human ambition. We’ve been privileged to see it, I suppose. But now we must fall back.”

“And what about the undying? What will you do now?”

“Oh, we aren’t going anywhere. We will get on with things in our own patient way. We still have our ambitions, our plans — on timescales that transcend even the Transcendence, in a sense. And even without the power of the Transcendence behind us, the issues of the future remain to be resolved.”

“Issues?”

Leropa’s leathery, immobile face showed faint contempt. “Alia, you and your antique companion Poole indulged in some wonderful visions about the evolutionary future of mankind — the purpose of intelligence, all of that. Perhaps we can all find a safe place, where we can give up the intelligence we evolved to keep us alive out on the savannah, and subside comfortably back into non-sentience. Yes?”