Ian Watson - The Embedding

“You can’t build machines to read these tides yourself?” the sailor grunted, disappointed.

“Let me explain. We did not evolve in that way. But the Tide Readers did. Tide-reading is an inherited part of their reality, coded into their nervous systems. We Sp’thra cannot instinctively read the tides, no matter what machine-assist is used. Yet the steersman has to be a living being, to react flexibly enough. We buy this ability of theirs—”

Yet hereabouts the alien’s cool detachment evaporated. A queer change seemed to be coming over him. Like a medium going into a spirit trance, he began to elaborate, almost lyrically:

“’Their-Reality’, ‘Our-Reality’, Tour-Reality’—the mind’s concepts of reality based on the environment it has evolved in—all are slightly different. Yet all are a part of ‘This-Reality’—the overall totality of the present universe—”

His voice rose shrill with emphasis.

“Yet Other-Reality outside of this totality assuredly exists! We mean to grasp it!”

His eyes blinked rapidly. He licked his lips in a lizardy way.

“There are so many ways of seeing This-Reality, from so many viewpoints. It is these viewpoints that we trade for. You might say we trade in realities—”

Like a patent medicine salesman launching into his spiel—or was it more like an obsessed visionary? The latter was perhaps nearer the truth, Sole decided, as the alien talked on raptly:

“We mean to put all these different viewpoints together, to deduce the entire signature of This-Reality. From this knowledge we shall deduce the reality modes external to It—grasp the Other-Reality, communicate with it, control it!”

“So then,” broke in Sole, getting excited himself, “what you people are doing is exploring the syntax of reality? Literally, the way a whole range of different beings ‘put together’ their picture of reality? You’re charting the languages their different brains have evolved, in order to get beyond this reality in some way? That’s the idea?”

“Nice,” conceded Ph’theri. “You read our intention well. Our destiny is to signal-trade at right angles to This-Reality. That is the tide of our philosophy. We have to journey out at right angles to this universe. By superimposing all languages. And our language inventory for This-Reality is nearly done—”

Sole was not interrupting now—as the others had been with their clamour about technology—but clearly touching upon an obsessive chord deep in the alien, harmonizing with his people’s search among the stars.

Sciavoni was nervous at first; then accepted Sole’s lead as the only visible thread in the labyrinth.

Ph’theri regarded him sadly.

“The length of time already elapsed is agony to us—”

“Agony? Why is that?”

“Perhaps the answer will mean nothing to you. It is our quest, not yours, to go at right angles to This-Reality. Maybe a quest specific to our species?”

Sole recalled the stringy, bitch face of Dorothy Summers as she raised a logical quibble some time ago at Haddon during one of their bull sessions there.

He shook his head in bewilderment.

“This idea of getting outside of the reality you’re already part of—it’s illogical,” he protested. “Reality determines how you view things. There’s no such thing as a perfect external observer. Nobody can move outside themselves or conceive of something outside of the scope of the concepts they’re using. We’re all embedded in what you call This-Reality’—”

“It may be illogical in This-Reality. But in para- Reality, other systems of logic apply…”

Harking back, as an anchor, to Dorothy’s preoccupation with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sole felt tempted to quote the Austrian philosopher’s bleak summing up of how much, and how little, human beings could ever hope to know.

“Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must keep silent—” he murmured.

“If that’s your philosophy,” the alien said haughtily, “it is not ours.”

“In fact it isn’t our philosophy at all,” Sole rejoined more briskly. “We humans are constantly searching for ways to voice the unvoicable. The sheer desire to discover boundaries already implies the desire to pass beyond them, I suppose.”

The alien shrugged. (His own native gesture? Or was he picking up the gesture speech of human beings already?)

“You cannot hope to explore all the boundaries to reality on one single world, with only one intelligent species working on the problem. That isn’t science. That is… solipsism. I think that’s the word.”

“Yes, that’s the word—defining the universe in terms of one individual.”

As the alien spoke, Sole marvelled at the extent of Ph’theri’s stock of words—wondered exactly how the trick was done. Neural implant of so much information?

“One planet is solipsism. The Sp’thra duty is to avoid solipsism to the nth degree.”

“But we’re all embedded in one universe ultimately, Ph’theri. That’s a sort of solipsism nobody can escape. Or by ‘one reality’ do you mean one galaxy ? Are other galaxies other modes of reality? Do you people plan on intergalactic travel?”

An overwhelming impression of a huge wild sorrow came from the alien’s gently-bulging, widespaced eyes. A wise calf waiting outside the slaughterhouse kind of look.

“No. All the galaxies of This-Reality obey the same general laws. We are searching for another reality. We have to achieve it. We are so late.”

Again, this time factor.

“The problem,” Ph’theri said dismally, “is what a two-dimensional being would face, trying to behave three-dimensionally: to the mocking laughter and love-taunts of superior three-dimensional beings—”

It sounded like nonsense or some kind of schizophrenia. Whose mocking laughter? Whose love? Whose taunts?

Sole decided to get back on a more solid footing.

“It all comes down to the laws of physics and chemistry that govern this reality, doesn’t it, Ph’theri? Those decide how much we can ever know—or communicate. How much the brain of Man or Alien can think.”

“True.”

“We ourselves are experimenting with chemical techniques to improve the brain’s capacity. We want to seek out the exact boundaries of universal grammar.”

Several Americans and Russians stared at Sole. He was aware he was giving something confidential away, but didn’t care right then.

“That approach is worthless,” Ph’theri said impatiently. “Chemical techniques? Trial and error? Don’t you realize there are a myriad conceivable ways in which proteins can be combined to code information? More than the sum total of atoms in this planet of yours! The rules of reality can only be understood by superimposing the widest range of languages from different worlds upon one another. There is the one and only key to This-Reality—and the way out.”

Sole nodded.

“Ph’theri, another question I must ask—what you’re saying now, is it being monitored and aided in some way? Your fluency has me worried.”

Ph’theri pointed a finger at the scarlet wires leading from his lips and paper-bag ears into his chest pack.

“True. This is sending signals through the ship outside into the language machines in our larger ship in the sky. It is also a witness to our trade negotiations. With machine-assist, I save time. Vocabulary fast-scan. Heuristic parameters for new words—”

“Yet even without this machine link-up you speak English—by direct programming into the brain, you said?”

“Yes, though not so easily. The technique is…”

“… I know, tradeable. Was I wasting time just now, asking about grammar and reality?”

“No. We are understanding each other at the optimum rate. We thank you. And assess it highly.”