Charles Sheffield - Transcendence

Nenda nodded. The Cecropian and the Karelian human backed quietly away toward the exit of the control chamber. At the door they paused for a few seconds and stared back into the room. Finally, at some mutual decision point, they turned and hustled each other out of the chamber.

Their departure went unnoticed. Darya was still deep in her own brooding, and everybody else was focused on J’merlia.

“There are many sentient Builder constructs in the spiral arm,” the Lo’tfian was saying. “Hundreds or thousands of them, according to Guardian, set in well-hidden locations where we have never dreamed of looking. They have intermittent contact with each other, as they have for millions of years. But Guardian and World-Keeper question the actions and even the sanity of most of the others. They are united in their view that this region, and this alone, will be the home of the Builders when they return to the spiral arm.”

Darya had been fascinated by the Builders and their artifacts for all of her adult life, but at the moment other matters had higher priority.

“J’merlia!” she found a final pocket of energy and tried one last time. “You say you were here , at the same time as you were on Genizee. But that can’t be right. Nothing can be in two places at once. How do you explain what happened to you?”

The pale-yellow eyes swiveled. J’merlia shook his head. “ Explain? I cannot explain. I know only that it is so.”

“And I know that it’s impossible .”

“It cannot be impossible. Because it happened .”

It was the ultimate irrefutable argument. J’merlia was calm and immovable. Darya stared at him in frustration. The rest of the group looked on in silence, until E.C. Tally stirred and turned to Darya.

“May I speak?”

“Not unless it’s relevant ,” Darya snapped. She was so tired, so baffled — the last thing she could stand at the moment was some senseless digression from a witless embodied computer.

“It is, I believe, most relevant. May I speak?”

“Oh, get on with it.”

“To a logical entity, such as myself, the behavior of organic intelligences, such as yourself, provides many anomalies. For example, the history of humanity, the species concerning which my data banks have most information, is replete with cases where humans, on little or no evidence, have believed in impossibilities. They have accepted the existence of a variety of improbable entities: of gods and demons, of fairies and elves, of ‘good luck’ charms, of magic potions, of curses and hexes and evil eyes.”

“Tally, if you’re going blather about—”

“But at the same time, humans and other organic intelligences often seem unwilling to accept the implications and consequences of their own legitimate scientific theories .” Tally stared squarely at Darya. “For example, do you reject the basic concepts of quantum theory?”

“Of course I don’t!”

“So you accept those ideas. But apparently only in some abstract sense. You reject them at a practical level.”

“I do not.” Darya’s outrage was enough to burn away — temporarily — her lethargy.

“So you accept the central idea that a particle, or a system of particles, such as an electron or proton or atomic nucleus, can be in a ‘mixed’ quantum state. In essence, it can occupy several different possible conditions at once. An electron, for example, has two permitted orientations for its spin; but it cannot be said to have either one spin state or the other, until it is observed . Until that time, it may be partly in both possible spin states. Do you agree?”

“That’s a standard element of the theory. It’s well established by experiment, too. I certainly accept it. What is all this, E.C.? Get to the point.”

“I am at the point. That is the point, the whole point. You were the one who told me that all researchers of the Torvil Anfract accepted the instantaneous interchange of pairs of Anfract lobes as evidence of quantum effects. The Anfract, you said, possesses macroscopic quantum states, of unprecedented size. You said that to me before we ever entered the Anfract.

“Then we flew in, with Dulcimer as pilot. Do you recall a time when the ship’s motion became choppy and irregular?”

“Of course I do. I was scared. I thought for a moment that we were hitting small space-time singularities, but then I realized that made no sense.”

“And you asked Captain Rebka what was happening. Since humans appear to have trouble recalling events exactly, let me repeat for you his exact words. ‘Planck scale change,’ he said. ‘A big one. We’re hitting the quantum level of the local continuum. If macroscopic quantum effects are common in the Anfract we’re due for all sorts of trouble. Quantum phenomena in everyday life. Don’t know what that would do.’ You accepted his statements without question. Yet you apparently remain unwilling to face their implications. As I said, organic intelligences do not have faith in their own scientific theories.

“There are large-scale quantum phenomena inside the Anfract; and the Builder sentient constructs have learned how to utilize them.” Tally pointed to J’merlia. “He, like you and me, consists of a system of particles. We are each described by a quantum-mechanical state vector — a very large and complex one, but still a single state vector. Isn’t it obvious that J’merlia existed in a mixed quantum state when he was — simultaneously — here and on Hollow-World and in several places on Genizee? And isn’t it clear that his total wave function did not resolve and ‘collapse’ back to a single state — to a single J’merlia — until he returned here on the seedship?”

Darya stared at the others — and saw no reaction at all. She found Tally’s words mind-blowing. They appeared to accept what he was saying without question. “But if that happened to J’merlia, why didn’t it happen to all of us?”

“I can only conjecture. Clearly, the actions of Guardian were of central importance. If the development of mixed quantum states in organic intelligences is a borderline event in the Anfract, something which occurs only rarely or under specially contrived circumstances, then a trigger action may be needed. Guardian knows how to provide that trigger. And perhaps J’merlia is by his nature unusually susceptible to accepting a mixed quantum state.”

“Oh, my Lord.” Hans Rebka had been lolling back in the pilot’s chair as though he were half-asleep. Now he sat upright. “ Unusually susceptible to a mixed state. Tally’s right, I’m sure he is. That’s what’s been wrong with Julian Graves, ever since we got here. His two personalities were integrated back on Miranda, but we always knew it was a sensitive balance. They’re still liable to disruption. He was already on the borderline, it wouldn’t take much to push him over. No wonder he said he couldn’t think any more! No wonder he sent out a distress signal. His mind was divided — too much me . Two parallel quantum states in one body, trying to make decisions and control the Erebus .”

“Those are my thoughts exactly.” Since E.C. Tally lacked emotion or intellectual insecurity, his display of pleasure at Rebka’s support was a tribute to simulation modeling. “And it means that it is not necessary to seek a treatment for the councilor’s condition. He will automatically return to normal, as soon as we exit the Anfract and are again in a region of space-time where macroscopic quantum states cannot be sustained.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Hans Rebka glanced around the group. “We can leave the Anfract at once. We’ve got the evidence of Zardalu we came for” — he nodded to where the infant land-cephalopod was systematically destroying the seat of the control chair — “the best evidence we could possibly have. The sooner we leave, the sooner Graves gets back to normal. Can anyone think of a reason why we shouldn’t leave at once?”