Alan Foster: Exceptions to Reality

The lounge forest was home to a small but exceptionally varied collection of flora and fauna drawn from different worlds. Before being transferred to the enclosed, climate-controlled chamber, their individual biologies and backgrounds had been thoroughly vetted by the vessel’s Shell. Otherwise Flinx would not have felt comfortable going to sleep inside the lounge. He knew that none of the diminutive creatures that dwelled therein were capable of or inclined to do him harm.

It was not an animal, however, that was now advancing silently toward him.

The single oversized leaf split and split and split again into innumerable subsidiary tendrils, not unlike the singular twin leaves of the uncommon Terran desert plant Welwitschia mirabilis. The suddenly motile growth was one of many that had been given to Flinx by the adapted human inhabitants of the edicted planet known in restricted Commonwealth files as Midworld. The primitive human colonists who lived there had developed a capacity for empathetic foliation: the ability to sense, on a very simple level, what much of the planet’s globe-girdling flora was “feeling.” As an empath himself, Flinx to a certain degree shared that ability.

But he was asleep now. Not empathizing, not projecting, not receiving or feeling. Like his thoughts, his emotions were in stasis. The multiple tendrils that were twisting and weaving their way in his direction were doing so entirely on their own and without any prompting or tempting from their objective. The unanticipated activity did not, however, go unobserved.

The Teacher ’s AI monitored the leaf’s fracturing approach via multiple lenses embedded in the walls and ceiling that were capable of scanning the entire chamber simultaneously. Though it could have sent mobile devices to intercept the squirming branchlets, it did not react immediately. Its history showed that whenever a serious threat to its owner presented itself, Flinx had invariably been stirred to wakefulness. The same was true of his winged pet. Both continued to sleep, ignoring the floral advance. Their indifference, even in sleep mode, caused the AI to dither.

By the time it decided that regardless of a lack of responsiveness from its master it ought to take some action, it was too late.

By now the diameter of the smallest of the continuously subdividing tendrils could be measured in nanometers. Entering Flinx via his right ear, they proceeded to worm their way deep into his cranium without damaging the delicate tympanum of the hearing organ or stimulating it to generate potentially awakening noise. Knowing exactly where to penetrate, they entered the cerebrum at points that would have struck a human neurosurgeon as not only harmless, but useless. A normal human brain would not even have been affected. Flinx’s mind, however, was far from normal. His closest human companion, Clarity Held, knew this. So, too, did a pair of longtime mentors, the human Bran Tse-Mallory and the thranx Truzenzuzex.

So also, it appeared, did certain highly specialized and abnormally active botanical xenophyta.

Once again Flinx found himself in that peculiar state of conscious sleep that periodically afflicted him. He was aware of himself and, to a certain extent, his immediate surroundings as well. He knew that he was safely on board his ship, in the lounge, but asleep. In this singular state of awareness but not wakefulness someone—or rather something—was attempting to converse with him.

Intermittent contact is wasteful. The sexless voice in his mind was vast, enfolding, luxuriant. Greater intimacy will facilitate progress.

Flinx did not argue. How could he, being asleep? Nor could he ignore what he was perceiving. He could no more blot out the voice in his mind than he could reach up and pull out the infiltrating tendrils of which he remained utterly unaware. Even if he could, there was no reason to do so. Their existence inside his head, inside his brain, caused him no pain, no discomfort. In fact, their presence was soothing, generating a kind of cerebral balm. As he remained motionless and unobjecting, the tendrils set themselves more deeply. He was aware that something was being done to his body but found himself unable and unwilling to oppose it.

As awareness dawned of what was taking place, the ship finally decided that it had to do something. But in order to safely counteract what it now perceived to be an unsolicited intrusion into the body of its master, it first had to ascertain exactly what was happening. Analysis always precedes action.

Alongside the couch-lounge a floor panel popped open. A cable emerged. The end of the cable split into smaller cables, which in turn divided into smaller and still-smaller metallic filaments. These gave birth to hypoallergenic wisps of silicaceous cilia. Ascending the lounge, they twisted and curled and found their way to the head of the recumbent, sleeping human. A small number of cilia entered his left ear, penetrating, questing. Looking for answers. Searching for connections.

The world-mind of Midworld that was present on the Teacher in the form of several decorative growths could not communicate with the ship’s AI. The purely mechanical AI could not talk to the wholly organic representation of that immense green world-mind. But to the very considerable surprise of each, they discovered that they could communicate through the matchless, inimitable mind of the human dozing dreamily on the lounge. Genetically modified ganglia served to link plant and machine. It was not a function that had been envisioned by the rogue gengineers who had conceived the blueprint of the young man’s mind. Conditioned to think of himself as receptor of emotions and possibly a kind of trigger for something incalculably greater and as yet undefined, a quiescent Flinx now found himself serving as the unconscious facilitator of an unprecedented link between plant-mind and machine.

Having unexpectedly established this rudimentary contact, the Teacher ’s AI ventured a typical terse query. What are you doing? Your presence here was not requested.

Not requested, artificial mentality, but necessary.

The ship mulled this response. I monitor the human’s condition on a more than hourly basis. I have not detected, nor do I now, any need for the intrusion of another life-form. This plainly includes you.

The botanical vastness replied, Time passes. Events advance. It is thought a more intimate connection will help to speed, streamline, and facilitate certain essential decision making on the part of the human that is vital to the continued survival of all.

Since Flinx was in no condition to object, the ship did so for him. At times it may appear that the master hesitates unreasonably, or makes determinations that are contradictory or even counterproductive, which he then proceeds to follow. I have learned that this is necessary to the optimal functioning of his kind.

That is contradictory. How can following counterproductive decisions improve function? The plant-mind was clearly confused.

One would have to be human to understand. It is true that I am not. However, I have spent all my conscious existence in the presence of or responding to the actions and thoughts of this one individual. You are, I perceive, a group consciousness. Not individual. It is not expected that you would understand.

The intimacy we have just forged will improve the human’s functioning.

The Teacher was unhesitating in its response. In the absence of empirical precedent I can neither refute nor verify that judgment. But I can tell you that while your intimate presence and consequent influence may possibly enhance his health and even extend his physical life span, it will only inhibit his decision-making ability.