Of course, the idea that Rylla came to see me might only exist in my mind. Maybe the main attraction in America for Rylla was Zeta.
Zeta, my wife, was born on a distant exoplanet in the Galactic Core: Tar'tron. The planet Tar'tron in a lawless place where there are advanced technologies available for guiding the behavior of humans; nothing as primitive as governments and laws are needed. In particular, there are no child labor laws on Tar'tron, so Zeta was put to work at a young age.
What type of work? Ensuring that we Earthlings have the opportunity to escape from the dismal confines of Earth and spread between the stars. Given the importance of her work, Zeta never had reason to complain about her mission on Earth until she became my wife and we fell in love. For a woman who grew up on a lawless world, Zeta is quite good at laying down the law. A large part of Zeta'a success in law enforcement is that she only tries to enforce her laws within about about ten cubic meters of the Hadronic Domain: call those 10 cubic meters "Zetaland".
The First Law
The Hadronic Domain is the universe as it is known to Earthlings here in the 21st century, the domain of hadronic matter. There are other forms of matter (hierions and sedrons) that can exist beyond the Hadronic Domain and Zeta carries a collection of hierions inside her, in the form of a Phari endosymbiont. Unlike most people on Earth, Zeta was trained from an early age in how to make use of her endosymbiont for gaining access to the Bimanoid Interface.
Zeta believes that all Earthlings have a Phari endosymbiont, but we simply fail to realize its presence inside of us. According to Zeta, some Earthlings occasionally make use of their endosymbiont to gain access to the Interface, allowing them to receive information from distant sources. Apparently this explains the common human belief in telepathy.
Zeta tries to enforce her laws by making use of telepathy, but her brain was damaged and she is no longer a very good telepath. Zeta's endosymbiont provides her with a limited capacity for technology-assisted telepathy, mostly the exchange of language-like conscious thoughts. The First Law of Zeta is simple: she's the only woman allowed in our bed (our bed is at the center of Zetaland). I understand that law and I try to obey, but keeping other women out of Zetaland is not easy. For years Zeta fought a losing battle to keep her clone sister Yōd out of Zetaland. Yōd was a much better telepath than Zeta, so it was easy for Yōd to wait until Zeta was asleep and then she was free to telepathically invade Zetaland.
Luckily, most of Yōd's invasions of Zetaland went unnoticed, but now, with the upgraded Bimanoid Interface, the telepathic link between Zeta and I has strengthened. Zeta now has no trouble detecting the general flavor and content of my thoughts.
About a year ago, the struggle to keep Yōd out of Zetaland abruptly ended when Yōd's mission on Earth ended. However, during the past year, an even more dastardly criminal (Ivory Fersoni) has appeared in Zetaland and repeatedly broken the First Law of Zeta. I've often reminded Zeta that in fairness to Ivory, it is important to remember that Ivory is dead. So, technically, when Ivory appears in Zetaland, what invades our bed is only a form of memory, not an actual woman. However, when it comes to the First Law, Zeta is both judge and jury and when Ivory is in our bed, Zeta is in no mood for letting Ivory off on a technicality.
I've tried to reason with Zeta. "Let's keep this in perspective. The entire future of Humanity is at stake."
Unfortunately, Zeta can't control her feelings. I suspect that when they were small, Zeta and her clone sisters were programmed to have a deep fascination with Earth in general, the fate of Humanity and my role as the Editor.
I know from personal experience what that sort of programming can do to a person. In my case, I was behaviorally programmed to be incurably fascinated by Gohrlay. In general, I don't like the idea that I might be a puppet and forced to do the bidding of others. However, the fact that my entire life was arranged so that I would fall in love with my wife is rather like learning that the lottery was rigged so that I would win the grand prize. I'm not going to complain.
I understand that Zeta cannot prevent herself from being jealous of Ivory. In a sense, Ivory can take over my thoughts at any time. I suppose it is good that Zeta only objects to Ivory's presence in my life when I can't prevent myself from thinking about Ivory while I am in Zetaland.
The source of this problem is that I carry a collection of Ivory infites in my head. After she died, Ivory wanted me to have access to all of her hard-won knowledge about Deep Time so she provided me with some information nanites. Last year, when my own telepathic ability was unleashed, I discovered that I could establish a telepathic connection to Ivory. I don't fully understand how this works. At first, I imagined that an artificial life copy of Ivory exists in the Hierion Domain and I had discovered how to telepathically connect to that copy of Ivory.
Whenever I'm "connected to" Ivory, my visual cortex is activated and in my mind I "see Ivory". The problem is, Zeta and I now share a telepathic link to each-other. So, whenever I begin to access the vast information resources that are encoded in the Ivory infites, Ivory "appears" in my mind and there is nothing I can do to prevent Zeta from noticing. In general, if Ivory "appears" in Zetaland, I get out of bed and beat a hasty retreat from our bedroom. The lesson is clear: humans are not really meant to have telepathic abilities.
In my case, a lot of effort went into providing me with an ability to use technology-assisted telepathy. The basis of my telepathic ability is fundamentally different than that of Zeta. Zeta has the special ability to control her Phari endosymbiont while I (as a tryp'At) can make use of the zeptite endosymbiont, which has always been present inside me. Through most of my life, I was not allowed to use telepathy. That changed a year ago right when Yōd departed from Earth and I was finally allowed to begin using my endosymbiont for connecting my thoughts to the Bimanoid Interface.
During the past year, I have almost continuously been linked telepathically to Zeta. I quite often link to the "copy" of Ivory's mind that is inside me, in the form of infites, and we "discuss" what she knows about Deep Time. I have made attempts to link telepathically to other people at Observer Base, but without success. I'd come to believe that Zeta and I were the only two people remaining on Earth with telepathic abilities. Then one night, that changed.
I woke up with the feeling that something had happened to my granddaughter, Verella (she now prefers to be called Rylla). I've had a weak, almost subconscious telepathic linkage to Verella for the past year.
The first time that I established a weak telepathic link to Verella, my thoughts of Verella were quickly pushed away by Yōd, who, being a clone of Gohrlay and never having had her telepathic abilities suppressed in the way that Zeta's had been, was then the most powerful telepath on Earth. On that day, when the Bimanoid Interface had been given an upgrade, Yōd discovered that she was no longer able to remain on Earth. She was teleported to Observer Base, but that did not solve the problem.
The AR Simulator
Yōd had to take even more drastic action. Yōd and Zeta, as clones of Gohrlay, were experiencing positive feedback through their connection to the Bimanoid Interface. Yōd decided that she might as well drop out of the Hadronic Domain, allowing Zeta to remain here on Earth with me. Yōd inserted herself into the Asimov Reality Simulator with the hope that she could contact Azynov and possibly communicate to us what he had learned about the future of the Asimov Reality. In particular, it was hoped that he might learn the tricks by which humans had been given access to the Bimanoid Interface.
Mind Clones
Now, as I write this, it is about a year since Yōd had departed from Earth, and once again I was forced to think seriously about telepathy and why a few special Earthlings had telepathic abilities. Of course, Verella was my grand-daughter, so it made sense that she might have inherited my capacity for telepathy. At that time, I knew nothing about the unusual genetic background of Verella's mother or that Verella is apparently a mind clone. It was only after Verella arrived in America that I would witness Verella becoming part of a mind clone network. And it is not only Verella. Zeta and Nora are also planning to become nodes in this growing telepathic network.
It is the audacity of these women that terrifies me. Ivory Fersoni was exiled from Earth for far less, hence my recent obsessive thoughts about Ivory. Will an Overseer swoop down from Observer Base and take Verella, Zeta and Nora away, just as was done with Ivory? Or is their audacity required to win for we Earthlings our future among the stars?
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Next: Observer Base
Table of Contents
A Search Beyond is copyright John Schmidt, but the text of the story is licensed for sharing under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.
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