Lydya

Manufactured people.

Lydya reflected on the the causal chain that had led relentlessly to this day. She was in the master bedroom suite of Lankster House, playing out the ancient ritual of needing the most time when dressing the least. At the same time, Lydia was being distracted from the complex process of decorating herself. She told her oldest daughter, Sisir, "Well, of course I'm going to blame Myryn and his absurd sense of heroics."

Sisir had just achieved the customary qualification for adulthood within fain society, having completed a program for advanced study in biology. Now, again by the traditions of the fain, Lydya was no longer allowed to hide the truth from her daughter. Now, Lydya was expected to share the facts, with no sugar coating, adult to adult. Knowing that the playing field for the intellectual games with her mother should have shifted, Sisir was relentlessly pressing her attack, trying to make her mother reveal secrets from the past. "Ah, yes." She shook her head derisively. "I knew you would blame the mysterious unseen Myryn."

Lydya chuckled and enjoyed Sisir's look of dismay which she could not quite hide by pretending to be angry. "I've never kept secret from you what little I understand about sub-nanoscopic nanites, the femtobots. Just because Myryn is too small to be seen that does not mean he does not exist. It just means that he and I could not produce babies the old fashioned way." Lydya smiled, remembering her previous life and briefly thinking about the fun of having Myryn's gorgeous penis inside her. "We did have fun picking you out of the catalog. We dithered over the choice. Well, I dithered... I was busy with Nirutam and in no rush to bring you into existence."

Sisir had long ago gotten over the idea that her mother had selected her from a catalog of dead people, chosen her for a chance to have a second life. When first told that she was reincarnated from a past Reality, Sisir had nightmares about re-animated corpses. However, she'd eventually come to accept her origin as an artificial life form. According to Lydya, their bodies were both made of femtobot components. They differed from Myryn only in the fact that they had been given macroscopic bodies of normal size for a human. Sisir's artificial body had even been allowed to grow through the normal stages of human childhood. "If you were so desperate to have children, I'm surprised that you delayed the process."

In her mind, Lydya thought back across years to before she had brought Sisir into existence. That had been a very hectic time; years spent making sure that Nirutam had gotten a good start on life. An entire fain community had been created from scratch, and during its first years, there had been much work explaining to the residents how they needed to prepare Nirutam for a mission on Earth. The adult fain all had memories of Earth as it had existed in the previous Reality. It had been Lydya's task to help familiarize them with how Earth of the Final Reality was different than the Earth of their previous experience.

Sisir tried to pull Lydya back to the issue of her party. "We've planned my party for weeks, and now you want to use Myryn as an excuse for why you are not attending? That's not fair."

Lydya sighed and put her arms around Sisir. "My regular meetings with Nirutam were scheduled long before this party. You can't expect me to interrupt my work, especially now that we are so close to the Arrival. And besides, don't over-dramatize. I'll be present for most of your party. I don't expect to chat with Nirutam for more than about an hour, as usual."

Sisir pulled back from the comforting embrace of Lydya. There had once been a time when no scraped knee or wound to the ego could not be healed by one of these warm hugs. Not now! Her curiosity about the Arrival was itching and distracting. The Arrival had always seemed so far off in the future, but now it was finally upon them. She asked, "What's so special about these two visitors from Earth?"

In a sense, that question was a sign of the success of Lydya's work. That Sisir could view the arrival of Earthlings as a mundane event showed just how well she had been immersed in Earthly culture. Lankster House was like a miniature extension of Earth, miraculously instantiated in the Andromeda galaxy. Still, only three or four spaceship treks had ever brought humans on the long journey from Earth's galaxy to Andromeda. The problem was, Sisir had only ever heard hints of the pending Arrival. Lydya certainly did not want Sisir involving herself in the matter. Doing so would only exacerbate Sisir's fear that Nirutam was more important to her mother than she was herself. While true, being second in your mother's priorities is not what a daughter wants to know. Tugging at her bikini top, Lydya again contemplated the possibility of simply going topless during the party. She looked at herself in the mirror then caught a glance of Sisir out of the corner of her eye. Lydya suggested, "If you'd like, join me today when Nirutam visits and ask her that question."

Sisir sighed. "Far easier if you would just tell me what you know."

"It is your choice. Be the teen-aged party girl and miss out on an opportunity to learn something interesting from Nirutam. Soon she'll be gone and you will regret not having spent time with her."

Sisir tried to put her coming-of-age party in perspective. She wondered: how will I feel ten years from now? "Mom, just give me the short version. Who is Azynov?"

"Azynov is an artificial life copy of a writer, a man named Isaac Asimov who lived on Earth in the 20th century."

"Why is he coming here?"

Lydya shrugged, "I suppose it is unavoidable by the structure of pek logic, but I can only speculate. What you are asking about is exactly the kind of detail that might actually be known to Nirutam. Why listen to my guesses when-"

"Mom, I'm not going to skip out on my own party just to ask Nirutam some questions about Azynov. Tell me what you know."

"Well, the entire trip by Azynov to this galaxy is probably a timing device. Upon his return to Earth, he is going to be given access to a database containing information about the complex process by which human telepathy was crafted. In order to avoid a temporal paradox, Earthlings simply can't be provided with that information too soon. By forcing Azynov to make the slow trip to this galaxy, he is being prevented from reaching Earth too soon."

"Time travel? Come on!" Sisir felt her frustration rising. Lydya always confounded simple issues with mysticism. "I've studied enough physics to know that time travel is impossible."

Lydya explained, "Impossible? Yes, so I've been told. Now. However, time travel was possible in the past Realities, just not here in the Final Reality. And the transition to the Final Reality has been so complex that... well, it is not clear that we are actually in the Final Reality yet... not fully."

Sisir rubbed her head, "When you talk about time travel, my head starts spinning. Then you also have to toss telepathy into the mix!" Sisir knew that Lydya claimed to have a telepathic connection to the mysterious Myryn. Sisir begged, "Please answer my question, Mom. Why Azynov? What is so special about him that he gets to be the one who will learn the origins of human telepathy?"

Creating the Final Reality

"Well, my dear, there is no short answer to that. Apparently, Asimov had analogues in every Reality, all through Deep Time, right back to the First Reality. As far as I can tell, the positronic robots who developed time travel felt a special attachment to the Asimov analogue of the First Reality. Those robots took care to make sure that there would always be a version of Asimov in every Reality. So you see, Azynov is special because the robots think that Asimov was special."

Sisir shook her head. She'd been told before that Asimov was a "fixed point in Time", so special that he would always exist. "No, sorry mom, but I'm not of your religion." For a minute Sisir watched her mother tugging at the nanofabric of her swimsuit, trying to make it fit exactly to the curves of her body. She could tell that Lydya had lost interest in trying to explain things. "Fine, have your religious prayer session with Nirutam today. I won't be there. I'll be having fun with my friends." And now Sisir pulled her eyes away from the swimsuit and looked carefully at her mother's head. Lydia was proud to be a mammal and she was always trying new hair styles. Sisir asked, "What did you do to your hair?

Lydya giggled and explained, "This is a little concept derived from my research into Earthly fashion. I'll be attending your party as a beach blond."

Sisir shook her head disparagingly. "You know that the fain don't care about hair. Almost all of them are completely bald." Sisir turned away from Lydya and departed from her mother's bedroom.

Almost immediately, another voice was there in Lydya's head. She'll get over the disappointment of not having your complete attention today.

Lydya did not bother trying to look for Myryn. "Yes, I know. This is one of the many rewards of motherhood... children who expect you to adopt their solipsistic view of the universe. Sisir is almost an adult... she will soon abandon the innate perspective that the world exists just for her."

Myryn asked: Have you ever spoke to Sisir about Yōd?

Both Azynov and his travel companion, Yōd, would soon be arriving. "I'm sure that she has heard the name during some past discussion... when I was talking to you or maybe it was Nirutam and I who mentioned Yōd in her presence, but Sisir has never shown any interest."

Myryn found that strange. With her studies of biology, I'd expect Sisir to be particularly interested in the pending arrival of an actual biological entity.

The rumor was that Yōd was actually a living, breathing biological human. However, as artificial life forms, Lydya and Sisir were indistinguishable from an actual human. Their bodies contained cells and proteins... it was just that they were composed of even smaller femtobot components. "For Sisir, biology is mostly a theoretical science."

Myryn could not resist saying: You could have rescheduled today's meeting with Nirutam.

"My original thinking was that I'd appreciate a break in the middle of the day. Sisir's idea for this celebration is a 16 hour pool party with fifty invited guests. I don't have her youthful stamina." Sometimes Lydya found raising eight children a bit tiresome. "Then later, when you told me that this might be my final opportunity to speak to Nirutam, I was glad that I never canceled the meeting."

Myryn felt little sympathy. You're the one who wanted a big family. Unlike Yōd.

Lydya felt a tingle of interest. She asked, "Is that why Yōd was selected to escort Azynov to this galaxy?"

Myryn replied: Who knows what motivates the pek? However, the matter of motherhood does touch on a few mysteries that I have come across while exploring the pek data stream.

Lydya knew that the entire project that had grown up around sending Nirutam to Earth was all part of a secretive pek project. No human knew what the ultimate objective was for the alien pek. However, Lydya had never had any interactions with the pek. At least, not that she was aware of. It was, of course, possible that any number of the fain were actually pek agents in disguise. She also knew that Myryn had devoted much effort to hacking into the vast ocean of pek data that resided in the Sedronic Domain. Sadly, Lydya did not know very much about Yōd. "I seem to recall that Yōd had a bad experience with motherhood."

Myron could confirm that datum. Yes, she did. She once gave birth to a child under primitive conditions on Earth and swore that she would never again go through the process of having a child. However, as far as I can tell, the pek now plan that Yōd will give birth to a mind clone.

Lydya asked, "Wait. You mean when they reach Earth? Before or after Azynov completes his mission?"

Myryn explained: If I'm interpreting the future-projective data correctly, it will be during Azynov's mission to reveal the origins of human telepathy.

Lydya was puzzled. "Won't that just interfere and slow the investigation?"

Well, I suppose it might. However, it will vastly improve data transfer from inside the AR Simulator. Yōd's little mind clone will be part of a communications network.

"I see. With another node of that network outside of the Simulator. So anything that Azynov learns about telepathy will be transmitted out of the Simulator by telepathy."

Yes. A rather more elegant system than having to wait for Azynov or Yōd to emerge from the AR Simulator.

Lydya suggested, "If the pek are making it easy to transmit data out of the AR Simulator then that is good evidence that the Reality Change creating the Final Reality is now complete."

Myryn added: Confirmatory evidence. It is no coincidence that Nirutam is going to Earth at exactly the same time when Azynov will start his historical investigation of telepathy.

"Okay, I can hear that the first group of Sisir's friends have arrived for the big party. I better go play lifeguard by the pool." Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she tugged again at her tight-fitting swimsuit.

Myryn said: Just remember... try to act surprised when Nirutam tells you that the Arrival has been moved up.

Lydia asked, "At this point, does it matter?" But Myryn was gone. She told herself: I'll do my best not to blow Myryn's cover. Then her attention shifted back to the party. Lydya had not given birth to any of the eight children. They had each arrived at Lankster House as babies of about six months age. She ran her hands across her flat abdomen and went out to face the small army of teenagers who would be there for the party.


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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.