A World Between Page 8

  Falkenstein lapsed into silence. A cold wind seemed to blow in, and not from the ocean.

  “So you see,” he finally said, “we can’t simply disseminate our knowledge cavalierly and wash our hands of the consequences.”

  Lauren Golding’s bluff red face seemed unnaturally pale. His booming voice faded to a whisper. “The man is right,” he said.

  “I’m not sure that you’re not leaping to a whole set of unnecessary conclusions, Dr. Falkenstein,” Carlotta said uncertainly. “Seems to me you consider the rest of the human race idiot children…”

  Maria Falkenstein spoke for the first time. “Of course we’re projecting conclusions. That’s the whole point. For most of human history, science has been fragmented from politics, morality, ultimate concerns. Scientists produced knowledge and power, considered both ethically neutral, and turned their backs on the consequences. But we believe—”

  “Not believe, Maria,” Roger Falkenstein interjected, “know.”

  “—we know that reality is a unity of matter, energy, time, and mind. Psychosocial and political projections are therefore as much a valid area of scientific concern as astrophysics or genetic engineering because they’re interrelated aspects of the same whole…”

  “That all sounds very deep,” Carlotta said, “and maybe it is. But I don’t see its relevance to the issue at hand—your insistence on controlling access to your knowledge instead of making it the common property of the human race.”

  “Our long-range goal is to make Transcendental Science the common property of the human race,” Falkenstein said. “But one does not become a Transcendental Scientist without encompassing the whole, without developing a transcendental consciousness. And that is what we do at our Institutes. To graduate from an Institute of Transcendental Science is to join an interstellar brotherhood of evolved human consciousness that transcends planetary nationalism or ideological mind-set, that seeks to evolve the whole race to its own level in time. That’s why we build Arkologies—because we consider ourselves citizens of a galactic culture yet to come which will transcend the parameters of our naturally evolved planetary consciousness.”

  Falkenstein glanced at Carlotta, but then seemed to be directing his next words to Royce. “That’s also why we can’t allow anyone but Institute graduates access to partial knowledge. Transcendental Science is not separable. Would you hand over a fusion bomb to an unsocialized child?”

  Royce locked eyes with Falkenstein for a long moment. Then he looked out to sea, where a small covy of bumblers paddled just offshore, bobbing their heads under the surface in search of fish. But he didn’t seem to be watching the big birds; his eyes seemed unfocused, as if staring off into Falkenstein’s distant yonder. This has gone just about far enough! Carlotta decided.

  “You’ve given us your position in considerable depth, Dr. Falkenstein,” she said. “You’ve made your points most cogently. Now I had better clearly state ours. We’d like to have an Institute of Transcendental Science. We’re willing to let you send teachers planetside. However, any Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science must be considered a corporation chartered under Pacifican law. Which means that anything imparted to Pacifican citizens on Pacifican soil becomes governed by our laws, not yours. Specifically that means our information access laws and our Web trade regulations. Pacifican Institute graduates may sell anything they know to the Pacifican government or to private corporations who in turn may also resell information to the government. Any knowledge sold to the government goes into the public accessbanks, where it may be retrieved free of charge by any Pacifican citizen. Anything in the public accessbanks may be traded on the Web under the discretion of the Ministry of Media.”

  Carlotta smiled sweetly at Falkenstein, confident after what she had just heard that she had effectively slammed the door. “If you can live with that, we have a deal,” she said. “Otherwise, we have nothing to discuss but philosophic pleasantries.”

  Surprisingly, Falkenstein seemed not to react at all. No surprise, no annoyance, no nothing. He just sat there calmly pondering her diktat for a long thoughtful moment “Interesting,” he finally said mildly.

  “Interesting? Is that all you have to say?”

  “Well, we always expect to have to conform to local law,” Falkenstein said in the friendliest of tones. “What you propose obviously has complex ramifications, both legally and philosophically. Obviously, I cannot accept your offer until we have had some time to study the full implications…”

  What? Huh? Carlotta was caught completely off balance. “You mean you’re not rejecting it?” she blurted. “After all you’ve just said?”

  Falkenstein smiled at her. Ingenuously? Sardonically? It was impossible to even guess. “The difference in our respective positions seems to boil down to a question of trust,” he said. “Do we have enough trust in the efficacy of our own Institute to be confident that all Pacifican graduates, without exception, will behave responsibly after they are fully trained? A deep question for us to ponder. If we are able to answer in the affirmative, it will represent a great step forward. Of course, we will have to give the matter thorough study, consult our Arkmind, and put it to the Council of the Whole. Obviously, this is a matter of high policy, and neither I nor the people of the Heisenberg can make such a decision independently…”

  He glanced at Royce, then at Golding. “Personally, if it were up to me…” He shrugged, sighed. “But then, it isn’t. We should be able to have a decision for you in a week or two, if that’s acceptable. Obviously, I can’t get the Council to alter such a policy without considerable debate. But I’ll try…”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Golding said. “Maybe more than reasonable.”

  Royce nodded, and Carlotta, though she longed to, could find no reason to object under the Parliamentary mandate, especially with both Royce and Golding apparently taken in by this slick brand of jellybelly oil.

  “Then I gather you’ll bear with us a while?” Falkenstein said. “We have permission to remain in orbit?”

  “I can’t see why not,” Carlotta said grudgingly.

  “Thank you,” Falkenstein said. He picked up his glass of floatfruit wine, took a sip, nodded appreciatively. He stood up, stretched, gazed out to sea, took a deep breath, walked around in a small semicircle, stood behind Golding’s chair, took another sip of wine. It all seemed like choreography to Carlotta.

  “I’d like to ask one small favor,” he said. “We don’t get to spend much time on planetary surfaces, you know, and this one is particularly beautiful. Perhaps we might stay here tonight, refresh ourselves with your good sea air, and postpone returning to the Heisenberg until morning?”

  “For sure,” Royce said. “We’d already planned dinner, and breakfast will be no problem. Right, Carlotta?”

  “Of course…” Carlotta muttered uneasily.

  “You like the sea, do you?” Royce said, sipping his own wine.

  “It’s refreshing,” Falkenstein said. “Of course Maria and I were born on a planet that’s mostly mountains. Tall rolling chains covered with forests, high clean air, waterfalls from glacial overruns…I feel more of an affinity for that sort of terrain…”

  “You’d like the Cords,” Golding said, looking up at Falkenstein. “Rainforests. The sun rising through the forest canopy at dawn. And we have quite a seacoast too. Didn’t think you folks would be mountain types…”

  Maria Falkenstein laughed. “We’re not exactly outdoors types,” she said. “But some of us do have our memories…”

  Golding ran his eyes up Roger Falkenstein’s lean ageless body; Falkenstein seemed to strike a pose, lithe and aristocratic in his tightly tailored suit. “Perhaps you might find time to see the Cords, Dr. Falkenstein.”

  Falkenstein smiled at him. “Roger, please, now that our official business is done,” he said. He shrugged ruefully. “I’d like that, but I’m afraid there are too many people on the Heisenberg who’d also like to stretch their legs on some mountain s
lope. They might accuse me of invoking personal privilege.”

  “Well I don’t see why we can’t afford your people a little vacation in the Cords,” Golding said. “Those that feel…sympatico, anyway. Of course, our accommodations might be a little rough and ready…”

  Falkenstein turned a positively brilliant smile on Golding. “That would be marvelous…Lauren,” he said. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about accommodations, we can throw up housing for a hundred people within an hour. That’s the maximum number the Heisenberg could spare at any given time anyway. We’d shuttle our vacationers back and forth, we wouldn’t want to flood you with a horde of tourists. After all, half the enjoyment would be…experiencing your way of life.”

  “We’ll enjoy showing it to you,” Golding said, smiling broadly.

  “Just a minute!” Carlotta snapped, finally able to accept her own reading of the game Falkenstein was playing. He’s actually cockteasing this bucko, unless he really is mano. He’s practically setting up a mass assignation. Or at least Golding thinks he is!

  “What’s the matter, Carlotta?” Golding asked.

  “There’s no policy on letting these people planetside,” Carlotta told him.

  Falkenstein arched his eyebrows. “Oh? Well, then perhaps we’d better forget it, Lauren, I didn’t realize—”

  “Forget it, my hairy ass!” Golding snapped. “Do we need a vote of Parliament to extend simple hospitality to travelers? Is that the kind of people you are back East? Well, we’re friendlier folk in the Cords, mistake that not, Roger. If you’re going to insist on a vote on something as silly as this, Carlotta Madigan, you’ll have it, and a vote of confidence it’ll be, too!”

  “I only mean—”

  “You think I don’t know what you really meant, woman?” Golding said. “You easterners don’t want our visitors to see the Cords. For all your talk, you still really don’t consider mano men fit representatives of this planet!”

  “Now look here, Lauren, if you’re accusing me of being prejudiced against mano—”

  “Shut up, both of you!” Royce yelled. “You’re bellowing at each other like godzillas and with about as much intelligence behind it. What are these people going to think of us? Lauren, I assure you that Carlotta has not one damn thing against mano men. Carlotta, you’re being bloody silly about this. What possible harm can there be in letting a few people off the Heisenberg smell the flowers? You’re surely not seriously suggesting that this sort of thing is a matter for Parliament, are you?”

  Carlotta flushed in anger, then amazement, then acute embarrassment. Royce had never spoken to her like that in public, and indeed seldom in private. And, of course, he was right. What an ass I’d make of myself if I turned something as trivial as this into a political issue! Let Falkenstein and Golding bugger each other comatose if they want to, she thought “I’m sorry, Dr. Falkenstein,” she said. “It was just a little misunderstanding.”

  “I’m sorry I was inadvertently the cause of it,” Falkenstein said good-naturedly. “If I had known—”

  “Let’s all forget it, shall we?” Royce said. “Let’s just go give those newshounds outside what they’re waiting for so we can all relax before dinner.”

  Subdued, Carlotta let Royce lead the party downstairs to the lawn and the waiting media people. Why did I make such a big thing out of nothing? she wondered.

  Dr. Roger Falkenstein smiled warmly at her for the benefit of the cameras as they stepped out of the lodge into the sunlight. She smiled back mechanically. A big thing out of nothing? she thought. Then why do I feel so effing certain that we’ve just been expertly snockered?

  Wrapped in his own thoughts, Royce Lindblad stood at the railing of the roof garden, staring out across the brooding black sea at the distant lights of Gotham, a brilliant string of jewels shimmering on the northwest horizon under the cool and distant canopy of the stars. A flock of sleeping boomerbirds rode the waves a hundred meters offshore. Bumblers, curled into fat balls, slept on the narrow margin of beach, gurgling occasionally in their alien dreams. The lights of the world of men seemed like an intrusion, a pimple of presumption on the face of the Pacifican night.

  “Thinking deep thoughts, or just getting some air?”

  Roger Falkenstein had come up behind him, and was leaning against the back of one of the loungers, looking up at the stars. How long has he been standing there watching me? Royce wondered. And what’s the game now?

  Dinner had been a peculiarly strained affair. The conversation had been dominated by Falkenstein and Golding, with Falkenstein egging Golding on with a profession of great interest in his rambling travelogue for the Cords, an interest that lacked real credibility, considering the source. Maria Falkenstein had thrown in just a line here and there, playing the dutiful foil to her husband. Carlotta had bristled with well-concealed hostility. Royce was reasonably sure that only he had recognized her long silences and her attempts at cross-conversation with Maria and Golding for what they were. Carlotta simply disliked Falkenstein on a deep gut-level, and no amount of logic, display of intellectual depth, or cool charm was going to change that.

  Royce knew that he had behaved uncharacteristically, too—laying back from the conversation and observing the noninterplay of personalities, trying to sort out his own true reaction to Falkenstein from his reaction to Carlotta’s reaction, and not really succeeding.

  “I guess maybe I’m just trying to figure you out,” Royce said, turning to face Falkenstein. “Carlotta really dislikes you, you know.”

  Falkenstein smiled ruefully. “I’m not a machine,” he said. “I can sense that as easily as the next man. And you, Royce…?”

  “I don’t know enough about you to decide. In fact, when you come right down to it, I don’t know a damn thing about you at all.”

  Falkenstein walked over to the railing beside him. “Well, that’s one of the differences between men and women, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Is it?” Royce asked. What in hell was this jocko talking about now?

  “Carlotta has no more data than you do,” Falkenstein said. “Yet she’s frozen into an emotional stance while you reserve judgment. Call it a differential attitude toward logical uncertainty.”

  Roger laughed. “I’m beginning to see why the Femocrats call you people faschochauvinist Fausts,” he said.

  Falkenstein turned to face the sea, but his eyes gazed upwards at the stars. “Half-guilty,” he said. “We’re proud to identify ourselves with Faust. What was the man after, after all? Knowledge. Mastery of the universe. Transcendence of the naturally evolved order. The supremacy of man over matter, mind over unreason. Look up there, Royce. It goes on and on forever in space and time, and here we are, confined to a handful of stars, a few paltry years, a rulebook of physical parameters written without our consent and hardly for our benefit. Faust wasn’t satisfied with that, and neither are we. Look up there and think about it, Royce, and then try to tell me that Faust was no hero.”

  Royce looked up into the interstellar abyss for a long moment, time without end, stars without number, worlds that had not yet felt the tread of man stretching away to infinity. This, he felt, was real, this was from the heart. Falkenstein had taken him to the mountaintop of his own vision and tried to show him the view. Whether he had entirely succeeded or not, he had at least made the effort. Still…

  Royce lowered his eyes from the brilliant hardness of the sky to the softly rolling sea, where boomerbirds slept peacefully on the waves awaiting the sunrise’s call to the air, where birds, fish, reptiles, and yes, men, might trust themselves to the embrace of a world they called home.

  “And are you willing to sell your soul for it, too, Roger?” he asked.

  Falkenstein laughed. “That part of the story is just the backbrain speaking,” he said. “Devils and demons, and gods and commandments, and things men were not meant to know. We’ve evolved past that, Royce. Now we know that all there is is ourselves, an empty infinity, and what we choose to make of both
.”

  He lowered his gaze, smiled at Royce, and now he seemed like some kind of older brother, a man that one day might be his friend. “You know, one of our people once wrote a play about Faust, and the tape is still popular. Faust as hero, with no heaven, no hell, no God, and no Mephistopheles. Perhaps we might run it on one of your net channels. It would explain us to your people better than a lot of dry rhetoric, and if nothing else, it’d be entertaining.”

  “Why not?” Royce said. “I’d like to see it myself.” He laughed. “Do you have an apologia for your faschochauvinism on tape too?”

  Falkenstein grinned and wagged a mocking finger at Royce. “I pled half-guilty, if you remember,” he said. “Men and women have absolute equality of opportunity in our culture—legally, economically, educationally, professionally. We simply allow the natural evolutionary divergences to shape our psychosexual balance instead of bending reality to conform to some ideological concept of mental asexuality.”

  “But isn’t it true that few of your women are Institute graduates?”

  Falkenstein shrugged. “True,” he said. “I suppose a Femocrat would say that that proves we’re a male chauvinist society. Actually, all it proves is that there are in fact characteristic mental divergences between men and women.”