Jordel clears his throat. “I’m saying we are all human.”
“But some much less fallible than others,” remarks Mintier Thob. “Which surely includes the faculty of Brannigan Galaxity. You are one of us, Jordel. Have you no pride! Do you so mistrust yourself?”
Jordel considers pride. Orimar is a narcissist. He will use the Core to go on worshiping himself. Thob is enormous in complacency. She will go into the Core because she cannot conceive of a universe without herself in it. Bland believes herself incapable of error. For her, the Core represents a new universe to set right. Clore … Clore’s restless mind plays with life and death. He will enter the Core because it will offer new forms of life, new kinds of death. These are not the reasons they would give, but Jordel knows them well. Still, he answers softly, hoping yet. “Of course I mistrust myself, Lady Professor. I’ve told you that before.”
“Enough, Jordel!” explodes Subble Clore. “If you’re weighed down by self-doubt, keep it to yourself. Leave it alone, for humanity’s sake!”
“It’s for humanity’s sake I don’t,” Jordel replies forcefully. “Time in the matrix is not like time outside, it is more like dream time. Episodes that seem to go on for days may actually last only moments. If you are awake in the Core you may achieve many years’ worth of memories while a single year passes outside.
“These memories will not be anchored by sensory feedback as they would be in the real world. In the outside world, sensory feedback provides the necessary referents to anchor our emotional and intellectual experiences. Our experiences are separated and made discrete by sensory trivia—by movements, smells, the sound of voices, the sight of a face. In the Core, there will be no sensory data at all, and where there is none, minds tend to create it, just as they do during dreaming.
“So, you will create environments and experiences. And by the time a year has passed, your pattern will have deviated considerably from its original. Returning your pattern to its original configuration would be equivalent to wiping out years, perhaps decades of your life! They will be the most recent, vivid years. To wipe them out will be like dying. You won’t … we won’t be able to bring ourselves to do it!”
Bland smiles, a world-weary smile. “Nonsense, dear boy. I’m an adult, a scholar. I know the need for correction of data from time to time. I can trust myself to take care of it.”
“I don’t trust myself that much. Truly,” Jordel replies.
“Among our peers, I think you’ll find yourself virtually alone in that,” Mintier Thob responds reprovingly. She strides to the window and gestures outward, across the tower tops to the far horizon, including in the gesture all that is Brannigan. “The academic world is ideal for the development of humane qualities, Jordel. I think we here in this room have proven that. We’re more sane than most people. We’re more patient. We’re kinder.”
She smiles her detestable smile, and Jordel, remembering recent bloodletting sessions among these same academicians, tries not to let his reaction show.
“After all,” the Lady Professor goes on, “think what trust Brannigan has reposed in our committee: the very destiny of mankind. And we are not about to leave any part of that destiny to an automatic function designed by some mechanic!” She spits the last words, looking directly at him, leaving no doubt just which mechanic she has in mind.
Jordel is silent. So. He has tried. He has done his best. Now let them do as they will do. He will do what he must to protect himself….
And the recording trailed off in feelings of anger, disgust, and firm resolve.
“Twaddle,” said Sepel794DZ, angrily returning to himself. “All twaddle. Those people weren’t responsible for the destiny of mankind. They were merely discussing mankind’s destiny, not creating it!”
“That’s manness for you, confusing the manipulation of symbols with reality!” snarled a colleague dink. “And if Jordel was right, it tells us what happened to the inhabitants of the Core.”
“But what happened to Jordel himself?” asked another colleague.
Sepel replied: “You felt his intentions as I did. Either he never entered the Core, or he arranged to have himself processed in accordance with specifications. If he found someone —a technician, a fellow engineer—whom he could trust, that person may have begun the little rhyme we learned from Boarmus.”
“‘… then Jordel of Hemerlane/chased them all back home again,’” quoted a dink thoughtfully. “If that’s true, then Jordel went into the Core all right. If that’s what he meant to do, he’s still in there somewhere.”
During the return to Tolerance Boarmus steeled himself for the stratagem he had decided upon. He and Jacent discussed it on the trip back, whispering into each other’s ears, the boy white-faced but resolute—or perhaps only foolhardy. Boarmus thought that likely. Still, Jacent had been fond of Metty, and Boarmus spared no description of what had happened to Metty and would, no doubt, happen to all of them if the thing or things down in the Core weren’t stopped.
“I guess I don’t understand how this will stop anything,” the boy had whispered, shamefaced.
“We don’t know that anything will. This idea may slow it down, that’s all. Give us some breathing space. If you can think of something better….”
Jacent couldn’t, of course. He wouldn’t even have thought of this.
“Remember”—Boarmus put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed hard to reinforce the point—”you’re merely an average citizen. Someone who’s concerned about the matter.”
“And if it kills us?”
“Then we’re dead,” said Boarmus flatly. “And maybe better off!”
They did not wait for the ghosts to come to them. As soon as it was late enough for traffic in Tolerance to have fallen into its nighttime mode, Jacent followed the bulky man to the secret tube, down into the featureless room, through it and into the winding way to the Core. It was vacant. No one was
