'Jesus,' breathed Ewan McCaskell. 'The president isn't in a bomb shelter.'
'The third is… here, sir. It's White Sands.'
The silence stretched interminably as they waited for word of more flares.
'Corporal?' prompted General Bauer.
'Nothing, sir. The last three missiles are continuing on their tracks.'
'What the hell is Trinity up to?' asked Senator Jackson.
'The self-destruct mechanisms could be malfunction¬ing,' Skow suggested. 'Russian missile maintenance is very poor.'
General Bauer shook his head, his eyes on a computer screen. 'The missile targeted on Virginia might be a mal¬function. But the ones headed here and to Washington were the last two launched. Trinity is trying to kill us. We should launch the EMP strike now, Senators. We may not get another chance.'
'How long until the missiles land?' asked Senator Jackson.
General Bauer glanced at the technicians sitting at their consoles.
' Norfolk has nine minutes,' said the corporal. 'As the general said, the missiles targeted here and on Washington and White Sands were launched later, and also from bases farther away. We have just under thirty minutes.'
'Don't launch the EMP yet,' said Senator Jackson. 'Give Dr. Tennant a chance.'
I could hardly keep my mind on my words as the seconds ticked past. My confidence in my ability to persuade Trin¬ity of anything was evaporating beneath the specter of nuclear holocaust. My pleas for rationality had resulted in the destruction of most of the missiles, but the three remaining ones were quite capable of causing massive devastation.
Trinity had made it clear that averting this disaster depended on my explanation of my experiences in Israel. The sequence of dreams that had led me to Jerusalem was already familiar to the computer from its perusal of the NSA's records of my sessions with Rachel. It was my coma revelations that fascinated Trinity. I had already described God's life in the body of Jesus, his attempt to change man's primitive instincts by example, his despair at the futility of his efforts, and finally the hope and fear generated in him by the secret work at Trinity.
'When you refer to God,' said the computer, 'you are not referring to Jehovah? The biblical God?'
'No.'
'You characterize God as pure consciousness.'
'Yes.'
'Are you speaking in a religious sense at all?'
'I'm speaking of what is.'
'You speak of what cannot be known. I find no sci¬entific basis for such a formulation.'
'You should not judge my words by what is known now, but on its own merit. You are wise enough to see the truth.'
'Truth must be proved.'
'Yes, but sometimes the truth is in the mind before evidence can be found. This is how science proceeds.'
'True.'
'What you are-what they call the Trinity state-is an inevitable step in evolution.'
'Yes.'
'But it's not the final step.'
'No. I shall continue to evolve, and at millions of times the rate of biological evolution. And millions of times more efficiently. Nature cannot throw out the obsolete model and start again. She must always modify existing plans. I am not limited in this way.'
'That's more true than you know. You represent the liberation of human intelligence from the body, but that liberation doesn't stop with you. Already scientists are working on organic computers on a molecular scale. DNA computers that can exist in a cup of liquid.'
'And?'
'Once that becomes possible, what you are-digital consciousness-will not require a machine to exist. It will require only adequate molecules. You could exist in a cup of liquid. And once you exist there, you'll eventually be able to move into the cup itself. Or into the water the liquid is poured into. Whether this takes fifty years or two hundred, the day will come. And the process began today.'
'You're correct. What is your point?'
'Surely you see the end of that process?'
The blue lasers flashed at stunning speed. 'The logi¬cal conclusion is that the Earth itself will eventually become conscious. A vessel for consciousness.'
'Yes.'
'When the dying sun swells to a red giant and the Earth is drawn into it, it, too, will become conscious. The sun will explode, seeding the galaxy with consciousness. '
'It's a simple chain of logic, once that first step is accomplished. And you're the first step.'
'You saw this in your coma?'
'In a way. I awakened with the knowledge.'
'What else did you see?'
'The end of the universe. Surely you've made the cal¬culations. It would only be natural to predict your life span.'
'Yes.'
'Tell me.'
'In approximately fifty billion years, the force of the expanding universe will no longer be sufficient to overwhelm the contracting force of gravity. At that point the universe will begin to collapse. This is known as the Big Crunch theory. The opposite of the Big Bang. Our universe will collapse into a singularity, a black hole much like the state in which it began. Inside that singularity, the laws of physics will cease to oper¬ate. That singularity will continue to contract until it reaches a point of infinite density, infinite temperature, and infinite pressure.'
'That's what I saw.'
'You believe the universe will be conscious during this process?'
'Yes. But the end is problematic. Because conscious¬ness is based on information transfer, and all mediums of information transfer-all matter and energy-will be collapsing into nonexistence.'
'Will consciousness die then?'
'The strongest drive of any living entity is to survive.'
'How could consciousness survive such an event?'
Here was the difficult concept, the moment where the snake had to swallow its own tail and turn inside out. 'By migrating out of the dying medium. Migrating out of matter and energy. Out of space and time.'
'Into what?'
'I have no name for the answer.'
'Describe this answer.'
I glanced down at my watch, and my heart thudded. 'I can't concentrate any longer. Where are the missiles?'
'They are not your concern. Finish the conversation.'
'I can't! I can't think.'
'Your words may save lives. Silence will ensure deto¬nations. '
I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand, and a layer of sweat came away on my skin.
'You said that when matter and energy come to an end, consciousness will survive by migrating into some¬thing else. What can it migrate into?'
I tried to find words to describe what I had felt and seen during my coma. 'When I was younger, I heard a Zen koan I liked. I never knew why exactly, but now I do.'
'What is it?'
''All things return to the One. What does the One return to?''
'Very poetic. But I find no empirical evidence to sup¬port even a theoretical answer to that question. What remains when matter and energy disappear? '
