_Finished... with his stream of blue smoke.

Khader continued talking to me in English. I was sure that the men couldn't understand him, but they remained with us, and watched his face intently.

"To continue this point, the universe, as we know it, and from everything that we can learn about it, has been getting always more complex since it began. It does this because that is its nature. The tendency toward complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex."

"I think I know where you're going with this."

Khader laughed. The fishermen laughed with him.

"The universe," he continued, "this universe that we know, began in almost absolute simplicity, and it has been getting more complex for about fifteen billion years. In another billion years it will be still more complex than it is now. In five billion, in ten billion-it is always getting more complex. It is moving toward... something. It is moving toward some kind of ultimate complexity. We might not get there. An atom of hydrogen might not get there, or a leaf, or a man, or a planet might not get there, to that ultimate complexity. But we are all moving towards it- everything in the universe is moving towards it. And that final complexity, that thing we are all moving to, is what I choose to call God. If you don't like that word, God, call it the Ultimate Complexity.

Whatever you call it, the whole universe is moving toward it."

"Isn't the universe a lot more random than that?" I asked, sensing the drift of his argument, and seeking to head it off.

"What about giant asteroids and so on? We, I mean our planet, could get smashed to fragments by a giant asteroid. In fact, there's a statistical probability that major impacts _will occur.

And if our sun is dying-and one day it will-isn't that the opposite of complexity? How does that fit in with the movement to complexity, if all this complex planet is smashed to atoms, and our sun dies?"

"A good question," Khaderbhai replied. A happy smile revealed the run of his slightly gapped, ivory-cream teeth. He was enjoying himself in the discussion, and I realised that I'd never seen him quite so animated or enthused. His hands roved the space between us, illustrating some points and emphasising others. "Our planet may be smashed, it is true, and one day our beautiful sun will die. And we are, to the best of our knowledge, the most developed expression of the complexity in our bit of the universe. It would certainly be a major loss if we were to be annihilated. It would be a terrible waste of all that development. But the process would continue. We are, ourselves, expressions of that process.

Our bodies are the children of all the suns and other stars that died, before us, making the atoms that _we are made of. And if we were destroyed, by an asteroid, or by our own hand, well, somewhere else in the universe, our level of complexity, this level of complejxity, with a consciousness capable of understanding the process, would be duplicated. I do not mean people exactly like us. I mean that thinking beings, that are as complex as we are, would develop, somewhere else in the universe.

_We would cease to exist, but the process would go on. Perhaps this is happening in millions of worlds, even as we speak. In fact, it is very likely that it is happening, all over the universe, because that is what the universe does."

It was my turn to laugh.

"Okay, okay. And you want to say-let me guess-that everything that helps this along is good, right? And anything that goes in the other direction-your spin on it is that it's evil, na?"

Khaderbhai turned his full attention on me, with one eyebrow raised in amusement or disapproval, or both. It was an expression I'd seen on Karla's face more than once. He might've thought that my slightly mocking tone was rude. I didn't mean it to be. It was defensive, in fact, because I couldn't find a flaw in his logic, and I was profoundly impressed by his argument. Perhaps he was simply surprised. He told me once, much later, that one of the first things he liked about me was that I wasn't afraid of him; and my fearlessness often took him by surprise with its impudence and its folly. Whatever the cause for his little smile and arched eyebrow, it was some time before he continued.

"In essence, you are right. Anything that enhances, promotes, or accelerates this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is good," he said, pronouncing the words so slowly, and with such considered precision, that I was sure he'd spoken the phrases many times. "Anything that inhibits, impedes, or prevents this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is evil. The wonderful thing about this definition of good and evil is that it is both objective and universally acceptable."

"Is anything really objective?" I asked, believing myself to be on surer ground at last.

"When we say that this definition of good and evil is objective, what we mean is that it is as objective as we can be at this time, and to the best of our knowledge about the universe. This definition is based on what we know about how the universe works.

It is not based on the revealed wisdom of any one faith or political movement. It is common to the best principles of all of them, but it is based on what we know rather than what we believe. In that sense, it is objective. Of course, what we know about the universe, and our place in it, is constantly changing as we add more information and gain new insights. We are never perfectly objective about anything, that is true, but we can be less objective, or we can be more objective. And when we define good and evil on the basis of what we know-to the best of our knowledge at the present time-we are being as objective as possible within the imperfect limits of our understanding. Do you accept that point?"

"When you say that objective doesn't mean absolutely objective, then I accept it. But how can the different religions, not to mention the atheists and agnostics and the just plain confused, like me, ever find any definition universally acceptable? I don't mean to be insulting, but I think most believers have got too much of a vested interest in their own God-and-Heaven franchises, if you know what I mean, to ever agree on anything."

"It is a fair point, and I am not offended," Khader mused, glancing at the silent fishermen sitting at his feet. He exchanged a broad smile with them and then continued. "When we say that this definition of good and evil is universally acceptable, what we mean is that any rational and reasonable person-any rational and reasanable Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist or Christian or Jew or any atheist, for that matter-can accept that this is a reasonable definition of good and evil, because it is based on what we know about how the universe works."

"I think I understand what you're saying," I offered when he fell silent. "But I don't really follow you, when it comes to the... physics, I guess, of the universe. Why should we accept that as the basis of our morality?"

"If I can give you an example, Lin, perhaps it will be clearer. I will use the analogy of the way we measure length, because it is very relevant to our time. You will agree, I think, that there is a need to define a common measure of length, yes?"

"You mean, in yards and metrss, and like that?"

"Precisely. If we have no commonly agreed criterion for measuring length, we will never agree about how much land is yours, and how much is mine, or how to cut lengths of wood when we build a house. There would be chaos. We would fight over the land, and the houses would fall down. Throughout history, we have always tried to agree on a common way to measure length. Are you with me, once more, on this little journey of the mind?"