“And there is more still. By reaching around the curves of time, the Transcendence is awakening to the past, too, awakening to the rich experience of every human who ever lived. This is an extension of the Commonwealth in time as well as space, to kinds of people who once existed, as well as those who exist now. In the end the universe will be like a jewel held in the palm of the hand, its every facet and glimmering refraction — yes, and every flaw — fully known and understood. This is the ultimate prize.
“Why must the Transcendence aspire to this? Because it is essential if we are to survive. Alia, the more awake you become, the more control of your environment you acquire, and the more power over your destiny you acquire. We must escape from our long dreaming if we want to live!
“And then there is our greater fate. Beyond the walls of time there are greater minds still, Alia. We call them monads. Our universe might not have been; there were other possibilities. Why our universe? Because of us — because of our potential to grow into a full apprehension of the cosmos, an expression of the objective cosmos in subjective awareness. So you see, Alia, we humans, through the Transcendence, will become the consciousness of the universe itself — and we will, we must, fulfill the great project of the monads.
“And all of this is built on love!”
Once more Leropa had met Alia on Earth, beneath the ruin of the ancient Wignerian cathedral. After the intensity of emotions on the Nord, it was dismaying to return to the drab, subdued community of undying. Even Leropa was like a shadow. The undying aspired to something higher, but it was as if they had forgotten what it was to be human, Alia thought.
It was almost a relief to plunge once more into the mysteries of the Transcendence.
Now, with Leropa’s guidance, she thought she could see its immense transhuman ideas like vast clouds in the dark, and the thoughts that crackled like lightning between those clouds. And in every direction she could see the awareness of the Transcendence elaborating, multiplying, exponentiating, its vast intellect growing as she watched.
But as they floated through this sky of consciousness, Leropa was not literally a guide for Alia, her words not a literal whisper in Alia’s ear. This was the Transcendence; Alia and Leropa were both parts of a greater whole, and yet expressions of it, as Alia’s own consciousness might briefly be focused on a bruised finger. But the mote that had been Alia found it helpful to cling to the metaphor of novice and guide.
And now, here in the dark, Alia had come to learn the truth about Redemption, and she listened to Leropa speak of love.
“The Transcendence loves you. The Transcendence loves every human. It must, for love is the full apprehension of another, and so of oneself. Love is the foundation of everything, Alia. Can you see that? And it is love, the cherishing even of the unhappy past, that has led to the Redemption. For the Transcendence to become complete we must redeem the suffering of the past — we must — and we can only do that by apprehending it, loving it.
“First there is the Witnessing — a trillion tiny viewpoints like yours, Alia, each studying some corner of the past, some tiny lost life, and integrating it into a greater awareness of the whole. The next level of awareness is the Hypostatic Union, in which your consciousness is merged with your subject in the past — and you express your love for her by sharing every particle of joy in her life, absorbing every morsel of pain. A full Hypostatic Union of every soul in past and future with every other, the ultimate logic, would require an infinite effort. But the Transcendence will be/is infinite and eternal; for such an entity an infinite recursion is possible, and so it will/ mustcome to pass. You understand that now.
“But all of this, even the fully realized Hypostatic Union, is a mere viewing. And even when viewed the suffering will still exist out there in the past.”
“Yes,” Alia said. She was on the verge of understanding — almost thrilled by the intoxicating ideas. “Even Hypostatic Union is not enough. We must do more.”
“Yes,” Leropa said. “And we can do more.
“It is as if, up to now, we have viewed the past as a magnificent tapestry. We follow every thread, every life, as it weaves its unique way through the tremendous patterns of the whole. But we have seen the past as a fixed thing, frozen; we have never allowed ourselves to tamper with it, to change the slightest detail in the weave — not even to repair the most obvious flaws, or to amend the most grotesque suffering.”
Suddenly Alia saw what the next level of Redemption must be — what the Transcendence had done.
“We have touched the past,” she whispered.
“Yes.” Leropa’s eyes glittered.
Leropa showed her Michael Poole, in a glittering crowd of people, an explosion some distance away, out to sea, frozen in time like a deadly flower.
“Watch now,” Leropa said.
The flash came first. The curtain-wall of the marquee turned black, saving my eyesight. For a fraction of a second we all stood there in the dark.
Then the shock wave hit us. Bam.
The marquee was whipped away in the wind. Under the sudden sky the whole world was full of immense energies that roared over me, oblivi-ous to my presence. Around me VIPs fell like skittles, or went whirling away into the air. It was like being overwhelmed by some immense wave.
When the shock passed I found myself on my back, all the air smashed out of my lungs, staring up at a racing sky. I struggled to sit up.
Over the sea, a mushroom cloud was gathering. Small, perfect, symmetrical, it was a return of a twentieth-century nightmare. Around its base great streamers of fire gushed up out of the water. I guessed that we had managed to destabilize some of the very hydrate deposits we were supposed to secure, that the flames came from the ignition of some of the released methane. Now a wind began to rush the other way, at my back, as the huge blast of heat over the ocean began to push the air skyward, and suck colder air in from the land.
I was surrounded by wreckage, scattered people. I couldn’t see Tom, or John, or Shelley, or any of the others. I had no idea what had become of Makaay and Barnette. There wasn’t a trace left of the low stage where they’d been standing.
A camera drone hovered before my face, not five centimeters from my nose. The camera was a spinning sphere the size of my thumb. A tiny portal dilated open and a jewel-like lens glinted down at me. I stared back, bemused.
I didn’t seem to be functioning. I was having trouble breathing, as if iron bands had been clamped around my chest. I couldn’t seem to feel anything, not even the hard ground under my back, or the Arctic chill, and I could hear nothing but a vague, dull roar. It was almost comforting to sit there, while running people, spinning drones, bits of ripped-apart marquee flapped all around me.
And Morag was beside me.
She sat on the ground, not a hair out of place despite the wind. But her face was creased with anxiety. “Are you OK?”
I could hear her, but I couldn’t hear any other damn thing. I answered her question. I flexed an arm, testing the joints. “I think so.”
And then the meaning of our mundane exchange hit me. She was here. I could even make out her words. I stared at her. “Shit. Morag.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s a heck of a thing, isn’t it?”
We sat there for one more heartbeat. Then I reached up, and suddenly she was in my arms, warm and real.
I think I blacked out.