Suur Tris had been clearing her throat, more and more loudly, the last few minutes, and now graduated to throwing things at us. To this was added the jingling of several bells. It was time to bring out the main course; other servitors had been picking up the slack for me and Emman. So we got very busy for a while. Several minutes later, the fourteen were all back in their formal positions, doyns at the table waiting for Suur Asquin to pick up her fork, servitors standing behind them.
Suur Asquin said, “I believe we have all decided—albeit with some reservations—to move over into Hemn space with Fraa Jad. And according to what we hear of it from Fraa Paphlagon and Suur Moyra, there should be no lack of room for us there!” All the doyns laughed dutifully. Barb snorted. Arsibalt and I rolled our eyes. Barb was clearly dying to plane Suur Asquin by explaining, in excruciating, dinner-wrecking detail, just how colossal the configuration space of the universe really was, complete with estimates of how many zeroes it would take to write down the number of states it could describe, how far said string of digits would extend, et cetera, but Arsibalt raised a hand, threatening to rest it on his shoulder: steady, now. Suur Asquin began to eat, and the others followed her lead. There was a little interlude during which some of the doyns (not Lodoghir) made the requisite comments on how tasty the food was. Then Suur Asquin continued, “But looking back on our discussion, I find myself puzzled by a remark that Fraa Paphlagon made before the topic of Hemn space was mentioned, concerning the different kinds of matter. Fraa Paphlagon, I believe you were citing this as evidence that the Geometers all came from different cosmi—or, to use Fraa Jad’s term, different Narratives.”
“A somewhat more conventional term would be worldtracks,” Suur Moyra put in. “Use of Narrative is somewhat—well—loaded.”
“You’re speaking my language now!” said Lodoghir, clearly delighted. “Who besides Fraa Jad uses Narrative, and what do they really mean by it?”
“It is rare,” Moyra said, “and it is associated, in some people’s minds, with the Lineage.”
Fraa Jad appeared to be ignoring all of this.
“Terminology aside,” Suur Asquin went on—a little brusquely—“what I don’t quite understand is how it all fits together—what is the link that you see between the fact of the different kinds of matter, and the worldtracks?”
Paphlagon said, “The cosmogonic processes that lead to the creation of the stuff we are made of—the creation of protons and other matter, their clumping together to make stars, and the resulting nucleosynthesis—all seem to depend on the values of certain physical constants. The most familiar example is the speed of light, but there are several others—about twenty in all. Theors used to spend a lot of time measuring their precise values, back when we were allowed to have the necessary equipment. If these numbers had different values, the cosmos as we know it would not have come into being; it would just be an infinite cloud of cold dark gas or one big black hole or something else quite simple and dull. If you think of these constants of nature as knobs on the control panel of a machine, well, the knobs all have to be set in just the right positions or—”
Again Paphlagon looked to Moyra, who seemed ready: “Suur Demula likened it to a safe with a combination lock, the combination being about twenty numbers long.”
“If I follow Demula’s analogy,” said Zh’vaern, “each of those twenty numbers is the value of one of those constants of nature, such as the speed of light.”
“That is right. If you dial twenty numbers at random you never get the safe open; it is nothing more to you than an inert cube of iron. Even if you dial nineteen numbers correctly and get the other one wrong—nothing. You must get all of them correct. Then the door opens and out spills all of the complexity and beauty of the cosmos.”
“Another analogy,” Moyra continued, after a sip of water, “was developed by Saunt Conderline, who likened all of the sets of values of those twenty constants that don’t produce complexity to an ocean a thousand miles wide and deep. The sets that do, are like an oil sheen, no wider than a leaf, floating on the top of that ocean: an exquisitely thin layer of possibilities that yield solid, stable matter suitable for making universes with living things in them.”
“I favor Conderline’s analogy,” said Paphlagon. “The various life-supporting cosmi are different places on that oil-sheen. What the inventors of newmatter did was to devise ways to move around, just a little, to neighboring points on that oil-sheen, where matter had slightly different properties. Most of the newmatter they created was different from, but not really better than, naturally occurring matter. After a lot of patient toil, they were able to slide around to nearby regions of the oil-sheen where matter was better, more useful, than what nature has provided us. And I believe that Fraa Erasmas, here, already has an opinion on what the Geometers are made of.”
So unready was I to hear my name called that I didn’t even move for several seconds. Fraa Paphlagon was looking at me. In an effort to jog me out of my stupor, he added: “Your friend Fraa Jesry was kind enough to share your observations concerning the parachute.”
“Yes,” I said, and discovered that my throat needed clearing. “It was nothing special. Not as good as newmatter.”
“If the Geometers had learned the art of making newmatter,” Paphlagon translated, “they’d have made a better parachute.”
“Or come up with a way to land the probe that was not so ridiculously primitive!” Barb sang out, drawing glares from the doyns. His name hadn’t been called.
“Fraa Tavener makes an excellent point,” said Fraa Jad, defusing the situation. “Perhaps he shall have more of interest to say later—when called upon.”
“The point being, I take it,” said Ignetha Foral, “that the Geometers—the four groups of them, I should say—each use whatever kind of matter is natural in the cosmos where they originated.”
“The four have been given provisional names,” announced Zh’vaern. “Antarcts, Pangees, Diasps, and Quators.”
This was the first and probably the last time Zh’vaern was going to get a laugh out of the table.
“They all sound vaguely geographical,” said Suur Asquin, “but—?”
“Four planets are depicted on their ship,” Zh’vaern continued. “This is clearly visible on Saunt Orolo’s Phototype. A planet is depicted on each of the four vials of blood that came in the probe. People have given them informal names inspired by their geographical peculiarities.”
“So—let me guess—Pangee has one large continent?” asked Suur Asquin.
“Diasp a lot of islands, obviously,” put in Lodoghir.
“On Quator, most of the landmasses are at low latitude,” Zh’vaern said, “and Antarct’s most unusual feature is a big ice continent at the South Pole.” Then, perhaps anticipating another correction from Barb, he added: “Or whichever pole is situated at the bottom of the picture.”
Barb snorted.
If Fraa Zh’vaern seemed strangely well-informed for a member of a fanatically reclusive sect of Deolaters who’d only arrived at the Convox a few hours ago, it was because he had attended the same briefing as I had: a meeting in a chalk hall where a succession of fraas and suurs had gotten the Inbrase groups up to speed on diverse topics. Or (taking the more cynical view) fed us what some hierarchs wanted us to know. I was only beginning to get a feel for how real information diffused through the Convox.
This touched off a few minutes of banter, which made me impatient until I saw that Moyra and Paphlagon were using it as an opportunity to catch up with the others in cleaning their plates. Some of the servitors went back to the kitchen to look after dessert. It wasn’t until we began to clear away the dinner plates that the conversation paused, and Suur Asquin, after an exchange of glances with Ignetha Foral, hemmed into her napkin and said: “Well. What I have collected, from what we heard a few minutes ago, is that none of the four Geometer races has invented newmatter—”