The Mind Pool (48 page)

The quaternary data file was the smallest in volume, but it had been flagged by Nimrod for special attention. Almas began the review.

It found a record of the first hours following Nimrod’s own formation, interleaved and overlain with Nimrod’s analysis. The record structure was designed to guide the new mentality through a multi-channel flow, a hyperweb of facts, conjectures, and conclusions.

The naming of names.
The mentality that in separation had been Team Alpha was filled with excitement and pride at the miracle of its own creation. It was
Nimrod.
Nimrod existed as a fusion of will, information, desire, and understanding.

The naming was the first act. The second involved the captured Morgan Construct. It had to be placed in long-term stasis, until its flaws could be understood and remedied. Already there was a clue. M-29, compelled to fulfill its destiny and unable to do so on Cobweb Station, had become insane.

The third act was the most dangerous: regression, back to individual team members.

The mind pool dispersed, dissolved, faded. Leah, S’glya, Ishmael and the Angel stood silent for endless minutes, staring at each other. They were looking at strangers, at parts of their lost self. Finally they made their separate ways back to the upper levels of the Travancore forest. Like components of a Tinker Composite, each part of the mentality must serve its own needs for food, drink, and rest.

Interval. A gap in the record.

In the tent, high in the jungle, Nimrod was re-assembling for a specific purpose. The great news must be transmitted through the Link to Anabasis Headquarters.

A message was created, and innocently sent. The mentality assumed that news of its existence would be received with Nimrod’s own enthusiasm for the event. With the message went a request for transfer up to the Q-ship of Nimrod itself, and the now-harmless Morgan Construct.

There was a long delay. Mondrian’s face appeared on the screen, then vanished again. The mentality waited. Nimrod knew of the need to make allowance for the slowness and inadequacy of single-species thought.

The Anabasis reply came: Leave the Morgan Construct in stasis on Travancore. Fly yourselves at once in the landing capsule, up to the Q-ship that holds the blockade on the planet.

Nimrod possessed the empathy of a Pipe-Rilla, the quirky variable logic of a Tinker, the analytical capability of an Angel—and the irrational suspicion of a true human. The message from the Anabasis conflicted with Nimrod’s perception of the plausible.

The landing capsule flew up to the high-orbiting Q-ship. Forty kilometers from rendezvous, the capsule was vaporized by a high-intensity salvo.

But Nimrod was still in the tent, hiding beneath Travancore’s vegetation. The capsule had been flown under remote control.

Now Nimrod was stranded on the surface of the planet. There was plenty to occupy the power of the mentality’s intellect.

The data stream that had come from Nimrod to the new mentality now added a modifying field, to show a change from reporting of fact to the field of conjecture and probabilistic analysis.

The Anabasis sought to destroy Nimrod, but wanted the Construct left behind on Travancore. In this case, the goals of the Anabasis can be equated to the goals of Esro Mondrian.

Conjecture:
Esro Mondrian has need of the Morgan Construct.

Contradiction:
The pursuit teams were sent to Travancore by the Anabasis to
destroy
the Morgan Construct.

Analysis:
On Barchan, Team Alpha had not destroyed their Simmie Artefact. They had (like Chan’s team) subdued it, and sought to hide the evidence.

If Esro Mondrian knew that fact (probable, at a 0.93 level), then he would expect Team Alpha to be equally incapable of destroying the Construct.

Deduction:
Team Alpha had been sent to Travancore by Mondrian, who saw three possible outcomes for the confrontation with the Morgan Construct:

1) The Construct would destroy Team Alpha. This result was the most probable, and it offered no new danger to the Anabasis or Esro Mondrian. The Construct would survive. Travancore would remain as a blockaded world. Additional pursuit teams could be sent to Travancore.

2) The pursuit team would destroy the Construct. The events on Barchan made this the
least
probable outcome.

3) The pursuit team would
subdue
the Construct, but not destroy it. The Construct and the pursuit team would return together from Travancore.

End of data file.

Nimrod had deliberately omitted the final part of the analysis, leaving it to the new mentality to draw its own conclusion.

Almas did so, without effort.

Esro Mondrian had hoped for the third of Nimrod’s perceived outcomes: a pursuit team would subdue or disable the Construct, but not destroy it. Mondrian needed the Construct, for some unknown purpose. After its capture, the pursuit teams could be disbanded.

However, none of those three outcomes had been a threat to Mondrian, nor would any of them
require
the destruction of a pursuit team by the Anabasis.

Conclusion:
The creation of the mentality had been a total surprise to Mondrian. This was the event that he saw as an intolerable threat. The destruction of Nimrod had therefore become Mondrian’s prime goal, with the saving of the Morgan Construct of secondary importance. He had ordered the Q-ship to vaporize the capsule as it returned from Travancore without the Morgan Construct. That had been done, but spectral analysis of the vaporized ship had surely told Mondrian that the pursuit team was not on board.

A second pursuit team had therefore been sent to Travancore, with the hope that it would destroy Nimrod and also subdue the Morgan Construct. Instead, it had formed another group mind. And now, like Nimrod, it was in danger from Mondrian. It was possible that at any moment the full destructive power of the Q-ship would be turned on Travancore. But that would not happen, so long as Mondrian thought that the second pursuit team had not formed a mentality, and might destroy Nimrod.

Almas drew a final conclusion, based on Chan’s insight into the mind of Esro Mondrian. The obsessed leader of the Anabasis would not be content to monitor the situation on Travancore from distant Ceres. If he were not already on the Q-ship, he would be likely to Link to it very soon. Return from Travancore would be more dangerous than ever.

The mentality clung tighter for a moment, sharing that concern. Then the union ended. As dissolution began, Chan found himself sitting on the forest floor, dirty and naked. He stared around him in surprise. The images from Nimrod had been of such clarity and depth that Almas had been there also, in a tent high in Travancore’s jungle.

The other three team members waited in dreamy silence as Chan recovered his clothing. With S’greela lighting the way they drifted slowly back up a spiral tunnel. After their bonding, speech was inadequate.

Only Shikari spoke as they ascended. The Tinker talked trivia, of Coromars and Maricores.

Naturally,
thought Chan.
Merging units is nothing for a Tinker. Shikari must wonder why the rest of us think it’s such a big deal.

They reached the tent as the last rays of Talitha’s light were cutting across the forest overstory. Amazingly to Chan, they had been away less than a single day.

Each team member settled into a preferred resting place. Chan had no appetite, but he forced himself to nibble on a biscuit and found at once that he was ravenous. He watched with detached surprise as he wolfed down masses of protein-rich synthetics. The energy drain of their merged state must be formidable.

He wanted to talk to the others about Almas, and realized that he could not. There was no way that words could say anything about that experience.

“I now sympathize with Vayvay,” said S’greela suddenly. She had been eating also, with fierce concentration. “If a Coromar feels hunger like this all the time, naturally there is little room for other thought. We must go back, and explain that we are safe.”

“Tomorrow,” said Shikari. “Vayvay has plenty of food, and will be more than happy to wait for us.”

“Never do tomorrow what can be done today,”
said Angel. “However, in this case you are right, and an exception may be admitted. Tomorrow will suffice for Vayvay.”

The others might be able and willing to chat, but it was too much for Chan. Today had been the Tolkov Stimulator all over again; the painful expansion of mind, the blinding mental light that made everything that had gone before seem dim and feeble. And yet Chan yearned to be part of Almas again, to feel the enveloping warmth of the mind pool . . .

Angel was still talking. Chan could not listen. His thoughts went to the Q-ship, orbiting somewhere high overhead. He had to decide what they would do about that threat, or they would be condemned to spend the rest of their lives on Travancore.

But such things were no longer his worry alone—the decision would be made by
Almas
! Chan felt huge relief.

He fell into a profound sleep, too deep for dreams.

It was a few nours before Travancore’s slow dawn when he was awakened. A warm body slid under the sheet that covered him and snuggled close to his side. He felt a moment of tingling terror, then relaxed as fingers gently covered his mouth.

“Sshh,” breathed a voice in his ear. “It’s me. Leah. It was wonderful meeting you as Nimrod, but I wanted to meet you just as me, and reassure you. You won’t lose anything when your team forms a union. You’ll
gain.
”

“I know. It already happened. Together, we are Almas.”

“That’s wonderful. Tomorrow, the two mentalities can have their first meeting.” She wriggled against him. “Move over a little bit. I want to get comfortable.”

Chan tried to see Leah, but the darkness was close to total and she was nothing but a moving patch of lesser darkness. He reached out and put his arms around her. “All this time I’ve waited to see you, and still you’re invisible. I wonder if you’re anything like the Leah I used to know.”

She chuckled in the darkness. “Me! I haven’t changed one bit—you’re the one who’s so different. Don’t confuse me with Nimrod, because when we’re not in union I’m still me.” She settled comfortably in his arms, fitting her body to his. “It was wonderful with you when I was Nimrod, and everything was shared. But tonight I decided that isn’t enough. I want you for myself too. This time, it’s going to be just
us.
Ah, my sweet Chan. You feel wonderful.”

Their lovemaking was gentle and slow, lacking any urgency. It was the culmination of twenty years of deep affection. Even Chan’s climax carried no stress, only love and fulfillment. Afterwards Leah fell asleep quickly, nestled close to his chest, but Chan remained awake.

A new worry began to gnaw at him.

Leah was still Leah, quite sure of her own identity and not worried about being lost within the union of Nimrod. But three months ago, Chan had been
no one.
And ever since that hour of revelation on Horus, he had puzzled over the question of his own identity. Who was he, what was he? He did not have Leah’s strong, well-defined personality, the identity that easily survived mind pooling and dissolution. Despite Leah’s reassurances, he wondered if the still-developing entity who was Chan Dalton would survive.

Am I going to become nothing more than one piece of a union, as undefined as one of Shikari’s components? I hate that idea. I want to be
me,
I don’t want to be absorbed. I hope this isn’t going to be my last night as Chan Dalton.

His thoughts were drifting in long, lazy lines.
How long have I lived? Obituary: Chan Dalton, born at twenty years and three months, dead at twenty years and six months. What counts more, mental life span or physical?

I’m afraid to go to sleep, knowing that tomorrow the real me may disappear.

He felt Leah stir in the darkness. Her arm moved, to lie protectively across his chest as though she was reading his mind.

It’s all right. Leah will take care of me. She always has.

And with that thought, Chan went peacefully to sleep.

* * *

Far above the sleeping figures in the tent, the brooding hulk of the Q-ship floated in space. Power on board had been damped, to minimize instrument interference. All sensors were trained on the night side of Travancore. All weapons were primed.

Within the Q-ship’s central control room sat Esro Mondrian and Luther Brachis. They were busy with a curious late-night ritual. Each of them was quietly entering a sequence of digits into a recording block. As soon as both were finished they exchanged records and examined the other’s notations.

“Looks all right to me,” said Brachis. His face was still a patchwork of synthetic skin, but his color was good. “I’m going to call it a day.”

Mondrian reached out and took both recording blocks. “We’re going to carry this sequence in our heads, you know, until the day we die. But it has to be done. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here any more than you do.”

“I could tell Godiva the sequence, as a safety precaution.”

“No.” Mondrian shook his head. “You, me, and Flammarion, and nothing as a written record. If we in Security don’t handle this right, who does? We play it by the book until we’re absolutely sure that down there”—he nodded towards Travancore’s dark disk—“there’s nothing too dangerous for us to handle.”

“The Team Ruby reports have been looking good.”

“So did the ones from Team Alpha and look what happened to them. I hope Dalton’s team will dispose of Nimrod for us, but we have to be sure. We’re dealing with an alien form down there. I don’t want to take any risks.”

“Nor do I. But you know how I feel. We ought to fly lower, turn up the firepower in the region where Nimrod is lurking, and roast it to hell and gone. If we did that, we could get this over with in a hurry.”

“And destroy the only Morgan Construct there is, the only one there will ever be? No. We go slow, and we make sure that we win.”