Part 19 (1/2)
”Right,” Mark said, ignoring my sandwich. ”For some time now, researchers have wondered if the right-handedness of the majority of numbers might indicate that the left side of the brain, which controls the right side of the body, dominates most in the production of numbers. At the same time, the left side of the brain also seems to be least powerful in influencing the production of letters. When you include the smalls, 'ambidextrous' edges, left-handed, out-just barely-as the most common letter-form of all, even if you include capital Q among the block of letters you might call left-handed and right-brained. Makes you wonder if hemispheric non-dominance-with a strong tilt to the left hand and right brain, admittedly-is in fact the most 'dominant' factor in letter production.”
”That makes both sides of my brain hurt,” I said, laughing, ”although I guess that makes some sense. What about spatial orientations in numbering systems other than the Arabic, though?”
”In Mayan numerals, for instance? Or how spatial orientation of letters manifests in languages read not left to right, but right to left-in Hebrew, say? Or what about other systems in which the numbers are also letters and vice versa-not only Hebrew but the Roman system, too, whose numerals were not part of a separate numeric system but derived from the Latin alphabet?”
”Let me guess: you've already thought about this.”
Mark nodded and leaned toward me.
”I learned in my debriefing that all of those questions had already been asked. Neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, linguistic anthropologists-all of them have been quietly involved in investigating whether or not the spatial orientations of letters and numbers might be evidence of patterns in the 'cultural unconscious' that mirror the evolutionary history of the human brain.”
”And they found...?”
”The same patterns, with some minor variations, persist across all human cultures.”
That made me pause.
Mark claims his grandfather knew the First Expedition biologist who named these freshwater critters we trap ”pi-rats.” Although better known for naming our world Dolores after his wife, Hector Quinones was not only the mission's chief population ecologist but also a math geek of the first water-and tagged the bank-burrowers with their odd but appropriate name, given the critters' packrat thievery, giant muskrat looks, and their disproportionately long (seemingly endless) tails.
”As hatchery manager,” Mark says when we get to the north end of Pond 1, ”I suppose I should reiterate that, officially, we're thinning the pi-rat population because their burrows damage the levees between the ponds. It also just so happens that pi-rat fur is prime now, and bringing a good price.”
”My hand is like those other exquisitely complex mechanisms, the prionoids the Bots have been bombing our worlds with,” he said, grabbing the wheelbarrow's handles. ”Those D-amino transmission particles, meant to morph our brain chemistry, confuse our myriad complications and defeat that thing in human consciousness that the Bots can't figure out. I guess they figure you don't have to understand something to destroy it. But all the Bots' efforts have resulted only in poisonings, and madness, and the necessity of running these LC tests on our air and water.”
He lifted up on the handles.
”The p.o.o.p is in the pudding. Back to it.”
I followed him down the bank, and stepped with him into the kettle once more.
”But even supposing, for the moment, we accept that the pattern-thing works, more or less, for every culture-what does it have to do with the Bots allowing you to go on living?”
”Ah. Follow the logic. What started the Knot War?”
I suppose I gave him an odd look, but then shrugged and answered.
”Surprise attacks by Bot forces. Coordinated lightning raids.”
”And the goal of those coordinated attacks?”
”To capture the central junction point of universe-lines known as the Big Knot, and to abduct Elena Zametis-greatest of Raveleras in the greatest line of Raveleras-and carry her to the Knot.”
”Yes. Which-with aid from singularitarian Hivists, from turncoat human-sphere AIs, and from the strangely willing Elena-the Bots managed to do. So far, so good-but what made it worth going to war over?”
I was beginning to wonder where this belaboring of the obvious might be headed, but I decided to let it roll out a bit longer without comment.
Heading south, back toward the pickup, each of us walks the bank opposite the one he walked on the way out, hoping to catch sight of anything the other might have overlooked. At the south end we climb into the Sun Dog, move the pickup to the next pond, and park again there. Standard operating procedure: walk the levees, check the traps, move and repark the truck, pond after pond.
”I know what you're thinking,” he said as we started shoveling the thick muck again. ”You think, 'All this war stuff is just a mask for Mark's obsession with his lost hand and lost wife-Napoleon Blownapart mourning the loss of his Josephine. This stuff with numbers and letters, handedness and sides of the brain-hand waving at best, delusion at worst. All just seeing patterns that aren't really there.' And the paranoia about spies and spying! 'Application for members.h.i.+p in the Tinfoil Hat Crew-approved!' as they used to say. But you'd be wrong to believe any of those explanations is sufficient.”
”Because all the leaders of the worlds of human s.p.a.ce had already sworn to protect the Raveleras,” I said, slowly chewing my sandwich.
”Yes. Why?”
”Isn't it obvious? Everybody knows the answer to that.”
Mark smiled inscrutably, looked around the office, and nodded.
”Please, bear with me. Again: why?”
”Their ability to travel clewed s.p.a.ce, of course. It's what has allowed human crews to pilot stars.h.i.+ps at velocities within a hair of the speed of light. Their ability to weave and unweave s.p.a.ce-time about themselves. To witch the way the subs.p.a.ce web is woven, the way other women once witched the courses of water underground.”
”Which means?”
”Which means that humans have been able to spread out beyond Earth-to settle newer home worlds on Earth-like extrasolar planets.”
”Right, but that's not what I was asking. 'To weave and unweave s.p.a.ce-time'-what does that mean? How is it done?”
I puzzled over that one a minute, before speaking.
”I gather that's kind of a trade secret among the Raveleras. The scientists theorize about 'q-net'-the quantum something or other.”
”Quantum Nonlocally Entangled Tunneling. The webwork of evanescent wormhole tunnels, latent in the fabric of the cosmos.”
”If you say so. But the Raveleras talk about how the universe is 'holographically conscious, too.' How, through the altered state of consciousness peculiar to them, they are able to locally alter the structure of s.p.a.ce-time. To 'weave a Way out of No Way,' along that infrastructure of threads or lines or tunnels they call clewed s.p.a.ce.”
”And this 'infrastructure'-what's its origin?”
Whenever we find traps that have been run out on their chains we pull them back onto the bank. Using his gripper-hook prosthetic left hand with the dexterity of a surgeon gaping an incision, Mark has shown me how to prize open like steel clamsh.e.l.ls the sprung traps and remove from those metal jaws the beached pi-rats, slick and red-brown and stiff.