"I don't get it," said Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo.

Orphu's radar flickered over all of them, a feathery touch on the electromagnetic spectrum. Mahnmut thought that his friend was waiting for their reactions, perhaps for their shouts of approval. No one moved or spoke.

"I don't get it either," said Mahnmut.

"What is the human brain?" Orphu asked rhetorically. "I mean, all of us moravecs have a piece of one. What is it like? How does it work? Like the binary or DNA computers we also carry around for thinking purposes?"

"No," said Cho Li. "We know that the human brain is not like a computer, neither is it a chemical memory machine the way the Lost Era human scientists believed. The human brain...the mind...is a quantum-state holistic standing wavefront."

"Exactly!" cried Orphu. "The post-humans used this intimate understanding of the human mind to perfect their Brane Holes, time travel, and quantum teleportation."

"I still don't see how," said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che.

"Think about how quantum teleportation works," said Orphu. "Cho, you can explain that better than I can."

The Callistan rumbled and then modulated the rumbles into words. "The early experiments in quantum teleportation-done by old-style humans in ancient times, as far back as the Twentieth Century A A.D.-worked by producing entangled pairs of photons-and teleporting one of the pair-or actually by teleporting the complete quantum state quantum state of that proton-while transmitting the Bell-state analysis of the second photon through regular subliminal channels." of that proton-while transmitting the Bell-state analysis of the second photon through regular subliminal channels."

"Doesn't that violate Heisenberg's principle and Einstein's speed-of-light restrictions?" asked Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo, who, like Mahnmut, had obviously not been briefed on the mechanisms by which the gods on Mars' Olympus Mons QT'd to Ilium.

"No," said Cho Li. "Teleported photons carried no information with them when they moved instantaneously from place to place in this universe-not even information about their own quantum state."

"So quantum teleported photons are useless," said Centurion Leader Mep Ahoo. "At least for communication purposes."

"Not quite," said Cho Li. "The recipient of a teleported photon had a one-in-four chance of guessing its quantum state-the quantum photon had only that many possibilities-and, by guessing, utilizing the quantum bits of data. These are called qubits and we've successfully used them for instantaneous comm purposes."

Mahnmut shook his head. "How do we get from quantum-state photons carrying no information to the Greek gods quantum teleporting to Troy?"

"The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream," intoned Orphu of Io. "He awoke and found it truth. John Keats."

"Could you try to be more cryptic?" Suma IV asked caustically.

"I could try," said Orphu.

"What does the poet John Keats have to do with quantum teleportation and the reason for the current quantum crisis?" asked Mahnmut.

"I suggest that the post-humans made their breakthrough in Brane Holes and quantum teleportation more than a millennium and a half ago precisely because of their intimate knowledge of the holistic quantum nature of human consciousness," said the Ionian, his voice serious now.

"I've run some prelimary studies on the ship's quantum computer," Orphu continued, "and when you represent human consciousness as the standing wavefront phenomenon it really is, factor in terabytes of qubit quantum date on the wavefront basis for physical reality itself, apply the proper relativistic Coulomb field transforms to these mind-consciousness-reality wave functions, you quickly see how the post-humans opened Brane Holes to new universes and then teleported there themselves."

"How?" said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che.

"They first opened Brane Holes to alternate universes in which there were points in space-time where entangled-pair wavefronts of human consciousness had already been, had already been," said Orphu.

"Huh?" said Mahnmut.

"What is reality except a standing quantum wavefront collapsing through probability states?" asked Orphu. "How does the human mind work except as a sort of interferometer perceiving and collapsing those very wavefronts?"

Mahnmut still shook his head. He'd forgotten about the other moravecs standing on the bridge, forgotten that they might be taking his sub and the dropship down to Earth in less than three hours, forgotten the danger they were in...forgotten everything except the headache that his friend Orphu of Io was giving him.

"The post-humans were opening Brane Holes into alternate universes that had come into being through-or at least been perceived by-the focused lenses of pre-existing holographic wavefronts. Human imagination. Human genius."

"Oh for the Christ's sake," said General Beh bin Adee.

"Possibly," said Orphu. "If you assume an infinite or near-infinite set of alternate universes, then many of these have necessarily been imagined through the sheer force of human genius. Picture them as singularities of genius-Bell-state analyzers and editors of the pure quantum-foam of reality."

"That's metaphysics," said Cho Li in a shocked voice.

"That's bullshit," said Suma IV.

"No, that's what's happened here," said Orphu. "We have a terraformed Mars with altered gravity and are asked to believe that such terraforming could be achieved in a few years. That's That's bullshit. We have statues of Prospero on a Mars where Greek gods live atop Mount Olympos and commute through time and space to an alternate Earth where Achilles and Hector are fighting over the future of Ilium. bullshit. We have statues of Prospero on a Mars where Greek gods live atop Mount Olympos and commute through time and space to an alternate Earth where Achilles and Hector are fighting over the future of Ilium. That's That's bullshit. Unless..." bullshit. Unless..."

"Unless the post-humans opened portals to precisely those worlds and universes earlier imagined by the force of human genius," said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che. "Which would explain the Prospero statues, the Calibanish creatures on Earth, and the existence of Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon and all the other humans on Ilium-Earth."

"What about the Greek gods?" sneered Beh bin Adee. "Are we going to meet Jehovah and Buddha next?"

"We might," said Orphu of Io. "But I would suggest that the Olympian gods we met are transformed post-humans. That's where the post-humans disappeared to fourteen hundred years ago."

"Why would they choose to change into gods?" asked Retrograde Sinopessen. "Especially gods whose powers come from nanotechnology and quantum tricks?"

"Why would they not?" asked Orphu. "Immortality, choice of gender, sex with each other and any mortal they choose to mate with, breeding many divine and mortal offspring-which is something the post-humans could not seem to do on their own-not to mention the decade-long chess game that is the siege of Troy."

Mahnmut rubbed his head. "And the terraforming and gravity change on Mars..."

"Yes," said Orphu. "It probably took the larger part of fourteen hundred years, not three years. And that was with the gods' quantum technology at work."

"So there's a real Prospero real Prospero down there or out there somewhere?" asked Mahnmut. "The Prospero from Shakespeare's down there or out there somewhere?" asked Mahnmut. "The Prospero from Shakespeare's Tempest Tempest?"

"Or something or someone close to it," said Orphu.

"What about the brain-monster that came through the Brane Hole on Earth just a few days ago?" asked Suma IV. The Ganymedan sounded angry. "Is it it a hero in your precious human literature?" a hero in your precious human literature?"

"Possibly," said Orphu. "Robert Browning once wrote a poem called 'Caliban Upon Setebos' in which the monster Caliban from Shakespeare's Tempest Tempest ponders his god, a creature called Setebos, which Browning had Caliban describe only as 'the many-handed as a cuttlefish.' It was a god of arbitrary power that fed on fear and violence." ponders his god, a creature called Setebos, which Browning had Caliban describe only as 'the many-handed as a cuttlefish.' It was a god of arbitrary power that fed on fear and violence."

"That's quite a reach in speculation," said Asteague/Che.

"Yes," said Orphu. "But so is the creature we photographed that looks like a giant brain scuttling around on giant human hands. An improbable evolution in any universe, wouldn't you say? But Robert Browning had an impressive imagination."

"Are we going to meet Hamlet down there on Earth?" asked Suma IV with an audible sneer.

"Oh," said Mahnmut. "Oh. Oh, that would be nice."

"Let's not get carried away," said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che. "Orphu, where did you get this whole idea?"

Orphu sighed. Instead of responding verbally, a holographic projector in the comm pod atop the huge Ionian's pitted and scarred carapace created an image that floated above the chart table.

Six fat books sat in a virtual bookcase. One of the books-Mahnmut saw that it was titled In Search of Lost Time-Volume III-The Guermantes Way- In Search of Lost Time-Volume III-The Guermantes Way-fluttered open to page 445. The image zoomed in on the type on the page.

Mahnmut suddenly realized that Orphu was optically blind-he couldn't see see what he was projecting. It meant that he had to have all of Proust's six volumes memorized. The idea made Mahnmut want to howl. what he was projecting. It meant that he had to have all of Proust's six volumes memorized. The idea made Mahnmut want to howl.

Mahnmut read along with the others as the font floated in midair- "People of taste tell us nowadays that Renoir is a great eighteenth-century painter. But in so saying they forget the element of Time, and that it took a great deal of time, even at the height of the nineteenth century, for Renoir to be hailed as a great artist. To succeed thus in gaining recognition, the original painter or the original writer proceeds on the lines of the oculist. The course of treatment they give us by their painting or by their prose is not always pleasant. When it is at an end the practitioner says to us: 'Now look!' And, lo and behold, the world around us (which was not created once and for all, but is created afresh as often as an original artist is born) appears to us entirely different from the old world, but perfectly clear. Women pass in the street, different from those we formerly saw, because they are Renoirs, those Renoirs we persistently refused to see as women. The carriages, too, are Renoirs, and the water, and the sky; we feel tempted to go for a walk in the forest which is identical with the one which when we first saw it looked like anything in the world except a forest, like for instance a tapestry of innumerable hues but lacking precisely the hues peculiar to forests. Such is the new and perishable universe which has just been created. It will last until the next geological catastrophe is precipitated by a new painter or writer of original talent."

All the moravecs by the chart table stood in silence, broken only by the ventilator hums, machine sounds, and soft background communication of the moravecs actually flying the Queen Mab Queen Mab at that critical moment as they approached the equatorial and polar rings of Earth. at that critical moment as they approached the equatorial and polar rings of Earth.

Finally General Beh bin Adee broke the silence-"What solipsistic nonsense. What metaphysical garbage. What total horse manure."

Orphu said nothing.

"Perhaps it is horse manure," said Prime Integrator Asteague/Che. "But it's the most plausible horse manure I've heard in the last nine months of surreality. And it's earned Orphu of Io a ride in the hold of the submersible The Dark Lady The Dark Lady when the dropship separates and drops into the Earth's atmosphere in...two hours and fourteen minutes. Let us all go prepare." when the dropship separates and drops into the Earth's atmosphere in...two hours and fourteen minutes. Let us all go prepare."

Orphu and Mahnmut were heading for the elevator-Mahnmut walking in a sort of daze, the huge Orphu floating silently on his repel-lors-when Asteague/Che called out, "Orphu!"

The Ionian swiveled and waited, politely aiming his dead cameras and eye-stalks at the Prime Integrator.

"You were going to tell us who the Voice is that we rendezvous with today."

"Oh, well..." Mahnmut's friend sounded embarrassed for the first time. "That's just a guess."

"Share it," said Asteague/Che.

"Well, given my little theory," said Orphu, "who would demand in a female voice to see our passenger-Odysseus, son of Laertes?"

"Santa Claus?" suggested General bin Adee.

"Not quite," said Orphu. "Calypso."

None of the moravecs seemed to recognize the name.

"Or from the universe our other new friends came from," continued Orphu, "the enchantress also known as Circe."

62.

Harman had drowned but was not dead. In a few minutes he would wish he were dead.

The water-the golden fluid-filling the dodecahedral crystal cabinet was hyperoxygenated. As soon as his lungs completely filled, oxygen began moving through the thin-walled capillaries of his lungs and reentering his bloodstream. It was enough to keep his heart beating-start beating again, one should say, since it had skipped beats and stopped for half a minute during his drowning process-and enough to keep his brain alive...dulled, terrified, seemingly disconnected from his body, but alive. He could not breathe in, his instincts still cried out for air, but his body was getting oxygen.

Opening his eyes was a huge struggle and all it rewarded him with was a swirling vision of a billion golden words and ten billion throbbing images waiting to be born in his brain. He was vaguely aware of the six-sided glass panel of the flooded crystal cabinet and of a blurrier shape beyond which might have been Moira, or perhaps Prospero, or even Ariel, but these things were not important.

He still wanted to breathe air the correct way. If he had not been only semiconscious-tranquilized by the liquid in preparation for the transfer-his gag reflex alone would probably have killed him or driven him insane.

But the crystal cabinet reserved other means for driving him insane.

The information began pouring into Harman now. Information, Moira and Prospero had said, from a million old books. Words and thoughts from almost a million long-dead minds, more, because every book contained multitudes of other minds in its arguments, its refutations, its fervent agreements, its furious revisions and rebellions.

Information began to pour in, but it was like nothing Harman had ever felt or experienced before. He had taught himself to read over many decades, becoming the first old-style human being in uncounted centuries to make sense of the squiggles and curves and dots in the old books moldering away on shelves everywhere. But words from a book flow into the mind in a linear fashion at the pace of conversation-Harman had always heard a voice not quite his own reading each word aloud in his own mind after he learned to read. Sigling was a more rapid but less effective way to absorb a book-the nanotech function flowed the data from books down one's arms into the brain like coal being shoveled into a hopper, without the slow pleasure and context of reading. And after sigling a book, Harman always found that some new data had arrived, but much of the meaning of the book had been lost due to absence of nuance and context. He never heard a voice in his head when sigling and often wondered if it had been designed as a function for old-styles in the Lost Era to absorb tables of dry information, packets of predigested data. Sigling was not the way to read a novel or a Shakespearean play-although the first Shakespearean play Harman had encountered was an amazing and moving piece called Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet. Until Harman had read Until Harman had read Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, he'd not known that such a thing as a "play" existed-his people's only form of fictional entertainment had been the turin drama about the siege of Troy, and that only for the past decade. he'd not known that such a thing as a "play" existed-his people's only form of fictional entertainment had been the turin drama about the siege of Troy, and that only for the past decade.

But while reading was a slow, linear flow and sigling was like a sudden tickling of the brain that left a residue of information behind, this crystal cabinet was...

The Maiden caught me in the Wild Where I was dancing merrily She put me into her Cabinet And locked me up with a golden Key This information Harman was receiving was not entering through his eyes, ears, or any of the other human senses nature had evolved to bring data to the nerves and brain. It was not-strictly speaking-passing into him through touch, although the billion-billion pinpricks of information in the golden liquid passed through each pore of his skin and each cell of his flesh.

DNA, Harman knew now, likes the standard double helix model. Evolution had chosen the double helix for a variety of reasons to carry its most sacred cargo, but primarily because it was the easiest and most effective way for free energy to flow-forward or back-as that energy determines the folds, joins, forms, and function of such gigantic molecules as proteins, RNA, and DNA. Chemical systems always move toward the state of lowest free energy, and free energy is minimized when two complementary strands of nucleotides pair up like a double Shaker staircase.

But the post-humans who had redesigned the hardware and software of Harman's branch of the old-style human genome had redesigned a sizeable percentage of the redundant DNA in his decanted species' bodies. Instead of right-handed twisting B-DNA, the post-humans had set in place left-handed Z-DNA double helixes of the usual size, about two nanometers in diameter. They used these ZDNA molecules as keystones, lifting from them a scaffolding of more complex DNA helixes such as double-crossover molecules, tying these ropes of DX DNA together into leakproof protein cages. Within those billions upon billions of scaffolded protein cages deep within Harman's bones, muscle fibers, gut tissue, testicles, toes, and hair follicles were biological reception and organizing macromolecules serving still more complex caged clusters of nanoelectronic organic memory storage clusters.

Harman's entire body-every cell-was eating the Taj Moira's library of a million volumes.

The Cabinet is formed of Gold And Pearl & Crystal shining bright And within it opens into a World And a little lovely Moony Night The process hurt. It hurt a lot. Drowned and floating belly-up now like a dead carp in the golden liquid of the crystal cabinet, Harman felt the pain of a leg or arm that had gone to sleep and that was slowly, painfully coming awake again-the limb being pricked by ten thousand sharp, hot needles. But this was not just his leg or his arm. Cells in every part of his body, cells on every surface inside and out, molecules in every cell's nucleus and every cell's wall, were awakening to the data flowing the free energy route through the Yan-Shen-Yurke DNA circuits everywhere in the collective organism called Harman.

It hurt beyond Harman's ability to imagine or contain such hurt. He opened his mouth repeatedly to scream from the pain, but there was no air in his lungs, no air around him, and his vocal cords merely vibrated in the golden liquid in which he'd drowned.

Metallic nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and more complex nano-electronic devices everywhere in Harman's body and brain, elements that had been there since before his birth, felt current, were polarized, rotated, realigned in three dimensions, and began conducting and storing information, each complex DNA bridge out of the trillions waiting in Harman's cells rotating, realigning, recombining, and securing data across the DNA backbone of his most essential structure.

Harman could see Moira's face near the glass, her dark Savi-eyes peering in, her crystal-warped expression expressing something-anxiety? Remorse? Sheer curiosity?

Another England there I saw Another London with its Tower Another Thames & other Hills And another pleasant Surrey Bower Books-Harman realized through the Niagral cascade of pain-were merely nodes in a near-infinite matrix of information that exists in four dimensions, evolving toward the idea of the concept of the approximation of the shadow of Truth vertically through time as well as longitudinally through knowledge.

As a child in his creche, Harman had taken rare sheets of vellum and even more rare markers called pencils and covered the sheets with dots, then spent hours trying to connect all the dots with lines. There always seemed to be another possible line to draw, another two dots to connect, and before he was done the sheet of creamy vellum had become an almost solid smear of graphite. In later years, Harman had wondered if his young mind had been trying to capture and express his perception of the fax portals he had stepped through since he was old enough to walk-old enough to be carried by his mother, actually. Nine million combinations rising from three hundred known faxnode pavilions.

But this connect-the-dots of information to storage macromolecule cages was thousands of times more complex and infinitely more painful.

Another Maiden like herself Translucent lovely shining clear Threefold each in the other closed- O what a trembling fearO what a smile! a threefold Smile Filled me, that like a flame I burnd I bent to Kiss the lovely Maid And found a Threefold Kiss returnd Harman knew now that William Blake had made his living as an engraver, and not that popular or successful an engraver at that. [Everything is context.] Blake died on a hot and muggy Sunday evening-August 12, 1827-and on the day of his death, almost no one in the general public knew that the quiet but often angry engraver had been a poet respected by several of his better known contemporaries, including Samuel Coleridge. [Context is to data what water is to a dolphin.] [Dolphins were a species of aquatic animal driven to extinction early in the Twenty-second Century A A.D.] William Blake quite literally considered himself a prophet along the lines of Ezekiel or Isaiah, although he held nothing but contempt for the mysticisms, dabblings in the occult, or theosophies so popular in his day. [Ezekiel Mao Kent was the name of the marine biologist who was by the side of Almorenian d'Azure, the last dolphin, who died of cancer in the Bengal Oceanarium on the hot, muggy evening of August 11, 2134 A A.D. The N.U.N. Applied Species Committee decided not to replenish the family Delphinidae Delphinidae from stored DNA but, rather, to let the species join all other from stored DNA but, rather, to let the species join all other Delphinidae Delphinidae and other great marine-cetacean mammals in peaceful extinction. and other great marine-cetacean mammals in peaceful extinction.]

The data itself, Harman found as he stared, naked, out from the center of his own crystal, was tolerable. It was the constant nerve-web-expanding pain of context that would kill him.

I strove to sieze the inmost Form With ardor fierce & hands of flame But burst the Crystal Cabinet And like a Weeping Babe becameA weeping Babe upon the wild And Weeping Woman pale reclind And in the outward air again I filld with woes the passing Wind Harman reached the limit of his ability to absorb such pain and complexity. He stirred his limbs in the thick, gold liquid, found that he had less mobility than an embryo, that his fingers had turned to fins, that his muscles had atrophied to weak rags, and that this pain was the true medium and placental fluid of the universe.

I am not a tabula rasa!! he wanted to scream at that bastard Prospero and that ultimate bitch Moira. This would kill him. tabula rasa!! he wanted to scream at that bastard Prospero and that ultimate bitch Moira. This would kill him.

Heaven and Hell are born together, Harman thought and knew Blake had thought it first, knowing that Blake had thought it in refutation to Swedenborg's Calvinistic belief in Predestination: Harman thought and knew Blake had thought it first, knowing that Blake had thought it in refutation to Swedenborg's Calvinistic belief in Predestination: Truly My Satan thou art but a Dunce And dost not know the Garment from the Man Stop that! Stop it! Please God Tho thou art Worshiped by the Names Divine Of Jesus & Jehovah: thou art still The Son of Morn in weary Nights decline The lost Travellers Dream under the Hill Harman screamed despite the fact that there was no air in his lungs to form the scream, no air in his throat to allow the scream, and no air in the tank to conduct the scream. [The naked device, one of six trillion, consists of four double helixes connected in the middle by two unpaired DNA strands. The crossover region can assume two different states-the universe often enjoys assuming a binary form. Rotating the two helixes a half turn on one side of the central bridge junction creates the so-called PX or paranemic crossover state.] Do this three billion times per second and one achieves a purity of torture never dreamt of by the most fanatical designers of the Inquisition's most ingenious racks, clamps, extractors, and sharp edges.

Harman tried to scream again.

Fifteen seconds had now elapsed since the transfer had begun.

Forty-four minutes and forty-five seconds remained.

63.