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Within the Steel Orb
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"My son-in-law is big into fantasy--he got me to see a Lord of the whatever-it-was movie--but I don't fancy them much myself."
"We know about Tolkein, but he is not considered a source of astonishing fantasy to us."
"Um..." Art took a long time to recall a name, and Oinos waited patiently. "Lewis?"
"If you're looking for names you would have heard of, Voltaire and Jung are two of the fantasy authors we consider essential. Tolkein and Lewis are merely imaginative. It is Voltaire and Jung who are truly fantasy authors. But there are innumerable others in your world."
Art said, "Um... what do you mean by 'fantasy author'?"
Oinos turned. "I'm sorry; there is a discrepancy between how your language uses 'fantasy author' and ours. We have two separate words that your 'fantasy' translates, and the words stand for very different concepts. One refers to works of imagination that are set in another world that is not confused with reality. The other refers to a fundamental confusion that can cost a terrible price. Our world does not produce fiction; we do appreciate the fiction of other worlds, but we do not draw a particularly strong line between fiction where only the characters and events are imagined, and fiction where the whole world is imagined. But we do pay considerable attention to the second kind of fantasy, and our study of fantasy authors is not a study of imagination but a study of works that lead people into unreality. 'Fantasy author' is one of the more important terms in understanding your world and its history."
Art failed to conceal his reaction.
"Or perhaps I was being too blunt. But, unfashionable as it may be, there is such a thing as evil in your world, and the ways in which people live, including what they believe, has something to do with it. Not everything, but something."
Oinos waited for a time. Then, when Art remained silent, he said, "Come with me. I have something to show you." He opened a door on the other side of the room, and went into the next room. The room was lit by diffuse moonlight, and there was a ledge around the room and water which Oinos stirred with his hand to light a phosphorescent glow. When Art had stepped in, Oinos stepped up, balancing on a steel cable, and stood silent for a while. "Is there anything here that you can focus on?"
"What do you mean?"
"Step up on this cable and take my hand."
"What if I fall into the water?"
Art tried to balance, but it seemed even more difficult in the dark. For a while, he tried to keep his balance with Oinos's help, but he seemed barely up. He overcompensated twice in opposite directions, began flying into the water, and was stopped at last by Oinos's grip, strong as steel, on his arm.
"I can't do this," Art said.
"Very well." Oinos opened a door on the other side of the room, and slowly led him out. As they walked, Oinos started up a spiral staircase and sat down to rest after Art reached the top. Then Art looked up at the sky, and down to see what looked like a telescope.
"What is it?"
"A telescope, not too different from those of your world."
Oinos stood up, looked at it, and began some adjustments. Then he called Art over, and said, "Do you see that body?"
"What is it?"
"A small moon."
Oinos said, "I want you to look at it as closely as you can," and then pulled something on the telescope.
"It's moving out of sight."
"That's right; I just deactivated the tracking feature. You should be able to feel handles; you can move the telescope with them."
"Why do I need to move the telescope? Is the moon moving?"
"This planet is rotating: what the telescope sees will change as it rotates with the planet, and on a telescope you can see the rotation."
Art moved the handles and found that it seemed either not to move at all or else move a lot when he put pressure on it.
Art said, "This is a hard telescope to control."
Oinos said, "The telescope is worth controlling."
"Can you turn the tracking back on?"
Oinos merely repeated, "The telescope is worth controlling."
The celestial body had moved out of view. Art made several movements, barely passed over the moon, and then found it. He tried to see what he could, then give a relatively violent shove when the moon reached the edge of his field of view, and see if he could observe the body that way. After several tries, he began to get the object consistently in view... and found that he was seeing the same things about it, not being settled enough between jolts to really focus on what was there.
Art tried to make a smooth, slow movement with his body, and found that a much taller order than it sounded. His movement, which he could have sworn was gentle and smooth, produced what seemed like erratic movement, and it was only with greatest difficulty that he held the moon in view.
"Is this badly lubricated? Or do you have lubrication in this world?"
"We do, on some of our less precise machines. This telescope is massive, but it's not something that moves roughly when it is pushed smoothly; the joints move so smoothly that putting oil or other lubricants that are familiar to you would make them move much more roughly."
"Then why is it moving roughly every time I push it smoothly?"
"Maybe you aren't pushing it as smoothly as you think you are?"
Art pushed back his irritation, and then found the moon again. And found, to his dismay, that when the telescope jerked, he had moved the slightest amount unevenly.
Art pushed observation of the moon to the back of his mind. He wanted to move the telescope smoothly enough that he wouldn't have to keep finding the moon again. After a while, he found that this was less difficult than he thought, and tried for something harder: keeping the moon in the center of what he could see in the telescope.
He found, after a while, that he could keep the moon in the center if he tried, and for periods was able to manage something even harder: keeping the moon from moving, or perhaps just moving slowly. And then, after a time, he found himself concentrating through the telescope on taking in the beauty of the moon.
It was breathtaking, and Art later could never remember a time he had looked on something with quite that fascination.
Then Art realized he was exhausted, and began to sit down; Oinos pulled him to a bench.
After closing his eyes for a while, Art said, "This was a magnificent break from your teaching."
"A break from teaching? What would you mean?"
Art sat, opened his mouth, and then closed it. After a while, he said, "I was thinking about what you said about fantasy authors... do you think there is anything that can help?"
Oinos said, "Let me show you." He led Art into a long corridor with smooth walls and a round arch at top. A faint blue glow followed them, vanishing at the edges. Art said, "Do you think it will be long before our world has full artificial intelligence?"
Oinos said, "Hmm... Programming artificial intelligence on a computer is not that much more complex than getting a stone to lay an egg."
Art said, "But our scientists are making progress. Your advanced world has artificial intelligence, right?"
Oinos said, "Why on earth would we be able to do that? Why would that even be a goal?"
"You have computers, right?"
"Yes, indeed; the table that I used to call up a scientific calculator works on the same principle as your world's computers. I could almost say that inventing a new kind of computer is a rite of passage among serious inventors, or at least that's the closest term your world would have."
"And your computer science is pretty advanced, right? Much more advanced than ours?"
"We know things that the trajectory of computer science in your world will never reach because it is not pointed in the right direction." Oinos tapped the wall and arcs of pale blue light spun out.
"Then you should be well beyond the point of making artificial intelligence."
"Why on a million, million worlds should we ever be able to do that? Or even think that is something we could accomplish?"
"Well, if I can be obvious, the brain is a computer, and the mind is its software."
"Is it?"
"What else could the mind be?"
"What else could the mind be? What about an altar at which to worship? A workshop? A bridge between Heaven and earth, a meeting place where eternity meets time? A treasury in which to gather riches? A spark of divine fire? A line in a strong grid? A river, ever flowing, ever full? A tree reaching to Heaven while its roots grasp the earth? A mountain made immovable for the greatest storm? A home in which to live and a ship by which to sail? A constellation of stars? A temple that sanctifies the earth? A force to draw things in? A captain directing a starship or a voyager who can travel without? A diamond forged over aeons from of old? A perpetual motion machine that is simply impossible but functions anyway? A faithful manuscript by which an ancient book passes on? A showcase of holy icons? A mirror, clear or clouded? A wind which can never be pinned down? A haunting moment? A home with which to welcome others, and a mouth with which to kiss? A strand of a web? An acrobat balancing for his whole life long on a slender crystalline prism between two chasms? A protecting veil and a concealing mist? An eye to glimpse the uncreated Light as the world moves on its way? A rift yawning into the depths of the earth? A kairometer, both primeval and young? A--"
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Within the Steel Orb
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