"Meaning…"
"Meaning he already knows where the Envy came from, or he knows that it's not from any nearby sun; either way there's no threat of the rebels finding the homeworld first, is there?"
"That's right," said Evan. "Unless Linda Ophir told the rebels about the Envy."
"And they planted a spy on board," finished Rebecca.
Rue shrugged. "I bet she did and I bet there is one," she said. "But how does that connect with the faked photos? And it still doesn't explain to me why Crisler is here and not waiting in High Space for us to send him information about the homeworld by message laser."
Rebecca passed some bulbs of coffee around. "Thanks," said Mike. "I… Rue, you think the missing writing tells where the Envy came from?"
She nodded. "It might. In which case, Crisler already knows… but then why not go straight there?"
"Unless it was Linda who faked the photos? Or the rebel?"
"This is getting us nowhere," laughed Rebecca. "No, I don't think the missing writing is about the homeworld. But you guys are going to bust a blood vessel trying to figure what it is. Why not wait until tomorrow?"
"So true," Rue agreed with a laugh. "We're just getting ourselves worked up."
They drank their coffee and the discussion drifted from topic to topic, though it always returned to Crisler and the sabotage. Rue liked having someone outside her tiny crew to talk to— Michael Bequith wasn't so stuck up as the rest of the scientific team. She supposed he wasn't on the career treadmill like so many of his colleagues on the Banshee. At least, not on the same one.
That reminded her of something. "Oh!"
They looked at her.
"You told me to ask you about NeoShintoism sometime," she said to him. "So… I'm asking."
Mike didn't look happy at the question for some reason. Maybe he'd been getting a lot of the same inquiries lately. "NeoShinto is simply a system for summoning and contemplating kami," he said.
Well, that sure explained it. "Kami?" she pressed. "Who're they?"
"Spirits of a place," said Evan. "Right?"
Mike nodded.
"Oh." It sounded a bit cultish.
"There's nothing metaphysical about it," Mike said quickly. He described a truly frightening set of neural implants he'd gotten when younger; having some bizarre AI altering your consciousness went way beyond any of the control mods Jentry had tried. Rebecca listened with particular (doubtless clinical) interest.
"…So I can record the stimulation pattern for this vision and literally e-mail it into the galactic inscape network. You see, it's a technology, not a mythology. NeoShinto is a branch of Permanence, which is a nonmetaphysical religion, like Buddhism would be if it stayed purely methodological and didn't keep holding onto ideas like karma and reincarnation. Permanence is a scientifically developed meditation program that is tailored to the individual; if you follow it properly you're very likely to reach a state of mind that used to be called 'enlightenment. We try not to label that state because everyone has different interpretations of it until they experience it and after they experience it they generally laugh at the idea of describing it in words." Mike sounded positively stuffy when he talked about this; the thought made her smile.
"NeoShinto is all about creating and capturing an artificially generated mystical experience, similar to our target state, so that people can 'visit' the state and decide whether they want to pursue the program."
"Hm." She understood, but played dumb because now that he was rolling, he obviously did enjoy talking about it. "It's like a oneness with the universe sort of thing?"
He nodded. "My particular task was to collect the kami of alien places. I undertook this task because we recognized that humans are spreading into some pretty inhuman environments and living in these makes it harder to commune with the Absolute. My kami give people a starting point, at least."
Rue sat back, thinking about the idea. She'd never heard of this sect, or these kami things. The idea of merging your identity with your surroundings was very seductive, though. It made her realize just how separate from the world she usually felt.
After all, she had been raised to disbelieve cults and religions. There was no transcendence to be found; this had been drilled into Rue from an early age, as if she needed any more proof than the limits of Allemagne and her own puny body.
The kami sounded wonderful; but they couldn't be real. "My mother always told us," said Rue, " 'believe what you want, but always put it to the test. »
"What test is that?" asked Blair.
"She called it 'the Supreme Meme, " said Rue. Now that she'd started talking about this, she was a bit embarrassed. Jentry's crowd scoffed at any metaphysical talk.
She pressed on. "It's what you call a thought experiment, a way to test whether something you believe is good for you or not. You know what memes are?"
"Memes are the genes of culture," said Evan promptly. "They are ideas and behaviors that use humans and our culture to propagate themselves. Religions are usually full of memes— ideas that don't mean anything, or serve any useful purpose, but are just so compelling that they get passed on generation after generation."
"Right. Well, the Supreme Meme is like a way of exploding all other memes— other ideas about life, you know? It has the power to destroy beliefs that are bad for you."
"And what is it?"
"Simple," she said. "We know the multiverse is infinitely old and spawns new universes in infinite amounts all the time. That means that infinitely far in the past and infinitely far in the future, there's a universe just like this one, where everything happened just the same way, with the same people; and you and I and this place and this conversation, all happened before and will happen again, not once, but an infinite number of times." Now she was sounding stuffy; she had recited this description from memory.
"Yeah, I've heard that idea," said Evan dismissively.
"Oh, that's not the idea," she said with a grin. "The idea is this: Say you had just died and the angels or kami or whatever asked you where you would like to go now— anywhere in the multiverse, any kind of rebirth or heaven you want. Here's the Supreme Meme: How would you have to feel about the life you've led and your universe, to say to that angel, 'let me come back to where I started and live this life over, exactly as it was, no detail spared. »
"Well, that's, just—" sputtered Evan.
"How would you have to feel? And could this or that religion or ideology that I believe give me that feeling— even in theory? That's the question and you apply it to the religions people try to sell you on. Because if a religion can't, well… sanctify… everything, even the crappy parts of your life, then it doesn't measure up."
Evan looked horrified.
Mike sat back, a bemused look on his face. After a moment he half-smiled. "And has anything ever measured up for you?" he asked.
"No," she said. There was an awkward silence. "Anyway, that's what my mother taught us," Rue said.
"I'll have to think about that," Mike said with apparent sincerity. "But for now… you never did answer my original question."
"What question?"
"Can I call upon you for asylum?"
"Oh! Of course."
"We've got a spare bunk if you'd like," said Rebecca, with a sidelong glance at Rue.
"Ah, well, I… Isn't Lake Flaccid part of your territory? That's where the science team is setting up, anyway."
"Of course," Rue said firmly. "I'll tell Crisler to keep his hands off you as long as you're anywhere in the Envy. I'll tell him I'm keeping an eye on you myself." Of course, Rue knew she had no power to enforce her orders. She had to assume that Crisler wouldn't feel too threatened by this. If he did… well, she had to try.