It was like being a program in a machine and realizing it for the first time.
Landis's voice flooded her. "Donnelly, for God's sake, keep your fingers off the experiment!" The thing was, the underlying nothingness was real-if "real" had any meaning. If meaning had meaning. But beyond real and beyond meaning, there is what is. And she had found it.
"Donnelly, you're treading on dangerous ground. You've-" Landis's voice was a distraction, and she shut it off. Elin felt the desire to merge with what was; one simply had to stop the desire for it, she realized, and it was done.
But on this realization, horror collapsed upon her. Flames seared and burned and crisped, and there were snakes among them, great slimy things with disgusting mouths and needle-sharp fangs.
She recoiled in panic, and they were upon her. The flames were drawn up into her lungs, and hot maggots wallowed in her brain tissues. She fled through a mind that writhed in agony, turning things on and off.
Until abruptly she was back in her body, and nothing pursued her. She shivered, and her body responded. It felt wonderful.
"Well, that worked at least," Tory said.
"What-" her voice croaked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What happened to me?"
"Just what we'd hoped for-when your mind was threatened with extinction, it protected itself by reprogramming back down to a normal state. Apparently, keeping your ego cranked up high works."
Elin realized that her eyes were still closed; she opened them now and convulsively closed her hand around the edge of the metal cot. It was solid and real to the touch. Such a good feeling.
"I'll be down in a minute," Tory said. "Just now, you need to rest." He touched a bone inductor, and Elin fell into blackness.
Floating again, every metaphorical nerve on edge, Elin found herself hypersensitive to outside influences, preternatu-rally aware, even suggestible. Still, she suspected-more than sensed-Coral's presence. Go away, she thought. This is my mind now.
I am here, and I am always. You have set foot in my country and are dimly aware of my presence. Later, when you have climbed into the mountains, you will truly know me; and then you will be as I.
Everyone tells me what I'm going to do, Elin thought angrily. Don't I get any say?
The thought that came to her was almost amused: You are only a program caught in a universal web of programming. You will do as your program dictates. To be free of the programs is to be God.
Despite her anger, despite her hurt, despite the cold trickle of fear she tried to keep in the background, Elin was curious. What's it like? she couldn't help asking.
It is golden freedom. The universe is a bubble infinitely large, and we who are God are the film on the bubble's outside. We interact and we program. We make the stars shine and the willows grow. We program what you will want far lunch. The programming flows through us, and we alter it and maintain the universe.
Elin pounced on this last statement. Haven't done a very good job of it, have you?
We do not tamper. When you are one with us, you will understand.
This was, Elin realized, the kind of question-and-answer session Coral must have gone through repeatedly as part of the Star Maker project. She searched for a question that no one else would have asked, one that would be hers alone. And after some thought she found it.
Do you still-personally-love Tory Shostokovich?
At first there was a slight pause, then: The kind of love you mean is characteristic of lower-order programming. Not of program-free intelligence.
A moment later Tory canceled all programming, and she floated to the surface, leaving God behind. But even before then she was acutely aware that she had not received a straight answer.
"Elin, we've got to talk."
She was patched into the outside monitors, staring across Mare Imbrium. It was a straight visual program; she could feel the wetwire leads dangling down her neck, the warm, humid air of Magritte against her skin. "Nothing to talk about," she said.
"Dammit, yes there is! I'm not about to lose you again because of a misunderstanding, a-a matter of semantics."
The thing about Outside was its airless clarity. Rocks and shadows were so preternaturally sharp. From a sensor or the crater's seaward slope, she stared off into Mare Imbrium; it was monotonous but in a comforting sort of way. A little like when she had made a Buddha. There was no meaning out there, nothing to impose itself between her and the surface.
"I don't know how you found out about Coral," Tory said, "and I guess it doesn't matter. I always figured you'd find out sooner or later. That's not important. What matters is that I love you-"
"Oh, hush up!"
"-and that you love me. You can't pretend you don't."
Elin felt her nails dig into her palms. "Sure I can," she said. She hopscotched down the crater to the surface. There the mass driver stood, a thin monorail stretching kilometers into the Imbrium, its gentle slope all but imperceptible.
"You're identifying with the woman who used to be Elin Donnelly. There's nothing wrong with that; speaking as a wetsurgeon, it's a healthy sign. But it's something you've got to grow out of.''
"Listen, Shostokovich, tinkering with my emotions doesn't change who I am. I'm not your dead lady friend, and I'm not about to take her place. So why don't you just go away and stop jerking me around, huh?"
Tiny repair robots prowled the mass driver's length, stopping occasionally for a spotweld. Blue sparks sputtered soundlessly over the surface.
"You're not the old Elin Donnelly either, and I think you know it. Bodies are transient, memories are nothing. Your spontaneity and grace, your quiet strength, your impatience- the small lacks and presences of you I've known and loved for years-are what make you yourself. The name doesn't matter, nor the past. You are who you are, and I love you for it."
"Yeah, well, what I am does not love you, buster."
One of the repairbots slowly fell off the driver. It hit, bounced, struggled to regain its treads, then scooted back toward its work.
Tory's voice was almost regretful. "You do, though. You can't hide that from me. I know you as your lover and as your wetsurgeon. You've let me become a part of you, and no matter how angry you might temporarily be, you'll come back to me."
Elin could feel her body trembling with rage. "Yeah, well if that's true, then why tell me! Hah? Why not just go back to your hut and wait for me to come crawling?"
"Because I want you to quit your job." , "Say what?"
"I don't want you to become God. It was a mistake the last time, and I'm afraid it won't be any better with the new programs. If you go up into God and can't get down this time, you'll do it the next time. And the next. I'll spend my life here waiting for you, re-creating you, losing you. Can't you see it-year after year, replaying the same tired old tape?" Tory's voice fell to a whisper. "I don't think I could take it even once more."
"If you know me as well as you say, then I guess you know my answer," Elin said coldly.