The Singers of Time

8

"Today, class, we're going to talk about a different kind of history. We discussed the three ages of mankind briefly, and the three ages of the universe in a little more detail. Today we're going to discuss the three ages of mankind's understanding of the universe. That's history, too, and you can write it in three words. The three words are: "Caprice, "Causality, and "Chaos.

"Those are the three big Cs.

"The first C was the age of Caprice, and it lasted the longest time, maybe a million years. That was the time when everything was a superstitious marvel. For all that time, people thought that the Sun rose, the lightning struck and the wind blew not for any natural reason, but simply at the Caprice of some supernatural being—or beings. Sometimes the people thought there were any number of them, maybe one for every rock and tree and cloud.

"Some of the things that happened were really important to the people. If the rain didn't fall at the right time, you got no crops. If the Sun disappeared in an eclipse, you would do anything to get it back.

"So primitive man did his best to make deals with these Capricious supernatural entities. They sacrificed harvest grains to them, or animals, or sometimes their own children. They made love in the furrows of their fields to encourage the harvest gods to be fertile—whatever it took. Or whatever kind of bribe or inducement they thought it might take.

"Then some people got a little smarter. The smartest of them, way back then, were the ancient Greeks. They got an idea in their heads. Suppose, they suggested, things didn't really just happen because of some supernatural Caprice. Suppose there were laws that governed things like the procession of the seasons, and the movement of the planets about the sky, and everything else in the observable world.

"Suppose, in other words, that everything had a Cause.

"That is the state of mind that we now call 'scientific.' It began about six centuries before Christ, in the Greek settlements on the west coast of Asia Minor. It was the first notion of Causality, and it lasted for two and a half thousand years.

"The Greeks carried the burden of the Causality idea for almost half that time. Then the rest of the world began to get the idea at, oh, let's say, about the time of Copernicus. By then we began to have all those great minds trying to figure out just what Caused things to happen—people like Kepler and Galileo, Robert Boyle and Christiaan Huygens—Isaac Newton, one of the greatest of them all—Dalton, Carnot, Faraday, Maxwell—right up to Albert Einstein and his lifelong search for a Unified Field Theory that would explain the Causes of everything.

"All of them were looking for the same thing, you see. They were trying to figure out the rules by which A interacted with B to produce the state C. All Causal, by their basic nature.

"Then things began to go a little sour for Causality, because along came Planck, Heisenberg and Stephen Hawking to tell these great seekers that they had been looking in the wrong place.

"In the right place—in the place where first explanations had to be found—Causality broke down. There were events which did not have specific, identifiable causes. Some kinds of information had to remain forever unknown. Some processes, in short, were intrinsically Chaotic . . . which meant that no matter how much you knew about the state of System X today, you had no way of predicting what its state would be tomorrow.

"That's when Chaos came along. It wasn't welcome. People like Einstein really hated it. 'God does not throw dice with the universe,' he protested, and Hawking came back with his famous riposte: 'God not only throws dice, he sometimes throws them in places where they can't be seen.'"

And the aiodoi, who saw all always, sang: "Of course.

"No one can see what is never there."

Kiri Quintero looked placidly at the thing with the copper-colored shell that was approaching him. "Hello," it said in a warm female voice, extending a tentacle to take Kiri's hand. "I'm Daisy Fay. It's just wonderful to see human beings again —besides Francis, I mean."

To Kiri's mild surprise, the tentacle felt warm and soft, not metallic at all. "Hello," Kiri said. "I hope you'll excuse my friends. We just didn't know exactly what—uh—"

The biomech laughed. "What we looked like? Francis didn't tell you, did he? Well, I know we're a surprise to you. We were pretty much a surprise to ourselves when we woke up the first time! But the Turtles have done a good job, especially now, considering what it's been like for them, the last few days. Chief Thunderbird's a righteous tyrant, when he wants to be, and he usually does. But he made sure they checked us over and got us in shape for the next mission."

Beside Kiri, his twin brother said, shuddering, "Like that kind of shape?"

"Like still being alive," the girl said softly, "and that's more than we would have been without their help. Would we have done as much for one of them?"

"I hope not," snarled Sork Quintero.

A stalked eye turned toward him, the face on the belly plate still smiling. "I don't think we've met yet," said Daisy Fay. And the introductions went around—as if they were, Kiri thought, any new couple coming to a party.

"We're both glad to meet you all," said the one called Marcos, "but, Francis, don't you think we should head for the ship?"

"I don't know where it is," Krake confessed.

"Of course you don't, Francis, but we do," the girl said. "Lead the way, Marco!" And as they started off, she slipped a tentacle fondly into her captain's hand. "Anyway," she said, "I'm dying of curiosity. What's this mission Chief Thunder-bird's been talking about?"

Krake turned to stare at her. "Mission? What mission are you talking about?"

The biomech hesitated. "I thought you'd know, Francis," she said. "Chief Thunderbird told us we had to be ready for some big deal—do you mean he hasn't told you what it's going to be?"

"He has damn well not," Krake snarled. The pretty face on the belly of the biomech looked sympathetic.

"Oh, Francis," she sighed. "You're getting all upset again, aren't you? I'm sorry I mentioned it. Anyway, we'll be at the ship in a minute—"

"And then we're out of here," Krake said flatly, "and then it doesn't matter what kind of plans the Turtles have!"

But in that he was quite wrong.

For Kiri Quintero, the situation was becoming uncomfortable. He could sense conflict and pain—Francis Krake's worries, his brother Sork's confusion and fear, Moon Bunderan's apprehension over the fate of her pet Taur. Kiri wished he could ease their unhappiness. There was no need for it! Everything which was right would go on being right; that was an immutable truth. Kiri wished he had the words to convey that certain knowledge to the others. Not all the others needed explanations, though. Kiri had a strange feeling about that, wholly unexpected and not at all logical. It was ridiculous, really—at least, Sork would surely say so—but Kiri felt sure that the dumb beast who was with them, Moon Bunderan's Taur, shared that tranquil understanding.

That was impossible, Kiri Quintero told himself firmly . . . knowing that it was not.

Then they turned a corner, and they were there. Through a crystalline window in the wall Kiri Quintero could see the odd-shaped waveship with the even odder "American flag" painted on it. "Home at last," said Krake, smiling for the first time since talking to the huge Turtle. . . .

But the smile froze when they opened the port, for someone was there before them. Two Turdes were standing there inside the ship, waiting for them.

One of them was that same Chief Thunderbird they had met in the corridor. The other was rusty brown, with bright yellow eyes that roved around them all, and Moon Bunderan cried out when she recognized him. "You may enter the ship," said Litlun, the Facilitator. "You took a long time to get here. It is time for us to leave."

That was more than Captain Francis Krake could stand.

He growled in rage, hurling himself into the doorway, dwarfed by the armored bulk of the two Turtles but giving not a centimeter. He glared up into Chief Thunderbird's hard-beaked face. "What are you doing in my ship?" Krake demanded.

The Turtle glared at him with his ruby eyes, then rasped through his transposer: "Do not speak foolishly. We must begin the voyage now." The Turtle gave him a fleeting glance from one eye, the other roaming around the group. "The presence of this Taur is required, also its keeper and the Quintero Sork. Other human persons may depart this ship if they wish, for they are not needed."

"Not needed," Krake snarled, simmering with anger. "What do you have to say about what's needed:¹ You have no right here, either of you. Get off my ship!" he shouted.

Litlun drew himself up to his full height, his narrow-beaked head hostile. "It is not your ship," he squawked in the gurgly, chirpy Turtle language, his transposer converting it into frequencies humans could comprehend. "It is only leased to you."

"But the lease is part of a contract—it's good as long as I work for you Turtles! I was promised that. Won't you keep to your agreement?"

"Do not question the instructions we give you!" Litlun thundered, but Chief Thunderbird intervened.

"Wait," he squawked, and with one sweeping movement turned off both transposes. The two Turtles hissed and gurgled at each other for a moment, then the Proctor turned his transposer on again. Sweeping the group with his eyes, he declared, "There is no quarrel here. There is only an agreement to be made."

"The hell you say," Krake snapped, and Sork Quintero put in:

"You certainly can't make the Taur and Moon Bunderan go with you. That's kidnapping!"

"There is no kidnapping here, Quintero," hissed Litlun. "Listen to the Proctor as he explains!"

And Chief Thunderbird, drawing himself up, said majestically, "There is simply a sharing of assets. You have certain things which we need, this Taur and the lecture chips."

Sork's jaw dropped. "How do you know about the chips?"

"Foolish person," the Turtle squawked, "do you think we are not aware of what you carry in those bags? Of course we know! And you have these things which we require, while we have what you want, this ship. We will form a partnership."

"Partnership, hell!" snarled Krake. "It's my ship, as long as I'm working for you!"

"You are working for us," Litlun thundered. "This ship is required to take the Proctor and myself on a voyage on Turtle business—the most important Turtle business there can ever be!"

"What business?" Krake demanded.

"There is no necessity for you to know that. There is only one question: Shall this be with you or without you? None of you humans are needed, Francis Krake. Both we Brothers are competent to pilot this vessel without you."

"And you won't even tell us what we're going to do?"

The Turdes hesitated. One eye of each turned to regard the other, but neither spoke.

Krake swallowed unhappily, gazing around. At his look, his crew stirred. Daisy Fay said tentatively, "He's right about that, Francis. It's basically their ship, and any Turtle can run it."

And Marco said, "We'll fight them if you want, Francis, but that's true."

Krake surrendered. "If I have to take your orders to keep my ship, then I'll take your orders," he said sourly. "Under one condition. Answer the question."

Both Turtles bristled. Then Chief Thunderbird swept the transposes off again, and the two Turtles bickered for a long moment in their own language.

At last Chief Thunderbird turned his transposer back on. "We have decided that you may retain your title," he squealed. "You will, however, follow our instructions. First you are to undock this ship. As soon as we are at suitable distance you will engage the wave-drive."

"You weren't listening," Krake accused. "You have to answer our question."

Each Turtle turned an eye again toward the other. It was Chief Thunderbird who spoke first. "Our destination is the Mother planet," he squawked.

"Or," Lidun added painfully, "the place where it used to be."

"Then what?" Krake insisted.

Hesitation. Then Chief Thunderbird took over. "We cannot give you an answer at this time. First we must conduct certain researches—"

"What kind of researches?"

The huge Turde was losing patience. "We will inform you as needed!" he screeched, and added, "It is enough for you to know the purpose of them. It is the greatest and most sublime purpose in the universe. You are privileged to be allowed to share in it; for what we propose is to restore a Mother to the Brotherhood!"

Sweetly the aiodoi sang on, and listened on, and sometimes almost laughed at the smallsongs they heard.

"When we were talking about particle formation some of you had trouble reconciling the wave-particle duality. I suppose by now you've got the duality question pretty clear in your mind, or anyway if you haven't you're probably flunking out of the course so it doesn't matter. Now I want to try something else.

"Let's put the 'wave' part of the duality out of our minds for a minute, so we can talk about another little peculiarity of the particle considered only as a particle.

"When you think of the electron as a particle, you probably envision it as small, hard and round—like a tiny version of a planet like the Earth. That's all right up to a point. The point where it stops being all right is when you start to rotate the particle.

"Let me give you an illustration.

"Suppose you took a slip of paper and bent it into a ring, gluing the ends together.

"Then suppose you took a bead that was the size of an electron—you can't possibly do this, of course, but we're just supposing—and you made a slit in it so that you could thread it onto the paper ring. (It would have to be a very small paper ring, of course.) Let's say this little electron-sized bead has distinct surface markings—maybe it looks like a globe of the Earth—so you can always tell which part is facing you: You're looking directly down on Ecuador. The particle's North Pole is toward your head, its South Pole is toward your feet.

"Got that so far? All right, now let's do our mind experiment.

"If you slide this bead all the way around the ring of paper, when it comes back to its original position you are looking down at Ecuador again. The bead has turned through 360 degrees and it's exactly as it was before. Anybody who didn't see you turning it would have no way of knowing it had been turned at all. There is no test anyone can apply that can tell whether or not it had been rotated. So it doesn't really matter, in any objective sense, whether youVe spun the thing around through 360 degrees or not.

"That isn't the case with an electron.

"If you wanted to perform the same experiment with a real electron, rather than with an electron-sized bead, you would have to make the paper ring a different way. That is, you would have to give the paper a half-twist before you glued the ends together.

"Doing that, of course, turns the paper ring into what's called a Moebius strip.

"So now you can do your mind experiment, and you will see that something funny happens. When you slide your electron around the ring to its original position, it's not quite the same. You're still looking down on 'Ecuador,' all right, but the rest of the globe is all screwed up. It turns out that now the North Pole is where the South Pole used to be. The thing has been turned upside down.

"It's still possible to get it straightened out, but now it requires an extra step. If you want to return it to its original state, you have to slide it around the Mocbius strip twice. Then it's back the way it started and, again, there is no test anyone can apply that can show it was rotated at all.

"So in a certain sense, from the point of view of an electron, a circle doesn't have just 360 degrees, it has 720.

"Does that confuse you?

"Good! Let me just remind you of what Niels Bohr said, long ago: 'If a man does not feel dizzy when he first learns about the quantum, he has not understood a word.'"

And, greatly amused, the aiodoi sang:

"What is there to understand?

"What is so is so. What is so understands itself, and that is all there is."