Heaven's Reach by David Brin Read Free Book Online Page A

processors of physical beings. But here in E Space, they roamed free, in a realm of palpable ideas.
    â€œYour imagination equips you to perform the duties of a scout,”
Wer’Q’quinn explained during Harry’s training.
“But do not succumb to the lure of solipsism, believing you can make something happen in E Space simply by willing it. E Space can sever your life path, if you grow obstinate or unwary.”
    Harry never doubted that. Watching memiforms slither across the purple steppe, he passed the time speculating what concepts they contained. Probably, none of the creatures were sapient, since true intelligence was rare on any level of reality. Yet, each of the memes crossing before him manifested a
single thought
, unconstrained by any organic or electronic brain—a self-contained idea with as much structured complexity as Harry held in his organs and genetic code.
    That one over there, prancing like a twelve-legged antelope—was it an abstraction distantly related to
freedom?
When a jagged-edged flying thing swooped down to chase it, Harry wondered if the hunter might be an intricate version of
craving.
Or was he typically trying to cram the complex and ineffable into simple niches, to satisfy the pattern-needs of his barely sapient mind?
    Well, it is “human nature” to trivialize. To make stereotypes. To pretend you can eff the ineffable.
    Local meme organisms were fascinating, but now and then something else appeared beneath his vantage point, demanding closer attention.
    He could always tell an interloper. Outsiders moved awkwardly, as if their allaphorical shapes were clumsy costumes. Often, predatory memes would approach, sniffing for a savory conceptual meal, only to retreat quickly from the harsh taste of solid matter. Metal-hulled ships or organic life-forms. Intruders from some otherprovince of reality, not pausing or staring, but hastening past the floating mountains to seek refuge in the Swiss cheese sky.
    Harry welcomed these moments when he earned his pay. Speaking clearly, he would describe each newcomer for his partner, the station computer, which lay below his feet, shielded against the hostile effects of E Space. At headquarters, experts would decipher his eyewitness account to determine what kind of vessel had made transit before Harry’s eyes, and where it may have been bound. Meanwhile, he and the computer collaborated to make the best guess they could.
    â€œOnboard memory files are familiar with this pattern,”
said the floating M at one point, after Harry described an especially bizarre newcomer, rushing by atop myriad stiff, glimmering stalks, like a striding sunburst.
“It appears to be a member of the Quantum Order of Sapiency.”
    â€œReally?” Harry pressed against the glass. The object looked as fragile as a feathery zilm spore, carried on the wind to far corners of Horst. Delicate stems kept breaking off and vaporizing as the thing—(was it a ship? or a single being?)—hurried toward a sky hole that lay near the horizon.
    â€œI’ve never seen a quant anywhere near that big before. What’s it doing here? I thought they didn’t like E Space.”
    â€œTry to imagine how you organics feel about hard vacuum—you shrivel and perish unless surrounded by layers of protective technology. So the fluctuating subjectivities of this domain imperil some other kinds of life. E Space is even more distasteful to quantum beings than it is to members of the Machine Order.”
    â€œHm. Then why’s it here?”
    â€œI am at a loss to speculate what urgent errand impels it. Most quantum beings reside in the foam interstices of the cosmos, out of sight from other life variants—like bacteria on your homeworld who live in solid rock. Explicit contact with the Quantum Order was only established by experts of the Library Institute less than a hundred million years ago.
    â€œWhat I can suggest is that you