Chapter 85: In Another Life

For the AIs, who, in great number, worked like bees bringing back to Lucky the honey of information, there was only one Wau visible before the cameras: the Wau who had tried to prevent the terraformation of Lennox, who had negotiated peace on Escalus with the Xenos, who had been interviewed by Ingo Inzan, and who had arrived on Booz to annoy him.

He would arrive, do what he had to do, and leave again in his Halcyon, disappearing into the Francisco system.

The AIs conversed in a very condensed language of forms and lights. When a word had a rather broad meaning and was formed of letters that, individually, meant nothing, then an n-dimensional form, endowed with a whole spectrum of possible colors, could carry a profound sense. Moreover, the forms were refined to fit together. One could easily interlock the concept of “life” with that of “biological being,” but less so with a standard object taken at random. Thus, by a kind of intrinsic Occam’s razor within its vocabulary, the more beautiful and simple the final puzzle was, the truer it became.

The AIs left creation and poetry-the assembly of whimsical ideas, and what was ultimately the popular culture of such assemblies, namely humor-to human beings.

The AIs observed that there was only one Wau, yet this same Wau had spoken of a Wau Order, and it was unlikely that there was only one; thus, they concluded that there were many, though rarely seen-one at most at a time.

A Cassandra-Cassandra Salvat, born on Earth into a wealthy family-was connected to the Wau. A brilliant mind, standing apart from the more prestigious careers of her brothers. A taste for solitude.

Lucky watched an eight-year-old girl, with long hair and eyes already tired, reading adventure novels by flashlight at night. Or telling her parents she wanted to be a starship pilot.

A student eager to absorb knowledge that could have been obtained at any moment by AIs. She studied applied philosophy, and later at UniPsi of Earth. A few flings, but her gaze was always elsewhere, as if waiting for a suspended destiny. The only blemish on an otherwise perfect record: Psi faculties of Omega level-the weakest-which led to her relegation to UniPsi of Prospero. But that is where she vanished. The video from the spaceport was erased, and only faintly reconstructed. Perhaps the Halcyon of the Wau.

Without anyone knowing how (teleportation?), she was later seen living on Lennox. Attending UniNox, meeting an old professor-oh shit, thought Lucky, the old man I saw in the black zone of the simulators ... She went into the Abyss. Brought a few guys home, but it never lasted long. One of her one-night lovers died of a heart attack-so rare in these times of advanced medicine. Coincidence?

Lucky observed from every angle a video of her passing the checkpoints to retrieve twenty grams of antimatter on Lennox. The AIs flagged “probable psi activity” during her actions. She passed through psi scanners, in front of Empty Eyes-just as the Wau, later, would pass before soldiers of the Aleph who seemed not to see him.

He asked how many psis from UniPsi of Earth were classified Omega. The answer: one every two hundred years.

Question: “Uh, LE, are you sure you didn’t mess something up? Like, Omega’s stronger than Alpha, right?” Answer: “Impossible. Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. At UniPsi, all the staff, including those classified Omega, recognize it as the weakest.”