Chapter 18

Porter felt the world dissolve around him into utter disorientation. A terrible static grated his ears but he had no hands to stifle the sound. The world blinked rapidly for a moment of stomach churning effects and then the view turned black or blue. Every object in the universe was bleeding fractals that raced across his vision in an order that escaped his ability to grasp.

He tried to count colors; they zipped away. He tried to imagine structures of geometry but anything remotely resembling a shape he recognized morphed into disarray. He wanted to shake his head in frustration and found the gesture futile; there was no head to move.

“Patience,” a whisper broke in over the hissing static. “Translation is almost complete.”

The static ceased and world collapsed into a white void.

“What do you see?” the whisper said.

“White: I see all white,” Porter said but he was sure his lips, where ever they were, did not move.

“Ah, a mere tweak from you visual cortex, and you should see...” the whisper tapered off.

“A beach,” Porter said.

“A pleasant image that should put you at ease,” the whisper said. Unfortunately the sand was a brighter shade of fuchsia and the sunlight was too bright, even with his eyes shut.

The whisper spoke again. “Ah, a minor adjustment is necessary; optics are delicate.”

Porter warily opened one eye and the sky was blue and comfortable while the sand was toned down to a faded pink like the inside of the seashells on his childhood bookshelf. He saw his hands, or rather, his hands came into focus.

The fractals that he had seen before now stood before him in a humanoid shape, still moving with an astonishing speed. Porter was sure that the figure was the source of the whispering.

The figure leaned forward as if to confirm his thought. “Translating biological signals into energy signatures is as much an art as a science.”

“Thank you,” was all Porter could think of to say, as he realized that the waves hitting the beach made no sound. “Where am I?”

“In physical space, the best approximation that you would comprehend is the event horizon of a Black Hole, but such approximations are irrelevant here,” the figure said. “In the context of pure energies, physical locations are incidental.”

“Oh,” Porter was at a loss for a proper response. “What am I doing here?”

“You triggered the portal, solving the one of the simple tests in my experiment. You are not the first but one of the very few to solve the mystery of the portal. You are only the third human to trigger one of these portals.”

Porter was not at all comfortable. “Test?”

The whisper continued. “The premise for this test is based on the observation that biological entities are well known for their propensity to propagate at simple geometric rates. Since propagation is so common, the portal is triggered by the act of breeding. The portal was designed to promote the physical reactions necessary for copulation to begin, but only if the mating pair were attuned to the proper energy output. The portal opens only to those who are predisposed to respond to it.”

Porter hesitated and then said, “My ‘mate’ and I triggered your portal by copulating?”

“The hypothesis predicted the portal would activate many times more than it has. I may have overestimated your procreation drive, despite the algorithm predicting geometric rates of increase.”

On one hand, Porter was disturbed and amused at being cast as an experimental animal; on the other hand he was angry at being consigned to the role of dumb, humping mammal. Either way, the entire scenario was frightening. He had been beaten down and humiliated in many imaginative ways but he had never been reduced to the role of lab animal, especially a ‘procreating’ lab animal.

Porter tried to overcome his embarrassment. “Most humans don’t travel to places like your portal with their mate. It’s too dangerous.”

The fractal figure was silent for a moment and then said, “This why the study of biological intelligence is so fascinating; the permutations are unpredictable. We did not predict that relative location was a mitigating factor.”

Porter did not know whether to be merely concerned or thoroughly frightened by the idea of being a mere biological intelligence. His mind was furiously trying to connect the dots when he asked, again without considering the ramifications, “Are you the origin of the Blue?”

The figure shifted again before answering. “The physical output of the energy signal appears upon your optics as the color blue in the color spectrum, which is, I believe, is a shorter wavelength.”

Porter was thinking, ‘Roy G. Biv: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.’ He confirmed for himself more than for this superior being. “Blue is one of the shorter wavelengths.”

The whisper said, “I am not the originator of the physics of energy in the universe. The universe by its nature defines what is possible. From all of the possibilities, I chose this simple set of higher physics for the purpose of this experiment. However, I am almost ready to conclude that this experiment is a failure.”

Porter did not like the sound of that, dropping his timidity for the moment. “Why is it a failure?”

“First, the experiment has become contaminated. The population was isolated from the greater body of the targeted biological species for a sufficient amount of time to provide an appropriate experimental group. The arrival of a small ship contaminated that isolation.”

Porter was chagrinned. “I was in that spaceship; it was a lifeboat. I did not choose to land on Anshar, the lifeboat’s computer did.”

“Nonetheless, the sample is now contaminated,” the whisper said.

Porter heard the word again and nearly jumped out of his skin, if he still had one. The priests said he was polluted, this mega-advanced fractal being insisted he was a contaminant. He was walking filth all over again, a fat turd.

He hated the feeling of being kicked in the teeth and, as depressing as the accusation was, he was also angry. “If I contaminated your experiment, then why was I able to trigger your portal?” His bravery slipped a little. “I mean, if so few have triggered the portal, then why did I activate it?”

“How would you account for this discrepancy?”

Porter stuttered. “The others were probably accidents.”

He stopped to consider his thought for a moment. “If there is a geometric rate to population growth and there have been approximately thirteen generations, one would expect much more portal activation. If only two activations have occurred in this time period and with this expected population growth, then the occurrences are statistically insignificant: coincidences or accidents.”

“If that is so, then how do you account for your success?”

Porter cringed at having to answer another question. “Most humans on Anshar don’t know your portal exists anymore. In this generation, I know and my mate knows.”

The whisper pressed him. “Are humans so primitive that they are unable to retain or pass down knowledge to later generations?”

Porter was flummoxed. He had no clue how to answer the query without making the human species look mean, vicious and, well, primitive. He was still stuck when the entity spoke again.

The whisper was excited. “Perhaps an appropriate conclusion is that the intelligence of biological entities dilutes over time in isolation?”

“No,” Porter said with alarm. “Your experiment was based on the educational standards of the first generation that were educated like me. Each generation of young has to be taught by the previous generation. You failed to take into account that isolation can lead to a backsliding in learning.”

Porter felt like he had a real argument. “In fact, your Blue Physics practically insured a backsliding by destroying the technology that we, my species, use to learn and to teach.”

The whisper responded. “Your young technology had to be removed as a variable in the experiment in order to create a workable hypothesis. This is an unforeseen consequence.”

Porter took another step in his argument. “My people don’t learn a lot of higher math. If Blue is a more sophisticated physics, doesn’t the math have to be that much more sophisticated?”

Porter was skating on thin ice as far as his own knowledge. He passed Calculus, somehow, and he was pretty sure that for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. Beyond those ancient high school successes, physics was a foreign concept to him.

“The mind of a biological entity is still an object of investigation. Consider this: Gravity exists and you take it into account with every movement you make even though you cannot calculate gravity. The Blue should be no different. If you understand that one, it exists, and two, the nature of its existence, then a biological entity should be able to use it. This is an assumption of the hypothesis.”

Porter finally felt that he understood something that had been said. He boldly asked, “What was the hypothesis?”

“The hypothesis was that a biological entity with a modicum of sophisticated intelligence of physics could understand and use elementary levels of energy physics of the higher intelligences if an example was given to them.”

Porter filled in the blank. “The example was ‘The Blue.’”