The Diamond Mind

Copyright 1986 David E. Cortesi

"Here." Dessy's cool fingers wrapped under his own, pulled his hands down from his eyes. "You knew what the light was like out there, you mutt. I suppose it was just a reading to you." She was guiding goggles onto his face. He smelled her breath as he felt her fingers circling the temples over his ears. "There. Open up, you aren't blind yet."

Reluctant to face her so closely, he turned toward the hatch as he opened his eyes. Dark. Was he blind? No, it was the lenses; he could just see the outline of the hatch. Again he pulled it open, and they looked out.

"The Diamond City," she whispered behind him.

"Yeah. Well, not really a city."

"Not diamond either, I suppose," she said impatiently. "But it's beautiful. Did I ask a good Question, or what?"

"The iridescence is ..." Dan found no words. "Well, let's look." He eased himself down the folding ladder to the patch of stony ground on which they'd landed. Rainbow light flamed around them to the horizon.

The first structures grew only waist high at the edge of the stones. Like tiny pagodas cut from rhinestone foam, Dan thought as he stooped to look.

"They're like frost pictures, only in 3-D," Dessy called from across the clearing.

Of course, Dan thought. And like frost pictures, you can see anything in them if you look long enough. "Hey, they're moving." As slowly as clouds, so that he could sense motion but not really say what had moved, the glassy shapes were changing, crawling.

"It's a continuous growth process," Dan confided to the recorder in his collar. "Growth and destruction both, at all levels. I'm looking at a spike that's shrinking back to a ball, but it's covered with little whiskers, and all of them are shrinking back to little pinheads." And every pinhead refracted a different color to his eyes, but he didn't try to describe the rainbowed thistle it made, because it seemed so futile to attach words to one finger-long fragment of glory in a forest of them.

"We've got to figure out how to travel in this," Dessy called. "There are some colossal ones out there."

"Yeah." Dan looked where she was peering over a cresting thicket at what might have been a distant cluster of glass cathedrals. "But let's learn what we can here before we step on anything."

"Right," she said, and pulled out a panel over an equipment bay. "What can I get you?"

The Murrn dispense the universe in quirky little doses. You visit their office on Fifth avenue, the only place from which they'll deal with us. You write your personal data on one side of the card form. On the other, you write your Question. You hand the card and a thousand-bux note to the Murro who stands at the door looking like a redwood burl, and you go home to wait. In four to six weeks, an envelope comes in the mail. Usually it contains your card, unmarked in any way.

Sometimes it contains an Answer.

Nobody has worked out the policy under which the Murrn choose questions to Answer. They have rules of procedure: one question per person per year; one Answer per person per lifetime. But nobody has mapped the attitudes of the Murrn, or the limits of their knowledge, by charting the questions they do or don't answer.

They don't mind making people rich. They don't object to humans travelling space. Both of those points were settled when F. Terence Lester of Paramus, NJ asked, "What's a compact, economical method of travelling faster than light," and received an Answer that filled four kilograms of microfiche. FTL Industries, the company that administers the patents that arose from his Answer, built the dodecahedral aluminum craft that Dan and Dessy used to cross a 14,000 light-year chord of the galaxy to the planet of the Diamond City.

Dessy was a research assistant at one of the hundreds of Question consultancies that dispensed advice to hopeful Askers. She helped people search the archives to find whether questions like their own had been answered. She'd done it for two years, since leaving college and while saving up a thousand bux and polishing her own Question in her spare time.

Dan was a graduate student of TA, Technology Assimilation, training to be one of those hopeful people who try to patch up a coherent whole from the unrelated shreds of information we get as Answers. He'd met Dessy at a party and she'd pumped him unmercifully.

"But why are all the oxygen worlds so dull?" she'd asked.

"We don't know they all are," he'd answered. "It's just that everybody who Asks for one, asks for a world where people can live 'safely' or 'comfortably.' There may be oxygen worlds that are spectacular as heck, but nobody in their right mind would ask for one, for fear it would be unlivable."

"I did," she'd responded.

Dan, who had been engrossed in his discovery that when Dessy put on a determined expression, perfect little parentheses formed at the corners of her mouth, said "You did?" merely to keep her talking.

"I asked, 'What's a new, fascinating natural wonder a person can visit in street clothes,'" she said. "I figure you can only sell a million-acre ranch on a new world once, but you can sell scenery over and over."

"If you get an Answer, you'll have a whole world to study."

"I expect so. I'm taking some planetography courses. Consultants are so expensive."

"When you can find one; the good ones are pretty busy."

"Yeah. I'll have to mortgage my world to develop it."

"Keep me in mind, I'm available and I work cheap," said Dan, and blushed.

"I will," Dessy said, and went for a fresh drink.

And she did. When her card returned with an Answer of three fourteen-digit numbers, the galactic position of a star, neatly stencilled on the back, she called Dan immediately after filing her claim.

"This is Dessy; what size of ship do I need?"

"Who? Oh, Dessy! A ship for what?"

"For my world; aren't you going to help me survey it?"

He said "yes" and threw himself into the planning without a second thought for the upheaval it would make in his schedule.

They needed a big boat because, aside from expecting oxygen and temperate weather, they had no idea what Dessy's prize would be like. Dessy rented an FTL "Brookhurst," with four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a large kitchen and a formal dinette. And many, many convenient storage lockers, both inside and out.

"Great," said Dan when he first entered it at the Avis lot. "Uh, where should I stow this?" He waved his suitcase. And blushed.

"Oh, anywhere. There." She waved at a bedroom. "Did you order seismometers?"

The trip itself was only a few days long, but then, all intragalactic trips are. Still, speed was a blessing because they'd stuffed two of the bedrooms, one and a half of the baths, and the formal dinette with the varied gear of a planetographer. Dessy took over the kitchen counter where she worked on an intensive course in hotel management.

"Actually, I plan to have three hotel complexes in the end. There'll be the incredibly posh one with views in all the rooms--"

"Views of what?"

"Of it, the natural wonder. Then there'll be the big hotel with the casino. I think I'll subcontract that, probably to the Mafia; they have the money now they've been forced to sell those banks. And then, miles back, the hostels for students."

"You figure students will visit your wonder?"

"There'll be lots of them as workers, building hiking trails and so on."

"Waiting tables."

"Of course."

"I sure hope you aren't disappointed. What do the Murrn know about natural wonders?"

"Oh, God, I wish I knew." Dessy clutched his wrist. "I'm worried; maybe I should have asked specifically for a tourist attraction."

Dan patted her hand, was about to put an arm around her when she said "Well, no worry, I can always sell land. Have you seen my Real Estate Management disk?"

The star system, when they approached it, was ordinary. During the final parsec, the ship made a series of quick stops for pictures, the lurches rattling the silverware in the drawers and making Dan clutch the counter. Then it paused while the computer dithered over the pictures, looking for blips that showed proper motion against the background of fixed stars. They looked at each other, waiting for a planet to be found. Dessy held crossed fingers in front of her face. A chime! No, it was only the oven; breakfast was ready. Dan slapped at it as the computer beeped.

There were four planets, but only one had the proper orbital radius and spectral signature for an oxygen world. Dan moused it without hesitation, and the ship sighed, lurched, and fell into a polar orbit around it.

It bloomed oxygen-blue, iron-brown, cloud-white, like all such worlds the Murrn had given them, and nothing wondrous appeared on the first revolution. Dessy watched out the window for one rev, then went back to her study materials. Dan in the half-bath watched the schematic terrain map that scrolled across one monitor, the thematic color splotches of vegetation and water on another, and worried.

"I sure I wish I knew what to look for."

"Something wonderful," Dessy shouted from the kitchen, "I'm sure you'll know it when you see it."

He didn't. "The topography is just ordinary, there's no spectacular craters or chasms or peaks that I can see."

"There must be something."

"Damn it, you go spend sixteen hours in the bathroom looking at a monitor."

"I'm sorry, Dan," she said, "But my wonder just has to be visible from orbit. There isn't time to explore a planet on foot."

"The problem is, I don't have a remote sensor for wonderfulness."

"There has to be a way," she said. He tried hard to think of one, and at length he did. He made the computer search for sharp transitions in spectral signature.

"Something wonderful should stand out from its context," he told her while staring at the monitor, "So it shows me sudden jumps in anything, and I tell it that I'm not interested in a beach, or a shadow on snow, or whatever it's found, and it doesn't show me those again."

"What is it this time?" asked Dessy as the machine beeped.

"I wonder," said Dan. On the screen was the floodplain of a lazy river. There was an irregular patch of white at the center of the plain. "That's interesting," he said. "It seems to be a mirror; it has the spectrum of the sun."

"How big is that patch?"

"Kilometers. Is a mirror the size of a city wonderful?" But she was already punching for a landing.

"That's it, I quit," called Dessy, and sat on the bottom step of the ladder. The clearing was littered with equipment and cables. "I am not moving another piece of gear until someone brings me a drink." But she leaped up at a yell from around the ship.

Dan was sitting on the ground, a camera on a tripod between his legs and shards of crystal around him. Blood threaded one cheek.

"What happened? Don't get up; are you all right?"

"I guess. I was taking more pictures and I guess I spent a while focusing. Anyway, when I stood up, I hit my head on these." He touched a slender fragment on the ground beside him. "But they weren't there; I would know if I had ducked under something."

Dessy only pointed to the clusters of rods that had grown out like little awnings over each of his feet. He yanked his feet away from the edge, and they watched as some rods rotated back into the mass and others shrank to knobs.

"Let's go confer," she said, "I'll help you patch yourself up."

He reached for the camera and snatched his hand back with a gasp.

"What?"

"Look!"

The legs of the tripod were veined with glinting frost. One foot of the tripod seemed to be sunk in costume jewelry. The edges of the camera were outlined in rainbowed dewdrops. Dan pointed at the cable that led from it; Dessy saw that it, too, was frosted. He popped the cassette from the recorder and pocketed it.

As he sponged blood in the available bathroom, she sat on the edge of the tub and ticked off points on her fingers.

"OK, we found my wonder, and it's gorgeous, a crystal chandelier the size of Denver. Agreed?" Dan nodded, unwrapping a bandage.

"But it turns out to be alive --"

"We don't know that."

"It grows faster than kudzu."

"The chemistry box didn't find anything it thought was organic."

"It's sensitive, it was reaching toward you."

"I know people who could argue this point for years."

"As long as they stay in my hotels, I don't care. But I'm worried. I was picturing walkways into or over it, but if it grows like this, it'll grow over them."

"You won't build them anyway, I'm afraid. Away from this rock we landed on, the clay is like a sponge. The sonar sees it as a sort of froth for tens of meters down."

"I'll find a way. Oh, here." She took the bandage from him and positioned it squarely on the nick on the back of his neck. "That collar is soaked with blood. Change your shirt while I make us drinks, then we can watch the sunset. That should be spectacular, huh?"

It was, at first. The plain as far as they could see glowed like the embers of a burnt city. The westering sun appeared a billion times as red sparks in amber crystals. The glass cathedrals in the distance flamed yellow against an orange sky. Dessy held his arm at the elbow and leaned against him.

She stood away suddenly (leaving a chill on his hip) and pointed at a two-meter stalk.

"Look, cameras."

The stalk was growing glass models of the camera, each little tripod's legs pointing out from the stem at a different angle.

"Gosh, and there..."

A garden of equipment was foliating around them, uttering glassy models of the seismometer, pliers, X-ray and NMR units, cable spools, all in glass tinted tangerine by the sunset.

"It's a mimic," he said.

"No, it's more than mimicry," she said, and pointed to a sprawling bush. "Aren't those the parts of the camera?"

Dan snapped on a work light and looked close. The bush resembled nothing so much as a parts explosion from a camera service manual; every screw, ring, chip and wire was displayed in crystal. He sat back on his heels and opened his mouth, then closed it and leaned forward again. "Uh-oh."

Just beyond the parts bush was a stalk growing dodecahedra like Brussels sprouts. "Those are ships."

They turned. The ship rippled in neon colors against a lavender sky, glassed from top to bottom. The open hatch above them was filled with filamental snowflake patterns.

"Ah, God!" Dan was revolted, and moved as if to strike at the web.

"Wait!" Dessy grabbed his arm. "Don't panic. I think it's trying to talk."

"That's a heck of a leap!"

"So? Anyway, look before you smash something. Like, this pattern."

"It isn't even pictorial, just a straggly web."

"OK, why's it straggly? My wonder doesn't do straggly things."

"No? Oh. These are pentagons in the middle. Hexagons or triangles at the edges, see? But in the middle, there's this straggly cluster of pentagons, uh, ten, eleven, twelve of them. And one has a square in it."

"Twelve pentagons? What's that?"

"The ship?"

"It's a picture of the ship," Dessy said firmly.

"More of a map."

"OK, a map if you like, a picture from all sides at once. That's how it perceives, by touch, see? So it knows all sides at once. It can't be an accident; look here." Her finger was on the pentagon with a square in it. "If this is a map, that's a map of the hatch, right?" Dan nodded. "What do you see in it?"

He peered close. "Oh, God." In the square was a cunning duplicate of the pattern that filled the hatch.

"A map alone might be mimicry, but this is a map of a map. That's different."

"A system that comments on itself..."

"It's intelligent."

"Dessy..."

"It's alive and it's trying to talk."

"Wonderful. Ask it to let us into our ship."

"I will!" She reached up her forefinger and delicately pecked the map from the model doorway. It fell in a single glittering flake. There was a moment of suspense. Then, like frost under a breath, the pattern began to vacate the doorway. "Whoo!" exulted Dessy, dancing.

"Dessy?"

"A diamond mind. Did I ask a Question, or what?"

"Dessy!"

She struck a contrite pose under the work light, trying to press the grin out of her lips. "Yes, Dan?"

He felt like a traitor. "Dessy, by law, intelligent beings are enfranchised and own their home worlds." Her face fell. "You can't claim them." Her fists balled. "So if it's intelligent--"

"Shut up!"

She faced away and would not talk again, staring out at the last turquoise band of sunset, shaking her head when he urged her to go in. At length he went in alone to sit in the dinette, drinking. Eventually he slept, for which, in later years, he fiercely damned himself.

In the morning, diamond light pouring in the open hatch made the cabin lights wan and tawdry. He pulled on goggles and went out into the glare. Dessy was nowhere about, but where the camera plant had been, a hand plant now grew, left and right hands as delicate as any Steuben crystal, watched over by clusters of eyeballs hanging like grapes from veiny tendrils.

By noon, he could recognize the lobby of the hotel.