Solomon's Private File #458
1950's. Stephen wrote about his life in letters to a penpal, and then
in a secure blog, in case he lost his memory again, in the master
computer in his school for gifted students, which he started attending
in 2016 in a new incarnation, until his death. Now his son Solomon is
attending the same school, and is writing in his own secure blog for
his future incarnations.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
Solomon is 36 in this story, in the Summer of 2062.
Solomon's Private File #458 "GC Game Over?"
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Mom's competitive friends were meeting in private. One said to
another, "We have a report that Solomon appeared in a spaceship under
FTL drive." I shifted in, and said, "Did that report include that I
requested that it be confidential and not reported?" He said, "I er,
think it might have. I assumed you wouldn't restrict that in our little
competition." I said, "When you first asked to join the GC, you had a
problem. The President of the GC asked me to help you with it. I told
him some things that shocked him, and made him very afraid. The result;
Rose was asked, as we had intended to happen. If you were to ask the
President what happened in that meeting, while he remembers it VERY
well, he will be unable to tell you. In your competition, I rule what
you did is a foul. You have much to make up for that. And in our regard
for you. I could have let them die, in not revealing that. I trusted to
their honor in not exposing what I did, at my request, and told them
that. Was I wrong to do that? One more thing. I was not watching or
listening to your conversation, and I wasn't told about it." I shifted
out.
Posintan said, "I apologize for being present when this happened."
Opponent grinned, and said, "It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't
been present. It's not your fault at all, but mine. A serious error,
with possible far reaching consequences for my people." Posintan said,
"I should have told you more of GC history. Two other star associations
sent ships to attack us. One, a whole fleet. We never saw them, whole.
That fleet is now on their moon, individually crushed, arranged to
spell out some words in their language. Sol's father, Stephen, had
warned them not to attack anybody, after he made the fleet sent to
attack his world, turn back. GC assembly questioned Stephen about some
things, doubting him. We never saw him again. This isn't betraying a
confidence. It's all history known to the GC Assembly. You know what
they did to the Van, but there's more to that I can't tell you, that
Sol did later. There are no more people we knew as the Van. Yes, it's
true they can't kill, but they can let people die as long as they don't
directly cause it. You think of them as being holy. I think they are,
but that places them in a different relationship to us, regarding honor
and fairness. They can't act unfairly. To most, that means to the
usually selfish, such as we know we are, they have to be unfair to
everybody. Frustrating." Grins.
Posintan said, "Spend any time with a group of them, you will know
something unique about them. They ALL love each other to a depth only
married people are supposed to approach for their spouses. To hurt one
of them, hurts them all. They have very little privacy among them." He
said, "So their whole group will know of this." He said, "Those of
their species, yes. Something should be obvious to you by now. Nothing
can be hidden from them." He said, "They spy on people?" Posintan said,
"We don't know how they know, but they are very ethical. We've studied
this. Their instant transportation. We believe they can't appear to
where they can't see." He said, "That sounds reasonable. I've seen two
different ways they do it. One is something like a mechanical camera
shutter in effect. One way Solomon did it, was to fade away. I can't
explain that at all." He said, "Stephen was much in advance of his
people. Sol may be in the same er, situation. They train harder than
even we on Posintan can imagine. I'm sure they try to equal him, and
with their love, I'm sure he helps them as much as he can."
He said, "I saw Solomon's competition on your world. I should have
remembered that, in my relationship with him and Rose. A child who can
do that, and I don't mean the breaking, would become a supremely
formidable adult, even without special powers." Posintan nodded, and
said, "Total dedication to the mission. We saw that in a different way
in the mediation he did there. He's not above using others for the
benefit of all." He said, "He's using US!" Posintan said, with a grin,
"You just discovered that? I think of it as great honor. Even that we
have his attention at all." He said, "I like and admire Rose. I don't
know how I feel about Solomon. It changes by the second." Chuckles.
He said, "We've been trying to understand how what they do is
possible. Do they use any recognizable devices?" He said, "Another part
of our history. That stone light cube. The authorities examined
miniatures of it exhaustively, and could find nothing but the mineral
they were made of, and they have some of the best scientists in the
galaxy here. Other art Stephen made, is even more inexplicable. Solomon
is fully capable of that, and more. We suspect most of his group can do
and make similar things. One thing they have said about what they do,
is even more frustrating. They know how it all works. We don't really
know how much of our science actually works. They do, and their own
possible science, too. They're all super geniuses, and superbly trained
in body and mind. They have to have a MedCirt to compete." He said,
"Oh! And they only do that as children. Wow!" Posintan said,
"Absolutely!"
He said, "They have students of other species, they said." Posintan
said, "They do. Some are our people, but we don't know who. They do our
healing broadcasts. Planets who don't have their students, use them of
other worlds. They do the selecting. They say they are the only people
who can determine who is qualified. Something regarding talents and
genetics." He said, "Do they have space ships?" He said, "They do.
Reports are they are operated completely by the mind, and no material
interface is visible. They use them when they want to visit a planet in
the open, or host a meeting in space. It's known their ships are faster
than, well, we don't know how fast. Just faster. We suspect something
like teleportation. GC ship reports of contact with them weren't
believed." Grins. "Are you wondering why I'm telling you all this?" He
said, "I am." He said, "I've come to like and respect you and your
people. I don't want you to be treated by them as they did to the Van.
In my opinion, it's better to believe and act as if they have the
ability and power to do anything we can imagine, and much that we
can't, and only their good will, fairness, and honor, prevents them
from using all that. If we act against those personal attributes, we
can expect bad consequences. I hopped to show you that reality. Having
them as actual friends, isn't just a safer way to live, it's too great
an honor, to make that less in any way."
He said, "I've always felt it was an honor. I'm glad you feel the
same about it. I offer to end the competition, and share all we know
that we're allowed to." Posintan said, "I would have won, before I
deliberately went outside the competition in sharing so much. So, it's
a draw, and terminated." They saluted each other.
Mom said to me, "Really?" I said, "No. They're not quitting, but they
do hope the other thinks they are. Posintan won that game, though, in
part because his opponent doesn't realize it." She grinned widely, and
said, "I had NO idea this could be so much er, fun." I said, "Nice
perk. More coming. Watch." I shifted to the Posintan's office. I said,
"You were expecting me." He grinned, and said, "I was." I said, "He
doesn't know that most Posintan Ambassadors were former Games Masters."
He laughed. He said, "I won the first game?" I said, "He was totally
outclassed, once you got into the game for real. Yes you won, and he
doesn't know it. Giving away so many points, to make him change what he
thinks about the game, and withdraw, is masterful!" He laughed, and
can't really quit this, any more than you can." He laughed some more.
I said, "I wasn't watching or listening, and nobody told me what was
said here, but I knew all of it as it happened. If trying to work with
that frustrates you, I have absolutely no problem. You have the
intelligence necessary to know what that means. Can you use it? And
will I verify the conclusion if you're correct? Is it worth your
trouble? Probably not. But that won't stop you. No, you can't bite me."
He had to laugh. He said, "The fading away he spoke of. Was that in
illusion?" I said, "Normal Adepts have two ways to cause people to see
illusions. They can take over a person's mind and make them see what
the Adept wants them to see. That's unethical. We catch somebody doing
that, we remove their psionics. The other way is to project an image
from one's mind, setting in it who should see it. That takes a LOT of
practice, and psionic strength and energy, to make it last for any
reasonable time, and a good memory and some artistic ability to make it
look real. Extra energy can be used to enhance the image, and even make
it visible to a camera. Doing that in the process of leaving, would be
VERY awkward in the timing and the effect. My father sometimes ported
inside a silvery shield, to keep other Adepts from trying to see how he
did it. That wasn't an illusion, though, but an aspect of our personal
shield, that also acts as a space suit, which you knew about." He
nodded.
I said, "I did arrive here in a time so short that it's instantly to
your perceptions, but I didn't teleport here. I rarely do that now. Nor
do I usually do anything I've described to you today, in instant
traveling. That also applies to my leaving by fading. More
said, "I'm almost sorry about that." He laughed. I said, "How sure are
you that the reality you think you know, is the same reality that each
other person knows? If there are differences, how could you know of
them? That's just the start of these kinds of questions, which are more
important than the answers." He stared at me, thoughtfully. After a
while, I projected a picture of him with a transparent skull, with a
lot of miniatures of him jumping around inside it, and punching and
wrestling with each other. He laughed loudly. I said, "You're going to
share that with him, aren't you." He said, "I have to!" I bowed, and
faded away, to his fascinated mystification.
Hawk was at home, and still laughing. I said to Mom, "Yes, those toys
A week later, they had another meeting. Posintan said, "Solomon
visited me after you left. I'm still trying to understand what he
said." Chuckles. "He said he knew all that happened in our meeting, but
he didn't look or hear it. He appeared instantly, and left by fading,
but said he didn't teleport." He said, "Going into another dimension?"
Posintan said, "We think that's how teleportation works, so that
wouldn't be what he meant." He said, "There is something in the FTL
issue that might have a bearing on it, but I don't know if I would be
permitted to tell. Solomon? May I?" I said in the air, "Yes you may,
after the incident was mentioned previously, but only in this setting.
I award you a point in the second game. You know what earned it."
He laughed hard. Posintan said, "We know he knows what happens here.
You correctly assumed he would respond to something that only he could
decide. Well done!" He said, "I just realized there is something else
implicit in his er, intrusion. He knows we're still in competition. I
see. I'm learning your expressions. You knew that. That means you won
the first game, because I didn't know that when I asked for the end.
Well done!" More grins. He said, "He said the ship was going to emerge
in the middle of a dangerous space disturbance. That causes the first
question. How did he know that? Even just limiting that to this part of
the galaxy, that's a LOT of space to know about." Posintan said, "He
couldn't use a telescope for that. Time shifting speed of light. They
actually see the past, not the present of where they're looking." He
said, "I'm beginning to understand the enormity of what I revealed."
Nods. He said, "The next question is, how did he know about the ship,
and where it was? We don't know at all how that can even be possible.
It's like a different dimension the ship travels in." Posintan said,
"And how would he know when it was going to emerge, without knowing
what was happening inside it, to the level of computer programming?" He
said, "I think I lost part of the point in that. I hadn't gone that
deep into that part. I have only one suspected answer. Only the Supreme
Being could know and do all this." Posintan said, "For daring to think
and say that, you retrieved that suspected lost point fraction." Nods.
He said, "A partial explanation is that God gave him those abilities,
as something of an employment requirement. As a biological son of Rose,
and that he has children, it would indicate he's a real person, and was
holy, but was made more holy to do more of God's work." Posintan said,
"I have to agree. The other things he said now make more sense. His
reality is different from ours." He said, "Oh! I see that. And more, it
comes from a part of the meeting you didn't share. You knew I was still
in the competition, before I did!" Posintan laughed, and said, "We know
competition like no other society. And Sol knows us, as no other person
can. He actually likes us. By that, I include your people. He views
competition as a good thing." He said, "We view it as the evolutionary
mechanism of intelligence." Posintan said, "Animals compete for
resources. In competing with intelligence, we also do it to become more
intelligent! That IS evolution, and of a different order." I gave them
my love.
He said, "Acknowledgement and reward for our intellectual
breakthrough. And verification of his functional status. Have we been
manipulated?" Posintan said, "They're teachers. We've been helped to
teach each other. Such skill!" He said, "I have to agree. I wish we
could pass this on, but we won't be believed." Posintan said, "But we
can still act with the knowledge we have, without sharing it, but with
sharing by our actions, who we've become." He said, "Yes. Let's."
Mom said, "Wow! What a game you played! You KNEW he would be told
about the ship, and you KNEW he would have to use it in the
competition!" I said, "So would you have, if you hadn't become so
personally involved in it. Not a problem. We all loved that you had
fun." Grins and hugs, with love.
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Grant
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