The more I look at this episode, the more I am familiar with it. When I saw the ending film adapted from the original work by Alastair Reynolds, I remembered that the original novel was published in the 11th issue of Science Fiction World in 2012. The following is the full text
Zimalan
[America] Alastair Reynolds Translated by Chen Rifeng
Just after the first week, people began to leave the island one after another. The stands around the swimming pool gradually became empty. The giant sightseeing spacecraft set off to return to interstellar space, and those art fans, commentators and critics all packed their bags in Venice. The disappointment in their hearts filled the swimming pool like marsh gas.
I am one of the few people who stayed on the planet Muryek. At this point, I had been standing in the stands for several hours, squinting at the light reflected from the water. It was a chilling blue light. Below me, Zima dragged her pale and exhausted body and swam from one end of the swimming pool to the other. At first glance, you would really mistake him for a floating corpse. When he was swimming, I was always thinking about how to tell his story to others. I tried to remember the name of the newspaper I worked in Mars, and that was the first time I worked in a newspaper. The salary paid by this newspaper is not as high as that of major newspapers, but I vaguely feel that I like to go back to where I used to work. It's been a long time since I worked in that newspaper. I checked my memo assistant and wanted to find the name of the newspaper. I have probably inquired hundreds of times, but the memo assistant has no response at all. After a while, I remembered that I had completely abandoned the memo assistant the day before yesterday.
"It's up to you now, Kelly." I said to myself, "Get used to it."
In the swimming pool, Zima has already swam to the other end and started to swim back towards me...
At noon two weeks ago, I was sitting in St. Mark’s Square drinking coffee, watching the white statues and white marble bell tower on the square.
Starships are moored densely over Venice. The sides of the spacecraft are filled with huge total reflection light-emitting panels, which unify the color of the spacecraft with the true color of the sky.
This scene reminded me of a painting. The author of this painting is an avant-garde painter who specializes in spatial distortion and perspective three-dimensional drawings, such as endless waterfalls and interconnected lizards. I recalled the approximate appearance of the painting in my head, and then sent it to the memo assistant to check the name of the painting. However, it couldn't recall it.
I have finished my coffee and am ready to check out.
I came to such a white marble Venice, mainly to witness the unveiling of Zima's last work. I have been very interested in this artist for many years and hope to get an opportunity to interview him. Unfortunately, thousands of colleagues have the same ideas as me. In fact, peer competition is a secondary issue. The most important issue is that Zima never accepted interviews in the past. Zima informed us that all the reporters were coming to Muryek. Most of us are the first to hear of this world that is almost completely immersed in sea water. The only thing about Muryek is that it has the 171st known replica of Venice, the water city, and it is one of only three replicas made entirely of white marble. Zima chose the planet Muryek to place his last work, and he is planning to retire here and leave the public view permanently.
The coffee shop waiter suddenly put a folded card on my table.
With a heavy heart, I held up the card to see how much money was spent in total. I thought it was a bill, but I took a closer look and found that it was a small blue card with bronzing italics. The blue on the card is very fine and powdery. It is clear that this is the iconic sapphire blue created by Zima himself. The recipient of this card is me—Kelly Klay, and it says Zima wants to talk to me about the opening ceremony. The card also says that if I am interested, I must report to the Rialto Bridge within two hours.
If interested? Of course I am.
The card stipulates that no recording materials, even pens and paper, are allowed. At the end of the card, it is mentioned that the coffee I ordered has already been paid for. I almost ordered another cup of coffee cheeky, but forget it after thinking about it.
When I reached the bottom of the Rialto Bridge, Zima's machine servant was already waiting there. The appearance of the robot servant is a human-shaped glass cover, and the inside of the glass cover is a complicated mechanical structure, which emits neon light from time to time. It bowed deeply to me, and then gently asked, "Are you Miss Clay? Since you are here, let's set off now."
The robot servant escorted me up to the gangway parked by the water, and my memo assistant followed me closely and slapped me on my shoulders. At the other end of the gangway is an air-cushion transport plane that has been waiting for a long time. The transport plane is suspended on the water, nearly 1 meter above the water. The robot servant led me into the private room at the back. My memo assistant also wanted to follow in, but was stopped by the robot servant.
"I'm afraid you can't bring it, and recording tools are not allowed, remember?"
I looked at this metallic green hummingbird, my memo robot, and tried to remember when I left its guardianship last time.
"Leave it?"
"It's safe to stay here, and you can find it when you come back here in the evening."
"What if I say no?"
"If you insist, you may not be able to meet Mr. Zima."
This robot servant will certainly not hang around here all afternoon waiting for me to respond. The thought of leaving the memo assistant makes me feel cold. But I really want to interview Zima so much that I can't manage that much.
I let the memo robot stay here until I come back.
The obedient little guy flew away quickly, drawing a metallic green lightning in the air. Seeing it leave, I feel that part of my body is also leaving. I sat down, and the glass cover on the seat covered me. I obviously feel that the transport plane is speeding up.
The Venice below us became slanted, and then quickly disappeared on the horizon.
I issued a test order and asked the memo robot on which planet I celebrated my 700th birthday. No response: I have exceeded its guardianship. I can only rely on my own memory of being seriously over-aged, without any help.
I leaned forward: "Can you tell me what is going on?"
"Sorry, he didn't tell me." The robot servant replied, a face appeared behind its head. "But if you feel uncomfortable, we will immediately send you back to Venice."
"I feel good now. Who still got the blue invitation card?"
"As far as I know, you are the only one."
"What if I refuse? Should you find someone else?"
"No," the robot servant replied, "Stop guessing, let's face it together, Miss Clay. You won't refuse him."
During the flight, the conveyor stirred waves on the sea, leaving a path of foam formation. This is like someone using a brush to draw a bar on the white marble that has been painted but not dried, exposing the white under the paint. I accepted Zima's invitation and went straight to the horizon ahead. I have been thinking about whether Zima’s iconic blue is closer to the sky or closer to the sea. Comparing these two colors, I think the color on the invitation card makes my eyes shine.
Zimalan! This color is very accurate. From a scientific point of view, it is necessary to measure its spectral bandwidth and intensity to distinguish it.
If you are a painter, you will definitely mix a series of colors based on the spectral bandwidth and intensity. But no one can mix Zima Blue unless they calculate the color parameters of Zima.
When Zima first entered the public eye, he was already unique. His body has received the most complete transformation, even without wearing protective clothing, he can still cope with extremely harsh environments. From a distance, Zima is a man of very good figure, wearing a tight-fitting jumpsuit. Only when you look closer will you realize that he is not wearing any clothes at all, and that the surface layer is actually his skin.
His entire body is covered by a synthetic material that changes colors and textures according to his mood and surrounding environment. If in social situations, his skin will become a dress. And this skin can withstand tremendous pressure. If he wants to experience the vacuum state, this skin will control his own pressure and will not explode; if he wants to visit the giant gaseous planet, this skin can withstand extremely strong external squeezing. His skin is not only invulnerable, but also can accurately transmit all-round perception to the brain. What's more, he doesn't need to breathe at all, because his entire cardiovascular circulatory system has been replaced by a closed self-circulating life support system. He doesn't need to eat or drink, and he doesn't need to dispose of garbage in the body. Nano-scale micro-repair robots are all over the body, allowing him to endure enough radiation to kill an ordinary person in a few minutes.
With this invincible armor that can withstand any extreme environment, Zima can get inspiration wherever he wants to go, no matter how bad the environment is. He can fly freely in interstellar space, drill into the surface of stars to explore, or wander on planets completely covered by hot magma. His eyes were replaced by high-performance cameras. This kind of camera can acquire the electromagnetic spectrum with a large span, far beyond the range of visible light. These two cameras are connected to his brain through a very complex processing module.
A neurosynaptic hybrid bridge is installed in his brain. He can listen to video data as music, and see symphony as a kind of wonderful color. His skin also has the function of an antenna, allowing him to perceive changes in the electric field. If he feels that this is not enough, he can interconnect a certain number of machines into a super cloud computing system, and then obtain data from it.
Because the whole body is armed with such powerful technology, Zima's paintings are extremely creative and deeply attract people's attention and make everyone want it. The quality of the landscapes and galaxies he painted is beyond imagination and breathtaking. These paintings are full of dazzling colors and use superb spatial distortion perspective techniques. What's even more amazing is that his works never use traditional painting materials, they are all works of the kind with a huge area. This kind of painting quickly attracted a large group of rigorous collectors. A small part of Zima's paintings were bought by them and turned into private collections, and most of the works exist in the public interstellar space. These paintings shine through the entire galaxy. These paintings span several tens of meters. Although the space is large, all the details are clear to the limit of vision. Most of the paintings were completed in a very short time. Zima does not need to sleep, so he can work uninterrupted until the entire painting is completed.
It is undeniable that these paintings have left an indelible impression on people. No matter from the perspective of composition or technique, they are undisputed masterpieces. But these works always make people feel a little chill, sometimes even chilling. Because the landscapes and landscapes painted in these paintings have never been seen before, they are completely drawn from the artist's own perspective.
Except for this chill, the paintings are generally pretty good, but I have never hung any of his paintings in my house.
Obviously, not everyone likes his works, and it is impossible for Zima to sell all of his paintings. But I still can't help but wonder: how many people bought these works just because Zima is famous? How many people really understand the intrinsic value of these works and collect them?
When I first noticed Zima, I had this question. I think he is pretentious and is not interested in him: if other things happen to him or his paintings, I think it is worth writing a report.
This kind of thing happened, but it took a while for others-including me-to notice it.
Once, Zima took longer than usual to create a painting. When he showed this painting, people found something unusual in this painting. This is a work of a vortex nebula, with an airless asteroid as an observation point. On the edge of a crater on this asteroid, a small blue square obscures part of the nebula. At first glance, it looks like Zima first painted the entire canvas in blue, and then when he painted the nebula on it, he deliberately left such a square unpainted. This square is hollow, without any details indicating that it has any connection with the whole landscape or the background. It does not cast shadows, and there is no gradient between it and the surrounding colors. But this square must have been drawn after careful consideration: because a close inspection revealed that it was indeed painted on the top of the crater with paint. This must have a certain deep meaning.
And this square is just the beginning. After that, all the paintings that Zima showed to the outside world had a similar geometric figure. A square, triangle, oval or other figure is embedded in the composition of each painting. After a long period of time, people discovered that the blue painted on the geometric figures on each painting was exactly the same.
This is Zima Blue, which is exactly the same blue as the card with gold lettering I received.
After another few decades, this kind of abstract graphics gradually became his mainstream work, squeezing out all the other elements of the composition. The end of the vision of the universe becomes a narrow frame, which is matched with a few blank circles, triangles, and rectangles. His early works were characterized by rich brushstrokes and thick and colorful multi-layer paving as typical features, but now they have become blue graphics with a smooth mirror base.
Many buyers were frightened by Zima's abstract blue graphics and gradually moved away from him. Zima soon released his first painting composed entirely of a single blue. The painting is very huge, big enough to cover the side of a thousand-story building. It is generally believed that Zima has exhausted his talents and can no longer paint exquisite works.
They were so wrong.
When we approached a small island, I felt the transport plane was decelerating. No matter which direction you look at, this small island is the only landform feature of the entire sea area.
"You are the first person to see this island." The robot servant said, "The sky above the island is covered by a distorted screen. You can't see the island from space."
This small island has a radius of one kilometer and is very low in elevation. The whole shape is a bit like a tortoise, surrounded by a narrow white sandy beach. There is a highland near the center of the island. All the vegetation on this highland has been cleared away, leaving an approximately rectangular open space. I recognized a small area in this clearing that was flat and reflected blue light, and it seemed to be surrounded by a row of tiered stands.
The transport plane lowered its height and slowed down its speed, constantly up and down, until it slowly stopped outside the area surrounded by the stands. Next to the apron is a low-rise hut made of white pebbles, which I really didn't notice on the way here.
The robot servant first walked down the steps and then helped me get off the transport plane.
"Zima will be here soon." It returned to the transport plane after it said. The transport plane carried it and quickly disappeared into the sky.
Suddenly, I felt very lonely and vulnerable. A sea breeze blew over, blowing sand into my eyes. The sun gradually set to the west and went straight to the horizon. The weather will get cold soon. Just when I started to panic, a man got out of the hut and rubbed his hands briskly. He walked towards me along a path paved with stones.
"I'm glad you are here, Kelly."
Of course this is Zima. I just suspected that he would not show up. It was a stupid idea.
"Hi." I stammered.
Zima stretched out his hand graciously. I held his hand and could slightly feel the texture of the artificial skin on his body. Today his skin is silver-gray.
"Let's sit on the balcony. It feels great to watch the sunset, doesn't it?"
"Okay." I promised.
He turned around and led me to the cabin. When following him, I can clearly see the muscles bulging under his silver-gray skin. The skin on his back seems to have gleaming scales, probably mosaics or reflective chips. He is strong like a black panther, and his figure is as good as a statue. He is actually quite handsome, not to mention that he can conjure so many tricks, but I have never heard of anyone he has been in a relationship with, and there is no such thing as a scandal. Art is all of his life.
I followed him, feeling very clumsy, even a little stuttering. Zima led me into the cottage, and what I saw was an old-fashioned kitchen and an old-fashioned lounge. The room was full of ancient furniture and furnishings, probably thousands of years old.
"How does it feel to fly all the way?"
"good."
He stopped suddenly and turned to look at me. "I forgot to check... Did my robot servant emphasize that I can't bring memo assistants?"
"Have."
"Very good. I just want to talk to you, Kelly, not some recording equipment."
"I?"
The silver-gray mask on his face formed a funny expression. "Hehe, can't you say a longer sentence? How to answer is just one word?"
"Uh……"
"Relax." He said, "I asked you to come here, not to test you, humiliate you, or do other things to you. It's not a trap, you won't be in any danger here. You will return to Venice in the middle of the night. "
"I'm fine." I said, "I'm just a little excited, it's like the star chasers finally met their idol."
"Hehe, you don't need to be like this. I can't be the first celebrity you meet, am I?"
"Of course not, but..."
"People thought I was scary," he said. "They got used to it in the end and wanted to know why I made such a fuss."
"Why did you choose me?"
"Because you have always invited me to interviews very friendly." Zima replied.
"Do not make jokes."
"Well, there are other reasons besides your being friendly. I have always liked most of your reports over the years. Many people trust you, especially those who are about to die. Because you have recorded truthfully. The content of the interview does not contain any false elements."
"You came to me to talk about retirement, not about the end of life."
"In fact, it's all the same, it's about to disappear from public view anyway. Kelly, I think the articles you write are very true. I have never noticed anyone claiming that your articles are distorting the facts."
"I've always been like this." I said, "That's why I always bring a memo assistant so that no one denies what I said."
"Bringing memo assistant or not will not affect your report on me." Zima said.
I looked at him alertly. "There must be other reasons, otherwise, why would you only choose me?"
"I just want to help you." He said.
People often talk about Zima's blue era, which refers to the era when he created huge paintings. It's really not a big thing to say that it's huge. His paintings are particularly large in size, large enough to cover large and small buildings and civic squares, and can even be seen from outer space orbit. Looking at the entire Milky Way, there is actually a blue scroll 20 kilometers high. These paintings are generally built on private islands, thrust into the sky like towers; some are even placed directly on the stormy sea. The funding for the creation of these paintings has never been a problem, because Zima has a large number of sponsors around him, scrambling to win the sponsorship of his latest and largest works. Zima's huge paintings are getting bigger and bigger, and later they actually need very complicated high-tech machinery and equipment to fix them to prevent the paintings from being damaged due to the influence of gravity or weather. These giant mechanical devices have penetrated the entire atmosphere of the planet where they are located, extending to outer space, and they also emit faint light. The painting is bent into a certain angle, so that avid art lovers can see it on the planet, and they will find that the entire field of vision is occupied by blue. Zima is so famous that even people who have no interest in art know his name. He is the weird cyborg who created the giant blue building, the painter who never declares or hints at the connotation of his artwork.
But that was a matter of hundreds of years ago, and Zima became more and more able to toss, and later even the planet could not accommodate such a bulky giant painting. Zima simply moved to interstellar space and forged a blue scroll with a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers. These scrolls can float freely in space. And instead of using brushes and paints, he hired a fleet of mining robots to blow up the asteroids and use the fragments as raw materials to paint. The financial resources of sponsors are far from enough, but various star system economies are competing for the exhibition rights of Zima's works.
At this time, I regained interest in Zima. I attended a press conference of one of his "Moon Wrap" projects. The project plans to build a shell around the entire planet to form a blue container with a lid, like a hat in a box. Two months later, he released a large amount of blue gas in the entire equatorial belt of the planet, and I was there at the time. Six months later, he added a certain blue chemical substance to the surface of a sun-grabbing comet, so that the comet could drag Zimalan's tail across the entire solar system. But I don't think these news are worth writing about. I invited him for interviews time and time again, but was turned down time and time again. All I know is that Zima's obsession with blue has surpassed the artistic creation itself. But if you can't fully understand his obsession, you can't write truly meaningful reports, at best it's an anecdote.
I never write about strange things.
So I have been waiting, and of course there are millions of colleagues who have been waiting. So as soon as I heard that Zima's last work will be unveiled in Venice on the planet Muryek, I rushed over without stopping. I don't expect to be able to interview him or have any new insights into his work. I just feel that I have to be there to witness it with my own eyes.
We went up the stairs, passed through the sliding glass doors, and came to the balcony. There is a white table on the balcony and a simple chair on each side. There are also a few bottles of wine and a plate of fruit on the table. Looking far away from this balcony without railings, except for this rugged and barren land where I am, I can only see the endless sea, which is connected to the sky. The sea is calm and the waves are calm, and under the light of the sunset, the entire sea is like a silver coin.
Zima motioned me to sit down, and he was still dangling there with two bottles of wine in his hand.
"Red wine or white wine, Kelly?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but couldn't say anything. Normally, after someone asks a question and immediately before I answer, the memo assistant will silently help me make a choice. Without the reminder of the memo assistant, I felt my thinking paused.
"I guess it's red wine," Zima. "Unless you strongly object."
"It's not that I can't decide these things myself." I said.
Zima poured me a glass of red wine, then raised the glass to the sky to see the quality of the red wine. "Of course not." He said.
"I just think it's a bit weird." I added.
"But there shouldn't be such a strange feeling." He said, "Isn't our way of life like this hundreds of years ago?"
"You mean the natural way."
Zima poured himself a glass of red wine, of course he couldn't drink it, just smelled the wine. "Yes."
"But I have lived for a thousand years, which is unnatural in itself." I said, "My body memory has reached a saturation point 700 years ago, and my head is like a place with too much furniture. House. If you want to move something in, you have to move something out first." "Let's go back to the wine issue first." Zima said. "Usually, you have to rely on the advice of the memo assistant, right?"
I shrugged and said, "Yes,"
"Does the memo assistant always choose a specific one of the two possibilities? For example, always choose red wine, or always choose white wine?"
"It's not that simple." I said, "If I have a stronger preference for one of these wines, then the memo assistant will definitely recommend me this wine. But I have no preference for wine. Sometimes I like red wine, sometimes I like white wine again. Sometimes I don’t want either.” I hope my frustration is not so obvious. Apart from talking about a series of carefully planned riddles such as blue cards, hired robots, and transport planes, the last thing I want to talk to Zima is my own incomplete memory.
"So it's random selection?" he asked. "Will the memo assistant just choose red wine or white wine like this?"
"No, it's not like that. The memo assistant has been with me for hundreds of years. It has seen me drink wine thousands of times on thousands of different occasions. It knows that according to the highest degree of reliability, Give a series of parameters, and then figure out what is my best choice."
"Then you will accept its advice unconditionally?"
I took a sip of red wine. "Of course. If I go against its suggestions just to show that I have free will, am I a little too childish? Anyway, choosing based on its suggestions will make me more satisfied."
"But doesn't your whole life become a series of predictable feedback in this way? Unless you ignore its suggestions."
"Maybe it is." I said, "but it's not that bad, right? As long as I am happy, I don't care."
"I didn't mean to embarrass you." Zima said. He smiled and leaned against the back of the chair. After asking me a series of questions, he wanted to relieve the tension. "There aren't many people who have memo assistants now, right?"
"I don't know." I said.
"Not more than one percent of the population of the entire galaxy." Zima smelled his wine again and looked at the sky through the glass. "Almost everyone outside has accepted the memo assistant, thinking it is inevitable."
"Let the machine manage a thousand years of memory, what's the point?" I asked rhetorically.
"But another machine," Zima said, "Nerve transplantation is fully integrated into the participant's sense of self. It is integrated with biological memory and cannot be distinguished. You don't need to ask the memo assistant how to choose wine; you don't need to Waiting for the confirmation prompt. You must understand."
"What's the difference between the two? I allow my experience to be recorded by a machine that accompanies me wherever I go. This machine never misses anything, and it responds to my queries so efficiently that I have to ask it almost everything now."
"The machine is easily damaged."
"It backs up data at regular intervals. And it will never be more easily damaged than a large number of nerve transplant modules in my head. I'm sorry to offend you, but the reason for objection that the machine is easily damaged is really unreasonable."
"Of course you are right. But there is a deeper argument about the memo assistant. It's too perfect. It doesn't know how to be distorted or forgotten." "Isn't it the way it should be?"
"No! When you use your own mind to recall this conversation between me and you hundreds of years later, there must be some things that you will remember wrong. And these mistaken parts will become part of your memory, remember Every detail of the error will gradually strengthen into a memory. After a thousand years, your memories of this conversation may be very different from the real situation. But then you will definitely swear that your memories are accurate."
"But if I have a memo assistant by my side, I can record the truth of the matter in every detail."
"You will," Zima said, "but it's not a living memory. It's just photography, a process of mechanical memory. The whole memory lacks imagination, leaving no room for selective forgetting." He gave me again Filled with a glass of wine. "Imagine an occasion like this afternoon, you are sitting outside for some reason, you have to decide whether to choose red wine or white wine, and you can't regret your choice. But just this time, no matter what the reason, you Being persuaded to choose white wine-just contrary to the judgment of the memo assistant-and you still feel good after drinking it. Everything is wonderfully combined: this conversation, the setting sun, the magnificence Beautiful scenery, slightly drunk pleasure. A perfect afternoon gradually becomes a perfect evening."
"It doesn't matter what wine I choose," I said.
"Not really," Zima agreed. "The Memo Assistant will definitely not regard such a pleasant mistake as a special case. This special case should be recorded separately for the next reference. Such a small deviation will not affect its prediction model. Have any important impact. Next time, it will still let you choose red wine."
I felt a sudden tingling inside me, very uncomfortable. "But human memory does not work like that." "Yes, human memory will keep this exception in mind and mark it with important meaning. It will magnify the attractive part of this afternoon's memory and suppress the unhappy part: the fly Always buzzing around your face, the anxiety you felt when you were on the boat home, and you knew you had to buy a birthday present this morning. All you remember is the tranquility under the golden light. Next time, you You can choose white wine or red wine at will. You can choose it in the future. The whole behavior pattern will change because of this small deviation. The memo assistant will never tolerate such a thing. You can only violate its advice many times before it will Very parsimoniously update its data model, and then it will start suggesting that you choose white grapes."
"Yes." I said, but I still hope that Zima can talk more about himself instead of me. "But how much actual difference is there between transplanted artificial memory and external artificial memory?"
"It's simply a difference between Tianyuan." Zima said, "The memory stored in the memo assistant will be remembered forever. No matter how many times you ask it, it will not reinforce or ignore every detail. But transplanted artificial memory They are not the same. They are seamlessly integrated into biological memory. People who have transplanted artificial memory cannot distinguish between artificial memory and biological memory. It is for this reason that transplanted artificial memory has the necessary plasticity and variability. And it will produce errors and distortions."
"Fault-proneness." I said, "but without error-proneness, there is no art, and without art, there is no fact." Zima continued.
"Fault-proneness guides the facts? This is a good statement." I was surprised.
"The facts I'm talking about refer to higher-level, metaphorical facts. That golden afternoon? That is indeed a fact. The fly you remember does not attach any material meaning. It will be extracted from Separated from memory."
"There would be no flies without afternoon." I said. In the end, my patience has reached the limit of explosiveness. "I am grateful that you can invite me to come here. But I am not here to hear you tell me how to choose artificial memory. I think I should talk about something else."
"In fact, what I want to talk to you will ultimately come down to this point. It is not only related to me, but also related to you." He put down the glass. "Let's go for a walk, shall we? I want to take you to the swimming pool."
"The sun has gone down." I said.
Zima smiled and said, "The sun will always rise."
He led me through the house on another route and left through another door. Between two walls made of white stones, a rugged mountain road slowly climbed up the hillside, and the whole road was bathed in golden afterglow. In a short while, we came to the flat high ground, the high ground we saw when we took the transport plane over. It is really surrounded by the stands: a 30-meter-high stepped structure, with stairs behind the stands leading to all floors. Zima led me into the shadow below the stands, then passed through a private entrance and entered the enclosed area. The blue area I saw when I came here was actually a small rectangular swimming pool with drained water. Zima led me to the edge of the swimming pool.
"A swimming pool." I said, "You can't be kidding me. Is this swimming pool built so many stands?"
"This is where the opening ceremony was held." Zima said. "I will unveil my last work here, and then retire from public life."
The swimming pool is not fully finished yet. In the far corner, a small yellow robot is still putting tiles there. The parts close to us have already been tiled, but I still found that the tiles in some places are damaged or cracked. The afterglow of the setting sun was a bit dim, and I couldn't see if I was in the shadow, but the color of the tiles looked very close to Zima Blue.
"Compared with the paintings that can occupy the entire planet, is this a bit too low-grade?" I asked.
"It's not like that for me." Zima said. "For me, this is where the exploration ends. This is also where everything begins."
"A shabby swimming pool?"
"This is not just an old swimming pool." He said.
He walked around the island with me. The sun is about to sink into the sea, and all colors become pale.
"In the past, the inspiration for my paintings came from the soul." Zima said. "The reason why I paint such a large-scale painting is because it is the need of the subject."
"The painting is great," I said.
"That can only be regarded as hard work. It is huge, fancy, and popular, but there is no soul at all. It is because these paintings are inspired by the soul, so they are not good." I said nothing. In fact, I have always felt that his works are like this: magnificent but lacking humanity, and the mechanical transformation of Zima's body will inevitably bring some uniqueness to his works. It's like people praising a certain work, just because it was drawn by someone with a bit of a pen in his mouth. Zima's paintings are praised only because he is not a "normal person".
"My works cannot tell people some kind of information about the universe, because the universe itself does not reveal any information. More importantly, my works will not reveal any information about me. These paintings can be in a vacuum with me. What does it have to do with walking and swimming in a sea of liquid nitrogen? What does it have to do with my ability to see ultraviolet light and perceive electromagnetic fields? The transformations implemented on me are extremely cruel. These transformations cannot bring me anything, just like a Remote observation drones cannot become artists.
"I think you are a little too harsh on yourself." I said.
"Not at all. I can say this because I know that I have created something worthwhile. But its occurrence was completely unexpected."
"You mean Zimalan?"
"Zimalan," he nodded. "It appeared as an accident: the wrong color was used on a nearly finished canvas. A pale stain, the color is between sapphire blue and dark green. However, this stain seems to be charged, and I feel myself His brain was short-circuited in an instant, stimulating some kind of strong, primitive memory. I have a feeling: this color used to be the most important thing in my life."
"What kind of memory is that?"
"I don't know. All I feel is this color talking to me, as if it took me a whole life to find it and liberate it." He thought for a while. "This blue must represent something. A thousand years ago, Yves Klein once said that blue is the essence of color and can represent all other colors. He is such a person, spending a whole He spent his whole life searching for the unique blue in his childhood memories. Later, he was desperate and felt that he could not find such a blue at all. Such a precise hue must have been imagined by himself, and it may not exist in nature. The color. But one day, he found it by accident. It was the color of a beetle specimen in the Natural History Museum. He cried with joy."
"Then your Zima blue?" I asked, "also the color of a beetle?"
"No," he said, "not the color of a beetle. But I have to know the answer, no matter what the price. I have to know why this blue is so important to me and why it controls me Artistic creation."
"You allow it to control itself?" I said.
"I have no choice. As this blue becomes stronger and more dominant, I feel that I am getting closer and closer to the answer. I feel that only by immersing myself in this color can I discover Everything I want to know. As an artist, I must truly understand myself."
"Then do you understand?"
"I understand myself." Zima said. "But it's not what I expected."
"what have you found?"
After waiting for a long time, Zima answered slowly. We continued to walk forward slowly, I slightly dragged behind his muscular body. The weather is getting colder. I wish I had the foresight before and brought a coat. I was considering borrowing a coat from Zima, but I had to focus, not to get out of Zima's thinking, otherwise I don't know where to start. Closing your mouth is always the hardest part of the job.
"We just talked about the error-proneness of memory," he said.
"Yes."
"My own memory is not complete. I remember everything since I transplanted artificial memory, but this period is only the last 300 years of my life. I know I must be more than 300 years old, but before the transplant In life, I only remember some fragments. I don’t know how to recombine these broken memories. He slowly turned around, and the last orange glow on the horizon was shining on his face. "I know. One must dig deeper into the past to truly understand the special meaning of Zimalan. "
"Then how far did you dig?"
"It's like archeology," he said, "I have to look for clues from the earliest reliable events in my memory, which happened a short time after I implanted artificial memory. My memory goes back to Harco. No. 8 planet, that is a planet located in the Gerling Bay star area, 19,000 light-years away. The only thing I remember there is the name of a man I know-Kobago."
I haven't heard of Cobago, but I still know Gelling Bay, and I don't need to check the memo assistant to know it. That is a star field in the Milky Way with 600 habitable planetary systems and controlled by three major economic forces. In Gelling Bay, the formal interstellar laws do not apply at all. It is completely the domain of desperadoes.
"Kharkov 8 planet specializes in providing a product." Zima said. The entire planet is providing private medical services that are not available anywhere else. That is illegal neuromechanical modification. "
"There is you..." I didn't dare to continue.
"Yes, there I became what I am now." Zima said. "Of course I have further strengthened my body after leaving Kharkov 8 planet-enhancing my adaptability to extreme environments and improving my various perception abilities-but the inner part of me is lying in the Kobago Clinic. On the operating table."
"So before you reach Planet Kharkov, you were an ordinary person?" I asked.
"This question is the most difficult part to figure out." "Back on planet Kharkov, I naturally want to find Kobago. Only with his help can I integrate the memory fragments in my head. Kobago has left and went to live in seclusion elsewhere in Gerling Bay. The clinic is still there, but it is now run by his grandson."
"I bet he wouldn't say it."
"Yes, he advised me not to know. Fortunately, I still have some tricks, coercion and temptation." When he said this, he smiled slightly. "Finally, he agreed to open the history of the clinic and check the record of his grandfather's meeting with me."
We took a turn. The sky and the sea have now become an indistinguishable gray, without a trace of blue. "What happened?"
"The records show that I have never been a real person." Zima said. He paused, without any doubt about what he said. "Before I arrived at the clinic, Zima didn't exist at all."
At this time, I can't wait to get back my memo assistant, even if I have old pens and notebooks around me. It's a pity that I can't use anything except my own memory. I frowned, hoping to make my memory work harder.
"Then what are you?" "A machine," he said. "A very complicated robot, a robot with autonomous intelligence. I was several hundred years old when I arrived on planet Kharkov, but I was fully legally independent."
"No way." I shook my head. "You are at most a person with machine parts, how could it be a machine?" "The records in the clinic are very clear. When I came to the clinic, I was a robot. A robot with a male appearance, such as a fake replacement machine. I was completely dismantled, and my core cognitive functions were integrated into the body of a fast-growing biological host." He tapped his brain with a finger. "There are a lot of organic materials, and there are also a lot of neuromechanical systems. It's intricate and complicated, and it's not clear where it started and where it ends. It's even unclear which is the host system and which is the auxiliary system."
Looking at this body standing next to me, I had to force my thinking to jump: I can no longer think of him as a human being, but as a machine—a soft machine made up of cells. But I can't do it, it's hard to accept it all at once.
I stopped, "The clinic may lie to you."
"I don't think so. If you don't let me know about it, they will be happier."
"Nevertheless." I said, "There must be evidence..."
"Those are facts and can be easily verified. I checked the customs entry and exit records of the Kharkov Planet 8 and found that a few months before the operation, an autonomous robot entered the planet's atmosphere."
"It's not necessarily you."
"In the decades before and after this, no other robot has approached this planet. That robot is me. And the record also shows the port of departure of this robot."
"Where is the port of departure?"
"A planet outside Geeling Bay, Lintan 3 in the Hekou Islands star area."
The memo assistant is not around, it's like eating and losing his teeth. "I don't know if I know it or not." I said.
"You probably don't know it. It is basically impossible for you to visit such a planet. There is no light-speed flight to get there. My only purpose of getting there is...
"Where have you been?"
"Twice. One time before the operation on Planet 8 in Kharkov, and another time recently to figure out where I was before the first trip to Planet Lintan 3. Taking a step back, various clues became It is getting more and more vague. I have asked the same question countless times and searched the same data in various databases, and finally I knew where I came from. But that is still not the final answer. I have been to too many planets, among them It is difficult to straighten out the sequence. But I have not given up."
"Always spend money."
"Yes, there is money." He nodded politely. "Spent countless money."
"So what did you find in the end?"
"I followed the clues and went back to the original point. When I arrived on planet Kharkov, I already had the same intelligence as humans and able to think quickly. But I have not always been so smart and complicated. As long as time and environment Allow me, and my intelligence will gradually increase."
"I strengthen myself?"
"It was like this later. That was after I had the sense of autonomy and legal independence. But in order to be free, I must also have a certain amount of intelligence. Before that, I was just a simple machine...similar to Heirlooms or pets. I have been passed down from generation to generation by my masters. They continue to add new things to me and make me smarter and smarter."
"Then how did you start?"
"It started with a project," he replied.
Zima took me back to the swimming pool. The night near the equator came quickly, and the swimming pool was dazzlingly illuminated by rows of artificial lights above the stands. The robot we saw just now has posted all the tiles in the last place.
"The swimming pool is ready." Zima said. "Tomorrow it will be closed, and the day after tomorrow it will be filled with water. I will keep circulating the water until the swimming pool is clear enough."
"Then what?"
"I will be ready for my performance."
On the way back to the swimming pool, Zima had already told me his origin, as long as he knew it, he said it completely. Before I was born, Zima already existed on earth. He was assembled by an amateur robot enthusiast. This talented young man is particularly interested in practical robotics. In those years when science and technology were underdeveloped, many teams or individuals were groping for the problems of the century of artificial intelligence in the dark. This young man is one of them.
Perception, navigation, and the ability to solve problems autonomously are the three topics that this young man is most interested in. He used waste toolboxes, toys, and parts to assemble many robots. The brains of these robots—not really minds at all—are simple programs running on disused computers, and their memory and processing speed are really limited.
The young man’s house is full of these simple machines. As soon as he has spare time, he starts to play with robots. One of the robots is a "spider" with eight long sticky legs, which can crawl on the wall in his house to clean the dust in the photo frame. Another function of the "spider" is to catch flies and cockroaches. It will digest all the pests it catches, use the chemical energy produced by the digestion as its own energy source, and drive itself to crawl to other places in the house. Another robot is used to paint the walls, and it changes the color of the walls according to the change of seasons.
There is also a robot living in his swimming pool.
It climbs up and down on the tiled wall of the swimming pool, and keeps cleaning the tiles. This young man can buy a cheap swimming pool cleaning machine through a mail order company, but he thinks it is more interesting to design such a robot himself. Based on his novel design ideas, he personally made this robot from sketches. It is equipped with a full-color vision system for the robot, which can be integrated with the surrounding environment, and is equipped with a sufficiently advanced "brain" to process visual data and input its environmental data model. He allowed the robot to decide for himself the best strategy for cleaning the swimming pool. He also allows the robot to choose when to clean the swimming pool and when to charge it with the solar battery on its back. He instilled primitive reward concepts in this robot.
In the process of making this swimming pool cleaning robot, young people have mastered a large number of principles of robot design technology. He used these principles to create a series of other household robots, until one of them-a simple household cleaning robot-became very strong and autonomous. The young man opened a mail order company and sold this robot as a tool. Robots are very popular. A year later, young people introduced pre-assembled household robots. This kind of robot has achieved great success, and young people's companies have gradually become the leaders in the domestic robot market.
In the next ten years, there will be these smart and enthusiastic robots everywhere in the world.
But he never forgot that little swimming pool cleaning robot back then. He used this cleaning robot as a test machine, adding new software and hardware to him again and again. The cleaning robot has always been the smartest of all his inventions, and the only robot that has not been abandoned or eliminated.
When he died, he passed the swimming pool cleaning robot to his daughter. His daughter inherited his father's business and continued to improve the intelligence of this little robot. When she died, the young grandson continued to carry on the family tradition. By this time, my grandson had already lived on Mars.
"If you haven't guessed it yet, let me tell you that this is the original swimming pool. I moved it here." Zima said.
"Always the same?" I asked.
"It is indeed very old, but the tiles have withstood the test of time. In the process of finding a swimming pool, the most difficult job is to find its original place. I had to dig out the topsoil two meters deep before digging it out. . The place where it was once had a famous name—Silicon Valley."
"These tiles are matched with Zima Blue." I said.
"In fact, Zima blue is the color of these tiles." He corrected politely, "Zima blue is the color of the swimming pool tiles in young people's homes."
"It's also the deepest part of your memory."
"This is the place where I was born. I am the rough little robot that had enough intelligence to make itself go around the swimming pool. But this swimming pool is my world. It is everything I know and the only thing I need to know. ."
"What about now?" I asked. In fact, I am very afraid of the answer to this question.
"Now I want to go home."
I was there when he did this. That day, there were no empty seats in the stands, and everyone watched Zima's final performance. The sky above the island is full of hovering spaceships. The curved screen covering the island has been closed, and even the stands on the spacecraft are crowded with thousands of witnesses from afar. They can see the swimming pool when they stand on the spacecraft. The water in the swimming pool is as calm as a mirror and as clear as gin. They saw Zima standing on the edge of the swimming pool with solar panels full of scales on his back. No one knows what will happen, and no one understands the significance of Zima's actions. They expect that at this unveiling ceremony, Zima will show the trump card of all his works; but now they can only stare at the swimming pool in confusion. Compared with Zima's majestic and huge paintings and the blue scrolls that envelop the entire planet, this small swimming pool is simply unqualified. They have been thinking that this swimming pool must be a blindfold. The real work—the work that really heralded his retirement—must be somewhere else, but it’s still invisible. Soon this masterpiece will appear in front of the world.
This is what they think.
Only I know the truth. When Zima stood on the edge of the swimming pool, surrounded by the blue that had held him up all his life, only I knew the truth. He has told me what is going to happen next: The advanced functions in his brain will be slowly and methodically shut down. The key is that the whole process is irreversible: there is no room for regret. But a small part of his brain will continue: a tiny core that can only recognize its own existence. This core is only enough for him to recognize the surrounding environment and perform specific tasks, even if the task is meaningless. He never needs to leave the swimming pool. The solar panels provided him with enough energy. He will not grow old, nor will he get sick. Other robots will look after his island, protect the swimming pool, and ensure that the silent and slow swimmer will not be damaged by weather and time.
All this will last for centuries,
Thousands of years, then millions of years.
What will it look like in a few million years? No one can tell. But one thing I can be sure of is that Zima will never get tired of his task. There is no longer the concept of boredom in his mind. He has become pure experience.
If he feels a certain kind of happiness while swimming in a swimming pool, it can only be a kind of happiness with almost no thinking, like the happiness of a bee or a butterfly. But for him, such happiness is enough. It was enough for him who was in the swimming pool in California at the time, and it was enough for him who was in the same swimming pool a thousand years later. It's just that this swimming pool has moved to another distant world in the galaxy, and this world revolves around another sun.
It's enough for me...
This joy made me remember more about our meeting on the island, although I have no right to do so. Believe it or not, I don't need a psychic crutch like Memo Assistant anymore, which is completely different from what I thought before. Zima was right: the memo assistant turned my life into a well-written script, like a well-designed blueprint. At sunset, it always lets me choose red wine, never white wine. When leaving Murjek’s planet on a lightspeed spacecraft, I had already planted a series of neuro-memory expansion modules in the clinic. These modules should last four to five hundred years. One day I will need another solution, but I must cross that unique mnemonic bridge. Before firing my memo assistant, the last thing I did was to transfer its observation data into my expanded memory. I still feel that everything it records doesn't seem to happen to me, but every time I recall, these memories are clearer than the others. They have changed, become softer, and the wonderful places become more shining. I guess every detail in these memories is not so accurate, but as Zima said: Maybe this is the key.
I now understand why he asked me to interview. Not only because he likes the way I write biographies, but also because he wants to help someone move forward, not like him.
I finally found his biography and sold it to the first newspaper I worked for-"The Martian Chronicles." It feels great to be able to go back to the planets where we have been in the past, especially now that Mars has been moved into a warmer orbit by people.
It's been a long time, but I always feel that Zima's affairs are not over yet, which is a bit strange.
Every few decades, I board the light-speed spacecraft bound for Murjek, walk into the gleaming incarnation of Venice, take a transport plane to the island, and sit in the stands with some other stubborn witnesses. superior. These people, like me, still think that this master of art will leave something behind and give people the last surprise. They have all read the article I wrote, and most of them have read it, so they know what that slowly swimming body means... but they still don't come in groups. So even in excellent weather, the stands are always a bit empty and desolate. But I have never seen these stands completely empty, I think this is some kind of sacred pledge. Some people are willing to accept this pledge, but most will never accept it.
But this is art.
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