"Right. Think of it as if now were the surface of a sphere. Time is moving forward through the chaos of Outside like the surface of an expanding sphere, a balloon inflating. On the outside, chaos. On the inside, reality. Always growing--like you said, Valentine. Popping up new universes all the time."
"But where did this balloon come from?"
"OK, you've got the balloon. The expanding sphere. Only now think of it as a sphere with an infinite radius."
Valentine tried to think what that would mean. "The surface would be completely flat."
"That's right."
"And you could never go all the way around it."
"That's right, too. Infinitely large. Impossible even to count all the universes that exist on the reality side. And now, starting from the edge, you get on a starship and start heading inward toward the center. The farther in you go, the older everything is. All the old universes, back and back. When do you get to the first one?"
"You don't," said Valentine. "Not if you're traveling at a finite rate."
"You don't reach the center of a sphere of infinite radius, if you're starting at the surface, because no matter how far you go, no matter how quickly, the center, the beginning, is always infinitely far away."
"And that's where the universe began."
"I believe it," said Olhado. "I think it's true."
"So the universe works this way because it's always worked this way," said Valentine.
"Reality works this way because that's what reality is. Anything that doesn't work this way pops back into chaos. Anything that does, comes across into reality. The dividing line is always there."
"What I love," said Grego, "is the idea that after we've started tootling around at instantaneous speeds in our reality, what's to stop us from finding others? Whole new universes?"
"Or making others," said Olhado.
"Right," said Grego. "As if you or I could actually hold a pattern for a whole universe in our minds."
"But maybe Jane could," said Olhado. "Couldn't she?"
"What you're saying," said Valentine, "is that maybe Jane is God."
"She's probably listening right now," said Grego. "The computer's on, even if the display is blocked. I'll bet she's getting a kick out of this."
"Maybe every universe lasts long enough to produce something like Jane," said Valentine. "And then she goes out and creates more and--"
"It goes on and on," said Olhado. "Why not?"
"But she's an accident," said Valentine.
"No," said Grego. "That's one of the things Andrew found out today. You've got to talk to him. Jane was no accident. For all we know there are no accidents. For all we know, everything was all part of the pattern from the start."
"Everything except ourselves," said Valentine. "Our--what's the word for the philote that controls us?"
"Aiua," said Grego. He spelled it out for her.
"Yes," she said. "Our will, anyway, which always existed, with whatever strengths and weaknesses it has. And that's why, as long as we're part of the pattern of reality, we're free."
"Sounds like the ethicist is getting into the act," said Olhado.
"This is probably complete bobagem," said Grego. "Jane's going to come back laughing at us. But Nossa Senhora, it's fun, isn't it?"
"Hey, for all we know, maybe that's why the universe exists in the first place," said Olhado. "Because going around through chaos popping out realities is a lark. Maybe God's been having the best time."
"Or maybe he's just waiting for Jane to get out there and keep him company," said Valentine.