From the view screen on the bridge, it looked to Belden like the surface of Venus. The atmosphere was of pale azure, and from high orbit circular tufts of white clouds girdled the planet.

Stooped in the captain’s chair, Weller contemplated the hidden and scarred remnants of Turing 7, and thought of what had once been regarded as a beautiful world, and the home for a Transor colony expedition now seemingly lost. From the immensity of space, Transor had received the call for help, but it was eighty years late. There was nothing they could do but pay respects from orbit to a planetary grave.

From the communications console, Moore turned to him. "It’s what we expected. This place is desolation. It would be eerily beautiful if we hadn’t known that it was once a living world, as rich with life as Transor."

"Are we sure there is nothing there, that no one survived?"

"Pretty much. I’m completing our scans now."

"Ahem!"

Moore turned about to see Belden standing behind him, tapping his feet. "Oh yes," he said, somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry about that. He looked at him impishly. I forgot we have Mr. Ultimate Computer on board. Well, Beld, do you see anything?"

Belden smiled sarcastically at Moore, and turned to walk to the captain’s chair. He faced the command crew. "Look, I know that you don’t believe it, and to tell you the truth, I can’t believe it. But if I’m the computer, you have to let me play the part. I know that you are used to fixed answers, computer readouts and oscillating graphs. I’m different, but similar too. I’m not a hybrid, not a cyborg, just a guy with some pretty good intuition, with common sense. I’m just on a different plane, that’s all. To me, you’re a world from a Saturday matinee. I know you don’t believe I’m real, but I don’t believe you’re real either! I can’t help but think that, and I am sure you think the same of me."

Belden looked for a moment at the view screen, and pointed to a speck near the planet’s Northern Hemisphere. "What you’re looking for is there. The coordinates are 23.55 by 14.23, or something like that. Your instruments are looking for radiation, radio signals, but not a perfect form. All I can see is a circle in a glen, something like X marks the spot."

With a wave of his hand, a geodesic bubble came into sharp focus. It was on a high plateau that rose above the murky atmosphere. A shiny honeycomb of glass and white alloy beams, it glistened in the sun. Belden turned to the bridge crew and smiled. "There is your lost expedition. I’m sure you can communicate with them; they just haven’t been listening for the likes of us."

Weller seemed impressed. "Very good!" he exclaimed. "And all with the wave of your hand, like a rabbit out of a hat. A magic act perhaps?"

Belden hunched his shoulders, as if hopeless of an explanation. "I don’t quite know how it do it. Its intuition, not rules, and certainly not magic. It’s a fuzzy logic if you will, and even then I’ll miss a lot of detail. But the answers that count come to me whether I am aware of them or not."

"Then tell me, what do we have down here?"

"A single society in a single place, and a world net."

Weller groaned. "Oh, no! Not another world net! You don’t think…"

"No, not in this case." Belden interjected. "Maybe this time it’s the opposite. These people need to be practical. If not, death’s the only alternative."

"But why would they need a world net if they are the only remaining colony on this planet."

Belden smiled. "Reflections perhaps?"

"Reflections, but of who? That is something that we will have to find out."

____________

Weller dispensed with the usual expeditionary party, including only himself and Belden on the trip below. The shuttle trip would be easy, and given the small size of the colony, Weller thought that this voyage would be brief.

As the shuttle descended into the atmosphere of the planet, it seemed to Belden that they were being lowered into a steaming bowl of fog. Only a few mountain peaks broke the surface of the seething canopy of clouds.

Weller pointed to a shiny object in the distance. "There! The Turing Colony. Good, we’ve got the homing beacon now. Autopilot should land us in just a minute."

As the shuttle approached, the little colony grew in perspective. Enfolded under a geodesic dome four kilometers square, Belden likened it to the half section of some immense golf ball. The shuttle pad was small and was perched vicariously on a mountain ledge. It certainly was not designed to receive any more than the occasional visitor.

As Belden unbuckled his restraining belts, he looked to the horizon. It was beautiful, a geodesic Shangri-La nestled on a plateau surrounded by ragged snow covered peaks. It was enveloped by billowing white clouds that extended to the horizon. Suddenly, there was a shrill noise. He turned to see the electronic door of the dome opening, and a small party of colonists walking to the shuttle. They were smiling enthusiastically. A tall man took the lead, and extended his hand. "We are so thrilled to see you! We received your signal of greeting. It is wonderful to see someone from the home world! My name is Gellon. Although I’m not a leader, I can speak for the families that live here. We are among the few survivors of our colony. Our society and all it created was obliterated by the great storm."

"We know from your distress call years in the past. But how did it happen?" asked Weller.

"It was a hundred or our years or so ago, or about eighty Transorian years. It was horrible. There was little warning, and nothing we could do. It was an asteroid, we think it was a mile square. It exploded as it reached our atmosphere, and the surface was stirred by a gaseous whirlwind of dust and water. We were safe here where the atmosphere is rarified, but the others were destroyed. There are a few survivors we have contacted, but they are all like us, perched on mountaintops, isolated from the others. We are all but alone here."

Belden looked surprised. "The others? There are other survivors? Have you seen them."

"Oh, no." said Gellon. "It's not possible you see. Before the catastrophe, we got about on planetary shuttles scheduled from the mainland. They were destroyed along with the other communications infrastructure. All we have now is a rudimentary world net anchored to a single satellite in the sky."

"And your society, how have your survived?"

He walked to the gate. "Come with me. As you can see, we are a small community. Our village numbers mere four hundred souls. You can see that our buildings are spare. We recycle metal to build our simple huts. But we have not suffered for want. We have ample solar power, fruitful hydroponics gardens, and for water we have snow. Mind you though, it is a daily struggle, and we have little time to develop the broad artistic interests that you have cultivated in Transor. But we do have a remedy of sorts. We have the others."

"And you communicate with them?"

Gellon arched his eyebrow. "Of course. But it's more than mere communication. It’s a redemption of our world, a lifeline to our culture. You see, all of us possess multiple and latent interests, but we can spare little time to broaden our tastes and talents. So we all develop one or two besides the necessary talents that enable survival. But we too often have ended up talking past each other than to each other. So we had to find someone else to listen, to provide the spark of encouragement for the often-unheard voice of our muse. The others have done that for us, they alone have listened. It has been a godsend for our culture. We would have perished in despair without them."

Belden looked about the spare landscape and wondered. "What is it then that you have created that needs the approval of a distant voice?"

"We have inventions and art and creativity, we have survived, and all due to the encouragement from our fellows. They have helped us when we were in despair of conversation, of the simplest encouragement." He pulled a tablet computer from his pocket. "I’ve written this book. It’s a psycho-linguistic analysis of the Grog dialect, a long lost language of one of the ancestral tribes of Transor. No one cares to read it here, but the others, the one’s beyond the clouds, they pay attention. Look here! This is an active screen from my world net site. On the bottom of the screen the counter that displays my visitor count. See, 49,933 visits in the last five years. All sorts of people have visited from hidden worlds on the mountain peaks beyond. I cannot tell you what an inspiration they have been to me! It is these hidden voices, these constantly glancing eyes that spur me on. My work is on stage for a perpetually renewing audience. Without them my will to create would be crushed, deadened by the fact that my work would amount to nothing more than fodder for moths."

"But its more than that!" he continued. "You see, to maintain the full flower of our mental diversity, we need the stimulus of a wider audience, and that is what the others have given. Now all of us are electrified by the urge to create, knowing that we will have an audience that will listen to our dreams."

Weller looked unconvinced. "But that can’t be." He said "We picked up no other signals but yours. There are no others!"

Gellon was unswayed. "But my dear fellow, your comment’s moot. We are hearing from them, they are communicating with us, and everything is just fine. They have their own dome, just like us, their own society, just like us, and their own interests, just like us. I think you underestimate our resourcefulness. Our society survives and prospers, even when our physical world is turned upside down."

"But how do you know they exist, have you seen them, communicated with them?"

Gellon waved the tablet in front of him. "Our communications technology has been long destroyed, leaving us with the simple data signals over the world net. But that's enough. It’s right here on this tablet. They’ve talked to us, mirrored our concerns, and have inspired us to carry on. Without them we would be alone, truly alone. I can’t tell you how much they have meant to us in this solitary and confining place."

Belden looked at the tablet. It was a simple device, merely a counter, but it was all they had, this telegraph, tapping response robot. "Is this all there is, electronic footprints?"

Gellon laughed, and showed him a clutch of ghostly little notes displayed on the tablet screen. "But my dear fellow! "We’re not reading into these signals, these signals can actually be read, and they are alive."

The first one said "Congratulations on your achievement for such and such.

We understand your problem, we’ve been there too." Belden rapidly skimmed through the others. They were full of acknowledgements, complements, and requests for clarifications. It was like the applause of some anonymous mob. He turned to Weller.

"These letters, they’re saying the same thing. They look different, but they're really empty. Its newspaper filler, talk show stuff. It’s mainly syntax, a bunch of words strung together with no other meaning except the novelty of their order. It's a string of metaphors, a silly symphony. But yet, it's by a human's hand. I certainly would have expected more."

Weller shrugged. "And isn't this the natural course of conversation? Perhaps they are disinterested, and are just being polite. But maybe there is a different answer. We have to find out for sure, we must find out the source of this transmission and visit it.

"Do you know where these signals originate?"

"Lots of places actually." Replied Gellon. "The Solipsist station is the closest, or at least that's where I can trace their address. You will find them to be very enlightened, critical, but fair. They have proven to be quite an inspiration to me!"

Weller turned to Belden. "Then the Solipsist station it is! We'll plot a course and visit them, and we'll resolve this mystery once and for all."

The Solipsist substation was a continent away, or several hours flight time for the shuttle. Belden was quiet, and felt uneasy as the substation came into view. When they saw it, he was filled with foreboding. The place was a twisted pile of metal and debris. One building remained, and the shuttle landed in a clearing nearby.

Weller pointed to the structure, about the size of a small storage shed. "There it is. From the antennae, this must be their communications node. Communication nodes have always been fortified against the elements. This one is no exception, and it seems to have done its job admirably. There, an access panel."

He reached for the panel, which glowed upon his touch. He tapped it again, and it opened to reveal……

"There's nothing!" Belden exclaimed.

"Not quite" said Weller. He pointed to a small box on the ground that was tethered by a dozen cables to the floor. "There is your audience, your peerless critic!" He looked sadly at the box. "It's a net-toaster, a Transorian answering device, no doubt configured to hook in to the world net. It's so simple that I hesitated even to guess it. "

"You mean that this is but a glorified answering machine?" Belden asked in astonishment.

"Yes. It's a good mimic, and it merely apes intelligence, but that's enough. It will agree or disagree with you, but provide merely a distorted reflection of your own arguments. It would use different syntax, different metaphors, but the essential message was unchanged. It was rather like having your point of view constantly renewed by merely changing the sound, arrangement, and imagery of speech.

Weller sighed. "And for our poor colonists who have just rediscovered their fellows? They saw only themselves, but were looking into a mirror cracked. Its flaws had to be fixed or ignored, so they filled in the empty spaces, like a child connecting the dots in a picture book. And what they saw was an emerging reality, like a bull or a god rising from a constellation in the sky."

Weller walked outside, looked at the clouds and wondered. "The repetitive tapping of a machine made the regularities real and imagined of the world. The stars were in their machine, spinning fates as if by clockwork, weaving echoes into messages from the Gods. The society of these people was evolving all right, but from rules they made themselves. Their progress and their proud accomplishments were self-generated by an interpretation of their own imperfect shadow. They spun philosophy, art and invention from a reflected hint that someone would, perhaps could respond to it. The audience that urged them on was imaginary, and in a way, they knew it. There was no way they could ever leave this place, at least in their lifetimes. So they took leave in their imaginations, as we do, and their dreams became as real an incentive as a teacher looming over you with a ruler and a wagging finger. They were participants in a virtual world of their own devise. The illusion became their reality and their motive to live."

Belden looked at Weller. "What will we tell them."

"We will tell them that we met with a hundred vigorous souls. We will tell them that their civilization lives on this peak and likely a hundred more. We will tell them that they have a distinguished place in the universe, and that other eyes look at them, criticize, and approve."

Belden looked at him sadly and nodded in approval, and wondered anew whether Weller's words, and perhaps Weller himself, was a mere tapping of a key.