Rutra came up with the idea of the child precisely because there was a risk of it not returning after the transfer of consciousness to distant worlds. So, even if it was a temporary glitch in the system, the child would grow up, not grow old and die. Although… depends on what kind of failure. It was almost impossible to influence the processes "out there" from here. It was impossible to accurately guess what a person would encounter. Perhaps the world was an exact copy with minimal differences, for example, the test subject would like something there that he was deprived of on earth. Or perhaps – the air, the sun, the seasons… everything was the same, only the circumstances, the living conditions were different. Maybe there this person would have found himself in other relationships with people, would have gone to a different school, would have been engaged in a new profession, the story of love would have been successful or unsuccessful. After all, the basic idea was that these worlds, in fact, cannot be completely different. It is only in fantasy that they are different. And the idea was that life could only be born in conditions like ours. As for the differences… there are already differences. Just look closely at how different we all are. All inhabitants of the planet. That's why the child was chosen on the criterion of risk: if something unforeseen in the technology itself or a glitch in this person's desire were to happen, there should be enough time to study the world and prepare the test subject to become what one wants to mold him or her into. The child could grow up, learning along the way, get information into the brain and create a similar system, and then go back.
Rutra began to prepare the project: to collect material, to find a person for the experiment, to "polish" the basic idea. At the same time, Rutra had a lot of things to do about his past work and the subject. He could not forget about it. The trail of responsibilities from the past follows us all our lives. Even if we want to abandon it, we must have the strength and will to abandon what is no longer needed, otherwise we will abandon both morality and conscience, and we will be abandoned ourselves.
At first, Rutra was looking for a corresponding child, believing that such a hero would be the most optimal for the project's long-term existence and the expansion of time boundaries. But then he realized that it was possible to find a woman who would give the world a very young person with her whole life ahead of her. It was incredible, amazing for this project, this mission. Maybe it was risky and absurd, but it was promising. The child should not be in the mission from the beginning. It must be born by the missionary herself! It was a kind of eureka moment, but elementary simple. All you have to do is decide to do it.
It took Rutra two months to understand all this! He considered many variants, explored the topic back and forth, put forward and disproved his hypotheses, went into parallel realities with the appropriate logic, but still something was wrong! One thing didn't fit with the other. The full plot of the mission was not built up in any way. At first it seemed to him a lot of time for the realization of the project, then not enough. Time had become the main factor, the criterion of the mission; it had become material to Rutra.
According to the technology and the idea, it was possible to calculate the code of the human mind, that is, the way we think, to transform it, to direct it with a beam in space to the target, and by acting on molecules to fold them into a living cell, and then to create a reasonable being. Then, already being the source of its thought, which Rutra called the initial state of personality, the real self, what we would realize ourselves to be if we were incorporeal, – to compel it to do what is necessary. After all, the action of creating something, the same painting, sculpture, writing a program for a computer, or even the process of conception, is also a transformation of thought into action. It is a certain set of influences of one thing on another. He called such influence on matter, transformation into some living being, a form of life, including a human being, "syntheme". After all, in essence – each individual unit of the DNA code is inanimate, but the whole is the main cell of life. He coined the term "syntem" himself, it meant a synthesizer of thought, something that gave birth to thought from information. Accordingly, first it was necessary to physiologically change the tissue of the thinking apparatus, i.e. the brain, then to give information, i.e. to influence it, and then to form a thought out of this information, which was later to become a beacon for the fulfillment of what was planned by someone else's physical actions. In fact, this technology made it possible to create a reasonable person out of a creature without intelligence and, practically taking possession of it, to control with the help of supposedly spontaneous thoughts that came to mind, to realize any actions that this creature could afford physically (and even more). First, it would become real to influence inanimate matter, and if the second experiment was successful, it would be possible to create life. Even if primitive, it would still be a sensation. Secondly, already created life can be brought to such intellectual stuffing, which will create everything, including space technology. That is, being in the consciousness of this new person, literally being his personality, it is possible to create a civilization. This technology Rutra called "god." At first, however, the most important factor for the project was to have the right test subject, and he was having trouble with that. According to the parameters set by him, the computer reviewed variant after variant, checked them, compared them, calculated possible actions and behaviors in different situations. For example, you can set such a parameter – "what a person will do if he finds a threat to his life", and the answer will be obvious, because the criterion itself is schematic. But if it is a specific situation, be it defense against a predator, earthquake, fire, sinking of a ship, war, fight, then the options of actions are quite diverse. If you introduce another parameter, for example, "a boat/war ship/cruise liner is sinking", then there are many more branches. Further – for example, it happens at night, you have a child with you, you are at sea, there is a storm, and so on, right down to what subconscious fears and motivations you have in the back of your mind or consciousness.
While more and more data was being entered into the machine, Rutra was gathering material, preparing the mission, and refining the machine. The euphoria of his first "flight" made his insides tingle. Rutra wanted to organize everything quickly… So another quarter of a year passed. In the end, it was necessary to make an extraordinary and at the same time the most expedient, logical, though risky decision as it seemed: to include in the program someone whose personality had not yet been formed. The most correct, as the artificial intelligence gave out of the variety of options, was to send a child on a flight and in the process adapt it to the surrounding reality. It was not an easy decision that changed a lot of things. The flurry of emotion in the debate was just an incidental element in the ocean of passions. Who would receive this honor? And most importantly, was everyone ready to take responsibility for the risk this individual would take?
Rutra began each day with a fixed mask on his face that concealed his preoccupation with current affairs and the reality of existence. He was constantly thinking about the key link in his concept. Everything seemed to be right, a logical and optimal option had finally been found. Rutra even thought that someone had put the idea into his head, which was why he thought it was the most correct. Then Ruthra decided to use his own method, which he called the theory of "pure reason" or "alien's view", which said: imagine yourself as a non-human, non-Earthling, free of all thoughts, concepts, emotions that are inherent in the inhabitants of the planet. This is the only way to soberly evaluate human actions and the logic of decisions.
As Ruthra circled around his idea, he returned time and again to this virtual child astronaut already formed in his mind. There were parameters to be reckoned with, and some of them were momentous. The child was by far the most appropriate option and in terms of temporal boundaries, the parameters of time. Despite humanity's great achievements, even if we gain power over everything – the sun, the universe, death – still time remains beyond our control. The Great Equalizer was speechless and indifferent. It was such an apt definition that Ruthra began to sink deeper and deeper into the meaning of those words.