"Would you like to tell the viewers of Softcopy about the risks you took?" Shau Bandar says, edging closer.
Mei casts him a sidelong scowl. "What? Are you going to pay us for this?"
"Now, now," Munk intercedes soothingly. He places his heavy arm lightly on the reporter's shoulder and guides him away from the sulking jumper. "Come, let us talk. I am interested in asking you a few questions as well. Are your viewers aware, for instance, of contra-parameter programming in Maat-construct
andrones?"
The Judge, in a sheath of amethyst fog and black fluttering scarves, stands at the center of the amphitheater beside the stick-mask of the Clerk. Between them, on a frost-green pedestal, the plasteel capsule is displayed. A score of loges float nearby, their galleries packed with spectators. Shau Bandar waves from one of them, and though he is talking, his voice is absorbed in silence.
Munk waves back, but Mei Nili offers nothing, staring straight ahead as the
transparent bench she shares with the androne skims over the marbled cream floor.
In his stentorian voice, the Judge announces, "The argument for proprietorship of the revived remains of Mr. Charlie has been conducted for the Common Archive by Sitor Ananta. As this argument has been laid before the Moot from Earth, the communications lag of six minutes forty seconds has been edited by the Clerk.
The compressed argument presented here remains true in form and content." The air beside the Clerk wobbles, and there appears a holoform image of a
morph with slant-cut brown hair and long, Byzantine eyes, dressed in the loose, red-trimmed black uniform of the archives. "The archaic brain on display was uncovered at Alcoran site three by Commonality archivists twelve terrene years ago," the image declares. "The full records of discovery have been forwarded to the Moot. The remains date from the late archaic period, and though no chronicle of a prior life is extant, a direct cull was made of the dendritic memories and proof positive obtained that this individual experienced a full terminal episode before encephalic separation, glycolic perfusion, and immersion in liquid nitrogen. Though the definition of death has changed over historical time, this archaic brain was in fact declared dead by the definition of his own time. This is shown in the records of the dendritic cull, which have also been forwarded to the Moot."
The Clerk's slender voice pipes up, "Discovery and memory cull records on display."
Above him, for the benefit of the loges, calligraphic smears of color squirm through space: coded spectra to be translated by the spectators' sensors. Mei ignores them, but Munk records the full display and determines by correlation to the data in his anthropic model that Mr. Charlie had been interred in the
archaic province of Californica in only his ninth decade. The primitive brevity of his existence-for such can hardly be deemed a life-stirs pity in the androne, and he determines then and there that this man, who through a misweave in the weft of history has escaped the utter obliteration of his age, shall know the abundance of life the human spirit deserves. Fear of what he is about to do swarms like static through him, but he overrides his panic by focusing on the prime directive of his C-P program, to treat all people humanely-even if it
means his own destruction. Mr. Charlie is human, and he will no longer be treated as an object, if Munk can so help it.
Sitor Ananta continues, "The exhibit, revived by standard archival procedures-"
"I have seen enough," Munk declares, rising. He hears the music of the nearby andrones shift tone, sensing his threat. Fear mounts again in him as he expects the Maat to intervene and scatter him into a tenuous blowing of atoms. But nothing happens.
The Commonality agent continues talking: "...exists in its animated form today only because-"
"No judgment will be passed on this human being," Munk declares, "unless it is the judgment of life and the concomitant freedom that humanity has wrested from the accidents of creation and history."
of the efforts exerted by the Commonality Archi-" The image of Sitor Ananta shrivels away.
"Be seated, Androne Munk!" the Clerk commands. "You are in contempt of the Moot."
"Yes!" Munk confesses, amazed and emboldened by his defiant survival in the temple of his makers. He can hear-sense--all the other andrones in the chambers and corridors of the tower, each one a cell in the metabody of a grand silicon mind. He feels their animus. Yet none act. Are his makers restraining them? Can there be any other explanation? "I am in contempt of you." He points a squared finger at the magistrate and sweeps his hand toward the loges. "And I am in contempt of all of you who dare pass judgment on a human being who has broken no law, committed no crime."
"Sit!" the Clerk brays.
"No." Munk steps toward the Judge. The loud music of the foreign code logics from the andrones in the court crest with rageful intent, but no threat appears.
"I have been created by the Maat and contra-parameter programmed by them to study and respect homosapiens. I am an authority. And this archaic brain I recognize as human and alive. I cannot permit you to pass any other judgment but life and freedom upon him. Do you understand?"
The fiery halo above the Judge's faceted head flares hotter. "I understand that you are in contempt of the Moot and will now be removed-forcibly, if necessary."
"The Maat have created me to withstand the gravitational tidal forces of the Saturn system," Munk loudly informs the court. "Unless you intend to destroy yourselves, the exhibit you presume to judge, and this entire chamber, you dare not try to stop me."
This, of course, is a bluff. His makers, who possess his signal codes, could turn him off in an instant-or, if they desired a more vehement display, he could be sheathed in a confining field and his body dissolved to atoms. He knows the Maat could do that. But they do not, which is all the approval he requires. He seizes the plasteel capsule and dashes in a blur across the expansive courtroom. At the plate window, he dives, his cowl shattering the wall of plastic to a blizzard of molecular motes.
Mei Nili, who has watched Munk's rebellion with slack jaw, rises weakly to her feet and gapes at the gashed hole where he has disappeared. Overhead, in the loges, the spectators mill excitedly.
"The Moot judgment on the proprietorship of the revived remains of Mr. Charlie is hereby suspended pending the recovery of the exhibit," the Judge announces solemnly. "The Moot is now adjourned."
Munk's silver-black cowl distends, and with Charles tucked firmly under one arm, he banks into a thermal updraft and rises against the glittering onyx skyline of Terra Tharsis. Earlier, talking with Shau Bandar, he acquired the signal codes for the reporter's comlink, hoping to stay in contact with a representative of the anthro commune. Now, he realizes, it is his only means of finding his way back to Mei Nili.
He listens briefly to the gentle internal chirping of the comlink to be sure it works. Satisfied, he disconnects and puts his full attention on the magnificient city around him, the brave dream of the Maat. Magravity-the conversion of magnetism to the acceleration force of artificial gravity-enables the celestial heights of these prismal turrets, skytowers, and aerial domes. He hears the deep, oceanic drone of it underlying the crystal music of all the andrones in this region of the city.
He turns down his internal sensors-a heavy silence reigns at these heights-and dips lower to avoid the spark-glint of flyers appearing in the hazy distance among the spires. No one was hurt in the commission of his property crime, and
he hopes that not much of an effort will be made to apprehend him.
Space-weathered as he is and with his power cells at nearly full capacity, he could cause far more destruction than the wetware tucked under his arm is worth.
Wide, interwoven balconies and ribboning promenades appear below, bridging the cathedral spaces between cupolas and minarets. A mere dust mote among these immensities, Munk glides through the gap between derricks, astonished at the graceful heights rising from the crystal-cut shadows below. Unsure of where he
is going for the first time since
his creation, he lets the eddies of heat swirling from the behemoth structures carry him.
The fear he feels in the titanic presence of his creators is mitigated somewhat by his cargo. The Maat would want him to save Mr. Charlie from those
who would use him as wetware, indifferent to the fact that this relict brain was yet a man even though his bones had melted long before in ancient Califomica.
Down Munk drifts into the deep gorge of Terra Tharsis, past mammoth-winged buttresses and laser-lit parapets, confident that his makers are pleased with him. After all, why else would the neo-sapiens who manufactured him have put a human thumbprint on his heart?
Shau Bandar misted his sinuses with a max dose of degage olfact, calming his tripping heart. How could he not have anticipated that this rogue androne would defy the Moot? Too much olfact, he berates himself and holds the thumb-ring
mister to his nostrils again. But the overload is tripped, and be has to make do with the placid action already soothing his excited brain. Too much olfact,
Shau, and not enough edge-or common sense.
With the other reporters in the journalists' loge nattering excitedly around him and the timpan-com whispering urgently in his inner ear from the copy office insisting he get to the chamber floor before the other correspondents corner the jumper, Shau Bandar stares mutely from the gallery. He notices that the morph, clade, and androne loges are nearly empty. They have little interest in a small anthro dispute over relict wetware. Below, the jumper sags on the witness bench, which is carrying her slowly backward out of the amphitheater. Her features are slack with that grim look people who do not use olfacts have when they are shocked.
The loge, too, is pulling away from the amphitheater, and the correspondents are filing toward the exit. But Shau Bandar stays at the gallery rail, waiting to see what, if any, response will come through from the Commonality. The
holoforms of the Judge and the Clerk vanished immediately after adjournment, but he expects that the startling turn of events will elicit a reappearance at the six-minute forty-second mark. He stays at the rail even as the loge settles and the journalists exit. A few minutes later he adjusts the microswitches in his cuff to monitor the amphitheater. The Clerk flicks on and meets the incoming holoform from Earth-the archive agent, Sitor Ananta.
"This is not just a property crime to the Commonality," the agent says for the court record. "As duly reported, Mr. Charlie was absconded with and held by the revulsive lewdists and the anarchistic Friends of the NonAbelian Gauge Group and is classified an insurgent, which is why he was exported off-planet in the first place. He may yet be a tool of those radical elements. Now that your negligence has permitted him to go rogue, the Commonality is charging you to upgrade this crime from property theft to abetting insurrection against established order
with potential threat to human life. You are most strongly requested to recover this tainted resurrectant and return our property to us so that this potential threat to the Commonality may be obviated. Give this top priority."
Sitor Ananta vanishes, and the Clerk's response, if any, is coded and undetectable by Shau Bandar's sensors. His colleagues will read about the Commonality's ire in Softcopy and are more interested now in the jumper's reaction. He sees them below, milling around her in the waiting alcove. Still, he doesn't hurry. He has a way to have her all to himself.
Mei Nili shoulders through the small crowd, growling, "Get off me. I've got nothing to say. Bounce off."
Her ire-so rustic and raw-engages the reporters' interest all the more. They claw her with questions:
"Where will you go now?" "Say something about the androne. Are you angry?" "Do you now regret going rogue from Apollo Combine?" "Will you apply for asylum with the commune here in Terra Tharsis, or are you going back to the reservation on Earth?" "Will you use olfacts to manage this emotional bruising?"
She bumps into Shau Bandar, and as she irately shoves past him, he whispers, "I can take you to Munk."
She fixes him with a hot stare, and he takes her arm and pulls her to his side. "I've got an exclusive here," he says loudly to the others, and when a captious cry goes up among the journalists, he says to her, "Tell them. It's the only way they'll bounce."
"Yeah, yeah," she says morosely. "He's got the exclusive."
Shau Bandar smiles lavishly at the dejected reporters. "You'll find out all about it in Softcopy."
"Where's Munk?" Mei presses as soon as the others dissipate among the ivory colonnades. "Did he tell you he was going to do this?"
"I don't believe he knew himself," Shau Bandar replies, guiding the jumper toward the exit arches, "not until that creepy archivist took off about
memory-culling Mr. Charlie. That must have triggered a response from Munk's C-P
programming, don't you think?"
Mei nods her head, heavily. "Mr. Charlie and I changed Munk on Phoboi Twelve. We forced him to override his primary programming. He's unpredictable now."
"I don't think so. He's an androne. He told me that the Maat contra-programmed him with an abiding interest in humanity. He's committed to Mr. Charlie now, and we can predict he will act to preserve that archaic brain."
"You said you could take me to him."
Shau Bandar stops before a droplift set in the base of a pilaster and uses his journalist's passcode to open the alabaster portal. "Come on. I'll tell you
about it on the pave. But let's not talk about it in here. Security."
They step into the indigo buoyancy of the droplift, and the sinuous magravity whisks them as if motionless toward the ground. In the close spaces they study each other. She is put off by his bold eyeblack, precisely ruffled silks, and gem-bleached hair. He is intrigued by her raffish lack of olfacts, her musky savor matching the crude physicality of her square-knuckled hands and the facet cuts of her muscles apparent even through her flightsuit.
The droplift opens on the pave, the hilly ground of Terra Tharsis. Each knoll is the gargantuan anchor base of a skytower, the slopes landscaped in a mazy complex of boulevards, villas, geometric plazas, and dome-roofed neighborhoods strewn with green splashes of trellised commons, tree haunts, and parks. Sunlight falls in wide swatches among the soaring towers that cast vales of umbrous shadow on the motley hillsides.
The enormity of the city daunts Mei, and she looks hard at the blue centers of
Shau Bandar's panda-black eyes. "Where's Munk?"
"I don't know," he says and adds quickly, "but we can lead him to us whenever we want. He has my com codes. I gave them to him so he could reach me if he needed anything."
"Call him."
Shau Bandar shakes his head. "Not yet." As they stroll on a tessellated pathway under heliotropic arbors beside a skim route where cars slash by in a soundless blur of magnetic propulsion, he tells her what he saw of Sitor Ananta. "That agent thinks Mr. Charlie may be tainted by the radicals who originally stole him from the archives on Earth. The Commonality are fanatics about control and accountability. You must know that. You worked for them. To preserve his own career, you can bet Ananta will do everything he can to hunt down Mr. Charlie."
They come to a beverage stall in the niche of a brownstone wall scribbled on by lichen. "This shop has old-style ginger mead. Want some?"
Mei declines with a frown and gazes out at the undulant sprawl of bubble-top cottages and swirling roadways. "I'm not thirsty."
Shau Bandar sits at a vine-hung stall anyway. "When's the last time you ate or drank-or slept, for that matter?"
Mei doesn't hear him. Her gaze is lost overhead in the skyways and viaducts webbing high out of sight among the monoliths and casting vaporous shadows on the pave. A clutch of smoke-haired morphs trundle by yakking in a dialect she doesn't recognize, their spindly arms gesticulating like egrets in a mating dance. The olfact wisps that trail off them fill her with an ice-blue sensation of midwinter. She shivers.
"Jumper Nili," Shau Bandar gently calls, "aren't you hungry?"
Mei turns from the b
usy cityscape and zips open the sleeve seal of her flightsuit to reveal a swatch of nutriment patches. "I've been on these since my last assignment. They're good for a couple more sleep cycles."
"Your alimentary tract doesn't mind the neglect?" he asks. "I mean, you're not morphed for your work, so your bowels must need some input."
Her eyes slim. "Hey, this is just another story for you. I didn't come here to talk about my intestines."
Her stark gaze tightens. "Then why are you so interested?"
"You might have noticed even a side clip is worth enough credit to draw a small crowd of journalists. It's a free city, but it's not the reservation. Nothing is really free here. I have a comfortable abode. It's no aerie suite and it's a little rundown, but it still requires a lot of credit. And small as it
is, I like it a lot better than sleeping in the park. I've lived with the park people, and I know how rough that is." He takes her vial. "If you're not going
to drink it-" He sips and nods. "The park people work with the andrones for each
meal-gardening, masomy-real work."
Mei gives a stern laugh. "You want to learn about real work and rough times, talk with Mr. Charlie about life in his day. Not even the park people have to cope with the grief that was the common lot then, real grief even for the most rich. I don't want to hear any of your big talk. It's all a game for you people. Live long enough in this day and age and even the dreamers in the park get lifespan credit and a nice hillside cottage maintained by andrones. You want to see reality, you find me Munk and Mr. Charlie and come with us to Solis."
Shau Bandar sucks at the vial, outraged at her haughty superiority. With a spray of degage from his thumb ring, his pique passes. Her fieriness is good, he realizes, and he feels foolish for the flash of umbrage he felt. Her time in the Belt has clearly toughened her for the trek, and here, at last, is his chance
for a real story. On the synergistic surge of mead and olfact, an idea crystallizes for a true-life adventure series, a sequence of clips that will earn him his acne suite after all.
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