C. Tacitus: Thank you, friend Lebedev. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not talking about forcing anyone to do anything, let me assure you. The question before us is a simple one. Let us not get confused by objections and points of order or disorder. Are we, or are we not, going to transform our Council of Ships into the Congress of our native solar system? You probably all know where I stand on this since it was I who instigated these proceedings in the first place. Now, among us, I am one of the few who has actually gone sunward and had a look at the situation there. It is not so good. Not so good. Neptune is fighting tooth and nail. Jupiter is refusing to surrender. These are the voices of the people crying out, not some tinpot dictator’s defiance. I have already told you what I, personally, witnessed on Triton. A city torn to shreds. Over a hundred thousand souls—lost, killed. Families. Their homes destroyed. If he merely wished to punish the government, and not the people, then why did Amés order a rip tether dropped on New Miranda? No, I think we can all see what is going on here. We are a pretty smart bunch. Maybe too smart for our own good, I sometimes think. Perhaps we should have recruited some idiots just to balance things out, but now it’s too late for that. We are not more than human, as some have suggested, and neither are we less. What we are is an elite. We have the privileges of an elite, but with those privileges comes responsibility to our fellow humans. Come on, people! Nobody knows where this will all lead, where things are going. Maybe Amés will back down, maybe not. I, personally, doubt it. But I do not know the future. All anybody can know is the past and the present. Is all we have done for nothing? It is a foundation. What we have to do now is start constructing the building. If we have to fight, we fight, but that is not what we’re really about here. What we are doing is something far more important in the long run. We are deciding whether or not democracy has had its day. Whether or not the human race is just too tired of it all to rule itself anymore. Do you want to be the person who, at the tail end of history, said yes to that proposition? Who said yes, I am tired—won’t somebody please tell me what to do, what to think? Do you want your children to remember you as the one who decided that it was best for them to answer to the will of another for the rest of their lives? Austen has pointed out that it is economically impossible for us to run away. Twain has shown the absurdity of compromise with Amés. Lebedev has given you some idea of the task before us. But what I want to do is to convince you of the responsibility we have, as the best and brightest. You’re all here for a reason. It isn’t an accident that any one of you is in the Oorts and one of our number. Now is the time to show that we are not merely a bunch of clever fools, but that we actually are the intelligences that we claim to be. We take silly names to avoid thinking too highly of ourselves. To keep a sense of humor about us. We are going to need that sense of humor, let me tell you, for these are grim times. But let me suggest to you that these names mean something else, as well. No—that they can mean something else. They are a promise that we make to ourselves to live up to. They are a goal we set for ourselves to achieve. And most of all, they are the better selves that we know are somewhere inside of us. We may never bring that self to the outside, but it is our lifelong task to try. And I am a historian by trade. I tell you that people are going to remember these names, and they are going to judge us by them. What people? Our children, and their children—on down the long line of time. It is the only certainty I know of—memory and judgment. Are we who we claim to be? You may fool yourself, and you may fool the times, but you can’t fool history. And that is because history is the result of who you really are. History is you, writ large, until the end of time. We should consider that every day, but we must consider it now, in this chamber. What we decide here today matters, and matters completely. Think on this, and God help us to make the right choice . . . Mr. Chairman, I yield the chamber.
C. Mencken: Thank you, Cloudship Tacitus. Now . . . er, is there any more debate on the point of order? None? Then my ruling is that I overrule my last ruling. If you people want to talk till you’re blue in the gills about whatever you want to, well, I’m here to help, not to hinder. Let us return to debate on the resolution. Cloudship Tolstoy, I believe you are next.
Three
Theory had expected to feel a great many conflicts after killing his old lover, but, the truth was, he felt nothing for her. She had effectively killed any emotion that remained in him by what she had done to and with their son.
Finding space and occupation for the five hundred new arrivals from Saturn would have been a logistical nightmare for most, but Theory handled it with the same efficiency he brought to the myriad other tasks that he was assigned. Figuring out what to do with the boy was another matter. In that area, efficiency meant nothing.
The child was, for the most part, uncommunicative. Theory had enlarged his quarters in the virtuality—what he thought of as his private space—to accommodate the boy. He had provided games and learning modules and tried to instruct the boy in their use, but the child just looked on with his crazed eyes and did nothing.
Theory worried about his safety, for Theory must necessarily be gone long hours, and the surveillance subroutines he set in place were easily subverted. They were not designed to detain, merely to keep a watch. For a time, Theory thought to share himself out and keep a double presence, both at work and at home, but this proved to be taxing, for he was often employed in tasks for the Army that took all of his attention and computing ability. In the end, there was nothing for it but hire a nanny or to leave the child alone. Theory could not conceive of a nanny who might understand the child, and he felt that it would be better for the boy to have no attention at this stage than to have attention of the wrong sort. He did not ask the child, but he expected Constants had put the boy through a most special hell, and he was sure the boy needed a careful easing into the normal life of a normal free convert.
Or perhaps he was entirely mistaken. He got no help from the boy as to the solution to the mystery. They discussed, briefly, the matter of a name, but the child seemed honestly not to fully grasp the concept, so Theory gave it up until such time as the boy might choose his name with confidence, and not because somebody else made him take on one.
As far as the matter with Jennifer Fieldguide went, Theory had almost forgotten about it, when he got a stiff request from Captain Quench to meet him in the virtual space that the officers used as a club for convert portions and free converts to mingle during off hours. The place was done up in wood and leather, with cuspidors and great brass ashtrays strewn about on oaken tabletops. There was an excellent library of war literature lining one wall, both fact and fiction, and along the other was a completely tricked-out bar manned by Hilly St. Johns, a free-convert immigrant from the Diaphany.
Theory arrived before Quench, and ordered his customary Rusty Nail from Hilly. She set him up and offered him a smoke, which he declined. Somewhere Hilly had erroneously filed away the datum that Theory smoked, which he did not, and Theory, politely, never sought to correct her error. Quench entered shortly thereafter in something of a huff. He sat down beside Theory and stated without preamble, “Listen, man, I know we agreed to swap identities for a night, but that didn’t mean I gave you liberty to set me up with another lover—and a woman at that.”
“What in the name of God are you talking about?” Theory replied, still distracted by his latest failure at communicating with his son.
“Why this Jennifer Fieldguide woman, Theory,” Quench replied. “She won’t stop calling me. Claims we have an agreement to see one another again.”
Quench took a handful of nuts from the bar and threw them into his mouth all at once, and then said while he chewed, “Theory, I gave you my body to go to the dance with, man, not to go bedding a girl with.”
Theory was mortified and could say nothing for a moment, then he picked up his drink and threw the whole thing back himself.
“We kissed only, John,” he said. “I kept trying to tell her
who I was—who I really was—but the moment never was quite right. We were talking about free converts, and she was being critical of them, almost a bigot, and I didn’t want to reveal my nature because . . . because, damn it, I liked her, John.”
“Good God, Theory, this is a little much, don’t you think?”
“I certainly do,” Theory replied. “I want to apologize. It was a strange evening. I hadn’t been in an aspect’s body in a very long time. Perhaps I let the hormones affect me while I wasn’t paying attention. I have just killed someone who once meant a great deal to me.” Theory sloshed his own drink about in the glass, considered the fractal ripple simulation the virtuality provided on the drink’s surface. “I promise you there was just the kissing, and no sex that night with Jenny.”
“Kissing is bad enough!” exclaimed Quench. “What would I ever tell Arthur if he should find out?”
“I’m sorry, John. I don’t know what else to say.”
This final apology seemed to mollify Quench, at least for the moment. He ordered a bourbon and water from Hilly, and sipped at it distractedly.
“Well, Theory,” he finally said, “the woman simply has to be told, and that’s all there is to it. Now if you insist, I will do so the next time she calls me—”
“—Oh, no, John. It’s my problem to take care of.”
“Good, then, do it as soon as possible. I don’t know if I can fake my way through another call from the woman. She seems nice enough, but she must be gullible to be fooled so easily.”
“I think she is merely young,” Theory said. “There is something else, though.”
“What?”
“I may want your help in breaking the news to her.”
“How do you mean? I’ll not lie any more to the girl.”
“No, not that. It’s just . . . I want to see her again. That is, if it proves at all possible.” Theory had not realized, until just that moment, that he did want to have at least one more conversation, and possibly more, with Jennifer Fieldguide. But how to go about it?
“Perhaps we can arrange another meeting,” Theory continued. “But this time in the virtuality.”
“Do what you like,” said Quench.
“No, you don’t understand. With you present, John.” Theory rushed onward before Quench could protest. “You would appear as me and I as you, and after I’ve broken the news to her we could sort of . . . switch.”
Quench downed the rest of his bourbon and stared at Theory with unbelieving eyes. “Set me up another, Hilly,” he said. “Let me get this straight, Theory. We would meet in the virtuality with you disguised as my convert and me disguised as you? And what purpose would this insane scheme serve?”
“It will ease her into the knowledge that I am you and you are me, or rather than I am not you and you are not me,” Theory said. “If you see what I mean?”
“I see free-convert neurosis.”
“Please, John,” said Theory. “For some reason, I don’t know why, Jennifer means something to me. I don’t know if it’s love. It’s certainly not love, not yet. I’m feeling very confused at the moment about a lot of things. But I don’t want to destroy any chance I might have with her.”
“And you think this plan will make you desirable?”
“It’s the only way I can think of that might salvage the situation,” Theory replied.
To Theory’s surprise, Quench threw his head back and gave one of his big guffaws. He laughed so hard that he soon had Theory nervously joining in in sympathy, though Theory didn’t know what they were laughing about. Finally, Quench calmed himself and took a drink of his bourbon.
“You know, we’ll probably be dead before we even get a chance to try out your plan.”
“It is a distinct possibility.”
“Just remember, it has to end up with her being told what’s what.”
“I promise it will, John.”
“Well then,” said Quench. “I wish I had been there for that kiss, after all. She really hooked you, old son.” He signaled Hilly, who was at the other end of the bar. “Get this man another Rusty Nail,” he said. “And keep ’em coming until he has enough to close up his own coffin.”
Four
In ones, twos, and threes, Jill’s animals began to arrive in the transmitter pods. Most of them were bedraggled, but they all perked up when they saw Jill. Soon the hut that the three travelers shared was teeming with rodents and the hunters of rodents—all living in an uneasy peace out of regard for Jill. Despite the extermination grist in the living areas, there were, of course, rats and other animals in the Met.
Leo had never liked them much even though he knew that there must be a place for them in the ecology. He had always had a secret fear of ending up in a rat warren in the Integument and being eaten alive, but whenever he saw them there, they had not been in packs. They lived, he knew, nearer to the occupied areas, so that they could quickly get to garbage before it was eliminated.
Within two weeks, Game had conferred with Jill, and the treatments had began. The idea was to grow the animals into humans. It sounded entirely bizarre to Leo. He’d heard of free converts saving up, purchasing or renting clone bodies—that is, grist-made bodies with a grist matrix instead of a brain. But he’d never even imagined anything like this. The coding that gave the rats and ferrets intelligence at all was of the sort written by programmers, and not enthalpically evolved, as were the free converts. So there was a double process going on with the animals. The computer coding inside them was put through evolutionary processes at the same time as the structure they were inhabiting—a kind of brain-grist continuum that was present only in the Carbuncle, as far as anyone had ever discovered—was enlarged. And the animal bodies began the process of slowly transforming themselves into humans.
The pace was set as quick as Game could make it, but it was going to take at least three months before real effects would be seen. And the animals were going to feel a good deal of pain as the changes came over them. Nevertheless, all of them volunteered to undergo it. It gave them a better chance at survival, and survival was what these scrap codes were all about.
For a while, Leo could see no place for himself in any of these preparations. Leo was seriously tempted to get the hell out of here and take Aubry with him. But where would he go? This was still the safest place for a dissenter and a little girl who was wanted by the law.
And there was Jill.
There had been a couple of steady girlfriends over the years, but once they understood that Leo’s traveling itch would not be going away, that he would not be settling down to a respectable occupation and that he was always going to be more or less poor, they had drifted away. This always surprised him, because he’d thought he was picking out women who would understand these facts. He never made any bones about it, but told them up front. And Becky had been a poet, even, even though, after their breakup, Leo had to admit to himself that he’d never much cared for her verse.
What Leo really wanted was to keep traveling the Met until the day he died, seeing cool stuff and showing people who he thought might like to share the experience with him. But that was all over now. Leo was going to face what had to be faced. Hell, that was what had drawn him to the Integument in the first place. The possibility of surprise in a world that would literally wipe your nose for you if you let it.
Leo was grousing along these lines one day when Otis poked his head into Leo’s hut, and said, calmly, “Uh, Leo, I think we have a problem, man.”
“What?”
“A Department of Immunity ship is hanging nearby in space, broadcasting to us on an electromagnetic band.”
“Yikes!”
“Yeah, well, there’s something else . . .”
“What is it, Otis?”
“They are specifically demanding your surrender.”
“Mine?”
“They are i
nquiring after one Leo Y. Sherman,” said Otis. “Unless your middle name is—”
“It’s Yorrick,” Leo said, a sinking feeling lodging in his stomach.
“Taylor’s got them on a radio in the common hut.” Otis smiled a forced smile. “Taylor would have a radio.”
“Let’s go hear it,” Leo said. “Maybe it’s Theo Sherman they want. He’s dead.” Leo immediately wished he hadn’t said that, though of course nobody here knew about his brother except Aubry, and she was off at target practice with Jill.
It was a repeating message. There was no doubt—they were asking for Leo.
“Leo Y. Sherman, author of ‘The Vas After Sunset,’ and other licentious tracts, is wanted for questioning by the Department of Immunity. Prepare for a DI investigative team arriving at Port B on Oregon Bolsa of the Nirvana Mycelium at system time 19:00. If Leo Y. Sherman is known to you, you will provide him for immediate questioning. This is an official Department of Immunity Edict. Disregarding it or its contents or aiding or abetting anyone attempting to disregard this Edict is punishable by up to five e-years rehabilitative therapy or induction into DI Enforcement Division uniformed service under Title Fifty-four Protocols. Leo Y. Sherman, author . . .”
Taylor turned down the volume and looked up from his radio set with a serious face, but Leo could tell he was pleased. He probably never got a chance to show off his ancient equipment which, from the look of it, he kept in top-notch working order.
“Notice anything strange?” Otis said.
“Yeah,” Leo said. “They didn’t just come in here and nab me.”
“Exactly,” Otis said. “What do you suppose it means?”
“What time is it?” Leo asked.
“We’ve got an hour to get you hidden or away.”
Jill came through the door. “What’s going on?” she said. “I suddenly got a bad feeling, so I came back here.”
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