by Neal Asher
She looked around the room, ready to field more questions. There were none; implications were beginning to sink in.
"I'll use Olmy as an example," Ram Kikura said. "With his permission...?"
Olmy nodded.
"He is something of a rarity because of his age and history. His original body was born five centuries ago. His first death was by accident; the destruction was not total, so he was reconstructed. Since he was considered important to the Hexamon and was involved in dangerous work, he was allowed three incarnations, rather than the usual two. His present body is adapted for specialty work; it's a popular type and is completely self-contained. His waste systems are also closed. Within his abdomen there is a small power supply; all his wastes are reprocessed internally. He needs to replace his power source and bring in supplementary materials only once a year. He requires water every three months."
"Are you human?" Carrolson asked Olmy pointedly.
"I am," Olmy said. "I presume you're curious about my sexuality?"
"What ... Yes, frankly," Carrolson admitted. Heineman squinted one eye and raised the opposite brow.
"I am fully masculine by birth and choice, and my sexual organs are functional."
"They are, indeed," Ram Kikura said. "But natal sexual orientation, even in those born naturally, is not necessarily permanent."
"You mean, once a man, not always a man?" Farley asked.
"Or a woman. Or man or woman. Many neomorphs today have no specific sexual orientation."
"You talk about those born naturally," Heineman said. "You have test-tube babies, that sort of thing?"
"At the risk of shocking you—which may be unavoidable—most people today are not born of man and woman. Their personalities are created by one or more parents through the merging of partial personalities in City Memory, with the infusion of what we call Mystery from at least one individual, usually a parent. The young personality is educated and tested in City Memory, and if it passes certain tests, it 'matures,' that is, it earns its first incarnation, most often as a
mature young adult. The corpus the personality inhabits may be designed by the parents, or by the individual. If in time the corporeal citizen uses its two incarnations, it then retires to City Memory."
Carrolson started to say something, thought better of it, then decided to speak anyway. "Are the people without bodies—in the computers—are they human, are they alive?" she asked.
"They believe so," Ram Kikura said. "They have specific rights, and certain duties, as well, though by necessity their say in government is less than that of corporeal citizens. But if I may suggest we are not discussing the subjects of most immediate importance..." She pointed toward the rotating image of the city.
"This is where you will stay. For the time being, you cannot return to the Thistledown. Your home will be in this precinct, Axis Nader, where conditions are reasonably familiar—design, culture, people. Though you may not meet them for some time, this precinct is inhabited by orthodox Naderites.
"Miss Vasquez has told Ser Olmy that some of you are aware of the basics of our history. Then you will understand that orthodox Naderites typically prefer conditions as close to those of Earth as possible. This section contains many areas of natural beauty and as few illusions in the public thoroughfares as possible. There are two other rotating precincts—Axis Thoreau and Axis Euclid—spaced beyond the Central City. Axis Thoreau is also occupied by Naderites, though of a more liberal persuasion."
"More questions," Lanier said. "When can we return to our people?"
"I don't know. That decision isn't ours to make."
"Can we send a message to them?"
"No," Olmy said. "Technically, your people are in violation."
"Isn't the situation a little unusual?" Lanier asked. "Now that the Thistledown has returned to Earth..."
Olmy looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Unusual. And very complicated."
Patricia touched Lanier's hand and gave a slight shake of her head: enough for now.
"After you've eaten, you will have time to become reacquainted and learn how to use your accommodations. Then you may rest. Tomorrow morning, you will be awakened in your rooms. Please return here."
In the hallway, Patricia walked close to Lanier. "We're pawns," she said in an undertone. "We've set off alarms." She held her finger to her lips and darted into her doorway.
*45*
Wu and Chang walked arm-in-arm from the train station to the library plaza, saying little but obviously content with
each other's company. They had decided, hours before, to go to the library together, to make the pilgrimage that so many were planning but few had time to actually do. Singly and in groups, perhaps a total of twenty members of the NATO and allied forces and the science teams had gone and had returned with awed reports of the library's potential. This impressed Wu; he had asked permission of Hua Ling, and since their studies had been reduced in scope, the leader of the Chinese team had agreed.
But something was wrong. Russian soldiers milled outside the library in some confusion. As they spotted Wu and Chang crossing the plaza, alone, they dropped prone on the pavement and raised their rifles. Wu held up his hands instinctively; Chang backed away a step and seemed ready to run.
"No, my love," Wu whispered.
"What are they doing?"
"I don't know. I recommend we make no fast moves."
She edged up beside him and raised her hands high as well, glancing at him for approval. He nodded.
They maintained this position for several long and unpleasant minutes while a few of the soldiers crawled toward each other and conferred. Then a command was barked and all but two of the Russians stood and slung their rifles.
"Can we move now?" Chang asked.
"No; we are still in danger."
Two Russians walked across the plaza toward them. Some meters distant, they stopped. "Do you speak Russian?" one asked, in Russian.
"I do," Chang replied in kind. "My English is better."
"My terrible English," the spokesman said, demonstrating his point. "You are Chinese?"
"Yes. We were on a walk," Chang said. From this point on, they spoke Russian.
"I am Corporal Rodzhensky, and this is Corporal Fremov. Something has gone wrong in the library; we are not sure what. We cannot allow anyone to pass; besides, the building is closed and will not open for us."
"Do you have any idea what the trouble is?" Chang asked, struggling to appear especially interested and polite.
"No. We heard gunfire, and then the black ... wall closed, and would not open."
"Why was there gunfire?"
"We do not know," Rodzhensky said, glancing nervously at Fremov. "We have communicated with our superiors in the fourth chamber, but they have not arrived yet."
"We will help any way we can," Chang said. "Or, if you wish, we will leave."
"No ... Perhaps you can approach the door, try to make it open. It may be ridiculous, but then again..." Rodzhensky shrugged, then suddenly realized guns were still being trained on the pair. "Do you have weapons?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the prone riflemen.
"No. We are scientists."
Rodzhensky called out for the riflemen to put away their guns. "We are not familiar with this place," he said. "It makes us nervous. Especially now. Our officers are inside that building—searching for a fugitive." He frowned and seemed to realize he was revealing too much to outsiders. "Please, come with us and see if the door will open for you."
Chang explained what had happened to Wu, who maintained a look of intense interest as they were escorted to the library entrance. The soldiers milled around in some confusion. Wu approached the black wall, hands held up, and touched the smooth surface with his fingers and palms.
It did not dilate, as he had been told to expect. He stepped back and lowered his hands. "Sorry," he said. "It doesn't seem—"
A low, vibrating series of tones issued from the wall, and repeated, followed by a
voice. "Police attention required in this precinct," the voice said in Russian. "No entrance to unauthorized personnel. Please alert medical and police authorities immediately. No entrance allowed." It then repeated its message in English and Chinese.
The soldiers backed away, AKVs unslung and pistols drawn.
"Something must have happened inside," Chang said calmly to Rodzhensky. "Perhaps we should tell our own superiors. Wouldn't that be wise?" She looked up at the Russian with her narrow almond eyes, her face a mask of persuasion and equanimity. Wu felt tremendous admiration for her. He had never seen her react to this sort of crisis.
Corporal Rodzhensky thought that over, shook his head firmly, then slumped his tension-hunched shoulders and seemed to reconsider. "What do we do if it doesn't open?" he asked.
"It doesn't open now."
"Our leaders are inside—all of them," he said.
Chang maintained her intent gaze.
"Yes—all right," Rodzhensky finally said. "Please go and bring your own superiors."
"Thank you," Chang said. She took Wu by the arm and walked with him back across the plaza.
"Very strange," she exclaimed, shaking her head in wonder. "Most strange."
"You were wonderful," Wu said, awestruck.
"Thank you." She smiled appreciatively.
*46*
He had buried his parachute and now lay down in the long, sweet-smelling dry yellow grass near the road. Hands over his eyes, he waited for a truck or car to come along, so he might hitch a ride back to Podlipki—or was it that base in Mongolia with only a number, 83?
Not that it mattered. The sun was warm, and except for a slight headache, Major Mirsky felt grand. He had fallen so far off course that he might take hours to reach the base, missing dinner, but also missing the political instruction. He would gladly trade kasha for a few hours alone to think.
At length a dusty, long black Volga came down the road and stopped beside him. The rear window rolled down and a bulky, beefy-faced man in a gray fedora stuck his head out, frowning at Mirsky.
"What are you doing here?" the man asked. He resembled Major General Sosnitsky, but he also looked a bit like poor Zhadov, who had died in the bore-hole massacre, wherever that was, and whenever. "What's your mother's name?"
"Nadia," he said. "I need a ride—"
"And what did you have for a cake on your eleventh birthday?"
"Comrade, I don't see"
"It's very important. What did you have?"
"Something with chocolate, I think."
The man in the fedora nodded and opened the door. "Get in," he said. Mirsky squeezed in beside him. The seat was wet with blood; the man's three companions were corpses, all alike, all with their heads bloody and brains leaking. "Do you know these people?"
"No, I don't," Mirsky said, laughing. "We haven't been introduced."
"They are you, Comrade," the man said, and the dream faded to grayness. Once again, he buried the parachute...
He began to get suspicious. Finally, after he had been picked up for the seventh or eighth time—the car minus its corpses—and the man in the fedora asked him about his Komsomol days, Mirsky decided to ask some questions of his own.
"I know I'm not dreaming, Comrade. So where am I?"
"You have been very badly injured."
"I don't seem to remember that—"
"No, but you will. You were shot in the head and suffered severe trauma. Parts of your brain are missing. You will never remember your life in quite as much detail, and you will never be quite the same person again."
"But I feel whole."
"Yes," the man in the fedora agreed. "That is normal, but it's an illusion. Together we've been exploring, finding out what you have left. There is quite a lot, actually—surprising, considering the damage—but you will never be quite the—"
"Yes, yes," Mirsky interrupted. "So will I die?"
"No, you are out of danger. Your head and brain are being repaired and you will live. But you have decisions to make."
"What sort of decisions?"
"You can live with the missing portions left blank, or you can receive prosthetic neurological programming and artificial personality segments tailored to fit those remaining to you."
"Now I'm really confused."
The man pulled a picture book out of his satchel. When he opened it, the pages were filled with beautiful complex designs, some in garish color, others muted and metallic, still others stimulating tastes and bodily sensations. He took the book and read through it. When he was finished, he asked, "Will I know what is mine and what is not?"
"If that's what you want."
"And without all these ... prostheses? What will I be?"
"A cripple. You will have memories," the man explained, "though some will be difficult to recall clearly and others will have curious gaps. It will take you weeks to learn how to see again, and you will never see very well. You will never recover your sensations of smell or the sensation of touch on the left side of your body. Your mathematical reasoning abilities will be intact, but your speech will be impaired and may never return."
Mirsky looked at the man's face until it seemed to fade into the sky beyond the car's side window. "It doesn't sound like much fun," he said.
"It is your choice."
"You're in the library, aren't you?"
"Not what you're seeing," the man said. "I am a city function shaped to be acceptable to you in your present condition. Human medical authority is not available, so the city has taken it upon itself to repair you."
"Okay," Mirsky said. "That's enough for now. I want to have nothing but darkness."
"Yes, that will come naturally after you give us your answer."
"I mean, I wish to die."
"That is not an option."
"Okay, then yes." He made the decision quickly so as not to have to consider all the possibilities, all the horrors.
"You consent to prosthetic programming?"
"I consent."
The man ordered the car to stop and smiled. "You may get out," he said.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Mirsky left the Volga and closed the door. "Oh, one more thing," the man said, leaning out the window. "Did you have any plans to harm either Belozersky, Vielgorsky or Yazykov—particularly Vielgorsky?"
"No," Mirsky said. "They irritated me, and I would have rather done without all of them—except maybe Vielgorsky—but no, I didn't plan to harm them."
"Thank you," the man said and rolled up the window.
"You're welcome again," Mirsky turned away from the road and it was night. He lay down in the grass and stared up at the blackness.
*47*
"I'd like it dark, please," Lanier said. The rooms darkened. He sat upright on the illusory couch and mentally repeated what Patricia had said after the meeting. Alarms set off. Did she mean that the Axis City had known they were in the Stone since their arrival? How long had self-contained, self-powered Olmy been watching them?
As he mulled, he felt the ineffable tension in the lower part of his abdomen and realized that mentally he was as uninterested in sex as he could be, but his body was disregarding his brain.
The door voice announced, "Karen Farley is in the hallway and requests entrance."
"Why?" he asked abruptly, angry at the convenience, the coincidence. "Wait—is she alone?"
"Yes."
"Send ... let her in." He stood and smoothed down the jumpsuit he had worn on the V/STOL, now cleaned and pressed. He had ignored the robe laid out for him on the elliptical bed in the single bedroom.
Karen had not. As the door irised open, the lights came up and she entered in a very similar robe, this one a golden beige rather than midnight blue. "Pardon my comeuppance," she said, smiling and lifting her hands as if to fend off a rebuff.
"What?"
"Is that the right phrase?"
"I don't think so," Lanier said. "What can I do for you?"
"I'
ve been talking with Patricia," she said, "or rather, she came to me, and I thought you'd like to know a few things."
