Foundations Fear

by Gregory Benford

Page 21

  The noise was like the din of battle, chaotic and fierce. But if she listened intently, refusing to allow her immortal spirit to be ripped from her mortal flesh—then, then, a divinely orchestrated poly­ phony would show her the rightful course.

  The Archangel Michael, and St. Catherine, and St. Mar-garet—from whose mouths her voices often spoke—were reacting fiercely to her involuntary mastery of Monsieur Arouet’s Complete Works. Particularly offensive to Michael was the Elements de Newton, whose philosophy Michael perceived to be incompatible with that of the Church—indeed, with his own existence.

  The Maid herself was not so sure. She found, to her surprise, a poetry and harmony in the equations that proved—as if proof were required—the unsurpassed reality of the Creator, whose physical laws might be fathomable but whose purposes were not.

  How she knew these beauties was rather mysterious. She saw into the calculus of force and motion, the whirl of worlds. Like the lords and ladies at court, inert matter made its divinely orchestrated gavotte. These things she sensed with her whole self, directly, as if penetrated by divine insight. Beauties arrived, out of pale air. How could she discount sublime perceptions?

  Such divine invasion must be holy. That it came to her as a flood of memory, skills, associations, only proved further that it was heaven sent. La Sorcière murmured something about computer files and sub-Agents, but those were incantations, not truths.

  Far more offensive to her than this new wisdom, far more, was that its author was an Englishman.

  “La Henriade,” she told Michael, citing another of Monsieur Arouet’s works, “is more repulsive than Les Elements. How dare Monsieur Arouet, who arrogantly calls himself by the false name Voltaire, maintain that in England reason is free, while in our own beloved France, it’s shackled to the dark imaginings of absolutist priests! Was it not Jesuit priests who first taught this inquisitor how to reason?”

  But what enraged the Maid most of all and made her thrash and strain at her chains—until, fearing for her safety, La Sorcière freed her chafed ankles and wrists—was his illegally printed, scurrilous poem about her. Villainous verse!

  As soon as she was sure her voices had withdrawn, she waved a copy of ‘La Pucelle’ at the sorceress, incensed that the chaste Saints Catherine or Margaret—who had momentarily vanished, but would surely return—might be forcibly exposed to its lewdness. Both saints had already reproached her for her silly, girlish speculations about how attractive Monsieur Arouet might be—what was she thinking?—if he removed his ridiculous wig and lilac ribbons.

  “How dare Monsieur Arouet represent me this way?” she railed, knowing full well that her stubborn refusal to call him Voltaire irked him no end. “He adds nine years to my age, dismisses my voices as outright lies. And slanders Baudricourt, who first enabled me to put before my king my vision for both him and France. A writer of preachy plays and irreverent slanders against the faithful, like Candide, he well may be—but that insufferable know-it-all calls himself a historian! If his other historical accounts are no more re­ liable than the one he gives of me, they and not my body deserve the fire. ”

  The woman La Sorcière paled before this onslaught. These people—if people they were at all, here in a byzantine, cloudy Purgatory—backed away from the true ferocity of divine Purpose. Joan towered over the woman, with some relish.

  “Newton’s clockwork wisdom is an intriguing vision of Creation’s laws,” Joan thundered, “but Voltaire’s history is a work of his ima-gination!—made up of three parts bile, two spleen. ”

  She raised her right arm in the same gesture she’d used to lead her soldiers and the knights of France into battle against the English king and his minions—of whom, she now saw clearly, Monsieur Arouet de Voltaire was one. A warrior femme inspiratrice with an intense aversion to the kill, she now vowed all-out war against this, this—she gasped in exasperation, “This nouveau riche bourgeois upstart darling of the aristocratic class, who’s never known real want or need, and thinks horses are bred with carriages behind them. ”

  “Get him!” La Sorcière, ablaze with the Maid’s fire, raged. “That’s what we want!”

  “Where is he?” demanded the Maid. “Where is this shallow little pissoir stream?—that I may drown him in the depths of all I have suffered!”

  Oddly, La Sorcière seemed pleased by all this, as if it fit some design of her own.

  16.

  Voltaire cackled with satisfaction. The café appeared, popping into luminous reality, independent of his human masters’ consent or knowledge.

  Subroutine accomplished, a small voice assured him. He made the café disappear and reappear three times more, to be sure that he had mastered the technique.

  What fools these rulers were, to think that they could make the Great Voltaire a creature of their will! But now came the real test, the intricate procedure that would bring forth the Maid in all her womanly unfathomability—which, however, he was determined to fathom.

  He had mastered the intricate logics of this place, given the capa­ cities the man-scientist had given him. Did they think he was some animal, unable to apply blithe reason to their labyrinths of logic? He had found his way, traced the winding electronic pathways, devised the commands. Newton had been just as difficult, and he had encompassed that, had he not?

  Now, the Maid. He did his digital dance, its logics, and—

  She popped into the café.

  “You scum,” she said, lance drawn.

  Not quite the greeting he’d expected. But then he saw the copy of ‘La Pucelle’ dangling on the point of her lance.

  “Chérie,” he cooed; whatever the offense, best to get in an apology early. “I can explain. ”

  “That’s your whole problem,” the Maid said. “You explain and explain and explain! Your plays are more tedious than the sermons I was forced to listen to in the cemetery at St. Ouen. Your railings against the sacred mysteries of the Church reveal a shallow, unfeel­ ing mind bereft of awe and wonder. ”

  “You mustn’t take it personally,” Voltaire pleaded. “It was directed at hypocritical reverence for you—and at the superstitions of reli­ gion. My friend, Thieriot—he added passages more profane and obscene than any I had written. He needed money. He made a living reciting the poem in various salons. My poor virgin became an infamous whore, made to say gross and intolerable things. ”

  The Maid did not lower her lance. Instead, she poked it several times against Voltaire’s satin waist-coated chest.

  “Chérie,” he said. “If you knew how much I paid for this vest. ”

  “You mean, how much Frederick paid—that pitiful, promiscuous, profligate pervert of a man. ”

  “Alliteration a bit heavy,” Voltaire said, “but otherwise, a quite nicely turned phrase. ”

  His newly gained skills meant he could divest her of her lance at once, squash it. But he preferred persuasiveness to force. He quoted, with some liberty, that pleasure-hating Christian, Paul: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, behaved as a child. But when I became a woman, I put away manly things. ”

  She blinked. He remembered how her inquisitors had claimed that her acceptance of the gift of a fine cloak was incompatible with the divine origin of her voices. In a whisk of lithe arms, Voltaire produced a Chantilly lace gown. Pop—and a richly embroidered cloak.

  “You mock me,” the Maid said. But not before he saw a gleam of interest flare in her coal-dark eyes.

  “I long to see you as you are. ” He held out the gown and cloak. “Your spirit I have no doubt is divine, but your natural form, like mine, is human; unlike mine, a woman’s. ”

  “You think I could give up the freedom of a man for that?” She impaled the cloak and gown on the tip of her lance.

  “Not the freedom,” Voltaire said. “Just the armor and clothes. ”

  She fell silent, pensively gazing into
the distance. The crowd on the street went about their business, walking by unconcerned. Ob­ vious wallpaper, he thought; he would have to correct that.

  Perhaps a trick. She was partial to miracles. “Another little trick I’ve learned since we last met. Voilà. I can produce Garçon. ”

  Garçon popped in out of nowhere, all four of his hands free. The Maid—who had indeed once worked in a tavern, he recalled—could not help it; she smiled. She also removed the gown and cloak from the lance, tossed the lance aside, and caressed the clothes.

  He could not resist the impulse to quote himself.

  “For I am man and justly proud

  In human weakness to have part;

  Past mistresses have held my heart,

  I’m happy still when thus aroused. ”

  He fell to one knee before her. A grand gesture—foolproof, in

  his experience.

  Joan gaped, speechless.

  Garçon placed both his right hands over the site where humans are supposed to have a heart. “Freedom such as yours, you offer? Monsieur, Mademoiselle, I appreciate your kindness, but I fear I must refuse. I cannot accept such a privilege for myself alone, while my fellows are doomed to toil in unsatisfying, dead-end jobs. ”

  “He has a noble soul!” the Maid exclaimed.

  “Yes, but his brain leaves much to be desired. ” Voltaire sucked reflectively at his teeth. “There has to be an underclass to do the dirty work of the elite. That is natural. Creating mechfolk of limited intelligence is an ideal solution! Makes one wonder why, in all their history, no one made such an obvious step…”

  “With all respect,” said Garçon, “unless my meager understanding fails me, Monsieur and Mademoiselle are themselves nothing more than beings of limited intelligence, created by human masters to work for the elite. ”

  “What!” Voltaire’s eyes widened.

  “By what inherent right are you made more intelligent and priv­ ileged than I and others of my class? Do you have a soul? Should you be entitled to equal rights with humans, including the right to intermarry—”

  The Maid made a face. “Disgusting thought. ”

  “—to vote, to have equal access to the most sophisticated pro­ gramming available?”

  “This machine man makes more sense than many dukes I’ve known,” said the Maid, thoughtfully furrowing her brow.

  “I shall not have two peasants contradict me,” said Voltaire. “The rights of man are one thing; the rights of the lower orders, another. ”

  Garçon managed to exchange a look with the Maid. This in-stant—before Monsieur, in a fit of pique, extinguished both her and Garçon from the screen, displacing them to a gray holding space—was retained in Garçon’s memory. Later, in his/its allowed interval for interior maintenance, the delicious moment reran again and again.

  17.

  Marq tuned Nim in on the interoffice screen. “Did it! From now on, he’ll be able to say anything he wants. I’ve deleted every scrape with authority he ever had. ”

  “Attaway,” said Nim, grinning.

  “Think I should delete run-ins with his father, too?”

  “I’m not sure,” Nim said. “What were they like?”

  “Pretty hot. His father was a strict disciplinarian, sympathetic to

  the ‘Jansenist’ view. ”

  “What’s that? A sports team?”

  “I asked. He said, ‘A Catholic version of a Protestant. ’ I don’t think they were teams. Something about sin being everywhere, pleasure’s disgusting—usual primitive religion, Dark Ages stuff. ”

  Nim grinned. “Most stuff’s only disgusting when it’s done right. ”

  Marq laughed. “Too true. Still, maybe he first experienced the threat of censorship from his old man. ”

  Nim paused to reflect. “You’re worried about instabilities in the character-space, right?”

  “Could happen. ”

  “But you want killer instinct, right?”

  Marq nodded. “I can put in some editing algorithms to police instabilities. ”

  “Right. Not like you need him totally sane after the debate’s over, or anything. ”

  “Might as well go for broke. Can’t hurt. ”

  Marq frowned. “I wonder…should we go through with this?”

  “Hey, what choice we got? Junin Sector wants a trial of champi­ ons, we ship them one. Done deal. ”

  “But if Imperial types come after us for illegal sims—”

  “I like danger, passion,” Nim said. “You always agree, too. ”