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very little genetic drift, machines can pick them on a regular schedule."
When we slowed to a stop at Brace's house, at first glance it looked like just
another bare concrete cube "Hey, you've got windows!"
"Yap. Took me three stanyears of complaining to a psyware program
that I had claustrophobia before they decided it was rational for me to want
them. But you're all in luck by a slightly elastic reading of the building
permit, I had all my guest houses windowed as well."
When we climbed out of the cat, it was actually pleasantly warm,
perhaps twenty degrees, and we just carried our parkas. The bright
amber sun, now rolling down toward the mountains west of us, made
our Occitan clothes look oddly garish and outlandish; Brace's simple
coverall, kneeboots, and shirt had more color and texture than I'd
have thought possible.
"Let's all get inside and get a little food and sleep," he said. "I imagine
you're tired, and we're coming up on Second Dark, when most people sleep, so
you can get on the local schedule. Supposedly your baggage won't be along for
a Light or two, but I've got spare rooms I use for field hands at harvest, so
I made up three of those uh, unless you'd rather use two." He sounded
so embarrassed that I thought it was kind of heartless of Aimeric to
wink at me.
"You're very kind," I said, "que merce!"
That seemed to embarrass Bruce even further, and he turned away
from me and toward Aimeric, just in time to catch Aimeric reaching into his
pocket. "Aw," he said, "now that we're away from the city and the cops your
IOU is good enough for me."
I turned away for a moment to look around me. The land I stood in looked more
like a vu to me than like anywhere real. Automatically, I reached for
Raimbaut's mind to show him this, and almost as automatically I was
shredded at the heart by the realization that he was no longer there. It
had been the same, over and over, for the past four days, since they had taken
him off of me; somehow, though, as I looked at the odd colors and the
harsh, scoured mountains, the great open fields and straight-rowed
orchards, I knew this would be the last such seizure of memory.
As I looked at my strange surroundings, I wondered what Raimbaut
might have thought of all of it, and to my surprise that made me feel
differently, as if the loop of these past few days had suddenly broken; I had
known, even before I wore his psypyx, everything he thought about everything
one might find in the Quartier des Jovents. But confronted with this ... I had
no idea what he might have felt, thought, or exclaimed.
My thoughts turned again to Garsenda, and I realized that it was much the same
for her as well as I had known her back in the Quartier, I could not now
imagine what she would make of this. The same held for Marcabru, and Yseut,
and all my other friends.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Indeed, I had no idea what Aimeric felt as he saw his homeworld for the first
time in many years, after so long believing it lost to him forever,
or what Bieris might be thinking.
And Bruce, of course, was beyond comprehension.
I had lived all my life in the certainty that what passed through my mind
would pass through the minds of any of my fellows, were he standing where I
was. And it had been true. My wearing of Raimbaut's psypyx had only confirmed
what I already knew to be true, that everyone I knew was what I was.
If somehow a springer door back to my own apartment were to open in front of
me right then, it would make no difference; I could not return at all to what
I had been to the only thing I knew how to be. My mind whirled through the
last two days, trying to find the moment when I had crossed over to this new
life
"Hey, Giraut!" Aimeric said. I turned to see him standing in the heatlock of
Brace's house. The others had vanished. "We didn't even notice you
hadn't followed us in.
You'll freeze solid out here in a couple of hours why don't you come in?"
I shook my head, once, to clear it. "I was just thinking."
Aimeric came Out of the house, closing the outer heatlock door, and approached
me as slowly and carefully as if he thought I might suddenly blow up. "I was
afraid you might be," he said. "Did it just hit you that you can't go home?"
"You could say that." He was now standing directly in front of me, and
realizing why he had come to me, I said, "Did you ever feel that way?"
"Often, my first few weeks; off and on since." He sighed. "I wish we'd had a
few more hours to talk you out of this. Well, at least it's not quite
so permanent you will be going home in a stanyear or two."
"I'll be going back"
I corrected him, automatically, as I picked up my lute case and followed him
into his old friend's house. He turned and looked at me, perhaps trying to
think of something to say, but finally said nothing.
The heatlock door closed behind us, the inner door opened, and we went inside.
It wasn't until I was almost asleep, in one of Brace's guest rooms, that I
realized I had no idea of how I felt either.
PART TWO
MISSION TO A
COLD WORLD
ONE
The sun was up, making the kitchen cheerful and bright. Bieris and I
were sitting across from each other, exchanging eyerolls, while we listened
to two people catch up on events that had happened long before we were born.
Every so often she would shrug, or I would. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]