Part 29 (1/2)

Now they could see the full complexity of it as the emerald strands shaded into delicate lime structures. Apparently it was traveling faster than sound, for nothing disturbed the soft symphony of the wind. Palm fronds rattled and someone shouted in the distance. Life went on beneath an olive sky.

Just before it hit, he heard a crackling from the Center. A power pole nearby burst into a yellow firework. Sizzling b.a.l.l.s arced up in a blinding fountain.

”Transformers blowing,” Kingsley said in a normal voice. ”I do hope Arno thought to switch off the power.”

Amy said, ”The lights are still on in there.”

”d.a.m.n.”

The human body cannot perceive magnetic field except at enormous strengths. Still, Benjamin felt a pulse of electricity jitter through him as all the lights went out. Immediately afterward his skin itched in quick, darting waves. Then it was all over, the familiar night sky returning, constellations embodying human legends stretched across a comforting black. Yet as he gazed up, the distant fuzzy blue-white of the Eater hung like a threat among the myriad stars-one of them, celestial, not like anything a primate born in moist chemistry could comprehend.

He breathed in the almost liquid density of tropical air and let it out with a sigh. Magnetic fields could not directly harm beings who were, after all, packages of long organic molecules in dilute solutions, capable of standing erect and studying stars.

Maybe there was some small comfort in that bare fact.

He walked down the hill toward the Center with Amy and Kingsley. Cries came up toward them. Somewhere a window shattered.

It was a while before he noticed that the gray veils were gone for him. But he knew that they would return whenever he thought of her.

5.

”Not overly surprising,” Kingsley said as he unwound into one of the ma.s.sage chairs Benjamin had in his office. For Channing For Channing came the memory. came the memory.

”What?” Benjamin was still a bit foggy. Even Arno's anger after the attack-”Why didn't you guys warn warn me?”-had not shaken him into paying much attention. Understandable, even in an ordinary time. But in this on-rolling calamity, ordinary sensibilities had to be put aside. Kingsley firmly told himself that he could not take the time to be the sympathetic friend, letting time heal wounds. There was no time-not for anyone. me?”-had not shaken him into paying much attention. Understandable, even in an ordinary time. But in this on-rolling calamity, ordinary sensibilities had to be put aside. Kingsley firmly told himself that he could not take the time to be the sympathetic friend, letting time heal wounds. There was no time-not for anyone.

”That she seems so like Channing,” Kingsley said as mildly as he could.

”Oh. She...is Channing.”

”An interesting philosophical issue, but not my point.”

”All the Channing I've got left.”

”Quite.” An emotional truth, and there was the nub of the problem. How to put this? Directly, perhaps? Always risky, but he owed Benjamin that. ”The essential of this issue is whether she can be relied upon to perform as would the Channing we knew.”

”Know,” Benjamin corrected without looking up from the floor.

”Old friend, there are soph.o.m.ore distinctions to be made here that have ramifications on policy.”

Benjamin gave a dry chuckle. ”I sense a lecture coming on.”

”A short one, I hope. Asking for an objective understanding of an interior experience is a contradiction. Objectivity is a direction along which understanding can travel, starting with the utterly subjective, but there is no true, final destination along that axis.”

”So we can't know if she's 'really' Channing?” Benjamin said caustically. ”Fine. So be it. I'll take what I can get.”

”We can expect her to be a quite good...simulation.”

”It's all of her there is.”

”Yes.” This was a d.a.m.nable situation, but he had promised Arno that he would try to deal with the problem. Far better a friend than the team of mind managers Arno had recruited. How to proceed? Retreat to the technical? Perhaps. At least he would feel better himself on some safe ground for a moment.

”The data-processing issue is no longer a major roadblock, after all,” Kingsley said, probably a bit too brightly. ”Estimates I've seen hold that the total memory of a hundred-year-old person could be about 1015 bits-a pentabit, the experts label it. That may be transmitted by optical fiber in a few minutes. Microwaves, somewhat longer.” bits-a pentabit, the experts label it. That may be transmitted by optical fiber in a few minutes. Microwaves, somewhat longer.”

”Ah.” Benjamin's lined face said quite eloquently that he did not like this way of thinking of the woman he loved. Quite right, but there it was.

”So they may have-what was that awful word they used?-'harvested' quite a lot of her, even given the difficulties with her physical deterioration.”

Benjamin said, ”I never thought it could be like this. Maybe a thing like a computer program, accessing memory files, a robot...that's what I imagined.”

”The computer johnnies are advancing relentlessly. Quite left me behind long ago.”

”Look.” He leaned forward earnestly. ”She's still the woman who was an astronaut. She's reliable.”

”I take your point. That is what Arno wishes to know and cannot properly ask. So an old friend gets to do the dirty work.”

”Yeah. Why?”

”Well, they have contingency plans...” Best to let that one trail off, fraught with implication. Not that Kingsley knew all the possible options. Arno never showed all his cards.

”They always do. Guys behind desks dreaming up stuff for other people to do.”

”We have many such now, all around the globe. Not that we get all their input. The magnetic attack took out a great deal, but we're getting most of the high-bit-rate equipment back online. 'Crippled but defiant' is, I think, the motto.”

”The reason I asked, she wants to know what to expect.”

”Ummm. Just what one would expect.”

Alarm whitened Benjamin's eyes. ”She's going in?”

”She must. The Searchers go well ahead of her, of course. But she's got to be near them, not on the other side of the planet.”

”Look, keep her standing a long way off.”

”I will, I a.s.sure you. But she may not do what we want.”

”Why not?”

”She has autonomous control of her propulsion. There are extras all over her Searcher module. Everything they could bolt on, it would seem.”

”She used to talk about the free will problem. Here it is. Is a simulation unpredictable?”

”No one knows, not at this level of technical ability. We may not have the computational power to even decide the issue in a useful pa.s.sage of time.” Kingsley grinned. ”She always had a taste for paradoxes. This one is, no doubt, delicious to her.”