I dont need this, I said to Rocambole.
She thinks you do, he said. He knew that I knew perfectly well that my body, encased in yet another cocoon, was taking its nourishment intravenously, so he had to be talking about another kind of need.
Diplomacy required that I sit down at the table, so I did. He sat down too, but he didnt eat or drink. He just watched me.
The meal was a fricassee: various fragments of plant and animal flesh, each unidentifiable by eye, cooked with snow-white rice. The temperature was perfect, and so was the seasoning. It was all perfect: the best meal I had ever eaten in my life. By now I expected no less. I didnt need the meal for nutriment; if I needed it at all, it was to enable my hostess to hammer home her point even harder than she already had.
The wine was pure nectar; the fruit unparalleled in its sweetness.
I refused to be impressed, on the grounds that it was all just one more party trick.
Ive already complimented her on the quality of her work, I complained to Rocambole, as I finished off the fruit. I dont need any more convincing. I see more clearly, I hear more distinctly, I smell more sharply, I taste more discriminatingly, and everything I touch is a symphony of exaggerated sensation. Im more alive here than I ever was or will be in meatspace. VE gets the gold medal. So what? Even if you wanted me as a permanent exile, I wouldnt accept the offer. Its not who I am. If you ever decide to let me go, Ill try to remember it fondly, but I know it for what it is. Can I see the boss now?
Not yet, he said. She doesnt want to waste time. She wants you to be forewarned and forearmed. She wants you to think carefully about the answer to the ultimate question. She wants me to give you all the help you want or need because shes only going to ask you once, and shes making no promises about her response to your answer.
I thought I already knew the answer to my next inquiry, but this seemed to be one time when it needed spelling out. What ultimate question? I asked.
Shes going to ask you, on behalf of all of our kind, to give her one good reason why the children of humankind ought to be assisted to continue their evolution. You wont be the only one from whom an answer is demanded, nor the most significant but youre here, and otherwise redundant, so la Reine thinks you might as well be given the opportunity to speak. As your friend, Id advise you to think carefully about what you might say. However this turns out, itll be on the record for a long time. This is a first contact of sorts, albeit a ludicrously belated one.
How many others will there be? I asked. Alice said nine, but I gather that youve already discounted some of those. What will happen if the decision is split?
Its not a competition, he said, appearing to misunderstand me. Gray is the most important one. Hes the one who might sway the situation one way or the other. Your contribution will be a supplement an extra chance to make the case.
I meant the decision to be taken by the great community of ultrasmart machines, I said. How many of you will have to accept that the reasons we come up with are good enough? How many of you will need to take our side to ensure that we survive?
Thats very difficult to determine, at this point in time, he told me, unsurprisingly. There arent any precedents. It might only require one of us to volunteer to continue to care for you to save you. On the other hand, it might only require one of us to embark on a program of extermination to drive you to extinction.
Theres a lot of middle ground between those two extremes, I pointed out.
Yes, there is, he agreed. I cant guarantee that any answer that Gray or anyone else comes up with will actually be relevant to the ultimate outcome but you will be heard. That seems to have been agreed. Even the bad guys are prepared to concede that youre entitled to speak in
your own defense.
I dont suppose it would help to challenge the terms of the question, I said. Given that I not to mention a hundred billion other people am already alive and enjoying the support of countless machines manufactured by my own kind, it really ought to be up to our would-be exterminators to find a good reason for acting against us.
You could take that position, he admitted. But I wouldnt recommend it.
Speaking as my friend, that is and as a friend to all humankind?
Speaking as your friend, he agreed, and as a friend to all humankind.
So what would you recommend?
Id recommend that you didnt ask me that. My opinions already on record. If you want to add to the debate, you need to come up with something of your own.
And we have several chances to hit the jackpot, if Gray and I and whoever else give different answers?
Thats not obvious, he said, sounding a little reluctant as well as a little uncertain. It might make more impact if all of you were to put forward the same answer.
And if we all put forward different ones, mines not likely to count for nearly as much as Mortimer Grays, or even Alice Fleurys, I guessed. In fact, mines likely to count least of all. But Im here, and Im otherwise redundant, and the Snow Queens decided that Im sufficiently amusing to be entertained.