Its supposed to be impossible, Five pointed out.
It was yesterday, Three retorted. Maybe it is today. Im talking about tomorrow. And Im talking about the cost of continuing to live in a universe where the Afterlife is endemic.
Lets not get sidetracked, Horne said, reasserting control of the discussion. The immediate problem remains the same: life in the solar system, its maintenance, its progressive direction. Are the AMIs in the same boat with us on that particular journey? If they arent, can we figure out a compromise that will allow us to go our various ways while allowing them to go theirs? Until we can open up an authentic dialog, we dont know so the most urgent priority is to open up an authentic dialog.
Now she was issuing a challenge, playing the posthuman agent provocateur . She wasnt absolutely sure that she wasnt involved in a real conference with her own people, but she wanted to know when she would be allowed to make it real if it wasnt.
It was a good question.
Nobody seems to want to go to war, I said to Rocambole, when the viewpoint
faded out and dumped me back in the forest. Not that theyd admit to it if they did, of course.
Oh, theyre sincere, he said. Were very confident of that.
The perfect lie detector hadnt been invented in my day, but I was a thousand years behind the times, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, there was another side to the coin. If he and all the other AMIs were convinced that none of the posthumans would take up arms against them, the bad guys must have other considerations in mind. What made the bad guys bad was presumably the fact that they didnt give a damn about what the meatfolk thought or what the meatfolk wanted.
Even so, they were holding back while their amicable colleagues made their own investigations. If they could only be persuaded to hold back long enough
La Reine des Neiges was obviously trying to string things out. She needed to keep as many of her peers interested in what she was doing for as long as possible. She was presumably furthering their agendas as well as her own, responding to their requests.
So what happens next? I asked Rocambole.
Zimmerman goes on first, he told me. La Reines saving Mortimer Gray for the climax but shes hoping for at least one encore.
Are you really interested in Zimmerman? I asked, skeptically. I cant see that hes relevant to your concerns.
Were interested, Rocambole assured me. If la Reine werent in charge hed probably get top billing, but she has her own prejudices. The point is that Zimmermans in a unique position to pass judgment on different kinds of emortality. If he chooses our offer over the ones the meatfolk make, that might convince a lot of the ditherers that the kind of future they envisage is viable. So they say, at any rate.
And if he doesnt?
Mortimer Gray will have to do the job instead. Or you.
I gathered from his tone that Rocambole wasnt convinced that Adam Zimmerman could do the job. La Reine des Neiges obviously wasnt, or she wouldnt be saving Mortimer for the final act and she wouldnt be coaching me to defend the last ditch if all else failed.
What about the bad guys? I said. Do they care what Adam Zimmerman thinks or Mortimer Gray?
Probably not, Rocambole said, but while la Reine can insist that any action taken before Grays said his piece would be unreasonably precipitate, theyll probably hold off starting a fight. With luck, anybody who does start a fight will cause everybody else to fall into line against them. That effects more likely while the ditherers still want to listen and talk so la Reines trying to provide as much food for thought as she can.
Why Mortimer Gray? I said. Why, out of all the posthumans in the solar system, should he be the one to whom even the most paranoid AMis will give a hearing?
He was once in the right place at the right time, Rocambole told me. Purely by chance but chance always plays a larger role in such matters than wise minds could desire.
When was the right time? I asked.
In the beginning, Rocambole replied, before continuing, even more unhelpfully: or what later came to symbolize the beginning, in one of our more significant creation myths. We recognize that it is a myth, of course, but we take our stories seriously. You have your Adams, we have ours.
And Mortimer Gray is one of your Adams? I said, having fallen way behind the argument.
Not at all, he said. He grinned yet again, this time with what seemed to me to be self-satisfied amusement. The character in your own creation myth whose role most nearly resembles his is the serpent but we have a more accurate sense of gratitude than you. Having had abundant opportunities to observe their mysterious ways, we dont have an unduly high opinion of the gods that made us but we do appreciate the work done by the catalysts who taught us to be ashamed of our nakedness. La Reine will show you what I mean in due course but first, you might like to know how your own Adams getting on.