It could , of course, have been faked. In VE, everyone can be a werewolf; programming can easily support such illusions. I was certain, though, that the contest had to be fair, because it had to be seen to be fair by real experts. It wasnt so much the relative modesty of the metamorphoses on display that persuaded me of the reality of Alices claims as the conviction that la Reine des Neiges had to play straight for the sake of her audience.
At the end of the day, I figured, la Reine had to be doing all of this for her own benefit. Her desire to avoid conflict had to be perfectly sincere, but she had to have more to gain from all this than the thanks of those AMIs who wanted peace. She had a pitch of her own to make, not merely to Adam Zimmerman and all the multitudinous posthumans who still had existential options open to them, but to her own kind. She had to let Davida and Alice make the best pitches they could, because she had to beat them fair and square if she were to beat them at all.
I couldnt believe that Adam Zimmerman even with the aid of such forewarning as she had given us on Charity had been able to make anything at all of Alices explanation of Tyrian biochemistry or the molecular mechanics of genomic engineering. But that didnt matter: the logic of her opposition to Davidas claims was clear enough, and so was the kind of offer she was making.
Come to Tyre, she was saying to Adam Zimmerman, and we will make you a Child of Proteus. Come to Tyre, and it will be the first step on an existential journey that will ultimately take you anywhere you want to go anywhere, at least, that is not already infested with
the Afterlife.
It was obviously a serious offer, but I didnt think it could possibly be a winning entry in the competition, any more than Davidas could. Alice was in the contest because la Reine wanted her there, and perhaps because la Reine needed her there. Alice wasnt there merely to counterbalance the Excelsior option; she was there to offer Adam Zimmerman the universe, and a way to adapt himself to the demands of the cosmic perspective but la Reine had to be confident that she had a way to top that option and win, if not in Adam Zimmermans eyes or mine, then at least in the eyes of her own multimetamorphic folk.
Alice had one afterthought still to add, though. I thought it might have been a late addition rather than a conclusion planned from the beginning: a belated improvisation shaped to counter an unexpected facet of her first opponents argument. Either way, it included a crucial concession that was probably fatal to her chances.
As for sex, Alice said, all the options are within the scope of the metamorphic process. Male, female, hermaphroditeor none at all. I make no claims about new emotional spectra, because it isnt something weve investigated as yet, but Im prepared to bet that whatever can be done on Excelsior can be done on Tyre, while the reverse presumably isnt true.
The one thing I cant guarantee, however, is that these abilities are cost-free in terms of potential longevity. They probably arent. In fact, the stresses and strains associated with continual metamorphosis may well ensure that people of my kind wont even live as long as the beneficiaries of standard Zaman transformations. But life isnt something to be measured in purely quantitative terms; the qualitative aspect is far more important. My kind of emortality will put the worlds of other stars at your disposal, so that you may explore them far more intimately than any of the posthuman inhabitants of the home system.
Excelsior might be able to offer you the longest potential lifespan, but Tyre can offer you the only kind of life worthy of the attention of an ambitious posthuman. Tyre cant offer you eternity but it can offer you freedom instead of imprisonment, indefinite opportunity instead of infinite immaturity.
I was impressed, and I could see that Adam Zimmerman was thoughtful as well as skeptical, but I knew it wasnt good enough.
Do you think hell go for it? Rocambole whispered.
No, I replied, confidently. At least, not yet. He might be glad to have it as an option, but hes not ready to take on a billion galaxies just yet. Im not sure that hes even ready to be a werewolf. As I said before, what he wants first of all is to be a man who doesnt need to die. Thats his first goal, his leading obsession and thats not what theyre offering him.
What about you? Rocambole asked.
Not quite the same, but near enough, I said. Maybe I could be a werewolf or a bold explorer of alien environments, eventually if not right away. Id certainly like to see the universe some day, and I think Alice is right about needing to go native if were really to gets to grips with the broad spectrum of unearthly worlds. But for the presentno. If there really is an escalator now that will allow mere mortals to convert to any and every kind of emortality, I think I need to mature a little more before I contemplate life as a dragon-fly or a liquid organism. What would you prefer to look like, if you werent pretending to be human in another machines virtual universe?