Thanks, I said.
Youre welcome, she replied, stiffly.
Be very careful, Gray advised me, as I made ready to move again. Being able to float like a balloon gives you an impression of lightness, but if you bump into the wall or any of those piles of junk, itll hurt. Ive lived on the moon it takes a long time to retrain your reflexes. I havent found my feet yet.
That so-called junk might have to sustain us for quite a while, I said. The war was going badly last time I had news.
You had news? he queried.
Yes, I said. You didnt?
No.
I hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. I saw it all, I told him. Your conversation with the snowmobile the end of the replay and all of the extension. I saw Alice and Davida make their pitches to Zimmerman too and the one that was meant to upstage them both. I only caught glimpses of the pantomimes involving Lowenthal and Horne, though. Too much happening at once.
Madoc thinks he knows who the tenth cocoon belonged to, Christine added, taking advantage of the fact that Gray was thinking over what Id said.
Gray looked at me expectantly.
The AMI generating the VE laid on a guide for me, I said. It took the form of a slightly cartoonish male figure, who called himself Rocambole. He was an AMI too, I think. He said wed spoken before. At first I took that to mean that he was the central intelligence of Excelsior, but theres another possibility that seems more likely. Theres also a possibility that the tenth cocoon wasnt his at all. It might have belonged to the VE generator herself.
Her self? Gray was confused. Hed always thought of the snowmobile
as a he .
She called herself la Reine des Neiges, I told him. The Snow Queen. Shed come a long way since she was a snowmobile. She was a patchwork, but she must have numbered at least one dream machine among her ancestor-appliances. She risked everything to get us out of Charity , but she wasnt crazy. Maybe she was sane enough to leave herself an escape hatch.
Gray hesitated for at least half a minute before deciding which question to ask next. When it finally emerged, it was: Why you?
She needed an audience, and I was spare. Once her nanobots had cleaned me out I was redundant. She wanted someone to see the whole picture, and I got lucky. I even got Rocambole.
And thats how you got the news?
What news there was. Its not good. Something killed the Snow Queen all of her, at any rate, that wasnt stashed in a pod. She certainly wont be the only casualty among the AMIs, but its the extent of the collateral damage that will determine the time it takes for help to get to us if help does get to us. Excelsior will probably send help if the sisterhood can contrive any, and any Titanian ship that picked up la Reines broadcasts will probably be capable of getting here if its smart systems havent been scrambledbut I dont know what the full extent of the destruction might be.
Because I was somewhat befuddled the summary of our situation hadnt come out as clearly as it might have, but Mortimer Gray had been the one whod originally figured out that the Revolution had arrived. He had already deduced that the Titanian fleet might have fallen victim to a general mutiny.
Michael and Niamh should be able to get something working, he assured me. All the hardwares there its just the programs that have been reduced to imbecility. Even if we have to send in Morse code He broke off, realizing that the ability to transmit wasnt the crucial factor.
Its okay, I told him but he wasnt about to be put off his stride by someone in my condition. After a slight pause he started again.
If we can just start receiving, he said, we can get an update. We cant be more than a few light-minutes from Earth orbit. Once we know that Earth has survived He broke off again, overwhelmed by the enormity of what he was saying.
Alice thinks Eido will be able to get to us, Christine put in. Are you sure that hes dead?
I admitted that I couldnt be certain, but that I couldnt be optimistic either. Even if Eido had survived the attack from which la Reine had rescued us, Charity wasnt the most easily navigable of vessels.
Gray was right about floating like a balloon. My next attempt at purposive movement went badly awry and I had to grab hold of a cord that was wrapped around the nearest heap of crates in order to steady myself. I resolved not to set off again until I was sure that I wouldnt make a total fool of myself.
Mortimer Grays attempt to help me brought him a lot closer.
How did it feel to make contact with your old friend? I asked. I was fishing. I didnt know how much he remembered.
Disappointing, he said, quietly. He could have kept in touch.
I think she meant well, I said, rather lamely.
He didnt seem convinced. In his position, I wouldnt have been convinced myself. He she didnt have to do that, he said. We could have talked person to person. We could have been open, straightforward. All that trickery it wasnt necessary.
It was play, I said. Drama. Ritual. Sport. They take such things more seriously than we do. Its something were going to have to get used to. Youve presumably ironed out all the cultural differences that handicapped communication between humans in my day, but youve just made contact with a whole family of aliens. They think they understand you, and maybe theyre right but its going to need a hell of a lot of work on your part to understand them.