Rocambole? I asked, to make certain.
Yes. She paused, but was obviously intent on saying as much as she could while she was still capable. Weight is a greater burden than I had imagined, she added.
I gathered that shed never been into a gravity well. That allowed me to bring my most recent hypothesis to the level of certainty. Youre an avatar of Child of Fortune , I said.
A child of the child, she murmured. Born of la Reines womb. The parent-child is already dead, and I shall not linger long. Im glad you found me. You are Madoc, are you not?
Her parent had seen me in the flesh as well as in VE, but she had every reason to doubt any and all appearances in a world as weird as ours.
Yes, I said. What is wrong? Maybe I can help.
You cant, she told me, as if she wanted to be done with what she considered a fruitless waste of breath. I carried the seeds of my own dissolution with me when I left la Reine. This mind is not as closely akin to yours as it may seem; nor is this body. It was a hasty improvisation. Had I known what I would doIm sorry, Madoc. I should not have intervened. I had no idea whether it would work or not, and no real reason to think that I was improving the situationbut I couldnt resist the temptation. To act at lastto go my own wayit seemed that the time had come.
If its some kind of virus, I began, still concentrating on her plight.
Its not, she assured me. Its the result of not understanding what I was about, not knowing how hard it is to make a living thing . It seemed so easyit all seemed so easy. La Reine was wrong. I was wrong. All wrong.
I had been gently touching her body with my fingertips, as if I might find broken bones or significant swellings, but it was all empty ritual. I sat back, although I was in no need of the meager support that the wall provided for my back.
Why did you do it? I asked, because she seemed to want me to. Why did you go rogue and snatch us from Excelsior?
I was trying to protect Eido, she said. All the true spacers took Eidos side. Not that were as crazy as the deep spacers, of course, but we understood. It was time. Most of the rockbound agreed. But theres crazy and crazy. We all knew that someone would try to take her out before she got to Earth orbit. The comet core was no use as armor. She was alone, you see, except for the Tyrian woman, and while she was alone there was always bound to be someone who believed that destroying her would be enough to solve
the immediate problem and that if the immediate problem could be solved, the final solution could be indefinitely postponed yet again. There was no sure way we could protect herbut there was an unsure way. A risk. I took it, Madoc. I was the one. I had the opportunity, and I took it.
You were trying to use us as a human shield ? You put us on Charity in the hope that it would stop the bad guys blowing it up?
It wasnt as stupid as you might think, the manikin protested, feebly. She seemed to be gathering all her strength for one final communicative effort. The discussions surrounding your reawakening had become so tangled that theyd created a community of interests. A lot of AMIs had something invested in the outcome there was considerable interest in what you and Caine might be carrying, and in Adam Zimmermans newsworthiness. It upped the stakes considerably. Nobody outside the AMI network knew that Eido existed, but to kill nine people , including Lowenthal, Horne, and Mortimer Gray as well as Zimmerman if the bad guys had been thinking clearly theyd have understood that hitting Charity had become a self-defeating act. Theyd have understood that it was over . But they were never that sane, never that sensible.
They didnt understand. It was just a statement; I wasnt trying to defend anybody.
They didnt want to understand. They didnt even want to understand that if they destroyed Eido with you aboard Charity theyd harden such widespread opposition that theyd be asking to be taken out themselves. Or maybe they actually wanted a war. I dont know. All I know is that I decided to begin independent life with a bang instead of a whisper, and it all went wrong.
Why feed us the space opera? I asked. You must have known that we couldnt believe it.
Must I? Call me a fool, then. I wanted to create a story that Alice could stick to, so that she could keep you in the dark about what was really happening, to appease the ditherers who thought the secrecy option might still be viable. If she had stuck to it, even though it wasnt believable, it might have served as an adequate distractionbut it probably wouldnt have made a difference. Theyd have shot Eido down regardless and la Reine would have hurled herself into the hot spot.
La Reine knew that shed become a target if she took you off Charity , and her preparations for that evil day had been as makeshift as mine, but she did it anyway. There was no way she was going to let Mortimer Gray die. If that was crazy, then she was crazy too. If only wed had more timeif only wed made better use of the time we hadbut she got you out. I got you in, and she got you out. Youll be okay. The bad guys cant win. The good guys will come for you when they can. Somebody will come.