Amundsen had been built long after I was put away, but it seemed to me that it retained a faint echo of the world that I had known. For a while, I was told, it had been on the verge of becoming a mere monument, but the reconstruction that had had to be organized after the Yellowstone basalt flow had revitalized the UN for a time, making elected government briefly necessary and hence briefly powerful once again.
How, I wondered, did all this information need to be factored into my own personal situation? What difference did it make to me ?
It was too soon to tell.
I thought, for a little while, that I had seen what Ice Palaces might be when I had seen Amundsen City and its immediate neighbors, but if I hadnt had so much else to think about I would have realized that the palaces of the world capitals satellite towns could only be trial runs for something much more adventurous and grandiose. It was better that I make the mistake, though, because learning to wonder is something we have to do again and again, no matter how long we live or how long we sleep between our intervals of active thought. We always think that we can do it perfectly well, but theres always another realm beyond the one we can imagine, and another realm beyond that, and so ad infinitum.
Cocooned in my VE nest on Excelsior, while my virtual self was on Earth, wondering at the world that had replaced my own, I had only just begun to realize how many other worlds there were and I had not yet begun to discover what marvels they might contain.
I had
so much more to see, so much more to discover and wherever I started, the journey of discovery would be a very long one. For a journey like that, I would need the kind of lifetime with which this world could equip me but would my need be sufficient to guarantee that I got it? I could not help returning to that anxiety: the idea that I might have been brought to the threshold of eternity only to be turned away, because I was not Adam Zimmerman. I could not believe that I was a convicted murderer either, but I knew that appearances were against me.
I had lived in an era when the Eliminators were big news. I had never been one of them, but I could hardly help applying their slogans to my own case. Was I worthy of immortality or, more correctly, of emortality? Whether I was or not, could I persuade my new hosts that I was, if the need to do so arose?
I had, of course, asked to see any and all references to myself that Excelsiors data bank could obtain, but the pickings were so sparse that a lesser man might have despaired. To have accomplished so little, and made so slight a mark upon the world, seemed a very meager reward for my efforts except that I could not believe for a moment that the scarcity of information was accurate. If my patient monitor was not intervening as a censor, then the available records must have been wiped. When? By whom? And above all why ? What had I done to deserve my curiously ambiguous fate? And why, exactly, had my wayward fortunes taken their newest, and strangest, direction?
I had to find out, if I could and if I couldnt, I had to do my best in spite of the burden of ignorance. I had to do something , to live up to my name. I was Madoc Tamlin, after all: a ready-made hero of legend. I was not a victim to be exploited, not a pawn to be played with, not a fool to be manipulated. One way or another, and despite every disadvantage, I knew that I had to take charge of the script of my own future life. That thought dominated my consciousness while I waited, with gathering impatience, for Adam Zimmermans return.
Eleven
The Politics of Temptation
Imight have delved deeper into the inexhaustible well that was the sum of Excelsiors mechanically stored knowledge had I not been interrupted by the news that there were two personal calls waiting to be downloaded. I had not expected mail, and I certainly had not expected items of mail to arrive in such profusion as to have to form a queue even a queue of two so the news was subtly exciting.
I didnt take the calls immediately, partly because I wanted to think over what Id already learned and partly because the notification of their arrival reminded me how long Id been in VE. I was almost certainly safe to continue, given that the hood I was using was so ridiculously unobtrusive, but old habits die hard. I came back to the meatspace of my cell in order to have another bite to eat. Afterwards, I peered out of the window for a few minutes at the starry firmament. Then curiosity got the better of me. I draped the cobweb hood over my head once again, and returned to the infinity of cyberspace.
The first call I took was from Mortimer Gray or, to be strictly accurate, from a sim made in his image. Gray was the historian who was currently en route to attend Adam Zimmermans awakening, on a spaceship with the unlikely name of Peppercorn Seven .
I was oddly relieved to discover that Grays sim wore the semblance of a human of my own era. If the appearance could be trusted, he was no taller than I was, and no better looking. His coloring was fairer than my own, and his hair was silver. His eyes matched his name but his smartsuit didnt its intricate purple and blue designs were laid upon a black background. I knew that he was a great deal older than I was, in terms of experienced years, but I also knew that he wouldnt have aged a day since turning twenty-something, so I was surprised that he really did seem ancient, wise, and venerable and not just because of his hair. Perhaps it was the decor of what was presumably his personal VE, which was tricked up to look like a library: a library with books in it.