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"She is secluded, and of course, I perform my duties as instructed,"
Olmy said. "She will have to have an advocate assigned to her, however."
"If we can avoid that, we should." Toiler regarded him with obvious suspicion
and unease.
"It is law. All noncitizens in the city, without defined legal status, must
be assigned an advocate immediately."
"There's no need for you to quote city law to me," Toiler said.
'I'll find an advocate and assign--"
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"I've already assigned one," Olmy interrupted.
Toller's expression changed to deep distaste. "Who?"
"Ser Suli Ram Kikura."
"I'm not acquainted with her." By the time he had finished the statement,
Toiler had a complete file on Kikura on hand, ready to be picted and
interpreted. He scanned the file rapidly, shifting to implant logic, and
found nothing he could criticise.
"She seems acceptable. She will be sworn to keep Hexamon secrets."
"She has that clearance already."
"We're sitting on political chaos as it is," Toller said.
"What you've done is bring back a lit fuse for Axis City's bomb.
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All, of course, in the name of duty."
"You will inform the President immediately?" Olmy asked, picting a sidebar
request for permission to return to his work.
"As soon as possible," Toiler replied. "You'll prepare a full report for us,
of course."
"It is prepared," Olmy said. "I can transfer it now."
Toiler nodded, and Olmy touched his torque. High-speed transfer of the report
was accomplished in less than three seconds. Toiler touched his own torque in
acknowledgment of receipt.
Suli Ram Kikura lived in the outer layers of Central City, in one of three
million tightly packed units reserved for single young corporeals of middle
social and job standing. Her rooms were smaller than they appeared; the
reality of spaciousness was far less important to her than it seemed to be to
Olmy, who kept more primitive and larger quarters in Axis Nader. But part of
what attracted her to Olmy was his age and differing attitudes, and his habit
of, every now and then, giving her something truly interesting to work on.
"This is the biggest challenge I've ever faced," Suli Ram Kikura picted at
Olmy.
"I couldn't think of anyone more capable," he replied.
They floated facing each other in the subdued light of her quarters'
central space, surrounded by picted spheres on which were projected various
interesting and relaxing textures. They had just made love, as they almost
always made love, without enhancement and using nothing more complicated than
the quarters' traction fields.
Olmy gestured at the spheres and made a face.
"Simplicity?" Ram Kikura asked.
"Simplicity, please," he affirmed. She dimmed the lights on everything but
themselves and erased the spheres from the decor.
They had first met when he had inquired into the licensing process for
creating a child. He had been interested mostly in a personality meld between
himself and someone unspecified.
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This had been thirty years ago, when Ram Kikura was just beginning her
practice. She had advised him on the proce-den'es.
Permission was easy enough to obtain for a corporeal homorph of his standing.
But he had not carried it to the point of making a formal request. She had
gathered that Olmy was more interested in the theory than the practice.
One thing had led to another. She had pursued him--with some elegance and no
small persistence--and he had acquiesced, allowing himself to be seduced in a
hidden corner of Central City's forested, zero-g Wald.
Olmy's work often took him far afield for years at a time, and what they had
together, to most observers, would have seemed transitory, an on-and-off
thing. Indeed, she had had relationships since, none permanent, even though
it was once again the fashion to have relationships for ten years or longer.
Whenever Olmy had returned, she had somehow managed to be free of commitments.
They never pressured each other.
What existed between them was a relaxed, but by no means trivial sensation of
comfort and a high level of mutual interest.
Each genuinely enjoyed hearing about the other's work and wondering where
future tasks would take them. They were, after, all, corporeal and usefully
employed; theirs was a position of considerable privilege.
Of the ninety million citizens in the Axis City, corporeal or in City
Memory, only fifteen million had important work to do, and of those, only
three million worked more than a tenth of their living hours.
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"You seem to enjoy the task already," Olmy said.
"It's my perverse nature. This is by far the oddest thing I've found you
associated with .... It's positively momentous."
"It could be of staggering importance," he said out loud, his tone
mock-sepulchral.
"No more picting?"
"No, let's think and talk this through slowly."
"Fine," she said. "You wish me to be her advocate. How much of an advocate
do you think she'll need?"
"You can imagine," Olmy said. "She's a complete innocent.
She'll need complete social and psychological adjusting.
She'll need protection. When her status is revealed---which is inevitable, I
think, whatever the President and Presiding Minister wish--there will be a
sensation."
"You're putting it mildly," she said. She ordered wine brought to them, and
three static-controlled liquid spheres drifted into their light. She handed
Olmy a straw and they sipped. "You've seen Earth yourself?."
He nodded. "I went down the bore hole with the Frant on my second day in the
Thistledown. I didn't think remotes would convince me quite as much as seeing
with my own eyes."
"Old-fashioned Olmy," Ram Kikura said, smiling. "I'm afraid I would have done
the same thing. And did you see the Death?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]