Lethe Page 3

  He went on to explain the solution he and Katrin had devised for the enormous problem: huge strings of tall, rocky barrier islands built at a furious rate by nanomachines, a wall for wind and storm surge to break against; a species of silvery, tropical floating weed, a flowery girdle about Rhea’s thick waist, that radically increased surface albedo, reflecting more heat back into space. Many species of deep-rooted, vinelike plants to anchor slopes and prevent erosion, other species of thirsty trees, adaptations of cottonwoods and willows, to line streambeds and break the power of flash floods.

  Planetary engineering on such an enormous scale, in such a short time, had never been attempted, not even on Mars, and it had been difficult for Katrin and Davout to sell the project to the project managers on the Cheng Ho. Their superiors had initially preferred a different approach, huge equatorial solar curtains deployed in orbit to reflect heat, squadrons of orbital beam weapons to blast and disperse storms as they formed, secure underground dwellings for the inhabitants, complex lock and canal systems to control flooding… Katrin and Davout had argued for a more elegant approach to Rhea’s problems, a reliance on organic systems to modify the planet’s extreme weather instead of assaulting Rhea with macro-tech and engineering. Theirs was the approach that finally won the support of the majority of the terraforming team, and resulted in their subsequent appointment as heads of Beagle’s terraforming team.

  "Dark Katrin’s memories were very exciting to upload during that time," said Katrin the Red. "That delirious explosion of creativity! Watching a whole globe take shape beneath her feet!" Her green eyes look up into Davout’s. "We were jealous of you then. All that abundance being created, all that talent going to shaping an entire world. And we were confined to scholarship, which seemed so lifeless by comparison."

  He looked at her. Query "Are you sorry for the choice you made? You two were senior: you could have chosen our path if you’d wished. You still could, come to that."

  A smile drifts across her face. "You tempt me, truly. But Old Davout and I are happy in our work-and besides, you and Katrin needed someone to provide a proper record of your adventures." She tilted her head, and mischief glittered in her eyes. "Perhaps you should ask Blonde Katrin. Maybe she could use a change."

  Davout gave a guilty start: she was, he thought, seeing too near, too soon. "Do you think so?" he asked. "I didn’t even know if I should see her."

  "Her grudge is with the Silent One, not with you."

  "Well." He managed a smile. "Perhaps I will at least call."

  Davout called Katrin the Fair, received an offer of dinner on the following day, accepted. From his room, he followed the smell of coffee into his hosts’ office, and felt a bubble of grief lodge in his heart: two desks, back-to-back, two computer terminals, layers of papers and books and printout and dust… he could imagine himself and Katrin here, sipping coffee, working in pleasant compatibility.

  How goes it? he signed.

  His sib looked up. "I just sent a chapter to Sheol," he said. "I was making Maxwell far too wise." He fingered his little goatee. "The temptation is always to view the past solely as a vehicle that leads to our present grandeur. These people’s sole function was to produce us, who are of course perfectly wise and noble and far superior to our ancestors. So one assumes that these people had us in mind all along, that we were what they were working toward. I have to keep reminding myself that these people lived amid unimaginable tragedy, disease and ignorance and superstition, vile little wars, terrible poverty, and death…"

  He stopped, suddenly aware that he’d said something awkward-Davout felt the word vibrate in his bones, as if he were stranded inside a bell that was still singing after it had been struck-but he said, "Go on."

  "I remind myself," his sib continued, "that the fact that we live in a modern culture doesn’t make us better, it doesn’t make us superior to these people-in fact it enlarges them, because they had to overcome so much more than we in order to realize themselves, in order to accomplish as much as they did." A shy smile drifted across his face. "And so a rather smug chapter is wiped out of digital existence."

  "Lavoisier is looming," commented Red Katrin from her machine.

  "Yes, that too," Old Davout agreed. His Lavoisier and his Age had won the McEldowney Prize and been shortlisted for other awards. Davout could well imagine that bringing Maxwell up to Lavoisier’s magisterial standards would be intimidating.

  Red Katrin leaned back in her chair, combed her hair back with her fingers. "I made a few notes about the Beagle project," she said. "I have other commitments to deal with first, of course."

  She and Old Davout had avoided any conflicts of interest and interpretation by conveniently dividing history between them: she would write of the "modern" world and her near-contemporaries, while he wrote of those securely in the past. Davout thought his sib had the advantage in this arrangement, because her subjects, as time progressed, gradually entered his domain, and became liable to his reinterpretation.

  Davout cleared away some printout, sat on the edge of Red Katrin’s desk. "A thought keeps bothering me," he said. "In our civilization we record everything. But the last moments of the crew of the Beagle went unrecorded. Does that mean they do not exist? Never existed at all? That death was always their state, and they returned to it, like virtual matter dying into the vacuum from which it came?"

  Concern darkened Red Katrin’s eyes. "They will be remembered," she said. "I will see to it."

  "Katrin didn’t download the last months, did she?"

  No "The last eight months were never sent. She was very busy, and-"

  "Virtual months, then. Gone back to the phantom zone."

  "There are records. Other crew sent downloads home, and I will see if I can gain access either to the downloads, or to their friends and relations who have experienced them. There is your memory, your downloads."

  He looked at her. "Will you upload my memory, then? My sib has everything in his files, I’m sure." Glancing at Old Davout.

  She pressed her lips together. "That would be difficult for me. Me viewing you viewing her…." She shook her head. "I don’t dare. Not now. Not when we’re all still in shock."

  Disappointment gnawed at his insides with sharp rodent teeth. He did not want to be so alone in his grief; he didn’t want to nourish all the sadness by himself.

  He wanted to share it with Katrin, he knew, the person with whom he shared everything. Katrin could help him make sense of it, the way she clarified all the world for him. Katrin would comprehend the way he felt.

  I understand he signed. His frustration must have been plain to Red Katrin, because she took his hand, lifted her green eyes to his.

  "I will," she said. "But not now. I’m not ready."

  "I don’t want two wrecks in the house," called Old Davout over his shoulder.

  Interfering old bastard, Davout thought. But with his free hand he signed, again, I understand.

  Katrin the Fair kissed Davout’s cheek, then stood back, holding his hands, and narrowed her grey eyes. "I’m not sure I approve of this youthful body of yours," she said. "You haven’t looked like this in-what-over a century?"

  "Perhaps I seek to evoke happier times," Davout said.

  A little frown touched the corners of her mouth. "That is always dangerous," she judged. "But I wish you every success." She stepped back from the door, flung out an arm. "Please come in."

  She lived in a small apartment in Toulouse, with a view of the Allee Saint-Michel and the rose-red brick of the Vieux Quartier. On the whitewashed walls hung terra-cotta icons of Usil and Tiv, the Etruscan gods of the sun and moon, and a well cover with a figure of the demon Charun emerging from the underworld. The Etruscan deities were confronted, on another wall, by a bronze figure of the Gaulish Rosmerta, consort of the absent Mercurius.

  Her little balcony was bedecked with wrought iron and a gay striped awning. In front of the balcony a table shimmered under a red-and-white checked tablecloth: crystal, porcelain
, a wicker basket of bread, a bottle of wine. Cooking scents floated in from the kitchen.

  "It smells wonderful," Davout said.

  Drink? Lifting the bottle.

  Why not?

  Wine was poured. They settled onto the sofa, chatted of weather, crowds, Java. Davout’s memories of the trip that Silent Davout and his Katrin had taken to the island were more recent than hers.

  Fair Katrin took his hand. "I have uploaded Dark Katrin’s memories, so far as I have them," she said. "She loved you, you know-absolutely, deeply." Truth. She bit her lip. "It was a remarkable thing."

  Truth Davout answered. He touched cool crystal to his lips, took a careful sip of his cabernet. Pain throbbed in the hollows of his heart.

  "Yes," he said. "I know."

  "I felt I should tell you about her feelings. Particularly in view of what happened with me and the Silent One."

  He looked at her. "I confess I do not understand that business."

  She made a little frown of distaste. "We and our work and our situation grew irksome. Oppressive. You may upload his memories if you like-I daresay you will be able to observe the signs that he was determined to ignore."

  I am sorry.

  Clouds gathered in her grey eyes. "I, too, have regrets."

  "There is no chance of reconciliation?"

  Absolutely not, accompanied by a brief shake of the head. "It was over." Finished "And, in any case, Davout the Silent is not the man he was."

  Yes?

  "He took Lethe. It was the only way he had of getting over my leaving him."

  Pure amazement throbbed in Davout’s soul. Fair Katrin looked at him in surprise.

  "You didn’t know?"

  He blinked at her. "I should have. But I thought he was talking about me, about a way of getting over…" Aching sadness brimmed in his throat. "Over the way my Dark Katrin left me."

  Scorn whitened the flesh about Fair Katrin’s nostrils. "That’s the Silent One for you. He didn’t have the nerve to tell you outright."

  "I’m not sure that’s true. He may have thought he was speaking plainly enough-"

  Her fingers formed a mudra that gave vent to a brand of disdain that did not translate into words. "He knows his effects perfectly well," she said. "He was trying to suggest the idea without making it clear that this was his choice for you, that he wanted you to fall in line with his theories."

  Anger was clear in her voice. She rose, stalked angrily to the bronze of Rosmerta, adjusted its place on the wall by a millimeter or so. Turned, waved an arm.

  Apologies, flung to the air. "Let’s eat. Silent Davout is the last person I want to talk about right now."

  "I’m sorry I upset you." Davout was not sorry at all: he found this display fascinating. The gestures, the tone of voice, were utterly familiar, ringing like chimes in his heart; but the style, the way Fair Katrin avoided the issue, was different. Dark Katrin never would have fled a subject this way: she would have knit her brows and confronted the problem direct, engaged with it until she’d either reached understanding or catastrophe. Either way, she’d have laughed, and tossed her dark hair, and announced that now she understood.

  "It’s peasant cooking," Katrin the Fair said as she bustled to the kitchen, "which of course is the best kind."

  The main course was a ragout of veal in a veloute sauce, beans cooked simply in butter and garlic, tossed salad, bread. Davout waited until it was half consumed, and the bottle of wine mostly gone, before he dared to speak again of his sib.

  "You mentioned the Silent One and his theories," he said. "I’m thirty years behind on his downloads, and I haven’t read his latest work-what is he up to? What’s all this theorizing about?"

  She sighed, fingers ringing a frustrated rhythm on her glass. Looked out the window for a moment, then conceded. "Has he mentioned the modular theory of the psyche?"

  Davout tried to remember. "He said something about modular memory, I seem to recall."

  Yes "That’s a part of it. It’s a fairly radical theory that states that people should edit their personality and abilities at will, as circumstances dictate. That one morning, say, if you’re going to work, you upload appropriate memories, and work skills, along with a dose of ambition, of resolution, and some appropriate emotions like satisfaction and eagerness to solve problems, or endure drudgery, as the case may be."

  Davout looked at his plate. "Like cookery, then," he said. "Like this dish-veal, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, parsley."

  Fair Katrin made a mudra that Davout didn’t recognize. Sorry? he signed.

  "Oh. Apologies. That one means, roughly, ‘har-de-har-har.’ " Fingers formed laughter, then sarcasm, then slurred them together. "See?"

  Understood. He poured more wine into her glass.

  She leaned forward across her plate. "Recipes are fine if one wants to be consumed," she said. "Survival is another matter. The human mind is more than just ingredients to be tossed together. The atomistic view of the psyche is simplistic, dangerous, and wrong. You cannot will a psyche to be whole, no matter how many wholeness modules are uploaded. A psyche is more than the sum of its parts."

  Wine and agitation burnished her cheeks. Conviction blazed from her eyes. "It takes time to integrate new experience, new abilities. The modular theorists claim this will be done by a ‘conductor,’ an artificial intelligence that will be able to judge between alternate personalities and abilities and upload whatever’s needed. But that’s such rubbish, I-" She looked at the knife she was waving, then permitted it to return to the table.

  "How far are the Silent One and his cohorts toward realizing this ambition?" Davout said.

  Beg pardon? She looked at him. "I didn’t make that clear?" she said. "The technology is already here. It’s happening. People are fragmenting their psyches deliberately and trusting to their conductors to make sense of it all. And they’re happy with their choices, because that’s the only emotion they permit themselves to upload from their supply." She clenched her teeth, glanced angrily out the window at the Vieux Quartier’s sunset-burnished walls. "All traditional psychology is aimed at integration, at wholeness. And now it’s all to be thrown away…." She flung her hand out the window. Davout’s eyes automatically followed an invisible object on its arc from her fingers toward the street.

  "And how does this theory work in practice?" Davout asked. "Are the streets filled with psychological wrecks?"

  Bitterness twisted her lips. "Psychological imbeciles, more like. Executing their conductors’ orders, docile as well-fed children, happy as clams. They upload passions-anger, grief, loss-as artificial experiences, secondhand from someone else, usually so they can tell their conductor to avoid such emotions in the future. They are not people any more, they’re…" Her eyes turned to Davout.

  "You saw the Silent One," she said. "Would you call him a person?"

  "I was with him for only a day," Davout said. "I noticed something of a…" Stand by he signed, searching for the word.

  "Lack of affect?" she interposed. "A demeanor marked by an extreme placidity?"

  Truth he signed.

  "When it was clear I wouldn’t come back to him, he wrote me out of his memory," Fair Katrin said. "He replaced the memories with facts-he knows he was married to me, he knows we went to such-and-such a place or wrote such-and-such a paper-but there’s nothing else there. No feelings, no real memories good or bad, no understanding, nothing left from almost two centuries together." Tears glittered in her eyes. "I’d rather he felt anything at all-I’d rather he hated me than feel this apathy!"

  Davout reached across the little table and took her hand. "It is his decision," he said, "and his loss."

  "It is all our loss," she said. Reflected sunset flavored her tears with the color of roses. "The man we loved is gone. And millions are gone with him-millions of little half-alive souls, programmed for happiness and unconcern." She tipped the bottle into her glass, received only a sluicing of dregs.

  "Let’s have another," sh
e said.

  When he left, some hours later, he embraced her, kissed her, let his lips linger on hers for perhaps an extra half-second. She blinked up at him in wine-muddled surprise, and then he took his leave.

  "How did you find my sib?" Red Katrin asked.

  "Unhappy," Davout said. "Confused. Lonely, I think. Living in a little apartment like a cell, with icons and memories."

  I know she signed, and turned on him a knowing green-eyed look.

  "Are you planning on taking her away from all that? To the stars, perhaps?"

  Davout’s surprise was brief. He looked away and murmured, "I didn’t know I was so transparent.

  A smile touched her lips. Apologies she signed. "I’ve lived with Old Davout for nearly two hundred years. You and he haven’t grown so very far apart in that time. My fair sib deserves happiness, and so do you… if you can provide it, so much the better. But I wonder if you are not moving too fast, if you have thought it all out."

  Moving fast, Davout wondered. His life seemed so very slow now, a creeping dance with agony, each move a lifetime.

  He glanced out at Chesapeake Bay, saw his second perfect sunset in only a few hours-the same sunset he’d watched from Fair Katrin’s apartment, now radiating its red glories on the other side of the Atlantic. A few water-skaters sped toward home on their silver blades. He sat with Red Katrin on a porch swing, looking down the long green sward to the bayfront, the old wooden pier, and the sparkling water, that profound, deep blue that sang of home to Davout’s soul. Red Katrin wrapped herself against the breeze in a fringed, autumn-colored shawl. Davout sipped coffee from gold-rimmed porcelain, set the cup into its saucer.

  "I wondered if I was being untrue to my Katrin," he said. "But they are really the same person, aren’t they? If I were to pursue some other woman now, I would know I was committing a betrayal. But how can I betray Katrin with herself?"

  An uncertain look crossed Red Katrin’s face. "I’ve downloaded them both," she said hesitantly, "and I’m not certain that the Dark and Fair Katrins are quite the same person. Or ever were."