I had to find out, if I could — and if I couldn’t, 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 Zimmerman’s return.

Eleven

The Politics of Temptation

Imight have delved deeper into the inexhaustible well that was the sum of Excelsior’s 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 didn’t take the calls immediately, partly because I wanted to think over what I’d already learned and partly because the notification of their arrival reminded me how long I’d 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 Zimmerman’s awakening, on a spaceship with the unlikely name of Peppercorn Seven.

I was oddly relieved to discover that Gray’s 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 didn’t — 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 wouldn’t 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 booksin it.

Gray began by apologizing for the fact that a dialogue was still impractical because of the time delay, but assured me that the ship on which he was traveling was making all haste.

“I wanted to introduce myself to you as soon as possible, Mr. Tamlin,” he added, half-apologetically. “I don’t know whether my reputation has preceded me, or whether you have had a chance to look into my background, but I wanted to reassure you that I am neither as unworldly nor as narrowly obsessed with matters of mortality as I am sometimes thought to be. I am traveling to Excelsior as the representative of an association of academic interests, and it is on their behalf that I am inviting you to take up employment…”

At this point the sim suffered a short burst of interference, and the transmission was interrupted.

“Sorry about that,” Gray said, when his false face had coalesced again. “A close encounter with a snowball, I think. A constant hazard hereabouts — one with which this glorified sardine can is barely equipped to deal.”

I was impressed by the fact that he knew what a sardine can was, until I remembered that he was a historian. Like Davida, he was probably cutting the cloth of his conversation in the hope of suiting me.

“I am authorized to offer you an appointment as a lecturer in twenty-second-century history, Mr. Tamlin,” he went on. “You will undoubtedly receive other offers of employment, perhaps at much larger salaries, but I believe that you might find an academic appointment to be more desirable, on the grounds of congeniality and freedom of opportunity. It might well be the most comfortable way for you to make use of your uniquely specialized knowledge, and it would certainly make matters easier for those of us who believe that we have much to learn from you. I am looking forward to meeting you in person, and I hope that we shall soon have an opportunity to discuss this matter in detail. Please give it serious consideration. Thank you for listening.”

He vanished into the ether, leaving me staring at a rest-pattern.

I felt suddenly uncomfortable, totally unsure as to how I was supposed to interpret what he’d said. Had he been issuing a cryptic warning? Had he suggested that he could offer “congeniality and freedom of opportunity” because he wanted me to understand that others would want to restrict my freedom and threaten my congeniality? Or was I just being paranoid?

I got rid of the hood again, and got up from my specially commissioned chair. I stretched my limbs, although I didn’t need to. I knew that my every move was being watched, and that my reaction to what Mortimer Gray had said would be carefully measured.

I felt unusually strong, but I knew that was an illusion of the low gravity. I walked back to the picture window. It was still showing the star field, and I wondered what the watchers would read into my decision to keep it that way. I wondered, too, how I should interpret my own action. Did I think I needed to be constantly reminded of the fact that I was a long way from Earth?

I was surprised by Gray’s offer as well as puzzled. I couldn’t help wondering whether he and his fellows might be laboring under a misconception as to who and what I had been before being committed to SusAn. I couldn’t quite believe that it was an offer he’d have extended to any common or garden-variety criminal. The more I thought about it, though, the more the message seemed like a preemptive strike — and the fact that it had come in at the same time as another suddenly ceased to look like a coincidence.

Marveling at the thought that I might be able to start out on a new career path suddenly seemed to be a silly way to waste time. I asked my patient monitors to display the second message in the window, to save me the bother of putting the hood on again.

This one was from the UN executive who was presumably also a member of the Hardinist Cabal: Michael Lowenthal. Unless his sim had been subtly enhanced, he seemed to be a little taller than me, but that might have been an illusion generated by the fact that he seemed to be hovering in empty space “outside” the room. His complexion wasn’t quite as dark as mine, but his neatly sculpted features made him substantially more handsome and his smartsuit was masterpiece enough to make Gray’s, let alone mine, look like the next best thing to a prison uniform. His hair was a neutral shade of brown, but that only served to emphasize the classicism of his features.

Lowenthal introduced himself as the Secretary to the Ecological Planning Department of the World Government, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that he was any mere bureaucrat. Like Gray, he was wrapped up in a cocoon in a flying sardine can, but his sim carried his favorite virtual environment with it. No ancient books for Michael Lowenthal: his background was Amundsen’s central square, with the UN parliament building directly behind him, reduced by a trick of perspective to near insignificance.

“I’m calling ahead to prepare the ground for our first meeting, Mr. Tamlin,” Michael Lowenthal said. “I wanted you to know as soon as possible that the United Nations is not merely willing but eager to facilitate your return to Earth and to provide for your rehabilitation and reeducation. I can assure you that any crimes and misdemeanors you might have committed in the distant past are of no further relevance to anyone alive today, and that we are enthusiastic to make you welcome. We shall be happy to provide you with employment, not in any artificial make-work capacity but as a useful and valued member of society. I look forward to meeting you when the ship docks, and to making provision for your eventual return to Earth. Thank you.” His image froze to a still, but didn’t disappear.