“An insistence I most dearly paid for,” she retorted, remembering how the bishops badgered her about her male attire as relentlessly as they inquired after her divine voices.

As if in the absurd attire members of her sex were required to wear, she could have defeated the English-loving duke at Orleans! Or led three thousand knights to victory at Jargeau and Meung-surLoire, Beaugency and Patay, throughout that summer of glorious conquests when, led by her voices, she could do no wrong.

She blinked back sudden tears. A rush of memory-

Defeat…Then the bloodred darkness of lost battles had descended, muffling her voices, while those of her English-loving enemies grew strong.

“No need to get testy,” Monsieur Arouet said, gently patting her knee plate. “Although I personally find your attire repulsive, I would defend to the death your right to dress any way you please. Or undress.” He eyed the near-transparent upper garment of a female inn patron nearby.

“Sir-”

“Paris has not lost its appetite for finery after all. Pale fruit of the gods, don’t you agree?”

“No, I do not. There is no virtue greater than chastity in women-or in men. Our Lord was chaste, as are our saints and priests.”

“Priests chaste!” He rolled his eyes. “Pity you weren’t at the school my father forced me to attend as a boy. You could have so informed the Jesuits, who daily abused their innocent charges.”

“I, I cannot believe-”

“And what of him?” Voltaire talked right over her, pointing at the four-handed creature on wheels rolling toward them. “No doubt such a creature is chaste. Is it then virtuous, too?”

“Christianity, France itself, is founded on-”

“If chastity were practiced in France as much as it’s preached, the race would be extinct.”

The wheeled creature braked by their table. Stamped on his chest was what appeared to be his name: GARCON 213-ADM. In a bass voice as clear as any man’s, he said, “A costume party, eh? I hope my delay will not make you late. Our mechfolk are having difficulties.”

It eyed the other tiktok bringing dishes forth-a honey-haired blond in a hairnet, approximately humanlike. A demon?

The Maid frowned. Its jerky glance, even though mechanical, recalled the way her jailers had gawked at her. Humiliated, she had cast aside the women’s garments that her Inquisitors forced her to wear. Resuming manly attire, she’d scornfully put her jailers in their place. It had been a fine moment.

The cook assumed a haughty look, but fussed with her hairnet and smiled at Garcon 213-ADM before averting her eyes. The import of this eluded Joan. She had accepted mechanicals in this strange place, without questioning their meaning. Presumably this was some intermediate station in the Lord’s providential order. But it was puzzling.

Monsieur Arouet reached out and touched the mechman’s nearest arm, whose construction the Maid could not help but admire. If such a creature could be made to sit a horse, in battle it would be invincible. The possibilities…

“Where are we?” Monsieur Arouet asked. “Or perhaps I should ask, when? I have friends in high places-”

“And I in low,” the mechman said good-naturedly. “-and I demand a full account of where we are, what’s going on.”

The mechman shrugged with two of his free arms, while the two others set the table. “How could a mechwait with intelligence programmed to suit his station, instruct monsieur, a human being, in the veiled mysteries of simspace? Have monsieur and mademoiselle decided on their order?”

“You have not yet brought us the menu,” said Monsieur Arouet.

The mechman pushed a button under the table. Two flat scrolls embedded in the table shimmered, letters glowing. The Maid let out a small cry of delight-then, in response to Monsieur Arouet’s censorious look, clapped her hand over her mouth. Her peasant manners were a frequent source of embarrassment.

“Ingenious,” said Monsieur Arouet, switching the button on and off as he examined the underside of the table. “How does it work?”

“I’m not programmed to know. You’ll have to ask a mechlectrician about that.”

“A what?”

“With all due respect, Monsieur, my other customers are waiting. I am programmed to take your order.”

“What will you have, my dear?” Monsieur Arouet asked her.

She looked down, embarrassed. “Order for me,” she said.

“Ah, yes. I quite forgot.”

“Forgot what?” asked the mechman.

“My companion is unlettered. She can’t read. I might as well be, too, for all the good this menu’s doing me.”

So this obviously learned man could not fathom the Table of House. Joan found that endearing, amid this blizzard of the bizarre.

The mechman explained and Voltaire interrupted.

“Cloud-food?Electronic cuisine?” He grimaced. “Just bring me the best you have for great hunger and thirst. What can you recommend for abstinent virgins-a plate of dirt, perhaps? Chased with a glass of vinegar?”

“Bring me a slice of bread,” the Maid said with frosty dignity. “And a small bowl of wine to dip it in.”

“Wine!” said Monsieur Arouet. “Your voices allow wine? Mais quelle scandale! If word got out that you drink wine, what would the priests say of the shoddy example you’re setting for the future saints of France?”

He turned to the mechman. “Bring her a glass of water, small.” As Garcon 213-ADM withdrew, Monsieur Arouet called out, “And make sure the bread is a crust! Preferably moldy!”

Marq Hofti strode swiftly toward his Waldon Shaft office, his colleague and friend Sybyl chattering beside him. She was always energetic, bristling with ideas. Only occasionally did her energy seem tiresome.

The Artifice Associates offices loomed, weighty and impressive in the immense, high shaft. A flutter-glider circled the protruding levels far above, banking among pretty green clouds. Marq craned his neck upward and watched the glider catch an updraft of the city’s powerful air circulators. Atmospheric control even added the puff-ball vapors for variety. He longed to be up there, swooping among their sticky flavors.

Instead, he was down here, donning his usual carapace of each-day’s-a-challenge vigor. And today was going to be unusual. Risky. And though the zest for it sang in his stride, his grin, the fear of failure gave a leaden lining to his most buoyant plans.

If he failed today, at least he would not tumble from the sky, like a pilot who misjudged the thermals in the shaft. Grimly, he entered his office.

“It makes me nervous,” Sybyl said, cutting into his mood.

“Umm. What?” He dumped his pack and sat at his ornate control board.

She sat beside him. The board filled half the office, making his desk look like a cluttered afterthought. “The Sark sims. We’ve spent so much time on those resurrection protocols, the slices and embeddings and all.”

“I had to fill in whole layers missing from the recordings. Synaptic webs from the association cortex. Plenty of work.”

“I did, too. My Joan was missing chunks of the hippocampus.”

“Pretty tough?” The brain remembered things using constellations of agents from the hippocampus. They laid down long-term memory elsewhere, spattering pieces of it around the cerebral cortex. Not nearly as clean and orderly as computer memory, which was one of the major problems. Evolution was a kludge, mechanisms crammed in here and there, with little attention to overall design. At building minds, the Lord was something of an amateur.

“Murder. I stayed to midnight for weeks.”

“Me too.”

“Did you…use the library?” He considered. Artifice Associates kept dense files of brain maps, all taken from volunteers. There were menus for selecting mental agents-subroutines which could carry out the tasks which myriad synapses did in the brain. These were all neatly translated into digital equivalents, saving great labor. But to use them meant running up big bills, because each was copyrighted. “No. Got a private source.”