The Maid listened in silence, forced to absorb millennia in minutes. When Monsieur Boker finished, she said, “I excelled in battle, if only for a brief time, but never in argument. No doubt you know of my fate.”

Monsieur Boker looked pained. “The vagueries of the ancients! We have a skimpy historical frame around your, ah, representation-no more. We know not what place you lived, but we do know minutiae of events after your-”

“Death. You can speak of it. I am accustomed to it, as any Christian maiden should be, upon arrival in Purgatory. I know who you two are, as well.”

La Sorciere asked cautiously, “You…do?”

“Angels! You manifest yourselves as ordinary folk, to calm my fears. Then you set me a task. Even if it involves the roguish, it is a divine mission.”

Monsieur Boker nodded slowly, glancing at La Sorciere. “From the tatters of data flapping about your Self, we gather that your reputation was restored at hearings held twenty-six years after your death. Those involved in your condemnation repented of their mistake. You were called, in high esteem, La Rose de la wire.”

She blinked back wistful tears. “Justice…Had I been skilled in argument, I’d have convinced my inquisitors-those English-loving preachers of the University of Paris!-that I am not a witch.”

Monsieur Boker seemed moved. “Even pre-antiquity knew when a holy power was with them.”

The Maid laughed, lighthearted. “The Lord’s on the side of His Son, and the saints and martyrs, too. But that does not mean they escape failure and death.”

“She’s right,” La Sorciere said. “Even worlds and galaxies share man’s fate.”

“We of spirituality need you,” Monsieur Boker pleaded. “We have become too much like our machines. We hold nothing sacred except the smooth functioning of our parts. We know you will address the question with intensity, yet in simplicity and truth. That is all we ask.”

The Maid felt fatigued. She needed solitude, time to reflect. “I must consult with my voices. Will there be only one, or many questions that I must address?”

“Just one.”

The inquisitors had been far more demanding. They asked many questions, dozens, sometimes the same ones, over and over again. Right answers at Poitiers proved wrong elsewhere. Deprived of food, drink, rest, intimidated by the enforced journey to the cemetery, exhausted by the tedious sermon they compelled her to hear, and wracked by terror of the fire, she could not withstand their interrogation.

“ Does the Archangel Michael have long hair?”

“Is St. Margaret stout or lean?”

“Are St. Catherine’s eyes brown or blue?”

They trapped her into assigning to voices of the spirit attributions of the flesh. Then they perversely condemned her for confounding sacred spirit with corrupt flesh.

All had been miasma. And in Purgatory, worse trials could ensue. She could not therefore be certain if this Boker would turn out to be friend or foe.

“What is it?” she wanted to know. “This single question you want me to answer.”

“There is universal consensus that man-made intelligences have a kind of brain. The question we want you to answer is whether they have a soul. “

“Only the Almighty has the power to create a soul.”

Monsieur Boker smiled. “We Preservers couldn’t agree with you more. Artificial intelligences, unlike us, their creators, have no soul. They’re just machines. Mechanical contrivances with electronically programmed brains. Only man has a soul.”

“If you already know the answer to the question, why do you need me?”

“To persuade! First the undecided of Junin Sector, then Trantor, then the Empire!”

The Maid reflected. Her inquisitors had known the answers to the questions they plied her with, too. Monsieur Boker seemed sincere, but then so were those who pronounced her a witch. Monsieur Boker had told her the answer beforehand, one with which any sensible person would agree. Still, she could not be sure of his intentions. Not even the crucifix she asked the priest to hold aloft was proof against the oily smoke, the biting flames…

“Well?” asked Monsieur Boker. “Will the Sacred Rose consent to be our champion?”

“These people I must convince. Are they, too, descendants of Charles, the Great and True King, of the House of Valois?”

When Marq strode into Splashes amp; Sniffs to meet his buddy and coworker Nim, he was surprised to find Nim already there. To judge from Nim’s dilated pupils, he’d been there most of the afternoon.

Marq said, “Hitting it hard? Something going on?”

Nim shook his head. “Same old Marq, blunt as a fist. First, try the Swirlsnort. Doesn’t do a thing for your thirst-in fact, it will dry up your entire head-but you won’t care.”

Swirlsnort turned out to be a powdery concoction that tasted like nutmeg and bit as if he had swallowed an angry insect. Marq sniffed it slowly, one nostril at a time. He wanted to be relatively clearheaded when Nim updated him on office politics and funding. After that, he’d allow himself to get skyed.

“You may not like this,” said Nim. “It concerns Sybyl.”

“Sybyl!” He laughed a bit uneasily. “How’d you know I-”

“You told me. Last time we had a snort together, remember?”

“Oh.” The stuff made him babble. Worse, it made him forget he had.

“Not exactly a state secret.” Nim grinned.

“That obvious?” He wanted to be certain Nim, who switched women as often as he changed his underwear, had no designs on Sybyl of his own. “What about her?”

“Well, there’s a lot of juice waiting for whoever wins the big one at the coliseum.”

“No problem,” Marq said. “Me.”

Nim ran his hand through his strawberry blond hair. “I can’t decide if it’s your modesty or your ability to foresee the future that I like most about you. Your modesty. Must be that.”

Marq shrugged. “She’s good, I’ll admit.”

“But you’re better.”

“I’m luckier. They gave me Reason. Sybyl’s stuck with Faith.”

Nim gave him a bemused glance and inhaled deeply. “I wouldn’t underestimate Faith if I were you. It’s hooked to passion, and no one’s managed to get rid of either, yet.”

“Don’t have to. Passions eventually burn out.”

“But the light of reason burns eternally?”

“If you regenerate brain cells, yes.”

Nim looked through his straw to see if anything was left and winked at Marq. “Then you don’t need a little advice.”

“What advice? I didn’t hear any advice.”

Nim clucked. “If your unregenerated brain cells contain a shred of common sense, you’ll stop cooperating with Sybyl to improve her simulation. Or better yet, you’ll keep pretending you’re cooperating, so you get the benefit of anything she can show you. But what you’ll really start doing is looking for ways to do both her and her simulation in. People say it’s terrific.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“ Someof it. Think she shows it all?”

“We’ve been working every day on-”

“Truncated sim, is what you see. Nights, she inflates the whole pseudo-psyche.”

Marq frowned. He knew he was a bit light-headed around her, pheromones doing their job, but he had compensated for that. Hadn’t he? “She wouldn’t…”

“She might. People upstairs got their eye on her.”

Marq felt a stab of jealousy in spite of himself, but he was careful not to show it. “Ummm. Thanks.”

Nim bowed his head with characteristic irony and said, “Even if you don’t need it, you’d be a fool to turn it down.”

“What, the juice, when I win?”

“Not the juice, buggo. You think I missed noticing that I’m talking to ambition’s slave? My advice.”

Marq took a hefty double-nostril snort. “I’ll certainly bear it in mind.”

“This thing’s going to be big. You think it’s just a job for this Sector, but I tell you, people from all over Trantor will tune into the show.”