She thinks twice, therefore she is two.
They watch together as Beatrix hurls the mirrored disk. It catches the light well, its fiery path glaring with the sun for a moment before passing below the lip of darkness stretched across the Crater. Then Beatrix closes her eyes and waits for the distant crash of its impact. By the time the noise reaches her, her twin is gone, slipped away.
She listens to echoes and silence for a while.
Her mother’s call sign flickers into direct, flows without salutation into voice and headshot visual.
“Time to get home! You haven’t forgotten that the man from the Home Cluster is coming today, have you?”
Her mother has discussed and rehearsed his arrival for months; the great event could hardly have slipped her mind.
“He’s bringing an associate. She’s also from the HC. Just think how sophisticated they’ll be!”
It is an old word her mother often uses, but will not define except with a roll of the eyes and to promise that one day Beatrix will not have to ask. The sculptor makes rude noises at the word’s mention. As near as Beatrix can understand, her mother’s sophistication is related to astrogation, with moral overtones. Set an airscreen to display the great sphere of the Expansion: the dense, glowing center of that sphere is the home and radiant source of sophistication, the tattered periphery where the red locator dot of Malvir clings is its benighted opposite. According to the planetary library, however, sophisticated has a twin set of meanings. It shares etymological roots both with the professional guild of wise people like old Descartes, and with another, rather different tribe, who measured worth with the beauty of lies. Philosophers, sophists, sophisticates. No wonder the sculptor scorns the word.
But in this context, sophistication simply means that her mother will be wearing the fabulously expensive Chal’le dress that Beatrix likes to watch; beads of light tumble down the fibers of the garment like waterdrops travelling a string, never seeming to collect at the bottom or run dry at the top.
Beatrix direct interfaces the local SPCAI’s Turing meter as she picks her way back toward home. The nice people at the SPCAI tolerate her daily access of the device: they are impressed by her. She enjoys the rough massage of data exchange between the meter and herself, the explosion of questions answered by the reflexive levels of her mind, the delicate probing of her metaspace AI core. This morning, as always, there are a few ten thousandths of a Turing point to show for her efforts. The game started as an indulgence for the sculptor, but now she knows he is right: discarding his leftovers into the great abyss of the crater is the purest catalyst for her development. The ritual of choosing and throwing, listening and watching, predicting and testing is her art, her philosophy. She imagines herself as the long-dead Descartes, staring into his fireplace and building a world in his own mind.
Later today, she will climb the broken hill and talk to the Sculptor about her morning composition. And he will discuss his latest piece or the next one (although Beatrix never gets to watch him sculpt). It all moves her forward toward the day when she will be a person.
Beatrix is only a few weeks from clearing 0.8, a great accomplishment for an entity only seven years old.
The gallery and its attached house become visible above the cheap row apartments that begin a kilometer from the crater’s edge. If the Home Cluster man buys the piece (one of the two the sculptor has decided that mother can sell) they can buy a bigger house in a more sophisticated neighborhood. Beatrix has made her mother promise that the new house will be close to the crater and the sculptor. Being reminded of this makes her mother frown, but a promise is a promise.
When Beatrix reaches the flat pathway that winds among the apartment buildings, her pace quickens. Her motive system of spindly legs and counterweights keeps her from walking quickly, and on rough terrain her progress is even more plodding than that of her out-of-shape biological mother. The strange apparatus is also undependable, requiring the sculptor’s constant tinkering.
But this is another of Beatrix’s artistries: the complex mechanism of her legs requires her to watch the ground carefully, a lens and a measure of attention always fixed downward. This dance of walking constantly exercises her mind, a modest version of the crater ritual. The Sculptor says that’s another word for wisdom, being grounded.
As she nears the door to the gallery (her pacing mother revealed in a resplendent UHF silhouette; yes, Beatrix was right about the dress) she feels a tug on her consciousness again. A watching-through-her-eyes that shadows, augments, and interrogates her thoughts. Her twin has followed her here, far off the broken hill from which it rarely ventures.
Beatrix smiles to herself; her twin wants to see the people from the Home Cluster. Perhaps some sophistication will do them both good.
* * *
Chapter 20
SEDUCTION
« ^ »
The morning had come too quickly for her body, but that was soon cleared up. Mira’s medical endoframe knew she was at highest mission status, and had filled her bloodstream with chemicals of intense excitement, of a clear sense of purpose, of joy.
Her augmentations had been working while she slept, cleaning the blood and ichor of her torture session, repairing the contusions and abrasions of her lovemaking. Even the dust from her journey to visit the forgetful Oscar Vale was gone, meticulously cleaned from her flesh by nanos to whom each speck was a boulder.
Mira looked briefly at the work her demi-godly avatar had done for her: a profile of one Hirata Flex, the owner of the gallery representing Vaddum. The avatar informed Mira that Flex had also been part-owner of a certain Prometheus Body Works. Flex had been in on this from the start.
Darling didn’t want another corpse on the pile, but this Flex woman would be an easy nut to crack. The profile was an embarrassment of riches: Flex had undergone psych therapy with an avatar of the dutiful Planetary Medical AI (a would-be god). Mira fed the psych data into the painting that graced her wall, which assimilated it like a thimbleful of dye spread to colorlessness on an ocean. The painting created a précis and sent it back to her through DI: Flex had been to the best art schools, her wealth had ensured that, and had even been represented briefly by a decent gallery in the HC. But her luminous watercolors (pigments from Paris, heavy water from gTerr), which were meant to be simultaneously both quaint and daringly retro, had never sold. Not one.
When that dream slipped away, Flex had squandered her inheritance on the next stage of her career: rustic gallery owner here on Malvir. When Vaddum, the father of Malvirian art, had at least nominally died seven years ago, that mean ambition had also turned to dust.
After the Blast, she’d adopted an artificial daughter, who sported some sort of artsy novelty body. Another sad attempt at finding herself, Mira supposed. But now Flex had something concrete to show for her years in the wilderness, a real Vaddum to sell.
Hirata Flex must be desperate for this meeting that would change her life, would open her to the long-awaited rewards of money, prestige, even a measure of collateral fame. Darling and Mira were her saviors, here at last.
Mira felt up to the job of savior. She felt transcendent and devious.
It was because of her decision to save Vaddum from the gods. If possible, to seize the old man’s blackbox before sweeping all evidence of this outrage away. The decision had come stealthily to her over the last twelve hours. Even now, Mira thought about it only tangentially, lest any suspicious movements or brainwaves alert the gods’ servants here in the hotel. She would have to be very careful within Their sight. But Flex’s gallery was far outside the densely machined city; Mira’s masters would be almost blind there.
And she would not tell Darling until the deed was done. A surprise. Another extraordinary gift. The wickedness of her plan gave an edge to the morning, a dazzling brightness to the suite’s lofty view. The sky seemed sharp and close to her, as if she could reach out and cut a piece from it, a hole to look through …
She imagined what
Darling must have felt, two centuries before when he had won his freedom. It made her love this man the more, that she could betray her gods for him.
When Darling arrived, anxious to go, the device/weapon/artwork was uncurling itself from the wall, wrapping itself around Mira into a simple sheath (if anything that incorporated 256 exabytes of data [theoretical limit] could be called simple). Mira felt the substance of the dress complete its magic, extending a microthin layer of itself across her face and hands, weaving strands into her hair, even setting sail in minute and careful quantities into the thin medium of liquid that coated her eyes. She would be radiant today.
She DI’d her rented limousine to be at the door and admired herself in the suite’s wall, which at a word had obligingly become a mirror.
She was dressed to kill.
Where was that child?
Hirata Flex reached for her ear again; a tug would bring her direct interface online. But she dropped her hand back to her side.
It was pointless nagging Beatrix. The little creature moved at her own speed regardless of anything Hirata said or did.
And it was, after all, a half hour before the art dealer from the Home Cluster and his associate were to arrive. Hirata just wanted everything to go well. It would do Beatrix good, to meet some real people after seven years on this backwoods Outworld.
She was probably up to her morning nonsense at the crater, indulging the sculptor in his quaint mysticism. Well, that was fine. A happy sculptor would make more sculptures. And a happy sculptor might even allow her to sell more than the pitiful two pieces he had finally agreed to let go. Seven years of asking, of begging, of explaining what it would mean for Beatrix to be able to move into Malvir City and get some proper stimulation. And only these two little sculptures to show for it. They looked like rusty, miniature palm trees wrapped in some sort of time-worn barbed wire. Not magnificent like the towering Vaddums she’d fallen in love with back in art school: great arching cathedrals of metal and ferroplastic that swept like a soaring bird from a distance and shattered into countless fluttering details as you walked toward them. Now, those Hirata understood. They were why she’d come to this shithole planet ten years ago, hoping that the Sculptor would consent to a gallery contract if there actually were a gallery on his adopted planet.
Of course, things had become considerably more complicated since then. Terribly messy. But finally Hirata had achieved her decade-long dream. Having squandered her inheritance trying to bring culture to this Outworld dump, having tolerated and encouraged the strange friendship between her daughter and the sculptor, after seven years of keeping his bizarre secret: two pieces of the dozens he had made since the Blast Event were her reward. And she didn’t even like them.
But they were Vaddums.
It was even harder keeping the old man’s secret now that she was representing him. Of course, she’d written her missives to the HC galleries very carefully, never using the word posthumous, merely “undiscovered.” That was true, wasn’t it? The man’s very existence was undiscovered. Surely his sculptures fit the same category.
And of course, it didn’t really hurt that Vaddum’s continued non-existence increased the value of sculptures by a factor of five or so. Didn’t hurt at all.
However, there was that delicate matter of two “undiscovered” Vaddums appearing at once. Such a find would have been too much for the art world to swallow. So it was necessary to deal with two buyers, to swear each to secrecy. (That hadn’t been hard. The gallery avatars had practically insisted on it. Well, Hirata thought, the smell of profits had made them complicit in their own deception.) Strange that one of them, that man Zimivic, whose avatar was so frantically animated and strangely yellow, had disappeared. He had arrived days ago, but his local DI address was offline. Not cancelled, forwarded, or officially terminated; just gone. Very strange, and very bad manners.
But at least Darling was coming—his was a legendary name in school, two centuries of exotic and unexpected finds—and representing no less than Reginald Fowdy! And he had even brought an associate these hundreds of light-years; probably some clever young protégé, or perhaps even a buyer, descended from some fantastically wealthy clan, so great a Vaddum fan that she was here to strike a deal in person before the work was exhibited.
Hirata rolled her asking price around in her mouth, practicing the saying of it, so that she wouldn’t stumble when the moment came. The magnitude of the unspoken number made her salivate.
And it would be good for Beatrix to see a woman from the HC.
Her upbringing had been so deprived; she needed a touch of sophistication to go along with the inarticulate Zen machinism the sculptor was always mumbling. But where was the child?
Through the windows and transparent floor of the limousine, Malvir showed a two decade advance in its inevitable redesertification. Darling sighed. The sands had lost their scrubby grasses. No longer held fast by these deep-rooted succulents, the dunes were shaped by the arciform geometries of the wind. Even the high walls of the housing estates passing below Darling’s limo had sinuous curves that revealed the math of erosion, the bowed shapes of great dams or barrier isles.
Like many Outworlds, Malvir had traded environmental integrity for quick development, using beam mining to extract the heavy elements necessary for consumer wealth. But Malvir hadn’t started with a big enough stake to play that particular game. The mining had ejected giant quantities of nutrient-laden matter into the atmosphere, which the planet’s wispy hydrosphere would be centuries reclaiming. And then the Blast Event had thrown up another insult to the skies. The obscene scar of it had been visible from the moment they’d reached cruising altitude.
It was certainly a desert planet now. The only plants that Darling could see below were those imprisoned in the verdant confines of radial irrigation.
But everything could be turned to profit. The city had welcomed the birds who’d fled the dead countryside, incorporated aviana into its architecture, its mythology, its tourist slogans. Perhaps the dunes would become an attraction on their own.
While Darling pondered this sad process with his primary processor, his secondaries jousted with Mira’s dress. She had removed a layer of the fractal painting/weapon/intelligence that hung on the wall of her suite. Darling had suspected she’d used the device to paralyze the Warden, an impressive feat, but the extent of its monstrous sophistication had escaped him. Now Mira was wrapped in its dazzling embrace. Having made a dress of sorts from the scintillating object, she thoroughly baffled his eyes and other EM senses. His sensory strands were able to return some useful data, but the dress responded aggressively to their touch, attempting to confuse and compromise their inherent intelligence. Apparently, the mysterious substance was jealous of its secrets.
Underneath these petty distractions, however, he was anxious. As the limo began to descend, he felt a gnawing engine in his core, a build-up of tearing energies and metaspace distortions: excitement pure and simple.
Within a few minutes, he would see a new Vaddum.
Or perhaps an extraordinary forgery: a robbery not only of style, method, and artistry, but of soul.
From the air, the Flex Gallery looked like any of the hundreds of Outworld arts centers Darling had plumbed on his travels. It followed the general plan: large and simple, made of unpigmented native materials and glassene. The low cost of living in struggling economies drew many artists to the Expansion’s margins, and severe locales like Malvir’s were conducive to the work of artists from mystical, naturalist, and transcendentalist schools. The presence of a major sculptor like Vaddum supplied the battery for the magnet. Darling wondered how many unknown, worthy visions had perished in the Blast Event.
Or had they too been spared? Recorded? Stolen.
Beatrix finally arrived, lumbering toward the house in her slow, deliberate gait, somehow both clumsy and elegant at the same time. Hirata smiled at her reeling form and decided not to scold. Better not to upset her, better to let the chil
d appreciate the HC visitors.
Moments later, Darling’s limo announced its approach.
They stood there together, Hirata’s hand resting on the sun-warmed metal of Beatrix’s torque extension, and watched the air-car (it was huge) descend into the dusty yard before the gallery. Hirata noted with pleasure the gaping stares of her neighbors; perhaps now they would understand what culture meant, realize that this gallery was not merely the vain hobby of a mad off-worlder. She just wished the stunned locals could be a bit more discreet about their amazement; she didn’t want the two visitors from the HC to see quite what a peripheral, marginal, Outy neighborhood she’d wound up in.
Hirata shielded her eyes from the dust kicked up by the car’s impellers. Fortunately, she was wearing her Chal’le dress: the fullerene-beaded creation would clean itself even as she stood here. Beatrix made a whistling sound at the car and waved her primary arm, and Hirata stroked the torque extension fondly. It was for Beatrix, his clever girl, that the sculptor had finally relented.
When the limo’s passenger cabin unfolded, Hirata allowed herself to gasp. She was prepared for Darling’s appearance. His odd and impressive body choice was well known in art circles. But the woman who emerged next to him was so … elegant. She was dwarfed by her huge companion. She had that precise beauty of the very small, her flawless features like those of a girl in a Ferix brush painting: a few careless, perfect strokes executed in some exact ratio of loveliness. Her body shape was like a fashion illustrator’s glyph for Woman: a sensuous curve of pure Line from breasts to hips, uninterrupted by the exigencies of detail or gravity.
And her dress. Its shape was merely a simple sheath for her body, but something in the way it caught the early sunlight, or how its pattern matched the swirling motes of dust settling around the aircar, or the contrast between its colors and those of the desert hills behind her, was simply … perfect. Hirata tried to take the garment’s measure with her eyes, to find a phrase or comparison that would grasp its beauty, but each time she blinked the garment seemed changed, shifted like a sunset’s colors when one looks away even for a moment.
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