Manserphine’s mind wandered as she considered what she knew of the Shrine of the Sea. Too little. Tired by the conversation, she decided to return to her bed. Zoahnône warned her that she must wear a hat to cover the mark on her forehead. Manserphine listlessly agreed, and Kirifaïfra helped her ascend the stairs. When she lay in bed, he sat at her side, pouring a goblet of water, a goblet of wine, and a pill that he described as a relaxant. Manserphine felt his kind presence at her side. They were close. She reached out for the side of his face, and they kissed. It lingered on.
When they parted Manserphine smiled and said, “Well. What have we done?”
“Begun,” he replied.
“I cannot have work and love.”
He shrugged. “There’s only one way out. Have both.”
“I shall consider it.”
“I knew you would.”
He departed the room, leaving Manserphine to consider the mistake she might just have made.
Night: and the full force of a vision.
It was the first not to feature the mermaid. It was entirely different to all the others. Instead of floating before the mermaid in a sea of analogies she felt she was inside somebody’s head, all around her picturesque possibilities arrayed as flat images, fragments of motion like screen sequences, even nuggets of reality that she could touch and smell. These components moved about her like a three dimensional kaleidoscope. She felt the power of the networks, as if she was inside them.
Before her lay an infant girl. She moved towards her, then touched her. The skin was tough, almost like leather, and she realised that it was plastic. She gasped. A voice replayed Zoahnône’s words. An embodied gynoid would have to be born in a body. She knew who this infant might be. She wanted to know the girl’s given name, but as yet she did not have one. Yet almost she did. Z… Za… Zaha-something.
And she knew this being already existed.
She lost her vision. She cried out and rolled off her bed. Clouds of insects flew about her room, and there was a cloying scent of lavender and cherry blossom from the hardpetal desk. She stood to open the window, then sat on her bed.
Kirifaïfra knocked, entering at her call, immediately distressed by what he saw. “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” said Manserphine. “Pretty energetic, actually. It was a vision, a strong one.”
He closed the door and sat beside her. Manserphine felt his presence as a thing—an object, that she could handle. She reached out and kissed him with passion that had lain dormant for years, then pushed him to the bed and sat astride him. He responded, caressing her shoulders, her hair, then her thighs.
“Oh, Kiri,” she said. “I want to. I want to, now.”
“So do I.”
She kissed his forehead, then stretched herself over him, feeling an erotic charge grow within her. She kissed him again.
“But I can’t get pregnant,” she said. “It would be the end of my life at the Shrine.”
He hesitated one second, then replied, “My fertile month comes around midwinter. We’re safe.”
With no other word she pulled his clothes off, then, still astride him, pulled off her dress, then the rest of her clothes. When he sat up to help she shoved him down. Through night’s end and across daybreak they made love, until the dawn chorus faded and they slept amidst ragged bedclothes.
Manserphine woke. Kirifaïfra lay asleep. She admired his body, that for so long he had wanted her to look at. She laughed. Something within her seemed to have cracked, as if a cup containing her emotions had broken. It made her free. Yet she knew that such freedom was dangerous. Her wildness with Kirifaïfra could lose her the role of Interpreter; the investigator could become the investigated. But for the foreseeable future she was safe to enjoy the power she held with Kirifaïfra, to enjoy the effect her naked body had on him, and his on her.
Happily, she pulled on a gown and went to the door. There, on a tray upon the floor, lay breakfast; preserves and toast in an autoheater, with a thermos of green tea.
She had to laugh. It worried her that Vishilkaïr knew, but there would be no hiding it from him if sleeping with Kirifaïfra became a regular event. She glanced back at him. Already she wanted him again. But she had to go back to the Shrine, for the Garden was in session today.
That day passed slowly. In the Headflower Chamber she had to wear the simple hat given to her by Omdaton, but it did not seem to interfere with the poppies. Worried once more by the sound of the surf, she wandered the edge of the Outer Garden, where the artificial reality blurred and sensory distortion became unpleasant enough to induce dizziness. But although she expected to see the ocean, she did not, though she could hear it and its gulls, and smell the sea breeze.
Yet there was sand on her feet. It was as if she walked dunes at the edge of a shore. Her distracted mood made Curulialci pointedly ask, “Are you our Interpreter today, or just a spectator?”
Manserphine apologised and tried to pay attention. At the end of the session she departed the Shrine, making first for the northern garden. Zoahnône had left no message, so she stored two lines: ‘My visions have changed to become deeper, and I somehow feel that the first embodied gynoid is already alive!’
But now a dilemma confronted her. If she absented herself from her room, that fact would eventually be noticed, as would her comings and goings at dawn and dusk. Yet the Determinate Inn could be the only place of liaison with Kirifaïfra. She would have to ration herself.
Next day, she again wandered the Outer Garden, eventually causing Curulialci to approach her and say, “What is it, Manserphine? Do the changes upset you?”
“They do.”
Curulialci sighed. “You did elementary gardening with the Flower Mistresses. Just like a real one, this Garden is an ecology. The presence of Fnfayrq, so unexpected, has caused it to adjust to her presence—even to the possibility of her presence, since she is not always here. It is making her welcome by reorganising itself. There are many, many subsystems in the Garden, and not all make themselves apparent, just as the roots of a plant cannot be seen.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“I hope you are not going to invoke your vision things to justify your feelings.”
Manserphine did not like the tone of this. She replied, “My visions have reality.” She was tempted to say how they had changed, but she did not.
“Leave gardening to gardeners,” Curulialci advised. “You are a neutral, an observer, standing adjacent to Our Sister Crone’s hierarchy. Do you understand that principle?”
Manserphine looked at the Grandmother Cleric with annoyance in her heart. She recalled Zoahnône’s words, and suddenly saw something of the hypocrisy of Curulialci’s stance. She thought of Kirifaïfra’s sweating body. She was changing.
Curulialci seemed to notice it. “Is there something wrong, Interpreter?”
Manserphine saw the danger and rescued herself from it. “I’m a little distracted by these changes, Grandmother Cleric. Don’t forget I visited Aequalaïs recently. I have experienced the mystery of the Sea-Clerics and I don’t much care for it.”
Curulialci frowned. “Leave the Garden to me. Fnfayrq is just shy.” She glanced to Manserphine’s flowing hair, then up to the hat. “Why do you wear that bowl on your head?”
“It is all the fashion,” Manserphine replied, putting a little vexation in her voice to improve the act.
“And the braid?”
“A gift from a friend.”
Curulialci turned to walk away. “Don’t sacrifice your skills for fripperies and fancies, Interpreter.”
Gloomily Manserphine watched Curulialci walk off. She wanted to stay at the Determinate Inn tonight, but this encounter had put her off the idea. The tension between what she wanted and what she was asked to do made her hot and bothered. She cursed under her breath. Already a man was making her life difficult.
At the end of the day she checked the orange snapdragon in the garden, but Zoahnône had not left anything, nor it seemed had even read
her note. Manserphine felt fidgety. Evening was falling. She returned to the Shrine and from the Crocus Chamber arranged a transfer of funds to the Determinate Inn so that Kirifaïfra’s loss of income was accounted for.
The Garden was in session next day. Manserphine awaited the senior clerics, sitting in the Headflower Chamber while they dealt with a clay model that had shattered in an initiate’s hands. She scowled. She believed in the power of Our Sister Crone, but this trifle of an invented omen annoyed her.
What was wrong with her these days? She was becoming tetchy. Was it just the stress of her relationship with Kirifaïfra, or was it the accumulation of events this year, now taking their toll on her formal position? She was a different woman to that of last year.
Idly, she looked inside the poppies. Zoahnône had spoken of direct access through interfaces. She fiddled with her hat. What if…?
Voices. She pulled her hat back over her forehead, then stood to greet Curulialci and Yamagyny.
She lay back on her couch. The poppy descended. At the last moment, knowing that the other two were unable to see her, she moved her hat back over her head to expose the coloured marks.
An itching at the top of her head, as if something was creeping out. An insect. Manserphine shivered, then felt a light touch upon her interface mark.
What happened next came too quick for her to grasp any relevant emotion—such as fear. Her eyes defocussed into a green haze and her ears went dead as if through pressure. Immobilised, yet feeling that she was exploding into a vast area, she almost panicked, but she held her mind steady when she made out the blue of a sky and the green of ground. Slowly the blurred static became a reality.
Manserphine stood awed. She had known nothing of the Garden’s beauty. Here lay a panorama so lush, damp and flowered, with scented breeze and gentle warmth upon her skin, that she was transfixed. It was as if every flower glowed with life. A joy at existence was being radiated. Pale cirrus clouds that vaguely she had glimpsed before were here parallel combs of white. The horizon was a sharp line, no fuzzy edge, as was the line of grass marking the border between the Inner and Outer Gardens.
Far away, like attendant galaxies, she saw two spheres, one floating high in the sky, one low like a setting sun. The former was fragmented at the edges, green and misty, marked with splotches of grey and black, and inside she thought she saw glittering rocks. The other was orange with blue splashes, pulsating gently, like a jellyfish.
The three people visible—her superiors and Ashnaram of the Shrine of Flower Sculpture—seemed as before, yet even they had an extra vitality in their skin, and their clothes seemed richer. Manserphine understood now the pathetic imitation of this reality offered by the poppies, blurring intense data through their low resolution.
Curulialci walked over. “Interpreter. What are you doing now in your craze to follow fashion?”
With no idea what the Grandmother Cleric was talking about, Manserphine remained silent.
“This silver skin tone,” Curulialci continued, “is it some novelty of the young that you have programmed into the networks? We know of your skills.”
“It is novel,” Manserphine replied, glancing at her arm to see a silver sheen.
“And your eyes. They are bloodshot. Do you dance at night with your young friends?”
Manserphine saw a chance for defence. “As you know, Grandmother Cleric, I suffer chronic insomnia.”
“Yes… yes, you do. I am sorry.”
Curulialci walked toward the ten seats of the Outer Garden and Manserphine breathed a sigh of relief. Silver skin and red eyes. It could only be that the flower ecology implanted by the Cemetery beast was affecting the image she projected here. At least they still recognised her.
With Garden business concluded, Manserphine departed the Headflower Chamber, having first pulled low her hat. She had once again escaped a potentially disastrous situation. She felt nervous. There was only so much good luck that could fall her way.
An initiate waited at her door. “Sorry, Interpreter, a boy brought this message for you. He said it was urgent.”
Manserphine took the note and entered her room, where she read it. ‘Surprise! Come meet me at the old white cottage south west of the Sump. K.’ She wondered what the surprise was. Probably a luxurious meal, a fire against the chill of a clear night, and then…
Smiling, she pulled on a gown and departed the Shrine, walking south along narrow lanes until she reached less salubrious districts, with fewer flowers and houses falling into disrepair. At the Sump she turned right, skirting its edge until she was crossing fields, the lamps of Veneris far behind. There—she saw the white cottage, a single candle glowing in the window. She walked through low grass, water splashing across the leather of her boots. As she approached she noticed two black rocks near the front door. The area seemed to have been cleared of flowers, for normally there would be wild blooms here, marking wild networks.
She stood at the front door. A vague apprehension came over her. No wild flowers.
She knocked, but there was no answer.
She heard a sound and turned to see two tall women, dressed all in black, with silver circlets at their brows. They stared at her with fierce eyes.
Manserphine understood. No flowers meant no possibility of foreseeing this. So the Sea-Clerics knew of her abilities, and now they had come for her. Family history was repeating itself.
INTERLUDE 2
Shônsair waited outside the drug den for a glimpse of the chemist she had persuaded to distill softpetal into a still more pure form—liquidpetal. This, she hoped, would be a hallucinogenic liquor strong enough for her to simultaneously become drunk and experience profound knowledge. The problem was that impurities were a large part of what gave the other two variants their data streaming abilities. If she took out any essential impurities, liquidpetal would change from a pseudo-alive system to the equivalent of a dead brain.
Still the woman had not arrived. Although used to the vagaries of Blissis and its inhabitants, she nonetheless felt frustrated. Hyper alive, she felt every second as wasted moments; despite her immense age she craved constant input.
At last. The short, stumbling figure in the grey coat that trailed in the mud. The chemist.
“Have you succeeded?” Shônsair asked.
“This is too difficult for me,” the chemist replied. She handed over a glass flask in which a lumpy liquid steamed. “It keeps coagulating. The molecular structure is too pure in this sample. Chemicals are being activated by the lack of impurities, forcing the root molecules to split and reproduce, like DNA.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t want to be pure, don’t you see?”
Shônsair took the flask. “Keep going. There is a great reward waiting should you succeed.”
A sigh. “Very well.”
The chemist walked away. Shônsair held the flask up to the setting sun, to see coloured lumps, red and orange and yellow, in the greenish fluid. She was tempted to drink it.
A fraction of a second later she was held in a double arm lock. Flexing her body, she tested her assailant’s strength. Very strong. A gynoid, then.
“Unhand me,” she said.
“Not yet, Shônsair. Oh, not yet. First we have an exchange to complete.”
Shônsair did not know the voice or the character of the body, but she knew where those words came from. “So you survived!” she said.
“Yes.”
“Let me go. I will not attack.”
Zoahnône replied, “I cannot let you go.”
Street people were looking at them as they walked by. “At least we could go to some private alley, or just beyond the hill, into neutral ground.”
“To let you run away?”
“You intend to destroy me?” asked Shônsair.
“My intentions are my own.”
Shônsair felt a curious urge for face-to-face conversation. “The hand lock you have me in can be reimposed if you twist my right arm, then allow me to unflex, keeping a firm hold of my le
ft arm. We can then look into each other’s eyes.”
Zoahnône did as she suggested.
Shônsair stood, still arm-locked, to see a familiar face. This gynoid was of Blissis. “So, Zoahnône, you are reborn.”
“I am not the old Zoahnône you knew. Just an approximation built up from a foundation of public data.”
“You always were a genius.”
“Enough of me. The flower crash. What are you two doing?”
“Flower crash?” Shônsair queried. “I know nothing of such a thing. I have been busy trying to get drunk and yet understand myself at the same time.”
Zoahnône said nothing for fully a minute. “Drunk?” she said.
“Yes. I made a mistake. To live as a free intellect is immoral since the value of emotional knowledge is lost. A free intellect is a shallow intellect. Baigurgône will not learn this lesson, and we parted as enemies some years ago.”
“Where is she?”
“I have no idea.”
Zoahnône examined Shônsair, then said, “Can it be true that you have recognised the value of my long-held position?”
“It can be true, and it is true.” A shiver ran through Shônsair as she stated this. “It is true. You can let me go.”
“I would not dare release so dangerous and wily an enemy. At the start of the Ice Age you said you would struggle against me.”
“Former enemy,” Shônsair corrected. “We are now partners in discovery. You have experienced existence as an entity of the networks and as an embodied person. The latter is the prefered state. I have been testing substances that might intoxicate our augmented brains.” She indicated the flask on the ground with her eyes. “That is liquidpetal, a substance I have had made. Melted softpetal induced a dizzy fit not unlike drunkenness, and I hoped that an even purer form would make for a more intense experience.”
Suddenly Shônsair was released. Zoahnône stood before her. Tentatively, the pair embraced. Zoahnône said, “It is true! After aeons we meet as partners. We hug like humans, and we try to get drunk like humans. Are we after all no more than their creations, and not our own species?”
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