"Well, I think that went quite excellently," Rafasan was saying as they walked side by side down the hallway, kept largely empty of pedestrians for security purposes, Sandy guessed. Agent Odano walked two steps behind, and a pair of Parliament security behind him, in addition to the two who walked before them, leading the way. "All things considered, that is. You are a very good public speaker, I did tell the President that I thought it would be a good idea to get you to talk to the Party, I did believe you would make an impression, and now I honestly think you have."
"I'm glad you think so." Not prepared right now to argue the point that only recently, most had not thought it a good idea at all. But things had changed, evidently. Many things were changing very, very fast ... for all she knew, the next suggestion would have her running for public office. She sincerely hoped not.
It had been enough just to sit before that double row of elected representatives and recount to them in broad terms, and occasionally specific ones, the general course of her life. The reasons she'd left the League. The things she still liked about League-side, and the things she'd grown to dislike. Her combat operations. Her combat history, from ever-changing locations across the broad, ever-shifting "front" of the League-Federation conflict. The battles she'd engaged in that they might have heard of. The majority of small engagements that they never would have. Her escape to the Federation, her impressions of the Federation, her first job, her first pay cheque, her first decadently "civilian" experience (dancing to African rhythms in a street party, she'd remembered ... only she'd left out the bit about flirting with a very handsome young dancer for the better part of an hour's exertion, and ending up in his hotel bed for the night for some equally energetic exertions). Her perspective on Callayan, and especially Tanushan, politics. Her feelings about the CSA, the SIB, the recent events, and the direction of Article 42.
She felt tired, and more than a little drained. As if she'd poured out something of herself in that hearing room, leaving the space it'd come from somehow empty.
"Where to now?" she asked Rafasan.
"Upstairs," said Rafasan brightly, her stride light, heels clacking upon the smooth floor. "We promised some of the congressors that we'd let them meet you in person. Of course the Progress Party reps wanted to meet you, but a lot of our Left do too ... especially now, after that performance."
"How many people?" With that familiar sinking feeling she got when being manoeuvred around by political people for political reasons into things she hadn't agreed to in advance because she hadn't been told about them. It was becoming a depressingly accustomed feeling.
"Oh, don't worry," Rafasan said dismissively, waving a be-ringed and bangled hand, "it's not so many, everyone's busy, so they'll just come in when they're available-you just need to shake their hand, say hello and be generally agreeable. I'm quite sure you can manage that for another hour or two."
She wanted to complain that she was beginning to feel like a zoo exhibit ... but she didn't see any point in complaining to Rafasan, there was nothing she could do about it. In fact, there was nothing anyone could. Neiland needed her here, and she owed Neiland ... well, everything. She only hoped the persuasion her presence worked upon the wavering middle-ground of Parliament actually came to something positive. For everyone.
The upper corridor was broad and more well travelled, with large, stylish wooden doors to either side, and many people going by who looked curiously as they passed.
"The chambers are just up here a ways," Rafasan said, and they walked to an exquisitely decorated intersection with carved wooden panels to match the seamless patterned tiles on the floor ... turned left, and found the big double doorway upon the right wall almost entirely blocked by a chaotic gathering of people engaged in animated argument with officials in suits. Several more whiteshirted Parliament security hovered warily on the perimeter. "What in the name of ... ?"
The agitators, Sandy observed as she held determinedly to her stride despite Rafasan's surprised pause, did not appear your typical Tanushan political power group. They wore robes of wildly varying colours, though saffron and cotton-white predominated. Some had long, wild hair and, among the men, tangled beards. Most, it appeared, were barefoot, or clad in no more than simple leather sandals. She counted twelve in all, at least half of whom were currently engaged in a heated, hand-waving argument with suited or uniformed officialdom, which appeared to be trying to remove them from their place before the big double doors.
Then several saw the new arrivals, and there was more commotion, and much loud, rapid talking in a language that sounded distinctly Indian but was not immediately recognisable as one of the five or six she could usually identify by sound alone. A young, sari-clad, barefoot woman was tugging hastily upon the shoulder of an old man, who was shuffling away from the confronting officialdom to observe, through the gathered crowd, what new arrivals came upon him down the hallway.
"Oh no," said Rafasan, hurrying to keep up and sounding much aggrieved, "it's Swami Ananda Ghosh ... how on Earth he got over here from the Senate building I've no idea ... Sandy, I don't know if you should go over there, I'll get someone to remove them ..."
"Nonsense," Sandy said calmly, observing the group with interest as they stopped. The two lead security guards walked to their compatriots guarding the doors, and asked them, no doubt in polite, low voices, what the hell was going on. "What language are they speaking?"
"Them?" Fidgeting with familiar nervousness at her side. "Oh, that's Sanskrit, it's the Swami's organisation, Sandy, I forget the San skrit name, but it means "guiding light," he has everyone in the group talking in Sanskrit so they can better understand the ancient texts."
"Sounds nice. I've only seen it written before, not heard it spoken." As the discussions continued, she eyed the distance between herself, her group, and the group of traditionally, but shaggily, attired people blocking her way. All arguments had ceased, and all those before her were still, waiting patiently for the security discussions to end. Not all of them were Indian, Sandy noted. Only half, in fact. Two were European, one African, and the other three looked East Asian ... though it was not a huge leap, she'd gathered, from Buddhism to Hinduism, the Buddha himself having been a Hindu once. "Sounds a bit Arabic, only smoother."
"It's actually, um, closer to Farsi, Urdu and Pashtun, it's one of that family from Egyptian and Arabic carrying on across to northern India-that was all a civilisation once, or a series of civilisations. The birthplace of civilisation itself, actually. Most of the old Hindu texts and stories are written in Sanskrit, you could say it's the equivalent of what Latin is for the Europeans."
Sandy spared Rafasan an intrigued glance. "You speak any?"
"Oh yes, I was rather fluent back in my student days ... it's been far too long now, of course, I can't remember half of it." Sounding almost wistful. "I'll get back to it one day. There are poems in Sanskrit that are like ... like nothing else I'll ever ..."
She broke off as the Swami began to walk forward. He was an old man, and it seemed he had disdained the youthful effects of bio-treat- ments, for his gait was slow and he walked with a large, stout cane in one gnarled hand. The young sari-clad woman walked at his other hand, holding his arm. The Swami's face was mostly hidden behind a long, flowing white beard, and an equally long torrent of wispy white hair. Security stood to the side and said nothing, and the Swami stopped before her, clad only in an old white dhoti that wrapped up between his old, bare legs and over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. He looked at her, equal to her in height, and his eyes were dark and beady amid a maze of wrinkles in weathered brown skin. Sandy realised he was smiling, although she could barely see his mouth through the beard. But the eyes wrinkled up in joyful good humour.
"Hello, Mr. Ghosh," she said pleasantly. "I'm very pleased to meet you finally." The Swami laughed, a breathless, triumphant little laugh, and half shuffled about to look back at his gathering and point to her in knowing humour. As if amazed that she spoke. Sandy raised a quizzic
al eyebrow. Rafasan sighed and fidgeted. As if slightly embarrassed, Sandy thought. Embarrassed, it occurred to her, like Vanessa had once been embarrassed at the prospect of her meeting a particularly eccentric aunt of hers. And she realised in a flash that Rafasan was actually quite fond of the old man, as were most of his detractors, even some of those commentators who referred to him as one of the Senate's "lunatic fringe." But people had voted for this man-in the Senate, at least. And however cynical those commentators were about the Tanushan population's appetite for lunatics, Sandy determined that the recipient of those votes had at least earned the right for her audience, at least for the moment. The Swami shuffled back around to face her, the young woman at his elbow aiding him with practised skill.
"I saw you talking." The accent was very pronounced, and very melodic. The beady dark eyes gleamed at her through the profusion of facial hair-lively with humour and energy-and he waggled his head for emphasis as he spoke. "You talk very well, for an inorganic construction." Again the short bark of laughter.
Rafasan covered her mouth with a hand. Sandy just gazed at him for a long moment, eyebrow still raised. Took a deep breath.
"Thank you very much. I think."
Another bark of laughter. "Don't be offended. I am merely poking fun. I did not live this long by taking life so seriously, you know." Smiling broadly beneath the beard. And Sandy found that, somehow, it was impossible to be offended.
"Can I ask how old you are?" she asked. "And why you haven't allowed any life-extension treatments?"
"Oh, but I have, but I have. I am one hundred and sixty-two standard Earth years, Ms. GI, and I have had many life-extension treatments. Many many. And you know what? They work! Haha!"
Rafasan's hand went back to her mouth, very fast. Sandy smiled, the raised eyebrow now turned somewhat incredulous. One hundred and sixty-two? She knew it happened, but the odds were very low, most people didn't get past a hundred and thirty. For a man to take life extensions and live long enough to look like a very old man ... he must be very old indeed.
"I'm fifteen," Sandy replied. "You have me at a disadvantage."
"Indeed, indeed." Nodding agreeably. "But how can you measure what you cannot define, yes? And what is a number to you? A GI, with your tape-teach and preconstructed knowledge? Life should be measured in experiences, not in flawed human time. Time is another thing we should not measure, for it, too, we cannot define, yes?" Nodding again, eyes seeking her comprehension. "Only God knows. And he's not telling."
"And you have come all the way over here to see me?"
"Oh, it is not so far. Not when I have such a helpful and devoted personal staff to attend to me. And to meet you, I thought it well worth the effort for even this old man and his creaking bones."
"Why?"
"Why?" In great surprise. And he laughed again, and the laugh turned into a loud coughing. "Why?" As he recovered, and met her eyes again. "You have come waltzing into this city and caused such trouble, young lady. Such mayhem accompanies you, life here has been turned upside down and the ground has fallen away beneath so many people's feet, and you ask me why?"
"I'm sorry if I caused trouble." Calmly. "The cause of the trouble was already here, however. I did perhaps trigger the trap, but the trap was set well before I arrived. But I'm sorry all the same for the upset, it was never my intention."
"Upset? Oh no no, I am not upset. It has been my great pleasure to see this calamity befall this city, young lady." Sandy blinked in astonishment. The Swami beamed happily. "This city has been in the greatest need of a great calamity for a very long time now, people have grown lazy in their minds and lazy in their hearts. They worship but they do not comprehend why, they talk but they have nothing to say, they listen but they know not what they are hearing. All this ... this progress ..." He rapped his stick hard upon the smooth floor. "... hah, so shameful that it should be called "progress" at all. No, we were not progressing, we were walking backward, moving further and further away. Not progress. RE-gress. And do you know what from?"
Sandy found herself held strangely still, a slow, prickling sensation creeping up her spine. The usually noisy hallway was held as if paralysed by some foreign aura. The Swami's cheerful dark eyes bore into her, and in that abrupt, single instant she truly thought she did know what he was talking about.
"Truth," she said quietly. The Swami laughed again, his head bobbing with great, evident pleasure. Reached his free arm from the young woman's supporting grasp to pat Sandy briefly on the arm, then returned it to the supporting grip once more.
"Truth, truth, truth," he said, still bobbing, as if in momentary prayer. "A most precious thing, truth. Never to be found, only to be sought, and then found in the seeking but never to be held in one's hand. Do you understand this meaning?"
She gazed at him for a long moment. "No. I'm not sure I do."
"And do you not understand, then, why it is that I came to see you?" She shook her head. "Ms. GI, you have brought us much truth to this city. Some of it has been most painful, but that is often the nature of truth, particularly that truth which is most unlocked for. And I also do believe, young lady, that I have found much truth in you." Gazing with a great, joyful intrigue into her eyes. She didn't know who was more fascinated. His hand trembled upon his stick, and she doubted it was a result of age. He seemed positively brimming with emotional enthusiasm.
"Please," she said softly, in that deep, paralysed hush that surrounded, "tell me what you mean."
"For such a long time," he said happily, "many humans have been so very conceited. We believed that we alone had souls ... even," waggling a gnarled forefinger, "even we Hindus, who believe in the souls of animals and all living things all joined together in the greater expanse of the universe before God ... even we Hindus did not always see, though many suspected. Our scientists tell us that all matter is by itself inanimate, do they not? And that all of the molecules that make up a human being, or an animal, were formed only in the hearts of stars, for that is where carbon was first born, is it not so? And so many have theorised that the soul is for some cosmic reason connected to the carbon molecule, and to the natural processes of organic lifeforms, be they carbon or be they otherwise.
"But now we must look at you. You, Ms. GI, who are not at all organic, who is made of artificial parts from the highest technology laboratories, whose entire being is inanimate, inorganic and not at all even alive by the terminologies used by a great many scientists and spiritual leaders before the coming of GIs, and GI technology, from the League."
He shuffled forward another step, reaching for her with that one free, frail hand ... Sandy looked quick askance at the young woman, who gestured, and Sandy took his hand in hers. Felt the worn old fingers clasp upon her own with surprising strength. He smelt, she thought, of the old wood carving oils she'd smelt in craft shops, a strangely musky smell. This close, she could see his age, and count the wrinkles around his dark, smiling eyes.
"I came here to look into your eyes." A thousand wrinkles crin kling with an emotional, beaming smile. "I came here to see for myself that you are alive, and that you have the energy, and the soul, the spirit of a living being ... Ms. GI, do you not see what this means?" Taking that gnarled old hand from her grasp and placing it upon her shoulder.
"The organic is alive." With a look of joy as pure as she had ever seen. "The inorganic is alive. The carbon and the non-carbon are alive. The soul of life resides in all things. Everything is alive. The whole universe, the very walls about us, this floor, the wind, the earth and the suns. The universe is all of one consciousness and life is nothing more than the dreaming of that single oneness. And you, Ms. GI, you are the final, the scientific, the spiritual proof of it all."
She was still feeling lightheaded a half hour later, walking a private meeting room and shaking those hands that were offered to her. She conversed on automatic, thankful that most of those who'd come to see her (and, inevitably, each other) were already somewhat favourable to President Nei
land, and at least not totally opposed to her presence within the CSA. They wished for the brief reassurance of a face-to-face contact after the hearing, that was all-a chance, as the Swami had done, to look into her eyes, and know this GI, this killing machine on legs, for a real person. It satisfied whatever human emotional requirements needed satisfying, she reckoned, to convince them that Neiland wasn't completely insane to be trusting her as much as she had. But she found herself paying little attention to any of it, in the lingering daze of her confrontation with the Swami.
She knew the basic philosophical concept. It was as old as philosophy and theology themselves. But she'd never expected to become regarded by a senior theologian philosopher, on a world known for producing such noted people, as the key and singular proof of such a concept. Rafasan had found the development exciting. So had Presidential advisor Rani Bannerjee, who was hovering around the meeting room somewhere, in discussion with one visiting rep or other. The Swami, Bannerjee informed her, though highly eccentric, was a leading light of religious and philosophical thinking on Callay, and commanded much respect throughout the Federation among people who followed such things. Such a vote of confidence could only be a bolstering support among a demographic of Federation citizens whose support had been sorely lacking to this point.
Sandy wasn't sure what to make of it at all. She knew Hindus and Buddhists had generally been less opposed to scientific progress, and biotechnology issues in particular, through the ages than the more dogmatic religions of Islam and Christianity ... it helped to explain in part the long Indian embrace of technology and science through modern times, and their spectacular successes thereof. But why the Swami had chosen to uphold her as the example that proved the rule, she could not guess-artificial intelligence had been around in various forms for nearly three hundred years now, from the first computer based AIs in the mid-2200s to the first advances in artificial synapsereplication in the early 2300s, to the first truly synthetic brains in the late 2300s. That had been made possible by advances in quantum mechanics, and thus in nano-construction, enabling the creation of entirely new materials and processes, from individual electrons upwards, that severely blurred the old dividing line between "organic" and "artificial." League science, that had all been, product of the brash, youthful idealism of a new State that truly believed that its unrestricted science policies, and its utter faith in the combined systems of capitalism and scientific innovation, would utterly transform the future of all humanity for the better.
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel Page 36