Capacity by Tony Ballantyne

Author:Tony Ballantyne
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 0553903306
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Helen had changed into a one-piece black passive suit. Her blond hair had been tied back in a ponytail and then sprayed with a flexible black plastic coating that kept it fixed in place. She stood with her hands on her hips, gazing down through the transparent base of the factory at a fissioning section of the Shawl beneath her. She had made herself up to look like Judy: her black lips were taut against a white-painted face.

"I don't know what point you're trying to make," Judy said, glancing across at her.

"And you a Social Care operative, too," Helen said snidely.

It was cold in this section of the factory. Their breath came in white puffs, cold against the blue light that illuminated the open space.

"You don't have to come along with me," Judy reminded her, watching another unattached section of the Shawl spin into view.

"I want to find Kevin. I want to meet the person who did this to me."

"Why?"

Helen folded her arms and said nothing. She was standing on a thin sheet of plastic, just a few

centimeters separating her from hard vacuum and the long fall to Earth. She was at the focus of one of the Watcher's greatest artifacts, the factory: the region through which materials from around the galaxy were funneled to provide the raw materials for the Shawl. It was the EA's equivalent of the water and the carbon cycle: a living space that was born and died made up of sections formed of matter from the Earth, from the Enemy Domain, from the farthest reaches of human expansion. The space below made

her think of a great melting pot. The spinning, fissioning sections of the Shawl seemed to boil and

bubble like soup in a cauldron. All those materials being mixed together, eventually to fall to Earth.

Judy had explained it all to her. What she hadn't explained was why.

"Hello, Three. Hello, Helen."

Another Judy was approaching, walking over the slight curve in the transparent lens that looked down on the volume of the Source. Her kimono was black, her face white, and yet there were subtle

differences between her and the Judy that Helen had come to know.

"Hello, Helen. Hi, Four. Hi, Three."

And then another Judy was there, and another. Helen looked around as she found herself in the center of a constricting circle of digital Judys. She counted eight of them. All black-and-white, all subtly different. All of them wore impassive expressions, and yet Helen could feel how they were watching

her. She could sense something, a faint disapproval. She got the impression that it wasn't directed at her. Emotions were stronger at the moment—maybe the aftereffects of the MTPH Judy 3 had let her

take earlier. Judy 3. They weren't sure about Judy 3—that was what they were thinking. Was Judy 3

doing the right thing in letting Helen come along? Helen shivered, feeling unsettled. Why were they all so concerned about her own presence here?

One of the Judys stood forward. It was a bizarre sight. Eight black-and-white women standing on a

great transparent lake over the swirl of the Earth.

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