Emortality - 06 - The Omega Expedition by Brian Stableford

Author:Brian Stableford
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780765305985
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2003-07-01T19:01:22+00:00

Thirty

Recriminations

The lights in the outer room were still on. Alice was already there, sitting at the table in the room outside the cell. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see me. In fact, she seemed to be waiting for me — or at least for someone.

“They’re not pleased,” she said. “They think I gave the game away. I suppose they’re right.”

“Do you want some breakfast?” I asked.

“I’ll get it,” she replied, rising to her feet. “I’ve had plenty of time to practice.

I sat down while she sorted out a couple of bowls of porridgelike manna and warmed them up. She passed one to me and sat down again, in a self-consciously awkward fashion.

If she’d been blonde, she could have passed for Goldilocks, but I wasn’t sure which of the three bears I was supposed to be. I had never been able to see the educative point of that particular nursery tale — unless it was to instruct children in the glaringly obvious principle that although there’s a happy medium between every set of extremes, it isn’t always the wisest policy to go for it.

“How do you feel?” she inquired, between mouthfuls.

“Fine,” I assured her.

“I’m sorry the food’s so basic,” she said. “We didn’t have an opportunity to lay in our own supplies — we had to take what we were given.”

“It’s good enough,” I assured her. “Take my tip — never eat the food on Excelsior. It’s not fit for animals. So what happened? They think you gave the game away, so now you’re in prison with us? Where’s your mysterious companion?”

“It’s even less comfortable where I’ve been sleeping than it is in here,” she said. “They wanted to keep us apart in case I said too much — but I said too much anyway. It’s not going to make Eido’s negotiations any easier, but I can’t say that I’m sorry. You had to be told eventually. Everybody has to be told. The diehards will have to admit that, in the end.”

“So you are number nine,” I said. What do they have mapped out for us, exactly? Are we supposed to make a case for humankind’s continued existence?”

“It’s not a joke,” she countered. “Someone has to make the case, no matter how obvious it may seem to you.”

“But the real question is how negotiations are to be conducted between the machines and the various posthuman species,” I guessed. “If the ultrasmart mechanical minds are going to come out of hiding, they need ambassadors, spokespersons, apologists. They need Mortimer Gray, and Adam Zimmerman…and Michael Lowenthal, if they can get him. Horne too, and Davida — and you, of course. I can’t quite see where I fit in, but…I suppose it’s occurred to you that this whole kidnap business was a bad mistake? Entirely the wrong way to go about things.”

“It certainly wasn’t our decision,” Alice assured me. “The problem with this whole sequence of events is that the only way it’s ever moved forward is when somebody or something’s decided to cut through the tangled arguments by acting independently.

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