Mammoth Books presents Wang's Carpets by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781472103444
Publisher: Constable Robinson
Published: 2012-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

The Heart was always crowded, but it was larger than Paolo had seen it – even though Hermann had shrunk back to his original size, so as not to make a scene. The huge muscular chamber arched above them, pulsating wetly in time to the music, as they searched for the perfect location to soak up the atmosphere. Paolo had visited public environments in other polises, back on Earth; many were designed to be nothing more than a perceptual framework for group emotion-sharing. He’d never understood the attraction of becoming intimate with large numbers of strangers. Ancestral social hierarchies might have had their faults – and it was absurd to try to make a virtue of the limitations imposed by minds confined to wetware – but the whole idea of mass telepathy as an end in itself seemed bizarre to Paolo . . . and even old-fashioned, in a way. Humans, clearly, would have benefited from a good strong dose of each other’s inner life, to keep them from slaughtering each other – but any civilized transhuman could respect and value other citizens without the need to have been them, firsthand.

They found a good spot and made some furniture, a table and two chairs – Hermann preferred to stand – and the floor expanded to make room. Paolo looked around, shouting greetings at the people he recognized by sight, but not bothering to check for identity broadcasts from the rest. Chances were he’d met everyone here, but he didn’t want to spend the next hour exchanging pleasantries with casual acquaintances.

Hermann said, “I’ve been monitoring our modest stellar observatory’s data stream – my antidote to Vegan parochialism. Odd things are going on around Sirius. We’re seeing electron-positron annihilation gamma rays, gravity waves . . . and some unexplained hot spots on Sirius B.” He turned to Karpal and asked innocently, “What do you think those robots are up to? There’s a rumour that they’re planning to drag the white dwarf out of orbit, and use it as part of a giant spaceship.”

“I never listen to rumours.” Karpal always presented as a faithful reproduction of his old human-shaped Gleisner body – and his mind, Paolo gathered, always took the form of a physiological model, even though he was five generations removed from flesh. Leaving his people and coming into C-Z must have taken considerable courage; they’d never welcome him back.

Paolo said, “Does it matter what they do? Where they go, how they get there? There’s more than enough room for both of us. Even if they shadowed the diaspora – even if they came to Vega – we could study the Orpheans together, couldn’t we?”

Hermann’s cartoon insect face showed mock alarm, eyes growing wider, and wider apart. “Not if they dragged along a white dwarf! Next thing they’d want to start building a Dyson sphere.” He turned back to Karpal. “You don’t still suffer the urge, do you, for . . . astrophysical engineering?”

“Nothing C-Z’s exploitation of a few megatonnes of Vegan asteroid material hasn’t satisfied.

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