Time Gate by Robert Silverberg & Bill Fawcett

Author:Robert Silverberg & Bill Fawcett [Silverberg, Robert & Fawcett, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0671698508
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 1989-11-30T21:00:00+00:00

By 2145, the reclusive mages of Silicon Valley have reentered the simulacrum programming arena with the intent of dominating it. But when they develop a state-of-the art sim debate, pitting faith against reason, the computer wizards discover that they may have done their job too well.

Copyright © 1988 by Abbenford Associates

THE ROSE AND THE SCALPEL

AD 2145

Gregory Benford

Joan of Arc wakened inside an amber dream to find herself sitting outdoors at a round table in an unsettling white chair. It’s seat, unlike those in her home village of Domremy, was not hand-hewn of wood. Its smooth slickness lewdly aped her contours. She reddened.

Strangers, mostly in groups of two and three, surrounded her. She could not tell woman from man except for those whose pantaloons and tunics outlined their intimate parts even more than anything she’d seen in Chinon at the court of the Great and True King. The strangers seemed oblivious of her, though she could hear them chattering in the background as distinctly as she sometimes heard her voices. She listened only long enough to conclude that what they had to say, having nothing to do with God or France, was clearly not worth hearing.

Outside, an iron river of self-moving carriages muttered by. Mists concealed distant ivory spires like melting churches. What was this place?

A vision, perhaps related to her beloved voices. Could such apparitions be holy?

Surely the man at a nearby table was no angel. He was eating scrambled eggs—through a straw.

And the women—unchaste, flagrant, gaudy cornucopias of hip and thigh and breast. Some drank red wine from transparent goblets, different from any she’d seen at the royal court. Others seemed to sup from floating clouds, billowing mousse fogs.

One mist—beef with a tangy Loire sauce—passed near her. She breathed in, but she could smell nothing.

Was this heaven? Where appetites were satisfied without labor and toil?

But no. Surely the final reward was not so, so…carnal. And perturbing. And embarrassing.

The fire some sucked into their mouths from little reeds alarmed her. A cloud of smoke drifting her way flushed birds of panic from her breast although she could not smell the smoke, nor did it burn her eyes or sear her throat. The fire, the fire, she thought, and when she saw the being made of breastplate coming at her with a tray of food and drink—poison from enemies, the foes of France—she at once reached for her sword.

“Be with you in a moment,” the breast-plated thing said as it wheeled past her to another table. “I’ve only got four hands.”

An inn, she thought. It was some kind of inn, though there appeared to be nowhere to lodge. And yes, she was supposed to meet someone, a gentleman. That one, the tall skinny old man—much older than Jacques Dars, her father—the only one besides herself attired unlike the others. Something about his dress recalled the foppish dandies at the Great and True King’s court. His hair was curled, its whiteness set off by a lilac ribbon at his throat. He wore

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