Worlds enough & time: five tales of speculative fiction by Dan Simmons

Author:Dan Simmons
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Science Fiction, Fiction, Science fiction, American, Science Fiction - Short Stories, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780060506049
Publisher: New York : EOS, 2002.
Published: 2010-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

Pinchas nodded and cadged a cold drink from a passing servitor. He and Petra moved around the small square of the Empire State Building’s expanded observation deck, stepping aside to let parties of zeppeliners descend the wrought-iron spiral staircase from the mooring platform. Everyone seemed quite merry except for the occasional and inevitable voynix standing here or there like a sightless scarab forged in rusted iron and smoked leather.

Pinchas poured some of his drink over the carapace of one.

“Are you drunk?” asked Petra.

“I wish I were.” Pinchas made a fist and clubbed the hollow-sounding voynix ovoid half a meter above him. “I wish the goddamn things had eyes.”

“Why?”

“I’d stick my thumb in one.” He flicked his middle finger against the chitinous ebony ovoid. It echoed dully.

The voynix did what voynix do. It ignored him.

A posthuman in the iteration known to Petra and Pinchas as Moira floated over to them through the crowd. She was wearing a formal gold gown and her gray hair was cut close to her delicate skull.

“My dears,” she said, “are you having an absolutely marvelous time?”

“Absolutely,” said Petra.

“Marvelous,” said Pinchas. He looked at Moira and wondered, not for the first time in his two centuries and more, why all of the posts were female.

Moira laughed easily. “Good. Good. Later on, the illusionist Dahoni is going to entertain us. I understand that he plans to make the QE2 disappear. Yet again.” She laughed a second time. Petra smiled and sipped her iced wine. “We were looking for our friend—Savi.”

Moira hesitated an instant and Pinchas wondered if she remembered who they were. They had met a score of times over the centuries—or Pinchas assumed they had, based on the theory that it was the same post choosing the Moira iteration—but she had called them “My dears,” thus fueling the old-style paranoia that all old-style humans looked alike to the posts.

“Savi, the cultural historian?” said Moira, exploding that theory. “She was invited, of course, but we received no confirmation from her. I remember that she was a special friend of yours, Petra, and of you as well, Pinchas. When she arrives, I will be sure to tell her that you are here.”

Pinchas nodded and sipped the rest of his drink. He had forgotten for an instant just how readable his handsome but unrefined homosap face was to these constructs. Who needed telepathy?

“Who indeed?” agreed Moira and laughed again. She touched his arm, patted Petra’s cheek, waved over a servitor carrying a tray of warmed handbites, and floated away among the revelers.

“She’s not here,” said Pinchas.

Petra nodded and looked at her palm. “No beacon, no compoint, no fax trail, no messages for us on far or prox. I know she does these solitude things, but I’m beginning to get worried.”

“Maybe she final faxed early,” said Pinchas.

Petra gave him a look.

“All right,” said Pinchas, raising his empty hand in apology. “Not funny.”

“Agreed,” said Petra. She took his drink and set the glass on the observation deck’s railing. Someone was standing on that railing a few yards away, ready to bungee jump toward the black waters thirty stories below.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.