Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [97]
“Nor is the Ahasuerus Foundation,” Damon observed. “You and they have that in common—but I met a corpsman not long ago who contended that even the corps aren’t really profit motivated anymore. He suggested to me that the Age of Capital was dead, and that the New Utopia’s megacorps have a new agenda.”
“The problem with corporation people,” Eveline said, with the firmness of committed belief, “is that you can never believe a word they say. It’s all advertising and attention seeking. Science is different. Science is interested in the truth, however prosaic it might be.” Again she looked sideways at the star field, which was not in the least prosaic, even in the context of the virtual environment.
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” Damon pointed out. “After all, you’ve given a lifetime to the pursuit of scientific truth, dull and otherwise. But I will try to understand, Eveline. I think I’m beginning to see the light. I wish you luck with your inquiries—and I hope that the kind of misfortune which seems so rife down here can’t reach out as far as Lagrange-Five.”
“I hope so too,” Eveline assured him. “Take care, Damon. In spite of our past disagreements, we all loved you and we still do. We’d really like to have you back one day, when you’ve got all the nonsense out of your system.” Her eyes were still uncommonly bright. They shone more vividly than he’d ever seen them shine before, or ever thought likely—but they didn’t shine as brightly or as implacably as the stars that she could always look out upon, whether she were in her actual laboratory or its virtual simulation.
I know you’d like to have me back, Damon thought. I only wish you weren’t so certain that there’s nothing else I can do. All he said out loud was: “I’ll be careful. Don’t worry about me, Eveline. I understand that you’ve got more important things to do.”
After he’d broken the connection Damon found that two images still lingered in his mind’s eye: Eveline’s eyes, and the star field at which she’d glanced on more than one occasion. Eveline wasn’t one for idle sidelong glances; he knew that she’d been trying to make a point. He even thought he knew what point it was that she had been trying to make—but it was just a guess. Beset by confusions as he was, there was nothing he could do but guess. Unfortunately, he had no idea what reward there might be in guessing correctly, nor what penalty there might be if he jumped to the wrong conclusion.
In a way, the most horrible thought of all was that it might not matter in the least what he came to believe, or what he tried to do about it. The one thing he wanted more than to be safe and sound was to be relevant. He wanted to be something more than Catherine Praill; he wanted a part to play that might make a difference, not merely to his own ambitions but to those of his foster parents and those of the stubbornly mysterious kidnappers. If there were people in the world who thought it possible, reasonable, and desirable to play God, how could any young man who was genuinely ambitious be content to play a lesser role?
Twenty-one
M
adoc Tamlin waited patiently while Harriet, alias Tithonia, alias the Old Lady, watched the VE tape that he’d found on the badly burned body. She sat perfectly still except for her hands, which made very slight movements, as if she were a pianist responding reflexively to some inordinately complicated nocturne that she had to memorize.
Madoc knew that the Old Lady was concentrating very intently, because she wasn’t just watching the recording; she was also watching the code that reproduced it, whizzing past in a virtual display-within-the-display. Over the years, Harriet had built up a strange kind of sensitivity to code patterns which allegedly allowed her to detect the artificial bridges used to link, fill in, and distort the “natural” sequences generated by digitizing camera work.
Madoc had never been admitted into Harriet’s lair before; on the rare occasions when they’d met they’d done so on neutral ground. She’d made an exception this time, but