Schismatrix plus - Bruce Sterling [150]
"Abelard ... I'm sorry. For Nora. For the cruelty...."
"Philip, it doesn't... I forgive...." It was too late. The man had died. CIRCUMEUROPA: 25-12-'86
What was left of life in CircumEuropa was clustered in the labs. When Lindsay disembarked, he found customs deserted. CircumEuropa was through; imports no longer mattered.
He followed a snaking hallway through translucent tilted walls of membrane. The corridors glimmered, painted with all the blue-green tints of seawa-ter. They were almost deserted.
Lindsay glimpsed occasional sundogs and squatters, come for junk and loot. A party of them waved politely as they sawed noisily through a hard-set wall. An Investor ship had docked as well, but there was no sign of its crew. The movement was all outwards. Giant ice ships, hulled in crystal, were arcing down to the planet's surface, for gentle splashdowns through the new crevasses. Vera, his daughter, was aboard one of them. She had already gone. The population had shrunk to a final handful, the last for the transformation. CircumEuropa had dwindled to a series of labs, where the last transformees floated in smoky Europan seawater.
Lindsay paused outside an airlock, watching the activity within, through a hall-mounted monitor. Transformed surgeons were assisting at the birth of Angels, tracking the growth of new nerves through the altered flesh. Their glowing arms flickered rapidly in conversation.
He had only to don an aqualung, step through that airlock into blood-warm water, and join the others. Vera had done it. So had Gomez and the rest. They would greet him joyfully. There would be no pain. It would be easy. The past hung balanced on the moment.
He could not do it.
He turned away.
Then he sensed it. "You're here," he said. "Show yourself." The Presence flowed down from the tilted, sea-green membrane of the wall. A puddle of mirrors trickled across the floor, seeping into shape. Lindsay watched it in wonder. The Presence had its own gravity; it clung to the floor as if pulled there. It warped and rippled, taking form to please him. It became a small, fleet thing, poised on four legs, crouching like an animal. Like a weasel, he thought. Like a fox.
"She's gone," Lindsay told it. "And you let her go."
"Relax, citizen," the fox told him. Its voice had no echo; it made no sound. "It's not my business to hold on to things."
"Europa's not to your taste?"
"Aw, hell," it said. "I'm sure it's fabulous there, but I've seen the real thing, remember? On Earth. What about you, sundog? I don't see you going for it."
"I'm old," Lindsay said. "They're young. It should be their world. They don't need me."
The creature stretched, rippling. "I thought you'd say as much. What do you say, then? Now that you have a chance for, ah, reflection?" Lindsay smiled, seeing his own warped face across the shining film of the Presence. "I'm at loose ends."
"Oh, very good." There was laughter in the unheard voice. "I suppose you'll be dying now."
"Should I?" He hesitated. "It might be premature."
"It might," the Presence agreed. "You'll stay here a few more centuries, then? And await the final transcendance?"
"The Fifth Prigoginic Level of Complexity?"
"You could call it that. The words don't matter. It's as far beyond Life as Life is from inert matter. I've seen it happen, many times before. I can feel it moving here, I can smell it in the wind. People ... creatures, beings, they're all people to me . .. they ask the Final Questions. And they get the Final Answers, and then it's goodbye. It's the Godhead, or as close as makes no difference to the likes of you and me. Maybe that's what you want, sundog?
The Absolute?"
"The Absolute," Lindsay mused. "The Final Answers. .. . What are your answers, then, friend?"
"My answers? I don't have 'em. I don't care what goes on beneath this skin, I want only to see, only to feel. Origins and destinies, predictions and memories, lives and deaths, I sidestep those. I'm too slick for time to grip, you get me, sundog?"
"What do you want then, Presence?"
"I want what I already have! Eternal wonder,