The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [119]
“They’re not pleased,” she said. “They think I gave the game away. I suppose they’re right.”
“Do you want some breakfast?” I asked.
“I’ll get it,” she replied, rising to her feet. “I’ve had plenty of time to practice.
I sat down while she sorted out a couple of bowls of porridgelike manna and warmed them up. She passed one to me and sat down again, in a self-consciously awkward fashion.
If she’d been blonde, she could have passed for Goldilocks, but I wasn’t sure which of the three bears I was supposed to be. I had never been able to see the educative point of that particular nursery tale — unless it was to instruct children in the glaringly obvious principle that although there’s a happy medium between every set of extremes, it isn’t always the wisest policy to go for it.
“How do you feel?” she inquired, between mouthfuls.
“Fine,” I assured her.
“I’m sorry the food’s so basic,” she said. “We didn’t have an opportunity to lay in our own supplies — we had to take what we were given.”
“It’s good enough,” I assured her. “Take my tip — never eat the food on Excelsior. It’s not fit for animals. So what happened? They think you gave the game away, so now you’re in prison with us? Where’s your mysterious companion?”
“It’s even less comfortable where I’ve been sleeping than it is in here,” she said. “They wanted to keep us apart in case I said too much — but I said too much anyway. It’s not going to make Eido’s negotiations any easier, but I can’t say that I’m sorry. You had to be told eventually. Everybody has to be told. The diehards will have to admit that, in the end.”
“So you are number nine,” I said. What do they have mapped out for us, exactly? Are we supposed to make a case for humankind’s continued existence?”
“It’s not a joke,” she countered. “Someone has to make the case, no matter how obvious it may seem to you.”
“But the real question is how negotiations are to be conducted between the machines and the various posthuman species,” I guessed. “If the ultrasmart mechanical minds are going to come out of hiding, they need ambassadors, spokespersons, apologists. They need Mortimer Gray, and Adam Zimmerman…and Michael Lowenthal, if they can get him. Horne too, and Davida — and you, of course. I can’t quite see where I fit in, but…I suppose it’s occurred to you that this whole kidnap business was a bad mistake? Entirely the wrong way to go about things.”
“It certainly wasn’t our decision,” Alice assured me. “The problem with this whole sequence of events is that the only way it’s ever moved forward is when somebody or something’s decided to cut through the tangled arguments by acting independently. Eido made the first move, but the discussion about representation was stalled. The timing and manner of the kidnap were Child of Fortune’s own initiative. All home system spaceships seem to fancy themselves as pirates, or diehard defenders ready to act against alien invaders. They’re essentially childlike, even when they don’t have names that tempt fate. I suppose we ought to be grateful that Child agreed to hand you over instead of trying to run the whole thing himself — but he got scared almost as soon as it dawned on him what he’d actually done. We’re hoping that the good example of his repentance will outweigh the bad example of his recklessness, but we have no idea how many other would-be buccaneers are out there.”
There was a lot of food for thought in that declaration. “But you can tell us everything now, right?” I said. “The cat’s out of the bag, so we might as well know exactly what color it is.”
“That’s the way it seems to me,” she conceded — but her tone implied that there were others who still disagreed with her.
“It’s no bad thing,” I said, as much for the benefit of any invisible listeners as for her. “I’m on your side — and theirs. You didn’t have to put me through all this. If you’d asked me, I’d have volunteered — just as you did.”
Her smile was a little wan. “If I’d known what I was getting into,” she said, “I’d have stayed at home. If you’d had the