The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [49]
The first call I took was from Mortimer Gray — or, to be strictly accurate, from a sim made in his image. Gray was the historian who was currently en route to attend Adam Zimmerman’s awakening, on a spaceship with the unlikely name of Peppercorn Seven.
I was oddly relieved to discover that Gray’s sim wore the semblance of a human of my own era. If the appearance could be trusted, he was no taller than I was, and no better looking. His coloring was fairer than my own, and his hair was silver. His eyes matched his name but his smartsuit didn’t — its intricate purple and blue designs were laid upon a black background. I knew that he was a great deal older than I was, in terms of experienced years, but I also knew that he wouldn’t have aged a day since turning twenty-something, so I was surprised that he really did seem ancient, wise, and venerable — and not just because of his hair. Perhaps it was the decor of what was presumably his personal VE, which was tricked up to look like a library: a library with books in it.
Gray began by apologizing for the fact that a dialogue was still impractical because of the time delay, but assured me that the ship on which he was traveling was making all haste.
“I wanted to introduce myself to you as soon as possible, Mr. Tamlin,” he added, half-apologetically. “I don’t know whether my reputation has preceded me, or whether you have had a chance to look into my background, but I wanted to reassure you that I am neither as unworldly nor as narrowly obsessed with matters of mortality as I am sometimes thought to be. I am traveling to Excelsior as the representative of an association of academic interests, and it is on their behalf that I am inviting you to take up employment…”
At this point the sim suffered a short burst of interference, and the transmission was interrupted.
“Sorry about that,” Gray said, when his false face had coalesced again. “A close encounter with a snowball, I think. A constant hazard hereabouts — one with which this glorified sardine can is barely equipped to deal.”
I was impressed by the fact that he knew what a sardine can was, until I remembered that he was a historian. Like Davida, he was probably cutting the cloth of his conversation in the hope of suiting me.
“I am authorized to offer you an appointment as a lecturer in twenty-second-century history, Mr. Tamlin,” he went on. “You will undoubtedly receive other offers of employment, perhaps at much larger salaries, but I believe that you might find an academic appointment to be more desirable, on the grounds of congeniality and freedom of opportunity. It might well be the most comfortable way for you to make use of your uniquely specialized knowledge, and it would certainly make matters easier for those of us who believe that we have much to learn from you. I am looking forward to meeting you in person, and I hope that we shall soon have an opportunity to discuss this matter in detail. Please give it serious consideration. Thank you for listening.”
He vanished into the ether, leaving me staring at a rest-pattern.
I felt suddenly uncomfortable, totally unsure as to how I was supposed to interpret what he’d said. Had he been issuing a cryptic warning? Had he suggested that he could offer “congeniality and freedom of opportunity” because he wanted me to understand that others would want to restrict my freedom and threaten my congeniality? Or was I just being paranoid?
I got rid of the hood again, and got up from my specially commissioned chair. I stretched my limbs, although I didn’t need to. I knew that my every move was being watched, and that my reaction to what Mortimer Gray had said would be carefully measured.
I felt unusually strong, but I knew that was an illusion