The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [61]
All my suspicions and deductions turned out to be true. Under the crystal sky of Excelsior, even the blades of grass were sculptures, safe from grazing. They didn’t even feel right. Everything I touched proclaimed its artificiality to my fingers. The knowledge that my fingers were wrapped in some ultramodern fabric that had probably reconditioned my own sense of touch only added to the confusion.
“I get the impression that they haven’t quite fathomed the idea of gardening,” was Christine’s final judgment. I wasn’t so sure. We had brought a different notion over a gulf of a thousand years, but who was to say that ours was right? If they’d taken a vote on Excelsior, the motion would have been carried unanimously, because we wouldn’t have been entitled to express an opinion.
The ungrazable grass and the unpollinatable flowers weren’t the models for every vegetable form. The fruits that grew on the trees were designed — and by no means reserved — for posthuman consumption. When I asked, I was told that it was perfectly safe, and permissible, for me to eat the fruit, but that it wouldn’t be adequate to my dietary needs. Having heard that, I didn’t even bother to experiment. I could live with the disappointment of lousy golden rice, but insipid and essentially unsatisfying apples were a different matter.
In any case, the fruits were too caricaturish. They were far less tempting — to me, at least — than their designers had probably intended.
“Take a look at the Gaean Restoration through one of their cobweb hoods when you get the chance,” I suggested to my companion. “It’s less obvious and less profuse, and a great deal more varied, but it has exactly the same quality of artifice. I couldn’t find any authentic wilderness, even on Earth.”
“Wilderness is overrated,” Christine assured me. “I don’t mind in the least that all this is fake — I just wish it had been better done.”
“They like their kind of food,” I reminded her. “They must like their kind of garden too. Their aesthetic standards aren’t ours. They experience things differently. Imagine what they must think of us.”
“I try,” she assured me.
Given that I didn’t know what to think of her, and couldn’t imagine what she might think of me, I had to suppose that her attempts — and mine too — stood little chance of success. But there had to be a reason why the people of Excelsior had brought us back. I had to hope that it might be comprehensible even if I dared not hope, as yet, that I might be able to deem it good.
“The ship from Earth will be docking in a couple of hours,” I told Christine, in case she hadn’t been informed. “We’ll have a chance to talk to Gray and Lowenthal before the Outer System ship arrives and the main event gets under way. Have you given any thought to their offers of employment?”
“I’m not going back to Earth, she said, with a firmness that took me by surprise.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Been there, done that, took the rap. You should take a look at Titan. Makes the Snow Queen’s magic palace look like an igloo. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”
“I haven’t even begun to make up my mind,” I told her.
“That’s because you want to play the game,” she said. “You want to get in with Adam, in case he’s going places. I don’t.”
“I can see why you’d want a new start,” I admitted.
“No you can’t,” she told me, sharply. “I told you before — you don’t know shit about me.”
“So tell me,” I retorted. “Why did you kill all those people? Your parents I could probably understand, but what about the others? If my memory serves me rightly, you didn’t have any connection with them at all, let alone a plausible motive.”
She looked at me, and then she looked away, at the garden where lions lay down with lambs and the butterflies lived forever.
“Don’t you believe that VE tape you told me about?” she asked. “I couldn