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You, he said, what s your name?
Raoul Handsome Green, the kid answered.
Handsome Green? Really?
Yes, sir. That s the name my parents gave me.
Hmm. Good one. And when did they give it to you? How old are you?
Fifty-one, sir.
Do you have a specialty?
I do. I m an art appreciator. Mostly Late Modern photography, although I
admire the painting and sculpture of that period as well.
Hmm. I see. But you have other skills, right? Can you swim?
Yes.
Hold your breath?
Sure. For five minutes, maybe . . . I dunno, maybe six or seven minutes.
Really? Good, Conrad said. Very good. Why don t you find some other
swimmers and go print up some gill-diving gear? If we re attacked, I ll bet
you four-to-one it comes from underneath.
Raoul Handsome Green had no response to that.
Is something wrong? Conrad asked him.
At least Raoul s face was expressive; his look combined the sullenness of a
frown, the helplessness of a shrug, and the pointed amusement of a smirk. I
don t know how to do those things, sir. Who do you think I am? Who do you
thinkyou are? We don t become interstellar heroes just because you walk into a
room.
There were scattered sniggers at this from the other kids.
You re all staying here illegally, Feck pointed out, fluttering his hand in
annoyance. What I would say is, who s taking care of you if not yourself?
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There are libraries here, Conrad said, right? You can pick up a block of
wellstone and start asking questions. They still teach that in the schools, I
assume? Research?
Raoul shrugged. He wasn t going to commit to an answer one way or the other.
Anyone else? Conrad tried.
It went on like that for a while, and Conrad eventually decided there were
three separate problems here. First there was the obvious ignorance of these
people. He found this personally disgusting and offensive how could they look
themselves in the mirror? but in all fairness they simply had no practical
experience. Doinganything . Nor did they need any in the eternal lives the
Queendom had mapped out for them.
They were drowning in knowledge, but actually absorbing some, actually
learning a skill, was something they did for amusement, not for money or
survival. Their minds simply didn t work that way. Of course, they d all been
born on Earth. If this conversation were taking place in a Lunar dome or
asteroid warren, a planette or a spin-gee city in interplanetary space, he
might have better luck. Presumably, ignorance could still be fatal in places
like that, and would be discouraged.
Secondly, though, there was the problem of authority. Conrad and Xmary didn t
have any. They had surprised the crowd with their leaping and prancing, and
yes, their status as returning star voyagers did carry a certain shock value.
These kids had never met anyone like them; nobody had. They were clearly
impressed. But it didn t mean they wouldlisten .
And there was a third problem which perhaps overshadowed the other two.
Maybe the platformneeds sinking, one kid suggested at one point.
I m happy to risk my life, said another. And I don t even have current
backups.
What point are you trying to make with this self-defense crap? asked a
third, with genuine puzzlement.
And finally Conrad understood:these kids were deathists . Not Fatalists,
perhaps, but not the sworn enemies of Fatalists, either. The philosophy of
random mass murder did not strike them as obviously wrong. There are too many
people, they d said several times already. There s no purpose for any of
this. Maybe there used to be, but we ve never seen it.
And it was a strangely difficult point to argue with; Conrad had groaned
under the same burdens in his own youth. The answers had been different then,
but the questions had not. And yet, life any life was full of challenges.
Could it really be so different here?
You may feel a greater urgency, he suggested, when death is actually
imminent.
chapter seven
in which certain difficulties
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are unmasked
Your Majesty, said Reportant Bernhart Bechsto the Queen of Sol, this seems
an awkward time for the king to be absent. Did you ask him to leave a copy
behind?
No, she said, not only to Bechs but to the other reportants here, clustered
around her and her Palace Guards in a buzzing hemispherical swarm. Ordinarily
her personal press cordon was set at eighty meters, with strict acoustic
volume limits to discourage uninvited chitchat, but this was a press
conference. Typically these would be handled by her press secretary or by some
crisis-specific bureaucrat, but there was a lot going on this week, and she
had dozens of copies working all across the solar system. Printing out one
more was hardly a bother, and people were burning with curiosity anyway, so
she had generously permitted the paparazzi to approach within ten meters of
her physical person, and to ask within the bounds of decorum! anything they
wished.
The king, she went on, does not divide his attention when matters of
science loom large. He is cloistered at his workshop on Maplesphere, and will
remain there until his experiments are complete.
Does that mean weeks? Bechs followed up. Years?
Bechs was, at the moment, a four-winged news camera only slightly larger than
the queen s pinkie nail. Strictly speaking this wasn t necessary; they were in
Chryse Downs Amphitheater on the northern lowlands of Mars, and Bechs
physical self one of him, anyway was in a rental office just a few kilometers
away. He could remote this bug; there was no need tobe it, to run a shadow of
his brain within it. Too, he was among the most respected reportants in the
Queendom, and would be welcome at her side in his own human body. But old
habits die hard, and Bechs was an old, old man. He was accustomed to
interviewing Her Majesty in this way, and she, for her part, always recognized
his signature wine-red cameras.
Weeks, most likely, the queen said. If his problem is tractable he ll
solve it, and if it isn t he ll move on to something more immediate. It s
possible he ll uncover new principles requiring much more detailed
investigation, but if so he will delegate the problem at least temporarily to
his technical staff. He s aware that I have pressing tasks for him here, and
he won t lightly refuse.
Is it the wormhole physics again? asked another of the cameras.
I don t discuss my husband s work, she reminded. But her tone was
indulgent, for when Bruno retreated to Maplesphere, which happened three or
four times each decade, he generally returned with treasures: the backtime
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