Montrose was frozen in that hush of shock that comes as a prologue to outrage. He could not believe such an idea could be proposed in such bland tones. The nodding and whispering faces around the table were blank and bored. To them the notion was routine.
Reyes y Pastor was still talking. “Her Serene Highness has made it clear that she wishes no one to interfere with the delicate neural surgery done so far, and yet I think we must discuss the possibility of, ah, a second medical intervention to waken the other Montrose, the daemon, to learn what we can from him. The floor is open to whomever wishes to speak.”
“I damn well wish to damn well speak, you pustulating bastard.”
Montrose stood up. He was not doing this to make himself look imposing (although this did) but to allow him to draw his heavy dirk from where it was tucked behind the folded of cloth of the long hood hanging down his back. He casually put one hand behind his back, and felt the grip of the knife handle.
The rational part of his mind told him he could not escape from a locked chamber with seventy-one men, now young and strong, and with who-knew-what additives and accelerants coursing through their bloodstreams, or tweaked into their nervous systems. Only Narcís D’Aragó was visibly carrying a weapon, but Montrose assumed the others were armed as well, because in their situation he would have been. So he told the rational part of his mind to shut up.
“What in the world, or in hell, make you gents think you got any right to say what happens to me? You thinking of tinkering with my brain without my say-so? My damned brain?! Sounds like you done it before. Did I help you conquer the Earth? I doubt y’all were cunning enough to do it by your own poxy selves. Did I help kill off the Captain, you hellbound traitorous mutineers? Well, I am not helping you again! I’ll see you in perdition being rogered by the scabby blue member of Old Nick first! And—”
And he stopped because the Hermeticists seemed startled. Startled at him? No. To judge by their expressions, they had already dismissed anything he was going to say. He was just a donkey in their eyes, a body that carried around the useful daemon of Mr. Hyde.
Was there something else in the room? He looked left and right only with the corners of his eyes, not moving his head. Yet he saw nothing that had not been there a moment ago. He looked up.
The screen showing the many-branching conversation tree had shot out a new thread or two, and the colors changed as a previous conversation was prioritized—the bookmark for the comment where D’Aragó had mentioned how they could destroy anyone they could not suborn, when Montrose asked if they meant for him to kill himself—that was now lit up in red, and had the floor.
Montrose noticed something odd. No one seemed to have his hand on his red control amulet at that moment. Some of the Hermeticists were reaching into their suits, no doubt for pistols, others had their hands on their chair-arms, and were rising to their feet.
Who had pushed the button to change which topic? The screen notation that held the minutes of the meeting was now marked as Speaker X. Who was X? According to the mark, it was someone waiting to speak. Someone not in the room, watching remotely.
The Hermeticists were motionless as hares.
Montrose licked his lips. The only person he could think of who was not here was the Princess Rania. He said, “I yield the floor to the next speaker for one minute, for a comment or a motion.”
A voice rang out like a cold bell of iron.
It was not the Princess. It was not even remotely human. But it was Del Azarchel’s voice.
Learned members of the Conclave! Until such time as you recognize me as the Senior Officer of the Landing Party, I can serve you only in an advisory capacity. I have made a preliminary model of Montrose/Daemon double-consciousness, and compared it with your previous library of cliometric calculations, extrapolating the possible action to a time-depth of eight thousand years.
The findings agree with my own sense of judgment. Montrose, whether in Human or Posthuman form, will not cooperate with our endeavors.
11
Posthuman Humanity
1. Artificial Self-Awareness
Each of the black-garbed old-young men was tense, their expressions hovering between curiosity, elation, or awe. They had not expected this voice—labeled X—to speak.
X stood for Xypotechnology. Or perhaps it stood for Ximen. This was the only absent Hermeticist: Ximen Del Azarchel in his Posthuman version, as an Iron Ghost. Evidently the technicians had stirred the unliving creature to wakefulness. It had done some sort of calculation—cliometry, whatever that was—and it sounded like it had gone through an entire library of calculus to reach its conclusion. How long had it been since Montrose left the Gray Room? Less than an hour.
Del Azarchel, the flesh-and-blood version, said, “I think we can persuade the Learned Montrose, given time.”
And I think at a rate several orders of magnitude more carefully and swiftly than do you, employing modes of thought for which you have no terms. I have already reached the conclusion it would take you weeks and years to reach. You cling to a false idea of Montrose and his value, because otherwise the sacrifices I made to preserve him during the expedition would shame us. You can neither see the patterns in his behavior, nor have you spoken to the Posthuman version of him, who is, if anything, less ambiguous and hesitant. Montrose is your rival in this and in all matters.
Del Azarchel stood up. His gaze was dark, but there was no direction to turn it, so he glowered toward the ceiling. He spoke in a tone at once thoughtful and majestic. “Perhaps the experiment that created you has not been successful. I see nothing to imply a greater intelligence on your part.”
The machine’s voice was cold as Del Azarchel’s, but there was a note of triumph, of indifference, a hint of astronomical distances from any human concern, that exaggerated the merely human coldness into something inhuman. Montrose had never heard such a voice.
I know you. I am you. But I am awake, whereas you are half-asleep, half-dead, balanced precariously between mania and apathy. You preserved Montrose for your pride’s sake, knowing that no one else would appreciate your accomplishments. No one else was worth defeating. He was the only one smarter than you back at the training camps; he is the only one smarter than you in this chamber now. Before this moment, you never realized your motive, or your place in the world. You expect the Hermeticists to follow you, because your intellect is greater than theirs; you lust after the Princess Rania for the opposite reason, because her intellect is greater than yours. And you will cease to defy me, once those undisciplined segments of your nervous system, what you call the subconscious mind, become aware of where I stand on the ladder of being compared to you. Does the truth of all I say not convince you of our difference in station?
Del Azarchel’s face had turned as pale as that of a man who sees a specter in a graveyard. His fingers were trembling and his legs had lost their strength, for he collapsed more than sank back into his chair. It was many minutes before he could regain his composure.
Montrose spoke, looking upward. “Blackie, you idiot! You should have told them once I left the room that I was not going to cooperate! Now they are going to kill me!”
The cold voice answered: Cowhand, why do you think I owe more loyalty to you than to the men who created me? To my father whose memories are alive, are more than alive, in me?