Images of the far past exploded.
“Call Seldon! This sim has another layer! Call Seldon!”
7.
Hari Seldon stared at the images and data-rivers. “Voltaire suffered a recall storm. And look at the implications. “
Marq peered without comprehension at the torrent. “Uh, I see.”
“That promontory-a memory nugget about a debate he had with Joan, eight thousand years ago.”
“Somebody used these sims before-”
“For public debate, yes. History not only repeats itself, sometimes it stutters.”
“Faith vs. Reason?”
“Faith/Mechanicals vs. Reason/Human Will,” Seldon said, as if reading them directly from the numerical complexes. Marq could not follow the connections fast enough to keep up with him. “A society of that time had a fundamental division over computer intelligences and their…manifestations.”
Marq caught an elusive flicker in Seldon’s face. Was he hiding something? “Manifestations? You mean, like tiktoks?”
“Something like that,” Seldon said stiffly.
“Voltaire’s for-”
“In that age, he was for human effervescence. Joan favored Faith, which meant, uh, tiktoks.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Ttktoks, or higher forms of them, were deemed capable of guiding humanity.” Seldon seemed uncomfortable.
“ Tiktoks?”Marq snorted derisively.
“Or, uh, higher forms.”
“That’s what Voltaire and Joan were debating eight thousand years ago? So they were engineered for this. Who won?”
“The result is suppressed. I believe it became an irrelevant issue. No computer intelligences could be made which could guide humanity.”
Marq nodded. “Makes sense. Machines will never be as smart as we are. Day-to-day business, sure, but-”
“I suggest erasure of the embedded memory complex,” Seldon said curtly. “That will eliminate the interfering layer.”
“Oh, if you think that’s best. I’m not sure we can disconnect every tie-in to those memories, though. These sims use holographic recall, so it’s lodged-”
“To get the results you wish in this upcoming debate, it is crucial. There could be other implications, too.”
“Such as?’’
“Historians might mine sims like these for lost data on the far past. They would want access. Deny them.”
“Oh, sure. I mean, not likely we’d let anybody use them.”
Seldon gazed at the shifting slabs of pattern. “They are complex, aren’t they? Minds of real depth, interacting subselves…Ommm…I wonder how the whole sense of selfhood remains stable? How come their mentalities don’t just crash?”
Marq couldn’t follow, but he said, “I guess those ancients, they knew a few tricks we don’t.”
Seldon nodded. “Indeed. There’s a glimmer of an idea here…”
He stood quickly and Marq rose. “Couldn’t you stay? I know Sybyl would like to talk-”
“Sorry, must go. Matters of state.”
“Uh, well, thanks for-”
Seldon was gone before Marq could close his gaping mouth.
8.
“I have no desire to see the skinny gentleman in the wig. He thinks he’s better than everyone else,” the Maid told the sorceress called Sybyl.
“True, but-”
“I much prefer the company of my own voices.”
“He’s quite taken with you,” Madame la Sorciere said.
“I find that difficult to believe.” Still, she could not help smiling.
“Oh, but it’s true. He’s asked Marq-his recreator-for an entirely new image. He lived, you know, to eighty-four.”
“He looks even older.” She had found his wig, lilac ribbon, and velvet breeches ludicrous on such a dried-up fig of a man.
“Marq decided to make him appear as he looked at forty-two. Do see him.”
The Maid reflected. Monsieur Arouet would be far less repulsive if…”Did Monsieur have a different tailor as a young man?”
“Hmmm, that might be arranged.”
“I’m not going to the inn in these.”
She held up her chains, recalling the fur cloak the king himself had placed about her shoulders at his coronation in Rouen. She thought of asking for it now, but decided against it. They had made much of her cloak during her trial, accusing her of having a demon-inspired love of luxury; she who, until she won the king over that day she first appeared at court, had felt nothing but coarse burlap against her skin. Her accusers, she had noted, wore black satin and velvet and reeked of perfume.
“I’ll do what I can,” Madame la Sorciere vowed, “but you must agree not to tell Monsieur Boker. He doesn’t want you fraternizing with the enemy, but I think it will do you good. Hone your skills for the Great Debate.”
There was a pause -falling, soft clouds-inwhich the Maid felt as if she had fainted. When she recovered-hard cool surfaces, sudden sharp splashes of brown, green- shefound herself seated in the Inn of the Two Maggots, once again, surrounded by guests who seemed not to know that she was there.
Armor-plated beings bearing trays and clearing tableware darted among the guests. She looked for Garcon and spotted him gazing at the honey-haired cook, who pretended not to notice. Garcon’s longing recalled the way the Maid herself had gazed at statues of St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who had both forsworn men but adopted their attire; suspended between two worlds, holy passion above, earthy ardor below. Just as here, with its jarring jargon of numbers and machines, though she knew it for a purgatorial waiting cloister, floating between the worlds.
She suppressed a smile when Monsieur Arouet appeared. He sported a dark, unpowdered wig, though still looked rather old-about the age of her father Jacques Dars, thirty plus one or two. His shoulders slumped forward under the weight of many books. She’d only seen books twice, during her trials, and though they looked nothing like these, she recoiled at the memory of their power.
“ Alors,”Monsieur Arouet said, setting the books before her. “Forty-two volumes. My Selected Works. Incomplete but-” he smiled “-for now, it will have to do. What’s wrong?”
“Do you mock me? You know I cannot read.”
“I know. Garcon 213-ADM is going to teach you.”
“I do not want to learn. All books except the Bible are born of the devil.”
Monsieur Arouet threw up his hands and lapsed into curses, violent and intriguing oaths like those her soldiers used when they forgot that she was near. “You must learn how to read. Knowledge is power!”
“The devil must know a great deal,” she said, careful to let no part of the books touch her.
Monsieur Arouet, exasperated, turned to the sorceress-who appeared to be sitting at a nearby table-and said, “Vac! Can’t you teach her anything?” Then he turned back to her. “How will you appreciate my brilliance if you can’t even read?”
“I have no use for it.”
“Ha! Had you been able to read, you’d have confounded those idiots who sent you to the stake.”
“All learned men,” she said. “Like you.”
“No, pucellette, not like me. Not like me at all.” As if it were a serpent, she recoiled from the book he held out. Grinning, he rubbed the book all over himself and Garcon, who was now standing beside the table. “It’s harmless-see?”
“Evil is often invisible,” she murmured. “
Monsieur is right,” Garcon told her. “All the best people read.”
“Had you been lettered,” Monsieur Arouet said, “you’d have known that your inquisitors had absolutely no right to try you. You were a prisoner of war, seized in battle. Your English captor had no legal right to have your religious views examined by French inquisitors and academics. You pretended to believe your voices were divine-”
“Pretended!” she cried out.
“-and he pretended to believe they were demonic. The English are themselves too tolerant to burn anyone at the stake. They leave such forms of amusement to our countrymen, the French.”
“Not too tolerant,” the Maid said, “to turn me over to the bishop of Beauvais, claiming I was a witch.” She looked away, unwilling to let him peer in her eyes. “Perhaps I am. I betrayed my own voices.”