Monsieur Boker blinked and thought. “I…I think it may be truly said that we Preservers of Our Father’s Faith, the party I represent, are in a manner of speaking descendants of your Charles.”
The Maid smiled. She knew her voices had been heaven-sent, no matter what the bishops said. She’d only denied them when they took her to the cemetery of St. Ouen, and then only for fear of the fire. She’d been right to recant her recantation two days later; the Lancastrian failure to annex France confirmed that. If Monsieur Boker spoke for descendants of the House of Valois, despite his clear absence of a noble title, she would hear him out.
“Proceed,” she said.
Monsieur Boker explained that this place was soon to hold a referendum. (After some deliberation with la Sorciere, he advised that Joan should think of this place as France, in essence.) The contest would be between two major parties, Preservers vs. Skeptics. Both parties had agreed to hold a Great Debate between two verbal duelists, to frame the salient question.
“What issue?” the Maid asked sharply.
“Whether mechanical beings endowed with artificial intelligence should be built. And if so, should they be allowed full citizenship, with all attendant rights.”
The Maid shrugged. “A joke? Only aristocrats and noblemen have rights.”
“Not anymore, though of course we do have a class system. Now the common lot enjoy rights.”
“Peasants like me?” the Maid asked. “We?”
Monsieur Boker, face a moving flurry of exasperated scowls, turned to La Sorciere. “Must I do everything?”
“You wanted her as is,” La Sorciere said. “Or, rather, as was.”
Monsieur Boker spent two minutes ranting about something he called the Conceptual Shift. This term meant an apparently theological dispute about the nature of mechanical artifice. To Joan the answer seemed clear, but then, she was a woman of the fields, not a word artisan.
“Why don’t you ask your king? One of his counselors? Or one of your learned men?”
Monsieur Boker curled his lip, dismissively fanned the air. “Our leaders are pallid! Weak! Rational doormats!”
“Surely-”
“You cannot imagine, coming from ancient passion. Intensity and passion are regarded as bad form, out of style. We wished to find intellects with the old fire, the-”
“No! Oh!” The flames, licking-
It was some moments before her breathing calmed and she could shakily listen again.
The great debate between Faith and Reason would be held in the Coliseum of Junin Sector before an audience of 400,000 souls. The Maid and her opponent would appear in holograms, magnified by a factor of thirty. Each citizen would then vote on the question.
“Vote?” the Maid inquired.
“You wanted her uncorrupted,” La Sorciere said. “You got her.”
The Maid listened in silence, forced to absorb millennia in minutes. When Monsieur Boker finished, she said, “I excelled in battle, if only for a brief time, but never in argument. No doubt you know of my fate.”
Monsieur Boker looked pained. “The vagueries of the ancients! We have a skimpy historical frame around your, ah, representation-no more. We know not what place you lived, but we do know minutiae of events after your-”
“Death. You can speak of it. I am accustomed to it, as any Christian maiden should be, upon arrival in Purgatory. I know who you two are, as well.”
La Sorciere asked cautiously, “You…do?”
“Angels! You manifest yourselves as ordinary folk, to calm my fears. Then you set me a task. Even if it involves the roguish, it is a divine mission.”
Monsieur Boker nodded slowly, glancing at La Sorciere. “From the tatters of data flapping about your Self, we gather that your reputation was restored at hearings held twenty-six years after your death. Those involved in your condemnation repented of their mistake. You were called, in high esteem, La Rose de la wire.”
She blinked back wistful tears. “Justice…Had I been skilled in argument, I’d have convinced my inquisitors-those English-loving preachers of the University of Paris!-that I am not a witch.”
Monsieur Boker seemed moved. “Even pre-antiquity knew when a holy power was with them.”
The Maid laughed, lighthearted. “The Lord’s on the side of His Son, and the saints and martyrs, too. But that does not mean they escape failure and death.”
“She’s right,” La Sorciere said. “Even worlds and galaxies share man’s fate.”
“We of spirituality need you,” Monsieur Boker pleaded. “We have become too much like our machines. We hold nothing sacred except the smooth functioning of our parts. We know you will address the question with intensity, yet in simplicity and truth. That is all we ask.”
The Maid felt fatigued. She needed solitude, time to reflect. “I must consult with my voices. Will there be only one, or many questions that I must address?”
“Just one.”
The inquisitors had been far more demanding. They asked many questions, dozens, sometimes the same ones, over and over again. Right answers at Poitiers proved wrong elsewhere. Deprived of food, drink, rest, intimidated by the enforced journey to the cemetery, exhausted by the tedious sermon they compelled her to hear, and wracked by terror of the fire, she could not withstand their interrogation.
“ Does the Archangel Michael have long hair?”
“Is St. Margaret stout or lean?”
“Are St. Catherine’s eyes brown or blue?”
They trapped her into assigning to voices of the spirit attributions of the flesh. Then they perversely condemned her for confounding sacred spirit with corrupt flesh.
All had been miasma. And in Purgatory, worse trials could ensue. She could not therefore be certain if this Boker would turn out to be friend or foe.
“What is it?” she wanted to know. “This single question you want me to answer.”
“There is universal consensus that man-made intelligences have a kind of brain. The question we want you to answer is whether they have a soul. “
“Only the Almighty has the power to create a soul.”
Monsieur Boker smiled. “We Preservers couldn’t agree with you more. Artificial intelligences, unlike us, their creators, have no soul. They’re just machines. Mechanical contrivances with electronically programmed brains. Only man has a soul.”
“If you already know the answer to the question, why do you need me?”
“To persuade! First the undecided of Junin Sector, then Trantor, then the Empire!”
The Maid reflected. Her inquisitors had known the answers to the questions they plied her with, too. Monsieur Boker seemed sincere, but then so were those who pronounced her a witch. Monsieur Boker had told her the answer beforehand, one with which any sensible person would agree. Still, she could not be sure of his intentions. Not even the crucifix she asked the priest to hold aloft was proof against the oily smoke, the biting flames…
“Well?” asked Monsieur Boker. “Will the Sacred Rose consent to be our champion?”
“These people I must convince. Are they, too, descendants of Charles, the Great and True King, of the House of Valois?”
5.
When Marq strode into Splashes amp; Sniffs to meet his buddy and coworker Nim, he was surprised to find Nim already there. To judge from Nim’s dilated pupils, he’d been there most of the afternoon.
Marq said, “Hitting it hard? Something going on?”
Nim shook his head. “Same old Marq, blunt as a fist. First, try the Swirlsnort. Doesn’t do a thing for your thirst-in fact, it will dry up your entire head-but you won’t care.”
Swirlsnort turned out to be a powdery concoction that tasted like nutmeg and bit as if he had swallowed an angry insect. Marq sniffed it slowly, one nostril at a time. He wanted to be relatively clearheaded when Nim updated him on office politics and funding. After that, he’d allow himself to get skyed.