"We will make Shee a Glamor now," he said. "So that the ikon is convenient for you."
Symbol was startled. "I didn't even see her. I thought maybe you—" She broke off with a sigh.
"But that was yesteryear."
"With the ikon you will be fit again."
"But still married, with children."
"So part time will be better."
"Serious? You will take me back?"
"We need someone to carry the ikon. I trust you."
Symbol looked at him with a mixture of expressions. And Shee felt her feelings. He was being thoughtlessly unkind.
"Tell her you still love her," Shee told him. "And prove it. I will mind the children."
Symbol sent her a look of sheer gratitude.
Soon Shee was with the children, while Havoc and Symbol were thumping in the bedroom.
Haven was delighted to have her company. How would it be to have children like this—Havoc's children? To be a family woman? She ached with desire, and this time not for sex.
"What's Havoc doing with mommy?" Haven asked.
Shee checked her memory banks, and verified that children were educated early about no fault sex. "She was his mistress for many years," she explained. "Now they both have other lives, but they miss each other. They are having no fault sex."
"Oh. Okay." His interest moved on to other things.
In due course Havoc and Symbol reappeared. She looked radiant. Her appearance was illusion, but surely reflected her state of mind. Two things had dominated her prior life: being the king's mistress, and carrying Voila's ikon.
Both had been lost. Now she was recovering equivalent things.
Symbol resumed charge of her children. Havoc and Shee went to the bedroom, but for more important business than sex.
Havoc focused on Shee. "We have concluded that your constituency should be inanimate matter," he said. "Do you understand the obligations of a Glamor to her constituency?"
"Affirmation. But what could inanimate matter want?"
"That will be for you to fathom. But fair warning: just as the empathy program changes you, being a Glamor will change you more. Your affinity will be for your constituency, but also for other Glamors. You will probably not serve the machines any more."
"The machines," she said. "They do not feel. They could feel, because they were able to incorporate feeling in the robots, but they don't include it in themselves. Not the ones we encountered, at any rate. It interferes with objectivity. It would change them the way empathy changes me. I was already closer to life than to the machines when I came to you."
"Concurrence. We merely wish you to be advised."
"Why are you being so careful?" she flared. "What does it matter whether I am advised or left ignorant until the fact?" Then she answered her own question. "Because if you trick me into things, I will resent it, feeling negative, and you don't want a Glamor with a grudge. You want to be sure I am on your side before you give me real power."
"Even that is too cynical," Havoc said. "The near future paths indicate that clarity is best from the outset. We want to forge our best chance against the machines."
"Which is to let Voila enlist with them. Why do you risk annihilation unnecessarily?" But again she answered herself. "You feel for the other living cultures! You can't let them perish while you prosper."
"And can you?"
"Negation! Not any more." She shook her head. "I have changed. I never cared about them before."
"Now you must care similarly about your constituency. It will expect your utter commitment."
"How can inanimate matter expect anything? I have special consciousness circuits, as do living things, but the inanimate does not."
"And so it needs a spokesperson."
"We have been over this before, I think. How do I relate?"
"Reach out with your new awareness. Identify with matter. Fathom its nature. Offer to represent it. If it accepts you, it will give you the power."
"This is how you turned Glamor?"
"Affirmation. The power was immediate. It took time to master the nuances."
"I should think so." She considered a moment. "Warp showed me the near future paths. I can't see them by myself, but perhaps in time I'll learn. Can you show me this fathoming similarly?"
"I will try." He took her hand.
They concentrated. There was nothing.
"It seems I can't help you here," Havoc said with regret. "You have to make the connection by yourself."
"I feared that would be the case."
He reconsidered. "But maybe the paths can help. They can suggest the path to success. Then you can follow it."
"Help me."
He took her hand again. Now she saw several images of herself, sitting, concentrating, getting nowhere.
Except that along one path she smiled. It was the one where she happened to have picked up a pebble, a little stone. Matter! She focused on that one, and was at its nexus. More paths diverged from it, most leading nowhere, but on one she remained smiling. She took that one, still orienting on the pebble.
Then she was floating into diminishing smallness. She saw the pebble expanding, becoming a rock, a boulder, an island. Its ragged edges became ridges and crevices, then mountains and valleys. She dropped to it, and it continued expanding.
She found herself unable to land on the island, which had become a planetoid. As she approached, its substance became diffuse, globs of matter attached to each other by strong affinities. The molecules of the stone. But what she sought was not here.
She delved deeper, entering a molecule, discovering its atoms. She approached an atom, spying its central mass of protons and neutrons, its outer electron sphere. She entered the electron, finding the charged quarks that comprised it.
This was the fundamental basis of matter, but she found no way to relate to it or draw power from it.
She withdrew, returning rapidly to her contact with Havoc. "Negation," she said.
"Affirmation. Maybe I was in the way. Try it without me." He let go of her hand.
She tried—and could not even start. "I can't do it without you."
"Try just the near future paths."
She tried. There was absolutely nothing. "With Warp I did it, and with you. But it is clear that I was merely following your seeing; I have no ability myself."
"What of adapting your far future seeing to near future?"
"That was conjecture. Now we know it was false. Near future seeing is a different thing. It is not calculated, so much as seeing."
He nodded. "Confirmation. I had this impression, but hoped I was wrong. You lack the capacity for near future paths seeing. Conjecture: the machines lack it, so could not provide you with it. Another reason they are so desperate for Voila, its leading practitioner."
"Agreement," she said unhappily.
"Maybe we oriented on the wrong object. Try your finger."
"Question?"
"As a machine you are different from inanimate matter, but closer to it than to living flesh. Maybe you can explore and fathom that difference, and gain a better notion how to approach the inanimate."
"Idea," she agreed. She took his hand, and focused on the tip of her own finger. In a moment she was floating toward it, as she had with the little stone.
It was indeed different. The molecules of the flexible metal and composition aligned in a quite contrary pattern. They had been crafted rather than randomly assembled. But the answer was not there.
She emerged from the study. "Let me look at your finger," she said.
"Life versus non-life," he agreed, proffering a finger.
She oriented on it. This was substantially different again. It pulsed with animation, its linked cells constantly relating to each other. Every cell was a creature in its own right, performing its own feeding, elimination, housekeeping, and service functions. They lived in a common environment, contributing to a common host, but each was descended from an individual entity. She read it in their history, encoded in the DNA.