“Well, that's a shame,” Conrad said, though in truth he felt much the same about the Orbital Tower. Of all the projects in his past, that was the only one he still dreamed about. Part of him seemed to wish that job had never ended, or even—perversely!—that he'd died after completing it. His crowning achievement, his denouement, his swan song. But with an infinite future ahead of him, there was no reason to think that was truly his finest hour. The best was, almost by definition, yet to come.
He picked up his wine goblet and drank from it, savoring its atomically perfect bouquet and finish. Oh, for a medical-grade fax machine of his own! “I always liked your poetry. I still do. Is it your muse, by the way, that keeps you from naming the planet? Are we stuck with ‘P2' forever?”
“Ah, that. Hmm. Yes, well, it may be my muse,” Bascal answered. “Or perhaps I'm just waiting for the right confluence of events. I don't want to give this world the wrong name just because you're impatient. As an immorbid, I won't be forced, I won't be rushed. But no, it won't always be Planet Two. That's not a home. It doesn't speak to the soul.”
“Well, don't wait forever. More than two-thirds of the current population was born here. It is their home. You'll reach a point where the old name just sticks.”
“Maybe so.”
The idea seemed to sap some of Bascal's energy. Which of course made Conrad feel guilty for raising a sensitive issue. Some friend he'd turned out to be.
“Listen,” he said in a lighter tone, “you seem to have a spare copy of yourself, or if not you can print another. And I'm free. Mack has the construction site for the day, so if you'd like to raise a few glasses, or ingest some other recreational substance, I'm at your disposal.”
“Yes?” Bascal arched an eyebrow. “Truly? Well, that's historic. The first architect, come to visit these humble artless walls for something more than business? We'd better get started, then, boyo. With years to make up for, you'll have to be carried home by Palace Guards. You dislike them, I know, but nothing spells ‘party' like having them cart off the unconscious bodies.”
And the trouble was, Bascal was serious about that. Conrad would never shake the memory of those Guards: monsters of gleaming impervium, at least as graceful as household servants and yet also deadly, packed with weaponry, full of suspicion, and always keyed up for violent action. He would never love them, even for saving his life.
One of the most symbolic things Bascal had done as king was to send his Guards away. No more would they loom behind him, following him, logging his every move, and every move by anyone else within harm's reach. But here in the palace, visible or not, they were only a fax away from instantiation. For practical purposes they were waiting behind that print plate as if it were no more than a curtain. Bascal really did use them to toss out drunks, and to escort people back to their residences if they'd worn out their welcome. And Palace Guards were not known for their gentleness.
“Sounds like a good time,” Conrad said, forcing a smile. And hell, he did need a night off, and the company of an old friend. And for that matter a good drugging—one which didn't involve the seduction of some tender young morsel who hadn't the sense to know better. How long had it been since he'd just gotten stupid, for no reason and with no goal in mind? More sincerely, he said, “In fact, my liege, it sounds like a better time than I've had in years.”
Chapter fifteen.
The king's ransom
Sixty-six months later almost to the day, Conrad was in the study of his home, inloading mental notes on the latest crop of nonprogrammable materials the southern factories were turning out. Inloading other people's notes could be a real problem—some people got sick, got headaches, sometimes even went crazy and needed to fax a fresh body before they could think clearly again. But the process had never bothered Conrad. He was not a brilliant man, and at times there were real advantages in this.
The stuff that was personal, tied up with the feelings and memories of the individuals who recorded it, he was able simply to ignore. It didn't jam its way into his head or anything. It didn't confuse him. The rest of it, the factual side, well . . . he mostly forgot that as well, but it left behind general impressions, so that if he ever needed a particular thing, a material or product or specialized idea, he would at least know whether it existed or not, and where he might go to look it up.
Still, the process was tiring, and after a few hours he gave up, set the neural halo aside, and just sat there at his office table, sipping from a mug of red tea and looking out the window, down over the shops and homes, the apartments and warehouses sloping down to the bay. It was late in the afterpids; the sun was setting behind him, behind the mountains, and its ruddy glare on the smog-colored clouds was arrestingly beautiful. Perhaps his brain was sorting what it had learned, or perhaps it needed some quiet time to recover its faculties, or perhaps Conrad was simply lazy. Whether he sat there for twenty minutes or an hour he never knew, as the sun moved only a hair's width in the sky. The long day on P2 rivaled even that of Venus, and its sunset was a long, drawn-out affair. But at some point along the way the house interrupted him with a visitor chime.
He looked up. “Hmm? What?”
“A visitor,” the house said, daring to speak.
“Oh, well, show her in.”
It did not occur to him that the visitor might be male, and in this he was neither surprised nor disappointed, because his front door opened, and his study door opened, and a lighted walkway appeared in the wellstone of the floor, with moving colors indicating the proper direction of travel, just in case his visitor was painfully stupid. She appeared in Conrad's doorway: a young woman with blonde hair, brown eyes, and skin the color of almond shells. Her only garment was a skin-tight wellcloth leotard, colored bright green and stretched over her with quite obviously nothing beneath. Conrad felt a shock of familiarity on seeing her, but he couldn't quite place the face. Or the body.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “How are you this evening?”
The woman looked him up and down, saying nothing.
“I've, ah, misplaced your name.”
“I haven't given it,” she said, with the vaguely superior air that young people had when they thought they were being smart. Conrad peered at her more closely, studying her features. Something about her made him think of Bascal, and he asked her, “Are you the king's girlfriend? Nala Rishe, the lobbyist?”
The young woman's laugh was cool and self-assured, more amused than friendly. “No, sorry. Do you want me to be?” She ran her hands down her body in a suggestive but rather exaggerated way, and Conrad realized she was younger than he'd thought at first. Hers was not the body of a twenty or twenty-five-year-old, like most of the people in the kingdom who were current in their fax ups. On closer inspection, he supposed she had never yet seen her twenties. She was still in the bloom of adolescence, burning with hormones and yet lacking the experience to deploy them wisely. He rethought his conversational approach, and said, “I've been reading for hours, young lady, and I'm in no mood for riddles or parlor games. Who are you, exactly?”
“Princess Wendy de Towaji Lutui Rishe,” she said through a smirk, in tones suggesting he should've known this before she even walked through his door.