spread throughout the colony, encompassing art, the media, and
academic life.
Ambition was an endemic vice among Wells and his group.
Lindsay had joined the Clique without much enthusiasm. With
proximity, though, he had picked up their plans as if they were
local bacteria. And their fashions as welclass="underline" his hair was slickly
brilliantined and his mustache was nicked for a paste-on micro-
phone lip bead. He wore video-control rings on the wrinkled
fingers of his left hand.
Work ate the years. Once time had seemed solid to him, dense as lead. Now it flowed through his hands. Lindsay saw that his
perception of time was slowly coming to match that of the
senior Shapers he'd known in Goldreich-Tremaine. To the truly
old, time was as thin as air, a keening and destructive wind that
erased their pasts and attacked their memories. Time was accelerating. Nothing could slow it down for him but death. He
tasted this truth, and it was bitter as amphetamine.
He returned his attention to the paper; a reassessment of a
celebrated Investor scale fragment found among the effects of a
failed Mechanist interstellar embassy. Few bits of matter had
ever been analyzed so exhaustively. The paper, "Proximo-Distal
Gradients in Epidermal Cell Adhesiveness," came from a Shaper defector in Diotima Cartel.
His desk rang. His visitor had arrived.
The unobtrusive guard systems in Lindsay's office showed
Wells's characteristic touch. The visitor had been issued a stylish coronet, which had evolved from the much clumsier kill clamp. A tiny red light, unseen by the guest himself, glowed on
the man's forehead. It denoted the potential impact site for
armaments, decently concealed in the ceiling.
"Professor Milosz?" The visitor's dress was odd. He wore a
white formal suit with a ring-shaped open collar and accordioned elbows and knees.
"You're Dr. Morrissey? From the Concatenation?"
"From the Mare Serenitatis Republic," the man said. "Dr.
Pongpianskul sent me."
"Pongpianskul is dead," Lindsay said.
"So they said." Morrissey nodded. "Killed on Chairman Con-
stantine's orders. But the doctor had friends in the Republic. So
many that he now controls the nation. His title is Warden, and
the nation is reborn as the Neotenic Cultural Republic. I am the
harbinger of the Revolution." He hesitated. "Maybe I should let
Dr. Pongpianskul tell it."
Lindsay was stunned. "Perhaps you should."
The man produced a videolablet and plugged it into his brief
case. He handed Lindsay the tablet, which flickered into life. It
showed a face: Pongpianskul's. Pongpianskul brushed at his
braids, disheveling them with leathery, wrinkled hands.
"Abelard, how are you?"
"Neville. You're alive?"
"I'm still a tenant of the flesh, yes. Morrissey's briefcase is
programmed with an interactive expert system. It ought to carry
out a decent conversation with you, in my absence."
Morrissey cleared his throat. "These machines are new to me. I
think, though, that I should let the two of you speak privately."
"That might be best."
"I'll wait in the lobby."
Lindsay watched the man's retreating back. Morrissey's clothes amazed him. Lindsay had forgotten that he'd ever dressed like that, in the Republic.
He studied the tablet's screen. "You look well, Neville."
"Thank you. Ross arranged my last rejuvenation. By the
Cataclysts. The same group that treated you, Mavrides."
"Treated me? They put me on ice."
"On ice? That's odd. The Cataclysts woke me up. I never felt
so alive as when I was here in the Republic, pretending to be
dead. It's been a long ten years, Abelard. Eleven, whatever."
Pongpianskul shrugged.
Lindsay Looked at the tablet. The image made no response to
the Look, and the charm faded. Lindsay spoke slowly. "So
you've attacked the Republic? Through the Cataclyst terror
networks?"
The tablet smiled Pongpianskul's smile. "The Cataclysts had
their part in it, I admit. You would have appreciated this,
Mavrides. I played off the youth element. There was a political
group called the Preservationists, dating-oh, forty or fifty years
back. Constantine used them to seize power, but they detested
the Shapers as much as they did the Mechs. What they wanted,
really, was a human life, droll as that might seem. Now there's a
new generation of them, raised under Shaper influence and
hating it. But thanks to Shaper breeding policies, the young
hold a majority."
Pongpianskul laughed. "Constantine used the Republic as a
storehouse for Shaper militants. He made things here a muddle
of subterfuge. When the war heated up, the militants rushed
back to the Ring Council and Cataclyst Superbrights hid here
instead. Constantine spent too much time in the Rings, and lost
touch. . . . The Cataclysts like my notion of a cultural preserve.
It's all down in the new Constitution. My messenger will give
you a copy."
"Thank you."
"Things haven't gone well with the rest of the Midnight Clique.
. . . It's been too long since we've talked. I tracked you down
through your ex-wife."
"Alexandrina?"
"What?" The programmed system was confused; the persona
flickered for a second's fraction. "It took some doing. Nora's
under close surveillance."
"Just a moment." Lindsay rose from his chair and poured
himself a drink. A cascade of memories from the Republic had
rushed through him, and he'd thought automatically of his first
wife, Alexandrina Tyler. But of course she was not in the
Republic. She had been a victim of Constantine's purge,
shipped out to the Zaibatsu.
He returned to the screen. It said, "Ross left for the cometaries when G-T crumbled. Fetzko has faded. Vetterling's in Skimmers Union, sucking up to the fascists. Ice assassins took Margaret Juliano. She's still awaiting the thaw. I have power here,
Mavrides. But that can't make up for what we lost."
"How is Nora?" Lindsay said.
The false Pongpianskul looked grave. "She fights Constantine
where he's strongest. If it weren't for her my coup here would
have failed; she distracted him. . . . I'd hoped I could lure her
here, and you as well. She was always so good to us. Our
premier hostess."
"She wouldn't come?"
"She has remarried."
The slotted glass broke in Lindsay's iron hand. Blobs of liqueur drifted toward the floor.
"For political reasons," the screen continued. "She needs every
ally she can find. Having you join me would have been difficult
in any case. No one over sixty is allowed in the Neotenic
Cultural Republic. Except for myself and my officers."
Lindsay yanked the cord from the tablet. He helped the small
office servo pick up the shards of glass.
When he called Morrissey in again, much later, the man was
diffident. "Are you quite through, sir? I've been instructed to
erase the tablet."
"It was kind of you to bring it." Lindsay gestured at a chair.
"Thank you for waiting so long."
Morrissey wiped the construct's memory and put the tablet in
his briefcase. He studied Lindsay's face. "I hope I haven't
brought bad news."
"It's astonishing," Lindsay said. "Maybe we should have a
drink to celebrate."
A shadow crossed Morrissey's face.
"Forgive me," Lindsay said. "Perhaps I was tactless." He put
the bottle away. There was not much left.
"I'm sixty years old," Morrissey said. He sat uncomfortably.
"So they ousted me. They were polite about it." He smiled
painfully. "I was a Preservationist once. I was eighteen in the