"Why me?" asked Bonnie Mae. "I'm not one of your volunteers."
"You're not only a person of faith, you're a person of good faith," he said. "We need to hear what you bring. In fact, I hope you can convince Nandi Paradivash to come to the next meeting. We need him, too."
"He's hurting, Mr. Sellars." She shook her head. "He told me he was going back to the burning ground, whatever that means. That he was going to start over."
"We need him," Sellars said firmly. "Please tell him so." He raised his scarred head. "As I said, I really do want to make myself obsolete. Once things are up and running, these new worlds won't need another God—neither the twisted sort the Grail Brotherhood made or a caretaker deity like me. Besides, I have other ambitions."
Even Kunohara and Ramsey seemed puzzled by this. "Other ambitions. . . " asked Hideki Kunohara.
"You saw where the others went," Sellars said. "The new creatures. How they rode the light out into the great unknown. Well, I'm information now, too. One day, when I'm not needed anymore, it will be good to be free to fly again."
Renie wasn't sure why Catur Ramsey laughed. She thought what Sellars said was very touching. "So . . . so what does this Otherland Trust do?" she asked. "Vote on things?"
"Yes—in fact we have something to vote on now." Sellars looked over at Sam and Orlando, who were whispering. "Orlando—would you please rise?"
Renie could not hide a smile. He sounded like a schoolteacher.
Orlando stood, a strange mixture of barbarian grace and teenage awkwardness. "Have you decided on what you want to call yourself?" Sellars asked him.
"I think so."
"But he's already got a name!" It was clear Sam Fredericks had not known this was coming, whatever it was.
"It's not another name he needs," Sellars told her, "but a title. Whatever happens, the worlds of the network will need lots of supervision, especially at first as we bring them back online. I can't do it all. I considered Kunohara, but he has made it clear he does not wish such an active role. Also, I need to train someone for the long term, teach them some of my responsibilities, as a maintenance man if not as a god—especially if I hope to ride the sky-river-of-light someday, as our absent friends called it. So I need an . . . apprentice, I suppose. Orlando?"
"I think I want to be called . . . a ranger." Renie thought she saw a blush beneath the deep tan. "I plan to travel a lot, so it makes sense. And to kind of have responsibility for the place, too—like a forest ranger. And . . . and it has another meaning. From a favorite book of mine."
Sellars nodded. "An excellent choice. But may we at least dignify it with the little 'Head Ranger'?" He Smiled. "Considering that this network was largely the province of one astounding mind, that adds another layer of meaning, too." He turned to the table. "Let us vote. All in favor of Orlando Gardiner as the first Head Ranger of the Otherland network. . . ."
All the hands went up.
"Wow, Gardino," Sam Fredericks said in a loud stage-whisper. "Now you're Assistant God!"
"Yeah, and I never even got a high school education."
"Enough jokes, you two," Sellars said kindly. "I believe you have another meeting to attend?"
"Oh, yeah." Orlando's good cheer suddenly evaporated and he was pure nervous adolescent. "Yeah, we do." He and Sam stood up. "Mr. Ramsey, are you coming?"
"I'm ready," the lawyer told them.
"But we have come to no conclusion about the network itself," Martine protested. "Surely it is too important a question simply to abandon."
"It is indeed," Sellars said. "But we have days, perhaps even weeks, to make our decisions. Try to get Nandi Paradivash to come to the next meeting. Let's say in two days, shall we?"
Renie almost complained that two days was too soon, that some of them had to find jobs, but then she remembered. "About that money. . . ." she said.
Sellars shook his head, "There's no one to give it back to—I'm dead, remember? If you don't want it, I'm sure you can find a worthy cause that will accept a large donation." He seemed to enjoy her frustration. "And if you remind me, I'll arrange a better way for you to get online next time. You might want to consider getting a neurocannula, unless you have some religious objection."
By the time Sellars moved off, summoned by Hideki Kunohara for a private chat in one of the adjoining rooms, Orlando, Sam, and Catur Ramsey had already left and the others were all talking—all but Martine, who still sat apart as though she were a stranger at the gathering. Renie squeezed !Xabbu's hand before moving around the table toward her. Martine looked up, but it was impossible to glean anything about the woman's emotional state from her featureless sim.
"So does the money upset you, too?" Renie asked. I am grateful, I suppose, but it does seem a little highhanded. . . ."
Martine seemed surprised. "The money? No, Renie, I have scarcely thought of it. I was wealthy already, from my settlement, and . . . and I have few needs. I have already earmarked my share to go to children's charities. It seems appropriate."
"You can see now, can't you? Is it strange?"
"A bit." She sat motionless. "I will grow used to it. In time."
Renie searched for something to keep the conversation going. "There's something I've been thinking about. Emily. And Azador."
Martine nodded slowly. "That had occurred to me as well."
"I mean, if she was really a version of Ava—and Azador was really Jongleur. . . !"
The Frenchwoman could not show it with her face, but there was a sour tone in her voice. "It is stranger than incest, when you consider that Ava was a clone—and strangely accurate as well, when you consider the child she was meant to bear. I suppose it was a subconscious expression of Jongleur's ultimate vanity." She sighed. "It was all as haunted and ugly as the House of Atreus. But they are dead now. All of them . . . every one . . . dead."
"Oh, Martine, you seem so sad."
The featureless sim shrugged. "There is little in it worth talking about."
"And you seem very angry about Paul."
She did not reply immediately. On the other side of the table, Bonnie Mae Simpkins laughed at some remark of !Xabbu's, although the small man looked entirely serious.
"Paul Jonas was very unhappy . . . at the end," Martine finally said. "He was devastated to realize that he was a copy, as he put it. That he could never have the things he wanted most of all—that he was separated forever from the life he remembered. Yes, I am angry. He was a good, good man. He did not deserve that. Sellars had no right."
Renie thought that somehow, Martine felt the same kinds of things Paul had. "Sellars was doing his best. We all were."
"Yes, I know." The edge was gone and only listlessness remained. Renie almost missed the anger. "But I cannot get it out of my mind. His loneliness. That feeling of being exiled from your own life. . . ."
Renie was trying to think of something reassuring to say until she noticed that the quality of Martine's silence had changed. Even without a facial expression to read, Renie could see a certain tension, an alertness in the woman's sim that hadn't been there before.
"I have been a fool," Martine said suddenly. "A selfish fool."
"What. . . ?"
"I'm sorry, Renie. I have no more time to talk. We will speak later, I promise." With that, she disappeared.