David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

He explained further with some graphics JonVon had whipped up with only minutes’ warning. The Council listened with glacial but growing acceptance. At least it seemed the idea was possible.

Complicated, yes. Difficult and risky, yes. But possible.

And perhaps the only possibility.

Carl remained standing. He kept his mood grave but sympathetic, determined but flexible. And one by one, the factions voiced their own narrow views.

The Plateau Threes disliked throwing away hard-won Halley…but they were used to taking their lead from him.

The Ubers grumbled, but admitted they had no other option.

Jeffers and the few Percell spacers who had clung to their dream of Mars terraforming were overjoyed. They would get to work near Mars, perhaps start the greening of that arid rustworld.

The Arcists weren’t totally happy. They distrusted Carl. But this option kept Halley far from Earth. And the sanction of Earth Control lent it weight.

Through it all Carl felt the dark undercurrent of Percell and Ortho running, but muted now by the constricted, bleak future they faced. The largest part of the crew belonged to a group he called the survivors— because in the end, that was all they cared about.

Quite sensible, he thought ruefully. And I’m their natural ally… even though I don’t believe we’ll ever really get out of this alive…

He watched the sloop run before the wind, her sails big-bellied and impossibly white, her bow cutting the water sharp and sure.

And gradually, reluctantly, the factions came around.

The Council broke up at last with grudging agreement. They would try to reach Mars.

Carl sat down at last, feeling a sudden fatigue sweep over him.

The Arcists are right. They can’t trust me. I know this Mars business isn’t going to pan out right, but it’s politically necessary right now. Necessary in order to prevent a civil war. In order to get the Care Package. The hard truths can come later.

He shook his head.

I’m turning into a goddamn diplomat. I don’t think like a spacer anymore, not even like an engineer. Christ! — I’ll be wearing black tie and tails next. And when I look in the mirror thetongue I see will be forked.

The machinery was starting to look old. The original glossy finish had faded long ago, until it was hard to read the names of the equipment manufacturers anymore. They had been rubbed nearly illegible after thirty years of faithful scrubbing.

Ozymandias, my secret hideaway. Virginia glanced over in the back corner of the lab, where little Wendy sat patiently, drawing a small trickle of power from a wall socket. The tiny maintenance mech peeped once and started to rise, but when Virginia said nothing it settled down once more.

Funny, how you didn’t notice things for a while, and then they suddenly hit you. It had been almost two years, Earth time, since Virginia had been thawed and returned to duty, yet in all that time she had not once paid the slightest attention to Wendy. She had been too busy.

Now she contemplated the little mech, bemused.

Thirty years. She’s cleaned and tended and guarded my sanctuary, keeping things just as I left them.

Maybe Saul is right. Maybe I do good work.

She smiled.

Watch it, girl. Keep this up and you really will start to imagine yourself a goddess, like those poor creatures — barely human anymore — who followed Ingersoll down into the deepest caverns, who bow to my mechs and address them by my name.

The last two years had been so busy, for her, for Saul, and for Carl. It struck her that she had not taken any time to stop and think about what had happened to all of them.

A fine trio, we are. None of us were important at all, back when Captain Cruz lived, and everyone was one big, happy research expedition. Carl was just a petty officer, I was a junior Artificial Intelligence tech, and Saul was a doctor with a strange passion for bugs.

Now poor Carl is whatever passes for commander, these days. I’m the Spider Woman, sending out her web of drones to keep the tunnels patched and the gunk controlled. And Saul…

She paused, pondering. Of usall, he’s the one who’s changed the most. Lord, I hope I don’t lose a good man to godhead.

He had been so preoccupied lately. Almost obsessed. Reluctant to link with her in the intimate touch of neural amplification. As if he were hiding something from me… or protecting me from something he felt I’d never understand.

Finally, it had come to a head. Last week she had lashed out, shouting at him in her frustration. Since then, he had left a few terse messages for her, her mechs had seen him in the halls, but for all intents and purposes they might as well have been on different planets.

All around her the holo displays glowed faintly. Even some of the units that had gone blank over her long sleep were replaced, now that she and Jeffers had gotten the autofac working properly up on A Level. For perhaps the first time since her awakening, no red warning lights glowed.

She found her gaze lingering on the Kelmar bio-organic machine that she had spent half her personal weight allowance to bring aboard… ages ago. The heart of her bio-cybernetic computer.

“JonVon,” she whispered. “I need some distraction from my troubles.”

There were things she used to do, for amusement, which she had not had time for in years. But now—

“Let’s see just how rusty I am at visual simulation,” she said, low, and pressed the Kelmar’s thumb ident. A display lit up.

So, Virginia. Will it be more than routine stuff, today?

She shook her head. “Let’s have some fun, like we used to.”

Virginia spent a few moments flicking switches and calibrating before slipping on the worn disk of her neural tap. She had grown so used to direct data flow, controlling or programming distant mechs as if they were parts of her own body, that it took her a few minutes to get back into the experimental, “synthetic” mode that had once been her own special way of interacting with JonVon.

But JonVon remembered. She had only to desire it, and a rainbow of light burst forth… an artist’s palette of brilliance.

I forgot about the colors! How could I have stayed away from this for so long?

Virginia constructed pink clouds over a placid, blue-green sea. She drew seven multihued balls and juggled them in make-believe hands, something she never would have been able to do on the “real” plane.

We’re in good form today, Virginia.

She smiled. “Yeah, we are, JonVon. I’m going to have to go down into you and find out what you’ve done to your simulation software.”

I have been busy. During my illness I was too distracted to tell you about it. However, there have been some interesting results. I am an open book to you, whenever you re ready.

“Later. Right now I Just want to play a little while.”

It wasn’t only in visual simulation that JonVon had made progress. Only her trained ear caught the little signs in his words, phrasing, and timing, that this was still far from an intelligent being. Otherwise, the voice might easily have been that of a living person.

She toyed with the images, making the broad, moonlit sea open up before her. A school of flying fish. Diatoms sparkling in the churned wake of a mysterious shadow, just below the surface.

It felt good. Here within the machine, there were none of the muddy, confusing crises that beset them all on the outside. Here nothing could frighten her. It was too much like home.

Lord, how I miss Hawaii.