Peter Hamilton - The Dreaming Void

A slow smile revealed perfect white teeth. At least I'll get to have some real sex before I download again.

Justine teleported out of the New York reception facility right into the centre of the Tulip Mansion. Stabilizer fields had maintained the ancient Burnelli family home through the centuries, keeping the building's fabric in pristine condition. She gave a happy grin when she saw it again with her own eyes. If she was honest with herself it was a bit of a monstrosity; a mansion laid out in four 'petals' whose scarlet and black roofs curved up to a central tower 'stamen' which had an apex 'anther' made from a crown of carved stone coated in gold foil. It was as gaudy as it was striking, falling in and out of fashion over the decades.

Justine's father, Gore Burnelli, had bought the estate in Rye county just outside New York, establishing it as a base for the family's vast commercial and financial activities in the middle of the twenty-first century. It had remained a centre for them while the Commonwealth was established and expanded outwards until finally its social and economic uniformity was shattered by biononics, ANA, and the separation of Higher and Advancer cultures. Today the family still had a prodigious business empire spread across the External Worlds, but it was managed in a corporate structure by thousands of Burnellis, none of whom was over three hundred years old. Gore, along with his original clique of close relatives (including Justine) who used to orchestrate it all, had long since downloaded into ANA. Though Gore had never formally and legally handed over ownership to his impatient descendants. It was, he assured them, purely a quirk for their own benefit, ensuring the whole enterprise could never be broken up, thus giving the family a cohesion that so many others lacked. Except Justine knew damn well that even in his enlightened, expanded, semi-omnipotent state within ANA, Gore wasn't about to hand anything over he'd spent centuries building up. Quirk, my ass.

She'd materialized in the middle of the mansion's ballroom. Her bare feet pressed down on a polished oak floor that was nearly as shiny as the huge gilt-edged mirrors on the wall. A hundred reflections of her naked body grinned sheepishly back at her. Deep-purple velvet drapes curved around the tall window doors which opened out on a veranda dripping with white wisteria. Outside, a bright low February sun shone across the extensive wooded grounds with their massive swathes of rhododendrons. There had been some fabulous parties held in here, she recalled. Fame, wealth, glamour, power, notoriety, and beauty mingling in a fashion that would have made Jane Austen green with envy.

The doors were open, leading out into the broad corridor. Justine walked through, taking in all the semi-familiar sights, welcoming the warm rush of recognition. Alcoves were filled with furniture that had been antique even before Ozzie and Nigel built their first wormhole generator; and as for the artwork, you could buy a small continent on an External World with just one of the paintings.

She padded up the staircase which curved its way through the entrance hall, and made her way down the north petal to her old bedroom. Everything was as she'd left it, maintained for centuries by the stabilizer fields and maidbots; a comforting illusion that she or any other Burnelli could walk in at any time and be given a perfect greeting in their ancestral home. The bed was freshly made, with linen taken out of the stabilizer field and freshened as soon as she and ANA had agreed to the reception. Several clothes were laid out. She ignored the modern toga suit, and went for a classical Indian-themed emerald dress with black boots.

'Very neutral.

Justine jumped at the voice. Irritation quickly supplanted perturbation. She turned and glared at the solido standing in the doorway. 'Dad, I don't care how far past the physical you claim to be, you DO NOT come into a girl's bedroom without knocking. Especially mine.

Gore Burnelli's image didn't show much contrition. He simply watched with interest as she sat on the bed and laced her boots up. He'd chosen the representation of his twenty-fourth-century self, which was undoubtedly the image for which he was most renown: a body whose skin had been turned to gold. Over that he wore a black V-neck sweater and black trousers. The perfect reflective surface made it difficult to determine his features. Without the gold sheen he would have been a handsome twenty-five-year-old with short-cropped fair hair. His face, which at the time he had it done was nothing more than merged organic circuitry tattoos, was all the more disconcerting thanks to the perfectly ordinary grey eyes peering out of the gloss. That Gore looked out on the world from behind a mask of improvements was something of a metaphor. He was a pioneer of enhanced mental routines, and had been one of the founders of ANA.

'Like it matters, he grunted.

'Politeness is always relevant, she snapped back. Her temper wasn't improved by the way her fingers seemed to lack any real dexterity. She was having trouble tying the boot laces.

'You were a good choice to receive the Ambassador.

She finally managed to finish the bow, and lifted a quizzical eyebrow. 'Are you jealous, Dad?

'Of becoming some kind of turbo-version of a monkey again? Yeah right. Thinking down at this level and this speed gives me a headache.

'Turbo-monkey! You nearly said animal, didn't you?

'Flesh and blood is animal.

'Just how many Factions do you support?

'I'm a Conservative, everyone knows that. Maybe a few campaign contributions to the Outwards.

'Humm. She gave him a suspicious look. Even in a body, she knew the rumours that ANA gave special dispensation to some of its internal personalities. ANA: Governance denied it, of course; but if anyone could manage to be more equal than others it would be Gore who'd been in there right at the start as one of the founding fathers.

'The Ambassador is nearly here, Gore said.

Justine checked her exoimages, and started to re-order her secondary thought routines. Her body's macrocellular clusters and biononics were centuries out of date, but still perfectly adequate for the simple tasks today would require. She called her son, Kazimir. 'I'm ready, she told him.

As she walked out of her bedroom she experienced a brief chill that made her glance back over her shoulder. That's the bed where we made love. The last time I saw him alive. Kazimir McFoster was one memory she had never put into storage, never allowed to weaken. There had been others since, many others, both in the flesh and in ANA, wonderful, intense relationships, but none ever had the poignancy of dear Kazimir whose death was her responsibility.

Gore said nothing as his solido followed her down the grand staircase to the entrance hall. She suspected that he suspected.

Kazimir teleported into the marbled entrance hall; appearing dead centre on the big Burnelli crest. He was dressed in his Admiral's tunic. Justine had never seen him wear anything else in six hundred years. He smiled in genuine welcome and gave her a gentle embrace, his lips brushing her cheek.

'Mother. You look wonderful as always.

She sighed. He did look so like his father. 'Thank you, darling.

'Grandfather. He gave Gore a shallow bow.

'Still holding up in that old receptacle, then, Gore said. 'When are you going to join us here in civilization?

'Not today, thank you, Grandfather.

'Dad, pack it in, Justine warned.

'It's goddamn creepy if you ask me, Gore grumbled. 'No one stays in a body for a thousand years. What's left for you out there?

'Life. People. Friends. True responsibility. A sense of wonder.

'We got a ton of that in here.

'And while you look inwards, the universe carries on around you.