Филип Керр - The Second Angel

When Cavor and Simou turned up at the door of his suite, suggesting a visit to the Armstrong Center, Prevezer was very tempted to join them. He was eager to taste the expensive realities that were on offer at TB’s principal public space. But there was still much data to be processed if his model of the First National was ever going to behave like its real-world correlate.

‘I’d like to,’ he sighed, declining their invitation. ‘Only I’ve got to check the Simworld’s fidelity axis. To make sure the endophysical perspective matches the exophysical one.’ [107] In other words, are the laws governing the behavior of the simulated system the same for an observer looking at the system from the outside as they are for the observer who is inside the system?

‘Surely a model can be too perfect,’ argued Cavor. ‘I mean, if the microworld construct is as good as its macroworld counterpart, then what margin for error is there? Without the possibility of error, nothing can be learned and the experimental quality is compromised.’

‘You’re just full of surprises.’ Prevezer yawned.

‘You know something?’ said Cavor. ‘Lately I’ve started to surprise myself. Perhaps me most of all.’

‘Enough of that.’ Simou grinned. ‘It’s time we took off and sampled some of those lovely lunar ladies.’

‘You know, I could fix you guys up a synthetic experience that would beat anything you’ll have on TB,’ Prevezer said, without much conviction. This was just the salesman in him talking. ‘Reality is just a chimera.’

But Simou and Cavor were already walking away from his door. ‘Take a look around you, Sim,’ he said, following them into the corridor and pointing out the window at the silver-colored moonscape. ‘Cav? You think any of this is real? It’s not reality you want, my friends, it’s certainty. These days, that’s a much more difficult grail to find. It’s not to be found in mathematics. It’s not even to be found in the atoms. The only certainty in the whole bloody universe is in ourselves. There is no world independent of you and me. Not anymore. Death is the only certainty, Sim. That’s what’s real.’

Simou turned on his heel and uttered an old saying that was familiar to anyone who had the virus: ‘You die today, and I’ll die tomorrow.’

Barefoot, and wearing just a pair of panties, Ronica began a careful walk across the floor of the suite she was sharing with Dallas, toward the HV. [108] Holovision. This was her first trip to the Moon, and the first hotel she had stayed in where, as a matter of lunar law, you had to watch a set of safety instructions on how to use the room and its facilities. The secret of walking around the room without gravity shoes, so the guy on the HV had said before the commercial break, was to try and do it slowly, at half your normal speed, as if you had been drugged, or as if you were walking through the sea. One quick and injudicious step could carry you several inches off the floor; and standing up from a chair, you had to be careful not to hit your head on the triple-height ceiling. Even though the suite was as big as a basketball court, a good leap would have carried her from one side to the other. She reached the HV, switched it off, and headed back toward the enormous bed where Dallas was lying. Although his gravity shoes were still on, his body barely weighed enough to put a dent on the virtually redundant mattress.

‘So,’ said Ronica. ‘Do you want to tell me why Cavor is taking so much Connex?’

‘Did he tell you it was Connex?’

‘He didn’t have to. I recognized those tabs. I’ve taken enough Connex in my time.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes. So? Why is he taking cognitive enhancement? And so much?’

‘Why ask me?’

‘Because I figure you’re the one who gave it to him. That stuff isn’t cheap. And if Cavor had ever taken it before, he’d know not to take so much.’

‘Did you say anything to him about it?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Because I’d prefer he didn’t know what it is he’s taking. At least not right now. And as to the high dosage, that’s up to me as well. I told him to take it in quantity.’

‘I won’t say anything.’

‘He’ll be okay,’ said Dallas, mistaking her exasperation for concern. ‘If that’s what you’re worried about.’

She sighed loudly and shook her head. ‘I can’t decide why you want him to boost his head. Unless it’s because you want him to remember something. Something important.’

‘That’s exactly what I want him to do. To remember something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Something he’s forgotten.’

‘I can’t bear it that you’re so cryptic.’ Ronica realized she was shouting. She calmed herself and lay down on the bed next to him. ‘I thought we had something between us. An understanding. A trust. After all, we’re the same blood, you and I. The same class and background. But sometimes I don’t think you trust me at all. If you did, you’d confide in me. You’d learn to lean on me.’

Dallas took her in his arms and kissed her.

‘On the Moon, that might be a little difficult,’ he said. ‘But perhaps I could float on top of you now and again.’

Tranquillity Base was the biggest development of land on the Moon, and the Armstrong Center [109] Named after Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon. — also known as the Tranquillity Forum — was the massive complex of public halls, exhibition areas, performance auditoria, pachinko parlors, sleazy bars, and licensed brothels that occupied the center of the development and acted as a magnet for lunar tourists. Its design had been the subject of an international architectural competition, one of the largest the world had ever seen, attracting hundreds of entries. Victory eventually went to the New York-born, Los Angeles-based architect Brad Epstein. It was the most transparent of buildings, constructed entirely of armor-plated glass, with no facades — just an expressed structure and a number of suspended capsules housing the main auditoria. One giant spire, at the center of the structure, three hundred and sixty-three feet high and shaped like the Saturn V Moon rocket that had first carried men to the Moon, signaled the presence of what was beneath: the actual site of the Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969, at 3:17 P.M., Houston, Texas, time.

The centennial was now only a few days away, and the landing site itself, enclosed beneath a protective glass dome, was surrounded with tourists. Among them were Cavor, Simou, and Gates.

The landing site was the snapshot of another time, another universe, [110] It makes no difference, for time is a quantum concept, and other times are merely special cases of other universes. although to all who stared through the protective glass dome, the scene looked much as if the astronauts had just departed. The four-legged golden spider that was the descent module; the toppled American flag — blown over when the ascent module had blasted off; a tripod-mounted television camera and some ancient-looking scientific instruments placed about sixty feet away from the Eagle ; and those footprints in the moondust that had survived the Eagle’s ascent from the Sea of Tranquillity. It looked exactly as it had a hundred years before, at least until the arrival of some holographic astronauts and an explanatory sound track.

‘Hello, Neil and Buzz,’ said a voice on the landing-site sound track, which was also available from the museum shop. ‘I’m talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House.’