A. Attanasio - SoliS

"You know about Mr. Charlie?" Munk asks with surprise.
"Of course. It's in the court records. The news clips are already touting him as the Chiliad Man."
"Chiliad?" Mei frowns.
"The Thousand-Year-Old Man," Munk translates.
"What our viewers want to know," the reporter continues, "is what will you do if the Judge awards proprietorship to the Commonality?"
"Is that what's being decided here?" Mei asks, miffed. "They can't do that. Terra Tharsis is independent of the Commonality."
Shau Bandar nods sympathetically. "In principle, you're right. But the import of archaic remains has little precedent. That's why Softcopy is monitoring this case. The anthro commune is unhappy with the legal but inhumane exploitation of anthro remains by the Commonality. A copy of Mr. Charlie's radio distress broadcast is among the most popular clips in the contemporary index. In fact, the renowned Troupe Frolic already has a skit clip out based on the broadcast, called 'Wax Me Mind,' that's been both enraging and entertaining the commune since yesterday."
"When will the judgment be passed?" Munk inquires.
Shau Bandar regards the iridescent facets set in his cuff. "Initial arguments will be heard in about-oh, seventeen minutes. After that, judgment will be withheld pending further data for the minimum cycle required for a property case. That's one year-six hundred and eighty-seven martian days."
"What?" Mei's cry sends annulate echoes fading into the ivory distance.
"Am I right in assuming that neither of you has arranged to transfer credits here before going rogue?" the reporter queries.
"We had to respond immediately upon detecting Mr. Charlie's distress signal," Munk answers, somewhat defensively. "Regrettably, the credits we have accrued with Apollo Combine have been forfeit."
"Then after the initial arguments," Shau Bandar says, "I'll connect you with the naturalization projects and you can find work and begin to make yourselves at home here in Terra Tharsis."
Mei sits grumpily on the transparent bench, crosses her legs, and rests her chin on her fist. "This is just great. We risked our lives to salvage Mr. Charlie. He's ours, dammit. No one has any right to take him from us."
"Would you like to tell the viewers of Softcopy about the risks you took?" Shau Bandar says, edging closer.
Mei casts him a sidelong scowl. "What? Are you going to pay us for this?"
"Now, now," Munk intercedes soothingly. He places his heavy arm lightly on the reporter's shoulder and guides him away from the sulking jumper. "Come, let us talk. I am interested in asking you a few questions as well. Are your viewers aware, for instance, of contra-parameter programming in Maat-construct andrones?"
The Judge, in a sheath of amethyst fog and black fluttering scarves, stands at the center of the amphitheater beside the stick-mask of the Clerk. Between them, on a frost-green pedestal, the plasteel capsule is displayed. A score of loges float nearby, their galleries packed with spectators. Shau Bandar waves from one of them, and though he is talking, his voice is absorbed in silence.
Munk waves back, but Mei Nili offers nothing, staring straight ahead as the
transparent bench she shares with the androne skims over the marbled cream floor.
In his stentorian voice, the Judge announces, "The argument for proprietorship of the revived remains of Mr. Charlie has been conducted for the Common Archive by Sitor Ananta. As this argument has been laid before the Moot from Earth, the communications lag of six minutes forty seconds has been edited by the Clerk. The compressed argument presented here remains true in form and content."
The air beside the Clerk wobbles, and there appears a holoform image of a morph with slant-cut brown hair and long, Byzantine eyes, dressed in the loose, red-trimmed black uniform of the archives. "The archaic brain on display was uncovered at Alcoran site three by Commonality archivists twelve terrene years ago," the image declares. "The full records of discovery have been forwarded to the Moot. The remains date from the late archaic period, and though no chronicle of a prior life is extant, a direct cull was made of the dendritic memories and proof positive obtained that this individual experienced a full terminal episode before encephalic separation, glycolic perfusion, and immersion in liquid nitrogen. Though the definition of death has changed over historical time, this archaic brain was in fact declared dead by the definition of his own time. This is shown in the records of the dendritic cull, which have also been forwarded to the Moot."
The Clerk's slender voice pipes up, "Discovery and memory cull records on display."
Above him, for the benefit of the loges, calligraphic smears of color squirm through space: coded spectra to be translated by the spectators' sensors. Mei ignores them, but Munk records the full display and determines by correlation to the data in his anthropic model that Mr. Charlie had been interred in the archaic province of Californica in only his ninth decade. The primitive brevity of his existence-for such can hardly be deemed a life-stirs pity in the androne, and he determines then and there that this man, who through a misweave in the weft of history has escaped the utter obliteration of his age, shall know the abundance of life the human spirit deserves. Fear of what he is about to do swarms like static through him, but he overrides his panic by focusing on the prime directive of his C-P program, to treat all people humanely-even if it means his own destruction. Mr. Charlie is human, and he will no longer be treated as an object, if Munk can so help it.
Sitor Ananta continues, "The exhibit, revived by standard archival procedures-"
"I have seen enough," Munk declares, rising. He hears the music of the nearby andrones shift tone, sensing his threat. Fear mounts again in him as he expects the Maat to intervene and scatter him into a tenuous blowing of atoms. But nothing happens.
The Commonality agent continues talking: "…exists in its animated form today only because-"
"No judgment will be passed on this human being," Munk declares, "unless it is the judgment of life and the concomitant freedom that humanity has wrested from the accidents of creation and history."
of the efforts exerted by the Commonality Archi-" The image of Sitor Ananta shrivels away.
"Be seated, Androne Munk!" the Clerk commands.
"You are in contempt of the Moot."
"Yes!" Munk confesses, amazed and emboldened by his defiant survival in the temple of his makers. He can hear-sense-all the other andrones in the chambers and corridors of the tower, each one a cell in the metabody of a grand silicon mind. He feels their animus. Yet none act. Are his makers restraining them? Can there be any other explanation? "I am in contempt of you." He points a squared finger at the magistrate and sweeps his hand toward the loges. "And I am in contempt of all of you who dare pass judgment on a human being who has broken no law, committed no crime."
"Sit!" the Clerk brays.
"No." Munk steps toward the Judge. The loud music of the foreign code logics from the andrones in the court crest with rageful intent, but no threat appears.
"I have been created by the Maat and contra-parameter programmed by them to study and respect homosapiens. I am an authority. And this archaic brain I recognize as human and alive. I cannot permit you to pass any other judgment but life and freedom upon him. Do you understand?"
The fiery halo above the Judge's faceted head flares hotter. "I understand that you are in contempt of the Moot and will now be removed-forcibly, if necessary."
"The Maat have created me to withstand the gravitational tidal forces of the Saturn system," Munk loudly informs the court. "Unless you intend to destroy yourselves, the exhibit you presume to judge, and this entire chamber, you dare not try to stop me."
Читать дальше