Karl Schroeder - Lady of Mazes

High above the rugged landscape of Morss's Scotland swung a chandelier city in bolo configuration, its two tethered halves separated by kilometers of cable. At the bottom of one glittering tangle of buildings hung a vast domed ballroom, its walls patterned like lace in opaque white and transparent diamond. After performing her songs, Livia had drifted over to one of the transparent panels, seeking a vantage point from which to watch the proceedings.

Doran Morss's party was both a surprise and a relief to Livia: it wasn't a swirl of half-real inscapes, like nearly every other event she'd seen so far in the Archipelago. Indeed, everything here was refreshingly solid, as were the people, who were all physically present. Sophia was deep in conversation with one of the visiting post-humans. She seemed uncomfortable around the rest of the guests. For the moment, all Livia wanted to do was stay out of the way, however much her Westerhaven training told her she should be shmoozing and picking up gossip.

Almost all of the guests looked like human beings, with notable exceptions such as the nonsentient brody that squatted like a living tank near the drinks table. These weren't humans standing about with drinks in their hands, however. The ballroom was crowded with votes, and Livia was witnessing a meeting of the government in the Archipelago.

Each vote was the embodiment of some value that had once had its own institutions, buildings, cadres, and followers. Some churches stood over there, chatting and munching canapes; here sporting fraternities and paramilitaries swapped anecdotes; and farther away, the arts were bickering. Apparently, while their personalities were the average of the values of millions of humans, these beings were required to conduct their business with one another on the humanly accessible levels of conversation, innuendo, back-room dealing, and treachery. It was part of something the locals called "open-source government"

The votes didn't intimidate Livia; nonetheless, her performance had been difficult Not technically — she was in voice and well-rehearsed. No, it was a fight with Aaron and Qiingi this morning that had her distraught and distracted, fumbling through her song. Luckily no one had seemed to notice.

"I know you're upset, but stay, please," Sophia had told her. "You can't help your friends until all of you calm down a bit" So Livia stood by the wall, arms crossed, waiting out the rest of the entertainments.

Finally they were done, and Doran Morss stepped to a podium at one end of the dome. A cylindrical cloudscape wheeled behind him as he said, "Welcome to my humble abode," to general laughter. "You particular constituencies have been summoned here by the Government to discuss the Omega Point crisis. I hope that while you're here you'll see some of the sights in my little world and hopefully drop by to see me as well."

The crowd made polite noises. Morss accepted them with a nod, then simply stood there and waited, his arms crossed. The crowd quieted. Morss stayed still, gazing out at them.

What's he doing? Livia felt the tension in the room grow as the seconds stretched on, and Morss didn't move.

"So it's come to this," he said at last. The words were spoken very quietly, but by now the ballroom was utterly silent All faces were turned toward Morss.

"Not so long ago," he continued, "there could have been no Omega Point crisis. If a trans-humanist movement sprang up during the rule of the monoculture, it would have been quashed before it encompassed a hundred people. But of course, the monoculture ultimately failed, didn't it? And you were born in its place. Some of you are old enough to remember the first years of the Government" He nodded to the small crowd of churches. "You remember a time when you would have channeled the people's energies back into some more useful pursuit. Inscape would have changed their narratives' plotlines and led them back to sanity. But that didn't happen this time."

"Hello again," said someone next to Livia. She turned to find the Government standing next to her. It wore its guise as a young woman, this time dressed as a waitress. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," Livia said curtly.

The Government was carrying a tray of canapes. "Then try the calamari," it said with a smile. "It's fine, too."

"This worldship is on course to the Omega Point Coronal," continued Morss. "The cultists have expelled or killed the remaining human population and have barricaded themselves inside the coronal. We're supposed to be meeting to decide how to deal with their creation as a newborn post-human entity — you, as votes, me and other outsiders as representatives of anecliptic interest."

He waved a hand negligently, half turning away. "Sure. Let's spend a few hours trying them for crimes against viability. Fat lot of good that'll do, now that they've killed everybody around them.

"I'd much rather talk about when this is going to happen again!" he shouted. "And what are we going to do to prevent the next outbreak? Before you were born, the monoculture tried to stem the tide of post-human transformations — and failed. Are you here today to say that the Government has failed, too? Is that die real message we're going to send the human race?"

"I was hoping he'd do this," whispered the Government. "Doran's a reliable ally."

"Ally? You speak as though he's your equal. Isn't he just another citizen?"

The Government shook her head. "He's an independent nation. As such, he is my equal."

Livia nodded, not quite comprehending. "What does he have to do with the Omega Point thing?"

Sophia had talked about the Omega Point crisis on the way here. To Livia, the thought of an entire coronal uploading their minds into a machine was outrageous. "Sophia thinks Omega Point are heroes," she added, nodding in the singer's direction. What had disturbed Livia most was Aaron's reaction. He also seemed excited at the prospect of people doing such a thing.

"Doran has authority as a traditional human," said the Government. "Many people supported Omega Point, including many of the votes here. People see embodied humanity as a dead end, and post-humanism as the only way out from under the anecliptics. Doran's wrong about one thing, though; we're not here to debate the right or wrong of it The question is, is Omega Point's creation viable!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Can it survive and find a place in the Archipelago?" said the Government. "That's all it means. It's the ultimate question for any entity — bacteria or god."

"You're victims of your own success," Morss was saying. "Government happens so seamlessly now that most people have abandoned public life entirely. They're drowning in inscape — we see it every day. Every day there are more outbreaks of post-human expansionism from within our own ranks. As a human who is outside the jurisdiction of the Government — hence independent — I'm one of the few individual humans able to talk to you all on an equal footing. And I have a simple message, from humanity to you: forget about Omega Point. Don't shoot the messenger. Look to yourselves for the problem and the solution."

"Now I didn't expect him to say that," mused the Government.

The Government hurried off to speak to a knot of votes. As Morss wound up his speech the votes were arguing and chatting, like any conference or colloquium. Livia had intended to stay so that she could petition the votes for help; but right now she just wanted the day to be over.

This morning's argument had begun almost as soon as Livia sat down. Qiingi had said, "Why are you not physically present, Aaron? These meetings are important."

"Of course they are," Aaron had snapped back. "That's why I'm making the best of my resources. I've got sixteen animas out there right now, tracking down leads. But I don't see you copying yourself at all." He wasn't just present as an anima, Iivia saw; Aaron registered as a veritable tornado of information-density in her reticle. His view of the Archipelago was intense and multichanneled.