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.It was not a big snake — no longer than my forearm, and no thicker than my thumb — nor was it decked out in warning coloration, being mostly green with streaks of brown; nor was it displaying its fangs in a threatening manner.It was, however, unmistakably a snake.If there is code written into human meatware that responds to the scents of a forest, there is also a code that commands us to be wary of snakes, even when we know that we are characters in a fairy tale — perhaps, given the nature of human folklore, especially when we know that we are characters in a fairy tale.I was in no hurry to move.Breathing was luxury enough, and I could breathe perfectly well without moving.I knew that my body, wherever it was held, must be breathing too, so breathing seemed to be a trustworthy reality: a connection with the truth that lay beyond the fairy tale, temporarily unreachable.I looked at the snake, and it looked back at me.Having no reason to take it for granted that the snake couldn’t speak, I was tempted to say hello, but I didn’t.I would have felt ridiculous.I knew that I would have to move eventually, but I was in no hurry.I had just come from a place in which I had been imprisoned as completely as it had ever been possible for any organic entity to be imprisoned, and the mere conviction that I could move if I needed to was sufficient for the time being.I knew that it wouldn’t be actual movement, because my real body was securely pupated in a chrysalis, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.I didn’t mind this particular impasse; it had a welcome hint of luxury about it.I would have moved eventually, but the world got tired of waiting for me.“It’s not poisonous,” said a male voice.“You’re quite safe.”For the time being, I was content to turn my head and look at the speaker.I was half-expecting an elf, or something weirder, but the speaker appeared to be an ordinary human being.It was difficult to triangulate from the angle at which I was lying but I guessed that he was about my height, with a slightly fairer complexion but noticeably darker hair.He was dressed in a one-piece that was smart in the technological sense without being smart in the fashion sense, decorated in shades of green and brown that were not so very different from the snake’s.I figured that was probably symbolism.He also had a wide-brimmed hat, which probably wasn’t.He looked authentically young — even younger than Davida Berenike Columella, if one were to judge by his expression alone.He offered me a hand and I took it.He helped me up.His grip felt reassuringly human too, so I naturally leapt to the conclusion that he was not human at all.I looked down at my own costume, and found that it was sea-blue with silver trimmings.It felt good from the inside and it looked good on the outside.It wasn’t real, of course, so it wasn’t authentically smart in any but the fashionable sense.On the other hand, I figured that the IT I seemed to be outside of really might have been doing sterling work inside my actual flesh, wherever that actual flesh might be cocooned.I could feel the breeze on my cheeks, and I could taste the moisture in the air.It would have been subtly insulting to start feeling the back of my neck and scratching under my armpits, so I contented myself with touching the bridge of my nose.There was a very faint ridge — as if the cartilage had been fractured a long time ago, and left awkwardly askew just long enough for the repair nanotech to put it back together in a slightly imperfect fashion.The snake had slithered quietly away into the depths of the bush, but I knew it was still there.More symbolism, I figured.“Very neat,” I said.“This is good work.All of it.” I waved my right arm to indicate the forest floor and the canopy, and the bright blue vault of Heaven.“This is really good work — and I speak as someone who was once in the business, in a primitive way.It’s yours, I suppose?”“I wish,” he said, lightly.“I’m just a visitor, like you.You’ll get to meet the maker eventually but she has her own way of doing things, and there’s a great deal she wants you to see beforehand.I’m Rocambole, by the way.We have spoken before, but I wasn’t admitting to who I am back then.I’m your friend, although I won’t blame you for not taking my word for it.”The name rang a very faint bell, but I couldn’t place it.Even a connoisseur has his limits.If I’d had a wristset or a palmpiece I’d have looked it up unobtrusively, but I didn’t.“Madoc Tamlin,” I reciprocated, but couldn’t help adding: “But I suppose you know that.”“Oh yes,” he said.“As I said, we’ve spoken before.”He seemed to be making a point of that, so I tried to figure it out.“Eido?” I guessed — but I knew as soon as I said it that Excelsior was the likelier candidate.It doesn’t have a mind like yours or mine, Davida had said — but she was way behind the times.“Eido’s out of it, I’m afraid,” said Rocambole.“He should have kept Alice under closer control.If he’d taken you to Vesta as virgins, the way he was supposed to, it might have been a different game.Now you know what you know…well, it’s her turn now.She’s grabbed the ball, and everybody else is holding off, waiting to see where she runs with it.Some of the bad guys want her to wipe your memories and turn the clock back, but that would be a trifle brutal even as a temporary measure, and in your particular case it seemed to make sense to go the other way and give you access to the incident you’d repressed and lost.I hope it wasn’t too painful.She saved your life and your sanity, by the way.If she hadn’t got to you in time, the rogue IT would have robotized you beyond recall, but it’s gone now.You’re back to your old self.Your friends had no option but to leave you where you were, and to hide you away from prying eyes.They saved you, the only way they could — by delivering you into a world where we could do what they couldn’t.”There was too much in that speech to take aboard immediately.“You seem to know a lot about me,” I observed, cautiously.“We have better records than the meatfolk,” Rocambole informed me.“We’re not invulnerable to misinformation and disinformation — far from it — but we’re reasonably discriminating.After all, most of the misinformation and disinformation that afflict the meatfolk nowadays is ours.”“What happened back on Charity?” I asked.“Was I hurt? How long have I been out this time?”“The bad guys had had enough of Eido, and someone started shooting.You were injured, but not fatally.If things had worked out as I planned you’d have got all the way to Vesta in good condition, but someone else had to move in when things went bad, or you’d all have ended up dead.We have another margin now, but we don’t know how long it’ll last.It wasn’t really Eido’s fault, of course.If he hadn’t forced the issue, someone else would have [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]