“Ah, Elián, Elián,” said Talis, shaking his head sadly. “The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. You’ve got to let her go, son. If you don’t, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for—” But then, at Elián’s startled recognition, he dropped whatever character he was playing and grinned hugely. “Ha! Look, you got that one! Casablanca! A movie fan! That Spartacus thing, you know—totally wasted on this lot. Isn’t it awful, what we’ve lost? Greta, when we get to the Red Mountains, I’m going to make you watch a lot of movies.”
For a split second there, Elián had been grinning goofily at Talis. Now he looked as if he might throw up. For my part I pulled the one significant piece of information out of Talis’s little sidebar, as I was beginning to suspect would be an essential skill. “We’re going to the Red Mountains?”
“What, you thought I’d stick your brain in a box, plug it into a ’bot, and send you on your way? You’re going to need some fairly intensive support, if you’re going to keep sane.”
I glanced at the Abbot, who said, “Quite true. And I do trust that Michael has warned you, Greta. There is a fair chance that what’s left of you won’t be recognizable. That you won’t, in any meaningful way, survive.”
“I know my history,” I said.
“History,” intoned the Abbot. Like me, he loved history, but he said it as if it were the smallest word he’d ever heard. “I’d meant to give you more training, Greta, more time, more—” He dropped the end of whatever he’d been about to say, and turned on Talis slowly, like a gun platform swinging round. “Warn her, Michael. Do it now.”
And Talis— Oddly enough, the strategic mind of the epoch seemed at a loss for words. His face was baffled as a little child’s. He looked . . . vulnerable. When I spoke, it was half out of pity. “I do know. Most of the AIs died.”
“Yeah,” he began, and then stopped. He raked his hand up the back of his neck, raising his porcupine spikes again. “Okay, so the thing is, the human mind is a miracle of integration. You’re so good at fooling yourselves into thinking you’re just one thing, one central little me that makes all the calls. It’s a total delusion, a fiction, but it works. AIs aren’t like that. We have layers.” He made a little tick, tongue against teeth. “We have layers—and we lose them. The techs used to call it skinning. They meant like onion skin, but that doesn’t cover it. The clients called it skinning too, and we meant . . . something different.”
To be skinned. Goose bumps prickled over me. I thought of the smartplex tablet in Tolliver Burr’s hands. I would be like that. Blown into pieces, and each piece still playing, still remembering . . .
“Know that,” said the Abbot. “Know that, before you choose.”
I looked at the Abbot, the well-known abstraction that was his face. I looked at Talis, who was suddenly smiling again. It was a smile like the sun: so brilliant that it was painful to look at.
Dig deep within yourself, wrote Aurelius. Within is the wellspring of Good, and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig.
Elián was staring at me. I felt Xie’s hand slip into mine. I laced my fingers through hers. I dug deep and answered: “I choose.”
25
THREE
Three days.
Talis had popped off, glittering and spouting nonsense, and had returned later with the news. His repair of the grey room would take three days. He was speckled with grease, holding a multipencil, and looking pleased.
“It will take an all-nighter or two, mind. Does the Precepture have coffee?” We were all looking at him, but he spoke only to me. “I’ve got you pegged as more of a tea gal, Greta, which frankly you’re just plain wrong about, but anything caffeinated would do.”
“Riiiight, coffee,” Elián drawled. “’Cause what you need is to be more intense.”
I stepped in to save Elián from himself. (Again.) “I’m afraid that if it doesn’t grow in Saskatchewan, we don’t have it, Lord Talis. Which eliminates both coffee and tea. But thank you for letting me know how long I have to live.”
He gave me a weirdly compressed little smile. And then, for a miracle, he went away.
“Did you just dismiss Talis?” said Elián. “You’ve gotta show me how to do that.”
“I think you hurt his feelings,” said Xie, wonderingly, looking after the AI.
“What makes you think he has feelings?” said Elián.
“If he doesn’t,” I said, “then where will that leave me?”
We were sitting on the bench where we’d put out the pumpkins as a symbol of defiance and hope. Below us the Cumberlanders were scuttling like mice beneath a hawk, trying to meet Talis’s deadline.
“They released Atta?” said Elián.
Xie nodded. “The Cumberlanders checked him over. The concussion was minor. He’s fine. Han, on the other hand . . .”
“Yeah.” Elián looked down, peeling a long splinter of cedar bark away from the pumpkin bench. “I know.”
Han and Grego. I had missed so much. Lost so much. But I had saved a few things. The pumpkins, for instance, had already grown more orange. They were ripening. Going to make it.
Elián was going to make it.
He did not seem happy about it. “I don’t get it. From the day they dragged me here, I was going to die—we were both going to die—and you were okay with that.”