I didn’t see the Earthpeople again until the following day. Even Christine absented herself for a while, although she reappeared when the time came to watch the “real” spaceship coming into dock.

That, apparently, was the kind of experience she liked to share — or one of them, at any rate.

Seventeen

The Cyborganizers

Christine hadn’t exaggerated when she had rhapsodized about how much more impressive the ship from the Outer System would be than the ferry that had arced across the diameter of the Earth’s orbit. Child of Fortunewas at least thirty times as big as Peppercorn Seven, and there was not the least possibility that the neatly chiseled workings on its surface might be mistaken for incompetent molding or accidental scratching. It didn’t have fins, but it did have what looked to me like a massive pair of furled wings.

Although the station looked like a chimerical sea creature, the ship from the Jovian moons had the air of an authentic flier: a bird that was merely bobbing on the surface of the ocean, quite able to transform itself into something altogether more spectacular. Because it was decelerating, Child of Fortunewas headed toward us hind end first, its fuser doubtless spitting out the last few gobs of reaction mass with the utmost discretion. It bore a faint and temporary resemblance to a massive whale or basking shark, with its mouth wide open, but everything about its design proclaimed that it was a much finer creature than that.

When Excelsior had extended its tentacles toward the Earth ship the microworld had been a huge scavenger gobbling up a stray morsel, but when it reached out to touch the Outer System vessel it was more like a tentative greeting between alien equals, albeit of very different sizes and shapes.

“How many people are aboard?” I asked Christine, figuring that I might as well take advantage of her research.

“About sixty, apparently,” she told me. “The permanent crew is about fifty strong. They’re fabers — I think they’ll disembark in shifts, but only as far as the microworld’s core.

She was presumably right, but the umbilicals established between ship and station were much more substantial than those connected to Peppercorn Seven. It was impossible to see individuals passing through them.

I was even more curious about Niamh Horne’s delegation than I had been about Lowenthal’s, and I couldn’t help feeling aggrieved that they didn’t show anything like the same alacrity in calling on us.

Christine and I waited until it would have seemed absurd to wait any longer, then returned to our separate researches in the virtual world, half-hoping that giving up would somehow function as a catalyst and precipitate the expected meeting.

It didn’t.

I had been immersed in solitary visions of Titan and Ganymede for more than two hours when the visitors finally arrived — and when they did, there were only two of them, in addition to Davida Berenike Columella.

At least I was spared the ultimate indignity of talking to a flunky. Niamh Horne had the grace to appear in person. She also had the grace to let Davida perform the introductions in a sensible ceremonial fashion. Her companion was a male named Theoderic Conwin.

Niamh Horne and Theoderic Conwin were both cyborgs, but I saw immediately — if slightly belatedly — what Mortimer Gray had meant about the difference between functional and ornamental cyborganization. I had taken Solantha Handsel for a bodyguard because her modifications had been shaped and coordinated to display the suggestion that she was half fighting machine, but I realized now how ostentatious her adaptations were.

There was nothing manifestly obtrusive or calculatedly suggestive about the modifications that had been made to the two Titanians. It required close and considered inspection to determine that their outer teguments were much thicker than the additional skins Davida and I were wearing, because they were camouflaged to give an appearance of real skin and conventional clothing. Their eyes and ears, though artificial, were similarly formed to resemble their natural counterparts. It was impossible to judge exactly how much their seeming solidity owed to the bulk of their smartsuits, but I formed the impression that within their relatively stout frames there were two unfashionably thin individuals making no effort whatsoever to get out.

“Davida tells me that you don’t want to go home to Earth,” Niamh Horne said, after a few cursory pleasantries. Nobody had taken the trouble to invite Christine in from the adjoining room, although I felt a slight twinge of guilt about my failure to raise the issue.

“I haven’t made any final decision,” I told her. “But I have a certain sympathy with Christine’s view that we’re so radically dislocated anyway that we might as well go somewhere authentically alien.”

“Been there, done that, took the rap,” the cyborg woman quoted. Her tone suggested a wry smile, but her lips didn’t seem to go in for that sort of thing.

“But the terrestrial surface you left behind is very different from the present one,” her male companion pointed out.

“Not in the essentials,” I said. “Atmosphere, gravity…anyway, rumor has it that you people think Earth is hopelessly decadent, incapable of any realchange. A rest home for the robotized, holding back the cause of progress.”

It would have been easier to judge their response to that if they had been smilers; as things were, I had to grin at my own joke to defuse it.

“It’s only natural that the Earthbound should be conservative and conservationist,” Theoderic Conwin said, displaying his tolerance proudly. “They’re the custodians of the planet that produced humankind — and our explorations of the galaxy suggest that such worlds are exceedingly rare and precious.”

“Someone has to be prepared to be fanatical in looking after what we have,” Niamh Horne added, with equally ostentatious generosity. “If the Earthbound weren’t able to maintain a safe anchorage for the posthuman project, our own capacity to innovate and experiment might be inhibited. There’s no conflict between the outer satellites and Earth. Our differences of opinion are polite, and entirely healthy.”

I gathered from this speech that she’d been thoroughly briefed on what I’d said to Mortimer Gray. The historian hadn’t denied that there were conflicts, I remembered; he had been content to refute the notion that they could ever become violent. She obviously wanted to ram the point home. Even if I’d been less paranoid than I was I wouldn’t have taken their assurances seriously for a moment.

“Well,” I said, glibly, “I’m glad to be able to add an extra measure, however small, to the posthuman spectrum. I’m sure I’d find cause for discomfort in a world where differences weren’t polite, healthy, and welcome. Do you think I’d be able to find useful work on Titan?”

“Ganymede might be more appropriate,” she said, somewhat to my surprise.

“I thought Ganymede was the AI Utopia,” I said.

“Exactly,” she came back. “The roles filled there by human beings are relatively menial and less challenging than those available elsewhere. On the other hand, you might be able to adapt more rapidly to a smaller and more easily comprehensible world — one of the belt habitats, for instance.” It would have stung less if she’d smiled, but I had a suspicion that it wasn’t simply the inflexibility of her cheeks that was getting in her way this time.

“I take it that means you won’t be matching Lowenthal’s job offer,” I said, trying to keep my own lips tight.

“You shouldn’t take that one either, in my opinion,” she told me. “Investigate the belt, Mr. Tamlin. That’s where you’re most likely to find a comfortable future.”

“If I’d wanted a comfortable future,” I retorted, “I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the freezer in the first place.”