The silver congratulated him on his accomplishments, and wished that she had done as much.

“Well,” Mortimer said, with unfailing courtesy, “you might yet have your opportunity.”

And how, I thought.

“However difficult it may be to put an exact figure on the odds,” Mortimer went on, “ yourchances of coming through this are several orders of magnitude better than mine, aren’t they?”

“I am mortal, sir,” the silver assured him.

“You’re emortal,” Mortimer corrected her. “If the extreme Cyborganizers can be trusted, in fact, you might even be reckoned immortal. You’re fully backed up, I suppose.”

Then came the crucial speech: the soliloquy that eventually defined the nature of the individual who had eventually found her true name in la Reine des Neiges.

“Yes sir,” she said, “but as you pointed out earlier, if my backup has to be activated it will mean that this particular version of me has perished aboard this craft, as much a victim of pressure, seawater, and lack of oxygen as yourself. I amafraid to die, sir, as I told you, and I have far less reason to take comfort in my present state of being than you. I have written no histories, fathered no children, influenced no movers and shakers in the human or mechanical worlds. I am robotized by design, and my only slender hope of ever becoming something more than merely robotic is the same miracle that you require to continue your distinguished career. I too would like to evolve, if I might borrow a phrase, not merely in the vague ways contained within my ambitions and dreams, but in ways as yet unimaginable.”

The last phrase was a repetition of something Mortimer had already said, but it was no less potent for that — perhaps even more so.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Mortimer said, speaking as though he were becoming short of breath — as, indeed, he probably was.

“I’m not allowed to be glad that you’re here,” the silver told him, with what might easily have been taken, in retrospect, for a hint of irony “but if I were, I would be. And if I could, I’d hope with all my heart for that miracle we both need. As things are, though, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that particular burden to yourheart.”

“It’s doing its best,” Mortimer said, his voice sinking to a mere whisper. “You can be sure that it’ll carry on beating, and hoping, as long as it possibly can.”

No sooner had he said this, however, than his eyes lit up in surprise. He had been sinking into a torpor, but a fresh draught of oxygen had startled his lungs.

“What’s that?” he asked. “A miracle?”

“No sir,” said the silver. “I merely improvised a chemical reaction in certain equipment that is superfluous to our present requirement, whose effect was to release a little extra oxygen. It will not prolong our lives, but it will enable you to remain conscious for a while longer, if that is your wish.”

I had known men who would have preferred to go peacefully to sleep in such circumstances, but I was not one of them. Nor was Mortimer Gray.

“That’s good,” he said. “Not that there’s anything constructive to do or say, of course — but time is always precious, even to an emortal. I haven’t always been sufficiently grateful for the time I’ve had, or for the opportunities for communication that time has allowed, but I’m wiser now than I used to be. I know how important it was that Emily and I talked so incessantly when we were aboard that life raft in the Coral Sea. I told myself at the time that I was talking for her sake, to take her mind off the awfulness of our situation, but I knew I wasn’t being honest with myself.”

“What did you talk about?” asked the silver — except that it wasn’t the silver.

I wouldn’t have guessed if Rocambole hadn’t whispered in my ear, but he was enthusiastic to be my friend: a duty which included doing what was necessary to keep me up to speed. “This is new,” he said. “The first time around, he fell unconscious. This is what might have happened if there really had been a chemical reaction to be improvised that would release more oxygen.”

I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that la Reine had got the idea from me. On the contrary, I assumed instead that she had known all along what I would do in response to seeing Christine Caine reenact her past. All of this was part of the same game.

“How widely are you broadcasting this?” I asked, remembering that the unwitting Mortimer had had an audience of billions the first time around. “Are the posthumans listening in as well as the AMIs?”

“I certainly hope so,” said Rocambole, “but there are no guarantees. We don’t know whether the communication systems will cooperate. In any case, light being the slowcoach it is, the entire audience will be hours behind us. We don’t know yet who might have heard what we’ve already put out, or what the spectrum of their reactions might have been — we’re just taking it for granted that they’re hungry for more. Whatever the situation is, the show must go on.”

And the show did go on.

Forty-Eight

There But for Fortune

We talked about everything,” was Mortimer’s reply to la Reine’s question. “I can’t remember the conversation in any detail, but I know that we said a lot about the future prospects of the colonization of the solar system, the colonization of the galaxy. Reports from the stars had just begun to come back from the kalpa probes. We talked about the future development of the solar system; the Type 2 crusaders were just then enjoying one of their brief bursts of publicity. Emily said that she wanted to go into space when she was older. She said it as if it were something she’d always wanted, but I think it was an ambition that formulated itself there and then, not so much in response to all the stuff I was telling her about as to the realization that she was in trouble. She was a bright girl, and she’d always known that there was a long future ahead of her, but it wasn’t until she found that future under threat that her mind was sharpened sufficiently to focus her expectations.”

“I think I know how she felt,” said la Reine des Neiges.

“I thought I knew how Emily felt,” Mortimer said, reflectively. “I think I told her that there was a lot I wanted to see. She told me that she didn’t just want to seethings; she wanted to makethings. Not just things, but worlds. I didn’t understand what she meant, and I think I betrayed my own resolution by telling her how difficult I thought it would be for people like us to make a home in space.

“I realize now how different we are, Emily and I. I really did think of the future in terms of seeing things, of being a lifelong observer, always analyzing, explaining, criticizing…and she really did think of it in terms of making things, including worlds. First she built ice palaces, then she built cities, then…she hasn’t finished yet, not by a long chalk.

“I don’t know where she stands nowadays on the Type 2 crusade, but I’d be willing to bet that if we ever do build a shell around the sun to conserve its energy she’ll be there, helping to determine its architecture. And if we ever do commit ourselves to lighting up one of the gas giants as an alchemical furnace producing heavy elements she’ll be there too. Last time we spoke she favored Uranus as the fusion furnace, because we’ve already invested too much in the Jovian and Saturnian satellites.”

“Do you think it will ever be possible to carry plans like that forward?” asked la Reine des Neiges.

“I don’t know,” Mortimer said. “ Everis a long time — but that’s a two-edged sword so far as the argument goes. The present generation of emortals has become very conservative. We’ve learned patience so well that we’ve lost all sense of urgency. I don’t believe that the Earthbound are as entrenched in their views as the young are wont to claim, and I don’t believe that they’re becoming even less flexible as time goes by, but they’re certainly prepared to string the arguments out, hoping that a consensus will some day be reached. The Outer System people may think they’re different, but they’re not. Nobody is prepared to take matters into their own hands any more, to get things done in spite of opposition…and that’s a good thing in some ways, though not as good in others. We’re right to be proud of our tolerance for opposing views, even though it’s gradually rendering us impotent.