Foundations Fear Page 18

Page 18

  “No, pucellette, not like me. Not like me at all. ” As if it were a serpent, she recoiled from the book he held out. Grinning, he rubbed the book all over himself and Garçon, who was now standing beside the table. “It’s harmless—see?”

  “Evil is often invisible,” she murmured.

  “Monsieur is right,” Garçon told her. “All the best people read. ”

  “Had you been lettered,” Monsieur Arouet said, “you’d have known that your inquisitors had absolutely no right to try you. You were a prisoner of war, seized in battle. Your English captor had no legal right to have your religious views examined by French in­ quisitors and academics. You pretended to believe your voices were divine—”

  “Pretended!” she cried out.

  “—and he pretended to believe they were demonic. The English are themselves too tolerant to burn anyone at the stake. They leave such forms of amusement to our countrymen, the French. ”

  “Not too tolerant,” the Maid said, “to turn me over to the bishop of Beauvais, claiming I was a witch. ” She looked away, unwilling to let him peer in her eyes. “Perhaps I am. I betrayed my own voices. ”

  “Voices of conscience, nothing more. The pagan Socrates heard them as well. Everyone does. But it’s unreasonable to sacrifice our lives to them, if only because to destroy ourselves on their account is to destroy them, too. ” He sucked reflectively on his teeth. “Persons of good breeding betray them as a matter of course. ”

  “And we, here?” Joan whispered.

  He narrowed his eyes. “These…others? The scientists?”

  “They are spectral. ”

  “Like demons? Yet they speak of reason. They have raised a re­ public of analysis. ”

  “So they say it is. Yet they have asked us to represent what they do not have. ”

  “You think them bloodless. ” Voltaire twisted his mouth in sur­ prised speculation.

  “I think we listen to the same ‘scientists,’ so we are being tested in the same trial. ”

  “I heed voices such as theirs,” Voltaire said defensively. “I, at least, know when to turn my head aside from mindless advice. ”

  “Perhaps Monsieur’s voices are soft,” Garçon suggested. “There­ fore, more easily ignored. ”

  “I let them—churchly men!—force me to admit my voices were the devil’s,” said the Maid, “when all the while I knew they were divine. Isn’t that the act of a demon? A witch?”

  “Listen!” Monsieur Arouet gripped her by the arms. “There are no witches. The only demons in your life were those who sent you to the stake. Ignorant swine, the lot! Except for your English captor, who pretended to believe you were a witch to carry out a shrewd, political move. When your garments had burned away, his dupes removed your body from the stake to show the crowd and the inquisitors you were indeed a female, who, if for no other reason than usurping the privileges of males, deserved your fate. ”

  “Please stop!” she said. She thought she smelled the oily reek of smoke, although Monsieur Arouet had made Garçon place NO SMOKING signs throughout the inn—which, abruptly, they were now inside. The room veered, whirled. “The fire. ” She gasped. “Its tongues…”

  “That’s enough,” the sorceress said. “Can’t you see you’re upset­ ting her? Lay off!”

  But Monsieur Arouet persisted. “They examined your private parts after your garments burned away—didn’t know that, did you?—just as they’d done before, to prove you were the virgin that you claimed. And having satisfied their lewdness in the name of holiness, they returned you to the pyre and charred your bones to ashes. That was how your countrymen requited you for champion­ ing their king! For seeing to it France remained forever French. And having incinerated you, a while later they held a hearing, cited some rural rumor that your heart had not been consumed in the fire, and promptly declared you a national heroine, the Savior of France. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, by now, they have canonized you and revere you as a saint. ”

  “In 1924,” La Sorcière said. Though how she knew this odd number, she did not comprehend. Angelic knowledge?

  Monsieur Arouet’s splutter of scorn crackled in her ears.

  “Much good it did her,” Monsieur Arouet said to La Sorcière.

  “That date was in an attendant note,” La Sorcière said, her earnest voice in its factual mode. “Though of course we have no coordinates to know what the numbers mean. It is now 12,026 of the Galactic Era. ”

  Scorching logics fanned the crackling air. Hot winds blurred the crowd of onlookers gathered around the stake.

  “Fire. ” The Maid gasped. Clutching the mesh collar at her throat, she fled into the cool dark of oblivion.

  9.

  “It’s about time,” Voltaire scolded Madame la Scientiste. She hung before him like an animated oil painting. He had chosen this representation, finding it oddly reassuring.

  “I haven’t been ignoring you on purpose,” she said, cool and businesslike.

  “How dare you slow me without my consent?”

  “Marq and I are being besieged by media people. I never dreamed the Great Debate would be the media event of the decade. They all want a chance to interview you and Joan. ”

  Voltaire fluffed the apricot ribbon at his throat. “I refuse to be seen by them without my powdered wig. ”

  “We’re not going to let them see you or the Maid at all. They can talk to Marq all they want. He likes attention and handles it well. He says public exposure will help his career. ”

  “I should think I would be consulted before such important de­ cisions—”

  “Look, I came as soon as my mechsec beeped me. I let you run on step-down time, to police up your pattern integration. You should be grateful that I give you interior time—”

  “Contemplation?” he sniffed.

  “That’s one way to look at it. ”

  “I did not realize that such would have to be…granted. ” Voltaire was in his richly appointed rooms at Frederick the Great’s court, playing chess with the friar whom he employed to let him win.

  “It costs. And cost/benefit analysis shows that it would be better if we ran you two together. ”

  “No solitude? It’s impossible to hold a rational conversation with the woman!”

  He turned his back on her, for maximum dramatic effect. He had been a fine actor—everyone who’d heard him perform in his plays at Frederick’s court said so. He knew a good scene when he saw one, and this one had dramatic potential. These creatures were so pallid, so unused to the gusts of raw emotion, artfully crafted.

  Her voice softened. “Get rid of him and I’ll update you. ”

  He turned and lifted a single thin finger at the good-natured friar, the only man of the cloth he had ever met whom he could stand. The man shuffled off, closing the carved oak door carefully.

  Voltaire took a sip of Frederick’s fine sherry to clear his throat. “I want you to expunge the Maid’s memory of her final ordeal. It impedes our conversation, as surely as bishops and state officials impede the publication of intelligent work. Besides…” He paused, uncomfortable at expressing feelings softer than irritation. “…she’s suffering. I cannot bear to see it. ”

  “I don’t think—”

  “And while you’re at it, obliterate from me, too, my memory of the eleven months I served in the Bastille. And all my frequent flights from Paris—not the flights themselves, mind you—my periods of exile constitute most of my life! Just delete their causes, not the effects. ”

  “Well, I don’t know—”

  He slammed a fist down on an ornately wrought oak side table. “Unless you liberate me from past fears, I cannot act freely!”

  “Simple logic—”

  “Since when is logic simple? I cannot ‘simply’ compose my lettre philosophique on the absurdity of denying those like Garçon 213­ ADM the rights of man on th
e grounds that they have no soul. He’s an amusing little fellow, don’t you think? And as smart as at least a dozen priests whom I have known. Does he not speak? Respond? Desire? He is infatuated with a human cook. Should he not be able to pursue happiness as freely as you or I? If he has no soul, then you have no soul, either. If you have a soul, it can only be inferred from your behavior, and since we may make the identical inference from the behavior of Garçon, so does he. ”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Madame la Scientiste said. “Though of course 213-ADM’s reactions are simulations. Self-aware machines have been illegal for millennia. ”

  “That is what I challenge!” Voltaire shouted.

  “And how much of that comes from Sarkian programming?”

  “None. The rights of man—”

  “Hardly need apply to machines. ”

  Voltaire scowled. “I cannot express myself completely freely on these sensitive matters—unless you rid me of the memory of what I suffered for expressing my ideas. ”

  “But your past is your self. Without all of it, intact—”

  “Nonsense! The truth is, I never dared express myself freely on many matters. Take that life-hating Puritan Pascal, his views of original sin, miracles, and much other nonsense besides. I didn’t dare say what I really thought! Always, I had to calculate what every assault on convention and traditional stupidity would cost. ”

  Madame la Scientiste pursed her lips prettily. “You did well enough, I would guess. You were famous. We don’t know your history, or even your world. But from your memories I can tell—”

  “And the Maid! She is thwarted more than I! For her convictions, she paid the ultimate price. Being crucified could be no worse than what she suffered at the stake. Light a goodly pipe—as I love to do—before her, and her eyes roll with confusion. ”

  “But that’s crucial to who she is. ”

  “Rational inquiries cannot be carried out in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. If our contest is to be fair, I implore you, rid us of these terrors that prevent us from speaking our minds and from encouraging others to speak theirs. Else this debate will be like a race run with bricks tied to the runners’ ankles. ”

  Madame la Scientiste did not respond at once. “I—I’d like to help, but I’m not sure I can. ”

  Voltaire spluttered with scorn. “I know enough of your procedures to know you can comply with my request. ”

  “That poses no problem, true. But morally, I’m not at liberty to tamper with the Maid’s program at whim. ”

  Voltaire stiffened. “I realize Madame has a low opinion of my philosophy, but surely—”

  “Not so! I think the world of you! You have a modern mind, and from the depths of the dark past—astonishing. I wish the Empire had men like you! But your point of view, though valid as far as it goes, is limited because of what it leaves out and cannot address. ”

  “My philosophy? It embraces all, a universal view—”

  “And I work for Artifice Associates and the Preservers, for Mr. Boker. I’m bound by ethics to give them the Maid they want. Unless I could convince them to delete the Maid’s memory of her martyr­ dom, I can’t do it. And Marq would have to get permission from the company and the Skeptics to delete yours. He’d love to, I assure you. His Skeptics are more likely to consent than my Preservers. It would give you an advantage. ”

  “I quite agree,” he conceded at once. “Relieving me of my burdens without ridding the Maid of hers would not be rational or ethical. Neither Locke nor Newton would approve. ”

  Madame la Scientiste did not answer at once. “I’ll talk to my boss and to Monsieur Boker,” she said at last. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. ”

  Voltaire smiled wryly and said, “Madame forgets I have no breath to hold. ”

  10.

  The icon flashing on Marq’s board stopped just as he entered his office. That meant Sybyl must have answered it in hers.

  Marq bristled with suspicion. They had agreed not to talk to each other’s re-creations alone, though each had already given the other the required programming to do it. The Maid never initiated com­ munication, which meant the caller was Voltaire.

  How dare Sybyl boot up without him! He stormed out of the office to let her and Voltaire both know exactly what he thought of their conspiring behind his back. But in the corridor he was be­ sieged by cameras, journalists, and reporters. It was fifteen minutes before he burst into Sybyl’s office and, sure enough, caught her closeted cozily with Voltaire. She’d reduced him from wall-sized to human scale.

  “You broke our pact!” Marq shouted. “What are you doing? Trying to use his infatuation with that schizophrenic to make him throw the debate?”

  Sybyl, head buried in her hands, looked up. Her eyes glistened with tears. Marq felt something in him roll over, but he chose to ignore it. She actually blew Voltaire a kiss before freezing him.

  “I must say, I never thought you’d sink to this. ”

  “To what?” Sybyl got her face back together and jutted out her jaw. “What’s gotten into your usual jaunty self?”

  “What was that all about?”

  When he heard, Marq marched back into his office and booted up Voltaire. Before the image fully formed, color blocks phasing in, he shouted, “The answer is no!”

  “I am sure you have an elaborate syllogism for me,” Voltaire said sardonically, unfreezing.

  Marq had to admit that the sim handled the sudden lurches and disappearances in its frame-space with aplomb. “Look,” he said evenly, “I want the Rose of France wilting in her armor the day of the debate. It will remind her of her inquisition, exactly. She’ll start babbling nonsense and reveal to the planet just how bankrupt Faith without Reason is. ”