"But why is it called Artificial Nature?" the lady pressed.
Keir eyed Venera, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well," he said, "what is technology?"
The lady looked confused. "Why, it's..." She frowned.
"This fork," said her companion.
"Suns," said someone else.
"Guns."
"Clocks."
Keir made sure to bow again, and Venera began to relax. "Those are all individual cases," he admitted. "But what is technology as such?"
There was silence. Keir nodded. "It is not so obvious. Technology is any natural phenomenon harnessed for human use. --Clothing, for instance, harnesses the phenomenon of insulating air layers to keep us warm; our suns harness the phenomenon of nuclear fusion to light our skies."
They all went ahh and smirked at one another as if it had been obvious all along.
"Outside of Virga," Keir continued, "we have a situation where natural phenomena are harnessed for nonhuman use. In fact, harnessed for nonliving, nonsentient uses ... Is such a thing still a technology?"
Venera was smiling at him now; encouraged, he said, "Out there is a world of natural phenomena employed by other natural phenomena. Some are employed for a purpose; others are controlled by systems that have no purpose--that are just technologies run amok. It's a wilderness. Chaos. A state of nature, built with and by and for what we would call technologies. Out there..." He suppressed a shudder at a flash of memory he'd not known he had. "Things look like they are designed, look like they have a function, look like they're being used by someone for some purpose ... when they're not. They appear to be technologies, but they are in fact just natural phenomena, distilled to their essences, and running wild."
Something in his tone had silenced the entire table. Their general expression was one of alarm--all save Venera, who appeared quite satisfied. "Thank you," she said, waving a hand brusquely. Keir bowed, and backed away as she'd taught him.
He was trying to catch that elusive memory as he sat down across from Leal. Something about a garden, and a house--and a woman who didn't remember Keir's name.
"--went all right?" Leal was asking. Keir shook his head.
"Yes, I think I gave them exactly the answer Venera was asking for."
"About what?"
He told her, and they talked on; but for the rest of the evening, Keir felt as though his mind were somehow divided in two. Part of him was at the table, basking in golden gaslight in the exotic palace of a Virgan kingdom. The other part was casting here and there, overturning the furniture of disused, natural memories in search of something elusive that suddenly seemed hugely important.
* * *
EVERY TEN SECONDS, the room flipped over. Antaea ignored the stomach-flipping effects of artificial gravity in such a small wheel as Airsigh indicated she should sit down opposite her. Along with them, the long and slightly curved conference table accommodated some other Last Line officers--but none of especially high rank. This, Antaea found especially interesting.
She looked from Airsigh to the other faces. "All right," she said, "what the hell is going on?"
They exchanged a few glances. "We're not sure ourselves," said a gray-haired captain. "We're told there's some new accommodation with the outsiders. A new alliance. But it's the First Line who're telling us this, dictating to us like we have no say in the matter. It's..."
"Disturbing," said Airsigh. "Look, Argyre, I'll be blunt. Our senior officers don't seem concerned, but those of us on the lines, we're hearing conflicting stories, and we want to know..."
"Who's right and who's lying?" She twined her fingers together on the tabletop. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that."
The older man shook his head impatiently. "Your friends in Slipstream think there's a threat to Virga."
Airsigh nodded. "And the First Line followed what it thought was that threat into Aethyr, where it crashed some of their ships. At least, that's the official story. But we know there's another side to it--this claim that somebody out there was trying to make contact with us and it all went wrong."
Antaea blinked in surprise. "You heard that?"
Airsigh tapped a sheaf of papers Antaea hadn't noticed before. "Something out there has continued to try to make contact. It calls itself a 'morphont' and claims that some history dean, Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, was its intermediary." She shot Antaea an intent look. "Do you know anything about these morphonts?"
"I know they're not sapient like we are," Antaea said. She'd made the same objection when Leal had told her about the emissary. "They wear consciousness like clothing--they don it and shed it as needed. How can the interests of creatures like that possibly align with ours?"
Airsigh gave that question some consideration. "They might if we faced another, bigger threat," she said finally. "'The enemy of my enemy' and all that. Maybe they don't think the way we do, but they can calculate odds just as well as us. Anyway, we don't know, and this is why we're trying to investigate further."
Antaea frowned at this unsatisfying answer.
"The problem," said the older Guardsman, "is that the First Line has declared the matter closed and refuses to talk to the morphonts. At the same time they're receiving all these new visitors of their own. It's as if some other faction has gone into high gear. We know there were already some ambassadors among the First Line."
"So you don't have any reliable information about what's going on out at the high command?"
Airsigh laughed. "Oh, we have plenty of information! It's just hard to make sense of it. Like, take the 'emissary' or 'monster,' for instance. We've seen reports from the lone survivor of its attack, and they corroborate the First Line's story."
"Who's this survivor?"
"He's a cabinet minister from the same sunless country as the professor. Name's Loll."
Leal had told Antaea all about Eustace Loll, of course, and had painted him as an untrustworthy mosquito of a man. There was no way Antaea could admit to these people that she knew anything about him. "What's his story?"
"That the white filaments making up the morphont's body had taken over the other survivors of the crash one by one, turning them all into horrible extensions of itself. He spun quite a tale--and he ended it by warning that anybody else who went down to the plains of Aethyr was likely to meet the same fate. Convenient. Our senior people believe it."
"Wait a minute!" Antaea looked from face to face. "There is no plan to look for other survivors?"
"None," said Airsigh tersely. Distractedly, she tapped the papers with one fingertip. "Then the First Line sent us him." She nodded at a closed door that led to another section of the tiny house wheel.
"Who is he?" Antaea asked.
"Why don't you meet him," suggested Airsigh, "and then maybe you can tell us?" She made to rise, causing the two men on her left to shuffle out from behind the table to make way for her. Suddenly apprehensive, Antaea followed her to the door, where she knocked discreetly. "Come in," someone said.
He was extraordinarily good-looking, and would have stood out in any Virgan crowd despite his attempt to wear nondescript, even slightly shabby clothing. He bowed, a little awkwardly, as Antaea entered the parlor where he'd been waiting. "I'm Holon," he said.
"Antaea Argyre."
"Ah, yes! The adventuress. I've heard so much about you."
His name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Something Leal had said ... "They tell me you're an ambassador," she said cautiously.
He shook his head. "Not really--oh, I should explain. I was an observer sent from my people as part of an exchange with your Home Guard. When the incident at Aethyr happened, I was stranded with the Home Guard ships on the plains. I managed to return to my people, but I'm afraid the rest of that expedition was lost. --Except, I hear, for Minister Loll."