Nemia was grinning. She defied her mother—under the pressure of her fingers the stars spread out again across the bedroom in which, as a child, she had built so many castles out of the objects at hand. This time the Egg-enchanted sky wore the constellations of Neuhadra. Exotic symbols began to appear; lines drew themselves by some arcane formula
until the room’s heaven was filled by a marvelous chart “Oh my!” began Nemia. “By the Founder’s Nose!” Her eyes were enraptured by the chart. “You’ll never guess what your daughter is up to! Look!” She pointed. “See where the red lines intersect in the constellation of the Warrior—there at the Petunia—have I got a story for you! It begins with a granddaughter to melt your heart...”
The mother was listening in spite of herself. So were the walls.
20
ERON OSA GETS UPGRADED, 14,791 GE
Constraints only limit our freedom of motion, they do not determine our destiny
—Excerpt from the Founder’s Psychohistorical Tools for Making a Future
Eron Osa fiddled with the fit of his mask, adjusting it, as he was hurried from behind into the thin air toward the car pool by a silent Murek Kapor. His tutor had been behaving with a strange aggressiveness—as if he wasn’t himself. Maybe not. Maybe, Eron thought, it was just a small boy’s nervous eyes seeing new dangers. Within hours his precious fam would be in some machine for an upgrade. He shivered. No—wrong fear. Since that evening when he had seduced his tutor’s girlfriend he had never been able to regain his insolent composure around Murek. Regret. If his father hadn’t been such an infuriating old reprobate, he might have, should have, adhered to the old blockhead’s advice about sex. Hadn’t his father continually warned him about the high tax on escapades—in spite of his own escapades? Fathers shouldn’t be allowed to be right!
He was a bit frantic for his tutor’s approval. He knew a fam upgrade was dangerous—and knew that he was doing this at his own stubborn insistence, against all advice. His father, for one, would be furious. Everyone was probably right. Eron was most likely wrong. He also knew that an ambitious star-child who was to grow up and make a mark on this huge Galaxy was going to need every advantage he could wangle. He felt alone. He wanted Murek to say that it was all right—but that stupid farman wouldn't because he knew, yes he knew, about that night with Nemia. How could he know? Nemia would never confess. He couldn't know but he did; his eyes betrayed suspicion. No matter what, Eron was going to admit nothing. Murek had to go along with the operation. But now that the hour of the upgrade was upon them, it was scary. He wanted to be told that everything would be all right.
The wind gusted, blowing the odd pellet of hard snow against the skin of that part of his face that was exposed. His tutor led him to a blue aerocar with variable wings that seated four. Its sensors recognized Murek as a legal user— opening the canopy for him. A picture of a baby, forgotten by some admirer, smiled at them from the border of the instrument panel. They clambered into the four-seater, the canopy dropped shut, and the pressure pump cycled while the robocar inquired, “Destination, citizen?”
“No destination,” Murek instructed, dropping his oxy-mask. “I’ll take her up on manual.” He turned to his student who was also dropping his mask. “How about a tour of the lake first? There hasn’t been time for much sightseeing.”
Eron did not disagree; he had no desire, at this critical moment, to oppose this man upon whom he depended too much. He was regretting all the times he had defied him in the past. His mentor lifted at a steep climb, the boosted acceleration viciously forcing both of them back against the seat. The boy reflexively called upon the names of various old emperors for protection, items of language that millennia of psychohistory had not eradicated.
Finally he quailed. “Couldn’t we try automatic?” He was surprised that the car didn’t have an override for foolish behavior.
“Too dull,” said his tutor as he leveled out at a height above the tallest mountain. The icy blue lake filled out the landscape to the left of them; to the right were hills and arroyos covered with a greenish tint that looked unnatural to Eron where it showed through the clouds. The shades of the colors were all wrong. In the distance, navy-blue mountains rumpled the horizon. There were a few stars in the dark day sky. Eron wondered at the sanity of whoever would choose such a planet as home.
His mad pilot banked around the lake once, pointing out the sights, then turned out over the desolation and said nothing, just flew. There were no signs of civilization down there. They dropped into a fantasy world of clouds, till the whiteness was swirling all around them, some wisps thicker than others. The farman’s fingers—Eron remembered them as faster than a blaster, faster at math than a mind could think—fooled with the clean instruments, obviously intending to put the aero on automatic while he attended to more pressing tasks. The canopy all around them went to an opaque white. They were chickens inside an egg.
“Where are we going?” Was Murek aborting the upgrade?
His tutor only smiled and brought to view, in the palm of his hand, a tiny podlike distorter, which he tapped with a finger. “To shut down your fam’s electronic motion sensors ” In another quick motion he left the distorter burred to Eron’s fam. “You don’t need to know where we’re going. The distorter won’t harm anything.” He added, perhaps by way of explanation, “What we’re doing isn’t strictly legal.”
Eron was too intimidated to resist. He was boiling with questions. But he found it hard to use Nemia’s name in front of Murek. He’d been trying to ask about her for the whole trip. “Will Nemia be there?” he blurted. Right now he trusted Nemia more than he did his farman companion.
“No. She’s strictly legit. Rigone will do the operation. He’s good. Don’t worry.” He paused. “I’m going to be reading for a while.” Then his eyes glazed over and he was obviously perusing something that had already been fed into his fam. After that the only disturbance was the whisper of the engines and the odd air pocket and the blind diffuse whiteness of the enclosing eggshell.
Eron tried to distract himself by imagining the cities that they were passing over, or by conjuring old Imperial ruins, but all he could think about was a naked Nemia. He ordered the picture away, but his fam only solidified the image and slowly rotated it for Eron’s inspection.
When his cuckolded tutor came out of his trance he had a nudge for Eron. “How’s the boy? You’ve been quiet.”
“Okay.”
“You’re nervous.”
“No.” Eron sensed a Nemia in the backseat but he resisted turning around to see. He knew she wasn’t there.
“Come on. Tell me.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“I’ve been reviewing procedures. It’s essential that you be in a calm state of mind before the operation. I thought that might pose a problem so I brought with me an apparatus I can use to calm your emotions.”
“I am calm!” he shouted.
“Calm—as in not shouting. Let me review what you already know. Your fam’s security goes on the alert when your wetware is agitated by internal conflict or external meddling. If a fam’s transducers are then detached from physical contact with your alarmed body, it will do its best, after reunion, to rationalize all changes made during the detachment. If that’s not enough it will attempt a wetware/hardware backup. It’s an automatic defense. We need to take precautions to prevent your fam from erasing the work Rigone will do. So I’m going to have to hook you up.”