“I am a legally authorized message from the Wolf 359 Terraforming Project, a project that needs your help.”
“Genie! Spam!” she shouted as the image disappeared. “Oh! Oooooo! Genie, contact Edmund, use an avatar, tell him his image has been hacked. And tell my sister, too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the personal program replied. “I asked if it was an avatar of Edmund Talbot and it said it was.”
“But it had to tell me the truth,” she said. “I’ve asked Sheida when they are going to fix that, but she keeps telling me there aren’t enough votes in the Council.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the genie replied. “Both will be informed.”
“Okay,” Daneh sighed. “Never mind; I can’t think anymore today anyway. Home, genie.”
Edmund Talbot looked up from the inlay he was applying with painstaking care as his butler projection made the sound of a throat clearing.
“Master Edmund, there is an avatar at the door to see you.”
The projection was dressed in thirteenth-century court dress of the Frankish kingdoms, its surcoat of wool and silk marked with a blazon of red and silver, argent upon gules, a human head, erased. With its fully human appearance and placed beside the antique tools, armor and weaponry arraying the room, the projection did not look outlandish in the least. It looked like a standard medieval flunky, not a cloud of nannites dressed in silk, wool and linen.
There was, in fact, no sign of advanced technology anywhere in the cluttered workshop. The grinding wheel was foot powered, the forge at the end was pumped with hand bellows, the barrels that held sword blanks and bar steel were of local oak and the materials were all natural with the appearance of having been handmade. The sun was setting, leaving the shop in a chiaroscuro of shadows and golden light, but the sole lighting source was a glass-shaded tallow dip.
Edmund himself was dressed in trews and a rumpled tunic that, with the exception of the cosilk material and extraordinary fineness of the weave, would have blended well in any medieval Ropasan setting from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance. With his callused hands, massive forearms, graying hair and beard and heavy-set physique, he could have been mistaken for a medieval master smith. Or, perhaps, a lord with a hobby.
Which was the whole point.
The sole exception to the period garb was a pair of thin-rimmed glasses that he now pushed down his nose to look at the butler.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Mistress Daneh, my lord,” the projection replied. “Shall I show her in?”
“By all means,” Talbot replied, taking off his glasses and standing up.
It took only a moment for the projection and the avatar to return. The avatar could have simply appeared, but that would not have given the impression of being shown into the room. Since the entire teleport program was managed by the Net, which theoretically could send anyone, anywhere, protocols were in place to prevent unauthorized entry. Persons who were not specifically given access to a home had to translate to outside of the dwelling, and noncorporeal beings, projections, avatars and persons who had been Transferred into nannite clouds, could not simply enter a home without prior permission. Technically, Daneh Ghorbani’s avatar could have translated directly to his location. But Edmund’s friends and relations, who had such permission, were well aware of his peculiarities and always asked permission.
“Edmund,” the avatar said.
Talbot paused for a moment drinking in the sight of his former lover. Avatars by default simulated the current appearance of their host. This was not always the case but Daneh would not have adjusted it if she was using her real name. Thus it appeared that physically she had hardly changed. Her hair was a tad redder and showing some blond highlights, probably from sun. By the same token her skin was a bit more tanned. But other than that she was identical to when they had been together. She looked… well.
While he could feel himself getting older day by day.
“Mistress Daneh,” he replied with a slight bow. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Someone’s spamming you as an avatar,” the avatar replied in an acid tone. “I don’t suppose you gave the Wolf 359 Terraforming Project permission.”
“I don’t think so,” Talbot replied with a snort. “Sorry about that; I’ll try to get to the bottom of it. Avatar, I don’t suppose you have any details?”
“Mistress Daneh did not ask me to gather any,” the avatar replied in a toneless voice.
“Very well. Are you keeping well?”
“Mistress Daneh is fine and I will convey that you asked about her.”
“And Rachel? She is well also?”
“Miss Rachel is well. She is currently energy surfing off Fiji.”
“Well, tell Daneh my door is always open to her and give Rachel my love. Tell her I look forward to her visit next month.”
“I will, Master Talbot. Good day.”
“God speed, avatar.”
He stood tapping his lip in thought until the projection had walked out of the room and his butler returned.
“Charles, send avatars to all of my friends telling them about this and apologizing. Send a complaint to the Council on the subject. Send a copy with a warning of further action to the Terraforming Project and contact Carb and ask him to see who decided I was a good target.”
“Very well, my lord. And you have another visitor.”
“Who?” Edmund asked.
“Dionys.”
“Oh, hellfire and brimstone,” Talbot swore. “What does that donkey’s ass want?”
“He did not vouchsafe that to me, my lord,” the butler replied. “Shall I show him in or tell him to go find a short and unpleasant route to hell?”
“Avatar or being?”
“Being, my lord.”
“I’ll meet him in the Hall,” Talbot replied after a moment. “In three minutes.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Edmund first donned a tabard with his coat of arms, then walked to the main room of the large house. The walls of the room were lined with armor and banners celebrating victories over the years against a range of opponents. There were katanas, broadswords and tulwars on the wall, while one end of the room had a surreal sculpture consisting of literally hundreds of fantasy swords, virtually all of them not worth the metal they were made from, welded together. The tabards of a hundred knights acted as little more than wallpaper and the doors were faced in battered shields.
A set of late medieval plate armor, quite battered and worn, stood on one side of the room’s outsized fireplace while the other side was flanked by a tower shield from the top of which protruded a hammer and a long horseman’s lance.
Edmund took a seat in front of the fireplace and waved at the butler to show his visitor in.
Dionys McCanoc was tall, two meters and a bit, and broad as a house. He was currently humanoform with a touch of elven enhancements; not enough to violate protocols, but enough to set any true-elf’s teeth on edge. His hair was long and silver with holographic highlights — it hung down his back in a waterfall that caught the light in a rainbow effect — while his skin was pure midnight black, not the black of a Negroid effect, but an absolute pitch black.
His eyes had vertically slit pupils and glowed faintly even in the light from multiple oil lamps.
“Duke Edmund,” he said in deep velvety baritone while bowing at the waist.
“What do you want, Dionys?” Edmund asked.
When Dionys had started showing up at tournaments, Edmund had taken the time to do some research. They had never ended up in competition, but Talbot was always careful to check out potential opponents, and problems, and Dionys had “problem” tattooed to his forehead.