Diaspora

Orlando said, "This is the hook we need, to catch the citizens of the marginal polises. The ones who haven't quite imploded into solipsism. This will shake them up—don't you think?"

Paolo shrugged. Earth's citizens were free to implode into anything they liked; it didn't stop Carter-Zimmerman from exploring the physical universe. But even thrashing the gleisners wouldn't be enough for Orlando; like many carnevale refugees, he had a missionary streak. He wanted every other polis to see the error of its ways, and follow C-Z to the stars.

Paolo said, "Ashton-Laval has intelligent aliens. I wouldn't be so sure that news of giant seaweed is going to take Earth by storm."

Orlando was venomous. "Ashton-Laval intervened in its so-called 'evolutionary' simulations so many time that they might as well have built the end products in an act of creation lasting six days. They wanted talking reptiles, and mirabile dictu, they got talking reptiles. There are self-modified citizens in this polis more alien than the aliens in Ashton-Laval."

Paolo smiled. "All right. Forget Ashton-Laval. But forget the marginal polises, too. We choose to value the physical world. That's what defines us, but it's as arbitrary as any other choice of values. Why can't you accept that? It's not the One True Path which the infidels have to be bludgeoned into following." He knew he was arguing half for the sake of it, but Orlando always drove him into taking the opposite position.

Orlando made a beckoning gesture, dragging the image of the carpets halfway hack into the room. "You'll vote for the microprobes?"

"Of course."

"Everything depends on that, now. It's good to start with a tantalizing glimpse, but if we don't follow up with details soon they'll lose interest back on Earth very rapidly."

"Lose interest? It'll be fifty-four years before we know whether anyone paid the slightest attention in the first place."

Orlando regarded him with disappointment. "If you don't care about the other polises, think about C-Z. This helps us, it strengthens us. We have to make the most of that."

Paolo was bemused. "What needs to be strengthened? You make it sound like there's something at risk."

"There is. What do you think a thousand lifeless worlds would have done to us?"

"Isn't that entirely academic now? But all right, I agree with you: this strengthens C-Z. We've been lucky. I'm glad, I'm grateful. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Orlando said sourly.

"You take too much for granted."

"And you care too much what I think! I'm not your… heir." There were times when his father seemed unable to accept that the whole concept of offspring had lost its archaic significance. "You don't need me to safeguard the future of Carter-Zimmerman on your behalf. Or the future of the whole Coalition. You can do it in person."

Orlando looked wounded—a conscious choice, but it still encoded something. Paolo felt a pang of regret, but he'd said nothing he could honestly retract.

His father gathered up the sleeves of his gold and crimson robes—the only citizen of C-Z who could make Paolo uncomfortable to be naked—and repeated as he vanished from the room: "You take too much for granted."

The gang watched the launch of the microprobes together—even Liesl, though she came in mourning, as a giant dark bird. Karpal stroked her feathers nervously. Herma

Herma

The vote on the microprobes had been close: seventy-two percent in favor, just over the required two-thirds majority, with five percent abstaining. Citizens created since the arrival at Vega were excluded… not that anyone in Carter-Zimmerman would have dreamt of stacking the ballot, perish the thought. Paolo had been surprised at the narrow margin; he was yet to hear a single plausible scenario for the microprobes doing harm. He wondered if there was another, unspoken reason which had nothing to do with fears for the Orphean ecology, or hypothetical culture. A wish to prolong the pleasure of unraveling the planet's mysteries? Paolo had some sympathy with that impulse, but the launch of the microprobes would do nothing to undermine the greater long-term pleasure of watching, and understanding, as Orphean life evolved.

Liesl said forlornly, "Coastline erosion models show that the north-western shore of Lambda is inundated by tsunami every ninety Orphean years, on average." She offered the data to them; Paolo glanced at it, and it looked convincing, but the point was academic now. "We could have waited."

Herma

"No, but the conditions hardly—"

"No excuses!" He wound his body around a girder, kicking his legs gleefully. Herma

Elena said, "I keep trying to imagine how it will feel if another C-Z clone stumbles on something infinitely better—like aliens with shortened wormholes—while we're back here studying rafts of algae." Her icon was more stylized than usual: sexless, hairless and smooth, the face inexpressive and androgynous.

Paolo shrugged. "If they can shorten wormholes, the might visit us. Or share the technology, so we can link up the whole Diaspora. But I know what you mean: first alien life, and it's likely to be about as sophisticated as seaweed. It breaks the jinx, though. Seaweed every twenty-seven light years. Nervous systems every fifty? Intelligence every hundred?" He fell silent, abruptly realizing what she was feeling: electing not to wake again after first life was begi

She said, "I want sharp borders, right now. I want to deal with this myself."

"I understand." He let the partial model of her which he'd acquired as they'd made love fade from his mind, heaving only an ordinary, guesswork-driven Elena-symbol, much like those he possessed for everyone else he knew. Paolo took the responsibilities of intimacy seriously; his lover before Elena had asked him to erase all his knowledge of her, and he'd more or less complied the only thing he still knew about her was the fact that she'd made the request.