Evolution's Darling

She listens to echoes and silence for a while.

Her mother's call sign flickers into direct, flows without salutation into voice and headshot visual.

"Time to get home! You haven't forgotten that the man from the Home Cluster is coming today, have you?"

Her mother has discussed and rehearsed his arrival for months; the great event could hardly have slipped her mind.

"He's bringing an associate. She's also from the HC. Just think how sophisticated they'll be!"

It is an old word her mother often uses, but will not define except with a roll of the eyes and to promise that one day Beatrix will not have to ask. The sculptor makes rude noises at the word's mention. As near as Beatrix can understand, her mother's sophistication is related to astrogation, with moral overtones. Set an airscreen to display the great sphere of the Expansion: the dense, glowing center of that sphere is the home and radiant source of sophistication, the tattered periphery where the red locator dot of Malvir clings is its benighted opposite. According to the planetary library, however, sophisticated has a twin set of meanings. It shares etymological roots both with the professional guild of wise people like old Descartes, and with another, rather different tribe, who measured worth with the beauty of lies. Philosophers, sophists, sophisticates. No wonder the sculptor scorns the word.

But in this context, sophistication simply means that her mother will be wearing the fabulously expensive Chal'le dress that Beatrix likes to watch; beads of light tumble down the fibers of the garment like waterdrops travelling a string, never seeming to collect at the bottom or run dry at the top.

Beatrix direct interfaces the local SPCAI's Turing meter as she picks her way back toward home. The nice people at the SPCAI tolerate her daily access of the device: they are impressed by her. She enjoys the rough massage of data exchange between the meter and herself, the explosion of questions answered by the reflexive levels of her mind, the delicate probing of her metaspace AI core. This morning, as always, there are a few ten thousandths of a Turing point to show for her efforts. The game started as an indulgence for the sculptor, but now she knows he is right: discarding his leftovers into the great abyss of the crater is the purest catalyst for her development. The ritual of choosing and throwing, listening and watching, predicting and testing is her art, her philosophy. She imagines herself as the long-dead Descartes, staring into his fireplace and building a world in his own mind.

Later today, she will climb the broken hill and talk to the Sculptor about her morning composition. And he will discuss his latest piece or the next one (although Beatrix never gets to watch him sculpt). It all moves her forward toward the day when she will be a person.

Beatrix is only a few weeks from clearing 0.8, a great accomplishment for an entity only seven years old.

The gallery and its attached house become visible above the cheap row apartments that begin a kilometer from the crater's edge. If the Home Cluster man buys the piece (one of the two the sculptor has decided that mother can sell) they can buy a bigger house in a more sophisticated neighborhood. Beatrix has made her mother promise that the new house will be close to the crater and the sculptor. Being reminded of this makes her mother frown, but a promise is a promise.

When Beatrix reaches the flat pathway that winds among the apartment buildings, her pace quickens. Her motive system of spindly legs and counterweights keeps her from walking quickly, and on rough terrain her progress is even more plodding than that of her out-of-shape biological mother. The strange apparatus is also undependable, requiring the sculptor's constant tinkering.

But this is another of Beatrix's artistries: the complex mechanism of her legs requires her to watch the ground carefully, a lens and a measure of attention always fixed downward. This dance of walking constantly exercises her mind, a modest version of the crater ritual. The Sculptor says that's another word for wisdom, being grounded.

As she nears the door to the gallery (her pacing mother revealed in a resplendant UHF silhouette; yes, Beatrix was right about the dress) she feels a tug on her consciousness again. A watching-through-her-eyes that shadows, augments, and interrogates her thoughts. Her twin has followed her here, far off the broken hill from which it rarely ventures.

Beatrix smiles to herself; her twin wants to see the people from the Home Cluster. Perhaps some sophistication will do them both good.

Chapter 20

SEDUCTION

The morning had come too quickly for her body, but that was soon cleared up. Mira's medical endoframe knew she was at highest mission status, and had filled her bloodstream with chemicals of intense excitement, of a clear sense of purpose, of joy.

Her augmentations had been working while she slept, cleaning the blood and ichor of her torture session, repairing the contusions and abrasions of her lovemaking. Even the dust from her journey to visit the forgetful Oscar Vale was gone, meticulously cleaned from her flesh by nanos to whom each speck was a boulder.

Mira looked briefly at the work her demi-godly avatar had done for her: a profile of one Hirata Flex, the owner of the gallery representing Vaddum. The avatar informed Mira that Flex had also been part-owner of a certain Prometheus Body Works. Flex had been in on this from the start.

Darling didn't want another corpse on the pile, but this Flex woman would be an easy nut to crack. The profile was an embarrassment of riches: Flex had undergone psych therapy with an avatar of the dutiful Planetary Medical AI (a would-be god). Mira fed the psych data into the painting that graced her wall, which assimilated it like a thimbleful of dye spread to colorlessness on an ocean. The painting created a precis and sent it back to her through DI:

Flex had been to the best art schools, her wealth had ensured that, and had even been represented briefly by a decent gallery in the HC. But her luminous watercolors (pigments from Paris, heavy water from gTerr), which were meant to be simultaneously both quaint and daringly retro, had never sold. Not one.

When that dream slipped away, Flex had squandered her inheritance on the next stage of her career: rustic gallery owner here on Malvir. When Vaddum, the father of Malvirian art, had at least nominally died seven years ago, that mean ambition had also turned to dust.

After the Blast, she'd adopted an artificial daughter, who sported some sort of artsy novelty body. Another sad attempt at finding herself, Mira supposed. But now Flex had something concrete to show for her years in the wilderness, a real Vaddum to sell.

Hirata Flex must be desperate for this meeting that would change her life, would open her to the long-awaited rewards of money, prestige, even a measure of collateral fame. Darling and Mira were her saviors, here at last.

Mira felt up to the job of savior. She felt transcendent and devious.

It was because of her decision to save Vaddum from the gods. If possible, to seize the old man's blackbox before sweeping all evidence of this outrage away. The decision had come stealthily to her over the last twelve hours. Even now, Mira thought about it only tangentally, lest any suspicious movements or brainwaves alert the gods' servants here in the hotel. She would have to be very careful within Their sight. But Flex's gallery was far outside the densely machined city; Mira's masters would be almost blind there.

And she would not tell Darling until the deed was done. A surprise. Another extraordinary gift. The wickedness of her plan gave an edge to the morning, a dazzling brightness to the suite's lofty view. The sky seemed sharp and close to her, as if she could reach out and cut a piece from it, a hole to look through…