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Another foundation, bankrolled by a generous Kaolin Grant, would look into the more “mystical” interests of Yosil Maharal. Not timidly, but with due attention to the raw feelings of millions, who still believe some lines aren’t meant to cross. As if there would be any way — over the long run — to keep folks from crossing.
Poor Ritu would be cared for, and quite wealthy when she stepped out. Doctors even spoke of teaching her to collaborate with a “rehabilitated” Beta personality. An exceptionally interesting person might emerge … and the world would be well advised to keep a wary eye open.
As for Kaolin’s new customers, he was welcome to try selling package tours of tomorrow for those who had everything except time. But since the new dittoing techniques won’t be secret anymore, everybody will have a fair idea what’s going on. So then, let heirs and lawyers and advocacy groups and ad hoc juries all thrash it out. Maybe elites will throw their influence behind the emancipators and to get ditimmortality declared legal. Perhaps not.
So long as the whole thing happens in the open, it’s really none of a ditective’s concern. Is it?
Pal bid us drop him off at the Ephemerals Temple. He had a date with the volunteer healer there — Alexie — who repaired me twice when I was green. His old flame who, Pal freely admitted, he “didn’t deserve.”
Perhaps. But who could refuse Pal’s company for very long? Half of him was more alive than most men I’ve known. Certainly more fun.
The little ferret-golem agreed. After reporting what he’d seen climbing the walls at Kaolin Manor, that small version of me figured he might as well find whatever excitement the world offered during life’s second half — the next dozen hours. So he hopped onto Pal’s shoulder and together they wheeled up the ramp, giving me that familiar old sensation of déjà vu.
Turning back to the car, Clara and I had a surprise. realAlbert sat inside, smiling as he waited. And we could see him clearly! Even though we stood on the pavement outside.
In fact, all of the limo walls and panels were completely transparent, not just one narrow, jittery dot per occupant. “Goodness,” Clara murmured. “That means he’s looking everywhere, in all directions at the same—”
“Yes, I know.”
When you get right down to it, this was no surprise at all.
Taking her hand, I glanced back at Pal and the smallest Albert, entering the temple together under the rosette window, past all the injured, broken, and spurned roxes who gather there each day for comfort and hope, passing into a place that welcomed all souls.
“Where to now?” queried the limo’s automatic driver.
I looked to my owner, the woman I loved.
She, in turn, glanced over at realAlbert. His attention might be everywhere at once — omni-awareness — but his smile seemed present right here with us.
“Home,” he said, in a voice clear and commanding. “Time for everybody to go home.”
For now, home meant Clara’s houseboat, just a kilometer downstream from Odeon Square … though it felt like years since I schlepped that distance underwater, thinking that I’d be in heaven if only I could unmask the infamous ditnapper, Beta.
Ah well. Heaven is a state of mind. I knew that now.
One favor that Yosil Maharal had done for us was forcing Clara and me to finally live together. Sure, I missed my house and garden, but we were both surprised at each other’s willingness to compromise in all the details of sharing a roof. Even one so cramped. Even with there being two of me.
It was an odd menage, even by modern standards. I mean, with hyperquality blanks and top equipment, I might last quite a while. So could realAlbert. Two halves of a complete husband for Clara. Able to father children. Able to help raise them. But in separate units.
“Kind of handy,” she said, putting a positive spin on things. But I could see worry. There were careers to balance, her new duties with the Dodecahedron, several kinds of biological and ceramic clocks, and two half-men to love … with no room aboard the houseboat for all the grays and ebonies and such we were going to need.
Time to get a house. At least now we could afford one. realAlbert was in the tiny forward cabin puttering with the imprinting equipment. I quashed an impulse to go stop him. Though childlike in his state of perpetual distraction, he was no simpleton. In fact, quite the opposite.
“Di
Clara cursed colorfully. The life of a student and part-time warrior was one more thing due to change. Welcome to the life of a full-time professional, dear. C’est la vie.
Then humming sounds drew our attention toward the bow — equipment warming up. Clara glanced at me as if to say, Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.
I hurried forward on time to hear realAlbert mutter happily to himself. Something about how “we’re all bosons in this dust,” or something like it. Arriving at the cabin, I saw him lie down on the platten with his head — our head — between the tetragramatron tendrils, waving gently on all sides. I noticed that the transfer switch was pulled to UNLOAD.
After staring for several seconds, I asked, “Are you sure?”
The last time we tried this, there had been a busy signal. The organic brain was full, or fully occupied, with something immensely large. No more room inside. No room for me at all.
For the first time since Urraca Mesa — or since our soul-paths separated the Tuesday before — I felt complete attention from those eyes, durable organic eyes, built to last for thirty thousand days, or more.
“She’s all yours, Pinocchio,” I heard my own voice say, and it had something else — a tone that said farewell.
There would be room, now, I realized. A clean slate. A home to reimprint with all that I was and all I had become. Everything necessary for this wayward puppet to be a real boy.
And boy, won’t Clara be surprised.
Lying down on the other table, the one with a recycling bucket underneath, I took a moment to wish myself a nice trip.
Then I put my clay head down to begin life once again.
75
Soul Comfort
Acknowledgments
Kiln People is one of the more challenging works I’ve taken on, expressing different points of view and time through seldom-used authorial tools like second-person, future tense. But that’s just part of the tradition in a genre that thrives on the unusual and loves to take on clichés.
I’d like to thank those who provided assistance, especially with critical readings of early drafts, and with insights on the historical, literary, and philosophical implications of golems.
Special appreciation goes to Cheryl Brigham, Beth Meacham, Stefan Jones, Vernor Vinge, Tappan King, Wil McCarthy, Ralph Vicinanza, John Douglas, Lou Aronica, Mason Rourman, Steve Sloan, Mark Grygier, Steve Jackson, Joe Miller, Vince Gerardis, Beverly Price, Stephen Potts, Hodge Cabtree, Robin Hanson, Steven Koerber, Alberto Monteiro, Stei