She broke off. “Enough,” she said. “At least, enough about me. Do sit down, please. What refreshment can I offer? You used to like coffee, black, strong, and sweet.”
”Thank you,” Omar replied. “I still do.” He paused. “Thank you for remembering.”
Chairs shaped themselves to bodies with fluid, unnoticed sensuality. Laurinda gave the house an instruction. “Tell me about yourself,” she urged her guest.
”You know.” He spoke defensively.
”Just your recent activities. What did you do, how did you do, in the years between?”
He shrugged. “On the whole, contented. I pursued my interests-mainly sports, you know.”
”I suppose you became a champion.”
”Not quite, but I didn’t do badly.”
”I’m sorry. I should have followed the athletics news.”
”No, no. I realize you’ve had too much other claim on your attention.” Ruefulness: “Besides, that also is well behind me. Treatments, therapies, regenerations, the whole kit of somatics, can only hold off aging for so long.” Again he regarded her, and she thought that what he saw pained him a little. He continued faster: “Games and contests haven’t been everything. I’ve made a fair amount of yun both as a coach and as a personal counselor.”
She raised her brows. “Yun?”
”Local slang. I’ve spent the past decade mainly on Taiwan. If you haven’t happened to encounter the word, it means credit earned, over and above the basic issue. Do they still call it plusses in England?”
”Yes. I should have guessed. But I feel a bit overwhelmed today.” Laurinda hesitated. “I don’t want-to be impertinent-but-“
Omar chuckled, more nearly at ease than hitherto. “But you were never timid. Well, for the most part I’ve been happy. One ortho-marriage lasted more than forty years. We were allowed two children. We chose girls.” He must have seen her own quick pain; he must know she had never had any. Doubtless he assumed that was because, whatever her relationships with men, none had endured. Or did he go deeper and see that Terra Central had taken up too much of her time, of herself? He finished roughly: “And I’ve become active in public affairs.”
She nodded. “Politics.”
Scorn responded. “Not standing for election. What does any political office mean anymore? But advisory committees,”
”That is today’s main form of politics, isn’t it? That, and working to create a general consensus on major issues.”
”It’s why I’ve come here.”
”Certainly. Again, welcome, old friend.”
The house recognized a psychological moment. A servitor glided in to set down the newly synthesized coffee for him, tea for her, and small cakes. Incense wafted from a miniature brazier. As they partook they exchanged conventional remarks, empty of practical significance, full of emotional tones, two animals instinctively reassuring one another. This visit in person, from halfway around the globe, said more than any telepresence ever could.
When he ended the interlude, she sensed that he must force himself. “You know what I’ll ask of you.”
She looked away, off into one of the screens where the day outside shone. “Do you really believe I can grant it?”
”I can hope. It’s not as if we were at a final decision point. The debate may go on for years.” His voice harshened. “Unless Terra Central strikes it down and orders an action.”
Her head swung back toward him. She stiffened. “What makes you imagine that could happen?”
”I said it before. What force is left in the World Charter or the law of any state? We talk, we vote, we go solemnly through our traditional motions, but the decisions that matter come from the machine intelligences-at the summit, from Terra Central.”
”Not decisions, not commands. Advice, which we do best to follow.”
”You imply the world has become too complex, too precarious, for mere humans to understand and control.”
”It always was, wasn’t it?” she said quietly.
Taken aback, he sat mute for a while. Perhaps he reflected that her books must have given her more knowledge of the historical past, the terrible past, than most people had. At last he replied, ‘Well, facts, logic, models, calculations, yes, of course we need Terra Central, the whole cybernetic system. But what we want, what we feel, that counts for at least as much.”