Lethe

“He took Lethe. It was the only way he had of getting over my leaving him.”

Pure amazement throbbed in Davout’s soul. Fair Katrin looked at him in surprise.

“You didn’t know?”

He blinked at her. “I should have. But I thought he was talking about me, about a way of getting over . . .” Aching sadness brimmed in his throat. “Over the way my Dark Katrin left me.”

Scorn whitened the flesh about Fair Katrin’s nostrils. “That’s the Silent One for you. He didn’t have the nerve to tell you outright.”

“I’m not sure that’s true. He may have thought he was speaking plainly enough–”

Her fingers formed a mudra that gave vent to a brand of disdain that did not translate into words. “He knows his effects perfectly well,” she said. “He was trying to suggest the idea without making it clear that this was his choice for you, that he wanted you to fall in line with his theories.”

Anger was clear in her voice. She rose, stalked angrily to the bronze of Rosmerta, adjusted its place on the wall by a millimeter or so. Turned, waved an arm.

, flung to the air. “Let’s eat. Silent Davout is the last person I want to talk about right now.”

“I’m sorry I upset you.” Davout was not sorry at all: he found this display fascinating. The gestures, the tone of voice, were utterly familiar, ringing like chimes in his heart; but the style, the way Fair Katrin avoided the issue, was different. Dark Katrin never would have fled a subject this way: she would have knit her brows and confronted the problem direct, engaged with it until she’d either reached understanding or catastrophe. Either way, she’d have laughed, and tossed her dark hair, and announced that now she understood.

“It’s peasant cooking,” Katrin the Fair said as she bustled to the kitchen, “which of course is the best kind.”

The main course was a ragoыt of veal in a veloutй sauce, beans cooked simply in butter and garlic, tossed salad, bread. Davout waited until it was half consumed, and the bottle of wine mostly gone, before he dared to speak again of his sib.

“You mentioned the Silent One and his theories,” he said. “I’m thirty years behind on his downloads, and I haven’t read his latest work–what is he up to? What’s all this theorizing about?”

She sighed, fingers ringing a frustrated rhythm on her glass. Looked out the window for a moment, then conceded. “Has he mentioned the modular theory of the psyche?”

Davout tried to remember. “He said something about modular memory, I seem to recall.”

“That’s a part of it. It’s a fairly radical theory that states that people should edit their personality and abilities at will, as circumstances dictate. That one morning, say, if you’re going to work, you upload appropriate memories, and work skills, along with a dose of ambition, of resolution, and some appropriate emotions like satisfaction and eagerness to solve problems, or endure drudgery, as the case may be.”

Davout looked at his plate. “Like cookery, then,” he said. “Like this dish–veal, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, parsley.”

Fair Katrin made a mudra that Davout didn’t recognize. he signed.

“Oh. Apologies. That one means, roughly, ‘har-de-har-har.’ ” Fingers formed , then , then slurred them together. “See?”

He poured more wine into her glass.

She leaned forward across her plate. “Recipes are fine if one wants to be consumed,” she said. “Survival is another matter. The human mind is more than just ingredients to be tossed together. The atomistic view of the psyche is simplistic, dangerous, and wrong. You cannot will a psyche to be whole, no matter how many wholeness modules are uploaded. A psyche is more than the sum of its parts.”

Wine and agitation burnished her cheeks. Conviction blazed from her eyes. “It takes time to integrate new experience, new abilities. The modular theorists claim this will be done by a ‘conductor,’ an artificial intelligence that will be able to judge between alternate personalities and abilities and upload whatever’s needed. But that’s such rubbish, I–” She looked at the knife she was waving, then permitted it to return to the table.