Obedient to its training rather than specific command, the stag drew up before Eisner’s palace, a windowless dome. Rolls held out an arm like a steel bar to support the woman as she lowered herself to the ground.
She looked up at him and said, “We created Diamond and Ruby as bubble universes, bound into the Matrix by our united minds.”
Rolls nodded. “A whim,” he said. “A desire to create the perfection that we—”
He swung his leg over the saddle and lowered himself beside Eisner “—fail to achieve in ourselves.”
Rolls pretended to be unaware of the wariness in the woman’s eyes at the implication that he intended to enter her palace.
She grimaced. “All right,” she said and stepped toward the door. It opened in response to her presence. Eisner kept no human servants.
“If one of us destroys Diamond,” she continued, “our minds fall out of balance with the Matrix and . . . All of us. But only we can harm Diamond.”
“If that were the case,” Rolls said as he ducked to follow Eisner, “then Diamond wouldn’t be in any danger. As perhaps it is not.”
Though the ceilings within Eisner’s dwelling were full height, the woman had pointedly constructed the door transom to clear her head by a centimeter. Eisner had few visitors; and, she would have said, little need for them.
“There’s Fortin,” Eisner said as she turned. “Fortin is insane.” The door behind Rolls remained open, a reminder and invitation to him to leave.
“Fortin is very clever,” Rolls said. “And yes, he’s usually destructively clever. But he doesn’t want to die before his time, Eisner. All our time.”
He looked at the books, racked in a jumble of varied sizes and bindings. Computers were a better way to access information, and the Matrix itself was all knowledge if one had the patience to prowl its twisted, freezing pathways. Eisner used both, constantly, because there was no end to learning . . . but books were a symbol, and symbols had a particular reality here on Northworld.
“There’s something we don’t see . . . ,” Eisner murmured.
“We’re changing, Eisner,” the man said as he watched his hostess through the corners of his eyes.
“We don’t change,” Eisner snapped, crossing her arms over her chest as she turned her back on Rolls. Her breasts, as unremarkable as her face and hair, were hidden beneath the loose folds of the coveralls she habitually wore. “We’re old and we’re getting older, but we don’t change. We don’t have the power to change ourselves—”
Rolls touched the woman’s shoulder. “You know what I mean,” he said.
“—except for Penny with her necklace,” Eisner continued. Her voice, never particularly attractive, cut the phrase like a hacksaw. “She can change.”
“Penny got what she wanted,” Rolls said. Rather than try to turn Eisner to face him, he stepped around her.
“You have—” He gestured with his left hand. “You wanted knowledge. You wouldn’t trade that for Penny’s necklace, would you?”
“No, no,” Eisner agreed, forcing herself to lower her arms, though she met her guest’s eyes only for a moment. “I have exactly what I want, of course. . . .”
“But we don’t have to limit ourselves to one thing,” Rolls said. “Eisner, we have all powers, we’re like gods. But we’re focusing down to—” his hand described an empty circle “—to caricatures, like Penny and her appearance.”
“And her men, you mean!” Eisner said.
Rolls’ expression softened to see the pain in the woman’s eyes. “That’s all part of the same thing, Eisner,” he said gently. “You know that. There’s no reason that we can’t change things back. Become—”
He reached out slowly, his fingers curled to cup Eisner’s breast.
“—complete human beings again.”
Eisner slapped his hand away and turned her back again. “I don’t want that!” she said.
In a voice almost too faint to hear, she added, “And you don’t want me, not really.”
“I do want you,” Rolls said. “I want you to be—”
“Go on!” Eisner said, facing Rolls to gesture imperiously toward the door. “Get out. Your sympathy is quite unnecessary.”
“Whatever you wish,” the big man said as he obeyed; but he paused, hunched in the doorway, to add over his shoulder, “There’s still time to change, Eisner.”