“Yes. But my download.”
“She won’t be you.”
“I’ll be responsible for her existing.”
“She won’t curse you for it. I know you well enough to know that, sweetheart.” And how did it feel to him, she wondered, to watch his Diddyboom age and die while he abided changeless? “Think about it.” Think fast, think hard and straight.
“I have,” she told him. “This isn’t a complete surprise to me. I do expect that other mind would carry on till the Moon is free—whatever that’s going to mean—and reasonably safe. But then—”
“If then she wants to stop,” Guthrie said, “she shall. I promise.” As it did every year, the system reminded Venator that this was his mother’s birthday. He called her when the sun stood at midmorning above her home. They chatted a while in the mix of Anglo and Bantu that had been a private dialect when he was a child. Neither of them found much to say.
“It would be nice if you could come in person sometime,” she finished wistfully. “I can’t hug your image. And I would like to show you how well the roses are doing. Not a picture. We would walk around and touch and smell them.”
Her own image was amply real in the big eido-phone, gray hair, lined face, gown full and plain as befitted a Cosmological Christian but a floral brooch at the throat. Behind her chair, the door stood open on mild weather and brilliant light. He had a partial view of stoep and yard and the Kwathlamba foothills, winter-tawny, spotted with groves, a herd of antelope in the distance. Her harp thrushes were trilling in the garden loudly enough for him to hear.
“I am busy, Mamlet,” he said. “Extraordinarily busy. I visit whenever I can.” And when was that last? He couldn’t quite recall. Well, he’d make a point of it soon. No need to feel self-sacrificing, either. Once this Proserpina business was under control, some rest and gentleness would be very welcome.
“Yes. Take care of yourself,” she urged anxiously. “Your work is too hard, too strange. Your father—“ She stopped. It was not a subject to pursue. Although he had never reproached his only child, Ministrator Joseph Mthembu died knowing the boy was apostate and thinking’ he had become half machine.
The father’s religion professed to include the findings of science. Why did he not understand that what was happening was not the negation of human-ness but its fulfillment? Even if the Teramind and the Noosphere were too alien for him, wherever he went on Earth he saw people free of want, sickness, fear, mind-numbing toil of body or brain, free to live as they chose.
“Don’t worry,” Venator said. “Please don’t. My work is my joy, and I have you and Dada to thank for it.” That they gave him to the cybercosm. He smiled.“Besides, I get plenty of healthy recreation.” He was out upon the mountains as often as the hunt allowed on which he was engaged.
She brightened. “Does that include a young lady?”
“Well, … no. Not yet.” Not ever, he supposed, in the sense she meant. No grandchild for her. The species was still too numerous for its sanity. Always the elect must set the example; when they failed, they ceased to be the elect, and presently history cast them put. Always they had failed, until the cybercosm came into incorruptible being and guided them.
How he wished he could bring this sad little woman to see that DNA no longer counted. It had been evolution’s means toward an end. Henceforward the true inheritance was of the spirit.
The thoughts, the unspoken responses, did not cross his awareness. They were in the background, a part of him. He smiled again. “Plenty of time later,” he reassured her. “But first, some of my Mamlet’s hand-cooked food, eh? In a month or two, I hope.”
Offside, an urgency signal flashed. His blood roused. “Now I truly am busy,” he said fast. “Have a wonderful day. You will be with friends, I trust. Give them my kindest regards.”
“Yes,” she whispered. He doubted she would. A synnoiont was not a mere successful son to be proud of. It was as if she shrank before his eyes. “Thank you for calling. Goodbye.”