[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

simulated pain. To be "themselves" they had to experience life stories which
guided them, so that they saw themselves as the moving point at the end of a
long, complex line drawn by their total Selves, as evolved forward. They had
to recollect themselves, inner and outer dramas alike, to shape the deep
narrative that made an identity. Only in simulations derived from
personalities which had a firm philosophical grounding did this prove
ultimately possible...
 ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
1.
Joan of Arc floated down the dim, rumbling tunnels of the smoky Mesh.
She fought down her fears. Around her played a complex spatter of fractured
light and clapping, hollow implosions.
Thought was a chain unfixed in time and unan-chored in space. But, like
tinkling currents, alabaster pious images formed restless, churning. An
unending flux, dissolving structures in her wake, as if she were a passing
ship.
She would be hugely pleased, indeed, to have so concrete a self. Anxiously she
studied the murky Mesh that streamed about her like ocean whorls of liquid
mahogany.
Since her escape from the wizards, upon whom the preservation of her soul her
Page 127
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"consciousness, " a term somehow unconnected to conscience depended, she had
surrendered to these wet cours-ings. Her saintly mother had once told her that
this was how the churning waters of a great river succumb, roiling into their
beds deep in the earth.
Now she floated as an airy spirit, self-absorbed, sufficient to herself,
existing outside the tick of time.
Stasis-space, Voltaire had termed it. A sanctuary where she could minimize
computational clock time such odd language! waiting for visions from
Voltaire.
At his last appearance, he had been frustrated and all because she preferred
her internal voices to his own!
How could she explain that, despite her will, the voices of saints and
archangels so compelled her? That they drowned out those who sought to
penetrate her from outside?
A simple peasant, she could not resist great spirit-beings like the
no-nonsense St. Catherine. Or stately Michael, King of Angel Legions, greater
than the royal French armies that she herself had led into battle. (Eons ago,
an odd voice whispered yet she was sure this was mere illusion, for time
surely was suspended in this Purgatory. )
Especially she could not resist when their spirit-speech thundered with one
voice as now.
"Ignore him, " Catherine said, the instant Voltaire's request for audience
arrived. She hovered on great white wings.
Voltaire's manifestation here was a dove of peace, brilliant white, winging
toward her from the sullen liquid. Blithe bird!
Catherine's no-nonsense voice cut crisply, as stiff as the black-and-white
habit of a meticulous nun. "You sinfully
surrendered to his lust, but that does not mean that he owns you. You don't
belong to a man! You belong to your
Creator. "
The bird chirped, "I must send you a freight of data. "
"I, I... " Joan's small voice echoed, as if she were in a vast cavern, not a
vortex river at all. If she could only see
Catherine's great wings batted angrily. "He will go away. He has no choice. He
cannot reach you, cannot make you sin unless you consent. "
Joan's cheeks burned as the memory of her lewd-ness with Voltaire rushed in.
"Catherine is right, " a deep voice thundered Michael, King of the Angel
Hosts of Heaven. "Lust has nothing to do with bodies, as you and the man
proved. His body stank and rotted long ago. "
"It would be good to see him again, " Joan whispered longingly. Here, thoughts
were somehow actions. She had but to raise a hand and Voltaire's numerics
would transfix her.
"He offers defiling data!" Catherine cried. "Deflect his intrusion at once. "
"If you cannot resist him, marry him, " Michael ordered stiffly.
"Marry?" St. Catherine's voice sputtered with contempt.
In bodily life, she had affected male attire, cropped her hair, and refused to
have anything to do with men, thus demonstrating her holiness and good sense.
Joan had prayed to St. Catherine often. "Males! Even here, " the saint scolded
Michael, "you stick together to wage war and ruin women. "
"My counsel is entirely spiritual, " said Michael loftily. "I'm an angel and
thus prefer neither sex. "
Catherine sputtered with contempt. "Then why aren't you the Queen of Legions
of Angels and not the King? Why don't you command heavenly hostesses and not
heavenly hosts? Why aren't you an archangela instead of an archangel? And why
isn't your name Michelle?"
Please, Joan said. Please. The thought of marriage struck as much terror in
her soul as in St. Catherine's, even if marriage was one of the blessed
sacraments. But then so was extreme unction, and that one almost always meant
Page 128
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
certain death.
... flames... the priest's leer as he administered the rites...
crackling horror, terrible cutting, licking flames...
She shook herself assembled her Self, came a whisper and focused on her
saintly host. Oh yes, marriage...
Voltaire...
She was not sure what marriage meant, besides bearing children in Christ and
in agony, for Holy Mother Church. The act of getting children, begetting,
aroused in her a thumping heart, weak legs, images of the lean, clever man... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]