Surface Detail

“Of course these things do not exist as you describe them. Not in the sense that they are suffered by these so-called virtual people in these alleged virtual realities. They exist only in the sense that they are imagined, talked about, warned of. Ultimately we believe that these things do exist, but we believe that they exist in the greater reality – beyond our limited understanding, and yours – that is the true Afterlife, the one that awaits all who faithfully believe, regardless of whether they have these ‘soulkeeper’ devices or not. We are content to leave such reward and punishment to God. We would not presume to take on the work of God. That is for God alone. It would be blasphemy so to presume. Frankly, you insult us by making the claims about us that you do.”

This had been a remarkably short speech by Representative Errun’s standards. As he finished, sweeping his senatorial robes about him and sitting down, Representative Filhyn had to scramble to her feet again.

“Well,” she said, “I’m sure we didn’t mean to insult you, honourable colleague.”

Errun only half-rose from his seat to say, “Insult, like many such feelings, is experienced in the soul of the person addressed; it is not something that can be granted or withheld by the person doing the addressing.”

There was murmured assent to this expression, as there had been to the one before. Representative Errun resumed his seat, accepting shoulder-pats, nods and muttered well-dones from his retinue of advisors and aides.

“As I say,” the young Representative from the Outlying Habitats said, “we did not mean to take offence.” Filhyn realised what she had said and blurted, “I mean give offence.” She stared at the Senate Speaker at the raised end of the debating chamber. “Ah, apologies,” she said to the ancient and worthy senator sitting there, surrounded by his scribbling, keyboard-tapping staff. She felt herself flush, saw the amused expression on the face of Representative Errun, and with a gesture indicating to the Speaker that she was giving way, sat down. She could hear a leaves-in-thewind noise spreading through the public and press galleries.

Representative Filhyn went to put her trunks over her face, then remembered that the cameras would probably still be on her and so didn’t. Instead, as the Speaker brought up some doubtless lengthy and utterly irrelevant point of order, she made sure her mike was off, dipped her head to Kemracht, her aide, and said, “I might as well be wearing a necklace saying Bite Here. Put me out of my misery, Kemracht,”

“I’m hoping to, ma’am,” the young male said, nodding to a departing messenger. He put his mouth near her ear. “We have a guest for the afternoon session.”

Something about the way he said it made her rock back in her seat. She stared at him. He smiled back, using both his trunks to half-hide the expression, modestly.

“Do you mean…?” she said.

“A visitor come back from the other side.”

She smiled at him. He looked down. She gazed away to see Representative Errun looking suspiciously at her from the other side of the debating chamber. She wanted to smile broadly at him, but thought the better of it. Best to give no hint. She made her smile look like a brave but hopeless one, then quickly looked away again, as though covering her inability to keep up the pretence of good humour any longer. She put both her trunks up to her eyes, as though wiping away tears.

My, I’ll make a politician of myself yet, she thought.

They lost a whole squad to a sudden electric jolt that ran through the ice like a depth charge, leaving the marines who’d borne the brunt of it dissolving in their wakes as those unaffected continued to power their way downwards.

Another attack came from the side where the original fissure had been. Two guards, and coordinated, but this time they were ready, darting them both and leaving them jerking and dying in their slipstream as the light from below took on a greenish tinge.

The light brightened smoothly as they got closer, then it changed, became slightly duller, speckled, and with something about it that implied movement. A whole force of guards was moving up towards them, their shadows flickering against the green light from below. Vatueil tried to count, then to roughly estimate. A dozen? Twenty? More? It was too difficult and it made no difference. They were not going to pull out now.

He wished that his real self – the self that would continue back in the main war sim, the self that still held all his memories of the decades of war – would be able to remember all this. But that self would never know.

In the war sim you learned from all your mistakes, including the ones that killed you. Death itself was part of the learning process. Everything, including dying, happened within a meticulously overseen simulation where the backed-up self was allowed to know everything that had happened to each of its earlier iterations. So you learned, became continually more experienced – even wise.