One more quote, this one about the Consul...
Quote:In my dream, the Hegemony Consul was playing the Steinway on the balcony of his ebony spaceship - that spaceship that I knew so well -- while great, green saurian things surged and bellowed in the nearby swamps. He was playing Schubert. I did not recognize the world beyond the balcony, but it was a place of huge, primitive plants, towering storm clouds, and frightening animal roars. The Consul was a smaller man than I had always imagined. When he was finished with the piece, he sat quietly for a moment in the twlilight until the ship spoke in a voice I did not recognize - a smarter, more human voice. "Very nice," said the ship. "Very nice indeed." "Thank you , John," said the Consul, rising from the bench and bringing the balcony into the ship with him. It was beginning to rain. "Do you still insist on going hunting in the morning?" asked the disembodied voice that was not the ship's as I knew it. "Yes," said the Consul. "It is something I do here on occasion." "Do you like the taste of dinosaur meat?" asked the ship's AI. "Not at all," said the Consul, "Almost inedible. It is the hunt I enjoy." "You mean the risk," said the ship. "That, too." The Consul chuckled. "Although I do take care." "But what if you don't come back from your hunt tomorrow?" asked the ship. His voice was of a young man with an Old Earth British accent. The Consul shrugged. "We've spent - what? More than six years exploring the old Hegemony worlds. We know the pattern...chaos, civil war, starvation, fragmentation. We've seen the fruit of the Fall of the Farcaster system." "Do you think that Gladstone was wrong in ordering the attack?" asked the ship softly. The Consul had poured himself a brandy at the sideboard and now carried it to the chess table set near the bookcase. He took a seat and looke dat the game pieces already engaged in battle o nthe board in front of him. "Not at all, " he said. "She did the right thing. But the result is sad. It will be decades, perhaps centuries before the Web begins to reweave itself together in a new form." He had been warming the brandy and sloshing it gently as he spoke, now he inhale it and sipped. Looking up, the Consul said, "Would you like to join me for the completion of our game, John?" The holo of a young man appeared in the seat opposite. He was a striking young man with clear hazel-colored eyes, low brow, hollow cheeks, a compact nose and a stubborn jaw, and a wide mouth that suggested both a calm masculinity and a hint of pugnaciousness. the young man was dressed in a loose blouse and high-cut breeches. His hair was auburn-colored, thick, and very curly. The Consul knew his guest had once been described as having"...a brisk, winning face," and he put that down to the easy mobility of ecpression that came with the young man's great intelligence and vitality. "Your move," said John. The Consul studied his options for several moments and then moved a bishop. John responded at once, pointing to a pawn that the Consul obediently ,moved one rank forward for him. The young man looked up with sincere curiosity in his eyes. "What if you don't come back from the hunt tomorrow?" he asked softly. Startled out of his reverie, the Consul smiled. "Then the ship is yours, which it obviously is anyway." He moved his bishop back. "What will you do, John, if this should be the end of our travels together?" John gestured to have his rook moved forward at the same lightning speed with which he replied, "Take it back to Hyperion," he said. "Program it to return to Brawne if all is well. Or possibly oy Martin Silenus, if the old man is still alive and working on his Cantos." "Program it?" asked the Consul, frowning at the board. "You mean you'd leave the ship's AI?" He moved his bishop diagonally another square. "Yes," said John, pointing to have his pawn advanced again. "I will do that in the next few days, at any rate." His frown deepening, the Consul looked at the board, then at the hologram across from him, and then at the board again. "Where will you go?" he asked and moved his queen to protect his king. "Back into the Core," said John, moving his rook two spaces. "To confront your maker again?" asked the Consul, attacking again with his bishop. John shook his head. His bearing was very upright and he had the habit of clearing his forehead of surls with an elegant, backward toss of his head. "No," he said softly, " to start raising hell with the Core entities. To accelerate their endless civil wars and internecine rivalries. To be what my template had been to the poetic community - an irritant." he pointed at where he wanted his remaining knight moved. The Consul considered that move, found it not a threat, and frowned at his own bishop. "For what reason?" he said at last. John smiled again and pointed to the sqaure where his rook should next appear. "My daughter will need help in a few years," he said. he chuckled. "Well, in two hundred and seventy-some years, actually. Checkmate." "What?" said the Consul, startled and studied the board. "It can't be...." John waited. "Damn," said the Hegemony Consul at last, tipping over his king. "@#%$ and spit and hell." "Yes," said John, extending his hand. "Thank you again for a pleasant game. And I do hope that tomorrow's hunt turns out more agreeably for you." "Damn," said the Consul and, without thinking, attempted to shake the hologram's thin-fingered hand. For the hundrenth time, his solid fingers went through the other's insubstantial palm. "Danm," he said again.
I hope these quotes will help to at least partially answer your questions... ******************************************************
Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
******************************************************
Perhaps I'll come for you myself some night. You ought to see me...my fur is white now, pale as snow,but the stature, the majesty, the power, those have not left me...We are the direwolves, the nightmares who haunt your racial memories, the dark shapes circling endlessly beyond the light of your fires.~George R.R. Martin<i></i>
|