Look to Windward (38 page)

“What, using primer pieces?”.

“Yes. Won't people lose out on the freshness of the first performance? Whether I conduct it or not.”

“Not at all. They'll have heard the rough tunes, the outlines of the themes, that's all. So they'll find the basic ideas recognizable, although not familiar. That'll let them appreciate the full work all the more.” The avatar slapped the Chelgrian across the shoulders, raising
a fine spray from his waistcoat. Ziller winced; the slight-looking creature was stronger than it appeared. “Ziller, trust us; this way works. Oh, and having listened to the draft you've sent, it is quite magnificent. My congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Ziller continued drying his flanks with the towel, then looked at the avatar.

“Yes?” it said.

“I was wondering.”

“What?”.

“Something I've wondered about ever since I came here, something I've never asked you, first of all because I was worried what the answer would be, later because I suspected I already knew the answer.”

“Goodness. What can it be?” the avatar asked, blinking.

“If you tried, if any Mind tried, could you impersonate my style?” the Chelgrian asked. “Could you write a piece—a symphony, say—that would appear, to the critical appraiser, to be by me, and which, when I heard it, I'd imagine being proud to have written?”.

The avatar frowned as it walked. It clasped its hands behind its back. It took a few more steps. “Yes, I imagine that would be possible.”

“Would it be easy?”.

“No. No more easy than any complicated task.”

“But you could do it much more quickly than I could?”.

“I'd have to suppose so.”

“Hmm.” Ziller paused. The avatar turned to face him. Behind Ziller, the rocks and veil trees of the deepening gorge moved swiftly past. The barge rocked
gently beneath their feet. “So what,” the Chelgrian asked, “is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?”.

The avatar raised its brows in surprise. “Well, for one thing, if you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement.”

“Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?”.

“They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it.”

“Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care”.

“If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered.”

“But if you can—”.

“Ziller, are you concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?”.

“Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes.”

“Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber.”

“Oh, do I?”.

“Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic.”

“If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed.”

“Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers.

“The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages.” The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. “How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?”.

“You've made your point, but this mountain climber still wonders if he ought to re-educate his soul to the joys of flight and stepping out onto someone else's summit.”

“Better to create your own. Come on; I've a dying man to see on his way.”

•   •   •   

Ilom Dolince lay on his death bed, surrounded by friends and family. The awnings which had covered the aft upper deck of the barge while it had descended the falls had been withdrawn, leaving the bed open to the air. Ilom Dolince sat up, half submerged in floating pillows and lying on a puff mattress that looked, Ziller thought, appropriately like a cumulus cloud.

The Chelgrian hung back, at the rear of the crescent of sixty or so people arranged standing or sitting
around the bed. The avatar went to stand near the old man and took his hand, bending to talk to him. It nodded then beckoned over to Ziller, who pretended not to see, and made a show of being distracted by a gaudy bird flying low over the milky white waters of the river.

“Ziller,” the avatar's voice said from the Chelgrian's pen terminal. “Please come over. Ilom Dolince would like to meet you.”

“Eh? Oh. Yes, of course,” he said. He felt quite acutely awkward.

“Cr. Ziller, I am privileged to meet you.” The old man shook the Chelgrian's hand. In fact he did not look that old, though his voice sounded weak. His skin was less lined and spotted than that of some humans Ziller had seen, and his head hair had not fallen out, though it had lost its pigment and so appeared white. His handshake was not strong, but Ziller had certainly felt limper ones.

“Ah. Thank you. I'm flattered you wanted to, ah, take up some of your, ah, time with meeting an alien note dabbler.”

The white-haired man in the bed looked regretful, even pained. “Oh, Cr. Ziller” he said. “I'm sorry. You're a little uncomfortable with this, aren't you? I'm being very selfish. It didn't occur to me my dying might—”.

“No, no, I, I … Well, yes.” Ziller felt his nose color. He glanced around the other people nearest the bed. They looked sympathetic, understanding. He hated them.” It just seems strange. That's all”.

“May I, Composer?” the man said. He stretched out one hand and Ziller allowed one of his to be grasped
again. The grip was lighter this time. “Our ways must seem odd to you.”

“No odder than ours to you, I'm sure.”

“I am very ready to die, Cr. Ziller.” Ilom Dolince smiled. “I've lived four hundred and fifteen years, sir. I've seen the Chebalyths of Eyske in their Skydark migration, watched field liners sculpt solar flares in the High Nudrun, I've held my own newborn in my hands, flown the caverns of Sart and dived the tube-arches of Lirouthale. I've seen so much, done so much, that even with my neural lace trying to tie my elsewhere memories as seamlessly as it can into what's in my head, I can tell I've lost a lot from in here.” He tapped one temple. “Not from my memory, but from my personality. And so it's time to change or move on or just stop. I've put a version of me into a group mind in case anybody wants to ask me anything at any time, but really I can't be bothered living anymore. At least, not once I've seen Ossuliera City, which I've been saving for this moment.” He smiled at the avatar. “Maybe I'll come back when the end of the universe happens.”

“You also said you wanted to be revived into an especially nubile cheerleader if Notromg Town ever won the Orbital Cup,” the avatar said solemnly. It nodded and took a breath in through its teeth. “I'd go with the universe-ending thing, if I were you.”

“So you see, sir?” Ilom Dolince said, his eyes glittering. “I'm stopping.” One thin hand patted Ziller's. “I'm only sorry I won't be here to listen to your new work, maestro. I was very tempted to stay, but … Well, there is always something to keep us, if we are not determined, isn't there?”

“I dare say.”

“I hope you're not offended, sir. Little else would have made me even think of delaying. You're not offended, are you?”.

“Would it make any difference if I was, Mr. Dolince?” Ziller asked.

“It would, sir. If I thought you were especially hurt, I could still delay, though I might be straining the patience of these good people,” Dolince said, looking around those gathered by his bedside. There was a low chorus of friendly-sounding dissent. “You see, Cr. Ziller? I have made my peace. I don't think I have ever been so well thought of.”

“Then I'd be honored to be included in that regard.” He patted the human's hand.

“Is it a great work, Cr. Ziller? I hope it is.”

“I can't say, Mr. Dolince,” Ziller told him. “I'm pleased with it.” He sighed. “Experience would indicate that provides no guide whatsoever either to its initial reception or eventual reputation.”

The man in the bed smiled widely. “I hope it goes wonderfully well, Cr. Ziller”.

“So do I, sir.”

Ilom Dolince closed his eyes for a moment or two. When they flickered open his grip gradually loosened. “An honor, Cr. Ziller,” he whispered.

Ziller let the human's hand go and stepped gratefully away as others flowed in around him.

•   •   •   

Ossuliera City emerged from the shadows around a corner of the gorge. It was partly carved from the fawn-colored cliffs of the chasm itself, and partly from
stones brought in from other areas of the world, and beyond. The River Jhree was tamed here, running straight and deep and calm in a single great channel from which smaller canals and docks diverged, arched over by delicate bridges of foametal and wood both living and dead.

The quaysides on either bank were great flat platforms of golden sandstone running into the blue-hazed distance, speckled with people and animals, shadeplant and pavilions, leaping fountains and tall twisted columns of extravagantly latticed metals and glittering minerals.

Tall and stately barges sat moored by steps where troupes of chaurgresiles sat grooming each other with solemn intensity. The mirror sails of smaller craft caught fitful, swirling breezes to slide angled shadows along the quiet waters behind and cast flitting, shimmering reflections along the bustling quays to either side.

Above, the stepped city rose in set-back terrace after set-back terrace from these vast and busy shelves of stone; awnings and umbreltrees dotted the galleries and piazzas, canals disappeared into vaulted tunnels cut into the chiselled cliffs, perfume fires sent thin coils of violet and orange smoke rolling up toward the pale blue sky, where flocks of pure white lucent plowtails wheeled on outstretched wings inscribing silent spirals in the air, and arcing overhead a layered succession of higher and longer and more tenuously poised bridges bowed like rainbows made solid in the misty air, their intricately carved and dazzlingly inlaid surfaces brimming with flowers and strung with leafchain, storycreep and veilmoss.

Music played, echoing amongst the canyons, decks and bridges of the city. The barge's sudden appearance caused a volley of excited trumpeting from a shambling pack of cumbrosaurs arranged on a flight of steps descending to the river.

Ziller, at the deck rail, turned from the tumult of the view to look back to the bed where Ilom Dolince lay. A few people seemed to be crying. The avatar was holding a hand over the man's forehead. It smoothed its silver fingers down over his eyes.

The Chelgrian watched the beautiful city glide past for a while. When he looked back again a long gray Displacement drone was hovering over the bed. The people gathered around stood back a little, forming a rough circle. A silvery field shimmered in the air where the man's body was, then shrank to a point and vanished. The bedclothes settled back softly over the place where the body had been.

“People always look up to the sun at such moments,” he remembered Kabe pointing out once. What he was witnessing was the conventional method of disposing of the dead both here and throughout most of the rest of the Culture. The body had been Displaced into the core of the local star. And, as Kabe had pointed out, if they could see it, the people present always looked up to that sun, even though it would usually be a million years or more before the photons formed from the dispatched corpse would shine down upon wherever it was they stood.

A million years. Would this artificial, carefully maintained world still be here after all that time? He doubted it. The Culture itself would probably be gone
by then. Chel certainly would. Perhaps people looked up now because they knew there would be nobody around to look up then.

There was another ceremony to be carried out on the barge before it left Ossuliera City. A woman called Nisil Tchasole was to be reborn. Stored in mind-state only eight hundred years earlier, she had been a combatant in the Idiran War. She'd wanted to be reawakened in time to see the light from the second of the Twin Novae shine down upon Masaq'. A clone of her original body had been grown for her and her personality was to be quickened inside it within the hour, so she would have the next five or so days to re-acclimatize herself to life before the second nova burst upon the local skies.

The pairing of this rebirth with Ilom Dolince's death was supposed to take some of the sadness out of the man's departure, but Ziller found the very neatness of the pairing trite and contrived. He didn't wait to see this overly neat revival; he jumped ship when it docked, walked around for a while and then took the underground back to Aquime.

•   •   •   

“Yes, I was a twin, once. The story is well known, I think, and very much on record. There are any number of tellings and interpretations of it. There are even some fictive and musical pieces based on it, some more accurate than others. I can recommend—”.

“Yes, I know all that, but I'd like you to tell the story.”

“Are you sure?”.

“Of course I'm sure.”