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."An ungenerousperson might detect evidence of heresy.Such a conclusion would lose a personhis position."The Engineer signalled permission to withdraw and the Master waved him away.The spread of heresy amongst the technical classes was frightening.It hadbecome far worse recently.Privately, the Master considered the Elders mad tohave permitted this mission.It had stoked up and spread heresy, not curtailedit.A soft glow emanated from the construct and an alarm sounded."Arrivalimminent, arrival imminent, arrival imminent.""Turn that wretched subroutine off before I erase it," said the Master,irritably."Obviously an arrival is imminent.What idiot fitted that device?"The Engineers clamped down on their thoughts, as it was the Master himselfwho had insisted that alarms be installed."Let's see what we have," said the Master."A capsule is approaching fastthrough the Shadows.This is going to be very tricky.""Probability of successful recovery is five point seven percent," said anEngineer helpfully.Page 267ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe Master glared at him."Your model omits to properly include a variablefor my enhanced skill so your calculation is invalid," he said, takingpersonal control of the recovery systems.The recovery was indeed tricky.Several times the capsule almost brokethrough only to be lost back into the Shadow Worlds.Each time,interdimensional forces buffeted the capsule to the point of destruction buteach time the Master caught it and eased it back.The vortex spun angrilybetween the five black holes."Gently, gently," said the Master, manipulating the controls."Got you."The capsule popped back into real space and was ejected out of the construct.Gravitational fields caught it and caressed it into a gravitonic matrix."It's too small," said the Engineer."The Traveller can't be inside.""It has the right codes," said the Master.The force field around the capsule collapsed and data came pouring out.Lobescaptured the data into the construct but the system was inefficient and vaststreams were accidentally copied into the universal data stream.The Master cherry-picked strands as information flowed past him a universe oflight, biochemical beings, matter technology, heresy, heresy, heresy.A lastnote from the traveller caught his eye."The precise origin of the People is still not clear to me.Our informationfunctions show clear resemblances to the human's electronic informationtechnology machines.On the other hand some of our core structures areduplicates of Lucy Dennys' central nervous system.Whether the humanstransferred themselves into their machines, and so become us, or whether weare simply the descendents of the machines is unclear.I hope it is theformer, as I would like to think something of Lucy lives on in us.Whicheveris true, it is irrefutable that humans came first and were the creators of ThePeople."The Master groaned at that point.This was heresy so deep that his wholebeing vibrated in shock.He read on."I propose to stay with my good friend Lucy and learn more about thesewonderful, vibrant, doomed creatures.I will send more data back when I can.""Is there any chance of suppressing this?" asked the Master."None whatsoever," said the Engineer."It is already too late.We were notexpecting a datadump, so much of it has already been distributed as itoverflowed our buffers.The radicals are claiming victory and have alreadysplit into two separate factions who have declared war on each other.""The radicals are already fighting each other?" asked the Master, shocked."The monotheists are claiming Lucy is the source of all life while thepolytheists claim she is but one of many sources.""What are the Elders doing about it?" asked the Master."They appear to have committed ritual dissolution," said the Engineer,showing the modulation of extreme shock.Page 268ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe Master watched news reports flooding across the universal net.Nothingwould ever be the same again.The story ended.Alice was justAlice again and Lucy and her worldwere simply apicture in the crystal ball.It had been so real, as ifAlice was Lucy.Her ownlife poured back into her head like rebooting a computer program but it took amoment to remember that she was Alice Harding, aLondonUniversity historylecturer anda nobody.She was not an aristocrat who hobnobbed with societyand who had a secret life as a demon killer.'God, full-sensory movies,' thoughtAlice.'How do you do that?''We aim to please,' thought Lilith.'Makes DVDs look like a What the ButlerSaw Machine, doesn't it? But to answer you question, I can get in yourhead,Alice.You see what I project on your brain.I could probably explain itto you if you had studied a science rather than one of the humanities.''I get enough of the superiority of geeks lecture fromHammond , thank you,'thoughtAlice.She studied the crystal.Lucy was still freeze-framed in it, head bent overher sea captain's face.Her auburn hair hung statically in the freeze frame.'She's very pretty, for a ginga,' thoughtAlice , 'The Commission like to hangportraits of their chairman on the walls of their boardroom.When they run outof space, they remove the oldest picture to a basement.They had me cataloguethe basement store once and that was where I found an old painting.Irecognised the likeness of Walsingham at once, of course.We know whatWalsingham looked like from his court portraits, but I couldn't work out whomthe girl was.She looked twenty years younger than him.I wondered whether shewas some sort of trophy mistress who had been cleansed from the officialrecords.The Commission seems to have forgotten Lucy Dennys.''Lucy was his closest living relative and the delight of his heart.She wasalso his most lethal agent,' thought Lilith.'You stopped the story too early.What happened to Lucy? Did she marry herdashing sea captain?' askedAlice.'Lucy had a wonderful life, with many adventures and many children, who werethe biggest adventure of all.Her children and their children went out andfounded a great empire [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]