Primitive junctions you've got there. That means ineffective
involvement with complex brain functions, so you get swamped by
information flow. It's worrisome.' He took the cigarillo out of
his mouth and looked at it as if he'd never seen one before.
Chow said, 'In the early years of this program, we took
casualties. Some very ugly situations: serious neural
dysfunctions, two suicides, induced insanities of various kinds.
Until we finally learned how to pick candidates for full
interfacelearned who could survive without damage and who could
not. Now, things have got to be rightpsychophysical profile,
age, neural map topologies, neural transmitter distributions and
densities. A few candidates don't work out, still, but they don't
die or get driven insane.'
Diana said, 'And I don't fit the profiles.'
'Almost no one does,' the Aleph-figure said. 'But these
concerns are irrelevantyour case is different. You have prior
full interface experience, and you won't be required to perform
the kinds of motor-integrative activities that cause neural
disruption.'
'Telechir operations,' Charley said. 'Such as assisting
construction robots in tasks outside.'
Diana looked toward the screen. She said, 'I assumed these
matters were settled.'
'I see no problems,' the Aleph-figure said. 'The situation
is anomalous, but I am aware of the dangers.'
Diana said, 'Well, the situation between us was always
anomalous.'
'Was it?' the Aleph-figure asked. 'We must discuss these
matters at another time.'
Very cute, Doctor Heywood, Lizzie thought. Just a little
hint or allusion, an indirect statement that you know that we know
that something funny went on a long time ago ah yes, this could
be fun.
'First,' Charley said, 'we must prepare Doctor Heywood.
Tomorrow morning we begin.'
'When will you need me?' Gonzales asked.
'If things go well, tomorrow,' Charley said.
'I can't get ready that quickly,' Gonzales said.
Lizzie said, 'Forget about all that shit you put yourself
through. Aleph will sort you out okay once you're in the egg.
Trust me.'
Okay,' Gonzales said. 'If I must.'
11. Your Buddha Nature
That afternoon, following instructions given her by the
communicator at her wrist, Diana went to the Ring Highway and
boarded a tram. About a hundred feet long, made of polished
aluminum, it had a streamlined nose and sleek graffitied skirts
the usual polite abstracts, red, yellow, and blue. Its back-to-
back seats faced to the side and ran the length of the car.
Bicyclists and pedestrians, the only other traffic on the highway,
waved to the passengers as the tram moved away above the flat
ribbon of its maglev rail. She was reminded of rides at old
amusement parks she had gone to when a girl.
The mild breeze of the tram's progress blowing over her,
Diana watched as Halo flowed past. First came shade, then bright
rhododendrons in flower among deep green bushes. Hills climbed
steeply off to both sides, with some houses visible only in
partial glimpses through the foliage. She knew that from almost
the first moment when dirt was placed on Halo's shell, the
planting had begun.
She shivered just a little. Toshihiko Ito would be waiting
for her. He had called while she was out and left directions for
her. Now, she thought, things begin again.
Passing under green canopies, the tram climbed a hill, then
broke out of the vegetation and came suddenly out high above the
city's floor, moving along rails now suspended from the bracework
for louvered mirrors that formed Halo's sky. Far below, the
highway had become a cart track flanked by walkways; on both sides
of the track, terraces worked their way up the city's shell.
Perhaps twenty-five feet below the tram's rails, fish ponds made
the topmost terrace, where spillways dumped water into rice
paddies immediately below.
She stayed on the tram through a segment where robot cranes
were laying in agricultural terraces. Great insects spewing huge
clouds of brown slurry, they moved awkwardly across barren metal.
The tram approached a small square bordered by three-story groups
of offices and living quarters, and the communicator told her to
get off.
A few feet from the primary roadway sat a nondescript
building of whitened lunar brick, its only distinctive feature a
massive carved front door, showing Japanese characters in bas-
relief.
The door opened to her knock with just a whisper from its
motor, and she stepped into a partially-enclosed, ambiguous space,
almost a courtyard, open to the sky. Most of the space was filled
with a flat expanse of sand that showed the long marks of careful
raking. The rake marks in the sand carried from one end to the
other, straight and perfect, and were broken only by the presence
of two cones of shaped sand placed slightly-off center. At the
far end stood closed doors of white paper panels and dark wood.
The doors were so delicate that to knock on them seemed a
kind of violence. 'Hello,' she said.
>From inside came the faintest sound, then a door opened. An
older Japanese man stood there; he wore a loose robe and baggy
pants of dark cotton. He stood perhaps five and a half feet tall,
and his black hair was filled with gray.
Diana said, 'Toshi.' He bowed deeply, and she said, 'Oh man,
