Divergence

“Chris! I told you, Chris had my sisters killed because he thought that it would help me to see his point of view.” Her dark eyes were fixed upon his. He wanted to look away. She went on in her soft voice.

“Chris had an associate called Kevin. Have you ever heard of him? Kevin? Almost a man. He wasn’t a human as such, nor an atomic being like you or me. He was digital construct, an AI written by DIANA. That’s a coincidence, isn’t it? It was a DIANA ship that found me, a DIANA ship that performed FE

with you…”

“But why did Kevin kill your sisters?”

“To get my attention.”

“But that’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? It worked. Chris and Kevin were convinced that I would see their point of view, once they had explained it to me. They are sure that someday I too will want to help them usurp the Watcher.”

Maurice made a little noise in his throat. He couldn’t speak. He swallowed hard.

“Do you?” he said.

Judy’s gaze hardened.

“No. Never. I used to work for Social Care, remember.” She leaned closer to him, full of conviction.

“Listen, no matter how bad things have become on Earth, no matter what the Watcher needs to do to win the fight against the dark plants, I will not forsake it, neither will I forget the role that I have taken on. The Watcher exists to nurture humans.”

Maurice felt uncomfortable at the sheer belief resonating through her words. This missionary zeal, this conviction that humanity could be guided to a better path by Social Care, did not play well with the milk-and-water principles by which most of the people in the twenty-third century lived their lives. And Judy knew it; she was eyeing him with a scornful expression. She knew about him, she was taunting him. Who are you, now that Armstrong has gone ? she was saying. How are you going to dress, who are you going to look up to on this ship? Who will your role model be? Me? Do you dare?

Maurice recoiled, and the world seemed to lighten. He was still sitting in the little hold. Judy was just a tired, sick woman. It was all in his imagination.

He needed to speak. “I have heard it’s bad on Earth, but can we blame the Dark Plants? The Dark Plants are not that dangerous, surely. I know that they cause problems, but the Watcher is—”

Judy was rattled. She was allowing her emotion to show. She leaned forward and her eyes glittered. He could smell cinnamon on her breath.

“Believe me, Maurice, the Dark Plants are that great a threat.”

She broke off.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m being terribly unprofessional. I will compose myself.”

Maurice’s console chimed. The FE software had exchanged circumstances. Now it was calculating the deal. Maurice couldn’t help but notice the way Judy seemed to flinch every time she looked at the console. She looked away, looked around the empty space of the little hold, looked up at the crates stacked on the ceiling that seemed to hang over her head. You could walk up the walls in here, following the curving paths set between the planes of the floors and ceiling and walls. You could follow a circular route in any direction, always pulled to the nearest surface by the six-way gravity. There was a dead spot in the middle of the room, an area of weightlessness where they stored special cargoes. Scented paper sculptures, crystal lattice forms, pingrams.

“Do you want to walk up to the ceiling with me?” Maurice asked. “Or maybe go alone? We can look up at each other while we wait for the FE to complete.”

“No, thank you,” Judy replied tiredly. “I’d like it better if you played your clarinet again.”

Maurice touched the black case and it snapped open. He was reaching into the green baize interior just as his console chimed.

“FE is done,” he said, closing the case again. He looked at the console and laughed coldly.

“ There’s a surprise,” he said. “We get nothing from the deal again. We just pick up the