have even given this undefined new technology a name: 'The Phoenix Project.' Detractors, however, suspect that no such project exists and that Margaret Surina is instead using her memecorp to funnel money into libertarian and pro-Islander political causes.
Natch leaned forward and tried to cajole InfoGather into providing him more about this mysterious Phoenix Project, but no tangible details were forthcoming. Pundits on the Data Sea had been scrutinizing Margaret's every move for years now, gossiping about every new visitor to her compound in Andra Pradesh in ancient India, seeking evidence of some iibertechnology that might or might not exist. So far, they had come up empty.
The pressure on her must be enormous, Natch reflected. At Margaret's age, Sheldon Surina had already written his seminal paper, Towards the Science of BiolLogics and a New Direction for Humanity, the work that jolted the world out of its post-Revolt stupor and signaled the beginning of a new age. Sheldon's grandson Prengal Surina had already published the Universal Law of Physics at this stage of his life. Even Margaret's father, the poor doomed Marcus, had become a worldwide icon and pioneer of teleportation by the time he was fifty. The public was growing restless. What would Margaret's contribution to the world of science be?
The entrepreneur remembered his days of infamy following the Shortest Initiation and grimaced. Why does she need to make any contribution? he thought. What if she just wants to be left alone?
Natch studied the image of Margaret Surina carefully. The photog rapher appeared to have taken Margaret by surprise; she seemed frozen in the act of turning towards the camera. But there were no surprises written in those unnaturally large blue eyes. Margaret's eyes showed a woman in complete control of her surroundings, a woman capable of swallowing life's surprises whole without the least bit of discomfort. Natch finally had to admit to himself that this woman had him intrigued.
And could this Phoenix Project be that thing just beyond the horizon that he had been waiting for his entire career? Was that why the very words tugged at his soul like a magnet?
He sent a terse reply to Margaret's invitation:
I would be honored to accept your invitation and make your acquaintance.
Towards Perfection,
Natch, Master of the Natch Personal Programming Fiefcorp
17
The city of Andra Pradesh had few municipal building codes. Tenement high-rises and office buildings hobnobbed with parks and shopping areas and even farmland, all jumbled together without regard to style or function. Andra Pradesh was a city that had rolled down from a mountaintop and sprouted haphazardly out of the wreckage.
On that mountaintop were the Surinas.
Natch saw the massive Surina compound as soon as he stepped off the tube. Even a kilometer away, it dominated the skyline. He could easily make out the austere buildings of the Gandhi University of Andra Pradesh where Sheldon Surina had taught and the absurd towers of the Surina family's private residence. Somewhere below his level of sight were the administrative offices of Creed Surina, the Surina Enterprise Facility, and the Surina Center for Historic Appreciation. Above them all, a lone spire jutted obscenely into the clouds from the middle of the compound. Natch had heard somewhere that this was the tallest man-made structure built since the Reawakening. Down in the city below, dozens of buildings competed for the right to claim second place.
The tube could have deposited Natch right at the gates of the Surina compound, but he wanted the full effect of approaching it from a distance. I've already wasted several hours on the tube, he thought. Why not a few more minutes on foot?
Natch hustled through the crowded streets and tried to keep his mind blank. The people of Andra Pradesh rushed about at a frenetic pace as if galvanized by the presence of the Surinas in their midst. Conversations were louder, clothing more vivid. People of all colors, classes and creeds seemed to blend in here, much like the buildings that surrounded them. L-PRACG security guards, street performers, vendors of exotic fruits and vegetables, businesspeople, assembly-line programmers, hoverbird traders and cargo haulers, rambunctious children: here in Andra Pradesh, distinctions blurred.
Finally, he reached the base of the mountain. A dozen guards stood before the gate wearing the green and blue uniforms of Creed Surina. Was it just a figment of Natch's imagination, or were they fingering the triggers of their dartguns with a little too much anxiety?
After a few minutes of identity checking, the guards waved Natch through the gate. Two grim-faced women in uniform motioned for him to follow them up the steep mountainside road to a courtyard large enough for a small army procession. They found their way to the Center for Historic Appreciation, a squat pentagonal building in the classic Greek style. It was a scientific museum of sorts, full of haphazardly arranged curio tables and marble statues of the Surina dynasty laid out in solemn, self-important poses. There was even a statue of Margaret as a child sitting rapturously at the feet of her father.
Security guards were everywhere, dartguns drawn and signaling to one another with choppy gestures that Natch could only assume was a form of battle language. The complex appeared to be devoid of visitors, however. Finally, the two guards led Natch down a long hallway and, without a word, deposited him at the door at its end. He opened the door, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
Natch immediately found himself on a floating platform in a massive library. There was no sign of the exterior hallway; the door he had come through stood by itself with no visible means of support.
SeeNaRee, thought Natch with distaste.
The hexagonal platform was merely one of a thousand identical platforms Natch could see stretching off in every direction, each connected to its neighbors by narrow walkways, like beads on a string. Bookshelves lined four walls of each platform. Thirty-two treepaper books of equal size and weight filled each shelf, as if they were just a small part of an unimaginably vast encyclopedia. Natch looked around in vain for some sign of his host, for any human presence at all. After a few minutes, impatient, he reached for one of the leather-bound volumes and flopped it open on the large conference table in the platform's center.
FSLFJ WOPSF 0 SLJ!
Thwlk po sdl wopi fndvl fdgf poipwytpw, Wtlkd woir z pod. Lsdkf wienhf sdflglsksgd sldkjf? Wogih spapapa slgihd. Qqq! Qqq!
'Never read your Borges, did you?' came a voice behind him. Natch turned and found himself face-to-face with Margaret Surina.
Marcus Surina's daughter had aged quite a bit since that anonymous InfoGather image he had seen the other day. Not even bio/logics could totally conceal the wrinkles on her forehead, the slight stoop of her shoulders, the tinge of gray that permeated her once coal-black hair. Only Margaret's eyes remained intense and unblemished, as if they would remain brightly lit long after the rest of the flesh had withered away.
'Borges?' said Natch.
'Jorge Luis Borges,' replied Margaret. 'This library is his creation.'
The name meant nothing to Natch, and a quick inquiry to the Meme Cooperative fiefcorp listings came up with no results. 'Never heard of him,' he said. 'Is he a programmer?'
A smile descended onto Margaret's face as if from a great height. 'He was a writer. From antiquity, from before the Autonomous Revolt. He talked about an infinite library with books that contained every possible combination of words and letters. What you were reading was just one of its countless permutations.' She had a grating habit of enunciating every syllable of every word, even those that typically stayed silent or piggybacked on a neighboring phoneme. Ev-e-ry poss- si-ble com-bin-nay-shun. Count-less per-me-yu-tay-shuns.
Natch shook his head in annoyance and slammed the book shut. He enjoyed intellectual puzzles, but had little patience for artists. 'So why are we here?'
'It's a new innovation that we recently installed in all the Surina conference rooms,' said Margaret. 'The room automatically gauges your mood and chooses an appropriate bit of SeeNaRee. We have thousands of varieties in our data banks, virtual environments for every occasion. This is a museum, after all.' Vir-tu-al en-vi-run-ments for every occ-ay-zhun.
Natch leaned over the railing and saw only stairs and platforms without end. 'I wasn't thinking about any
