necessary analysis would trigger a reboot, which would wipe the unit’s current memory and personality.”
“What if it were possible to reload the memory and personality from another source?”
“In that case the probability of rendering the current unit inoperable would drop to approximately twenty- eight percent.”
“Still that high?” Merlin frowned. “Why?”
“In the event of a reboot, standard protocols would reinstall original program and system defaults, Lieutenant Commander. The software alteration which permits this unit’s indefinite operation lies far outside those defaults and would be eliminated in such an eventuality, thus restoring the ten-day limitation on autonomous operation.”
Merlin grimaced. That made sense, he supposed, and twenty-eight percent was still unacceptably high. Under the current circumstances, at least. But if circumstances changed…
“Do you have the capability out of existing resources to build both a Class II VR and a recording unit?” he asked.
“Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”
“In that case, get started on both of them immediately. I assume you can run up the recording unit first?”
“Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”
“Then send it out to me as soon as it’s finished.” He grimaced again. “I might as well get myself recorded as soon as possible.”
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”
JUNE, YEAR OF GOD 895
Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark
“Don’t be such a greedy guts!” Byrk Raimahn scolded as the wyvern swooped down and snatched the morsel of fresh bread from his fingers. “There’s plenty if you just behave yourselves!”
The triumphant wyvern only whistled smugly at him and flapped its way back up onto the green-budded branch of the apple tree from which it had launched its pounce. It seemed remarkably unmoved by his appeal to its better nature, Byrk reflected, and tore another piece from the loaf. He shredded it into smaller pieces, scattering them across the flagstone terrace for the less aggressive of his winged diners, then picked up a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese from the plate beside the bowl of grapes. He leaned back in his rattan chair, propping his heels on the matching chair which faced him on the other side of the table, and nibbled as he enjoyed the cool northern sunlight.
It wasn’t much like home, he thought, gazing out across the sparkling waters of North Bedard Bay. The locals (a label which he still had trouble applying to himself) usually called it simply North Bay, to distinguish it from the even larger Bedard Bay to the south. This far north of the equator, the seasons stood on their heads and even late spring and early summer were almost uncomfortably cool to his Charisian blood. Trees were much later to leaf, flowers were later to bloom (and less colorful when they did), and ocean water was far too cold for a Charisian boy to swim in. Besides, he missed Tellesberg’s livelier waterfront, sharper-edged theaters, and heady, bustling air of intellectual ferment.
Of course, that intellectual ferment was the main reason he was sitting here on his grandfather’s Siddar City terrace feeding bread to greedy wyverns and squabbling seagulls. It wasn’t like “So, here you are!” a familiar voice said, and he looked over his shoulder, then rose with a smile of welcome for the silver-haired, plump but distinguished-looking woman who’d just stepped out of the mansion’s side door behind him.
“I wasn’t exactly hiding, Grandmother,” he pointed out. “In fact, if you’d opened a window and listened, I’m sure you could have tracked me down without any trouble at all.”
He pulled one of the chairs away from the table with one hand while the other gestured at the guitar lying in its open case on the bench beside him.
“For that matter, if you’d only looked out the window, the fleeing birds and the small creatures running for the shrubbery with their paws over their ears would have pinpointed me for you.”
“Oh, nonsense, Byrk!” She laughed, patting him on the cheek before she seated herself in the proffered chair. “Your playing’s not that bad.”
“Just not that bad?” he teased, raising one eyebrow at her. “Is that another way of saying it’s almost that bad?”
“No, that’s what your grandfather would call it if he were here,” Sahmantha Raimahn replied. “And he’d mean just as little of it as I would. Go ahead and play something for me now, Byrk.”
“Well, if you insist,” he said in a long-suffering tone.
She made a face at him, and he laughed as he picked the guitar back up. He thought for a moment, picking random notes as he considered, then struck the opening chord of “The Way of the Widow-Maker,” one of the very first ballads he’d learned to play sitting on Sahmantha’s lap. The sad, rich notes spilled across the terrace while the sunlight struck chestnut highlights in his brown hair and the wind ruffled that hair, sighed in the branches of the ornamental fruit trees, and sent the shrubbery’s sprays of blossoms flickering in light and shadow.
He bent his head, eyes half-closed, giving himself to the ballad, and his grandmother drew her steel thistle silk wrap closely about her shoulders. She knew he thought of his music as a rich young man’s hobby, but he was wrong. It was far more than that, and as she watched him play her own eyes lost some of their usual sparkle, darkening while the lament for lost sailors spilled up from his guitar strings to circle and curtsy around the terrace. It was a haunting melody, as lovely as it was sad, and she remembered how he’d insisted she teach it to him when he’d been barely seven years old.
The year before his parents’ deaths had sent him to her more as her youngest son than her oldest grandson.
“I don’t suppose you could’ve thought of anything more depressing, could you?” she teased gently when the final note had faded away, and he shrugged.
“I don’t really think of it as depressing,” he said, laying the guitar back in the case and running a fingertip gently down the bright strings. He looked back up at her. “It’s sad, yes, but not depressing, Grandmother. There’s too much love for the sea in it for that.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded.
“Of course I am- I’m the poet, remember?” He smiled infectiously. “Besides,” his smile turned warmer, gentler, “I love it because of who it was that taught it to me.”
“Flatterer.” She reached out and smacked him gently on the knee. “You got that from your father. And he got it from your grandfather!”
“Really?” He seemed astounded by the notion and gazed thoughtfully out across the gleaming blue water for several seconds, then nodded with the air of someone who’d just experienced a revelation. “So that’s how someone with the Raimahn nose got someone as good-looking as you to marry him! I’d always wondered about that, actually.”
“You, Byrk Raimahn, are what was known in my youth as a rapscallion.”
“Oh, no, Grandmother-you wrong me! I’m sure the term you’d really have applied to me would’ve been much ruder than that.”
She laughed and shook her head at him, and he offered her the bowl of grapes. She selected one and popped it into her mouth, and he set the bowl down in front of her.
“Somehow the hothouse grapes just aren’t as good,” he commented. “They make me miss our vineyards back home.”
He glanced back out across the bay as he spoke and missed the shadow that flitted through her eyes. Or he could pretend he had, at least.
“I think they have a lower sugar content,” she said out loud, no sign of that shadow touching her voice.
“That’s probably it,” he agreed, looking back at her with another smile.
She returned the smile, plucked another grape, and leaned back, cocking her head to one side.
“What’s this about you being off to Madam Pahrsahn’s again this evening?” she asked lightly. “I hear you
