The Swan Riders

"So what if they do shoot? I have stage three scarring, I`ve lost three quarters of my mind, people I love keep trying to kill me, and I`m going to catch a cold. I fail to see how much worse this could get."
"Greta could be killed," said Francis Xavier. He didn`t sound as if he cared particularly.
Talis sighed a long, careful sigh. "Right. When you ask if things could possibly get worse, the answer is always yes. Greta, make a note."

I know it was horrific. But Greta, you survived it. You`re the person who survived it. Come on. You`re still that person. Be that person.

AIs do not remember. We relive. Our memories are too perfect. We cannot tell the memory of pain from pain; cannot tell the memory of fear from fear. Talis was looking at me with wide blank eyes and inside them was the time he`d been on fire. But instead of screaming, he smiled.
Sri was openly staring at him. And I did too, stared at the only person I had ever met who could grim while he was burned alive. How did he do that?

"Oh, ditch the 'respect' thing," said Talis. "You`re AI; I`m AI. We`re equals."
"Oh," I said. "In that case, I would like to propose that peace achieved through terror can never truly be peace. We should release all the Precepture hostages and shut down the orbital weapon platforms."
"Okay," said Talis. "We`re equals, but you`re a dewy-eyed moron."

Let me be clear: she is worth more to me, and to the future of the planet, than either one of you, or, for that matter, any one medium-to-large city. Possibly two or three cities, though obviously we all hope it doesn`t come to that.

It is fairly easy to be calm when one`s path is set and one has few choices. Having been both an heir to a crown and a blood hostge to the Preceptures, I should know.

He watched them, Greta and Xie and Elian, over the next few hours, until the Swan Riders came. Watched the tenderness with which they treated each other, and tried to remember tenderness. Watched the way they believe that love would save them.
As if it could.
As if it could be nearly enough.

Talis blinked three times and reset his internal now, trying to line up with the present moment. It wasn`t quite as easy as he made it look. There was always an instant when he woke when he was Michael, when the dream clung and the disorientation of waking in a different body, a different country, a different century was as complete as if he`d awakened lying on the ceiling.

"Grace," said Talis. The name struck inside me as if I were a bell. "Will you help me? I`d like to save the world."
My new name rang through my body. I felt the intricate dance of data and sensing and human soul. All of them were me. I closed my eyes and said: "Let`s start."

Remember what they say: fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and I`ll kill you and everyone you love.

There are only seven basic microexpressions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise, and contempt. Oddly enough, there is no facial expression that unambigously shows love. Or grief. Or regret. Or duty. They are not ancient enough, not animal enough, to have become involuntary.
They are too human.

"Elian loves me," I said.
"And you think, therefore, that he would not hurt you?" said Francis Xavier. He looked down at the ruined bow, bouncing against his knee. "Think again."

"...Michael? Are you all right?"
He made a little noise. "A list of the various ways in which I am not all right, Greta, would top the Oxford English Dictionary. The unabridged one. With the little magnifying glass."

"What happened?"
"You were stabbed," intoned Francis Xavier.
"Yes, Francis," he said with clipped precision. "In fact, I had noticed that. The sucking chest wound was my first clue."

"You idiot, Sri," he spat. He didn`t just sound furious, he sounded furious. "No, not even an idiot: this is so far beyond idiocy -- this is the supermassive black hole of bad ideas around which the whole galaxy of stupid rotates."

"Didn`t anybody write this down?" said Talis. "Honestly, people. The illusion of my omniscience depends on you doing your paperwork."

"Is it allowed, that the Swan Riders..."
"Fraternize?" Talis grinned. "Oh, sure. The only thing more disruptive than romantic entanglements among the Swan Riders would be secret romantic entanglements among the Swan Riders. And one way or another they`d be pairing up, you know."