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citizenship with full privileges. This means, among other things, that you re
entitled to draw Basic Assistance. It s not much, but it should get you on
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your feet until you re able to find employment. What s your area of
specialty?
Uh, Conrad answered brilliantly. Specialty? He d kicked around from one
profession to the next, mastering few tangible skills. Life in the colonies
was like that; there was always more work to do than there were people to do
it, and no one was really qualified. You just grabbed urgent-looking tasks and
did them, and then you grabbed some more, and just kept on like that. Until
you died. But how could he explain that to someone like Sandra, who d probably
had fifty years of schooling before her first lowly apprenticeship?
Architect, he finally said, for lack of anything better to attach his name
to. He d been First Architect of the Kingdom of Barnard, for whatever that was
worth. A laugh, here, probably.
Indeed, Sandra s expression was primly amused. Architecture is afield , sir.
I need a specialty.
Youneed one?
Every citizen needs one. If nothing else, it may win you Appreciator status,
which would boost your assistance level.
Conrad frowned. You mean I d be paid to walk around admiring buildings?
In a sense, yes.
Would I have to write anything?
Again, that flicker of amusement. Sandra was trying not to smirk, not to
condescend; she seemed like a nice person, and certainly her profession was
one of understanding and tolerance. But Conrad was just too damned ridiculous:
not just a refugee but abumpkin , from a place so backward it had collapsed
and died in its own filth, without building so much as a teleportation grid.
Architect, indeed.
Sir, that would make you a Reviewer. I m not sure you ve got the background
for that.
Ouch. Hmm. No, I don t suppose I do. I became a revolutionarybecause there
was nothing else for me here. All the good jobs were filled with people too
competent to ever leave them. And that was a long time ago. Today, I m a
thousand years more foolish!
A faint smile acknowledged the joke, but then she said, There s nothing
wrong with being an Appreciator, sir. It s honest work. Most people don t have
the eye for it.
Hmm. Well. I suppose I m flattered, then.
I do need to put something down for your specialty. Shall we say,
residential architecture?
Oh, I vedone residential, Conrad said. Single- and multifamily. Also
industrial, civic, monumental, and certain infrastructure projects, including
roads and tuberails. But lots of people were doing that. The onlyspecialty I
can claim is in transatmospherics. I once built an orbital tower a thousand
kilometers tall.
Sandra the social worker blinked at that. Personally? With your own two
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hands?
It was Conrad s turn to laugh. Yeah, I m magic. I had a crew, miss.
Twenty-five men and eleven hundred robots.
She blinked again, then glanced down at her sketchplate and said, Specialty:
transatmospheric architecture with supervisory experience. When she looked
up, the condescension was gone. You may qualify for more than Basic
Assistance. It could take a few weeks to sort out, though.
I m a patient man, he said, except where my wife is concerned. For that
matter, I wouldn t mind seeing my parents, whom I haven t laid eyes on in a
thousand years. And the sky, thewind . I tried to go outside, here, but the
door wouldn t open. It said I d freeze to death in ten minutes. I said I d be
back in two. I ve lived on polar caps before. But as you say, I m still a
prisoner.
We ll be on our way in a few minutes, Sandra assured him. But first, shall
we talk about your wardrobe options? The right appearance could make a big
difference in your prospects.
Conrad laughed again, pinching the hospital gown he d been wearing since
before they revived him. Are you saying this is thewrong appearance? I m
shocked. Miss, we wore clothes in the Barnard colony, too. Give me a fax
machine and I m sure I can work something out.
You ll have access to one, Sandra said cautiously. You won t own it.
Good enough, Conrad said. And then, with a burst of wonder: I ll be able
to travel anywhere in the Queendom, won t I? I can eat whatever I want, and
I ll never get sick or geriatric again. I ll be immorbid. I ll berich .
Sandra shook her head at that, and dutifully burst his bubble. Don t get
your hopes up, sir. You ll be living on Basic Assistance, in a Red Sun
emergency shelter in one of the hottest, wettest climates on Earth. You ll be
in the bottom percentile for personal income, with sharp travel and plurality
restrictions.
Plurality! Conrad chortled. I can make copies of myself. I can be twins,
triplets!
You can be twins, Sandra said, but it just means your energy budgets will
go half as far. There s no way of knowing how long you ll be on assistance,
sir, and you need to prepare yourself for the reality of it.
Conradwas a patient man, and a kind one, but this went too far. He d had
enough of these self-important children telling him what to do, what to think.
Miss, he said coolly, have you ever walked out of a blizzard with a broken
collarbone? Have you spent ahundred years aboard a starship, or fought off a
team of angry asteroid miners? I once watched my best friend s daughter cut in
half, while her image archive was permanently erased. I ve stood knee-deep in
the rot of a failed ecology, and handled a city s worth of corpses. I ve
betrayed the trust of a king, and lived. So don t tell me about hardship, all
right?
I m . . . sorry, she said.
And before she could say anything else he nodded once, trying hard to squelch
his anger. Thank you. Your apology is accepted. Now take me to my wife,please
.
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chapter six
in which a community is overrun
Faxing from one place to another had been aperfectly ordinary feature of
Conrad s youth. He d done it several times a day, with no more thought than
he d give to stepping through an ordinary doorway. Sure, the body was
destroyed and then reassembled as an atomically perfect copy, but what of it?
The atoms in your body were temporary anyway constantly churning, moving,
departing and being replaced. This thing called life was just a standing
wave in a flowing river; it endured across the smaller patterns that came and
went. Only a deathist would obsess about the higher meaning of it all.
But that was a long time ago. Conrad had last seen a medical-grade print
plate in the autumn days of Sorrow, and the last person to step through
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