"Charles Stross - Tarkovsky's Cut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

me."

The skull laughs. "That is of no consequence to to a skull in love."

Jessie is like all the other skeletons. It teases her mercilessly for her lack of soul.

"Did you make contact with her?"

"I told her all she needed to know, to be in the right place, at the right time. You will catch your
renegades."

"Did you let her know who who are?"

"Of course. I pretended Harvey Mishima was me in my fourth generation."

Jewel hisses with anger. "You were retrodden in your third lifetime."

"She knows nothing about rebirth processes. She will assume echoes of previous personalities
are carried over in the Wisdom transfer."

Jewel stares at the skull for a long time, as if by her stare she is reminding Jessie that his
half-life hangs upon her whim.

Jessie's skeleton shrugs. "Had any new thoughts lately?"

"Funny," Jewel replies. There is dry humour in her voice. She puts it there to please Jessie --
she has no soul, and does not understand humour.

"Alright, then," Jessie says, "Any calculations?"

Jessie distinguishes between thought and calculation. He believes only those with souls can
think. The others just calculate.

Jewel calls up her Wisdom and lets figures scroll behind her eyes. She instructs her semantic
engine to prepare a financial report for Jessie, then sends it to him.

"Hmm! Do you realise if we ever dropped the debt bomb the entire culture goes bankrupt?"

"So?" she asks, suppressing a yawn. Copying personalities into braindrains is not perfect. The
identities thus preserved tend to repeat themselves. Jewel has played out this conversation with
Jessie every day since his retread, eighty years ago. Playing it through is the only way she can
get a decent conversation out of him afterwards.

"So," Jessie, mimics, "your policy remains as warpedly secure as ever. If we ever produce what
we've been promising to produce, we sign the order on our own obsolescence."

Jewel sinks gracefully into a floor cushion and looks about her. Already, only six hours into her
new existence, ennui is setting in. "Business as usual, then?"
 "Unless you want to be poor," Jessie replies.