"Diaspora" - читать интересную книгу автора (Иган Грег)

10. Diaspora

Carter-Zimmerman polis, Earth

55 721 234 801 846 CST

31 December 3999, 23:59:59.000 UT

Waiting to be cloned one thousand times and scattered across ten million cubic light years, Paolo Venetti relaxed in his favorite ceremonial bathtub: a tiered hexagonal pool set in a courtyard of black marble flecked with gold. Paolo wore full traditional anatomy, uncomfortable garb at first, but the warm currents flowing across his back and shoulders slowly eased him into a pleasant torpor. He could have reached the same state in an instant, by decree, but the occasion seemed to demand the complete ritual of verisimilitude, the ornate curlicued longhand of imitation physical cause and effect.

The sky above the courtyard was warm and blue, cloudless and sunless, isotropic. As the moment of Diaspora approached, a small gray lizard darted across the courtyard, claws scrabbling. It halted by the far edge of the pool, and Paolo marveled at the delicate pulse of its breathing, and watched the lizard watching him, until it moved again, disappearing into the surrounding vineyards. The scape was full of birds and insects, rodents and small reptiles-decorative in appearance, but also satisfying a more abstract aesthetic: softening the harsh radial symmetry of the lone observer; anchoring the simulation by perceiving it from a multitude of viewpoints. Ontological guy lines. No one had asked the lizards if they wanted to be cloned, though. They were coming along for the ride, like it or not.

Paolo waited calmly, prepared for every one of half a dozen possible fates.