Prelude
Zoahnône looks with displeasure at the holographic projections of her erstwhile friends. One is Shônsair, tall, elegantly dressed in grey, with pale skin and wholly black eyes, while at her side stands Baigurgône, bulkier and dressed in metal and leather, with sparkling eyes and an intense demeanour. When Shônsair speaks it is with a profundity rooted in centuries of toil; when Baigurgône speaks it is with the urgency of a political extremist.
Shônsair is a gothic athlete, Baigurgône a dangerous demagogue.
As for Zoahnône, she is a peaceful thinker clothed in indigo, which contrasts with her ice-blue skin and big brown eyes.
Zoahnône does not know where the other two are. She sits in her secret chamber, where the snow outside is six feet deep, icicles fall like a ragged curtain from the lip of the cave, and genetically remodelled bison roam the land.
Baigurgône speaks. “What is your final decision, Zoahnône? Will you work with us or will you struggle against us?”
“How long will your sleep last?”
Baigurgône smiles, showing pearly teeth. “A thousand years. Then we will wake, and mould society in the direction we want.”
It is this intention that has caused the split in the trio. Baigurgône wants to remake whatever society survives the Ice Age. Shônsair is essentially in agreement, though with reservations. That leaves Zoahnône.
Already Zoahnône can see ice working its way down the walls of the chamber in which the other two stand. The time for sub-zero sleep is near. She makes a final plea. “Listen to me. You cannot simply awake and remake society in your own image. You would be dictators.”
“The end justifies the means.”
“What about the people?” she asks.
“The people? They are our pawns, our raw material, our stuff. They will not feel our presence—but they will respond to our strategies of computational thought like a great shoal of fish.”
Again Shônsair grins. “We might become invisible dictators.”
“Then,” declares Zoahnône, taking a deep breath, “I will fight you all the way.”
Baigurgône laughs. “Oh, will you?”
The electronic systems in Zoahnône’s cave begin to shut down. She looks around, frightened. Have they penetrated her defences?
“You won’t survive the Ice Age,” says Baigurgône. “We will kill you in your little cave, right now, before we enter hibernation. Goodbye.”
Zoahnône can see what will happen. She will be entombed.
But there is one escape route, planned long before the trio’s return to Earth. She can die and be reborn. From a canvas bag she takes a bundle of technology, which she connects to the chamber systems. She lies down on a couch and prepares to lose her mind. For she is about to jettison some of her self and exist in purely abstract form, an immense collection of memory, devoid of consciousness, yet one day able to return as a character, in some other body, at some future time.
She will die, then be reborn as somebody similar. And she will wake when her spectral mind feels the presence of Baigurgône and Shônsair in the world.
As her mind thinks its final thoughts she wonders what to call herself, for she cannot use her real name. She is of the Earth: ultimately of star dust. Dustspirit. That will do. But this private thought will be lost if she does not make it a real, public memory. Her last action is to speak the name.
It is recorded by her systems.
Then she dies.
Far away, buried like animals, the other two sleep, dreaming of fish and flowers, and of what the future might hold.