Blue Shifting by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

at the thought of the role Wellard wanted her to play. "But even so-"
    "Please, allow me to explain." The artist drew a long breath and stared into the ocean. "My daughter, Zoe, was a telenaut. Fifteen years ago the science was still in its initial stages – the telemass process was crude, compared with the system as we know it today. The only people who 'massed were the telenauts, and the incidence of fatalities was high. Back then, the body of a telenaut was duplicated and fired to its destination, the planet under investigation. Then the telenaut's cerebral identity was beamed after it. This way, even if the duplicated doppelganger was injured or killed, the telenaut's identity could be retrieved and restored to its original body. At fifteen, Zoe was a veteran of some dozen missions to the planets of stars within a radius of twenty light years from Earth. On the occasion of our final meeting she was contemplating the commission to be 'massed here, Nea Kikládhes, then an unexplored world. No one had ever before been telemassed thousands of light years through space. It was highly dangerous, and needless to say I did not want her to go."
    Abbie whispered, "You can't hold yourself responsible."
    Wellard ignored her. "We had an argument, more or less as set down in the script. Then I did something terrible. I was desperate at the time – some might say unbalanced – though I'm not pleading this as an excuse... Zoe fled, vowing that she intended to take the commission and saying that she hoped she died. She was my only daughter, so much like my wife..." Wellard took a breath, glanced from the sea to Abbie. "Less than one week later I heard from her private clinic in Athens that her body was awaiting collection. She had bequeathed it to me in the event of an accident. It was kept alive – if you can call it that – by a sophisticated computer system. I had her moved to my studio..."
    "What do you think happened to her?" Abbie murmured.
    The sun was beginning its long fall towards the horizon, bringing to a close the short Kikládhean day. Overhead, the Core stars were coming out. Wellard returned to his seat across the table from Abbie and smiled to himself. "Zoe never said much about her work, but I do recall something she told me once. She said that one of the exercises involved entering the mind of a hummingbird, viewing the world through its consciousness. She told me that for the period of an hour, she was that hummingbird." He shrugged. "This appealed to my primitive imagination...
    "A number of years after receiving my daughter's body, I learned that Nea Kikládhes was being opened up as a resort complex for artists. I had my studio duplicated and moved here with my daughter." He poured more wine, took a mouthful and paused before continuing. "During my first year here I used my launch to ferry provisions from the telemass station to my studio, and on every trip I was followed by a leviathan – a deep sea monster like a shark, though larger. It attacked me several times. I know it was the same monster – I once scarred it's flank with an ill-aimed harpoon, and the distinguishing mark was clearly visible. It struck me as obvious," Wellard said, staring at Abbie with total conviction, as if to forestall her incredulity, "that, when she was beamed here fifteen years ago, the consciousness of my daughter had found itself somehow trapped in the monstrous form of the sea creature."
    Abbie wanted to laugh, and then to cry, but Wellard stared at her with frightening certitude, his knuckles white where they gripped the goblet.
    He indicated the script. "Now, you appreciate the symmetrical perfection of my final work?"
    Abbie stood and moved to the rail, her back to Wellard so that he could not see her tears. Across the curve of the ocean, a sparkling troupe of Supra-sapiens performed pyrotechnic aerobatics above the largest island, entertaining the gathered artists.
    "Well?" Wellard said. "Will you take part in my little