Free The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories by Walter Jon Williams Page A

wars, terrible poverty, and death  . . . "
    He stopped, suddenly aware that he'd said something awkward—Davout felt the word vibrate in his bones, as if he were stranded inside a bell that was still singing after it had been struck—but he said, "Go on."
    "I remind myself," his sib continued, "that the fact that we live in a modern culture doesn't make us better, it doesn't make us superior to these people—in fact it enlarges them , because they had to overcome so much more than we in order to realize themselves, in order to accomplish as much as they did." A shy smile drifted across his face. "And so a rather smug chapter is wiped out of digital existence."
    " Lavoisier is looming," commented Red Katrin from her machine.
    "Yes, that too," Old Davout agreed. His Lavoisier and His Age had won the McEldowney Prize and been shortlisted for other awards. Davout could well imagine that bringing Maxwell up to Lavoisier 's magisterial standards would be intimidating.
    Red Katrin leans back in her chair, combs her hair back with her fingers. "I made a few notes about the Beagle project," she said. "I have other commitments to deal with first, of course."
    She and Old Davout had avoided any conflicts of interest and interpretation by conveniently dividing history between them: she would write of the "modern" world and her near-contemporaries, while he wrote of those securely in the past. Davout thought his sib had the advantage in this arrangement, because her subjects, as time progressed, gradually entered his domain, and became liable to his reinterpretation.
    Davout cleared away some printout, sat on the edge of Red Katrin's desk. "A thought keeps bothering me," he said. "In our civilization we record everything. But the last moments of the crew of the Beagle went unrecorded. Does that mean they do not exist? Never existed at all? That death was always their state, and they returned to it, like virtual matter dying into the vacuum from which it came?"
    Concern darkened Red Katrin's eyes. "They will be remembered," she said. "I will see to it."
    "Katrin didn't download the last months, did she?"
     "The last eight months were never sent. She was very busy, and—"
    "Virtual months, then. Gone back to the phantom zone."
    "There are records. Other crew sent downloads home, and I will see if I can gain access either to the downloads, or to their friends and relations who have experienced them. There is your memory, your downloads."
    He looked at her. "Will you upload my memory, then? My sib has everything in his files, I'm sure." Glancing at Old Davout.
    She pressed her lips together. "That would be difficult for me. Me viewing you viewing her  . . . " She shook her head. "I don't dare. Not now. Not when we're all still in shock."
    Disappointment gnawed at his insides with sharp rodent teeth. He did not want to be so alone in his grief; he didn't want to nourish all the sadness by himself.
    He wanted to share it with Katrin , he knew, the person with whom he shared everything. Katrin could help him make sense of it, the way she clarified all the world for him. Katrin would comprehend the way he felt.
     he signed. His frustration must have been plain to Red Katrin, because she took his hand, lifted her green eyes to his.
    "I will ," she said. "But not now. I'm not ready."
    "I don't want two wrecks in the house," called Old Davout over his shoulder.
    Interfering old bastard, Davout thought. But with his free hand he signed, again, .
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    Katrin the Fair kissed Davout's cheek, then stood back, holding his hands, and narrowed her grey eyes. "I'm not sure I approve of this youthful body of yours," she said. "You haven't looked like this in—what—over a century?"
    "Perhaps I seek to evoke happier times," Davout said.
    A little frown touched the corners of her mouth. " That is always dangerous," she judged. "But I wish you every success." She stepped back from the