Free The Death of Cassandra Quebec by Eric Brown

The Death of
Cassandra Quebec
    I came to Sapphire
Oasis in search of experience, or so I thought at the time. I had
made my home on Nova Francais for almost two decades, the last few
years a repetition of cafe-life, parties and second-rate
exhibitions where even my best crystals failed to sell. I was
getting old and lonely and my work was suffering, and some vague
desperation drove me to Earth to experience that which I might
synthesize, through my skill, into art.
    The famous crystal The Death of Cassandra Quebec was being exhibited for the
first time in ten years, and I made this my excuse to revisit the
planet of my birth. I took a bigship through the interstellar
telemass portal to Timbuktu and caught the mono-train north to
Sapphire Oasis.
    I had seen many a
lavish illustration of the colony – had even admired Tyrone's
famous hologram of '37 – and as a result I was overcome with a
sense of deja vu at first sight. The oval oasis, perhaps a
kilometre from end to end, was surrounded by a great leaning series
of golden scimitars, their hilts planted in the sand of the desert,
their arching blades supporting the pendant globes that comprised
living quarters and spacious studios with views across the
artificial lake.
    That first night I
dined alone in the revolving restaurant on the island at the centre
of the oasis. I ate synthetic gazelle and yam, with chutney and
Moroccan wine. The panorama was magnificent: beyond the illuminated
orbs of the individual domes, and the fringe of surrounding palm
trees, the desert extended in dark and sultry swathes the size of
Europe. Across the dunes to the south stood the telemass portal. As
tall as a mountain, its blank interface was braced in a glowing
frame like a hexagon of colossal fluorescents.
    It was through this
portal that I and a thousand other tourists had journeyed today
from Nova Francais, and tomorrow it would be opened to the world of
Henderson's Fall, 61 Cygni B. The talk in the dining room was of
nothing else but Nathaniel Maltravers, and his arrival tomorrow
evening at Sapphire Oasis.
    I ordered a second
bottle of wine.
    As I drank I thought
about another famous artist, a woman this time. Cassandra Quebec
had inspired more women than just myself to seek expression through
the medium of fused crystal. She was the artist who had shown the
world her soul, who had taken the fledgling form and proved it as a
legitimate means of self-expression. At the height of her career
she was the world's most celebrated artist. Then she spoiled it all
by announcing her betrothal – I was young; I wept when I found out
– to the minor laser-sculptor Nathaniel Maltravers. A year later
she was dead.
    I finished the second
bottle and contemplated a third. I had known when I booked the
bigship to Earth that Maltravers -  who was indirectly
responsible for his wife's death, after all – had decided to return
to Sapphire Oasis for the twentieth anniversary commemoration of
her passing, but I had not let it put me off the idea of making the
trip. Tomorrow, I would visit the Museum of Modern Art and request
a private viewing of the Maltravers/Quebec crystal.
    I retired early and
lay on my bed, staring at the stars through the dome. A party was
in progress on the lawn beside the lake, one of the interminable soirees that gave the place more the air of a luxury resort
than that of an artists' retreat. Artists, their rich patrons and
guests, mixed with a social ease I found enviable; snatches of
cultured conversation drifted to me through an open vent in the
dome.
    Unable to sleep, and
reluctant to join the gathering below, I took refuge in a
memory-tape. I placed the crown – more like a skull-cap – on my
head and selected a tape. As I shed my own identity and slipped
into the programmed persona, I could not help feeling a twinge of
guilt at my escape. Memory-tapes were a spin-off from a device
known as mem-erase, illegal on Earth for almost two decades.
Mem-erase – the process of