Free Beyond the Farthest Suns by Greg Bear Page B

thought of eating and remembered one last painful meal, when swallowing had been difficult. “Yes. Eating. Hurting.”
    â€œYour name?”
    â€œSomething. Cardino.”
    â€œCardino, that’s all?”
    â€œMy stage name. My real name. Is. Robert … Falucci.”
    â€œThat is right. When you are ready, you may stand and join them for dinner. Roderick invites you.”
    â€œThem?”
    â€œRoderick suggested you, and the five voted to bring you back. You may thank them, if you wish, at dinner.”
    The face smiled.
    â€œYour name?” I asked.
    â€œOnt. O-N-T.”
    The face departed, robes swishing like waves. Lights came up. I rolled and propped myself on one elbow, expecting pain, feeling only an easeful smoothness. I suspected that I had died. I surmised I had been frozen, as I had paid them to do, the Nitrogen Fixers, and that…
    Lich, she had called me. Body, corpse. In one of my flashier shows I had reanimated a headless woman. Spark coils and strobes and a big van de Graaf generator had made the hair on her severed head stand on end.
    I slipped my naked legs down from the table, found the coolness of a tessellated tile floor. My fumbling fingers found the robe on the table as I stared at the ornate floor tiles: men and women, each perfectly joined in a flow of completion advancing to the far wall: courtship, embracing, copulation, birth.
    I felt a sudden floating happiness.
    I’ve made it .
    On a heavy black oak table, I found clothes set out that might have come from a studio costume department—black stiffly formal suit out of a 1930s society movie, something for Fred Astaire. To my chagrin, I tended to corpulence even in this resurrected state. I put the robe aside and stuffed myself into the outfit and poured a glass of water from a nearby pitcher. A watercress sandwich appeared and I nibbled it while exploring the room.
    I should be terrified. I’m not. Roderick…
    The table on which I had been reborn occupied the center of the room, spare and black and shiny, like a stone altar. It felt cold to my touch. A yard to the right, the heavy oak table supported my sandwich plate, the pitcher and glass of water, the discarded robe, and a pair of shoes.
    Lich, she had called me.
    I stood in bright if diffuse illumination. No lights were visible. The room’s corners lay in shadow. Armless chairs lined the wall behind me. A door opened in the next wall. Paintings covered the wall before me. The room seemed square and complete, but I could not find a fourth wall. No matter which direction, as I made a complete turn, I counted only three walls. The decor seemed rich and fashionable, William Morris and the restrained lines of classic Japanese furniture.
    Obviously, not the next decade, I thought . Maybe centuries in the future.
    I walked forward and the illumination followed. Expertly painted portraits covered the wall, precise, cold renderings of five people, three pale males and two dark females, all in extravagant dress. None of them were Roderick—if Roderick was who I thought he might be—and Ont did not appear, either. The men wore tights and seemed ridiculously well endowed, with feathers puffed on their shoulders and immense fan-shaped hats rising from the crowns of their close-cropped heads. The women wore tight-fitting black gowns, their reddish hair spread like sunbursts, skin the color and sheen of rubbed maple.
    I wondered if I would ever find employment in this future world. “Do you like illusions?” I asked the portraits rhetorically.
    â€œThey are life’s blood,” answered the male on the left, smiling at me.
    The portrait resumed its old, painted appearance.
    Assume nothing, I told myself.
    Startling patterns decorated the wall behind the portraits. Flowers surrounded and gave form to skull-shapes, eyes like holograms of black olives floating within petaled sockets.
    â€œWhere is dinner?” I asked.
    This time,