contained images of rape or death, a move unheard of in five millennia, and had worked hard to gain a great deal of support. At least, until SC-1 was destroyed. Now Uld pushed through several measures that broadened his power, relaxed oversight of all carnal businesses on Core, made cast searches illegal. Iant felt completely helpless, the fight was gone out of him. He knew Uld was tied closely with the TELREC, that they sanctioned his every move.
He stood in front of the massive panorama that the sun-shield revealed. Topside was a beautiful place, with gleaming spires, wide open divisions between structures—a relaxed version of Core. He could think here, could relax his mind. But it brought him no peace on this roa. He turned to his wife, sitting on her chair, tapped into her casts. She seemed more like an object to him now; a statue of the woman he married. She was never outgoing, always preferring to do things over the cast-net. They even met on the cast-net, after some interview he did for a news station. They kissed first on the cast-net, had sex first on the cast-net. Iant didn’t think anything different at the time—that was how life on Novan was. He stood over her now, her virtually unmoving body, except for a slight rise and fall of her lovely chest. But desire had left him long ago, and her, for in the closet stood one of the military clones. Once in a while she would wake it, when he was not at home, and satisfy the physical urges that would creep up now and again. He was a massive beast, in all ways, and Iant could never look at it. She cast that he should get a pleasure model, if he needed it. But every clone he ever saw struck him as white, lifeless souman flesh, little better than the dead.
“Hello dad!”
His daughter came in from her room, bouncing along, bursting with life. With thin limbs and bright, vibrant eyes, she always brought a reluctant smile to his face, kindling the smoldering embers of hope buried deep in his soul.
“Hello dear. Are you ready?” he asked with a cough, as he hadn’t used voice in a little while.
“I suppose,” she said anxiously, letting out a sigh. She was getting her implant in a few droas, and by nightfall would be on the cast-net. “But why don’t we go somewhere instead?” she ventured, her face brightening. “I want to see a voidship, and go to one of the colonies. I was watching a lesson about them on the AV unit. Have you ever been there, daddy?”
Iant spent most of his life in the confines of steel and concrete, in meetings, and conferences, nesting requests from his subordinates, casting instructions.
“No dear.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice? I saw there’s no gravity, so you float along! You have to wear an atmosphere belt, but it would be so exciting!”
“When you get on the cast-net, you won’t have to take a ship anywhere. You’ll be there.”
She glanced back at her mother, who was in the same chair, the same position she had been for most of her childhood.
“How come you don’t sit with mommy?” she asked, still trying to think up an excuse not to get the implant.
“I have a busy job. I need to go to several places.”
“Couldn’t you do it all from a chair, like her?”
Iant shrugged. “Yes, I suppose I could.”
She paused, still not understanding. “Why don’t you?”
The chair gnawed at a part of Iant, whose ancestors, long ago, were some of the first to build platforms in the void, to built reactors on moons. One of his ancestors was credited with saving the entire population of an orbiting colony, singlehandedly repairing a fission reactor, manually guiding it back into orbit. He felt as a weak imitation of those lives, though he held the most power as Sovereign, it meant little, thanks to the TELREC.
“I guess I like to walk around, to feel my legs moving,” he replied softly. She came close to him, and held his hands, a little tear coming from her eye.
“Do I have to get an implant?”
“If you don’t you won’t be able to function. Everything is done on the cast-net, with an implant.”
“Why?”
He looked down at his wife.
Because we were stupid, and believed every technological advancement would make us better, make life easier, so we could pursue things of the mind. Because we didn’t see the TELREC as they avoided the pleasures of the cast-net, and cemented their hold over us. Because my ancestors used it to rest at the end of a long roa, and foolishly thought that the more time they could give their children for the cast-net, the happier they would be.
“Because that is how it is,” he said firmly. “Come on, we need to go.”
“Is mommy coming?”
“No. But you can cast to her when you get back.”
She hadn’t spoken with her mother in five cas.
“That’ll be nice.”
As they left, the meta again made their internal debate over whether to clean the object situated on the chair. This time, a few crawled on its limbs, and began to clean.
They came back, later that roa, as the true sun was setting, and the great panoramic window dimmed. She was a brave girl, sitting with the other children, nervous feet moving back and forth, anxious eyes looking up into her father’s. The sounds of laughter and tears filled the waiting room, as one by one the eager children vanished through the wide double doors. They came back out, silent, their eyes turned upwards as their minds looked inwards.
Iant couldn’t believe the difference. She was always such an active girl, running from one room to the next, jumping at the chance to go somewhere, anywhere. She would run circles around her mother in the chair, playing a sort of game with her. Now, as they came back into the suite, with great shadows creeping up on the many objects in the room—the chairs, the tables, and the woman—she was silent, casting to her father instead of talking, finally casting to her mother, who was overjoyed to see her on the cast-net. She stood next to her mother, their eyes rolled up to the ceiling, looking as a pair—the daughter appearing as a miniature of her mother, from the shape of her body to the aspect of her face. Iant went into his daughter’s room, filled with plastered images of celebrities alive and dead, with toys from the various shows she watched on the AV unit, and brought out a chair, placing it next to her mother’s. She sat down, slid back, and mother and daughter took a walk in a virtual landscape, beginning the slow process of getting to know each other again. Iant stood there, noticing his wife seemed cleaner, sterilized somehow. His eyes took him to the closet where his wife’s clone lived, hooked up by one thin tube to its chest, its mind dormant for now. Then his eyes took him to his daughter’s face.
I wonder if she’ll need a clone, someroa.
Iant spent the next few droas in his daughter’s room, boxing up possessions she spent her few cas accumulating. Holo-images she pointed with great care at different sections of the wall, put in the bottom of the box. Tall models of beautiful, fashionable women of the past, placed with care alongside. Two boxes were devoted to toys—from the brightly-colored simple roller-bots, to the mini-meta that laughed and played with her, all placed in the box, ready to be sent to an archivist to be scanned, processed into mental images, so she could play with them again on the cast-net. When he was done, the room looked sad, devoid of color and joy, reduced to a bed, a closet, a bureau, and a chair. He stopped for a moment to look in a mirror he forgot to take down. His grey hair hung limply over his forehead; bags under his eyes making him look older than he was. He never went in for cosmetic enhancement; felt his hair added a distinctive element. Not in his twenty cas of marriage did he stray, so he felt no need to make himself look younger, or handsomer than he was. But the man in the mirror did look tired, and pale, more like the clone in the closet than a living, sentient being. He lugged the boxes in, one by one, thinking on his fading face.
^Sir, we felt you should be notified.^
The commander of the orbiting CRODAM station cast to him as he brought the last of the boxes into the living room.
^Yes?^ replied Iant, a little irritated at the intrusion.
^The TELREC are attacking OLMAC. ^
; Iant thought on OLMAC, and Suld. He had been privy to Ksilte’s reports of his contact with Suld, how he really was a man who disdained the Novan pleasure life. He nest that Suld believed, that he had a purpose, a goal. Iant knew it was a matter of time before the TELREC dealt with him. He thought for a moment on the number of OLMAC forces, and the materials, weaponry and ships they possessed. He thought of the cast-net stations, and how easy it would be to order them shut down, effectively crippling the TELREC force. Then he thought of Uld, and the means at his disposal, the cruelty in his eyes. He thought of Herdl, pawn of Uld through Kurd, and the devastation he could wreak on the government with a few choice pronouncements.
^Thank you, Commander. Keep me informed.^
^Yes sir.^
Iant went into the next room, his room that he shared with the body of his wife. Iant, descendant of men and women who made a difference, whose actions mattered, Iant, descendant of heroes and fools, who though they made mistakes, lived life to its fullest, savoring each roa, Iant, Sovereign of the Novan Leviathan, pulled out his chair, and placed it next to his wife’s. He sat down, slid back, and let the cast-net take his problems away.
15
Producer, Consumer, Enlightened, Conservative: these were the political parties in the Leviathan. The majority party at Kolob’s time was the Enlightened party, and its majority leader was Iant Cou. Though