Lightpaths by Howard V. Hendrix Page B

looked away, wistful. “Maybe I only thought I heard that—but I know I’ve never seen that gold again, anytime or anywhere else. Maybe it was something in the Earth’s atmosphere that night that made the stars shine golden. Maybe it was something in my eyes, or my memory, or my imagination—”
    “Dear,” Sarah interjected, “how many times have you already told that story in the Public Sphere? Come now, we don’t want to monopolize our guest with stories of the ‘old country.’ Let’s introduce her to the rest of the party, shall we?”
    Arthur laughed and they stood. Walking through an archway they came into the courtyard where all the noise had been coming from.
    “Everyone!” Sarah Sanchez called as they walked toward the center of the darkling courtyard. Not everyone but at least five or ten heads turned toward her from the music and the food, and that was good enough for the party’s hostess. “This is Jhana Meniskos, one of the visiting ecologists in Arthur’s lab! She just arrived earlier today, so let’s make her feel at home!”
    Scattered shouts of welcome and the thin patter of applause greeted this announcement. Shaking Jhana’s hand, Arthur and Sarah took their leave, with apologies for having to return to the kitchen for more hors d’oeuvres. In the gardens beyond the courtyard, a maze of pathway lights came up slowly, then soft lights around the periphery of the courtyard itself. Jhana moved through the knots of people gathered round the food and drink tables.
    “All drama is essentially family conflict,” proclaimed a flush-faced young man—in doublet, hose, codpiece, cape and multi-neoned hair—to a group of more or less interested listeners round a wine table. “Just depends on how broadly you define family—even up to the family of humanity, or the family of all living things. Now, if conflict is what arises in any situation that’s less than perfect, well, we know no family situation’s perfect, so conflict is unlimited, drama goes on and on—”
    Her wine glass full, Jhana moved on. She’d met enough drama-jocks in high school and college to recognize the type. She had no interest in listening to the flamboyant artiste holding forth to his admirers. From her correspondence with her hosts, Jhana seemed to recall that Sarah was involved in the arts in some way. The drama-jock must be one of her friends.
    Walking past musicians oblivious to everything save their performance, Jhana made her way toward tables laden with plates and goat cheeses and crispbreads and canapes and sushi and melon.
    “The right mythologizes, the left explains,” said a heavyset man, bald, bearded and bespectacled, to the lanky younger man in wraparound shades beside him. “How can you possibly expect to move people in a more progressive direction through myths or stories or performances, Lev? The idea that ‘it’s just a story’ always prevents them from recognizing the link between the simulation and consensus reality. No connection, no critique. The medium distorts the message.”
    “Not necessarily!” replied tall pale Mister Shades forcefully, round a wad of sushi. “Granted, the myth or story format is inherently conservative, self-satisfying, flattering the audience by affirming values the audience already holds. But self-consuming works exist too, dialectical works that purge the audience by scrutinizing and disturbing the audience’s values. The wall between myth and explanation isn’t all that complete—to some degree, myths are explanations, explanations are myths. In Möbius Cadúceus’s performances, we can create myths and stories that are self-satisfying in form but self-consuming in function, ‘virus programs,’ as it were, telling the truth but telling it slant—”
    Having placed on her plate samples of whatever looked most appetizing, Jhana drifted quickly away through the music. More of Sarah’s friends, she presumed. The younger man smelled vaguely of machine