Meridian Days by Eric Brown Page A

we watched, the two screens merged, became one all— encompassing membrane like the inner surface of a dome. A blurred image emerged. I was shocked to see Director Wolfe Steiner, enthroned in his command chair in the Telemass Control Centre — but not the Wolfe Steiner as we knew him. Trevellion's graphics had taken his aloofness, his coldness, his augmentation and emphasized all three, so that now he resembled nothing more than a caricature of his former self, a heartless, inhuman calculating machine. She had employed monotone graphics, hard angles to achieve the effect. As with Fire, she had remoulded his features; she had made him less human, more a sharp-featured adjunct of his augmentation.
    We were swamped by the magnified image of Steiner, giving orders to his technicians as they attempted to retrieve the vector along which Max Trevellion and the others were lost. He was portrayed doing this with no display of emotion whatever, which, as Trevellion intended, had the effect of creating an atmosphere of hostility among the audience — but would passion on his part have done anything more to save the artist? Then we watched him break the news to the families, again with total impassivity. We watched him face the inquest, answer questions, accept the verdict of not guilty with all the emotion of an android. We were manipulated into feeling hatred towards Wolfe Steiner, and when the lines rolled out: "They found him free from blame/ But would they have found him guilty?" I think that the majority of the audience was on Trevellion's side in her detestation of the Director. I saw a tall figure hurry past where we were seated and leave the hollow, and when I looked to where I'd seen Wolfe Steiner earlier, his foam-form was empty.
    I recalled Doug Foulds' opinion that their liaison was suspicious, and I knew now that he was right: Steiner had been set up. I thought I understood Trevellion's grief at her loss, but I could not begin to understand why, instead of trying to heal herself, perhaps learn from grief and create from it as artists should, she had vindictively hit out and unjustly slighted both Steiner and her daughter.
    I rose and strode quickly from the hollow. As the giant, frozen image of Steiner's caricatured face faded from the screen, cloaking my retreat in welcome darkness, I was amazed to hear the beginnings of applause behind me, then louder as the audience gave their full support to Trevellion's twisted catalogue of spite. I needed to get away, to be alone for a time. It was as if the greensward was contaminated by Trevellion's inhumanity, as if by remaining there I might tacitly condone her creation.
    I hurried from the gathering and found myself on a cliff-top path overlooking a deserted beach. I followed it down to the sheltered cove, then walked along the firm stretch of sand beside the ocean. The only illumination was from the massed stars above Darkside.
    In the gloom before me I heard a small sound of surprise, then, "Mr Benedict?"
    I peered. "Fire?"
    She quickly backhanded what might have been a tear from her cheek. She perched on a rock, her knees drawn up to her chin. She smiled as I approached. "I thought it was you, Mr Benedict."
    I sat beside her. In the cold light of the stars she seemed reduced in size and substance, a two-dimensional silver engraving. On her left knee I made out the sheen of saliva and the imprint of teeth.
    I gestured towards the hilltop. "Listen," I began, "I'm sorry."
    She looked away. "Forget it."
    "I wanted to say something to your mother, tell her what I felt."
    "What could you have said?" Her tone was hopeless.
    "Perhaps I might have made her see how rude she was..."
    Fire turned large green eyes on me, curiously innocent beneath the high fringe. "You're talking about earlier, when Tamara got mad at me for interrupting?"
    "Of course."
    She laughed. "I'm not bothered about that! She treats me like that all the time. Of course, in front of strangers..." She shrugged with