Alas! I sighed, the greater the technological powers of a species, the
greater its vagility and it is from this unbridled desire for movement
that all our troubles arise. But no sooner had I given neuronal form to
this sentiment, than I realised that the humblest forms of life in the
universe were capable of traversing intergalactic space; with time on
its side the humble bacterium has no concept of a far flung outpost.
Where there is matter it has access and though it is fair to argue that
bacteria are organisms without concepts, they are themselves a
concept. My thoughts, confused by the extraordinary input that had
become my new norm, were interrupted by a phrase in the command
language of the LUCA, (the voice I recognised instantly as a
reconstruction of that of Beatrice Portinari and I involuntarily
shuddered at the gracious beauty of her diction, at once cultivated
and sensuous, which made me long, as Dante so evidently did, for
more), which I interpreted to mean that we had crossed the orbit of
Mercury. Only one more stop, as it were, and we would be closing in
on our helpless home planet and here I knelt, unobserved, in a
useless act of submission, entranced by the image of the sovereign I
had contracted to investigate and expose!
The fibres of the MarkVI radiated an effulgence that I could swear
was increasing by the moment - very possibly fuelled by the
frustrating inability to acquire direct visual evidence of my submission.
If her irritation were to be converted into raised blood pressure,
increased heart rate and a consequent rise in her core body
temperature, it was possible that the extra energy so produced might
well be used by the strands of the MarkVI to generate the impressive
luminescence I was now witnessing in miniature in the reflection on
the floor before me. How like a Porpita porpita it seemed! A colony of
hydroids regnant! Greatly enlarged, of course. In its own context this
passive drifter has a singular majestic beauty of which the MarkVI
was making good use. Only very gradually did it dawn on me that if I
could see the reflection of the enthroned one, then very possibly she,
by the same interplay of photonic regulation, she would be able to
acquire a retinal image of my own person, shadowy, lurking within the
embrace of the billiard table substructure and, accompanying this
sudden realisation, the unwelcome thought occurred that she might
mistake me for another pelagic hyponeuston, perhaps the sea
swallow or blue dragon, and resort to some unpleasant deterrent
