I, Clavius

Nora Adamanta

I was vaguely aware of the existence of Nora. My son had mentioned her several times, but in such a low-key and off-handed manner that I had not actually allowed myself to take her presence in the structure of my family very seriously. It all seemed tenuous and fragile. I imagined Nora as the first indication that it might actually be possible to find a "replacement" for my grand-daughter Verella's mother who had been missing for more than ten years.

However, Nora's growing importance within my son's life and all of the related events in the research laboratory run by my son were taking place far away, on the other side of the planet. I had my own concerns, so Nora had captured very little of my attention.

That all changed on the cool winter day when she arrived at my front door. Zeta had gone to the door expecting to deal with a package delivery and at the sound of the doorbell, I had glanced up, peering through the window of the guest room which I sometimes use as my study. Nora has fascinating structural features, many of which were immediately apparent since she seemed very lightly dressed for December. I could see her there waiting politely at the front gate (even though we never bother to close the gate) then she turned and looked directly at me.

Betty

Suddenly I remembered an Interventionist agent who I had originally known as "Betty" and who Zeta knew as "Dark Nora". The image of Nora (Betty) that I had long held in my mind was a borrowed one that had come to me in the set of infites that I had received from Parthney. Somehow I had allowed myself to imagine that Betty had completed her work on Earth had departed from our world. It was surprising to realize that my son's new friend (Nora) was the artificial lifeform that Parthney had known as Betty. I suddenly knew this in a flash of recognition that was triggered by the infites that I had more recently received from Yōd. Betty loves playing with disguises, but Yōd's infites held the key for allowing recognition of Nora/Betty. That key was her telepathic mind pattern, a pattern that was well known to Yōd.

I had no conscious telepathic connection to Nora, but our minds were able to exchange information at a more subliminal level. I recognized her mind pattern and I knew: this was Nora/Betty.

My mind was tipped into a state of startlement and amazement so it was only after Zeta let Nora pass through the front door that I noticed there was no car in the driveway. I wondered where Nora had arrived from and how she had reached our home in the dessert, then I remembered that in the previous millennium Betty had been in control of teleportation technology. It had been Betty who long ago had teleported Hana off of Earth.

Zeta and I share a special kind of telepathic link, so I knew that she wanted me. Now! I forced myself out of my shocked paralysis and hurried down the hallway to the living room. I felt the full force of two sparkling sets of eyes upon me as I entered the room. I've long experienced the effects of Zeta's facial nanites, including the way they make her eyes sparkle with a kind of perfection that is rare in mere Earthlings. Upon seeing her at close range, I was instantly convinced that our guest was not of this world and I could understand why Zeta had previously assured me that Nora is an artificial lifeform. Zeta said, "This is Nora, from Perth."

With our telepathic connection revealing to me Zeta's emotions, I could sense that Zeta knew that Nora was not human, but she was playing along, accepting Nora's cover story. I looked out the window towards the driveway and asked, "Are you traveling with my son?"

Nora shook her head. "No, he does not know that I came here to speak with you. I'll be back in Perth before he wakes up. However, if you want to start making plans, we will both be here for a visit next year."

I remembered that in Australia it was summer time, which almost excused the way Nora was dressed. Had she just rolled out of bed on a hot summer night and teleported herself to the other side of the planet? If so, perhaps it was miraculous that she was wearing any clothing at all. After a brief struggle to pull my eyes and mind away from her lovely body, I felt the need to warn her. "It was not wise to teleport yourself here. I'm constantly being observed."

Nora laughed in relief, "Have no fear! Close Observation of Earth recently ended, soon after the Bimanoid Interface was altered. We do not have to worry that some enraged Overseer will soon arrive intent on breaking up our little party."

Zeta asked suspiciously, "Why are you here?"

Nora explained, "I was teleported here in order to give you warning that Rylla is on her way."

Somehow I knew what Nora meant, but this was the first time that I'd heard the name "Rylla" spoken, so I automatically asked, "'Rylla'?"

"Your grand-daughter Verella now insists on being called Rylla." Nora rolled her eyes. "She is inbound, flying here from Australia."

Alarmed by this revelation, Zeta asked, "The girl is traveling alone?"

"Quite." Nora shrugged. "She can take care of herself. Growing up without a mother, she has become confident and self-sufficient. I'm not worried about her."

I laughed nervously, "You are worried about me."

"Well, yes. You don't know Rylla, and I felt that you should be warned. She has been telepathically linked to you through her entire life." Nora looked back and forth between Zeta and I. "The retro-sculpting of Rylla's endosymbionic Bimanoid Interface was very similar to what Zeta went through. Rylla's telepathic abilities have been suppressed, limiting her use of the Interface to subconscious contacts with her mother and you. Her ability to use the Bimanoid Interface for conscious exchange of information was intentionally burned out and blocked."

Zeta asked, "Just so that she could remain on Earth? For what purpose?"

Nora shrugged, "Oh, there is a purpose, but we mere mortals never get briefed on those fine details. It is up to us to figure out such mysteries. However, at Observer Base there has long been a theory: that Rylla is the true Editor, the Earthling who will actually write the Secret History of Humanity."

During the past decade, I had come to imagine that it was my job to function as the Editor and write the Secret History of Humanity, but I could immediately understand the possibility that I had deceived myself. I asked, "Why is Verella coming here?"

"She recently discovered your blog. More importantly, she now knows that there are alien forces at work on Earth. She recently had a personal experience of... well, she met an Interventionist and got a demonstration of the power of nanites.  So, when you meet her, don't try to pretend that you know nothing about space aliens and other-worldly technology. You are going to have to find a way to educate the poor girl... pass on to her all that you know."

With Nora there in front of me, I could not restrain myself from questioning her. "Whose side are you on? Are you one of R. Gohrlay's agents?"

Nora sighed. "I'm on Rylla's side, so please take care of her. Now, I have to return home." Nora threw her arms around me and briefly hugged me. Then she did the same with Zeta. She turned and walked out, not even looking back at us over her shoulder as she went through the front door.

I had been dazzled by Nora. I stood there tingling from the feel of her arms around me, the delightful sensation of her body pressed against mine. I muttered to Zeta, "I should have stopped her. Think of what she could tell us about the Interventionists and Parthney's mission on Earth."

Zeta did not share my enthusiasm. "Nora is dangerous. She's a walking demonstration of why Interventionists should not be allowed on Earth. As an artificial lifeform composed of femtobots, she can take on any physical form. In just two minutes she had you totally captivated and ready to put her up in the guest house for a week's stay."

I smiled, "You have to admit, she is gorgeous."

"She's a fake. She's been playing this game for thousands of years."

I put my arms around Zeta. "You seem jealous."

"I am. I'd love to have her technical abilities. I have to work slowly and carefully to alter my body with my medical nanites. What takes me a year of hard work, Nora can achieve in a few minutes. Still, I don't know how she can teleport around Earth so casually. By the terms of the Pact, there should no longer be anyone on Earth with access to teleportation technology."

I'd been reading in the study all afternoon, which was a long time for me to be apart from Zeta. We held each other tight and started kissing.

cover art by Edmund Emshwiller

Zeta is the magical love of my life, but even as I held her in my arms my thoughts were wandering. I had truly been startled by the sudden appearance of Nora. I have been continuing to search through the infites that I received from Yōd. With hints provided by those infites, I had recently been able to fight through an old memory block that had been imposed on by Irhit. I had remembered once more the "homework" assignment that I was given long ago by Bonny. Earlier this year I finally read "Anniversary" and just before Nora's arrival I'd read "The Key", forty years after Bonny had told me to read that story.

Now I felt something hard in my pants pocket where I was pressed against Zeta. I reached down and pulled out the little nanite containment device. It was almost identical to the one that Yōd had given me just before she had departed from Earth.

I began to say, "Nora must have-" My phone rang. It was Verella calling to let me know that she was flying in and had landed in Los Angeles. She asked, "Can you meet me at the airport?"

Of course, I told her that Zeta and I would pick her up at the airport and we were pleased to hear that she was coming for a visit. Driving into town from our home in the dessert, we would have to hurry to arrive at the airport before Verella.

Ten minutes later we were getting into the car. I told Zeta, "You drive."

She asked, "Why should I drive?" Zeta got behind the wheel.

Feeling certain that Nora had provided me with critical information, what would be the key to understanding how to deal with my grand-daughter, I explained, "I bet his dispenser contains infites. I'm going to find out."

Driving down our long driveway, Zeta complained, "That's not wise. You still have not fully processed the infites that Yōd gave you." Before Zeta could stop me, I opened the nanite dispenser and a cloud of infites flowed into my head.

At the end of the driveway was Nora, walking bare foot in the rough gravel to the side of the pavement. Zeta slowed the car and I rolled down the window. I called to Nora, "Need a lift?"

Wordlessly she got into the back seat of our car and Zeta got us on the highway. I was struggling to deal with the onslaught of information reaching my mind from Nora's infites. I could see that it had been her plan to return to Perth by teleportation. My eyes were blinded by internal images of my son and Rylla. For the past year they had been living together happily as a family. Nora knew that she could never take the place of Rylla's missing mother, but I could see in her recorded memories that Nora had managed to achieve a strong friendship with Rylla.

I asked, "Why aren't you back in Perth?"

Nora replied, "I don't know. Something is wrong." After a pause she asked, "Did you hear from Rylla?"

I had sunk back into my internal world, searching through the information from Nora. Zeta had been correct: it was not wise for me to take in these new nanites. They seemed to be fighting for my attention against the stronger influence of Yōd's infites. As if far away, I heard Zeta say, "We're on the way to the airport. Rylla's on a connector flight from LA."

Nora said, "I suppose I should catch a flight back to Australia."

Zeta asked, "Maybe you should explain what went wrong with your plans. If we are on the same side, we should work together."

Nora complained, "You can't expect me to trust R. Gohrlay's secret agent on Earth."

Zeta said, "I've never met R. Gohrlay. Even if she is responsible for me being here on Earth, I'm hardly her agent."

Zeta and Nora continued to discuss Genesaunt politics while I mentally descended into the world of infites. My mind was flooded with information about recent events in my son's geology research lab and his home. On the home front, I could see in Nora's memories that my son was now happy to have a woman back in his life after ten years of lamenting the mysterious disappearance of his wife.

Perth, Australia

As for events in the lab, I saw how Georgy White had made use of a kind of "anopticon" to find evidence for hierions on Earth. During that discovery, Nora had been working as a technician in the lab. I saw that without hints and help and prodding from Nora, Georgy would not have been able to make sense of her experimental results and would not have realized that she had detected hierions with negative mass.

Also clear in the infites was the fact that "a copy" of Georgy had been sent to Observer Base on the Moon. Her discovery of hierions had been erased from Earth. At first, Nora had gone with Georgy to the Moon, but then she had been teleported back to Earth in order to help Rylla adjust to her realization that alien Interventionists were operating on Earth. Sifting through Nora's memories as recorded in the infites, I could tell that until the Bimanoid Interface had been altered, Nora was routinely in contact with a woman named Eustacia who lived at Observer Base.

When I realized that Eustacia was a female clone of Isaac Asimov, I cried out, "Amazing!"

Zeta asked me, "What?"

I muttered, "Another Asimov...." But I was too busy searching through the infites to continue speaking. In his story "The Key", Asimov used the crater Clavius as the location on the Moon where an alien artifact was hidden. In Nora's memories, I saw that Eustacia had kept Nora informed about how Georgy was adapting to life At Observer Base. When Georgy asked where "on" the Moon Observer Base is located, Eustacia had told her that the hidden base was in the rim of Clavius crater. In that memory, both Nora and Eustacia had laughed.

Looking deeper into the infites, I understood their laughter. I saw that Observer Base had never "on" the Moon. Observer Base is located in the Hierion Domain, but it had long been common practice to lie to new arrivals from Earth and pretend that Observer Base was hidden under the surface of the Moon.

During the past year or so, Nora had made a half dozen or so trips to Observer Base, slipping out of my son's house at night after he had fallen asleep. During that year, Eustacia had gone through a pregnancy. Then, with birth of the baby approaching, one of the group that frequently met together at Anatole's arrived with Georgy.

I was surprised to see that Georgy's friend was Izhiun, a man from the Andromeda galaxy who had once given me a set of infites.

original cover art by
Earle Bergey

In those memories from Nora, I saw Izhiun trying to explain to Georgy that they were "almost the parents" of the baby being carried by Eustacia. With support from Nora, Georgy decided to undergo hormone treatment so that she could be prepared to raise the baby when it was born.

I was having trouble knowing the correct temporal order of Nora's memories as recorded in the infites that Nora had passed on to me. There was a recent memory of a discussion between Nora and Eustacia about how Qaz and Nyrtia had been "balancing the nanites" used by Izhiun so as to adjust Georgy's access to the Bimanoid Interface. Qaz and Nyrtia were trying to make sure that Georgy would have "the correct" type of telepathic contact with the baby and be able to guide the development of its connections to the Bimanoid Interface.

I could also see in Nora's memories that Eustacia had long been working to genetically modify Earth humans so as to improve their ability to use the Bimanoid Interface. I saw that Hana had been part of that human genetics project.

Sorting through the infites, I discovered that Izhiun was the resident of Eternity who could use a nanite prosthetic to activate the teleportation equipment at Observer Base. Working with Nora Adamanta (sometimes she called herself Nora Stone), Izhiun had planned to teleport her back to Perth after she had warned me that Rylla was on her way to the States.

original cover art by
Edmund Emshwiller

My eyes cleared and I saw that we were now arriving at the airport. Something had gone wrong with Izhiun's plan to teleport Nora back home. Was Nora now trapped on Earth in the role of a mass-spectroscopy technician? In Nora's memories that she had recorded in the infites, I saw that she had quit her job in my son's geology lab when she had taken on the task of helping Rylla and moved in with my son.

Zeta pulled up to the departures area and Nora said, "Thanks for the ride and good luck with Rylla." She got out of the car and I saw that she was now dressed more sensibly and carrying a small bag. Watching her walk away, I realized that she could use her femtobots to make anything that she might need from clothing to credit cards.

I said to Zeta, "My son is a very lucky man." Then I got a text message. I told Zeta, "Rylla just landed."

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