Greg Egan

Thanks to Caroline Oakley, Deborah Beale, Anthony Cheetham, Peter Robinson, Lucy Blackburn, Annabelle Ager, and Claudia Schaffer.

It is not true that the map of freedom will be complete

with the erasure of the last invidious border when it remains for us to chart the attractors of thunder

and delineate the arrhythmias of drought to reveal the molecular dialects of forest and savanna

as rich as a thousand human tongues and to comprehend the deepest history of our passions

ancient beyond mythology's reach

So I declare that no corporation holds a monopoly on numbers

no patent can encompass zero and one

no nation has sovereignty over adenine and guanine

no empire rules the quantum waves

And there must be room for all at the celebration of

understanding

for there is a truth which cannot be bought or sold imposed by force, resisted or escaped.

— From Technoliberation by Muteba Kazadi, 2019

PART ONE

1

"All right. He's dead. Go ahead and talk to him."

The bioethicist was a laconic young asex with blond dreadlocks and a T-shirt which flashed up the slogan SAY NO TO TOE! in between the paid advertising. Ve countersigned the permission form on the forensic pathologist's notepad, then withdrew to a corner of the room. The trauma specialist and the paramedic wheeled their resuscitation equipment out of the way, and the forensic pathologist hurried forward, hypodermic syringe in hand, to administer the first dose of neuropreservative. Useless prior to legal death—massively toxic to several organs, on a time scale of hours—the cocktail of glutamate antagonists, calcium channel blockers, and antioxidants would halt the most damaging biochemical changes in the victim's brain, almost immediately.